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I don't have the numbers on hand, but I've tested that claim in the past, and have to say that it isn't true. Without knowing which 4 cities you were citing, l
by bmelton 13y ago
I don't have the numbers on hand, but I've tested that claim in the past, and have to say that it isn't true.
Without knowing which 4 cities you were citing, let's assume that we're talking about 4 Chicagos (the national worst), whose homicide tally for last year was 500 (435 gun-based), that means we could remove as much as 2,000 from the intentional homicide rate, which doesn't move us substantially along the scale, and certainly doesn't put is within even a couple dozen of the bottom of the list.
If we refine the parameters even to be more optimistic, and limit it from first-world countries with similar domestic output, it still doesn't push us substantially down the list to consider us even remotely "one of the lowest".
Of note, perhaps, is that I am a civil rights supporter, and I believe that the second amendment grants us the right to keep and bear arms without infringement. Regardless, I tried for a few days to make that claim reconcile with reality, and couldn't.
If anybody knows of the criteria chosen, I'd gladly re-do the numbers, but I feel it would have to stack the deck pretty deliberately to get even close to that outcome in actuality.
- migrantgeek 13y agoI've never heard this claim however I was interested so I took the 2011 data for US cities with a population of 250K or more and it looks like the distribution isn't even close to support that claim although Detroit looks awful https://docs.google.com/a/migrantgeek.com/spreadsheet/oimg?key=0Aow_fWW33jg_dDcyNTRuRUhOYkZrS3NEZFJLcW9Pc2c&oid=2&zx=sdzm9skyw407 https://docs.google.com/a/migrantgeek.com/spreadsheet/oimg?k...
- ctdonath 13y agoThe extent of the jurisdiction may be a squishy factor. The "greater metropolitan area" may extend well beyond the strictly-speaking city limits.
- bmelton 13y agoVery fine point. I don't know that I've ever looked at data that represented crime in "a given city" and "surrounding areas". Might indeed be the tipping point. Thanks!
- hga 13y agoIndeed. In the case I'm most familiar with, a whole lot of people decamped from impossible D.C. to Prince George's county, Maryland. Now, to someone who lived in Arlington, Virginia for a dozen years the crime in PG was awful. To someone living in D.C. I strongly suspect PG was not bad at all, and being allowed to own a firearm in your house made I'm sure a significant difference. Or take Boston, which the WASPs kept small after the Irish took over the city; without looking in more detail, the top level Wikipedia page indicates annexations stopped after 1874 with one non-WASP exception (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyde_Park,_Boston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyde_Park,_Boston).