Harvard study: More guns mean more murders

[Kelly Rupert]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American states where more people own guns have higher murder rates, including murders of children, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health reported on Thursday.
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The study, certain to provoke arguments in a country where gun ownership is an important political issue, found that about one in three U.S. households reported firearm ownership.

"Our findings suggest that in the United States, household firearms may be an important source of guns used to kill children, women and men, both on the street and in their homes," said Matthew Miller, assistant professor of health policy and injury prevention, who led the study.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/guns_murders_dc

[thecrow]

1. Oooooh, go figure!

DUH

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. Sky is blue. Water is wet.

[Irreverend IX]

48. Y'know Tierra...

I've seen you write in favor of gun bans before. I've also seen you call yourself an anarchist before. How do those two principles coexist?

[Name removed]

70. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sinkingfeeling]

3. What a surprise!

[Mikey929]

4. Get Ready for Attack!

LOL

[proud2BlibKansan]

26. and here ya go

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x133678

[LSK]

5. in other news, water is found to be wet

:D

[maxsolomon]

6. but, without guns

how would we protect our fences from reckless teenagers? ;)

[Kelly Rupert]

Crossbows n/t.

[maxsolomon]

9. did you hear that Mr. Hackett?

with the threat of crossbow-armed homeowners, all the teenagers of Indian Hill will know to keep your fence intact!

[Benhurst]

7. A very controversial view in

BushAmerica, Land of the Dumbs.

[Fovea]

8. And an elephant seems very like a rope

to the blind fellow who grabs its tail.

Violence in areas with high gun ownership is a multi variant problem, and looking at it through the lens of public health gives you this conclusion.

However, the same public health officials also will tell you that tobacco should be illegal. I think that the real solutions to violence and family murderers are not simply ones of sequestration.

It is not that much of a reduction to absurdity to say that next comes rope, rat poison, knives or other sharp objects. For that matter, cars. We kill 42 thousand Americans a year in them.

Make the society more humane, and you will find it populated by more humans. Make it more cut-throat, and more throats will be cut.

Glorify violence, you get more violence. Take wrestling and shows with eroticized killing off the TV, and few head-locks and murders will occur. But ultimately the answer is not in what you ban. The answer is in what you promote.

Wanna see how sick we are? Go into room with fox news in the background and say "Dennis Kucinich believes in a department of peace." and pay careful attention to the reaction. No one will debunk the idea. They will smear the messenger. Why, because no one in that reality tunnel believes in peace. As a nation we are involved in a campaign of oil piracy.

Pirates frequently kill each other when they are not actively (T)raiding. Pirates always have. We have a long road back from the jolly roger, and we ain't even on it yet.

I fear a great tribulation is blowing back our way. When it does, I want something besides my longbow and my sword. Not that there's anything wrong with a longbow, but it is a skill intensive tool.

Yeats' beast is no longer slouching toward Bethlehem to be born. It is already wrapped in oily rags in an ammo bunker somewhere. I think it prudent to shoot it between the horns before it starts giving orders.

[karash]

14. .

"However, the same public health officials also will tell you that tobacco should be illegal."

Straw man. Invalid and pointless.

"It is not that much of a reduction to absurdity to say that next comes rope, rat poison, knives or other sharp objects."

No, that is not true. The point behind banning handguns in particular is that they are not designed to do anything other than to kill human beings. They are not for hunting, tying, rat removal, chopping steak, or picking ice. Their very existence is anathema to human life, because they are an instrument created to end it.

"Take wrestling and shows with eroticized killing off the TV..."

This is as simplistic a solution to the problem of socialized violence as you accuse gun-removal of being.

"Wanna see how sick we are? Go into room with fox news in the background and say "Dennis Kucinich believes in a department of peace." and pay careful attention to the reaction. No one will debunk the idea. They will smear the messenger."

Maybe I missed something, but I do not recall the study in the linked article suggesting that all guns should be banned. Rather, I saw it reporting the results of a study about guns and death. I would analogize your jumping to conclusions about gun-removal as similar to the "smearing the messenger" found in your above-quoted example.

"I fear a great tribulation is blowing back our way. When it does, I want something besides my longbow and my sword."

You have nothing that can fight a tank squadron, distant artillery, fighter jets, bombs n' missiles, or even just a squad of troops in flak jackets. Believing a personal firearm to be any sort of check on government tyranny is childish. Even IEDs are not such a check. Ask Kaczynski.

"Guns" is how the NRA-types are fooled into believing that they have power over their government. "Votes" are how a slightly-more-perceptive group is fooled. Waving either your Ruger or your "I voted" sticker in my face will convince me of neither.

[Fovea]

16. Other disciplines inform me differently.

I certainly agree that irresponsible or criminal gun owners are as destructive as irresponsible drivers, and both should be be sanctioned severely by society. Both can and should be minimized by not encouraging irresponsibility and by rewarding behaviors that reinforce cooperative participation in society.

Perhaps I failed to make the core of my point with enough clarity.

That point being that we have already set our society on a path of violence at both a macro and micro level. In an America where citizen was not a cogener for chump, violence would be far less endemic. In an America where we were not officially there in Iraq to keep the oil out of the hands of 'islamists,' in a nation where our official policy isn't violent acquisitiveness, we would be less inclined to using violence as the first solution.

And I think you may have not quite gotten my point about looking at violence exclusively through the lens of public health. Public Health views the world through a particular filter, required by the discipline. There is nothing wrong with that, but the issue is larger than a single view.

