4 ms·

Are you implying that legal gun ownership leads to an increase in violent murders?

by sawjet 6y ago

jeffbee 6y ago
The association between the availability of firearms and the homicide rate is very well established in scientific literature.
- ctdonath 6y ago
  That association is scientifically inverse. More guns, less crime. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081QFZDM8 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081QFZDM8
  - T-hawk 6y ago
    But be careful about which way the causation goes. More guns don't cause less crime; more crime causes anti-gun measures.
  - cratermoon 6y ago
    John "Mary Rosh" Lott is an academic fraud.
    - ctdonath 6y ago
      Many make that assertion, none back it up.
      - cratermoon 6y ago
        https://archive.thinkprogress.org/debunking-john-lott-5456e83cf326/ https://archive.thinkprogress.org/debunking-john-lott-5456e8... https://www.armedwithreason.com/shooting-down-the-gun-lobbys-favorite-academic-a-lott-of-lies/ https://www.armedwithreason.com/shooting-down-the-gun-lobbys...
- cratermoon 6y ago
  It's really the only variable differentiating the US homicide rate from other developed countries. The US homicide rate is 4 times the UK, 5 times more than Germany, 4 times that of France and thrice that of our neighbor to the north. While Mexico has a higher homicide rate, the gun crime rate in the US is 6 times higher. (All numbers are round approximations. Different sources and ways of calculating the data may result in variances but the relative rates don't change that much.)
  - dleslie 6y ago
    Perhaps worth considering is the rate of sexual assaults alongside the rate of violent crime. It's a culture problem. America has a violent culture. It's weird to me that we so often discuss firearm violence without also considering the prevalence of other forms of violence; these are symptoms of an underlaying concern.
    - dx87 6y ago
      The politicians talking about firearm violence don't actually care about fixing it, they just say things that their base wants to hear. For example, the democrat congressman from my district in MD sent out an email talking about trying to fight the epidemic of gun violence by banning assault rifles and high capacity magazines, even though pistols are used in the vast majority of shootings. A few years ago the MD state democrats also blocked some laws that would have imposed harsher punishment on people who use handguns in crimes because they said it would disproportionately affect minorities. They didn't want to look like they weren't doing anything about gun violence though, so they banned bump stocks, even though they have never been used to commit a crime in MD, and the ATF says the functionality can easily be replicated with a rubber band or belt.
  - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
    Be very careful about comparative gun death statistics. Suicide by gun often gets wrapped into "gun violence" figures than make the US stats look worse than they actually are.
    - 6y ago
- anewaccount2021 6y ago
  Since gun ownership and the number of guns have both been rising continuously for years, you can correlate them to anything you like. Since the number of guns was over three hundred million when the murder rate was lower, we can also correlate a large number of guns in circulation to lower murder rates. Or rising rates, or dropping rates. No matter where the trend moves, as long as there are over three hundred million guns in the US, guns are basically as available as milk and gasoline and effectively a constant. Or do you honestly believe going from three hundred million guns to three hundred and one million guns is worthy of measure for correlation? All of this is irrelevant in any case. 99.95% of guns are benign in the US. This isn't conjecture - its a clear ratio of total guns in circulation vs gun homicides. A law-abiding owner of a gun should be as concerned by a gun used in a murder as a chef would be concerned about someone being stabbed with a pearing knife. If you want a more realistic answer, I would suggest both economic desperation (unemployment, inequality, need) and pressures due to a new and unnatural mode of living enforced on the population (lockdown). Or if you want to get political, all of the cities in the infographic are blue cities that moved to lax policing policies in 2020.
- busterarm 6y ago
