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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 t

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.
      - ChrisNorstrom 12y ago
        I meant "cultural rules", not "bureaucratic".
    - ihnorton 12y ago
      > They have unstable family structures, little to no culture, little to no rules, and no care for education. I wonder how that could possibly happen after 350 years of forcible familial separation, extermination of cultural practices, arbitrary rules enforced at crack of a whip and gunbarrel, and prohibition from receiving education.
      - ChrisNorstrom 12y ago
        ● And Jews went through 2,000 years of persecution, expulsion, finally a holocaust, and didn't even have their own country again until recently when Israel was created. ● And Europeans went through thousands of years of inter-european wars, a plague that killed off 1/4 of the population, 2 world wars, muslim invasions, and mongolian invasions. Not to mention suppressing education and science and causing centuries of dark ages due to religious extremism. ● And Cambodians went through a genocide where Po Pots waged a communist war against all intellectuals, teachers, and high achievers that killed off 25% of the cambodian population. ● And Bulgarians went through 500 years of Turkish rule which included mass killings and slavery and left "its culture shattered and separated from Europe for 500 years". Followed by devastating communism. ● Those educated in more than just American History know that this list goes on and on and spans thousands of years. Everyone's been through hell. Suffering is not an excuse of one's own problems. Blaming problems on others does not empower a group to fix problems within it's own community. Plus, the groups with the problems we discussed (lack of family structure, culture, education, etc) have them even in countries that did not "separate them for 350 years, exterminate their cultural practices, whip them or prohibit them from receiving education". Vilifying one group and victimizing another doesn't help anyone. You just did the very thing I described in my original post "Homogenous societies [...] are more responsible for their failures and successes than diverse societies. They have no one to blame but themselves. They cannot pass off their suffering or their problems onto others. [and force themselves to improve]"
        _delirium 12y ago
        One interesting difference is that all the groups you mentioned succeeded in forming their own independent countries which they now control as the dominant group, after the period of oppression in question: modern Israel, Cambodia, Bulgaria. I wonder what the achievement rates look like for groups for which that isn't the case, who still live in a country controlled by another group? For example, Kurds in Turkey. If we take Israel as an example, the way post-Holocaust Jews empowered themselves to fix their own oppression was to create a new country they controlled, win a war of independence defending it, and then emigrate there en masse. A parallel philosophy has at times also been popular among Black Americans, in that case known as Black Nationalism or Afro-Nationalism (subtly different terms depending on the focus), i.e. that Black Americans should control their own destiny in their own country, which requires, as a prerequisite, declaring independence from white-controlled America. But that movement has not been successful, in part because of the lack of any agreement on where the country would be located (various locations in both North America and Africa have been proposed), and in part because the Integrationist philosophy, holding that Black Americans are Americans, not a separate nation, has eclipsed Afro-Nationalism in popularity. There have been experiments in setting up an African-American state in Africa (Liberia), and also attempts to set up Black-controlled enclaves within the United States (one of the goals of the Black Panther movement), but they have been mostly unsuccessful. Actually the viewpoints of the Black Panthers on cultural cohesion and healthy communities sound not too different from what you've been mentioning in this thread.
lsllc 12y ago
Poverty and lack of access to [mental] healthcare (in the US). Gun violence is heavily skewed to poor areas; go to a wealthy area and people leave their doors/cars unlocked -- near zero crime. Now show me a mass shooter that has not had serious, prior mental health problems.
- sportanova 12y ago
  What do other countries do in terms of mental healthcare to prevent these kind of things? Better monitoring and response to early warning signs, and then forcefully committing patients?
  - sp332 12y ago
    America had a movement to "de-institutionalize", that is, to help known mentally ill people adapt and cope with day-to-day life instead of locking them all in asylums. But the funding got cut... so now we have inadequate support and they end up in prisons because there are no asylums. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/12/what-happened-to-u-s-mental-health-care-after-deinstitutionalization/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/12/w...
    - sportanova 12y ago
      Interesting - but is that the same tactic that has been successful in other countries, that didn't cut funding?
adamconroy 12y ago
