This piece contains updated statistics for my most-read post. The comments under that post have been coming steadily since 2007.
In the US – population 311.5 million (1) – there were an estimated 13,756 murders in 2009 (2), a rate of about 5.0 per 100,000 (3). Of these 9,203 were carried out with a firearm.
In the UK – population 56.1 million (4) – there were an estimated 550 murders in 2011-12 (5), a rate of about 1.4 per 100,000. Of these 39 were carried out with a firearm (6).
References
(1) United States Census Bureau (undated). State and Country Quick Facts. Available from: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html
(2) United States Census Bureau (2012) 2012 Statistical Abstract – Table 310. Murder Victims – Circumstances and Weapons Used or Cause of Death: 2000-2009. Available from http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0310.pdf
(3) United States Census Bureau (2012) 2012 Statistical Abstract – Table 306. Crimes and Crime Rates by Type of Offence: 1980-2009. Available from: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0306.pdf
(4) Office for National Statistics (2011). 2011 Census Home. Available from: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/census/2011/index.html
(5) Home Office (2012). Historical Crime Data. Available from: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/crime-research/historical-crime-data/
(6) Home Office (2010). Home Office Statistical Bulletin. Homicides, Firearm Offences and Intimate Violence 2008/09. Available from: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110218135832/http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs10/hosb0110.pdf
Flesh is Grass 
While, like his other films, Mike Moore’s film “Bowling for Columbine” finishes up going over the top and undermining his otherwise impeccable argument, it does make this point exceedingly well. As “Flesh” notes, the UK (where I live) has a satisfyingly low murder rate, while the USA, among the democracies with a high standard of living, has a depressingly high one. Moore asks the usual questions re firearms: i.e., Japan was highly militaristic, but has a low firearms murder rate; Germany caused two world wars, but ditto to Japan, while Canada has as many firearms in private hands as people, but a very low rate of…(you guessed it).
Most social scientists (of whom I used to be one: when still employed, I was a sociologist) would point to the “right to bear arms” clause of the US Constitution (or the appropriate amendment, if not in the original document) and the ramifications of that. After all, in the other countries (with the possible exception of Canada) we might mention, the private citizen has no right to own firearms, although a few may, depending on the law, be able to keep firearms on their own property (e.g., gamekeepers, employed to manage wildlife). This does mean that the temptation to use firearms is much reduced, if only because legal ownership is much reduced.
This argument could (and probably will) go on for much longer, unless and until US governments, State and Federal, grasp the nettle and find a way of getting those firearms out of the hands of private citizens.
Two chances: fat and slim.
BTW, that UK population figure relates to England and Wales: it does not include the populations of Scotland and Northern Ireland. It’s “the United Kingdom of Great Britain [meaning England, Scotland & Wales] and Northern Ireland”. Adding the “other two” (no insult to anyone living in Scotland or Northern Ireland intended) would add something over 10 million to the total.
Bet it wouldn’t alter the statistics significantly.
Thanks for the clarification Brian.
Michael Moore is a hack, he hasn’t made a single documentary in his life. He distorts facts. I suggest you watch “Michael Moore Hates America” which is done by a guy who goes around trying to interview Michael Moore and debunks a large number of his “factual arguments” he makes in his movies. In fact, Michael Moore isn’t even from Flint, MI.
Michael Moore was born in Flint and raised in Davison, a suburb of Flint. “Michael Moore Hates America” is a pathetic collection of right wing lies about him, as is pretty much everything else said about him by his opponents.
I’ve seen both films and both make some good points and some dubious claims. But you know when someone claims that every piece of criticism of any auteur is “a pathetic collection of right wing lies” (or left wing lies for that matter) then you know that person is going on blind gut instinct, not reason. Disregard their comment immediately.
Fat and Slim indeed.
Gun Control Fallacy by Thomas Sowell
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2969912/posts
Have heard a author on a talk show years ago who discuses in his book about crime and murder rates in the US and elsewhere. He was a social anthropologist and basically found that social (ethnic) groups have a statistical average of crime/murder. Comparing two counties in crime rate may not be the best tool. How many groups from said ethnic groups are in each county? How many African decent groups are in japan? How many eastern Europeans? Western? How many are from Middle east country? Immigration has its effects…
Reductio ad absurdum.
Agreed there is a socio-ethnic demarcation in relation to murder rates. The continental murder rate in Africa is 450 -500% greater than the United States. There is a direct correlation represented in by these FBI statistics:
Prevalence of homicide and violent crime is greatest in low income urban areas of the United States. In metropolitan areas, the homicide rate in 2005 was 6.1 per 100,000 compared with 3.5 in non-metropolitan counties.[32] In U.S. cities with populations greater than 250,000, the mean homicide rate was 12.1 per 100,000.[33] According to FBI statistics, the highest per capita rates of gun-related homicides in 2005 were in D.C. (35.4/100,000), Puerto Rico (19.6/100,000), Louisiana (9.9/100,000), and Maryland (9.9/100,000).[34
ETHNIC GROUPS does not mean IMMIGRATION. some ethnic groups have IMMIGRATED GENERATIONS AGO. so they are no longer IMMIGRANTS. but i guess that is the kind of data that YOU would overlook. SORRY. FAIL. putting everything on a racist view of immigration DOES NOT WORK.
Some studies of behavioral norms have suggested that some cultural norms are much more durable than anyone previously expected. The propensity toward violence can be much harder to extinguish than most people realize.
As one example, the researchers tracked people whose ancestors originally hailed from an area in the Appalachians known for its remarkably violent history. In this region, homicide had been the leading cause of death for over 100 years (ca. 1810-1920). The researchers found that people whose ancestors had left the area remained markedly more violent and vengeful than the general US population, even three or four generations later.
The UK has a large non white immigrant population, especially in London. They have a murder rate of 1.1 per hundred thousand of population. The only city in the USA that even comes close to the size of London is NYC. As for violent crime rates in the U.K., they measure simple pushing and shoving without injury as violent crime, we do not. More than 50% of reported violent crime falls under that category.
In order to argue that we need to get legal guns out of killers, don’t we have to know how many of these murders were committed by persons legally allowed to own them? I wonder what the rate of murder by firearm by legal gun
owners is.
there are about 300 million guns in the usa and in 2007 there was about 9000 homicides. lets say that all 9000 shooters used legal guns. that means about 0.1% of legally owned guns kill people. but according to USR Carolyn McCarthy (D) NY, “Congress finds and declares that 1) In the United States, the black market is the source of 90 percent of guns used in gun crimes.” (Source: The gun Trafficing Prevention Act of 2009.) so it is actually much less!
All guns start out legally owned.
So do knives, baseball bats, fireplace pokers,cars and thousands of other items that have been used to kill, maim and destroy peoples lives. What is the point that a weapons origin was once legal? Once used for the purpose of a crime it origin is meaningless.
Just saying that the only way criminals get guns is by stealing or buying them from someone who acquired them legally. So less legal guns equals less illegal guns.
so less cars will mean less car assaults, less baseball bats will equate to less bludgeoning deaths, less knives ect All that happens is the means change But the crime or intent stays. Also history is not kind to people who allow their government to disarm them.I see no reason to believe the politicians in washington or Many other states really have the peoples interest at heart. But power and control…..That is another story
this is a moot argument. and if you disagree, please state how many mass murders have occurred using knives, baseball bats, fireplace pokers, and cars. further more, if all you need to kill – so to defend yourself – is a knife, a baseball bat, a fireplace poker or a car – what the hell do we need guns for exactly?
Lise Tessier, Here’s just a few mass murders without the use of firearms. Fireplace pokers not needed. In 2001 Jim Jones killed 909 people with Kool-Aid. 1995 the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma killed 168 people. In 1990 and arson fire at a social club in Bronx, NY killed 87 people. Shall I continue to list more mass murders without the use of a firearm?
However guns are designed to kill, most knives, all baseball bats, fireplace pokers, cars and thousands of other items have not. If cars, baseball bats, pokers, dinner knives, carving knives, butter knives, spoons, frying pans, shovels and thousands of other items that have been used to kill ARE used to kill they have not been used as intended by their manufacturers. If a gun is used to kill it has fulfilled it design purpose successfully. Most murders in the USA are committed with easily and legally purchased guns, not the other items. Of the 12,000ish murder a year committed in the USA each year, roughly 9000 are committed with firearms, mostly pistols.
However all guns were bought legally at some time during their “life”
If the argument is that guns should be outlawed, then a more relevant statistic to make that case would be the number of legally owned guns used in homicides. I wonder how much the rate of usage would change if that were factored in.