I grew up in the country. I own pistols, rifles, and a shotgun. I am not an NRA member, nor to I believe in the right to own automatic weapons. But I do not agree with your assertion regarding pistols. I have, and still do occaisionally hunt with a pistol. Further, pistols are also the ideal weapon for outdoor workers and recreationalists in areas with large predators. I also support CCW laws, because there are dangerous places and situations that require it.

However, regarding your question about the usage of a ruger versus an armored division, it is to be noted that our asses are being handed to us by folks with used AK47s and improvised ordinance. And I don't think that I will be facing down a Abrams tank with my old Colt Dragoon cap and ball, but I do expect it would keep looters out of my house, or right wing vigilanties out of the neighborhood.

Blowback comes in many forms, and I think we are going to shortly be paying for the chaos we have sown. If the 14th century was Barb Tuchman's distant mirror to the 20th, then the 15-16th maybe the 21st century's. Our New American Century may be more like a War of the Roses, Catholic V. Protestant Holy Wars sort of era. Read the Pentagon's report on the political effects of climate change in the 21st C. This is going to be a dark, bumpy ride. Sectarian conflict is not just for Iraq. America is wobbling toward a constitutional crisis, and even possibly, a civil war. In my neck of the woods, the first civil war was a game called Jayhawks vs. Bushwhackers. Not a lot of pitched battles, but a lot of pot shots across the road and mobs burning folks out.

We live in a time where our current definition of civilization requires stability and a constant logistics stream just to keep suburbia happy. When the big oil tap gets turned off in the Middle East, or the refinaries are burning here at home, how long will it take for disorder to overtake cupcake land, or the land of the mini ranch?

Our current administration does not appreciate how desperately dependent America is on its creditors and oil suppliers. Or the pretzeldent doesn't care. Either case bodes ill for us in the near term. When the local Safeway is out of food for the third straight day, and people are walking to the gas station with a can in their hand, expect a certain small, but significant percentage of that gas to end up in non refundable bottles.

Welcome back to the year formerly called 1968.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

35. ...

:applause:


except for the owning guns thing... only the boys inherited the guns in Grandpa's Will. :eyes:

[shance]

10. Why does Washington DC, which has a gun ban, have highest per-capita rate of murder in the country?

While Vermont, which has automatic conceal carry, the lowest?

I think the issue of gun control needs to be addressed more regarding our tax dollars being spent to build up more military wars abroad, while our schools, health care and overall infrastructure are being dismantled due to lack of funds.

[karash]

11. .

There are many pressing problems in America and the world today. However, that does not mean that we should ignore the fact that too many too-deadly implements are in the hands of the ignorant and dangerous (i.e. us).

Letting yahoo Americans keep guns while we work on educating them to be safer would be like letting the blind keep driver's licenses while we work at developing a cure for blindness. Yes, blindness is a problem. Yes, they could drive as safely as the rest of us if they could see. But for God's sake, get them off the road until such time as it becomes safe.

[piedmont]

45. Are you honestly that elitest and authoritarian?

"Letting yahoo Americans keep guns while we work on educating them to be safer would be like letting the blind keep driver's licenses while we work at developing a cure for blindness. "

You think Americans are yahoos that can't be trusted with powerful tools? Better take away the knives, too.

[Crandor]

13. Cities with high crime will want to do something about it.

Therefore, they are more likely to ban guns.

[Xenotime]

17. Are you saying they should?

[Kelly Rupert]

21. He's saying that they do. n/t

[Kelly Rupert]

18. Because areas that have a lot of gun crime want to lower it. n/t

[spoony]

71. I suppose that theory works for the first few years

but after a few decades you'd think such laws would begin to have some kind of impact, if such laws ever have.

[billbuckhead]

34. Far, far more Americans die from guns in America than the war in Iraq

Far more are wounded. Almost as many die from guns as from car accidents. The problem is that urban people are denied their fair voting power in America.

[shance]

44. If one lived in such areas, would it not make sense to have a weapon?

Seems to me it would.

Yet the question remains, if there is an area like D.C., with a GUN BAN, why in the world is it still the largest contributor to crime?

[Porcupine]

46. Been there, done that and no.

If you have a weapon you are a tiger; all the other tigers want to kill you to protect their territory. If you are without a weapon but alert, aware and polite you can be a porcupine. The tigers do not want to waste time screwing with a porcupine; they have other tigers to kill and can't afford the wound.

Reaching for a weapon kills people who are facing somebody who has one already. When you have no weapon you learn to live with those that do i.e. gangs and cops. They are far more interested in looking out for each other than messing with you once they are sure you are unarmed and not in their business.

I once knew a cop who shot a kid in San Francisco for having a toy gun. I would never use any gun smaller that a carbine and then it's carry/shoot to kill only. Anything else is slow suicide.

I lived in gang areas in SF and the East Bay in my 20's and got along just fine with the various combatants. I stayed out of their business.

[Irreverend IX]

47. If you are without a weapon but alert...

You are a rabbit. You can duck and dodge predators, but if an angry one corners you you are SOL. If you have a weapon but don't let the dumbass gangbangers know about it, you are a porcupine. But I suppose that in the culture of urban California, since cops and gangsters are the only ones who carry guns, if you're armed and not one of the former people will treat you like one of the latter. One of the reasons the passage of liberalized concealed carry laws has coincided with drops in violent crime is the message it sends to criminals. They know that anyone they encounter on the street could be carrying a gun, and that terrorizing innocents in their turf wars could have lethal consequences.

