5 ms·

The drop is all the more remarkable considering that there are at least 168,000,000 more guns in circulation in the US now than when gun homicide peaked in 1993

by jstalin 13y ago

The drop is all the more remarkable considering that there are at least 168,000,000 more guns in circulation in the US now than when gun homicide peaked in 1993.[1] [1]: https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics/reports/1998_2013_state_program_to_date_purpose_ids-033113.pdf https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics/reports/1998_2013_sta...

DougWebb 13y ago
Possible cause and effect? That's one of the claims of the folks who promote private gun ownership.
- jstalin 13y ago
  While I'm a gun supporter, I think the decline in overall crime has more to do with the reduction in environmental lead: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-li...
  - DougWebb 13y ago
    Interesting theory... but to really evaluate it you'd have to consider all environmental changes that could impact mental behavior. The usage rates of various legal and illicit drugs shift over time, as does the content of our food supply. It'd be a tough analysis, but I'd bet it would produce some interesting results.
  - mitchty 13y ago
    Actually I forget where I read it but there is a hypothesis going around that the overall crime reduction has to do more with liberalization of things like birth control and access to abortion options. At work at the moment and don't have time to pull up the details until tonight, but the examples given say of romania where none of the above is legally available still has a high crime rate. The general gist of things are that having to keep around kids a parent doesn't want tends to lead to bad outcomes for the children in life. Its much more complex than that and obviously we can't run randomized trials across multiple generations to validate things (not that it would even be ethical), but its interesting nonetheless.
    - DanBC 13y ago
      > the overall crime reduction has to do more with liberalization of things like birth control and access to abortion options. Freakonomics says this.
      - jack-r-abbit 13y ago
        Great book. That chapter was a little awkward to read (for me) but it made sense.
    - 3pt14159 13y ago
      That has mostly been shown to only have mild statistical relevancy, not nearly enough to be the majority of the explanation.
      - jonathanjaeger 13y ago
        The Freakonomics explanation (I just finished reading that chapter), says legalized abortion was a major contributor to decreasing crime rates in the 90's. However there were other contributing factors too. Author notes that it wasn't the "innovative policing strategies" of NYC that helped decrease crime rate, but the fact that they hired so many more police. There's a correlation there too. There's also a lot of discussion about crack cocaine and how that increased crime at its peak, but then related crime subsided.
criley 13y ago
There's also 58,500,000 more human beings in the US than when gun homicide peaked in 1993. If you're going to talk about gun inflation, it helps to also mention human inflation.
- DigitalJack 13y ago
  Fair point. As mentioned elsewhere, the gun delta is ~3x the population delta.
dmix 13y ago
To keep the numbers relative, US Population: 1993: 257,746,103 2012: 315,809,000 = 58,062,897 more people since 1993. So 2.8x as many guns than population increase.
- jordan0day 13y ago
  Maybe it's an economic indicator? Collecting guns is a popular hobby, so perhaps a rise in gun sales correlates to a rise in the economic standing of gun collectors?
  - maxerickson 13y ago
    100 million modern, collectible guns seems unlikely. (I agree that there are lots of people that like to collect guns, I just don't think they could possibly be driving (that much) manufacturing, making a lot of something makes it less collectible.)
    - ctdonath 13y ago
      Oh, collecting has a lot to do with it even if they're current mass-produced products. It's easy to get into the mode of "I want one of those...and one of those...and one of those...and one of those...and one of those...and one of those...". It's accentuated by political attempts to limit acquisition of guns, leading to "I'd better get everything I want NOW while I still can!"
    - fywacro 13y ago
      Your point seems reasonable & logical. But in my experience, it's also incorrect: Plenty of gun collecting is predominantly around modern, mass-produced, non-scarce guns. I believe it's because scarcity is not a significant driver of value, in most gun owners' minds. Gun collectors derive a large portion of their guns' value from using (firing) them in a sports setting. Contrast with art or stamps, which don't really have recreational uses, just "stand-back-and-appreciate-it" value. Some guns DO have this museum-style appreciation-value, too, but the contribution is negligable WRT most mass-produced, modern guns. Also, modern guns have plenty of mythological cachet. Film & video games have celebrated and iconified the distinctive lines of particular guns, like the AR-15 and its variants. Even with millions of ARs in circulation, it may have a higher "cool factor" than an older, rarer flintlock pistol, especially to the younger set. Which brings me to my final point: In the US, gun ownership appears to be on the rise, lately, in non-traditonal demographics. More so than in decades past, you'll find new gun owners trendng: * young * politically liberal * high disposable income * shooting paper or zombies, not hunting * getting introduced to guns via friends, not family They buy guns for the same reason they buy video games--Fun. To that end, their buying habits tend toward the gun equivalents of the Honda Civic or Jeep Wrangler: Reliable, cost-effective, semi-automatic. Generally, that means a modern, mass-produced gun.
ahitler 13y ago
So, are you proud of your nickname?
scottkduncan 13y ago
"These statistics represent the number of firearm background checks initiated through the NICS. They do not represent the number of firearms sold. Based on varying state laws and purchase scenarios, a one-to-one correlation cannot be made between a firearm background check and a firearm sale." I imagine the total's quite a bit lower than the stated figure since many of these background checks would be for transfers and sales of used weapons, not always just new guns entering the system. I also imagine some people go through the background check but then for one reason or another don't complete the sale. Still, the number of new guns in circulation is likely very large.
- jstalin 13y ago
  Also keep in mind that one background check may represent the sale of several firearms. One additional data point - nearly 9 million guns were manufactured or imported into the US in 2010 alone: http://www.businessinsider.com/more-gun-stores-in-america-than-grocery-stores-2012-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/more-gun-stores-in-america-th...
  - scottkduncan 13y ago
    From the same article, it says there were 16.5 million background checks during 2010. Perhaps the ratio between the number of new guns manufactured/imported into the U.S. is relatively stable with the number of background checks. If so, 168M background checks since 1993 would mean about 90M new guns in the United States during that period.