The thinking goes: guns don’t kill people; people kill people. Great! So if we were to remove the gun related homicides from the total and then look at the rates for the 2 countries/regions, the US rate is a lot closer to the UK (about 1.5 times the UK rate instead of 4-5 times, if my math is correct). I suppose these stats show that this thinking is true to some extent i.e. folks in the US are 1.5 times more likely to be killers than their friends in the UK. But it also shows the significant impact that guns have on the overall homicide rate.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2969912/posts
This assumes that all 9 thousand killings would have happened if the killers did not have guns. Let us suppose you have a domestic dispute and since you have a gun, you use it out of convenience. However since you don’t have a gun you set the house on fire, as in the Josh Powell tragedy in February. http://abcnews.go.com/US/josh-powell-tragedy-cps-worker-pleaded-cops-house/story?id=15535154#.UNmqTazheSo
“This assumes that all 9 thousand killings would have happened if the killers did not have guns” No it doesn’t, they were taken out of the equation.
His point was that the original post assumes that none of the 9,000 gun murders would have become knife/club/hand murders instead (Method Exchange). It is safe to say that the number of “Exchange(d) method” murders would be lower but how lower is anyone’s guess. It is notable that the UK numbers do in fact include their low rate of gun murders. It’s a fantasy comparison though, because the incidence of guns in the US will never be as low as the UK.
A better comparison would be Canada. Canadians own firearms at almost the rate as Americans, but their violent crime and murder rate is far lower. Why?
Demographers have made obvious points about the differences in the US and Canadian population, especially as it relates to urban dwellers in the US vs Canada (US urban dwellers are far more violent and crime-prone overall).
Back to the original post, Britons simply kill each other at a much lower rate than Americans do. When guns were legal and somewhat common in UK and Americans could buy a handgun over the counter at a hardware store, murder rates in the UK still were far behind the USA’s. It is a cultural difference. Americans like to kill each other. Likewise, Brazilians like to kill each other more than Americans do and Mexicans as well.
The best predictor of murder rate in the world is poverty. The more poverty there is, the more murder there is. This is borne out in the USA by differences in the murder rates in states and cities. Also, generally speaking, the closer to the equator a country is, the higher the crime rate (including murder) is. There are other less PC predictors, but the two biggest are poverty and equatorial nearness.
To my second point above, here is the list of countries by murder rate from the UN (UNDOC). Note that almost all the top countries are near or on the equator and are poor. The wealthiest countries are at the bottom of the list.
http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime/Homicide_statistics2012.xls
The question is not whether guns are owned legally or illegally. the problem is the accessibility of guns. if they were less accessible, there would be less gun murders in the US. there are more guns than people in the us – some are bound to get into the wrong hands
fast and furious
Our own government did this! And they want to Ban Guns
They don’t want to ban guns, they just want better controls on who gets them
Wait, what? Surely that is the question here. How would you make illegal guns less accessibly then?
One cannot make illegal guns inaccessible, but it is possible and reasonable to require legal owners to secure their legally-owned firearms.
I am a gun owner and any firearm I have is locked up when I am not carrying it. I have young children in my home as well, my concern is more them than someone stealing the gun.
Good, inexpensive safes are cheap, no more than $30-40 for a one-handgun safe. Larger “locker” style safes are available for long guns, and can be found as cheaply as $100. They are not as good as reinforced, fireproof safe, but for the vast majority of thieves who are looking to “smash and grab” they will prevent access. Likewise to the Adam Lanzas of the world, a safe likely would prevent many of them from getting access as well.
kids are smarter than a lock far to often. My younger brother when he was four pushed a chair across a bedroom floor, got on the top shelf of a hutch that was more than twice his reach. Got the keys he wanted while my day was out back weeding a garden. When to a locked car. Unlocked ir. Unlocked a glove compartment (with another key) loaded a double barrel shotgun and managed to discharge it in the family car. (hunting season and dad when hunting day before. He was less than 4 at the time. (He was lucky he was not hurt by the way) Locking only keeps undetermined people away. Many of the mass shooters were very determined.
This is an interesting anecdote, but facts do not bear it out. Moreover, why were the keys kept in a place the child could reach? A four year old doing all of that? Sounds very suspicious to me.
However, if that’s your concern, then use a fingerprint safe. A single-handgun fingerprint safe can be had for around $90 now, larger ones for the same range.
For every problem there is a solution.
the event with my brother occurred in the late sixties. My only surprise is my younger brother wasn’t involved some how. My dad hunted and only keep the shells he needed (maybe 5) in glove box. So there was no finger print safe to use. Normally he kept the ammo in a tool box locked with a combo lock. By trial and error I learned it by 10. Dragging a chair maybe 20 feet by a 4 year old should not be hard to think off. Loading the gun all it too was to push a slide to the side and lift up gun slightly. It blew a hole about 1 1/2 inch in front of the seat abour 3-4 inch hole on the other side. There was a hole in the ceiling of the car about 10-12 inches (dad had bird shot in glove box) Pellets were everywhere but mostly in back of station wagon
Not quite accurate: Switzerland issues a gun to every able-bodied male, who must serve in their military reserves (sometimes till aged 50) or be taxed 3% of gross income if unfit for service. Females may volunteer to serve. Distribution of ammunition for said weapons is tightly regulated and may only be used in cases of war/civil defense (being a neutral country, there is no war). These conscripts are trained and required to keep their personal weapon well-maintained and secure. Gun ownership for private citizens not serving in the militia is regulated with common-sense laws that would make the gun lobby of the US shudder with revulsion.
Comparing gun ownership and crime statistics is pointless if one does not also assess the differences between the two countries. Here in the United States, we are not required to serve in the military or do any type of civil service. Nearly everyone can own a weapon and carry it around. Most states have no requirement that a gun owner even know how to operate their weapon or be educated in gun safety. A quick Google search offers a generous sample of people who injure themselves or others accidentally with their own weapon.
Although Switzerland does have a lower gun-related crime rate compared to the US, it is not the lowest in the world, even among nations where gun ownership is legal. The reason that gun advocates cite this statistic is to imply that since everyone owns a gun, criminals are afraid to use them. This is patently ridiculous, especially given the knowledge that concealed carry permits are highly regulated in Switzerland, usually given only to military and security officers. Permit applicants must state a reason for the need of the weapon and are required to pass an exam demonstrating fitness to own and carry the weapon. The permit expires after five years and applies only to the type of firearm specified in the permit. All gun owners must pass a criminal background check and have no known mental health issues or security concerns. Purchases of ammunition are recorded by name at point of sale in a bound book. Ammo for long rifles used for hunting are not regulated or recorded. Semi-automatic weapons are very tightly regulated.
The gun-related death rate is eight times higher in the United states than that of our economic counterparts in the world, with the highest youth death rate and the highest gun-suicide rate of all industrialized nations. We are also tops for gun ownership in the entire world, of course, without peer. The only nations that outpace our gun violence rates are war-torn or severely economically depressed nations with horrifying statistics on civil rights and poverty.
Some additional comparisons that you may find interesting: Switzerland has universal (and mandatory) healthcare coverage, a very low poverty rate, 3% unemployment rate, and virtually no homelessness-all factors that contribute to the crime rate in the USA. Switzerland also has one of the lowest marginal tax rates in the world, with a stable economy and one of highest per capita income rates in the world. The banking sector thrives because of the nation’s neutrality and sovereignty, as Mitt Romney knows well. They are also skinnier than we are, damn it! “What America can learn from Switzerland” is a LOT!
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Switzerland has the highest per capita gun ownership in any developed country so it’s a societal issue more than access to guns is the issue.
Not according to this site:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country
US is #1 and the Swiss are #4.
Actually, the original comment was correct, the Wikipedia article was poorly titled. There are more guns in America per person, but some people have more than one gun or even many guns. Only around 45% of Americans owns a gun. The percentage of Swiss who have a gun in their home is higher than this
And the percentage of Swiss that have access to a MACHINE gun is astronomically higher than the US.
Not quite accurate: Switzerland issues a gun to every able-bodied male, who must serve in their military reserves (sometimes till aged 50) or be taxed 3% of gross income if unfit for service. Females may volunteer to serve. Distribution of ammunition for said weapons is tightly regulated and may only be used in cases of war/civil defense (being a neutral country, there is no war). These conscripts are trained and required to keep their personal weapon well-maintained and secure. Gun ownership for private citizens not serving in the militia is regulated with common-sense laws that would make the gun lobby of the US shudder with revulsion.
Comparing gun ownership and crime statistics is pointless if one does not also assess the differences between the two countries. Here in the United States, we are not required to serve in the military or do any type of civil service. Nearly everyone can own a weapon and carry it around. Most states have no requirement that a gun owner even know how to operate their weapon or be educated in gun safety. A quick Google search offers a generous sample of people who injure themselves or others accidentally with their own weapon.