[Porcupine]

49. Sorry, I call Bullshit.

In urban crime zones lots of people ARE carrying weapons. Mostly concealed. One of the biggest threats to the regular man on the street is getting shot by a nervous police officer; happens all the time. Your best defense against that is to stay sober and be invisible. Having a gun on your person changes your body language; you become a combatant whether you like it or not.

The fact is that in a firefight the first one shooting has an enormous advantage; likewise the first person with the gun in hand wins. Urban shootings are mostly between people who know each other very well by name or by identifying markers. Stranger shootings or shootings of the customer class are highly frowned upon by gang leaders; they attract attention. These guys are businessmen and such attention is bad for business.

The guys who worked the corner on my block knew who I was and that I was a non-threat. No problem. The police never had a chance to tag me because I was always clean/sober when on the street; also no problem. The only assaults/fights (no muggings) I ever encountered were between people of the same social strata ie skaters fighting skaters, gangbangers vs. gangbangers etc. I spent a lot of time on the streets as I liked to walk.

BTW- During the time I lived in San Francisco I did occasionally carry a weapon; a sword. In SF martial artists practice w/weapons in the parks in the mornings and afternoons and the police wholly approve. Never had a problem. Guns are for professionals and cowards.

Leave the hunting of criminals to the pros. It really does simplify things.

[Irreverend IX]

50. "Guns are for professionals and cowards."

I'm flattered. The real cowards are people who want to sacrifice Democratic political victory due to their fear of inanimate objects.

One of the biggest threats to the regular man on the street is getting shot by a nervous police officer; happens all the time. Your best defense against that is to stay sober and be invisible. Having a gun on your person changes your body language; you become a combatant whether you like it or not.

Maybe it changes your body language. Newbies to concealed carry sometimes fidget and adjust their weapons through their clothes, but as long as people avoid that behavior and treat their weapons like they there they should be all right.

The fact is that in a firefight the first one shooting has an enormous advantage; likewise the first person with the gun in hand wins.

Then draw first.

Urban shootings are mostly between people who know each other very well by name or by identifying markers. Stranger shootings or shootings of the customer class are highly frowned upon by gang leaders; they attract attention. These guys are businessmen and such attention is bad for business.

No kidding. But the mugger/burglar element make their living by preying on noncombatants. The social dynamics of San Francisco may not be conducive to mugging, but it happens in my area; I know a guy who was beaten severely by four random gangbanger types for no reason as he walked home from work one night. I make my living toting expensive and easily noticed items around, sometimes through dodgy areas, so this isn't a philosophical discussion for me.

Leave the hunting of criminals to the pros. It really does simplify things.

I've heard of people getting CCW permits and proceeding to strut through the bad parts of town like Columbo, but those are the moronic exceptions to the rule. The only criminals I'm interested in hunting are ones who attack me.

[TheGriz]

64. Hmm. Your Kung Fu is very weak!

"BTW- During the time I lived in San Francisco I did occasionally carry a weapon; a sword. In SF martial artists practice w/weapons in the parks in the mornings and afternoons and the police wholly approve. Never had a problem. Guns are for professionals and cowards.

Leave the hunting of criminals to the pros. It really does simplify things."

Mmm. Explain the moral, ethical and practical differences between your sword and a gun. Oh wait. there aren't any.

You carry it responsibly and without lethal intent. I totally respect that. Does that make it any less of a killing tool? You dance/swing it around in a park. Thats awesome, Tai Chi (or whatever) is great for the body and mind. But how is that morally, ethically or practically different from target practice?

At what distances are most LEO's killed? 0-6'. Guess what beats even a handgun for speed and accuracy at those ranges? YOUR SWORD. Guess what beats a handgun for raw killing potential at those ranges? YOUR SWORD. Which is, by far the most offense-oriented weapon? YOUR SWORD.

Don't call people with different hobbies than your own cowards. And, as someone who has been mugged and attacked on the street... bite me. I don't use "eastern" mystical parables/fables/sayings that were either (poorly)made up on the spot, misunderstood or explained badly in my internet arguments, but as I understand it, a porcupine has quills on its back - potentially lethal defensive weapons.

[spoony]

72. You contradict yourself

(I mean, in the middle of making a number of other logical blunders.)

You say:
"One of the biggest threats to the regular man on the street is getting shot by a nervous police officer; happens all the time."

Then you conclude with:
"Leave the hunting of criminals to the pros."

Who are...the police? If they are pros to be trusted with our safety, why do you assert they are a major threat to us? If they are, why do you offer such advice?

[Fovea]

55. The last time I had to draw a weapon

I was only a half a mile from my house, riding my bicycle through an industrial area where people dump a lot of stray dogs.

The three feral dogs that cornered me after a quarter mile bicycle chase were unconcerned whether I had a gun or not, until I shot. To them I was neither Tiger or Porcupine, I was Rabbit.

I might add that I had been robbed at gunpoint three times in my 20's because of my job at the time, and had an attempted robbery at club/pepperspray point two years ago.

Sadly, they only noticed the disability, without stopping to ask me if my hobby for the last 28 years before my stroke was teaching a full contact martial art. He was apprehended hors de combat a few blocks away, sadly, as I can't run anymore. Sure, I got the shit beat out of me, and was covered in pepperspray from head to toe, but he did not get my bicycle or Nikon and he spent the night in jail. He jumped bail and is still on the streets, btw.

Had I a gun on me at the time, I would have shot him at the first swing, because parrying four or five club swings with your bare hands while trying to keep your DSLR from being smacked by a 4 foot peice of rebar is not as much fun as it sounds. Fortunately, I am already numb on my semi spastic right side. ;)

I want neither to be a predator or prey, but when you are visibly disabled, trouble seems to seek you out.

