4 ms·

And at what point do such things become a pattern? Unfortunately, mass shootings happen in the US at a rate of roughly one per year.

by scott_s 14y ago

gizmo686 14y ago
So about one shooting a year, this year's had 12 fatalities. Remember that heat wave/power outage combination we had on the east cost (USA); at least 46 fatalities [1] [1]http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/06/12597271-dozens-of-deaths-tied-to-heat-wave-over-last-2-weeks?lite http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/06/12597271-dozens...
- scott_s 14y ago
  And I hope that as a result of those outages, the power companies and state and local governments will evaluate if any policy or infrastructure changes could improve their ability to get the power back on.
riffraff 14y ago
firearms killings _are_ a pattern, if I recall correctly they are something between 5 and 10 times more frequent in US than other first wold countries. I personally believe that US citizens are unable to understand how dumb their attitude to weapons is, but + mass shootings wouldn't be much impacted by changes in the policy + mass shooting don't seem to have a strong correlation with firearm policy
- learc83 14y ago
  I agree with you on the mass shootings aspect. However... >firearms killings _are_ a pattern, if I recall correctly they are something between 5 and 10 times more frequent in US than other first wold countries. I personally believe that US citizens are unable to understand how dumb their attitude to weapons is, You can't compare crime rates without controlling for other differences. Most other first world countries are much more ethnically homogenous than the U.S. And they don't suffer from the cultural problems caused by the fairly recent institutional persecution of an entire class of people. It's not very PC to talk about, and I think that the high incidence of crime amongst black Americans is directly caused by the decades of persecution they suffered which causes them to occupy a lower socio-economic position on average than whites, not any inherent racial differences. But whatever the reason, whites and blacks both have similar access to guns and similar gun ownership rates, yet if you only count white americans, you'll find a fairly similar gun crime rate to the rest of the first World, so clearly, easy access to guns isn't the problem. The closest country I can think of to our situation is South Africa (Rights recently restored to an historical lower class. Though it's still not a great comparison because of their relatively lower GDP per capital, and different demographics). Their gun violence rate is about 5 times that of the US.
  - sgoranson 14y ago
    Offhand, do you know of any material that delves deeper into that taboo topic? Sociologically I find it really interesting but like you said, it's not a popular subject.
    - learc83 14y ago
      You can check the DOJ for statistics, but I've found it incredibly hard to find any unbiased analysis. I was interested in the topic after I saw a DOJ chart that listed crime by race. I had to research myself to find anything really useful, and by research I just mean taking data from DOJ statistics. The thing is, it's like we live in 2 separate countries, if you're white or asian, America is almost as safe as other first world countries. If you're Black or Hispanic it's much, much more dangerous.
      - lars512 14y ago
        To be clear, this is after controlling for income? It's not just about poverty?
        learc83 14y ago
        Black Americans are 2 to 3 times more likely to live below the poverty line than white Americans, and the median white household makes about 1.5 times more money than the median black household. But black Americans are about 8 times more likely to commit a violent crime, and about 6 times more likely to be the victim of a violent crime. I've seen some statistics that show at least a portion could be accounted for by controlling for the increased percentage of black single mothers.
  - riffraff 14y ago
    Thanks for the answer, yes, there are many factors to take into account, but ascribing the high homicide rate only to racial diversity seems reductive. Consider this data[0], in the context of Europe: UK[1] has likely more racial diversity than Denmark and Latvia, but firearm homicides/100k people is lower (0.1 vs 0.3 and 0.2, US has 3.0 ). I imagine that "black poor/uneducated/mistreated people are responsible for most killings", is actually the same as saying "poor/uneducated/mistreated people are responsible for most killing", it just so happens that (at this point in time) in the US this poor are black, while in other countries the social segregation goes around different lines (e.g. gipsies in eastern europe). Decades of persecution may or may not matter, but those also seem a minor issue, as most countries have had high criminality among poor/uneducated/mistreated people before (e.g. italian immigrants in US beginning of 1900, "wops") even without a history of repression. [0] http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/homicide.html http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/homicide.htm... I'm reading the 2010 or most recent column [1] data for england+wales, not northern ireland, not sure why not scotland