Although Switzerland does have a lower gun-related crime rate compared to the US, it is not the lowest in the world, even among nations where gun ownership is legal. The reason that gun advocates cite this statistic is to imply that since everyone owns a gun, criminals are afraid to use them. This is patently ridiculous, especially given the knowledge that concealed carry permits are highly regulated in Switzerland, usually given only to military and security officers. Permit applicants must state a reason for the need of the weapon and are required to pass an exam demonstrating fitness to own and carry the weapon. The permit expires after five years and applies only to the type of firearm specified in the permit. All gun owners must pass a criminal background check and have no known mental health issues or security concerns. Purchases of ammunition are recorded by name at point of sale in a bound book. Ammo for long rifles used for hunting are not regulated or recorded. Semi-automatic weapons are very tightly regulated.
The gun-related death rate is eight times higher in the United states than that of our economic counterparts in the world, with the highest youth death rate and the highest gun-suicide rate of all industrialized nations. We are also tops for gun ownership in the entire world, of course, without peer. The only nations that outpace our gun violence rates are war-torn or severely economically depressed nations with horrifying statistics on civil rights and poverty.
Some additional comparisons that you may find interesting: Switzerland has universal (and mandatory) healthcare coverage, a very low poverty rate, 3% unemployment rate, and virtually no homelessness-all factors that contribute to the crime rate in the USA. Switzerland also has one of the lowest marginal tax rates in the world, with a stable economy and one of highest per capita income rates in the world. The banking sector thrives because of the nation’s neutrality and sovereignty, as Mitt Romney knows well. They are also skinnier than we are, damn it! “What America can learn from Switzerland” is a LOT!
Not according to this site:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country
US is número uno.
You might want to do a fact check: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-homicides-ownership-world-list
Not quite accurate: Switzerland issues a gun to every able-bodied male, who must serve in their military reserves (sometimes till aged 50) or be taxed 3% of gross income if unfit for service. Females may volunteer to serve. Distribution of ammunition for said weapons is tightly regulated and may only be used in cases of war/civil defense (being a neutral country, there is no war). These conscripts are trained and required to keep their personal weapon well-maintained and secure. Gun ownership for private citizens not serving in the militia is regulated with common-sense laws that would make the gun lobby of the US shudder with revulsion.
Comparing gun ownership and crime statistics is pointless if one does not also assess the differences between the two countries. Here in the United States, we are not required to serve in the military or do any type of civil service. Nearly everyone can own a weapon and carry it around. Most states have no requirement that a gun owner even know how to operate their weapon or be educated in gun safety. A quick Google search offers a generous sample of people who injure themselves or others accidentally with their own weapon.
Although Switzerland does have a lower gun-related crime rate compared to the US, it is not the lowest in the world, even among nations where gun ownership is legal. The reason that gun advocates cite this statistic is to imply that since everyone owns a gun, criminals are afraid to use them. This is patently ridiculous, especially given the knowledge that concealed carry permits are highly regulated in Switzerland, usually given only to military and security officers. Permit applicants must state a reason for the need of the weapon and are required to pass an exam demonstrating fitness to own and carry the weapon. The permit expires after five years and applies only to the type of firearm specified in the permit. All gun owners must pass a criminal background check and have no known mental health issues or security concerns. Purchases of ammunition are recorded by name at point of sale in a bound book. Ammo for long rifles used for hunting are not regulated or recorded. Semi-automatic weapons are very tightly regulated.
The gun-related death rate is eight times higher in the United states than that of our economic counterparts in the world, with the highest youth death rate and the highest gun-suicide rate of all industrialized nations. We are also tops for gun ownership in the entire world, of course, without peer. The only nations that outpace our gun violence rates are war-torn or severely economically depressed nations with horrifying statistics on civil rights and poverty.
Some additional comparisons that you may find interesting: Switzerland has universal (and mandatory) healthcare coverage, a very low poverty rate, 3% unemployment rate, and virtually no homelessness-all factors that contribute to the crime rate in the USA. Switzerland also has one of the lowest marginal tax rates in the world, with a stable economy and one of highest per capita income rates in the world. The banking sector thrives because of the nation’s neutrality and sovereignty, as Mitt Romney knows well. They are also skinnier than we are, damn it! “What America can learn from Switzerland” is a LOT!
One thing your “stats” do not show is that on percentage you are more likely to be the victim of a crime in the U.K. then you are in the U.S..
What we have in the U.S. is not a “Gun Problem” we have a complete failure in our mental health industry. We have stigmatized the concept of institutionalization to the point where we have closed most of our long term mental health facilities. We have made ourselves feel warm and fuzzy by declaring our schools “Gun Free Zones” without understanding the concept that there are bad men out there with guns meaning to harm those in vulnerable, target rich environments.
On the same day of this atrocity, a knife wielding madman in China sliced and stabbed 20 school kids with a knife. Regardless whether or not these children lost their lives, they had their innocence stolen from them yesterday. They will now have to live their lives in fear because a societal government controlled system failed to protect them.
I work in high risk areas in Chicago, soon because of our appeals court in the U.S. I will be able to conceal carry in the city of Chicago. Why is this important? Because the bad guys are already armed.
Don’t understand what significance being a victim of crime has to do with this. This is about a specific type of crime: murder.
The stats clearly show you do have a gun problem. 67% of the murders were due to guns in the US vs less than 1% in the UK based on the numbers in this post.
Sure the Chinese incident occurred; but how many of these types of incidents have occurred in China vs the US. Interesting also that you would compare the US society to the Chinese. Would have thought the UK might be a more representative comparison.
China has suffered seven mass school attacks in the past two years, all at the hands of bladed tools/weapons. Also, Britain’s rate-of-violence is five times higher than that of the U.S. (This includes but is not limited to attempted murder, rape, sodomy, all forms of assault, aggravated burglary, robbery, car jackings, etc.). Also of note, how many incidents in the UK overall involve Molotov cocktails and bombs vs. the U.S.? You’re more likely to be blown up in the United Kingdom than you are in the United States. FYI- In terms of causes of death, homicides in the United States account for 0.4% of annual numbers. Within that number, gun related homicides account for approx. 0.24%. So out of all/total annual deaths within the U.S., 99.76% of them are non-firearms related.
TheTruth, you’re sounding a bit polemical. And you don’t tell us where you’re getting your information from. You’re not expecting us to just take your word for it, surely?
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri-crime-total-crimes
The US has about twice the violent crime as the UK…and more than 5x the population. Therefore you are more than twice as likely to be a victim of a violent crime in the UK. Do the math – personally I would rather take the approx 19 million fewer violent crimes in exchange for the 5000 additional gun murders (both numbers adjusted for population.)
On the same day as the Newtown massacre of 20 5 and 6 year olds with a Bushmaster rifle, there was an attack in China on 22 schoolchildren by a man with a knife. The difference between the two attacks is that none of the children in China died. Firearms are much better at killing than knives. The recorded violent crime rate in the UK is higher than in the USA, but the British count simple pushing and shoving without any injuries as violent crime, we do not. More than 50% of British “violent crime” falls under this category. Comparison of murder rates is easy, but what is considered violent crime and trying to compare them, not so much.
the most popular murder weapon in the uk is knives, just as it is in other countries where guns are banned/restricted.
True and the UK had just over 600 murder last year with a population of 62 million. We had 11,000 (9000 of which were with guns). We have only 5 times their population but 27 times as many murders.
Ranvir, my math comes out different: 39 fire-arm related homicides out of 550 total is 7% (which is not less than 1%).
US number at 67% is correct. Still a huge anomaly, but given the different access/ownership rates its not unexpected.
“Regardless”? Tthe idea that Chinese children lost their “innocence,” whatever that’s supposed to mean, shares some rough equivalence to 20 forever dead children in Newtown strikes me as utterly absurd. Whether we have a mental health problem exacerbated by guns or the other way around matters little. The point is that in China, 20 out of 20 survived their mad-man attacker and in Newtown not one did. The lethality the gun is the only significant difference.
The chinese are communist , they run state run media and block internet and free speech
Exactly. Except for the part about “mental health industry”. I’d say 99% of the problem is poor parenting.
I graduated in ’98. That same year I was telling my principal about a rifle I’d recently purchased. We walked out to my truck where he held and admired it. We then walked to his car where he showed me his .45. There were no mass shootings at my school, we would have ended the problem as soon as it began.
Gun Free Zones are only safe for the shooter.
If only one of those teachers had a hand gun and a little training, the whole tragedy would have gone much differently.
i cant stand hearing about this chinese madman. he DID NOT KILL these kids. one man with one weapon in the u.s. killed 20, plus 8 adults. CHECK YOUR FACTS FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE.
