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The vast majority of those gun homicides are inner-city gang-on-gang shootings, which is easy to avoid as a white-collar software engineer.

NeverFade 3y ago
Exactly, the reason "active shooter" situations frighten ordinary folks is because they're the rare type of shooting that can victimize you even if you're law-abiding and don't live in a very high crime area.
dghlsakjg 3y ago
Citation? Numbers? What do you mean by "vast majority" and "gang-on-gang"?
- prottog 3y ago
  There is no great source on the details across the nation, but there are a hodgepodge of municipal-level studies that shed a light. There were roughly 20k gun homicides in the US in 2021[0]. It's been fluctuating between 10k and 20k over the past five decades or so, with the last few years seeing a quick increase and seeing a (hopefully) local peak in rates. In one study in San Francisco, ~70% of gun homicide victims had a criminal record, and three quarters of that figure knew the suspect[1]. A similar study in Milwaukee found that ~90% of both victims and suspects of gun homicides had a criminal record[2], and the top two reasons identified of the circumstances behind the homicide were arguments/fights and robberies. There are other studies done at local levels in many other places with similar results. A DOJ study notes that three quarters of all gun homicides were during the commission of a (different) felony[3]. And you can query the CDC WONDER mortality database[4] yourself to see that gun homicide rates in "large central metro" areas are twice as high as those in medium, small, or non-metro areas, and that men 15-34 years of age comprise the majority of gun homicide victims. So, perhaps my "gang-on-gang" statement wasn't really accurate (since a "gang-related" incident is loosely defined), and I'll leave the "vast majority" determination to you; but the point is that most gun homicides occur among the "criminal element" in "bad parts of town", and is not really relevant to life as a software engineer. [0]: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-... [1]: https://www.sfdph.org/dph/files/reports/StudiesData/Firearms/FinalReproductionFirearmReport1999.pdf https://www.sfdph.org/dph/files/reports/StudiesData/Firearms... [2]: https://www.mcw.edu/-/media/MCW/Departments/Epidemiology/MHRC/2010-Homicides-Nonfatal-Shootings-Data.pdf https://www.mcw.edu/-/media/MCW/Departments/Epidemiology/MHR... [3]: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf [4]: https://wonder.cdc.gov/mcd.html https://wonder.cdc.gov/mcd.html

NeverFade 3y ago

Exactly, the reason "active shooter" situations frighten ordinary folks is because they're the rare type of shooting that can victimize you even if you're law-abiding and don't live in a very high crime area.

dghlsakjg 3y ago

Citation? Numbers? What do you mean by "vast majority" and "gang-on-gang"?

prottog 3y ago
There is no great source on the details across the nation, but there are a hodgepodge of municipal-level studies that shed a light. There were roughly 20k gun homicides in the US in 2021[0]. It's been fluctuating between 10k and 20k over the past five decades or so, with the last few years seeing a quick increase and seeing a (hopefully) local peak in rates. In one study in San Francisco, ~70% of gun homicide victims had a criminal record, and three quarters of that figure knew the suspect[1]. A similar study in Milwaukee found that ~90% of both victims and suspects of gun homicides had a criminal record[2], and the top two reasons identified of the circumstances behind the homicide were arguments/fights and robberies. There are other studies done at local levels in many other places with similar results. A DOJ study notes that three quarters of all gun homicides were during the commission of a (different) felony[3]. And you can query the CDC WONDER mortality database[4] yourself to see that gun homicide rates in "large central metro" areas are twice as high as those in medium, small, or non-metro areas, and that men 15-34 years of age comprise the majority of gun homicide victims. So, perhaps my "gang-on-gang" statement wasn't really accurate (since a "gang-related" incident is loosely defined), and I'll leave the "vast majority" determination to you; but the point is that most gun homicides occur among the "criminal element" in "bad parts of town", and is not really relevant to life as a software engineer. [0]: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-... [1]: https://www.sfdph.org/dph/files/reports/StudiesData/Firearms/FinalReproductionFirearmReport1999.pdf https://www.sfdph.org/dph/files/reports/StudiesData/Firearms... [2]: https://www.mcw.edu/-/media/MCW/Departments/Epidemiology/MHRC/2010-Homicides-Nonfatal-Shootings-Data.pdf https://www.mcw.edu/-/media/MCW/Departments/Epidemiology/MHR... [3]: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf [4]: https://wonder.cdc.gov/mcd.html https://wonder.cdc.gov/mcd.html