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Tangentially - the thing that most surprised me about this article was reading that over 150,000 Americans have been murdered in less than a decade. I find tha

Tangentially - the thing that most surprised me about this article was reading that over 150,000 Americans have been murdered in less than a decade. I find that number utterly staggering. Wikipedia says that the homicide rate in the US is 4.2 per 100,000, which is more than 2.5 times the rate in Canada and 3.5 times the rate in the UK.

ProCynic 14y ago
You'll probably find this interesting then. It's about how violence rates have changed over time, and some guesses about causation. http://www.amazon.com/The-Better-Angels-Nature-ebook/dp/B0052REUW0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1353437806&sr=8-2&keywords=better+angels+of+our+nature http://www.amazon.com/The-Better-Angels-Nature-ebook/dp/B005...
- anu_gupta 14y ago
  Yes, that does look interesting. Have Kindled it, thanks!
engtech 14y ago
If you find that staggering, then absolutely avoid looking at Japan homicide stats. Japan is 0.4 per 100,000. Japan has had the strictest gun control in the world for the longest time, and has a homicide rate to match. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...
- Domenic_S 14y ago
  Suicide rate in Japan is 23.7 per 100,000, double that of most developed countries. Also, Japan's murder stats are rigged -- if the police don't know who the killer is it isn't a murder, it's an "abandoned body". See Freakonomics for more on this.
- makmanalp 14y ago
  I support gun control and everything, but how do you know that the low homicide rate is because of the gun control? Japan has been a model for social order (putting aside organized crime, in the sense that you lose your wallet and it gets returned to you, muggings don't happen often, etc.) for a long time.
  - engtech 14y ago
    I don't know that the homicide rate is because of gun control. I don't think it is possible to directly come to that conclusion given the other societal factors. But it's an interesting data point. This article tries to dissuade that control gun is responsible for the low homicide rate in it's summary. http://www.guncite.com/journals/dkjgc.html http://www.guncite.com/journals/dkjgc.html "The idea that Japanese gun laws should serve as model for other nations is not uncommon. Some Americans propose laws even more severe than Japan's.[124] Often, the suggestion comes as an offhand remark in an newspaper editorial, but even when the suggestion is advanced by scholars, the reasoning is often superficial and unpersuasive. L Craig Parker, an American expert on the Japanese police, proposes that the United States adopt Japanese gun control and also other Japanese strategies, such as a National Police Agency. Parker's brief discussion of guns, however, simply recites statistics showing that Japan has less guns and less gun crime. His only evidence that gun control would actually reduce crime in America is a study by Dr Leonard Berkowitz arguing that guns cause aggression. Actually, what the studies by Berkowitz and others showed was that people acted more aggressively towards other people if the other person was associated with weapons; for example, motorists reacted more aggressively to other vehicles slow to accelerate when a red light turned green if the slow car had a rude bumper sticker and a rifle in a gun rack.[125] Summing up the perspective of many gun prohibitionists, one Japanese newspaper reporter writes, 'It strikes me as clear that there is a distinct correlation between gun control laws and the rate of violent crime. The fewer the guns, the less the violence'.[126] But the claim that fewer guns correlates with less violence is plainly wrong. America experienced falling crime and homicide rates in the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1980s, all periods during which per capita gun (p.40)ownership, especially handgun ownership, rose.[127] And Japan, with its severe gun control, suffers no less murder than Switzerland, one of the most gun-intensive societies on earth.[128] Japan's gun control does play an important role in the low Japanese crime rate, but not because of some simple relation between gun density and crime. Japan's gun control is one inseparable part of a vast mosaic of social control. Gun control underscores the pervasive cultural theme that the individual is subordinate to society and to the Government. The same theme is reflected in the absence of protection against Government searches and prosecutions. The police are the most powerful on earth, partly because of the lack of legal constraints and particularly because of their social authority." I found that article from this: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/a-land-without-guns-how-japan-has-virtually-eliminated-shooting-deaths/260189/ http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/a-l...
- cleaver 14y ago
  Comparison between the USA and Canada is probably more meaningful. In recent times, Canadian gun laws have been stricter, but that was not always the case. There's something else behind the numbers. Universal healthcare? Cold weather? Who knows?
