7 ms·

Gun homicides down dramatically, Americans unaware

44 points by gregrata 12y ago

RazorCrusade 12y ago
That's nice, but when almost every other civilized country in the world is at less than 0.25 gun-related homicides per 100,000, we have a long, long ways to go.
- ahomescu1 12y ago
  Why do people care about "gun-related homicides" so much? Homicide is bad regardless of how it's done, I wonder how the US stands in overall homicides versus other countries.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    For whatever it's worth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#By_country http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...
    - jessaustin 12y ago
      Interesting: USA is fifth-lowest in the Western Hemisphere. If nearly all of the Americas (and Africa!) are considered high, perhaps the colonial history plays a role? This wouldn't really be a factor you could blame on current political systems.
      - ahomescu1 12y ago
        I wonder how much it is due to the drug cartels and gangs.
  - bane 12y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Homicide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Hom...
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - RazorCrusade 12y ago
    I was just counter-pointing what the article seems to be touting as a huge positive, specifically from the research they cite: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2013/05/firearms_final_05-2013.pdf http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2013/05/firearms_final_.... The "49% decline" is based on gun-related homicides per 100,000 people. I never intended for that to be taken as "gun homicides are the only homicides that matter". That's silly.
    - ahomescu1 12y ago
      > I never intended for that to be taken as "gun homicides are the only homicides that matter". That's silly. I didn't interpret things as extremely as that, I just feel that I don't think the distinction really matters (as long as someone got murdered, I'm not sure it matters whether it was by gun). What also bothers me is that numbers on gun homicides feel to me like pro- or anti-gun propaganda, which is annoying either way.
  - dfc 12y ago
    The US homicide data is pretty easy to look up. The homicide rate in China is the country that I wonder about.
- dethstar 12y ago
  There's just no way to prevent this. http://www.theonion.com/articles/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this,36131/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/no-way-to-prevent-this-says...
- shortsightedsid 12y ago
  > almost every other civilized country in the world. Eh? Not sure what you mean by civilized country. If you mean a richer country vs. a poorer one, then it's a bad choice of words.
sportanova 12y ago
I'm wondering how America went so awry with gun violence. Israel and Switzerland have high rates of firearm possession, but a fraction of the violence. Better training (military)? Less inequality? More homogenous cultures?
- henrymercer 12y ago
  The disparity goes back over 100 years. Even in 1914, a city such as Philadelphia had 10X the homicide rate of London. The best book I have read on the subject is Raymond Fosdick's "Crime in America and the Police" https://archive.org/details/crimeinamericapo00fosd https://archive.org/details/crimeinamericapo00fosd I think the reasons he points out in the 1910's still basically are the same reasons the crime rate are higher today. Edit: also, the best book I have read on the more modern problem of violence and urban decay in northern American cities is "Devil's Night" by Ze'Ev Chafets http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Night-Other-Detroit-Vintage-ebook/dp/B00EMXBZMI/ http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Night-Other-Detroit-Vintage-ebo...
  - sportanova 12y ago
    Interesting, at least the first chapter seems to say that it's due to having a much more diverse population - is that pretty much the tl:dr?
    - henrymercer 12y ago
      No there is more to it than that.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
      - greggman 12y ago
        I'm not disagreeing with the general premise but stuff like "lots of rules, those who don't follow the rules are shunned and usually do not reproduce because no one in the group wants them" is interesting in what I think it makes people imagine vs reality. As an American who hadn't lived aboard I'd read that and think "Wow, that place must be pretty boring". But, living in Tokyo for many years, while I certainly see those elements, especially in business, the reality is I feel more free here than the USA. You can drink anywhere, parks, streets, etc unlike the "freedom USA". You can party as long as you want. There's no curfews (California has a 2am curfew on liquor so almost all clubs close before 2am. NYC has a 4am curfew, Tokyo has no curfew. Most clubs/bar are open til 5-6am and there are plenty of places to party after). On top of which there are stores/clubs/groups that cater to nearly every interest. I'm not trying to suggest Tokyo is better. I'm only trying to clarify that "more rules" doesn't directly translate into "less freedom". It could just as easily be the rule "do whatever you want as long as you are responsible about it" where as in the USA as far as I can tell there are way more rules (ie, laws) trying to restrict what you can do. Maybe those are in response to the issues you brought up though where because of diversity people don't feel connected to each other and therefore don't feel a responsibility to be responsible about their activities so laws are added to try to reel them in.
jessaustin 12y ago
...what you’re watching on the news, may be skewing your view. This seems like an understatement.
- Afforess 12y ago
  If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed
adamconroy 12y ago
Even if it has decreased by 49%, 51% of a big number is still a big number.
scottkduncan 12y ago
What a ridiculous article. Yes, in the context of rapidly declining crime rates of all kinds, gun homicides are down. And yet it's the specter of omnipresent crime that many Americans hold up as the reason we need guns to keep us safe, ignoring all the statistics that show overall gun deaths and gun suicides are far higher in the U.S. than any other developed country.
- sp332 12y ago
  Countries with looser gun laws also have lower gun crime rates. So banning guns doesn't seem to be the answer.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - makmanalp 12y ago
    Maybe you got the relationship backwards. Maybe the countries that have lower crime gun crime rates just don't feel the need for gun laws.
  - hahainternet 12y ago
    Correlation does not equal causation.
    - sp332 12y ago
      Lack of correlation is evidence of lack of causation.
  - _delirium 12y ago
    One thing I've tried and failed to find on this subject is a breakdown by kind of guns. The vast majority of gun crime uses handguns, so I've been interested in finding data on handgun ownership rates and seeing if there's any relationship. But all the data I can find comparing gun-ownership rates to gun-homicide rates includes both handguns and long guns (rifles, shotguns), which have very different crime characteristics. For example Sweden actually has quite a few guns, but they are almost all rifles in the rural far north, not handguns in Stockholm or Malmö, which I suspect makes a big difference. I'm not sure the data I'm looking for would actually show anything interesting either, but it's kind of odd that I can't find it at all.
zoloff1 12y ago
So are we just getting better at keeping people alive or is the number of people shot going down?
EGreg 12y ago
More people are at home. Less altercations. More surfing the internet. Just as consumerism helped pacify people's urges (see Century of the Self http://vimeo.com/m/67977038 http://vimeo.com/m/67977038) so the internet did it even better: Sexual urges - porn Entertainment - movies etc Education - wikipedia etc People are more educated, more sedentary, richer and have more to lose
pmorici 12y ago
There was an interesting article posted a while back showing a strong correlation between crime and the levels of lead in the environment most notably from leaded gasoline. The theory is that the reason crime has been dropping so much is because leaded gas was outlawed and it has taken the better part of the past couple decades for those bad effects to wear off. http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-li...

