5 ms·

I'm just eyeballing it here, but it looks like there was a similar increase in homicides (i know there is a difference between homicide and murder) during the s

by enono 5y ago

I'm just eyeballing it here, but it looks like there was a similar increase in homicides (i know there is a difference between homicide and murder) during the spanish flu pandemic from 1918-1920 https://sites.nationalacademies.org/cs/groups/dbassesite/documents/webpage/dbasse_083892.pdf https://sites.nationalacademies.org/cs/groups/dbassesite/doc... Also y'all should not be so confident in your diagnosis of why the murder rate spiked so much this year. Hindsight is 20/20 and this is a highly complex / multivariate problem. Simple answers are probably wrong here

rufus_foreman 5y ago
>> Simple answers are probably wrong here I would argue the opposite in this case. The increase started at the same time in almost every large city in the US, but not in other countries in the world. If the same thing happens in 30 cities at the same time, I'm not looking for 30 root causes, I'm looking at what was the commonality in those 30 US cities around that time that was different from what was going on in the rest of the world.
- enono 5y ago
  That is a really good point. What then do you identify as the single commonality between these 30 cities. I guess my point is just a general hesitation to accept simple answers for things. I also was unaware that covid didn't precipitate similar increases in murder rate globally
  - rufus_foreman 5y ago
    >> What then do you identify as the single commonality between these 30 cities I don't know. I mean we can start by ruling things out but I don't know. It wasn't covid, every country had covid, you look at some of the other reasons people put forth, did that suddenly happen? The increase in homicide rates suddenly happened. The police weren't suddenly defunded in 30 cities across America in June of 2020. They didn't suddenly change bail requirements in 30 cities across America in June of 2020. The typical murder we are talking about here is a young black man with a handgun killing another young black man. That's where the increase comes from. Young black men didn't all of the sudden go acquire handguns in the middle of 2020. These aren't for the most part legally acquired or legally carried handguns. Maybe starting in June of 2020 they felt the need to carry a gun was greater, and the risk of carrying a gun was lower? In every large city in the US? I don't know, that's the best I've got. What've you got?
    - Jensson 5y ago
      June was the BLM riots. My theory is that the BLM riots showed people that they can overwhelm the police into inaction as long as there are enough criminals, and that caused the increase in crime.

by enono 5y ago

rufus_foreman 5y ago

>> Simple answers are probably wrong here I would argue the opposite in this case. The increase started at the same time in almost every large city in the US, but not in other countries in the world. If the same thing happens in 30 cities at the same time, I'm not looking for 30 root causes, I'm looking at what was the commonality in those 30 US cities around that time that was different from what was going on in the rest of the world.

enono 5y ago
That is a really good point. What then do you identify as the single commonality between these 30 cities. I guess my point is just a general hesitation to accept simple answers for things. I also was unaware that covid didn't precipitate similar increases in murder rate globally
- rufus_foreman 5y ago
  >> What then do you identify as the single commonality between these 30 cities I don't know. I mean we can start by ruling things out but I don't know. It wasn't covid, every country had covid, you look at some of the other reasons people put forth, did that suddenly happen? The increase in homicide rates suddenly happened. The police weren't suddenly defunded in 30 cities across America in June of 2020. They didn't suddenly change bail requirements in 30 cities across America in June of 2020. The typical murder we are talking about here is a young black man with a handgun killing another young black man. That's where the increase comes from. Young black men didn't all of the sudden go acquire handguns in the middle of 2020. These aren't for the most part legally acquired or legally carried handguns. Maybe starting in June of 2020 they felt the need to carry a gun was greater, and the risk of carrying a gun was lower? In every large city in the US? I don't know, that's the best I've got. What've you got?
  - Jensson 5y ago
    June was the BLM riots. My theory is that the BLM riots showed people that they can overwhelm the police into inaction as long as there are enough criminals, and that caused the increase in crime.