[sammythecat]

82. but porcupines are well armed as you know

and predators know this as well. They mess with a porcupine and they'll get hurt. Smart ones don't mess with porcupines.

I'm "quilless". To a predator on the hunt I look like easy prey.

[krispos42]

61. Yes, it does, except that

You can't legally own or carry it. If you did have to shoot a mugger, for example, the cops would arrest both of you (assuming the mugger was still alive) and toss your collective asses in jail for many many years. Not for shooting the mugger, neccessarily, but for illegal possession of a handgun.

If you draw the gun and scare off an attacker, you don't call the cops on him because you know that you'll be arrested after making your report. The attacker will almost certainly not get arrested after his abortive attempt at a mugging, and again, you're in jail for illegal concealed carry.

I think that a lot of crime in urban areas is stopped by otherwise law-abiding people that carry illegally but we don't hear about it because there is no way they can report the crime attempt without getting thrown in with the same people they are defending themselves against.

[krispos42]

62. Well, to be fair about DC...

It is ONLY an urban area. It's suburbs are all part of other states.

If you just looked at Los Angeles, it would be high too. But California's violent crime/homicide rate is a combination of the violent urban centers, quieter suburbs, and empty rural areas. Maryland and Virginia contain the quieter suburbs and empty rural areas surrounding DC, so DC does not get that mitigating factor in it's numbers.

[Marie26]

12. Well, duhhh. nt

[jody]

15. This report appears to be a continuation of previous work which used a flawed

survey. The news release says "Respondents in all 50 states were asked whether any firearms were kept in or around their home. The survey found that approximately one in three American households reported firearm ownership."

Previous studies by the same group included such ridiculous things as rusty, inoperative guns stored in a garage to qualify a household as owning a gun.

I doubt the studies are statistically sound.

[Kelly Rupert]

19. Your rebuttal requires

there to be a statistically-significant portion of homeowners who have rusty, inoperative guns and no other weapons, and who believe that such a relic counts as a "firearm." Until you can give some statistical support for your pet theory, I think I'll stick with Harvard, thanks.

[salin]

30. links or sources, please?

Strong statements asserting facts/references to previous studies and "debinking" - need references/context. Might be open to such an assertion if I could read/study/understand from where the refutation (data wise) is sourced.

[jody]

33. Previous reports by the same group have been discussed on DU's Guns forum.

I assume those threads are available for any DU member to search if they are interested.

[candidate]

20. Wait, so guns kill people?

I thought they were there to protect our freedoms. /republican

So, crime is higher in red states than blue states. I guess that makes sense, since unwanted teen pregnancies, abortions, and divorces are also higher in red states.

Gotta love those "traditional family values." /s

[Initech]

22. Guess this was a slow news day...

[Wiley50]

23. Why Does This Post say ADVERTISMENT in all Caps

Quo Bono?

[Kelly Rupert]

24. ?

[Wiley50]

29. You Did The Cut and Paste

Didn't you see it there?

[salin]

36. if you go to the link

and see how the cut and paste happened - it is easy (for one how often cuts and pastes news articles - and has thus learned that one often has to either due it in chunks to avoid extra posting {and confusing} material that is also on the site). In this case, if you go back ot the link - one would see that the advert - is to the side (not part of the article) on the right hand side of the text - and if one did a single cut and paste, rather than doing the title seperately than the text of the article - that the "advertisement" statement is on the right hand side of the story - and is not a tag on the story as an "advertisement". Read the article linked - it does not appear to be a placed ad - but a legitimate peice. Makes more sense to read the item - and judge it on whether or not the research design is legit or not.

[SanCristobal]

25. More guns also means fewer rapes, assaults, and robberies.

When the UK and Australia heavily restricted gun ownership, their murder rates dropped slightly, while their rates for other violent crimes skyrocketed. The reverse is true for many US states adopting concealed carry laws.

I just wanted to get that out there before this disappears to the gun forum. I'm sure someone will dispute this statistic, but I'm sure many people will dispute the op statistic too.

[billbuckhead]

31. I dispute it, what crap! The Brits have a much lower rate of rape and murder

Here's reality over at Nationmaster. South Africa is one of the most heavily armed nations and has the most rape. The US rate is double the UK's. The guy who said more guns = less crime now works at the American Enterprise Institute, one of the leading think tanks behind the Iraq war. Want to bet they're liars of the first order? Check out leading gun lobby researcher John Lott/Mary Rosh. What a beaut! <http://www.whoismaryrosh.com/>
<http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_rap_percap-crime-rapes-per-capita>

[krispos42]

37. No, our homicide rate is triple that of the UK

But it used to be 8.5 times higher.

From a previous post of mine:

On a seperate issue, note on page 54 of the British Home Office report you have a URL for.

<http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs06/hosb0206.pdf>

In 1967, the UK homicide rate was 0.73 per 100,000 per year. In 2004/2005, it was 1.55 per 100,000 per year, the second-highest in the four-decade history of the report and over double 1967. Only 2002/2003 was higher, at 1.83 per 100,000 per year.

In 1967, the US homicide rate was 6.2 per 100,000 per year, 8.5 times that of the UK for the same year. In 2004, it was 5.5 per 100,000 per year, 3.5 times that of the UK.



We're getting better. They are not.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/totalstab....


And the ratio of guns in the UK to the US...

United States: estimated 250 million firearms, divided roughly equally into handguns, rifles, and pistols
United Kingdom: 1,794,411 registered firearms, of which shotguns outnumber rifles about 4:1

http://www.gunsandammomag.com/second_amendment/global_1... /
http://www.gun-control-network.org/GF01.htm

The ratio of US to UK is about 139 to 1. I will note that number for the UK does not include unregistered firearms, so the actual ratio is almost certainly significantly lower depending on how many unregistered firearms (legal or otherwise) exist in the UK.

The ratio of US to UK populations are about 5:1, so on a per capita basis, the US owns as many as 28 times as many guns as the UK, but almost certainly much less, as noted above. And the US has vastly more handguns because the UK has always had severe restrictions on their ownership, and currently has a total handgun in that country. We also have vastly more of those dreaded 'assault weapons'.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=132832&mesg_id=133002

[billbuckhead]

42. Actually gun crime is going up since the NRA took over the White House

Violent crime takes first big jump since '91
Murder numbers climb in smaller cities

From Terry Frieden
CNN
Monday, June 12, 2006; Posted: 10:24 p.m. EDT (02:24 GMT)WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Murders in the United States jumped 4.8 percent last year, and overall violent crime was up 2.5 percent for the year, marking the largest annual increase in crime in the United States since 1991, according to figures released Monday by the FBI.

Robberies nationally increased 4.5 percent, and aggravated assaults increased 1.9 percent, while the number of rapes last year fell 1.9 percent, the report said.

Crime increased most noticeably in several categories in many mid-sized cities and in the Midwest.

Law enforcement authorities and criminologists reacted cautiously, uncertain whether the preliminary statistics for 2005 signal the end of a long downward trend in crime or simply a one-year anomaly.
--------------------snip-------------------------
<http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/06/12/crime.rate/index.html>

So much for concealed carry.

[krispos42]

43. Yeah, since the economy tanked

Crime is function of the economy. And the Midwest has been struggling with meth and meth labs for a few years now, especially since the 'industrial Midwest" has been much less industrial.

The South Dakota government was issuing warning to hunters about finding abandoned meth labs and, by extensioned, unabandoned meth labs.

Nations like the UK may be inheirently more peaceful than the US, yet fluctuations in crime rates seems to roughly corrospond to the economic strength.

[slackmaster]

57. In the very long term, US homicide rate has always been about 3X that of UK

I'm too lazy to look it up on a holiday weekend especially after working until midnight last night, but statistics are available from about 1900 to present for both countries. Before 1920 neither had any real gun control laws. The US had none until 1934. Over the long haul, the murder rate of the UK has consistently been about 1/3 that of the US, sometimes a little more or a little less than that. The murder rates of both countries are correlated rather well with the unemployment rate.

[krispos42]

60. It used to be even worse

During the late 60's, our homicide rate was 8.5 times that of the UK, according to the British Home Office and the US Department of Justice. Now it's about three times that of the UK.

Our homicide rate is down 11% from 1967 levels, the UK's had doubled.

I posted refences and links further up in this thread. The UK report only went back 40 years, though.

We had a bad spike in the '80s, probably from the post-Vietnam drug surge and Reagan cutting social programs.

[sir pball]

38. We have an unpleasantly high non-gun murder rate too

(Shamelessly reposted from a prior discussion)

In 2004 (latest year data's available), the US experienced 16,137 homicides, for a rate of 5.5 per 100,000.(a) 10,654, or 66%, were committed with some form of firearm.(b) Assuming a total ban of all firearms, and also assuming that no firearm homicides would be committed using other means, the murder rate would drop to 1.86 per 100,000. Still over twice the rate of Denmark (0.79), Norway (0.78) and higher than Australia (1.28), England&Wales (1.62), France (1.64), Poland (1.64), Portugal (1.79) Germany (0.98), Iceland (1.03), Ireland (0.91), Italy (1.23), Morocco (0.47), and Slovenia (1.47) among others - STILL one of the highest of the "industrialized nations".(c) Add 1/100,000 or so for the firearm murders that would be committed with knives/blunt objects/fists&feet/poison/arson/so forth and so on and we drop farther down the list.

Facts aside - this is just homicides, even with zero guns I doubt our overall violent crime rate would drop, just shift murders to assaults. Maybe, just MAYBE, the US is an inherently more violent society than many around the world and it would be a more productive use of time and energy to focus on reducing our desire to harm one another rather than to try and restrict the means? It seems to me to be the same approach as the War on Drugs, trying to eliminate the desire through eliminating the ability to act on it...bound to be a miserable failure.

All sources are primary -
a - FBI Crime In The United States, 2004
b - US Bureau of Justice, Trends in Homicide by Weapons Type
c - UN Ninth Survey on Crime Trends, 2003-2004 (PDF)

[billbuckhead]

41. The gun lobby crowd always focus on assaults, but downplay murder

I guess you guys play the hand you're dealt. Scotland is also a violent place, even more violent than the USA, but we still beat them in murder cause guns are so easy to get. We now have a higher per capita murder rate than India.

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4257966.stm>

[sir pball]

58. I dowplayed nothing.

While I did speculate that a total gun ban would probably switch many murders to assaults (which to me is a symptom of a far worse problem...making killing easy shouldn't increase killing unless you have a bunch of very sick people who think lethal force is an acceptable response to a "wrong look", but I digress..), the factual information I presented was focused soley on murder - it shows that even with absolutely no gun crime of any sort, starting tomorrow, we'd still be lagging behind much of the industrialized world in per capita homicide rate, with a higher rate than such paradises as Syria.

I'm going to come out and blatantly ask, I have to know. Would a still world-lagging overall violent crime rate be acceptable to you just as long as people didn't use guns to go about it?