  Sifting through all of the articles, we have about a 50% increase in homicides in US Cities in 2020, but only about a 15% increase in gun-related deaths, according to numbers from the anti-gun non-profit Gun Violence Archive... If the correlation were strong, you would expect to see them increase similarly... Keep in mind that GVA does not discount suicides from their report.
- waiseristy 6y ago
  They usually also mention that it's hard to tell if more crime leads to more gun ownership vs more gun ownership leads to more crime
- suifbwish 6y ago
  The same association with the availability of baseball bats and knives is also very well established. Something about having thumbs causes Murder.
- jojobas 6y ago
  That's only one of the variables. In USA there are more non-gun murders per capita than total murders in Australia.
- manfredo 6y ago
  US gun ownership has been rising substantially, yet the homicide rate dropped by more than a factor of two between the 1990s and 2010s. In fact, the mid 2010s saw the lowest homicide rate in over 50 years. By comparison, contrary to popular belief, several European countries allow people to buy firearms with similar availability as the US. The main examples that come to mind are Switzerland, Serbia, and the Czech Republic. The last one also permits concealed carry of firearms - something several US states prohibit. Widespread availability of firearms is likely a magnifying factor in areas with conditions that lead to crime, but plenty of areas with widespread gun ownership like much of rural America have low homicide rates.
  - vlovich123 6y ago
    Switzerland has 2 million private guns (excluding the guns for the militia) for a population of ~8.5 million. That’s about an arm rate of ~25% (not to mention that you need a permit for gun ownership & that’s tracked (with the Swiss voting in stricter gun tracking laws recently in 2019). By comparison, America has an estimated 353 million civilian guns, netting to just over each man, woman, & baby having a gun. Additionally, the laws are extremely lax meaning the government has poor records, enforcement, & a hodge-podge of laws across state lines around gun ownership. The type of superficial comparison that’s always trotted out in this kind of discussion is always so frustratingly predictable and superficial. Studies have repeatedly shown that in American society, increased gun availability directly tracks with homicides & mass casualty events. You can either regulate guns more akin to the nations you hold up as “exemplars” or make gun ownership less common. All attempts to regulate this situation in any way, shape, or form is regularly fought by Republicans, even for “common sense” legislation that has broad bipartisan appeal across party lines. Heck, often times people thing the government already does background checks for gun ownership without realizing the huge loopholes & intentional castrating of the background check process render the entire process a joke.
- jussij 6y ago
  Here in Australia firearms have been highly restricted since 1996 and that move has certainly seen a reduction in the homicide rate: https://knoema.com/atlas/Australia/Number-of-homicides https://knoema.com/atlas/Australia/Number-of-homicides
  - marcusverus 6y ago
    The US has had an even more dramatic decline in homicide since '96, even as gun ownership has soared. https://fee.org/articles/the-myth-that-australias-gun-laws-reduced-gun-homicides/ https://fee.org/articles/the-myth-that-australias-gun-laws-r...
  - eindiran 6y ago
    There has been a reduction in homicide in virtually all places in the world during the same time, including many places where gun ownership increased during the time frame. So I'm not sure that we can conclude that Australia's restrictions to gun ownership are the only/principle reasons that homicides went down.
- abarringer 6y ago
  Wyoming has one of the highest gun ownership rates 59% and one of the lowest murder rates 1 in 100k in the country. Maryland has 21% gun ownership rates, one of the lowest, and the fourth highest rate of homicides 9 per 100k.
- zepto 6y ago
  It really isn’t. Pretty much nothing about firearms is ‘well established’ scientifically. Just like most other social science results. The relationship between poverty and shooting deaths is very strong though.
UI_at_80x24 6y ago
There is one thing, and one thing only that causes shooting deaths. Bullets; and by extension guns. TFA doesn't go into detail (that I could find) about the cause of deaths that occurred in the mentioned 'violent deaths'.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