I don't know if my anecdote constitutes data, but the first time I went to the US in 1999 I landed at JFK, hired a car, was driving along slowly looking for an entrance to a freeway to Brooklyn. A guy in a convertible pulled out in front of me so close that I had to swerve into the left lane to avoid him, once I passed him I changed back into the right lane so I could use the upcoming freeway entrance, the guy roared past me, swerved back in front of me and jammed his brakes so quickly I barely was able to stop without hitting him. He then sat there in front of me yelling something for about 30 seconds whilst waving a gun in the air. He then took off and I never saw him again. I'm not sure what that means exactly but I think it indicates a culture of aggression, bullying, anger, self importance, and when coupled with loose gun laws it means lots of guns get fired.
- gregrata 12y ago
  I've lived in the US for over 40 years and never had anything like that happen (and yeah, I've been in NY a few times). 'course, also anecdotal :)
  - gregrata 12y ago
    Oh WAIT! It might be because I always have a RPG strapped to my back... ?
  - adamconroy 12y ago
    Well to be fair the rest of my trip was much less eventful, but there were two other incidents of note. In Manhattan, whilst watching the cockroaches in my hotel room and perusing the brown paper bag full of porn mags I found behind the bed, I heard someone rattling my door quite loudly so I yelled out 'hey', and he replied 'sorry man, i thought it was my room'. In Virginia I was driving on a side road that I thought should lead back to the 'blue ridge parkway'. I pulled over to take a piss in the bushes, and whilst pissing I noticed a dead deer with a bullet hole in its neck.
    - gregrata 12y ago
      So I've had #1 happen before (the rattling - I have never found a paper bag of p0rn!!!) It was legit - the hotel gave the wrong room number - but in my case, the guys key worked. Startled both of us :)
bpodgursky 12y ago
To put it delicately, you'll find that Israelis and Swiss living in the US are not the ones committing the gun violence.
- EGreg 12y ago
  It may have something to do withthe mandatory military service BEFORE getting the gun.
  - mitchty 12y ago
    That and most gun issues in the us mostly fall into gang activity or suicide. It isn't so simple to compare country XYZ to the USA, especially a homogenous society like Switzerland with different military requirements compared to the US with a vastly less analogous population and training.
    - sportanova 12y ago
      Very true - I need to find some stats that compare gun violence in countries with gang / suicides excluded or broken out
  - Crito 12y ago
    I have the sneaking suspicion that his comment is not restricted to current or former Israeli and Swiss citizens...
beefman 12y ago
In case it's useful, I've collected international data on gun ownership, homicide, etc. here http://lumma.org/econ/Homicide-Guns.xls http://lumma.org/econ/Homicide-Guns.xls
nl 12y ago
Israel and Switzerland have dramatically different gun ownership patterns than in the US. I'm not familiar with the Swiss model, but in Israel: - You must have gun license, which are strictly controlled and must be renewed every 3 years[1] - You get a one-time supply of 50 bullets, which cannot be replenished[1] These measures have been effective: The 2011 attempted assassination of a US representative renewed the national gun control debate. Gun advocates claim mass-casualty events are mitigated and deterred with three policies: (a) permissive gun laws, (b) widespread gun ownership, (c) and encouragement of armed civilians who can intercept shooters. They cite Switzerland and Israel as exemplars. We evaluate these claims with analysis of International Crime Victimization Survey (ICVS) data and translation of laws and original source material. Swiss and Israeli laws limit firearm ownership and require permit renewal one to four times annually. ICVS analysis finds the United States has more firearms per capita and per household than either country. Switzerland and Israel curtail off-duty soldiers' firearm access to prevent firearm deaths. Suicide among soldiers decreased by 40 per cent after the Israeli army's 2006 reforms. Compared with the United States, Switzerland and Israel have lower gun ownership and stricter gun laws, and their policies discourage personal gun ownership. [1] http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Israeli-gun-control-regulations-opposite-of-US http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Israeli-gun-control-regul... [2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22089893 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22089893
- jordan0day 12y ago
  I wonder if most "per capita" assessments in the USA take the "collector effect" into account. That is, I've never owned a gun. I have a friend who owns something like 15 guns. I don't think it's necessarily accurate to say our gun ownership rate is 7.5. I mean, I think "per capita" almost always means "average (mean)", but I feel like the rate in my example should be 0.5, not 7.5.
  - _delirium 12y ago
    There are statistics on % of the population (or households) that own guns, which might be what you're looking for? In your example that would be 50%, as one of the people owns one-or-more guns, and the other owns zero. In the U.S. the ownership rate hovers around 30%, though it varies considerably by state, from a low of 9% (Hawaii) to a high of 60% (Wyoming).