  - engtech 14y ago
    If you're talking about the recent long gun registry, Canada has always had much stricter gun legislation than the U.S. This website gives a walk through of the process required to legally obtain a gun in Canada: http://www.howtogetagun.ca/ http://www.howtogetagun.ca/ In 35 years of urban living in Canada, I've never seen a firearm that was not being carried by a law enforcement official. I do not know anyone who owns a fire arm. This seems very different compared to some of the slogans I saw in the recent U.S. election where you could "vote and win a free gun". http://www.inquisitr.com/376318/vote-in-georgia-win-a-free-gun/ http://www.inquisitr.com/376318/vote-in-georgia-win-a-free-g...
    - JoeAltmaier 14y ago
      This underlines what NRA folks have been saying: strict gun registration laws are tantamount to a ban, as your experience illustrates.
      - UnFleshedOne 14y ago
        Not in my experience. There are plenty of shooting ranges in Canada and they are always full. Properly equipped shooting range is the only place where you can legally shoot restricted guns -- pistols and such. Rifles and shotguns (unrestricted) on the other hand are common in rural areas and you can buy one in Canadian Tire in hunting section and shoot on your property or crown land. I know few people who drive around with a rifle in the back of their truck. No automatics anywhere though. :( You have to pass a safety test (common sense, plus some regulations) and get few references to slightly increase the chance that you are not criminally insane to get PAL, but it is really less than a weekend worth of effort (and some waiting for papers).
  - 14y ago
grecy 14y ago
America has the highest murder rate of the developed world, higher even than a chunk of developing countries. My quick glace showed America at 4.2, the next developed country is Finland at 2.2, so living in America you're 1.9 times more likely to be murdered than any other developed country. Of course, the vast majority of Developed countries have a murder rate less than 1.0 per 100,000 people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...
- anu_gupta 14y ago
  I sort of knew the murder rate in the US was high, but I didn't realise it was quite so out of step with "peer" countries (eg Canada, UK, Japan, etc). And furthermore, having a tangible number like 150,000 people murdered drives home the stark reality of the situation.
- tadfisher 14y ago
  The United States is very large, and the homicide rate varies wildly between states and cities. Where I live, Oregon, the homicide rate is 2.1 per 100,000 people, a little bit better than Finland as a whole. Hawaii is at 1.2, New Hampshire and Vermont are at 1.3, and Minnesota is at 1.4. Contrast those with Louisiana at 11.2 per 100,000 people (!), Mississippi at 8.0, New Mexico at 7.5, and South Carolina at 6.8. It's clear that the homicide rates in the US are aligned mostly along socio-economic and racial lines, so it doesn't make sense to compare the whole country against the more homogeneous states such as Finland, Norway, Germany, and Japan. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-state http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-...
  - grecy 14y ago
    I find it interesting when Americans don't want America as a whole to be compared to other countries as a whole, because inevitably it makes for an unfavorable comparison. Of course looking at a country-wide statistic is an average across the whole country - that's the entire point. I'm sure if you really wanted to, you could find a part of Oregon where the homicide rate is 0.1, but that doesn't tell us much about the bigger picture. Is America one united country, or isn't it?
joshuahedlund 14y ago
Just something to keep in mind when comparing statistics between countries... The United States is approximately the size/population of Europe, and its individual states are approximately the size/population of European countries. It's always hard for the US to beat every state-sized country, just as there will always be US states with numbers above and below the overall average. The overall European average of 3.5 per 100,000 is somewhat less impressive.
- anu_gupta 14y ago
  That European average is for the whole of the geographical entity known as Europe, so I'm not sure how fair the comparison is. The population of Europe as a whole is 2.3 times that of the US. Also the US is a single political entity, with (for the most part) ons set of laws. Many of the Eastern European countries do not fall within a similarly consistent legal framework. If remove Eastern Europe, then the homicide rates for the rest of Europe are: Northern Europe 1.5 Southern Europe 1.4 Western Europe 1.0 Conversely, including other parts of the Americas (ie Canada and Central America) massively increases the average homicide rate - Central America's rate is a truly shocking 28.5
- flyinRyan 14y ago
  So next time someone trots out the US being the largest economy on earth, I can use your same argument? We should be comparing all of Europe to the US since that's more realistic, right?

ProCynic 14y ago

You'll probably find this interesting then. It's about how violence rates have changed over time, and some guesses about causation. http://www.amazon.com/The-Better-Angels-Nature-ebook/dp/B0052REUW0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1353437806&sr=8-2&keywords=better+angels+of+our+nature http://www.amazon.com/The-Better-Angels-Nature-ebook/dp/B005...

anu_gupta 14y ago
Yes, that does look interesting. Have Kindled it, thanks!

engtech 14y ago

If you find that staggering, then absolutely avoid looking at Japan homicide stats. Japan is 0.4 per 100,000. Japan has had the strictest gun control in the world for the longest time, and has a homicide rate to match. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...

Domenic_S 14y ago
Suicide rate in Japan is 23.7 per 100,000, double that of most developed countries. Also, Japan's murder stats are rigged -- if the police don't know who the killer is it isn't a murder, it's an "abandoned body". See Freakonomics for more on this.
makmanalp 14y ago
I support gun control and everything, but how do you know that the low homicide rate is because of the gun control? Japan has been a model for social order (putting aside organized crime, in the sense that you lose your wallet and it gets returned to you, muggings don't happen often, etc.) for a long time.
- engtech 14y ago
  I don't know that the homicide rate is because of gun control. I don't think it is possible to directly come to that conclusion given the other societal factors. But it's an interesting data point. This article tries to dissuade that control gun is responsible for the low homicide rate in it's summary. http://www.guncite.com/journals/dkjgc.html http://www.guncite.com/journals/dkjgc.html "The idea that Japanese gun laws should serve as model for other nations is not uncommon. Some Americans propose laws even more severe than Japan's.[124] Often, the suggestion comes as an offhand remark in an newspaper editorial, but even when the suggestion is advanced by scholars, the reasoning is often superficial and unpersuasive. L Craig Parker, an American expert on the Japanese police, proposes that the United States adopt Japanese gun control and also other Japanese strategies, such as a National Police Agency. Parker's brief discussion of guns, however, simply recites statistics showing that Japan has less guns and less gun crime. His only evidence that gun control would actually reduce crime in America is a study by Dr Leonard Berkowitz arguing that guns cause aggression. Actually, what the studies by Berkowitz and others showed was that people acted more aggressively towards other people if the other person was associated with weapons; for example, motorists reacted more aggressively to other vehicles slow to accelerate when a red light turned green if the slow car had a rude bumper sticker and a rifle in a gun rack.[125] Summing up the perspective of many gun prohibitionists, one Japanese newspaper reporter writes, 'It strikes me as clear that there is a distinct correlation between gun control laws and the rate of violent crime. The fewer the guns, the less the violence'.[126] But the claim that fewer guns correlates with less violence is plainly wrong. America experienced falling crime and homicide rates in the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1980s, all periods during which per capita gun (p.40)ownership, especially handgun ownership, rose.[127] And Japan, with its severe gun control, suffers no less murder than Switzerland, one of the most gun-intensive societies on earth.[128] Japan's gun control does play an important role in the low Japanese crime rate, but not because of some simple relation between gun density and crime. Japan's gun control is one inseparable part of a vast mosaic of social control. Gun control underscores the pervasive cultural theme that the individual is subordinate to society and to the Government. The same theme is reflected in the absence of protection against Government searches and prosecutions. The police are the most powerful on earth, partly because of the lack of legal constraints and particularly because of their social authority." I found that article from this: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/a-land-without-guns-how-japan-has-virtually-eliminated-shooting-deaths/260189/ http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/a-l...
cleaver 14y ago
Comparison between the USA and Canada is probably more meaningful. In recent times, Canadian gun laws have been stricter, but that was not always the case. There's something else behind the numbers. Universal healthcare? Cold weather? Who knows?
- engtech 14y ago
  If you're talking about the recent long gun registry, Canada has always had much stricter gun legislation than the U.S. This website gives a walk through of the process required to legally obtain a gun in Canada: http://www.howtogetagun.ca/ http://www.howtogetagun.ca/ In 35 years of urban living in Canada, I've never seen a firearm that was not being carried by a law enforcement official. I do not know anyone who owns a fire arm. This seems very different compared to some of the slogans I saw in the recent U.S. election where you could "vote and win a free gun". http://www.inquisitr.com/376318/vote-in-georgia-win-a-free-gun/ http://www.inquisitr.com/376318/vote-in-georgia-win-a-free-g...
  - JoeAltmaier 14y ago
    This underlines what NRA folks have been saying: strict gun registration laws are tantamount to a ban, as your experience illustrates.
    - UnFleshedOne 14y ago
      Not in my experience. There are plenty of shooting ranges in Canada and they are always full. Properly equipped shooting range is the only place where you can legally shoot restricted guns -- pistols and such. Rifles and shotguns (unrestricted) on the other hand are common in rural areas and you can buy one in Canadian Tire in hunting section and shoot on your property or crown land. I know few people who drive around with a rifle in the back of their truck. No automatics anywhere though. :( You have to pass a safety test (common sense, plus some regulations) and get few references to slightly increase the chance that you are not criminally insane to get PAL, but it is really less than a weekend worth of effort (and some waiting for papers).
- 14y ago

grecy 14y ago

America has the highest murder rate of the developed world, higher even than a chunk of developing countries. My quick glace showed America at 4.2, the next developed country is Finland at 2.2, so living in America you're 1.9 times more likely to be murdered than any other developed country. Of course, the vast majority of Developed countries have a murder rate less than 1.0 per 100,000 people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...

anu_gupta 14y ago
I sort of knew the murder rate in the US was high, but I didn't realise it was quite so out of step with "peer" countries (eg Canada, UK, Japan, etc). And furthermore, having a tangible number like 150,000 people murdered drives home the stark reality of the situation.
tadfisher 14y ago
The United States is very large, and the homicide rate varies wildly between states and cities. Where I live, Oregon, the homicide rate is 2.1 per 100,000 people, a little bit better than Finland as a whole. Hawaii is at 1.2, New Hampshire and Vermont are at 1.3, and Minnesota is at 1.4. Contrast those with Louisiana at 11.2 per 100,000 people (!), Mississippi at 8.0, New Mexico at 7.5, and South Carolina at 6.8. It's clear that the homicide rates in the US are aligned mostly along socio-economic and racial lines, so it doesn't make sense to compare the whole country against the more homogeneous states such as Finland, Norway, Germany, and Japan. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-state http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-...
- grecy 14y ago
  I find it interesting when Americans don't want America as a whole to be compared to other countries as a whole, because inevitably it makes for an unfavorable comparison. Of course looking at a country-wide statistic is an average across the whole country - that's the entire point. I'm sure if you really wanted to, you could find a part of Oregon where the homicide rate is 0.1, but that doesn't tell us much about the bigger picture. Is America one united country, or isn't it?

joshuahedlund 14y ago

Just something to keep in mind when comparing statistics between countries... The United States is approximately the size/population of Europe, and its individual states are approximately the size/population of European countries. It's always hard for the US to beat every state-sized country, just as there will always be US states with numbers above and below the overall average. The overall European average of 3.5 per 100,000 is somewhat less impressive.

anu_gupta 14y ago
That European average is for the whole of the geographical entity known as Europe, so I'm not sure how fair the comparison is. The population of Europe as a whole is 2.3 times that of the US. Also the US is a single political entity, with (for the most part) ons set of laws. Many of the Eastern European countries do not fall within a similarly consistent legal framework. If remove Eastern Europe, then the homicide rates for the rest of Europe are: Northern Europe 1.5 Southern Europe 1.4 Western Europe 1.0 Conversely, including other parts of the Americas (ie Canada and Central America) massively increases the average homicide rate - Central America's rate is a truly shocking 28.5
flyinRyan 14y ago
So next time someone trots out the US being the largest economy on earth, I can use your same argument? We should be comparing all of Europe to the US since that's more realistic, right?