[Conan_The_Barbarian]

27. I'd like to see the study

I'll be sure to look for it as I'd like to know more about how the research was conducted. Corrolation dose not imply causation.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

28. is it a symptom or the problem?

hmmmmm....

[krispos42]

32. Sooo...

The poorest states, with the lowest per-capita income, least amount of health coverage, high unemployment rates, and a very macho attitude against mental health care have the most murders?

Shocking. I'll bet they have higher petty crime rates, too. And higher DUI rates.

I'll also bet if I wanted to I could also claim that more pickup truck ownership means more murders.

"Our findings suggest that in the United States, household firearms may be an important source of guns used to kill children, women and men, both on the street and in their homes," said Matthew Miller, assistant professor of health policy and injury prevention, who led the study.

As opposed to what? Shed guns? Doghouse guns? Boat guns? Front-porch guns? Locker-at-work guns? The guns in the local National Guard armory?

And this guy's a professor?

I'm pretty sure that in excess of 99% of the guns in the country are in a house.

Okay, running the numbers here...

68% of all civilian-owned firearms in the world are owned by US citizens, some 245 million of them.
38% of all firearms in the world are owned by US citizens.

We rank 24th in the world in homicide rate, and 8th in gun homicides.

In the UK they banned semi-automatic long guns in 1988 or so, and banned all handguns in 1997. In the past 40 years, their homicide rate has doubled, with the highest year being 2003/2004. In the same time period, our homicide rate has fallen by 11%

If you think that gun ownership somehow causes people to become killers, I think maybe you're wrong.

I believe that crime (of which homicide is a part) is due directly to the economy. During Clinton, the economy was doing pretty well, and crime rates fell. During Bush43, the economy has barely moved, and crime went up. During Reagan, his massive spending on defense and cuts in social programs greatly moved the crime rate up.

The people in the red states continuously vote against their own economic self-interest, and keep getting screwed by people who spout promises of 'the free market fixes all' and 'vote morals to fix all', etc. They're poor, there jobs are in China or Singapore, college tuition is sky-high, opportunity is low, advancement is low, etc., etc., etc,...

And we're surprised there is more violence in those states?

[Redneck Socialist]

39. Study shows states with higher homicide rates have more murders

Shocking.

This is a study by the same fellow I believe: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1447364

Non-gun related homicides are also higher in those "high gun states." So, If I'm reading it correctly states with higher homicide rates have more homicides than states with lower rates of homicide. Wow, that's really surprising.

Interesting correlation, but I'm a little dubious about the causation.

[aikoaiko]

40. This thread reminds me that I need to buy another gun.

These little kel-tec 9mm are pretty sweet.

[benEzra]

54. I just purchased a Kobra optical sight for the SAR-1...

will post a range report in Outdoor Life as soon as I can get to the range with it, sight it in, and take some photos.

Still saving my pennies for a Rock River Arms carbine...

[Toots]

51. Right wingers will argue profusely against such a report while try to disarm Iraqis

to prevent more violence..:crazy:

[benEzra]

53. And people catering to right wingers to look "tough on crime"

(e.g., the DLC strategy from the early '90s to '04) will argue profusely in support of such a report while trying to disarm law-abiding Americans.

It was NOT the Left that foisted the ban-more-guns jihad on the party at large in the early '90s--it was the corporatists at the DLC, in an attempt to triangulate "law and order" voters. Don't forget that.


------
Dems and the Gun Issue - Now What? (written in '04, largely vindicated in '06, IMO)

[benEzra]

52. Funny that New Jersey and Florida have essentially the same 2005 homicide rate...

(4.8/100K, 5.0/100K) and the states with the lowest homicide rates in the nation (New Hampshire @ 1.4/100K, others) are states with some of the highest gun ownership rates, while some states with very low ownership rates (Maryland comes to mind) have some of the highest (9.8/100K in '05, IIRC).

The U.S. homicide rate has been falling steeply since the early '90s--which is by coincidence, the time frame of one of the largest increases in the U.S. civilian gun stock in U.S. history--and despite a slight uptick in '05 related to the country's unraveling socioeconomic state, is still near a 40-year low. No correlation.



If you fall for the line that southern states are the only states with the highest rates of gun ownership, then you might swallow the premise in the OP, because the southern states (except Florida) have homicide rates that are on the whole higher than the national average--and Katrina-devastated/FEMA-screwed-up Louisiana doesn't help, nor does the fact that the southern states are near the bottom in per-capita income. But the fact is, gun ownership is high throughout the U.S. except for a few enclaves (Mass., NJ, MD, Chicago, D.C., southern CA), and you can find high-ownership states at both ends of the statistical spectrum.

[krispos42]

59. It can be argued that the AWB is why the homicide rate dropped

It started on 1994, and ended on my son's day of birth, September 14, 2004.

I'm not making that argument, but I'm saying that the argument can be made.

Unfortunately, the AWB was not done in a vacuum. The AWB was part of a larger piece of legislation that also increased federal funding for local cops, resulting in over fifty thousand more cops on the streets. The economy was also doing much better under Clinton.

All three of these items went away under Bush, and within the last few years. The COPS program is now entirely defunded, the economy is straining under massive debt, economic unfairness, and job-exportation, and the AWB is gone in most states. Of course, California and New York still have them, which accounts for some 20% of the nation's population. Not to mention New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusettes.

[benEzra]

65. I wasn't trying to argue post hoc, ergo prompter hoc...

just pointing out that the correlation the Harvard group is attempting to show (or at least the way the media is trying to spin it) is a fairy castle.

As far as the AWB and the crime rate decline, I'm sure the Bradyites will be pushing that one if the economy continues its slide and drives the numbers up a bit, but it's fairly easily refuted simply by pointing out that the number of AR-15 type rifles, civvie AK lookalikes, and whatnot in private hands doubled or tripled during the AWB, and was associated with a crime decrease, not an increase. And, of course, that rifle crime was almost unheard of before the "ban, stayed low during the "ban," and is still just as low now that the "ban" has expired.

FWIW, I haven't looked into this, but I suspect that the Harvard study was ultimately funded by the same guy behind a desk at the Joyce Foundation that funds the VPC, the Bradyites, gunguys.com, the FSA, "50 Caliber Terror," ad nauseaum. I know the JF funded/funds Mr. Cornell's group at Harvard almost in its entirety, and I'm sure there are funds going to the other side of the wall at the HSPH as well. IMO, the Joyce Foundation has done a lot of good things, but fighting for a decade and a half to stampede Dems into backing Bill Bennett's and Richard Nixon's position on gun ownership (and thereby costing Dems the trifecta 1994-2004) wasn't one of them.

[krispos42]

68. Just wanted to prepare the inevitable :-)

I made a statement, I think in this thread, that if I tried, I could also claim that the per-capita owernship rate of pickup trucks also affects the homicide and crime rate. Or the average vehicle age, maybe. :-)

[jody]

69. Sometime ago I presented stats proving old people have fewer accidents than

young people and I concluded young people should be banned from driving. :shrug:

[slackmaster]

56. Yes, that's why the District of Columbia has such a low murder rate

:rofl:

[Igel]

63. I hope the researchers said something more useful than

what the article said.

As it is, they've left bases uncovered.

High crime rate in Chicago (or New York City) + gun ownership in S. Illinois (or upstate NY) ... if you have a fine grained approach does the results hold?

They've noted a correlation and allowed the reporter to abduce an inference that's not strictly supported. The abstract even states explicitly that no causal connection is deducible. Do people buy guns legally because of the crime rate, or do they have the crime crime because they legally bought guns?

They've limited themselves to legally bought guns of all varieties. But rifles probably kill fewer than illegally acquired handguns. Did the researchers try to tease out the difference? I'm assuming that police records have some hint as to whether or not the assailant using a firearm had legal access to it or had it illegally (with a large proportion of 'unknowns'), but the records would be difficult to access--and the lead researcher isn't tenured, and can't afford time-consuming research.

So many questions for the critical thinker (even a rank amateur, like me).

The abstract (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBF-4M6SG8V-4&_coverDate=02%2F28%2F2007&_alid=523809565&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_qd=1&_cdi=5925&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=bf7721febe17be96e763fbb204d31345):
"Two of every three American homicide victims are killed with firearms, yet little is known about the role played by household firearms in homicide victimization. The present study is the first to examine the cross sectional association between household firearm ownership and homicide victimization across the 50 US states, by age and gender, using nationally representative state-level survey-based estimates of household firearm ownership. Household firearm prevalence for each of the 50 states was obtained from the 2001 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Homicide mortality data for each state were aggregated over the three-year study period, 2001–2003. Analyses controlled for state-level rates of aggravated assault, robbery, unemployment, urbanization, per capita alcohol consumption, and a resource deprivation index (a construct that includes median family income, the percentage of families living beneath the poverty line, the Gini index of family income inequality, the percentage of the population that is black and the percentage of families headed by a single female parent). Multivariate analyses found that states with higher rates of household firearm ownership had significantly higher homicide victimization rates of men, women and children. The association between firearm prevalence and homicide victimization in our study was driven by gun-related homicide victimization rates; non-gun-related victimization rates were not significantly associated with rates of firearm ownership. Although causal inference is not warranted on the basis of the present study alone, our findings suggest that the household may be an important source of firearms used to kill men, women and children in the United States."

[benEzra]

66. Rifles account for about 2.9% of homicides...

so your point is well taken.

Rifle vs. handgun vs. other weapon breakdown can be found here in the FBI Uniform Crime Reports (UCR 2005, Table 20, Murder, by State and Type of Weapon):

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_20.html

There is also a link to an Excel version of that table, so you can sum the columns and get aggregate percentages.

Case in point--in Illinois in 2005, as an example, there were 448 total homicides, with rifles accounting for 4 of them. Rifles of any type (including "assault weapons," FWIW) are pretty much irrelevant to the homicide picture.

[jody]

67. Task Force found insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of reviewed firearms laws.

First Reports Evaluating the Effectiveness of Strategies for Preventing Violence: Firearms Laws

Summary
During 2000--2002, the Task Force on Community Preventive Services (the Task Force), an independent nonfederal task force, conducted a systematic review of scientific evidence { 51 studies identified of which 36 were used} regarding the effectiveness of firearms laws in preventing violence, including violent crimes, suicide, and unintentional injury. The following laws were evaluated: bans on specified firearms or ammunition, restrictions on firearm acquisition, waiting periods for firearm acquisition, firearm registration and licensing of firearm owners, "shall issue" concealed weapon carry laws, child access prevention laws, zero tolerance laws for firearms in schools, and combinations of firearms laws. The Task Force found insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws or combinations of laws reviewed on violent outcomes. (Note that insufficient evidence to determine effectiveness should not be interpreted as evidence of ineffectiveness.) This report briefly describes how the reviews were conducted, summarizes the Task Force findings, and provides information regarding needs for future research.

It’s highly unlikely that the study cited in the OP was statistically valid for the study’s conclusions.

[Wickerman]

73. Different Study

The one you cite was a meta-analysis of existing studies. That was accomplished by the CDC. The study referenced here used a 2001 risk survey accomplished by the CDC. Different animal.

Would need to see their complete study, not just the abstract before I make any speculation. See post a few up, I think number 63, where the poster has a link to the abstract.

[jody]

74. I know it was a different study. My point is that an independent group reviewed

36 of the best studies available and found that none of the studies were valid in determining whether laws banning guns did or did not have an effect on crime.

For that reason, I said "It’s highly unlikely that the study cited in the OP was statistically valid for the study’s conclusions."

Happy New Year and thanks for doing an absolutely outstanding job as moderator.

May success fall like gentle rain on everything you do in 2007.

:hi: Jody

[Wickerman]

75. Kind words, Jody

Thanks, and same back at you.

From what I read of this study, it seems that methodology is very different. I guess I don't see the connection that would create validity issues - Yet. Would have to actually read it before I could look either way.

:hi:

[Speak soft carry Big]

76. Wait, a study funded by the Joyce Foundation said guns are bad? I'm positively shocked.

That and Hemenway traces his money right back to Soros.

I won't waste my time paraphrasing for those who just skim replies, but for the intellectually honest, take a stroll through here. Make sure to read the whole thing, with the table and point chart near the end.

[Speak soft carry Big]

77. Is it not _shady_ that the authors refuse to share their data?

Seems to me, and others much more qualified than I, that they simply want to publish whatever they want without having the obvious flaws in their results brought to light.

I guess excluding Washington D.C., and including the numbers for robbery and other crimes besides homicide (homicide is the focus of the study) was just too convenient to pass up.

This takes us right back to where we always end up. We have a violent criminal problem, not a gun problem.

[iverglas]

79. hahahaha -- so you're not as good

... at lying, deceiving and losing boxes of alleged data ... as John Lott? I suppose there might be something else Lott is more qualified at than someone, but that's about all I can think of just now. So I'd just say: don't worry, be happy.



Yes, folks, I'm back, but just briefly. The cataract surgery didn't go as smoothly as hoped, I have some sort of apparently not too uncommon complication that left me seeing through a film; I could have had the laser zap next day that will apparently fix it, but had had enough eye-related stress for the week and opted for the wait and see alternative. I waited, I can't see, tomorrow I'll get zapped. But also tomorrow busy season starts, so I'll be scarce. Seems I can now reply to all posts / in all threads in the forum now, though. ;)

[Spoonman]

80. Now we understand

I truly hope it all turns out OK and you get well soon, I too have been out for a while, and will be undergoing back surgery tomorrow morning.
:sarcasm: And all this time we thought you were just blind to the truth :sarcasm:

[shield20]

78. OF course! If there were alot of murders in my state, I would buy more guns too!

Happens all the time - people buying more guns is also caused by riots, seeing the results of hurricanes, floods, etc.

[shield20]

81. Study shows NO correlation between # of guns & crime or murder!

Study shows NO correlation between # of guns & crime!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This 1st from an Anti-gun site:

The following chart shows the general climb of both the murder rate and firearm sales in the U.S.:
Murder rate (per 100,000) and firearm sales (millions of constant dollars),

Year Mdr Rate Firearm Sales (millions)
-----------------------------------------
1985 7.9 $1,548
1986 8.6 $1,647
1987 8.3 $1,667
1988 8.4 1,810
1989 8.7 1,777
1990 9.4 1,602
1991 9.8 1,859
1992 9.3 1,829
1993 9.5 2,095

"Since 1989, manufacturers and importers introduced an average of 3.5 million new guns into the U.S. market each year. By contrast, the U.S. resident population has grown an average of 2.7 million a year. That's roughly 800,000 extra guns a year. "
********************************


Now, they lazily, or more likely purposely, have NOT updated the figures since 1993. I wonder why? Probably because as gun sales continued to increase, crime rates steadly DECREASED:

YEAR-----TAX-----VC RATE----Mrd Rte---Murders---- Firearms
***---($,000)----(100K)-----(100K)------#----------%
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1992----139,652----757.7----9.3
1993----124,215----747.1----9.5
1994----139,990----713.6----9.0
1995----184,302----684.5----8.2
1996----157,816----636.6----7.4
1997----150,803----611.0----6.8-----15,837----67.7%
1998----158,383----567.6----6.3-----14,276----64.8%
1999----167,448----523.0----5.7-----13,011----65.2%
2000----197,840----506.5----5.5-----13,230----65.5%
2001----175,959----504.5----5.6-----14,061----63..22%
2002----205,025----494.4----5.6-----14,263----66.8%
2003----193,420----475.0----5.7-----14,465----66.9%
2004----214,987----465.5----5.5-----14,121----66%
*2005--------------469.2----5.6----
*The crime rates have gone up slightly again the last year or so, (VC=+3.7, Mrdr=+1.4).

The TAX column represents total excise tax on firearms and ammo sales, when broken out, the best indicator of total gun sales. The crime figures are from the FBI, the TAX figures from BATF.


Please notice that as firearms sales continue to rise, violent crime (VC) rates, and murder rates DROPPED steadily for 1994-2004. Also notice that the percentage of firearms used by criminals to commit murder is basically unchanged, despite the estimated "3.5 Million new guns every year".

Those anti-constitution yahoos in this country must get over themselves and accept the truth: GUNS AIN'T THE PROBLEM!