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.
    - ChrisNorstrom 12y ago
      I meant "cultural rules", not "bureaucratic".
  - ihnorton 12y ago
    > They have unstable family structures, little to no culture, little to no rules, and no care for education. I wonder how that could possibly happen after 350 years of forcible familial separation, extermination of cultural practices, arbitrary rules enforced at crack of a whip and gunbarrel, and prohibition from receiving education.
    - ChrisNorstrom 12y ago
      ● And Jews went through 2,000 years of persecution, expulsion, finally a holocaust, and didn't even have their own country again until recently when Israel was created. ● And Europeans went through thousands of years of inter-european wars, a plague that killed off 1/4 of the population, 2 world wars, muslim invasions, and mongolian invasions. Not to mention suppressing education and science and causing centuries of dark ages due to religious extremism. ● And Cambodians went through a genocide where Po Pots waged a communist war against all intellectuals, teachers, and high achievers that killed off 25% of the cambodian population. ● And Bulgarians went through 500 years of Turkish rule which included mass killings and slavery and left "its culture shattered and separated from Europe for 500 years". Followed by devastating communism. ● Those educated in more than just American History know that this list goes on and on and spans thousands of years. Everyone's been through hell. Suffering is not an excuse of one's own problems. Blaming problems on others does not empower a group to fix problems within it's own community. Plus, the groups with the problems we discussed (lack of family structure, culture, education, etc) have them even in countries that did not "separate them for 350 years, exterminate their cultural practices, whip them or prohibit them from receiving education". Vilifying one group and victimizing another doesn't help anyone. You just did the very thing I described in my original post "Homogenous societies [...] are more responsible for their failures and successes than diverse societies. They have no one to blame but themselves. They cannot pass off their suffering or their problems onto others. [and force themselves to improve]"
      - _delirium 12y ago
        One interesting difference is that all the groups you mentioned succeeded in forming their own independent countries which they now control as the dominant group, after the period of oppression in question: modern Israel, Cambodia, Bulgaria. I wonder what the achievement rates look like for groups for which that isn't the case, who still live in a country controlled by another group? For example, Kurds in Turkey. If we take Israel as an example, the way post-Holocaust Jews empowered themselves to fix their own oppression was to create a new country they controlled, win a war of independence defending it, and then emigrate there en masse. A parallel philosophy has at times also been popular among Black Americans, in that case known as Black Nationalism or Afro-Nationalism (subtly different terms depending on the focus), i.e. that Black Americans should control their own destiny in their own country, which requires, as a prerequisite, declaring independence from white-controlled America. But that movement has not been successful, in part because of the lack of any agreement on where the country would be located (various locations in both North America and Africa have been proposed), and in part because the Integrationist philosophy, holding that Black Americans are Americans, not a separate nation, has eclipsed Afro-Nationalism in popularity. There have been experiments in setting up an African-American state in Africa (Liberia), and also attempts to set up Black-controlled enclaves within the United States (one of the goals of the Black Panther movement), but they have been mostly unsuccessful. Actually the viewpoints of the Black Panthers on cultural cohesion and healthy communities sound not too different from what you've been mentioning in this thread.

lsllc 12y ago

Poverty and lack of access to [mental] healthcare (in the US). Gun violence is heavily skewed to poor areas; go to a wealthy area and people leave their doors/cars unlocked -- near zero crime. Now show me a mass shooter that has not had serious, prior mental health problems.

sportanova 12y ago
What do other countries do in terms of mental healthcare to prevent these kind of things? Better monitoring and response to early warning signs, and then forcefully committing patients?
- sp332 12y ago
  America had a movement to "de-institutionalize", that is, to help known mentally ill people adapt and cope with day-to-day life instead of locking them all in asylums. But the funding got cut... so now we have inadequate support and they end up in prisons because there are no asylums. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/12/what-happened-to-u-s-mental-health-care-after-deinstitutionalization/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/12/w...
  - sportanova 12y ago
    Interesting - but is that the same tactic that has been successful in other countries, that didn't cut funding?

