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That's an important point. For a more detailed discussion of it, I recommend Dave Grossman's On Killing. He makes a convincing argument that the long-term downw

That's an important point. For a more detailed discussion of it, I recommend Dave Grossman's On Killing. He makes a convincing argument that the long-term downward trend in the U.S. murder rate is a function of faster trips to the hospital (due to better first responder protocols), and better care once in hospital. An examination of the combined total of reported aggravated assaults and murders, according to Grossman, implies that we're getting more violent over time.

schoen 12y ago
So Grossman's theory is that it's just plain harder to kill people nowadays, not any particular lack of trying to do so?
- leroy_masochist 12y ago
  His theory is that many attempted murders are prosecuted as aggravated assaults, and that advances in various medical best practices (care delivered on ambulance, emergency surgery, etc) have increased the survival rate of people who have been victims of assault, thus making the total number of people who die from murder decrease as a percentage of the population....but the actual rate of people trying to kill each other has increased.
kahirsch 12y ago
> He makes a convincing argument that the long-term downward trend in the U.S. murder rate is a function of faster trips to the hospital (due to better first responder protocols), and better care once in hospital. There was a disconnect between murder rate and aggravated assault rate from the mid-1970s to about 1990, but before then and after then, the two rates were highly correlated. Graph: http://i.imgur.com/bVG4RHm.png http://i.imgur.com/bVG4RHm.png
njharman 12y ago
When your stats are reported rates. You can't make claims about actual rates. could be we are just reporting more violence. Cause better record keeping.less lynchings. Which knows.
Gibbon1 12y ago
Yeah but that doesn't explain the decline in forcible rape in the US from 1970 to present.

schoen 12y ago

So Grossman's theory is that it's just plain harder to kill people nowadays, not any particular lack of trying to do so?

leroy_masochist 12y ago
His theory is that many attempted murders are prosecuted as aggravated assaults, and that advances in various medical best practices (care delivered on ambulance, emergency surgery, etc) have increased the survival rate of people who have been victims of assault, thus making the total number of people who die from murder decrease as a percentage of the population....but the actual rate of people trying to kill each other has increased.

kahirsch 12y ago

> He makes a convincing argument that the long-term downward trend in the U.S. murder rate is a function of faster trips to the hospital (due to better first responder protocols), and better care once in hospital. There was a disconnect between murder rate and aggravated assault rate from the mid-1970s to about 1990, but before then and after then, the two rates were highly correlated. Graph: http://i.imgur.com/bVG4RHm.png http://i.imgur.com/bVG4RHm.png

njharman 12y ago

When your stats are reported rates. You can't make claims about actual rates. could be we are just reporting more violence. Cause better record keeping.less lynchings. Which knows.

Gibbon1 12y ago

Yeah but that doesn't explain the decline in forcible rape in the US from 1970 to present.