4 ms·

A lot. However drug cartels often also fill in as a form of local government in the areas they control. Additionally they are often just as well armed as the po

A lot. However drug cartels often also fill in as a form of local government in the areas they control. Additionally they are often just as well armed as the police minus things like helicopters and armored vehicles.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago
I wonder how the graph would look if you included police violence? If the cartel is filling the void (granted the things they enforce are different) then you may as well make it an equal comparison. I really wonder how the US graph would look if you included people killed by police.
- icebraining 9y ago
  http://killedbypolice.net/ http://killedbypolice.net/ provides the numbers for the US (it's up to 714 this year - 23 more than last year by this date). Last year the US police killed 1162 persons, so that's a rate of 0.36 per 100k inhabitants.
- MichaelGG 9y ago
  In 2014, estimated murders in US is about 14,249. Estimated people killed by police is 1111 according to one site. So a 7-8% increase. Washington Post has a neat interactive page I came across. The most shocking thing is the unashamed misandry when it comes to police killings. This year, only 25 women were killed versus 556 men. That's rather ... disproportional. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/murder https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-... http://www.killedbypolice.net/kbp2014 http://www.killedbypolice.net/kbp2014 https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings-2017/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shoo...
- meri_dian 9y ago
  Police killings are hardly equivalent to gang and cartel killings. Gangs murder people out of cold blood. The overwhelming majority of police killings involve people who present an immediate danger to the innocent and are violent, dangerous criminals.
  - tyingq 9y ago
    That's generally true, but there are places where the police and cartels are intermingled.
    - meri_dian 9y ago
      Yes, I was writing about the US specifically
distances 9y ago
> Additionally they are often just as well armed as the police minus things like helicopters and armored vehicles. I wonder how big an impact the free flow of guns in Americas has had on the violence in the continent. It seems like one of the main reasons behind the extreme Mexican violence, at least, is the uncontrolled US weapons market.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  Some but I'm guessing it is minimal. The countries from Mexico to the south have had unstable regimes and violence for a long time (probably because the Spanish institutions were exploitative and exacerbated differences between the landholders/other and Europeans/natives). There have been lots of violent and terrorist movements from the 70s onward and even prior to that. Guns didn't help but the US is far from the only suppliers or cause.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  Brazil is also a huge producer of guns. Given Venezuela's location at the edge of Central and South America, its hard to say where they would get most of their guns from.
- justadeveloper2 9y ago
  People have been killing each other long before guns were invented, so I doubt very much it has any real effect. The "uncontrolled US weapons market?" Give me a break! The biggest seller of weapons to those countries is the US Government itself!
  - distances 9y ago
    The scale of potential violence with guns vs. without guns should be obvious, so not commenting on that. As for the US weapons flow to Mexico, there was a NPR article last year on the topic [1]. Wikipedia [2] mentions "many of the traceable weapons come from American weapons markets and festivals that do not have regulations for the buyers", which very much is the uncontrolled weapons market, right? To be fair, the Wikipedia page also points to the other direction with "weapons [..] come from either government personnel who defect to the cartels, or are sourced from Central American black markets". [1] http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/12/462781469/in-mexico-tens-of-thousands-of-illegal-guns-come-from-the-u-s http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/12/462781469/... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War#Gun_origins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War#Gun_origins

dsfyu404ed 9y ago

I wonder how the graph would look if you included police violence? If the cartel is filling the void (granted the things they enforce are different) then you may as well make it an equal comparison. I really wonder how the US graph would look if you included people killed by police.

icebraining 9y ago
http://killedbypolice.net/ http://killedbypolice.net/ provides the numbers for the US (it's up to 714 this year - 23 more than last year by this date). Last year the US police killed 1162 persons, so that's a rate of 0.36 per 100k inhabitants.
MichaelGG 9y ago
In 2014, estimated murders in US is about 14,249. Estimated people killed by police is 1111 according to one site. So a 7-8% increase. Washington Post has a neat interactive page I came across. The most shocking thing is the unashamed misandry when it comes to police killings. This year, only 25 women were killed versus 556 men. That's rather ... disproportional. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/murder https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-... http://www.killedbypolice.net/kbp2014 http://www.killedbypolice.net/kbp2014 https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings-2017/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shoo...
meri_dian 9y ago
Police killings are hardly equivalent to gang and cartel killings. Gangs murder people out of cold blood. The overwhelming majority of police killings involve people who present an immediate danger to the innocent and are violent, dangerous criminals.
- tyingq 9y ago
  That's generally true, but there are places where the police and cartels are intermingled.
  - meri_dian 9y ago
    Yes, I was writing about the US specifically

distances 9y ago

> Additionally they are often just as well armed as the police minus things like helicopters and armored vehicles. I wonder how big an impact the free flow of guns in Americas has had on the violence in the continent. It seems like one of the main reasons behind the extreme Mexican violence, at least, is the uncontrolled US weapons market.

aaron-lebo 9y ago
Some but I'm guessing it is minimal. The countries from Mexico to the south have had unstable regimes and violence for a long time (probably because the Spanish institutions were exploitative and exacerbated differences between the landholders/other and Europeans/natives). There have been lots of violent and terrorist movements from the 70s onward and even prior to that. Guns didn't help but the US is far from the only suppliers or cause.
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
Brazil is also a huge producer of guns. Given Venezuela's location at the edge of Central and South America, its hard to say where they would get most of their guns from.
justadeveloper2 9y ago
People have been killing each other long before guns were invented, so I doubt very much it has any real effect. The "uncontrolled US weapons market?" Give me a break! The biggest seller of weapons to those countries is the US Government itself!
- distances 9y ago
  The scale of potential violence with guns vs. without guns should be obvious, so not commenting on that. As for the US weapons flow to Mexico, there was a NPR article last year on the topic [1]. Wikipedia [2] mentions "many of the traceable weapons come from American weapons markets and festivals that do not have regulations for the buyers", which very much is the uncontrolled weapons market, right? To be fair, the Wikipedia page also points to the other direction with "weapons [..] come from either government personnel who defect to the cartels, or are sourced from Central American black markets". [1] http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/12/462781469/in-mexico-tens-of-thousands-of-illegal-guns-come-from-the-u-s http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/12/462781469/... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War#Gun_origins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War#Gun_origins