And at what point do such things become a pattern? Unfortunately, mass shootings happen in the US at a rate of roughly one per year.

by scott_s 14y ago

And at what point do such things become a pattern? Unfortunately, mass shootings happen in the US at a rate of roughly one per year.

gizmo686 14y ago

So about one shooting a year, this year's had 12 fatalities. Remember that heat wave/power outage combination we had on the east cost (USA); at least 46 fatalities [1] [1]http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/06/12597271-dozens-of-deaths-tied-to-heat-wave-over-last-2-weeks?lite http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/06/12597271-dozens...

scott_s 14y ago
And I hope that as a result of those outages, the power companies and state and local governments will evaluate if any policy or infrastructure changes could improve their ability to get the power back on.

riffraff 14y ago

firearms killings _are_ a pattern, if I recall correctly they are something between 5 and 10 times more frequent in US than other first wold countries. I personally believe that US citizens are unable to understand how dumb their attitude to weapons is, but + mass shootings wouldn't be much impacted by changes in the policy + mass shooting don't seem to have a strong correlation with firearm policy

learc83 14y ago
I agree with you on the mass shootings aspect. However... >firearms killings _are_ a pattern, if I recall correctly they are something between 5 and 10 times more frequent in US than other first wold countries. I personally believe that US citizens are unable to understand how dumb their attitude to weapons is, You can't compare crime rates without controlling for other differences. Most other first world countries are much more ethnically homogenous than the U.S. And they don't suffer from the cultural problems caused by the fairly recent institutional persecution of an entire class of people. It's not very PC to talk about, and I think that the high incidence of crime amongst black Americans is directly caused by the decades of persecution they suffered which causes them to occupy a lower socio-economic position on average than whites, not any inherent racial differences. But whatever the reason, whites and blacks both have similar access to guns and similar gun ownership rates, yet if you only count white americans, you'll find a fairly similar gun crime rate to the rest of the first World, so clearly, easy access to guns isn't the problem. The closest country I can think of to our situation is South Africa (Rights recently restored to an historical lower class. Though it's still not a great comparison because of their relatively lower GDP per capital, and different demographics). Their gun violence rate is about 5 times that of the US.
- sgoranson 14y ago
  Offhand, do you know of any material that delves deeper into that taboo topic? Sociologically I find it really interesting but like you said, it's not a popular subject.
  - learc83 14y ago
    You can check the DOJ for statistics, but I've found it incredibly hard to find any unbiased analysis. I was interested in the topic after I saw a DOJ chart that listed crime by race. I had to research myself to find anything really useful, and by research I just mean taking data from DOJ statistics. The thing is, it's like we live in 2 separate countries, if you're white or asian, America is almost as safe as other first world countries. If you're Black or Hispanic it's much, much more dangerous.
    - lars512 14y ago
      To be clear, this is after controlling for income? It's not just about poverty?
      - learc83 14y ago
        Black Americans are 2 to 3 times more likely to live below the poverty line than white Americans, and the median white household makes about 1.5 times more money than the median black household. But black Americans are about 8 times more likely to commit a violent crime, and about 6 times more likely to be the victim of a violent crime. I've seen some statistics that show at least a portion could be accounted for by controlling for the increased percentage of black single mothers.
- riffraff 14y ago
  Thanks for the answer, yes, there are many factors to take into account, but ascribing the high homicide rate only to racial diversity seems reductive. Consider this data[0], in the context of Europe: UK[1] has likely more racial diversity than Denmark and Latvia, but firearm homicides/100k people is lower (0.1 vs 0.3 and 0.2, US has 3.0 ). I imagine that "black poor/uneducated/mistreated people are responsible for most killings", is actually the same as saying "poor/uneducated/mistreated people are responsible for most killing", it just so happens that (at this point in time) in the US this poor are black, while in other countries the social segregation goes around different lines (e.g. gipsies in eastern europe). Decades of persecution may or may not matter, but those also seem a minor issue, as most countries have had high criminality among poor/uneducated/mistreated people before (e.g. italian immigrants in US beginning of 1900, "wops") even without a history of repression. [0] http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/homicide.html http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/homicide.htm... I'm reading the 2010 or most recent column [1] data for england+wales, not northern ireland, not sure why not scotland