44 points by gregrata 12y ago

That's nice, but when almost every other civilized country in the world is at less than 0.25 gun-related homicides per 100,000, we have a long, long ways to go.

ahomescu1 12y ago
Why do people care about "gun-related homicides" so much? Homicide is bad regardless of how it's done, I wonder how the US stands in overall homicides versus other countries.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  For whatever it's worth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#By_country http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...
  - jessaustin 12y ago
    Interesting: USA is fifth-lowest in the Western Hemisphere. If nearly all of the Americas (and Africa!) are considered high, perhaps the colonial history plays a role? This wouldn't really be a factor you could blame on current political systems.
    - ahomescu1 12y ago
      I wonder how much it is due to the drug cartels and gangs.
- bane 12y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Homicide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Hom...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- RazorCrusade 12y ago
  I was just counter-pointing what the article seems to be touting as a huge positive, specifically from the research they cite: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2013/05/firearms_final_05-2013.pdf http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2013/05/firearms_final_.... The "49% decline" is based on gun-related homicides per 100,000 people. I never intended for that to be taken as "gun homicides are the only homicides that matter". That's silly.
  - ahomescu1 12y ago
    > I never intended for that to be taken as "gun homicides are the only homicides that matter". That's silly. I didn't interpret things as extremely as that, I just feel that I don't think the distinction really matters (as long as someone got murdered, I'm not sure it matters whether it was by gun). What also bothers me is that numbers on gun homicides feel to me like pro- or anti-gun propaganda, which is annoying either way.
- dfc 12y ago
  The US homicide data is pretty easy to look up. The homicide rate in China is the country that I wonder about.
dethstar 12y ago
There's just no way to prevent this. http://www.theonion.com/articles/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this,36131/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/no-way-to-prevent-this-says...
shortsightedsid 12y ago
> almost every other civilized country in the world. Eh? Not sure what you mean by civilized country. If you mean a richer country vs. a poorer one, then it's a bad choice of words.

sportanova 12y ago

I'm wondering how America went so awry with gun violence. Israel and Switzerland have high rates of firearm possession, but a fraction of the violence. Better training (military)? Less inequality? More homogenous cultures?