Are you implying that legal gun ownership leads to an increase in violent murders?

by sawjet 6y ago

Are you implying that legal gun ownership leads to an increase in violent murders?

The association between the availability of firearms and the homicide rate is very well established in scientific literature.

ctdonath 6y ago
That association is scientifically inverse. More guns, less crime. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081QFZDM8 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081QFZDM8
- T-hawk 6y ago
  But be careful about which way the causation goes. More guns don't cause less crime; more crime causes anti-gun measures.
- cratermoon 6y ago
  John "Mary Rosh" Lott is an academic fraud.
  - ctdonath 6y ago
    Many make that assertion, none back it up.
    - cratermoon 6y ago
      https://archive.thinkprogress.org/debunking-john-lott-5456e83cf326/ https://archive.thinkprogress.org/debunking-john-lott-5456e8... https://www.armedwithreason.com/shooting-down-the-gun-lobbys-favorite-academic-a-lott-of-lies/ https://www.armedwithreason.com/shooting-down-the-gun-lobbys...
cratermoon 6y ago
It's really the only variable differentiating the US homicide rate from other developed countries. The US homicide rate is 4 times the UK, 5 times more than Germany, 4 times that of France and thrice that of our neighbor to the north. While Mexico has a higher homicide rate, the gun crime rate in the US is 6 times higher. (All numbers are round approximations. Different sources and ways of calculating the data may result in variances but the relative rates don't change that much.)
- dleslie 6y ago
  Perhaps worth considering is the rate of sexual assaults alongside the rate of violent crime. It's a culture problem. America has a violent culture. It's weird to me that we so often discuss firearm violence without also considering the prevalence of other forms of violence; these are symptoms of an underlaying concern.
  - dx87 6y ago
    The politicians talking about firearm violence don't actually care about fixing it, they just say things that their base wants to hear. For example, the democrat congressman from my district in MD sent out an email talking about trying to fight the epidemic of gun violence by banning assault rifles and high capacity magazines, even though pistols are used in the vast majority of shootings. A few years ago the MD state democrats also blocked some laws that would have imposed harsher punishment on people who use handguns in crimes because they said it would disproportionately affect minorities. They didn't want to look like they weren't doing anything about gun violence though, so they banned bump stocks, even though they have never been used to commit a crime in MD, and the ATF says the functionality can easily be replicated with a rubber band or belt.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  Be very careful about comparative gun death statistics. Suicide by gun often gets wrapped into "gun violence" figures than make the US stats look worse than they actually are.
  - 6y ago
anewaccount2021 6y ago
Since gun ownership and the number of guns have both been rising continuously for years, you can correlate them to anything you like. Since the number of guns was over three hundred million when the murder rate was lower, we can also correlate a large number of guns in circulation to lower murder rates. Or rising rates, or dropping rates. No matter where the trend moves, as long as there are over three hundred million guns in the US, guns are basically as available as milk and gasoline and effectively a constant. Or do you honestly believe going from three hundred million guns to three hundred and one million guns is worthy of measure for correlation? All of this is irrelevant in any case. 99.95% of guns are benign in the US. This isn't conjecture - its a clear ratio of total guns in circulation vs gun homicides. A law-abiding owner of a gun should be as concerned by a gun used in a murder as a chef would be concerned about someone being stabbed with a pearing knife. If you want a more realistic answer, I would suggest both economic desperation (unemployment, inequality, need) and pressures due to a new and unnatural mode of living enforced on the population (lockdown). Or if you want to get political, all of the cities in the infographic are blue cities that moved to lax policing policies in 2020.
busterarm 6y ago
Sifting through all of the articles, we have about a 50% increase in homicides in US Cities in 2020, but only about a 15% increase in gun-related deaths, according to numbers from the anti-gun non-profit Gun Violence Archive... If the correlation were strong, you would expect to see them increase similarly... Keep in mind that GVA does not discount suicides from their report.
waiseristy 6y ago
They usually also mention that it's hard to tell if more crime leads to more gun ownership vs more gun ownership leads to more crime
suifbwish 6y ago
The same association with the availability of baseball bats and knives is also very well established. Something about having thumbs causes Murder.
jojobas 6y ago
That's only one of the variables. In USA there are more non-gun murders per capita than total murders in Australia.
manfredo 6y ago
US gun ownership has been rising substantially, yet the homicide rate dropped by more than a factor of two between the 1990s and 2010s. In fact, the mid 2010s saw the lowest homicide rate in over 50 years. By comparison, contrary to popular belief, several European countries allow people to buy firearms with similar availability as the US. The main examples that come to mind are Switzerland, Serbia, and the Czech Republic. The last one also permits concealed carry of firearms - something several US states prohibit. Widespread availability of firearms is likely a magnifying factor in areas with conditions that lead to crime, but plenty of areas with widespread gun ownership like much of rural America have low homicide rates.
- vlovich123 6y ago
  Switzerland has 2 million private guns (excluding the guns for the militia) for a population of ~8.5 million. That’s about an arm rate of ~25% (not to mention that you need a permit for gun ownership & that’s tracked (with the Swiss voting in stricter gun tracking laws recently in 2019). By comparison, America has an estimated 353 million civilian guns, netting to just over each man, woman, & baby having a gun. Additionally, the laws are extremely lax meaning the government has poor records, enforcement, & a hodge-podge of laws across state lines around gun ownership. The type of superficial comparison that’s always trotted out in this kind of discussion is always so frustratingly predictable and superficial. Studies have repeatedly shown that in American society, increased gun availability directly tracks with homicides & mass casualty events. You can either regulate guns more akin to the nations you hold up as “exemplars” or make gun ownership less common. All attempts to regulate this situation in any way, shape, or form is regularly fought by Republicans, even for “common sense” legislation that has broad bipartisan appeal across party lines. Heck, often times people thing the government already does background checks for gun ownership without realizing the huge loopholes & intentional castrating of the background check process render the entire process a joke.
jussij 6y ago
Here in Australia firearms have been highly restricted since 1996 and that move has certainly seen a reduction in the homicide rate: https://knoema.com/atlas/Australia/Number-of-homicides https://knoema.com/atlas/Australia/Number-of-homicides
- marcusverus 6y ago
  The US has had an even more dramatic decline in homicide since '96, even as gun ownership has soared. https://fee.org/articles/the-myth-that-australias-gun-laws-reduced-gun-homicides/ https://fee.org/articles/the-myth-that-australias-gun-laws-r...
- eindiran 6y ago
  There has been a reduction in homicide in virtually all places in the world during the same time, including many places where gun ownership increased during the time frame. So I'm not sure that we can conclude that Australia's restrictions to gun ownership are the only/principle reasons that homicides went down.
abarringer 6y ago
Wyoming has one of the highest gun ownership rates 59% and one of the lowest murder rates 1 in 100k in the country. Maryland has 21% gun ownership rates, one of the lowest, and the fourth highest rate of homicides 9 per 100k.
zepto 6y ago
It really isn’t. Pretty much nothing about firearms is ‘well established’ scientifically. Just like most other social science results. The relationship between poverty and shooting deaths is very strong though.

UI_at_80x24 6y ago

There is one thing, and one thing only that causes shooting deaths. Bullets; and by extension guns. TFA doesn't go into detail (that I could find) about the cause of deaths that occurred in the mentioned 'violent deaths'.

deleted 6y ago
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deleted 6y ago
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