5 ms·

> article somewhat addressed it but I'd say demographics are the biggest factor, with an older male population and high gun ownership rate Right, how much of t

by bamfly 3y ago

> article somewhat addressed it but I'd say demographics are the biggest factor, with an older male population and high gun ownership rate Right, how much of this is explained simply by what we'd expect to see in a population of older men with a ~100% rate of easy access to firearms, compared with the rate of easy access in the general population of folks otherwise fitting that demographic? [EDIT] For those not familiar with these kinds of areas, this isn't because farmers are especially likely to be "gun nuts" (maybe they are? I kinda doubt it though, probably not at a rate much higher than the general population, anyway) but because hunting and recreational shooting are more popular in rural areas (citation needed, but I'd be very surprised if that's not true) and because even farmers who don't engage in those hobbies tend to have one or more firearms for varmint control, protection from dangerous animals, or simply because they inherited or were gifted some, if nothing else. I'd expect that nearly 100% of US farmers could have a loaded firearm in-hand within an hour, if they wanted to, without having to put much thought into how to get it.

dageshi 3y ago
Nearly every farmer who has livestock is likely to have a gun to put animals out of their misery should it be necessary.
- bamfly 3y ago
  Good point, another common reason that slipped my mind. Dogs can get snake-bit or horribly mauled by any number of things, for farmers who don't even deal in livestock but do have dogs. Horses, obviously (though you don't necessarily shoot one just because it broke a leg, like in Hollywood westerns). Cows can get up to some really stupid shit. Wild animals can get hurt by machines, and getting close to them may be dangerous. Yeah, that's another big reason.
brightlancer 3y ago
I think you're right about farmers' ownership and access to firearms, but I don't think it's that much greater than older men generally. 30% of US adults own a gun and another 11% live with someone who does. 39% of all men own a gun. 46% of all adults in rural areas own guns. 48% of white men own a gun. Sure, those numbers drop a lot in the cities and heavily Democrat voting areas, but it's pretty easy to get a gun in those places, legally or not. More than ownership or access, I think this is a mindset issue -- same as why rural areas have high rates of ownership and access to firearms, but don't experience the violent crime rates found in cities. It's not the guns, it's who has the guns.
- brightlancer 3y ago
  https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2017/06/Guns-Report-FOR-WEBSITE-PDF-6-21.pdf https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/wp-content/uploads...
- bamfly 3y ago
  > same as why rural areas have high rates of ownership and access to firearms, but don't experience the violent crime rates found in cities. It's not the guns, it's who has the guns. You may be surprised about that, actually. Cities often make headlines or rankings under things like "Xth most violent US city" with some implicit assumption behind it that larger cities are more violent than rural areas, towns, or smaller cities under whatever threshold is being used in that analysis, but that's not actually true. Absolute numbers are high in big cities (they're denser—duh) but rates may surprise you. [EDIT] This is a shitty site, but it's the general kind of thing you can expect to find, if you dig into this: https://www.police1.com/ambush/articles/10-us-counties-with-the-highest-murder-rate-kerWgaEUmxJkn74J/ https://www.police1.com/ambush/articles/10-us-counties-with-... Highest-murder-rate counties yields about 60/40 small cities or rural, and the usual suspects for violent big cities (Baltimore, DC, STL, New Orleans—notably absent: Chicago, NYC, LA) You'll see similar results for crime in general. Most big US cities aren't remarkably-horrible dens of crime—not relative to small cities and rural counties, anyway, and not when looking at the per-capita rate and including those lower-pop areas. The safer half or so of large US cities are safer than large swaths of rural and small-town/city America. Big-city doesn't necessarily equal higher crime, violence, or murder rate than small cities and rural counties. It only seems that way because, for some reason, crime in cities is usually highlighted and presented in ways that suggest that's true.
  - brightlancer 3y ago
    Because I have weird hobbies, I've spent a lot of time studying crime rates, particularly homicide, around the US. I'm very familiar with homicide rates and what drives them. (Hint: It isn't the guns.) As a general statement, cities have much higher homicide rates than the suburbs, exurbs and rural areas. If you zoom out too far, then the violent cities blend in with the less violent suburbs. For example, from the article you linked: "From a county-based per capita county perspective, however, Cook County, Illinois had a lower homicide rate than many other counties in the United States. Between 2009 and 2015 there were 11 murders per 100,000 residents in Cook County." That is about half of what the homicide rate was in the city of Chicago (the seat of Cook Co), so you can see that distortion when you're comparing counties rather than cities. And since Chicago is in the news so often, let's use that as an anecdote: Chicago's homicide rate is more than 4x the national average, but it's _less than half_ of cities like Baltimore, Detroit, St Louis, New Orleans and Baton Rouge. As a counter-example, NYC has a lower homicide rate than the US overall. This is awesome and a welcome change from the violence we saw in the 70s, 80s and early 90s. But NYC is also five counties, so you can see some real swings in crime rates from New York County to Bronx County, from Kings County to Richmond County, all in the same city. Chicago's homicide rate is also very unevenly distributed, with about a half dozen or so neighborhoods accounting for the majority of homicides. This is true in many cities, which is why we want to zoom in rather than zoom out. Are there violent rural areas? Of course. But I would be careful looking at rural, sparsely populated counties as counter-examples: the link you gave cited Coahoma Co, MS as number 2, with 37 homicides per 100k (7 times the then national rate but less than Baltimore etc.), however, Coahoma Co had a population of only 25k, which means there were about 9 homicides that year. Nine. Sure, the _rate_ is high but that could be skewed a single (awful) family murder-suicide. > Most big US cities aren't remarkably-horrible dens of crime—not relative to small cities and rural counties, anyway, and not when looking at the per-capita rate and including those lower-pop areas. First, your link didn't compare cities, it compared counties -- and it's easy for a low-pop county to skew statistics in a single year. Second, I never claimed "horrible dens of crime", I claimed cities had higher violent crime rates than rural areas. Some cities are wonderfully safe. Some parts of Chicago are wonderfully safe. As a general statement, cities are more violent than rural areas. Third, my main point was that it isn't the guns, it's who has the guns. > The safer half or so of large US cities are safer than large swaths of rural and small-town/city America. By population or square-miles? Coahoma Co may have had a homicide rate 7 times the national average, but it had the same number of murders in a year that Baton Rouge had in a month. That New Orleans had in two weeks. That St Louis had in two weeks. That Detroit had in a week and a half. That Baltimore had in a week. That Chicago had in a week. We've got a problem with violence in the US. It isn't the guns.