adamconroy 12y ago

I don't know if my anecdote constitutes data, but the first time I went to the US in 1999 I landed at JFK, hired a car, was driving along slowly looking for an entrance to a freeway to Brooklyn. A guy in a convertible pulled out in front of me so close that I had to swerve into the left lane to avoid him, once I passed him I changed back into the right lane so I could use the upcoming freeway entrance, the guy roared past me, swerved back in front of me and jammed his brakes so quickly I barely was able to stop without hitting him. He then sat there in front of me yelling something for about 30 seconds whilst waving a gun in the air. He then took off and I never saw him again. I'm not sure what that means exactly but I think it indicates a culture of aggression, bullying, anger, self importance, and when coupled with loose gun laws it means lots of guns get fired.

gregrata 12y ago
I've lived in the US for over 40 years and never had anything like that happen (and yeah, I've been in NY a few times). 'course, also anecdotal :)
- gregrata 12y ago
  Oh WAIT! It might be because I always have a RPG strapped to my back... ?
- adamconroy 12y ago
  Well to be fair the rest of my trip was much less eventful, but there were two other incidents of note. In Manhattan, whilst watching the cockroaches in my hotel room and perusing the brown paper bag full of porn mags I found behind the bed, I heard someone rattling my door quite loudly so I yelled out 'hey', and he replied 'sorry man, i thought it was my room'. In Virginia I was driving on a side road that I thought should lead back to the 'blue ridge parkway'. I pulled over to take a piss in the bushes, and whilst pissing I noticed a dead deer with a bullet hole in its neck.
  - gregrata 12y ago
    So I've had #1 happen before (the rattling - I have never found a paper bag of p0rn!!!) It was legit - the hotel gave the wrong room number - but in my case, the guys key worked. Startled both of us :)

bpodgursky 12y ago

To put it delicately, you'll find that Israelis and Swiss living in the US are not the ones committing the gun violence.

EGreg 12y ago
It may have something to do withthe mandatory military service BEFORE getting the gun.
- mitchty 12y ago
  That and most gun issues in the us mostly fall into gang activity or suicide. It isn't so simple to compare country XYZ to the USA, especially a homogenous society like Switzerland with different military requirements compared to the US with a vastly less analogous population and training.
  - sportanova 12y ago
    Very true - I need to find some stats that compare gun violence in countries with gang / suicides excluded or broken out
- Crito 12y ago
  I have the sneaking suspicion that his comment is not restricted to current or former Israeli and Swiss citizens...

beefman 12y ago

In case it's useful, I've collected international data on gun ownership, homicide, etc. here http://lumma.org/econ/Homicide-Guns.xls http://lumma.org/econ/Homicide-Guns.xls

nl 12y ago

Israel and Switzerland have dramatically different gun ownership patterns than in the US. I'm not familiar with the Swiss model, but in Israel: - You must have gun license, which are strictly controlled and must be renewed every 3 years[1] - You get a one-time supply of 50 bullets, which cannot be replenished[1] These measures have been effective: The 2011 attempted assassination of a US representative renewed the national gun control debate. Gun advocates claim mass-casualty events are mitigated and deterred with three policies: (a) permissive gun laws, (b) widespread gun ownership, (c) and encouragement of armed civilians who can intercept shooters. They cite Switzerland and Israel as exemplars. We evaluate these claims with analysis of International Crime Victimization Survey (ICVS) data and translation of laws and original source material. Swiss and Israeli laws limit firearm ownership and require permit renewal one to four times annually. ICVS analysis finds the United States has more firearms per capita and per household than either country. Switzerland and Israel curtail off-duty soldiers' firearm access to prevent firearm deaths. Suicide among soldiers decreased by 40 per cent after the Israeli army's 2006 reforms. Compared with the United States, Switzerland and Israel have lower gun ownership and stricter gun laws, and their policies discourage personal gun ownership. [1] http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Israeli-gun-control-regulations-opposite-of-US http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Israeli-gun-control-regul... [2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22089893 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22089893

jordan0day 12y ago
I wonder if most "per capita" assessments in the USA take the "collector effect" into account. That is, I've never owned a gun. I have a friend who owns something like 15 guns. I don't think it's necessarily accurate to say our gun ownership rate is 7.5. I mean, I think "per capita" almost always means "average (mean)", but I feel like the rate in my example should be 0.5, not 7.5.
- _delirium 12y ago
  There are statistics on % of the population (or households) that own guns, which might be what you're looking for? In your example that would be 50%, as one of the people owns one-or-more guns, and the other owns zero. In the U.S. the ownership rate hovers around 30%, though it varies considerably by state, from a low of 9% (Hawaii) to a high of 60% (Wyoming).