henrymercer 12y ago
The disparity goes back over 100 years. Even in 1914, a city such as Philadelphia had 10X the homicide rate of London. The best book I have read on the subject is Raymond Fosdick's "Crime in America and the Police" https://archive.org/details/crimeinamericapo00fosd https://archive.org/details/crimeinamericapo00fosd I think the reasons he points out in the 1910's still basically are the same reasons the crime rate are higher today. Edit: also, the best book I have read on the more modern problem of violence and urban decay in northern American cities is "Devil's Night" by Ze'Ev Chafets http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Night-Other-Detroit-Vintage-ebook/dp/B00EMXBZMI/ http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Night-Other-Detroit-Vintage-ebo...
- sportanova 12y ago
  Interesting, at least the first chapter seems to say that it's due to having a much more diverse population - is that pretty much the tl:dr?
  - henrymercer 12y ago
    No there is more to it than that.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
    - greggman 12y ago
      I'm not disagreeing with the general premise but stuff like "lots of rules, those who don't follow the rules are shunned and usually do not reproduce because no one in the group wants them" is interesting in what I think it makes people imagine vs reality. As an American who hadn't lived aboard I'd read that and think "Wow, that place must be pretty boring". But, living in Tokyo for many years, while I certainly see those elements, especially in business, the reality is I feel more free here than the USA. You can drink anywhere, parks, streets, etc unlike the "freedom USA". You can party as long as you want. There's no curfews (California has a 2am curfew on liquor so almost all clubs close before 2am. NYC has a 4am curfew, Tokyo has no curfew. Most clubs/bar are open til 5-6am and there are plenty of places to party after). On top of which there are stores/clubs/groups that cater to nearly every interest. I'm not trying to suggest Tokyo is better. I'm only trying to clarify that "more rules" doesn't directly translate into "less freedom". It could just as easily be the rule "do whatever you want as long as you are responsible about it" where as in the USA as far as I can tell there are way more rules (ie, laws) trying to restrict what you can do. Maybe those are in response to the issues you brought up though where because of diversity people don't feel connected to each other and therefore don't feel a responsibility to be responsible about their activities so laws are added to try to reel them in.

jessaustin 12y ago

...what you’re watching on the news, may be skewing your view. This seems like an understatement.

Afforess 12y ago
If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed

adamconroy 12y ago

Even if it has decreased by 49%, 51% of a big number is still a big number.

scottkduncan 12y ago

What a ridiculous article. Yes, in the context of rapidly declining crime rates of all kinds, gun homicides are down. And yet it's the specter of omnipresent crime that many Americans hold up as the reason we need guns to keep us safe, ignoring all the statistics that show overall gun deaths and gun suicides are far higher in the U.S. than any other developed country.

sp332 12y ago
Countries with looser gun laws also have lower gun crime rates. So banning guns doesn't seem to be the answer.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- makmanalp 12y ago
  Maybe you got the relationship backwards. Maybe the countries that have lower crime gun crime rates just don't feel the need for gun laws.
- hahainternet 12y ago
  Correlation does not equal causation.
  - sp332 12y ago
    Lack of correlation is evidence of lack of causation.
- _delirium 12y ago
  One thing I've tried and failed to find on this subject is a breakdown by kind of guns. The vast majority of gun crime uses handguns, so I've been interested in finding data on handgun ownership rates and seeing if there's any relationship. But all the data I can find comparing gun-ownership rates to gun-homicide rates includes both handguns and long guns (rifles, shotguns), which have very different crime characteristics. For example Sweden actually has quite a few guns, but they are almost all rifles in the rural far north, not handguns in Stockholm or Malmö, which I suspect makes a big difference. I'm not sure the data I'm looking for would actually show anything interesting either, but it's kind of odd that I can't find it at all.

zoloff1 12y ago

So are we just getting better at keeping people alive or is the number of people shot going down?

EGreg 12y ago

More people are at home. Less altercations. More surfing the internet. Just as consumerism helped pacify people's urges (see Century of the Self http://vimeo.com/m/67977038 http://vimeo.com/m/67977038) so the internet did it even better: Sexual urges - porn Entertainment - movies etc Education - wikipedia etc People are more educated, more sedentary, richer and have more to lose

pmorici 12y ago

There was an interesting article posted a while back showing a strong correlation between crime and the levels of lead in the environment most notably from leaded gasoline. The theory is that the reason crime has been dropping so much is because leaded gas was outlawed and it has taken the better part of the past couple decades for those bad effects to wear off. http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-li...