by bamfly 3y ago

dageshi 3y ago

Nearly every farmer who has livestock is likely to have a gun to put animals out of their misery should it be necessary.

bamfly 3y ago
Good point, another common reason that slipped my mind. Dogs can get snake-bit or horribly mauled by any number of things, for farmers who don't even deal in livestock but do have dogs. Horses, obviously (though you don't necessarily shoot one just because it broke a leg, like in Hollywood westerns). Cows can get up to some really stupid shit. Wild animals can get hurt by machines, and getting close to them may be dangerous. Yeah, that's another big reason.

brightlancer 3y ago

I think you're right about farmers' ownership and access to firearms, but I don't think it's that much greater than older men generally. 30% of US adults own a gun and another 11% live with someone who does. 39% of all men own a gun. 46% of all adults in rural areas own guns. 48% of white men own a gun. Sure, those numbers drop a lot in the cities and heavily Democrat voting areas, but it's pretty easy to get a gun in those places, legally or not. More than ownership or access, I think this is a mindset issue -- same as why rural areas have high rates of ownership and access to firearms, but don't experience the violent crime rates found in cities. It's not the guns, it's who has the guns.

brightlancer 3y ago
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2017/06/Guns-Report-FOR-WEBSITE-PDF-6-21.pdf https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/wp-content/uploads...
bamfly 3y ago
> same as why rural areas have high rates of ownership and access to firearms, but don't experience the violent crime rates found in cities. It's not the guns, it's who has the guns. You may be surprised about that, actually. Cities often make headlines or rankings under things like "Xth most violent US city" with some implicit assumption behind it that larger cities are more violent than rural areas, towns, or smaller cities under whatever threshold is being used in that analysis, but that's not actually true. Absolute numbers are high in big cities (they're denser—duh) but rates may surprise you. [EDIT] This is a shitty site, but it's the general kind of thing you can expect to find, if you dig into this: https://www.police1.com/ambush/articles/10-us-counties-with-the-highest-murder-rate-kerWgaEUmxJkn74J/ https://www.police1.com/ambush/articles/10-us-counties-with-... Highest-murder-rate counties yields about 60/40 small cities or rural, and the usual suspects for violent big cities (Baltimore, DC, STL, New Orleans—notably absent: Chicago, NYC, LA) You'll see similar results for crime in general. Most big US cities aren't remarkably-horrible dens of crime—not relative to small cities and rural counties, anyway, and not when looking at the per-capita rate and including those lower-pop areas. The safer half or so of large US cities are safer than large swaths of rural and small-town/city America. Big-city doesn't necessarily equal higher crime, violence, or murder rate than small cities and rural counties. It only seems that way because, for some reason, crime in cities is usually highlighted and presented in ways that suggest that's true.
- brightlancer 3y ago
  Because I have weird hobbies, I've spent a lot of time studying crime rates, particularly homicide, around the US. I'm very familiar with homicide rates and what drives them. (Hint: It isn't the guns.) As a general statement, cities have much higher homicide rates than the suburbs, exurbs and rural areas. If you zoom out too far, then the violent cities blend in with the less violent suburbs. For example, from the article you linked: "From a county-based per capita county perspective, however, Cook County, Illinois had a lower homicide rate than many other counties in the United States. Between 2009 and 2015 there were 11 murders per 100,000 residents in Cook County." That is about half of what the homicide rate was in the city of Chicago (the seat of Cook Co), so you can see that distortion when you're comparing counties rather than cities. And since Chicago is in the news so often, let's use that as an anecdote: Chicago's homicide rate is more than 4x the national average, but it's _less than half_ of cities like Baltimore, Detroit, St Louis, New Orleans and Baton Rouge. As a counter-example, NYC has a lower homicide rate than the US overall. This is awesome and a welcome change from the violence we saw in the 70s, 80s and early 90s. But NYC is also five counties, so you can see some real swings in crime rates from New York County to Bronx County, from Kings County to Richmond County, all in the same city. Chicago's homicide rate is also very unevenly distributed, with about a half dozen or so neighborhoods accounting for the majority of homicides. This is true in many cities, which is why we want to zoom in rather than zoom out. Are there violent rural areas? Of course. But I would be careful looking at rural, sparsely populated counties as counter-examples: the link you gave cited Coahoma Co, MS as number 2, with 37 homicides per 100k (7 times the then national rate but less than Baltimore etc.), however, Coahoma Co had a population of only 25k, which means there were about 9 homicides that year. Nine. Sure, the _rate_ is high but that could be skewed a single (awful) family murder-suicide. > Most big US cities aren't remarkably-horrible dens of crime—not relative to small cities and rural counties, anyway, and not when looking at the per-capita rate and including those lower-pop areas. First, your link didn't compare cities, it compared counties -- and it's easy for a low-pop county to skew statistics in a single year. Second, I never claimed "horrible dens of crime", I claimed cities had higher violent crime rates than rural areas. Some cities are wonderfully safe. Some parts of Chicago are wonderfully safe. As a general statement, cities are more violent than rural areas. Third, my main point was that it isn't the guns, it's who has the guns. > The safer half or so of large US cities are safer than large swaths of rural and small-town/city America. By population or square-miles? Coahoma Co may have had a homicide rate 7 times the national average, but it had the same number of murders in a year that Baton Rouge had in a month. That New Orleans had in two weeks. That St Louis had in two weeks. That Detroit had in a week and a half. That Baltimore had in a week. That Chicago had in a week. We've got a problem with violence in the US. It isn't the guns.