by jstalin 13y ago

DougWebb 13y ago

Possible cause and effect? That's one of the claims of the folks who promote private gun ownership.

jstalin 13y ago
While I'm a gun supporter, I think the decline in overall crime has more to do with the reduction in environmental lead: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-li...
- DougWebb 13y ago
  Interesting theory... but to really evaluate it you'd have to consider all environmental changes that could impact mental behavior. The usage rates of various legal and illicit drugs shift over time, as does the content of our food supply. It'd be a tough analysis, but I'd bet it would produce some interesting results.
- mitchty 13y ago
  Actually I forget where I read it but there is a hypothesis going around that the overall crime reduction has to do more with liberalization of things like birth control and access to abortion options. At work at the moment and don't have time to pull up the details until tonight, but the examples given say of romania where none of the above is legally available still has a high crime rate. The general gist of things are that having to keep around kids a parent doesn't want tends to lead to bad outcomes for the children in life. Its much more complex than that and obviously we can't run randomized trials across multiple generations to validate things (not that it would even be ethical), but its interesting nonetheless.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    > the overall crime reduction has to do more with liberalization of things like birth control and access to abortion options. Freakonomics says this.
    - jack-r-abbit 13y ago
      Great book. That chapter was a little awkward to read (for me) but it made sense.
  - 3pt14159 13y ago
    That has mostly been shown to only have mild statistical relevancy, not nearly enough to be the majority of the explanation.
    - jonathanjaeger 13y ago
      The Freakonomics explanation (I just finished reading that chapter), says legalized abortion was a major contributor to decreasing crime rates in the 90's. However there were other contributing factors too. Author notes that it wasn't the "innovative policing strategies" of NYC that helped decrease crime rate, but the fact that they hired so many more police. There's a correlation there too. There's also a lot of discussion about crack cocaine and how that increased crime at its peak, but then related crime subsided.

criley 13y ago

There's also 58,500,000 more human beings in the US than when gun homicide peaked in 1993. If you're going to talk about gun inflation, it helps to also mention human inflation.

DigitalJack 13y ago
Fair point. As mentioned elsewhere, the gun delta is ~3x the population delta.

dmix 13y ago

To keep the numbers relative, US Population: 1993: 257,746,103 2012: 315,809,000 = 58,062,897 more people since 1993. So 2.8x as many guns than population increase.

jordan0day 13y ago
Maybe it's an economic indicator? Collecting guns is a popular hobby, so perhaps a rise in gun sales correlates to a rise in the economic standing of gun collectors?
- maxerickson 13y ago
  100 million modern, collectible guns seems unlikely. (I agree that there are lots of people that like to collect guns, I just don't think they could possibly be driving (that much) manufacturing, making a lot of something makes it less collectible.)
  - ctdonath 13y ago
    Oh, collecting has a lot to do with it even if they're current mass-produced products. It's easy to get into the mode of "I want one of those...and one of those...and one of those...and one of those...and one of those...and one of those...". It's accentuated by political attempts to limit acquisition of guns, leading to "I'd better get everything I want NOW while I still can!"
  - fywacro 13y ago
    Your point seems reasonable & logical. But in my experience, it's also incorrect: Plenty of gun collecting is predominantly around modern, mass-produced, non-scarce guns. I believe it's because scarcity is not a significant driver of value, in most gun owners' minds. Gun collectors derive a large portion of their guns' value from using (firing) them in a sports setting. Contrast with art or stamps, which don't really have recreational uses, just "stand-back-and-appreciate-it" value. Some guns DO have this museum-style appreciation-value, too, but the contribution is negligable WRT most mass-produced, modern guns. Also, modern guns have plenty of mythological cachet. Film & video games have celebrated and iconified the distinctive lines of particular guns, like the AR-15 and its variants. Even with millions of ARs in circulation, it may have a higher "cool factor" than an older, rarer flintlock pistol, especially to the younger set. Which brings me to my final point: In the US, gun ownership appears to be on the rise, lately, in non-traditonal demographics. More so than in decades past, you'll find new gun owners trendng: * young * politically liberal * high disposable income * shooting paper or zombies, not hunting * getting introduced to guns via friends, not family They buy guns for the same reason they buy video games--Fun. To that end, their buying habits tend toward the gun equivalents of the Honda Civic or Jeep Wrangler: Reliable, cost-effective, semi-automatic. Generally, that means a modern, mass-produced gun.

ahitler 13y ago

So, are you proud of your nickname?

scottkduncan 13y ago

"These statistics represent the number of firearm background checks initiated through the NICS. They do not represent the number of firearms sold. Based on varying state laws and purchase scenarios, a one-to-one correlation cannot be made between a firearm background check and a firearm sale." I imagine the total's quite a bit lower than the stated figure since many of these background checks would be for transfers and sales of used weapons, not always just new guns entering the system. I also imagine some people go through the background check but then for one reason or another don't complete the sale. Still, the number of new guns in circulation is likely very large.

jstalin 13y ago
Also keep in mind that one background check may represent the sale of several firearms. One additional data point - nearly 9 million guns were manufactured or imported into the US in 2010 alone: http://www.businessinsider.com/more-gun-stores-in-america-than-grocery-stores-2012-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/more-gun-stores-in-america-th...
- scottkduncan 13y ago
  From the same article, it says there were 16.5 million background checks during 2010. Perhaps the ratio between the number of new guns manufactured/imported into the U.S. is relatively stable with the number of background checks. If so, 168M background checks since 1993 would mean about 90M new guns in the United States during that period.