More research must be done. I have a friend that grew up in Chile and they have one of the lowest rates (obviously they are smaller than USA), but the protection and upbringing holds people accountable. Our society is as such that so many people don’t hold others accountable. We can look at the video/Music, T.V./Media, etc. industry at partial fault. Then factor in the legislators with passage of some stupid laws that keep things broad & vague because here in Rhode Island they are mostly attorneys in the Legislature and benefit in many ways. I live in a State that allows illegals to go to our schools, colleges, full benefits and no background checks there. Yet, in most of the news here….it’s fatigued/mentally ill people that cause harm. Our homelessness here in RI is one of the highest in the country and stats reflect approx. 44% are mentally ill and are NOT getting the services they need. We have become an inhumane, disconnected and destructive nation without clear strategy of how to get it back. The citizens of Denmark, the happiest country, have the most leisure time available per day, at 16.06 hours. The U.S. ranks 11th in life satisfaction, just missing the top 10. This suggests that while some of these categories may impact happiness, they do not guarantee it. Despite its above-average score, the U.S. has the highest rate of disposable income in the OECD and an extremely high rate of self-reported good health. Meanwhile, the U.S. has a particularly low life expectancy for developed nations, which at 78.7 years is worse than 26 other developed nations. The U.S. also has a low job security rate and a relatively high long-term unemployment rate.
Read more: The Happiest Countries in the World – 24/7 Wall St. http://247wallst.com/2012/05/22/the-happiest-countries-in-the-world-2/#ixzz2FEfdJ6S4
Friday’s massacure here in Connecticut at an Elementary school (grades 1-4) is unbearable. I cannot even watch it. It was their weekend to be with their dad this weekend and I have been missing them, needing to hug them. USA has seen many many of these school shootings over the last 10 years and if we keep doing what we have always done – the outcome will be the same.
“keep doing what we’ve always done”
Piss poor parenting?
The problem with your logic is that you think that this intelligent killer with a well laid out plan would have just chosen to leave the kids alone if he didn’t have access to a gun. This is just a stupid argument. Would it have made you feel better if he would have use poison, a bomb or driven a truck at high speed across the playground during recess rather than using a gun? We need to focus on the criminal not the tool that he used to commit the crime.
Yes, exactly. Keep in mind that the Oklahoma City Bombing was committed with fertilizer and diesel fuel. And killed more people than all the mass shootings in the last 10 years combined.
never been satisfied with the explanation of the ok. bombing. To many unanswered questions to many conflicting information as to what happened. And who was involved. Also they were quick to “clean up” before anyone else could look
I’m not satisfied with your dissatisfaction with the explanation. I find it deeply wrong to casually dismiss evidence-based accounts – the consensus of people qualified to make them, not embittered pundits who hate authority and expertise – without providing evidence yourself. I suppose you habitually entertain conspiracy beliefs and feel no responsibility to justify yourself. Well, here’s the thing. The onus is on YOU. And not on my blog, thanks.
It’s not just parenting, although that is a large part of it. If people didn’t have such easy access to firearms, a lot of this stuff would never happen. Look at Adam Lanza, skinny little runt. What would he have been able to do without firearms? Short of a bomb, not much.
That’s exactly what Klebold and Harris were going to do. If they hadn’t gotten guns, they were going to bomb the school. They brought half a dozen bombs with them but were killed before detonating them. The size of the explosion would have brought the building down.
Bear in mind that Timothy McVeigh did not use a single firearm and had a higher body count than all the mass shootings in the last 10 years.
I am 76 years old. I grew up in a rural, farming, ranching area in South Central Florida. Obviously, I have, or have had, tens of thousands of friends if you include family members. Until I moved to an urban area, I did not know of one single family that did not have guns in the home. I am not aware of a single incidence of the killing of a child (deliberate or accidental).by either an adult or another child. I know, very well, several families with children who have Aspergers.
The mother of the shooter was apparently a wonderful person who was determined to help her child. Apparently, she was not a “gun nut” but had been trained in the use of firearms and was competent in the use of them. The story I hear is that she intended to use the gun range and firearm training to “bond with her disabled Son”. I am sorry, but the Mother was responsible for this tragedy.
How could ANYONE knowledgeable of the numerous impulsive actions of a child, or person, with this disability ….take them to a firing range or otherwise attempt to train them in the use of a weapon of this sort?? Of course this young man was absolutely thrilled with the the fact that he could make big bangs as fast as he could pull the trigger. And, he could just keep on doing it….just like beating a stick on a stone, over and over and over and over. How much more wonderful when he hit the target and was rewarded with “wows and attaboys”. How much more wonderful when he could get 30 or 50 rounds out of one magizine!!
Undoubtedly, she loved her son very much but she was an air-head or otherwise devoid of any real life moxie what so ever. What other things will be uncovered that may indicate the extent to which she went in order to show her love and affection and to get him to respond in like fashion.??
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I think something important is being overlooked here. If you take the US murder rate and remove all gun deaths you still have a murder rate of 1.46 (est) per 100,000; the rate of murder is still higher than that of the UK. This assumes that every murder by firearm would not have happened; a conclusion I would label not just unlikely but ridiculous. Even if a gun ban could cut the US gun related murder rate in half, the US would still have a murder rate of 2.94 (est) per 100,000; That would make the US number one when compared to Western Europe.
The unfortunate truth is that America is a more violent and homicidal culture than the UK and although it may be reasonable to consider firearm ownership as a contributing factor it would in no way be a panacea. It is also quite reasonable to consider the role firearms play in preventing crimes in a more violent nation.
By addressing only gun control we ignore the much greater questions of why a country with the largest prison population in the world and some of the toughest policing, is unable to lower homicide rates to levels comparable to Europe.
It should also be noted that states have very differing murder rates; Hawaii is 1.2, Vermont 1.3, Rhode Island 1.3, ……. New Mexico 7.5, Mississippi 8, Louisiana 11.2, and we can’t leave out the District of Columbia (the nations capital) with a rate of 21.8. Its also worth noting that the FBI crime statistics report murder and non negligent manslaughter together. I do not know if the rates quoted for other countries include the same.
It is interesting to note that America had an assault weapons ban from 1994 to 2004. After the ban was lifted the murder rate continued to fall from 5.5 in 2004 to 4.8 in 2011.
It is also interesting to note that the national murder rate was 4.7 in 2011 and was lower than at any time in the last 41 years (I did not look any further) when the rate was 7.9 and climbed as high as 10.2 in 1980 and 9.8 an 1991.
My numbers were pulled initially from this sight and then amended with numbers from the FBI crime statistics; http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/ucr
It’s race. Over half the homicides are committed by blacks. This means that in certain areas like Chicago you get South African levels of murder. One more reason to stop migration from Africa to the UK at some point as the African population increases it will replicate African conditions like South Chicago or Newark or Johannesburg. We are getting a taste of this in Brixton and Tottenham.
If it is true that black people kill more than white people (and
JosephJohn you simply assert that they do without bothering to refer us to any evidence) then the next question is obviously “Why?”. And that leads to a discovery that the correlations with poverty, poor education, social exclusion and family history of these things are the true correlation with violent crime. Skin tone only comes into it because black people in the societies you mention have historically endured great injustices and are consequently at a deficit.Relatedly, I live in a country in which property remains consolidated among the descendants of conquering Normans a thousand years ago.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/17/high-house-prices-inequality-normans?CMP=twt_gu
This is how it works.
So when you absurdly put this down to skin tone, it’s clear to me that far from being race, it’s racists.
(and
JosephJohn you simply assert that they do without bothering to refer us to any evidence)For USA data, always consult the FBI UCR. The relevant table is #43
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-22
Murder and non-negligent manslaughter by offender race:
White – 48% (whites are 69% of the US population)
Black – 49.7% (blacks are 12.8% of the US population)
Asian – 1% (asian,pacific islander are ~5% of US pop)
American Indian 1.3% (around 2% of the US population).
Likewise figures for other violent crime.
What about mexicans ?
Actually I never made a reference to race, that was John. And even if the murder rate is much higher in the African American community, that is still an American culture issue. The murder problem in (my opinion) America is not a gun problem it is a problem with the American culture and was largely driven by the war on drugs.
Just a few months ago a neighbor of mine was raided by a swat team from a city approx 40 miles away. They rammed the front door, threw in flash grenades and entered the house with full body armor and M-16s drawn. My neighbors dog retreated into the garage and hid so the swat team sent in a bomb robot to extract it. Luckily no one was home at the time, but they were called and they showed up to see what was happening. No arrests were made.
These kinds of raids occur because we have militarized police departments for the war on drugs. The police use high risk, high violence entries because we have incentivized them with seizure laws and federal grants. Police do not serve normal knock warrants anymore because the people inside may dispose of the drugs. A knock warrant would be far safer and still curb crime. What it wont do is allow the police to seize the house and property, and get federal dollars for large drug seizures.
I am amazed that people are shocked by American violence! We have fully militarized police everywhere. (A motorcycle cop who was handing out tickets by the freeway on-ramp also had an AR-15/M-16 folding stock weapon mounted on his motorcycle; American police carry sidearms and have assault weapons or shotguns mounted in their cars or motorcycles.) We are engaged in unilateral war all over the planet. We have the largest actively deployed military in the world. People are constantly bombarded with propaganda proclaiming how dangerous their lives are. Violent movies, violent video games… Violence is an American staple. The news always highlights violence and horrible incidents like the recent shootings only stress that the government can’t protect you.
All of this in the face of the lowest murder rates in 40 years.
Yet when the murder rate in America is 4.8 per 100,000 compared to England’s 1.4 per 100,000 people are flummoxed.
Much violence is cultural. The US is highest in the world for “suicide-by-firearm” which would lead many to think we are one of the highest for suicide — however, the US is only 38th for rate of suicide, following 37 countries most of which have no private gun ownership whatsoever.
Overall violent crime in the USA is not particularly high compared with many other countries, it is culture that we like to kill. As Michael Moore pointed out, Canadians own guns at almost the same rate that Americans do, but do not kill each other with them.
Joseph,
Nicely done. Of all the posts on the subject of violence and root causes in this country, you nailed it. Quite eloquently I might add!
Sorry Joseph, I corrected the mistake. And what you say here makes sense to me.
Flesh: The FBI statistics and other government data show that African Americans commit violent crimes way out of proportion in relation to their percentage of the total population. I don’t doubt that poverty plays a role. But places where it easier to possess a gun in the US w/ low black and Latino populations, and quite a bit of poverty, have lower murder rates than places with high percentages of black and Latinos that restrict guns:
http://pjmedia.com/blog/public-highlights-mass-murders-ignores-most-murders-racism/?singlepage=true
“If you live in a part of America that is predominantly white, your risk of being murdered is greatly reduced. If you live in one of these areas and you do not have family or friends who are mentally ill or substance abusers, your risk of being murdered is very low. This is why low gun control states like Idaho, Montana, Minnesota, and North Dakota have murder rates lower (often much lower) than their restrictive gun control Canadian prairie province neighbors. These white non-Hispanic states have murder rates that compare favorably to overall European murder rates.”
Anon, Hispanics/Latinos are more difficult to count/measure as they are sometimes included as white or black. For example, a Cuban of European ancestry would be identified as white and an Afro-Cuban would be considered black.
That’s very interesting about the white / black / Hispanic differences, New Centrist and Joseph. In that case (given we agree that race may be correlated with higher murder rates but doesn’t ever cause murder) I’d be inclined to ask questions about murder rates in rural / urban settings within those states. Urban life brings friction as well as the affront of inequality. I can’t go looking myself at the moment (nor give this interesting thread nearly the attention it deserves). Thank you all for your comments – please carry on.
(Hope you’re well, N.C.)
A few comments:
1) Thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt. I am definitely not someone who thinks race is the causal factor, but there is a correlation. And there is a correlation between being black and having lower income, lower levels of education, growing up in a fatherless household, etc.
2) The rural vs. urban factor is important to consider. The rates should be available in those FBI or DOJ statistics posted somewhere on this thread.
3) Doing well. I’ll be out there again in a few months. Bob will be in touch. All the best to you and yours.
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Check the number of people killed each year by drunk/impaired drivers. Illegal as DUI is, it happens and it claims innocent lives. Our cars go 120, 140, 160 MPH but, do we drive that fast? Most law abiding citizens don’t. Our national speed limit rarely exceeds 75 MPH so we depend on common sense to prevent people from driving at the speeds attainable by their vehicles. How many speeding tickets are issued annually in the USA?
Drugs are illegal but, we have a “war on drugs”, why, because criminals sell them and criminals buy them so, another failed policy. Check the number of people dying annually due to drug overdoses and those incarcerated for drug offenses and realize, criminalizing doesn’t stop criminals.
If people intend to harm others in violent ways do you think they won’t because they don’t have access to firearms? It doesn’t seem to work where people don’t have firearms does it? Most Americans would love a society that is peaceful but………..as in all countries and nations, there will always be those with a blatant disregard for life. There will always be people breaking laws and there will always be new laws written that too, shall be broken.
We take God out of our schools, we allow our children to play violent video games, we promote violence through Hollywood and most of all, we sensationalize crime and criminals through our mainstream media outlets. I mean, after all, who would tune in to a station called “The Good News Channel”? Nearly nobody because we tune in to see the murder, the mayhem, the corruption and the violence.
We have a tremendous social issue here, this I certainly agree. We do not care for the mentally disabled, we do not rehabilitate when we incarcerate so yes, we have problems. No ONE law or set of laws will stop those that intend harm to others, not here and not anywhere. We definitely have problems but above all, we have the Constitution of the United States with its amendments and like it or not, this great country was founded on this very document. Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness and IN GOD WE TRUST!
DR, to echo your main point about criminalisation not preventing criminals, the idea of God is highly interpretive and varied – for example the amount of killing in the name of God is legendary, utter carnage. So I don’t acknowledge that there is a place for God in the gun debate. To argue that the rule of law is pointless because it is broken by criminals is a bit like saying that we shouldn’t have schools because some kids never achieve basic literacy. I think the point is that some things are worth criminalising whether or not there is a high prevalence of breaking that particular law.
I would never suggest the absence of rule of law. That was never my point. My main point was, criminals are criminals and don’t, by nature, obey or consider law or the consequences of breaking it. As far as God being the basis for utter carnage, yes, I do agree. However, in the USA, though we have varying religions, I know of very few murders (especially “utter carnage”) committed in the name of God. The same cannot be said for many, many other countries.
violent video games are played the world over. dont blame video games. they only mimic what you people do, which is joyfully killing each other at an alarming (for normal people) rate, with weapons that you do not need for anything else that a hand gun or a rifle cant achieve. i dont know in which god you trust, but he is a bloodthirsty one.
yeah. drunk drivers get their cars taken away. and their licences. because you have more declaring and licensing to do with a car than with a gun. and video games are played the world over, yet only in the states do you kill your kids with so much gusto – and dont you bring the mad man in china, he attacked, but did not kill. because you cannot perform a mass killing with a knife, darling, whatever your stupid leaders may tell you.
I was visiting our Denver office from the UK when news of the school shooting at Newtown reached us. I was shocked by the reaction of my American co-workers. “That’s terrible, but it happens…” seemed to be the overall opinion. I explained that hand guns were banned in the UK after the Dunblane massacre and asked if they thought this terrible inciddent would change anything. “It’s a shame, but no it won’t change anything”.
There seemed to be a general feeling that shootings likes this, while terrible, are an unfortunate consequence of an essential element of their society.
I have many American friends and we see eye to eye on so many issues but I simply cannot understand this mentality towards their fundamental want/need for firearms.
It’s the difference in being a citizen versus a subject to a monarch.
Our history is bloody. Our founding was bloody. It’s the downside of absolute liberty.
That being said, the issue is keeping the guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. In the case of Newtown, had the mother had her firearms secured in a safe, the mentally ill son couldn’t have gotten them. Period.
As I’ve posted above, a very large percentage of gun murders are criminal relationships. You’ll never get rid of those.
יצחק בּוזוף The people of the UK are citizens too. The monarchy in the UK is purely ceremonial, they wield NO power. People are voted into the house of commons in just as they are voted into congress here. The UK is not less democratic than the USA, in fact in some ways it is more democratic.
I was referring obliquely to the mentality of the individuals, not to their actual legal status. Britons have been shown to be far more likely to go along with hare-brained policy measures and seem to like the notion of government taking care of them. Americans are keen to fight and many resist government getting involved in their personal lives. There is a huge divide between “urban” and “rural” Americans, though, and “urban” Americans seem to like being herded not unlike Britons and the tide does seem to be turning in that direction. It could simply be the influx of immigrants over the last 50 years or so, almost all fleeing some sort of socialist/communist “utopia” for a better life in the USA, but unwittingly bringing the desire to be coddled along with them.
The you need to make that clear, which it wasn’t. The difference between the British and Americans is that the British realize that in a democracy (which Britain is) they, the people, hold the power and the government only does their bidding. Therefore, they don’t go along with hair brained policy measures, they are the ones that are asking for them. Britons are not being herded, they speak and their government does their bidding. The government of Britain does what it’s people want. When it doesn’t (which happens now and then), they are soon forced out of power with civil unrest. It has happened repeatedly in the UK. The last time would have been the Poll Tax Riots which forced the conservative government of the day out of power.
All very good observations, however, it isn’t the “people” in the UK that are promoting cockamamie gun death figures, it is the government itself. It is political and police heads that come out in favor of stricter laws, promising greater security and safety, and it’s the people that believe such nonsense and permit themselves to be herded. Notably, UK’s own estimate of violent crime has increased significantly since the Dunblane bans were implemented. And gun crime increased as well. Where is the security and safety we were promised?
Violent crime and murder are not the same thing. The British measure simple pushing and shoving without any injuries as violent crime, we don’t To compare their violent crimes statistics is disingenuous, because they count things as violent crime that we do not. Howvever what they consider murder and what we consider murder are the same thing.
” UK’s own estimate of violent crime has increased significantly since the Dunblane bans were implemented. And gun crime increased as well. Where is the security and safety we were promised?”
You keep saying things that are simply untrue.
According to the U.K. Home Office, the number of injuries resulting from guns has decreased by more than half since 2004. Recorded crimes involving firearms has also shown a steady decrease. There has not been a school shooting since Dunblane in 1996.
Crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales fell by 8.4% between the years ending September 2011 and September 2012, according to the latest crime statistics. A 41% drop in crime between 2002-03 and 2011-12 for police recorded crime figures. 549 homicides (includes murder, manslaughter and infanticide) were reported in the year ending September 2012, a considerable drop on the previous year’s total of 607. Homicides are now down to around half of the figure for 2001/2.
Attempted murders also fell, but by a smaller proportion, dropping by 2.7% in comparison to a fall of 9.6% in homicides.
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The best figures to use for the USA are the FBI UCR (http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011)
2011 figures are much lower (murder rates) and show the continual decline in murder/violent crime in the USA.
One point, comparing the rate of non-firearm murder versus UK non-firearm murder is instructive. Non-firearm murder in the USA during 2011 occured at about 1.5 per 100,000, but the question is whether those firearm murders would not be “converted” to non firearm murders.
Given that as many as 1/3rd of all murder in the US occurs in a “preexisting criminal relationship” (i.e. drug transaction, gang hit, etc) it is very likely the conversion rate to non-firearm murder would be significant. For instance, the rate of all murder in UK is 1.4 per 100,000 people, but in the USA the rate of murder-by-knife and murder-by-bare-hands and murder-by-blunt-object (2918 total) is 1.16 per 100,000 people. It is very reasonable to assume that the nearly 4100 murders where a criminal relationship exists would not convert to non-firearm murders given the frequency that Americans like to kill each other.
The incidence of murder-by-knife (1694 total in 2011) is nearly triple the number of murders by rifle or shotgun (the weapon categories to which “assault weapons” are assigned — i.e. AK47s and AR15 rifles — 679 total murders for both categories combined).
Correction:
“It is very reasonable to assume that the nearly 4100 murders where a criminal relationship exists would convert to non-firearm murders given the frequency that Americans like to kill each other.” (deleting the “not”)
Most murders in the USA are committed with handguns. All you are doing with this post is showing that more guns = more murders, by taking the gun murders out of the equation.
Actually, if you drill thru the FBI’s numbers, what you find is that more than 2/3rds of ALL murder in the USA is committed in a “criminal on criminal” relationship. Yes, handguns are the primary murder “tool” but send out a paddywagon and jail every last gang member and you’ve eliminated more than 66% of ALL murder in the USA. And then you end up with a murder rate lower than the UK.
Scooping up all the gang members will be far easier than trying to get them to give up their guns. Ban firearms and all you do is disarm the law abiding. The gangs already break the laws on drugs, murder, rape, robbery, etc, why would they choose to obey a gun confiscation order?
“Actually, if you drill thru the FBI’s numbers, what you find is that more than 2/3rds of ALL murder in the USA is committed in a “criminal on criminal” relationship.” I have drilled through the numbers, in fact they are very easy to find, not much drilling involved and what you are saying here is simply put, untrue. It could be a lie or it could be a mistake, but either way it is untrue.
I posted the actual tables, you merely post your opinion that it was “untrue.” Ah, well, I concede then, your opinion is clearly superior to published, official data.
Post them again, I didn’t see them. What I did see is the FBI Crime reports and it does not prove what you are saying, in fact just the opposite.
Direct link to gang assessment:
http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/2011-national-gang-threat-assessment/2011-national-gang-threat-assessment#CurrentGang
I cannot link directly to the table on that page, but almost 1/8th of law enforcement officials attribute “76-100%” of all violent crime in their jurisdiction to gang members. It’s on that page.
The FBI cannot identify actual “causes” of many homicides, but use interviews with CLEOs to determine likely “causes” or involvment of gangs. More than 37% of all CLEOs report that gangs are the cause of 50-100% of ALL violent crime in their jurisdictions — and since almost all of the gang activity occurs in urban areas, the discrete amounts of each category of violent crime are weighed heavier (i.e. 10% of violent crime in Chicago is a far higher number than 10% of all violent crime in Greenville, MS).
Okay no where does it say that 2/3rds of murders are criminal on criminal. I went through the whole report. There are no actual hard numbers. Also do you believe that England doesn’t have gangs? You’d be wrong if you did. I agree that we should jail anyone who is proved to be a gang member. Automatic life. That would not reduce the murder rate by 66% though, it would reduce it some and in some areas like Chicago by a lot, but not 66% nationally. Gang members in the UK don’t choose not to obey gun laws, they have no choice (most of the time) guns are very very hard to get and very expensive. That said I am actually not in favor of banning firearms. There’s no denying the fact that the rest of the first world has tighter gun controls than we do and they have less gun crime and lower murder rates overall as a result, regardless of who’s doing the shooting.
>There’s no denying the fact that the rest of the first world has tighter gun controls than we do and they have less gun crime and lower murder rates overall as a result, regardless of who’s doing the shooting
The UN denies it:
http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime/Homicide_statistics2012.xls
The USA barely makes the top 100 for rate of murder in the world.
The anti-gun sheep so desperately want people to only focus on “gun crime” and “gun homicide” as if being murdered with a knife or beaten to death is ok. The reality is that they don’t give a flip about victims of crime unless they are victims of GUN crime.
The UN says that the USA is exactly 100th in the world for its murder rate. And that’s behind 99 countries that restrict gun rights and private gun ownership. The vast majority of the world, in fact, restricts gun possession, but for some reason doesn’t care that people are still being murdered at alarming rates.
No I didn’t miss the point at all. You wanted to show that the USA compares well, it doesn’t. You can’t use something to support your argument and then turn around and disown, when the fallacies of your argument are pointed out. You can’t compare yourself to the 99 countries that are worse off (all of which are 3rd world countries) and then say a comparison isn’t valid when comparing with other first world countries. You can’t have you cake and eat it too.
“Being a first world country is no guarantee of being crime free, however, the anti-gun folks like yourself want the world to believe that being “gun free” means being “violent crime” or “murder free.”
No one believes that being gun free is going to make a country murder free or violent crime free. What being gun free does do, which is borne out by the numbers from other first world countries, is reduce the overall murder rate by making murder much more difficult to commit.
Also you might want to check your facts before you make statements. You said
” In the UK, you may be detained by police without being charged almost indefinitely — also illegal in the USA.”
This is not true. http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/police/powers/custody/
“You can’t be kept at a police station for more than 24 hours without being charged, although this can be extended to 36 hours with the authority of a police superintendent, and for up to 96 hours with the authority of a magistrate.
The one exception is for arrests under the Terrorism Act, where you can be held without charge for up to 14 days.”
You also said “They can be searched on a whim by police, wheras in the US the police must have probable cause, or minimally, a reasonable suspicion to frisk.”
Again you are wrong: https://www.gov.uk/police-powers-to-stop-and-search-your-rights
“Stop and search: police powers
A police officer has powers to stop and search you if they have ‘reasonable grounds’ to suspect you’re carrying:
illegal drugs
a weapon
stolen property
something which could be used to commit a crime, eg a crowbar”
Even that is now going to have to be scrapped too. The European Court of Human Rights has declared Britain’s “stop and search” law illegal and has ordered its scrapping, something which the ConDem government is now obliged to do in terms of its continued membership of the European Union. The Home Office appealed the decision, but this week the EU Court refused to hear the appeal and ruled that no further appeals could be made.
As a result, the Home Office says it is now reviewing counter-terrorism laws.
You said: “The real proof of gun control laws isn’t how they perform in one country, or in only “1st World” countries. It is how they perform in EVERY country they exist, and what the murder and violent crime rates are. If every gun is banned, but the murder rate is still 20 times that of the USA, that is one failure.”
Of course it’s a failure, but you only see those failures in 3rd. World countries. If you are going to compare the USA to other countries you need to compare them to countries that have similar legal systems (such as the UK for example) and a similar standard of of living, education etc. You wanted to compare with other countries and used the UN report to try to make your point. But that same report bunches us in with ONLY 3rd world countries, You can’t have it both ways.
Really before you make statements, you might want to check their accuracy.
“The UN says that the USA is exactly 100th in the world for its murder rate. And that’s behind 99 countries that restrict gun rights and private gun ownership. The vast majority of the world, in fact, restricts gun possession, but for some reason doesn’t care that people are still being murdered at alarming rates”
Motive that ALL of the countries that have higher murder rates are 3rd world countries with a few 2nd. World countries like Russia thrown in. No other 1st. World Countries. So although there are lots of countries that have higher murder rates than the USA, none of them are other 1st World Countries. I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel comfortable comparing the USA to 3rd and 2nd. World Countries. I want to be compared to other 1st World Countries.
UNODC murder rates most recent year (full table here)
Country Rate Count Region Subregion
Honduras 91.6 7,104 Americas Central America
El Salvador 69.2 4,308 Americas Central America
Côte d’Ivoire 56.9 10,801 Africa Western Africa
Jamaica 52.2 1,430 Americas Caribbean
Venezuela 45.1 13,080 Americas South America
Belize 41.4 129 Americas Central America
U.S. Vn Islds 39.2 43 Americas Caribbean
Guatemala 38.5 5,681 Americas Central America
St Kitts & Nvs 38.2 20 Americas Caribbean
Lesotho 35.2 764 Africa Southern Africa
Trnd & Tbgo 35.2 472 Americas Caribbean
South Africa 31.8 15,940 Africa Southern Africa
Colombia 31.0 14,670 Americas South America
Congo 30.8 1,180 Africa Middle Africa
Cntl Afri Rep 29.3 1,240 Africa Middle Africa
Bahamas 27.4 94 Americas Caribbean
Puerto Rico 26.2 983 Americas Caribbean
Saint Lucia 25.2 44 Americas Caribbean
Dom Repc 25.0 2,513 Americas Caribbean
Tanzania 24.5 10,357 Africa Eastern Africa
Sudan 24.2 10,028 Africa Northern Africa
St Vin &Gren 22.9 25 Americas Caribbean
Mexico 22.7 25,757+ Americas Northern America
Ethiopia 22.5 20,239 Africa Eastern Africa
Guinea 22.5 2,152 Africa Western Africa
Dominica 22.1 15 Americas Caribbean
Burundi 21.7 1,726 Africa Eastern Africa
DRtC 21.7 13,558 Africa Middle Africa
Panama 21.6 759 Americas Central America
Brazil 21.0 40,974 Americas South America
Eq Guinea 20.7 137 Africa Middle Africa
Guinea-Bi 20.2 294 Africa Western Africa
Kenya 20.1 7,733 Africa Eastern Africa
Kyrgyzstan 20.1 1,072 Asia Central Asia
Cameroon 19.7 3,700 Africa Middle Africa
Montserrat 19.7 1 Americas Caribbean
Angola 19.0 3,426 Africa Middle Africa
Guyana 18.6 140 Americas South America
Burkina Faso 18.0 2,876 Africa Western Africa
Eritrea 17.8 879 Africa Eastern Africa
Namibia 17.2 352 Africa Southern Africa
Rwanda 17.1 1,708 Africa Eastern Africa
Chad 15.8 1,686 Africa Middle Africa
Ghana 15.7 3,646 Africa Western Africa
Ecuador 15.2 3,638 Americas South America
North Korea 15.2 3,658 Asia Eastern Asia
Benin 15.1 1,262 Africa Western Africa
Sierra Leone 14.9 837 Africa Western Africa
Mauritania 14.7 485 Africa Western Africa
Botswana 14.5 287 Africa Southern Africa
Zimbabwe 14.3 1,775 Africa Eastern Africa
Gabon 13.8 200 Africa Middle Africa
Nicaragua 13.6 785 Americas Central America
Fr Guiana 13.3 30 Americas South America
PNG 13.0 854 Oceania Melanesia
Swaziland 12.9 141 Africa Southern Africa
Bermuda 12.3 8 Americas Northern America
Comoros 12.2 85 Africa Eastern Africa
Nigeria 12.2 18 Africa Western Africa
Cape Verde 11.6 56 Africa Western Africa
Grenada 11.5 12 Americas Caribbean
Paraguay 11.5 741 Americas South America
Barbados 11.3 31 Americas Caribbean
Togo 10.9 627 Africa Western Africa
Gambia 10.8 106 Africa Western Africa
Peru 10.3 2,969 Americas South America
Myanmar 10.2 4 Asia South-Eastern Asia
Russia 10.2 14,574 Europe Eastern Europe
Liberia 10.1 371 Africa Western Africa
Costa Rica 10.0 474 Americas Central America
Nauru 9.8 1 Oceania Micronesia
Bolivia 8.9 884 Americas South America
Mozambique 8.8 1,925 Africa Eastern Africa
Kazakhstan 8.8 1,418 Asia Central Asia
Senegal 8.7 1,027 Africa Western Africa
T& C Islands 8.7 3 Americas Caribbean
Mongolia 8.7 239 Asia Eastern Asia
BV Islands 8.6 2 Americas Caribbean
Cayman Isls 8.4 5 Americas Caribbean
Seychelles 8.3 7 Africa Eastern Africa
Madagascar 8.1 1,588 Africa Eastern Africa
Indonesia 8.1 18,963 Asia South-Eastern Asia
Mali 8.0 1,157 Africa Western Africa
Pakistan 7.8 13,860+ Asia Southern Asia
Moldova 7.5 267 Europe Eastern Europe
Kiribati 7.3 7 Oceania Micronesia
Guadeloupe 7.0 32 Americas Caribbean
Haiti 6.9 689 Americas Caribbean
Timor-Leste 6.9 75 Asia South-Eastern Asia
Anguilla 6.8 1 Americas Caribbean
A and Barb 6.8 6 Americas Caribbean
Lithuania 6.6 219 Europe Northern Europe
Uruguay 5.9 199 Americas South America
Philippines 5.4 4,947 Asia South-Eastern Asia
Ukraine 5.2 2,356 Europe Eastern Europe
Estonia 5.2 70 Europe Northern Europe
Cuba 5.0 563 Americas Caribbean
Belarus 4.9 473 Europe Eastern Europe
United States 4.8 14,748 Americas Northern America
No other first world countries. That a damning indictment, not proof of how great we are.
BTW, there are 196 countries in the world so the USA being at 100th place leaves 96 countries ahead of us. That puts us at about the halfway point. We are not ahead of the vast majority of the world. We are at roughly the half-way point. What’s very very damning is that NO first world countries have a higher murder rate than we do. All of the countries with higher murder rates are poverty stricken and often undemocratic 3rd or 2nd. world countries. They are both poor and struggling with the idea of democracy (i.e. they aren’t really democratic). What’s even worse is that there are many 2nd. and 3rd. world countries that actually have lower murder rates than we do.
You missed the real point.
Being a first world country is no guarantee of being crime free, however, the anti-gun folks like yourself want the world to believe that being “gun free” means being “violent crime” or “murder free.” That’s how it is sold — “turn in your guns and you’ll be safe, we’ll protect you.”
The proof is in the pudding. The vast majority of countries in the world have VERY strict laws governing gun ownership and most don’t allow it at all.
The anti-gun folks want everyone focusing on GUN crime and GUN homicide — as if being murdered by some other means is more noble or morally superior.
Comparing the USA to other “1st world” countries is problematic in every way. Those countries do not have the same law enforcement mechanisms we do. They do not have the same protections of personal liberty or due process that we do. Police in the UK may stop and search anyone they want to, for any reason — this is completely illegal and unconsitutional in the USA. In the UK, you may be detained by police without being charged almost indefinitely — also illegal in the USA. This means that individuals that UK police know to be involved in crime can be held without charge — preventing them from access to crime — whereas in the US they must be released. They can be searched on a whim by police, wheras in the US the police must have probable cause, or minimally, a reasonable suspicion to frisk.
Police in other European countries have similar powers that do not exist in the USA.
The real proof of gun control laws isn’t how they perform in one country, or in only “1st World” countries. It is how they perform in EVERY country they exist, and what the murder and violent crime rates are. If every gun is banned, but the murder rate is still 20 times that of the USA, that is one failure. If the vast majority of countries with strict gun control have high murder and violent crime rates — far higher than the USA — then the concept of banning guns/strict gun control is basically useless. It may take guns out of the equation, but the equation ends up the same.
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Why does this article compare 2009 in the US to 2011-12 in the UK. Can’t you even make the years match? It looks like you’re cherry picking the statistics to make your point.
They were using US Census data, which is compiled for 2010. Reasonable mistake — the FBI UCR data is annual and available for use.
There are a few holes in your argument. Murder isn’t something that happens because you have a firearm it’s something that people do. There are 300 million firearms in the US in civilian hands and less than 10k of those have ever killed anyone. As for comparing the US to the UK .. even leaving firearms ownership out of it it isn’t a valid comparison. The entire country has barely the population of a few US cities and their population isn’t nearly as diverse from a socio-economic scale and they don’t have the gang/drug related crime problems that are pervasive in the US. 50% of ALL gun related homicides in the US are committed by urban black males between the ages of 16-35 AND 50% of the gun homicide victims are also urban black males between the ages of 16-35. This means that 50% of all gun related murders are committed both by and against a segment of the population that only accounts for roughly 2.5% and of your 10k number 5k of them could be fixed simply by putting programs in place to get a better understanding of the socio-economic and peer influenced gang/drug culture facing young african american males in the inner cities of this country.
It’s also worth mentioning that murder isn’t the only kind of violent crime and violent crime in general is much worse in the UK than the US … by a factor of three ….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-25671/Violent-crime-worse-Britain-US.html
there is a utube video that has the stats (from the US government) It seems like most crimes occur in large metro areas. The US has a lot more areas with population greater than 250K than the UK and when you compare US to UK our crime rate is lower than theirs. By a factor of 3-4. would list the sight but didn’t book mark it at the time.
does not matter if killed people are urban or country, darling, they are dead folks all the like. stop finding reasons to justify the gusto with which americans shoot each other. it is nothing but sick – in the eye of normal people, of course.
London is far bigger than the USA’s largest city, yet it has a much much lower total murder rate and less gun murders than, for example, Durham North Carolina which has a population of just over 100K. London proper is a little larger in population than NYC and the metro area of London (The Thames Valley) is roughly 25 million, also more than the metro area of NYC.
does not matter if uk population is smaller, the data compiled above are PERCENTAGES. read your math schoolbooks once again. and please, if you want to sound serious, do not try and reduce the importance of MURDER among violent crimes. this sounds utterly silly. and this socio economic mumbo jumbo of yours is only bigoted reasoning. LOOK AT THE NUMBERS UP THERE. THEY DO NOT LIE.
It’s also worth mentioning that the British count pushing and shoving without injury as a violent crime we do not. 52% of all violent crime in the UK falls into that category.
The right to bear arms was added to the US Constitution after America fought for their freedom from the tyrantical British. Pretty much like every other former subject state of the UK. How else is the citizenary to defend themselves from a government when it becomes too overbearing?
What is it in us which makes us think that depriving millions of something will save lives? If you believe so much in statistics, should there not be many more deaths in America due to the discharging of a firearm since there are millions of them and millions more than in a country like the UK?
And is it the number of people who are killed by a gun or just the number of deaths themselves which seems to get the attention of people? If every life is prescious it should not matter how the death was caused. But if the death only becomes important because it was due to a gun, then the person making the argument is being disengenuous. For if they were really concerned about the number of lives lost where is the outrage over the number of fatalities due to automiles (31,000+ in 2011) or better yet, abortions (1.2 million) Those numbers are tantamount to genocide.
all your comment is a valuation of gun over that of human life. that is ok. your prerogative.
Most of the countries of the British Empire DID not fight for their freedom. The Empire just got too much to handle and with the damage WW2 did the the British economy, they were keen to lose most of their colonies, as they were too much to handle. Most former UK colonies went to self rule, without any bloodshed whatsoever. Most murders in the USA are committed with firearms. There’s a reason for that, it much much easier to kill someone with a gun than with a knive, sword, hammer, fists and feet etc. All of them require you to get in close and present risk to the attacker, a gun does not. We do try to reduce the number of automobile deaths, cars get new life saving technology on a regular basis. Most of them are required by law. Electronic Stability Control, Air Bags, Crumple Zones, Seat Belts, Driving Tests, We do everything we can to make driving safer, with laws and technology. So if you agree that this is good for a car then why not do everything we can to make gun ownership safer, which includes not letting some people have firearms at all. As far as abortion is concerned, I agree with you on that score. But if life is so precious to you then you should not only be supporting the ever increasing safety of cars and eliminating or at least reducing the number of abortions, but you should also want to reduce the number of people killed with guns. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
I have read through all the comments and I now understand what those gun owners mean. The problem isn’t the guns, its the person who criminally uses it. I guess we should start concentrating on taking care of our people (i.e. mental health services, better parenting) and most of the issues will be solved. For the rest, maybe we should legalize drugs, it sounds as though drugs being legal would cause far less issues than they are now. Remember prohibition on alcohol, many murders because it was an underground, illegal business; not so much now that you can walk in most any store and purchase it legally. Thanks for all the comments that helped me to understand this.
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How many of those American gun deaths were committed by police?
–Leslie < Fish
None. justifiable homicides are tallied separately.
Another curious fact: Britain has a population of about 53 million, and its 2011 number of violent crimes (muder, rape, assault, etc. combined) was 624,000. America has a population of about 311 million, and its 2011 number of violent crimes was 1,204,000. That gives Britain roughly half as many violent crimes as the US, with only one-fifth the population.
–Leslie < Fish
It has been well reported that the >rate< of violent crime in UK is around 2000 per 100,000 people whereas the rate of the same crime in the US is under 400 per 100,000 people (2011 figures)
It;s also well reported, which you choose to ignore or just don’t know in the first place, that violent crime in the UK includes pushing and shoving with no injuries to the victim. That would not be counted as a violent crime here. More than 50% of “violent crime” in the UK falls into that category.
Actually it’s 62,641,000. The British count simple pushing and shoving without injury as violent crime. We don’t. Of course then their violent crime rate is higher, they count things as violent crime that we don’t.
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After reading all of the above comments I just wanted to share how wonderful it is to see thoughtful discussions with many supported facts looking at all of complex issues involved in America’s gun control debates (race, community, poverty, mental health, parenting, video games, media in general, Second Amendment, historical events, personal rights). Thank you to Flesh is Grass for hosting such an open-minded discussion, without the typical trolls pandering to their typical party platform. It is through this type of open discussion that real solutions will come to light and can be shared with those in power.
If the population and statistics provided for uk are only for England and Wales there were 56.1m people and 550 murders that would work out at 0.98 per 100,000 not 1.4 there would have had to be 785 murders to reach that rate. No us state had a lower murder rate than this in 2011-12.
Tried prohibition early in 20th Century, that didn’t work. Alcohol made legal at specified age.
War on Drugs is not working. Should be the same as alcohol regulations to elimination the incentive to sell illegal drugs.
War on Guns–I don’t even have a clue as how to solve gun crimes.
Sadly, if something becomes illegal, the very people who do harm, will always get hands on what they want–booze, drugs, or guns. It’s called Crime.
Minnesota has a murder rate of 1.38/100,000 in 2011, with gun ownership increasing and “shall issue” carry permits. Lots of guns, lots of hunters, not many murders, kind of shoots down the idea that guns cause violence. And we still have to listen to Piers Morgan. Of course, he said if we don’t stiffen our gun laws, he will go home. Probably sold a million more guns when he said that. Violence rates have dropped in the U.S. for the last 20 years. Populations in the cities have been increasing, which is where the most violence seems to be.
Hawaii has the lowest murder rate in the USA at 1.5 per hundred K of population. They also have the lowest gun ownership rate at 6%.
my son’s karate instructor was murdered in the utopia of HI. Yes by a criminal with an gun not legally in his possession.(rumor was it came from a political family of esteem) In a heavily gun restricted state, My daughters witnessed witnessed several stabbings at local bus stops while waiting to return from the malls there…..I have been multiple states with far less gun control and haven’t seen near the cesspool of crime i have seen is so called gun controlled cities..
The murder rate in HI is comparable to that of other 1st world countries and lower than almost all (not all, but almost) all of the rest of the US. My uncle was murdered in a big city that has a very low murder rate (1 per 100k). He was murdered with a baseball bat. I realize that is extremely unusual though and does not prove that that city somehow has a high murder rate. It proves nothing except that he was murdered with a misappropriated tool. It also has a very very low gun ownership rate and is a very large city.
According to the FBI’s crime data for 2011, