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The US is not that bad compared to other New World countries. From your link we see Brazil at 27, Mexico at 29, Argentina at 5, Uruguay at 12, Greenland at 5, P
by philwelch 5y ago
The US is not that bad compared to other New World countries. From your link we see Brazil at 27, Mexico at 29, Argentina at 5, Uruguay at 12, Greenland at 5, Panama at 9, and Costa Rica at 11. Canada is the biggest outlier, but the US still has less homicide than even relatively nice New World countries.
If you’re going to tout France’s low homicide rate of 1.2, I’d invite you to observe that Japan’s homicide rate is 0.26. Does this mean that France should adopt some aspects of Japanese law, for instance, by readopting the death penalty? Or does it simply mean that France and Japan are different countries?
In fact, I would posit that the arrow of causation can point the other way. If you live in a country with higher rates of homicide and violent crime, you will be more interested in defending yourself.
> Protests and revolutions in France have done more to guide government power than anything ever that happened in the US.
This seems like a bizarre and dubious oversimplification. France had an outright military coup in 1958 when the democratically elected government didn’t want to hold onto Algeria. While both democracy and Algerian independence worked out in the long run, the mere possibility of a military coup—something that French military officers will occasionally make threats to repeat—seems to be a major distinction that is not in France’s favor here.
Meanwhile, popular protests in the US led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and ultimately even withdrawal from Vietnam. It’s not like the American public is politically powerless compared to that of any other democracy.
- NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago>The US is not that bad compared to other New World countries. Yeah, I'd add that France doesn't have a long, porous border with the developing world. Nor nearly as much heterogeneity in its population.
- mattcwilson 5y agoNot sure why you're being downvoted. These are facts about France vs. the U.S. Maybe "developing" is a /little/ strong for Mexico, but I take your point to be more about Central America generally.
- philwelch 5y agoI'm not actually sure how accurate that is. France has an ethnically and religiously heterogeneous population, high levels of immigration from Africa, and open borders with the rest of the EU.
- qeternity 5y agoYou’re drastically over estimating the amount of African immigrants in France. And very few people are immigrating from the rest of the EU (in fact, French immigrants are a bit of a meme everywhere else, escaping high taxation).
- NoImmatureAdHom 5y agoOpen borders with the rest of the EU is...Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium. And adorable Andorra. Oh, and Italy. All of which are comparable to Mexico where it counts, of course. /s
- philwelch 5y agoThere's also Hungary, Poland, Romania....
- Symbiote 5y agoThere are usually no border controls from France as far as the EU borders with Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Serbia and Andorra. Romania and Bulgaria's borders seem fairly porous, and Bulgaria borders Turkey. There is a marine border with North Africa, which is probably the closest equivalent to the US/Mexico border.
- Taniwha 5y agoPretty sure that in total far more guns are moving south from the US than north into it
- adamredwoods 5y agoMexico is trying to sue because of that: https://www.npr.org/2021/08/28/1031965159/mexico-sues-u-s-guns-manufacturers-for-fueling-violence#:~:text=For%20the%20first%20time%2C%20a,the%20last%20two%20years%20alone https://www.npr.org/2021/08/28/1031965159/mexico-sues-u-s-gu....
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- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y agoFrance is quite heterogenous. The "homogeneous = less crime" argument is a bit xenophobic/racist at best, and not quite true. Societies with an impoverished underclass is what causes higher crime rates, regardless of whether or not the underclass is mainly comprised of ethnic minorities. France (heterogenous) and Japan (homogenous) take better care of their poor than the US (heterogenous) and Guatemala (homogenous), which is what causes the disparity in murder rates.
- qeternity 5y ago> France is quite heterogenous. Paris, yes. France, no. France as a whole is very homogenous.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y agoImmigrant populations in both France and the United States are in the mid-teens, percentage-wise. [1] Japan's immigrant population stands at 2.0%, and Guatamala's is 0.5%. I'm aware that there are other measures of diversity, but many of the comments here were mentioning the United States's border with Mexico specifically as a reason for its high murder rate, which doesn't seem to hold up once you dig into the numbers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_immigrant_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d...
- NoImmatureAdHom 5y agoI think the other measures of diversity are the ones that are important. For instance, an influx of Canadian immigrants to the U.S. would, I expect, cause no problems at all because Canada is by and large very culturally similar to the U.S. The border is important in my thinking mainly because corruption and organized crime are endemic to Mexico, though immigration of people from a significantly different ethnicity+culture is also important in the U.S. picture.
- bobthechef 5y ago> The "homogeneous = less crime" argument is a bit xenophobic/racist at best, and not quite true. Why the ad hominem? It stifles conversation. I think it is entirely legitimate to make the claim that ethnic, and actually more so religious/worldview heterogeneity can cause conflict. Heterogeneity is inversely correlated with trust because trust is formed through understanding and appropriate agreement and these differences often mean misunderstanding and disagreement. You can talk about dialoging as a way to reduce conflict, but even when understanding exists, when one norm must prevail and two groups are in conflict, this will leads to problems. The more fundamental the conflict, the worse it gets. Look at Yugoslavia. Are Croats, Serbs, and Bosnians "racially" different? No. Language? Not really. So the source of conflict is religious. The political conflict in the US today is mostly religious in nature, where "religious" is broadly understood.
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- sillysaurusx 5y agoI winced when you started the comparison with Brazil and Mexico. Those countries may be New World, but anybody who's visited Mexico knows not to go random places alone. In other words, if Brazil and Mexico are our points of comparison, we're... not in a situation I'd want to be in, to put it diplomatically. Reddit's running joke is that every gunfight happened in Brazil. In fact, I often wonder if most of the gunfight videos actually do come from Brazil.
- betwixthewires 5y ago> I winced when you started the comparison with Brazil and Mexico. What about Greenland? > ...anybody who's visited Mexico knows not to go random places alone. It's the same in the US, and basically every country in the world. Some places are dangerous, others aren't. > ...if Brazil and Mexico are our points of comparison, we're... not in a situation I'd want to be in, to put it diplomatically. Put it undiplomatically. What exactly do you mean by that? Draw me a picture with crayons, I want to understand clearly what this means. An important point in the comment you replied to was that maybe demand for firearms is the result of the crime rate and not the cause. Care to address that?
- sho_hn 5y ago> It's the same in the US, and basically every country in the world. Some places are dangerous, others aren't. No, it's really not. I spent a number of years living in Seoul, and you can have a 25 million people metro area with virtually no areas you wouldn't go to alone at night. They may exist, somewhere, but you really have to struggle to find them. That plus no loud and aggressive people on the streets, basically never having to feel guarded or adjusting your walking path to avoid that one sketchy person. US cities can be such stressful, on-guard, subtly "stand your ground"/"toughen up" experiences in comparison sometimes. It's draining, really just wasted energy, and as a man, makes me behave in wasy I don't actually want to. Culture really matters. Weapon laws really matter. And national pride in places and spaces that just simply don't shape up well is something to resist. I have a feeling that the entire "arm the populace" mindset and everything that goes along with it (the lack of interest in consensus-building displayed by wanting to maintain an exit from it, etc.) is much more likely to generate the sort of politics and politicians that would ever require civilian I arms use. States can certainly go bad in many ways. South Korea managed to impeach its most recent bad President through peaceful protest alone (search "Park Geun-Hye protests") with basically not even a punch thrown, however.
- tshaddox 5y ago> The US is not that bad compared to other New World countries. > Or does it simply mean that France and Japan are different countries? Huh? Are you implying that simply existing in the “New World” would cause the baseline expected murder rate to be higher for some reason?
- beerandt 5y agoIt means different countries have different cultures that value life and violence in different ways. And that your immediate neighbors will have more of an influence on that than a country on the other side of the world, especially if there's a substantial amount of immigration. In the case of the US, I'd say it's more-so, because so much of the violence south of our border is directly related to moving things and people over it.
- philwelch 5y ago> Huh? Are you implying that simply existing in the “New World” would cause the baseline expected murder rate to be higher for some reason? That’s the pattern we empirically see with most New World countries, and if you consider the question with an open mind for a few minutes while considering the history of Western settlement of the Americas you can come up with a few decent hypotheses as far as what the reasons might be.
- trompetenaccoun 5y agoAnother way of looking at it is proximity to the United States, its massive supply of guns and "war on drugs", which somehow seems to be correlated to an increased homicide rate.
- rayiner 5y agoThe homicide rate in Puerto Rico is super high, comparable to other news world countries, but it’s an island and has almost no guns. Also, the US homicide rate was extremely high compared to Europe long before gun laws in other countries or the drug war. It was 10x higher than the UK at the turn of the 20th century.
- jollybean 5y agoComparing the US to lawless, poor countries doesn't help make your claim. The more rational 'New World' comparisons would be Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and guess what: very low murder, very low rates of gun ownership. "Does this mean that France should adopt some aspects of Japanese law, for instance, by readopting the death penalty? Or does it simply mean that France and Japan are different countries?" Or more rationally, they could just completely ban firearms and make them totally inaccessible to anyone, as they are in Japan. (And also create a super conformist, rule-following slightly authoritarian culture) But at least the gun laws themselves in Japan are extremely rigid which hints pretty strongly that restrictions definitely work. Wether those can be pragmatically applied is another question.
- philwelch 5y ago> The more rational 'New World' comparisons would be Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and guess what: very low murder, very low rates of gun ownership. Who could have imagined that British colonies who didn’t violently overthrow the British colonial government would end up being less violent overall? Also, who would have guessed that former British colonies that didn’t have millions of African slaves shipped in for cheap agricultural labor and treated as a perpetual underclass for centuries would be more peaceful places to live? Nah, must be the guns.
- cmrdporcupine 5y agoThe US has the gun fetish because it has a perpetual racialized underclass, among other reasons. You're right the violence is tied to its history. But so are the guns. You cannot separate the two. As others have pointed out; personal firearms are pretty useless as a vehicle for resisting state oppression and tyranny. But they're useful for stopping slave revolts or, more contemporarily, guarding your McMansion. The problem in the US isn't the right to bear arms. It's that the wrong people are bearing them. The militia types are the authoritarian aggressors that they themselves fantasize about resisting.
- rayiner 5y ago
- megablast 5y agoNew world?? Are you kidding?? Talk about cherry picking. What about comparing it to Australia or NZ??
- abrokenpipe 5y agoI don't think it's bad in general considering the size of the country and especially considering the fact that we have hundreds of millions of civilian owned guns (23 million sold last year, and even more sold this year already). When you compare guns to other stuff like drunk driving it shows how blown out of proportion the problem is. - CDC stats (2018) - US Firearm Homicides: 14,414 US deaths caused by drunk drivers: 10,511
- frosted-flakes 5y agoI would expect drunk-driving deaths to far exceed firearm homicides, and it's honestly shocking that firearm homicides are that high. I think the stats show that it's not blown out of propertion.
- zepto 5y agoWhy would you expect that?
- abrokenpipe 5y agoWhy would you expect that when drunk driving gets practically no attention at all? It's even socially acceptable and joked about within certain cultural circles.
- frosted-flakes 5y agoThat's exactly my point. Drink driving is not uncommon, to the point where it's acceptable to some parts of society. But no part of society believes intent to kill with a gun is acceptable, yet despite the heavy scrutiny it receives, firearm homicides are still way higher than drunk driving deaths. I know that these numbers are not directly comparable, but given the deadly nature of automobiles in general, I expected drunk-driving deaths to be somewhere around 50000 per year.
- raxxorrax 5y agoIt is estimated that 250,000 people die per year from medical errors. That doesn't mean that people should shoot their doctors... The problem is an underfunded systems and huge workload and a bit of funding would instantly safe more lives than restricting gun ownership. Calling for restriction is a transparent political move or is born out of ignorance in my opinion (I am not from the US). People that would profit the most from restrictions are policemen, which are probably underpaid in the US considering their risk.
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoYou are comparing the USA, a developed country, purely to developing countries. I mean, ya, the USA does better than much poorer countries, but can’t compare to any other developed ones. And just because all developed countries don’t have a unified homogenous homicide rate doesn’t really provide any excuse why America does so much more poorly.
- LookOutItsABot 5y agoI believe the problem with our developed country being compared to other developed countries goes beyond murder rate, wouldn't you agree? We have less mobility and opportunity between the ranks of our society than some of these other countries. That lack of equality makes our richest very well off, but our poorest live in literal third world conditions (as Alabama was designated two years ago.) To be honest I don't see a problem with comparing us to both, but with the consideration that there is an awful lot of variance between the different subsections of our society. What do you think?
- philwelch 5y ago> You are comparing the USA, a developed country, purely to developing countries. I mean, ya, the USA does better than much poorer countries, but can’t compare to any other developed ones. Almost every country in the world is much poorer than the USA. Most European countries have a smaller per-capita GDP than Mississippi, the poorest US state.
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoYa, that just makes the USA’s high homicide rate even more embarrassing.
- zepto 5y agoWhy? Money doesn’t magically solve all cultural problems.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
- babesh 5y agoI wonder if there is a good history of how the civil rights acts and Vietnam withdrawal actually happened. For instance, did the war protests really have that much effect or was it because the war was lost?
- philwelch 5y agoThe war wasn't lost until the US unilaterally withdrew.
- rapind 5y ago> Furthermore, i find US fascination with their theoretical ability to fight their government with small arms adorable and misguided. I’m not sure how you mean adorable and misguided. 1) If you mean it would be ineffective against a military invasion, I have to disagree. The military has never won a guerrilla war, let alone one on their own turf. Think Afghanistan on steroids with how many guns are in the states. 2) If you mean that being politically active would be far more effective though then I 100% agree. I know some gun owners in the states, and my impression is that for some it quickly turns into standard consumerism. Maybe their first gun was for self defence, but not the 20th. They can obsess over their guns, similar to how people obsess over other gizmos like the latest iPhone etc.
- lmm 5y ago> The US is not that bad compared to other New World countries. From your link we see Brazil at 27, Mexico at 29, Argentina at 5, Uruguay at 12, Greenland at 5, Panama at 9, and Costa Rica at 11. Canada is the biggest outlier, but the US still has less homicide than even relatively nice New World countries. "On a par with Argentina" is still not great. The US is doing a lot worse than comparably wealthy countries. > Does this mean that France should adopt some aspects of Japanese law Yes. > for instance, by readopting the death penalty? No. Why on earth would that be what you'd jump to? The death penalty is very rarely applied in Japan and, if you look more widely, not at all correlated with low homicide rates.
- pg_1234 5y agoCongratulations, you've just successfully argued that the USA is a third world country.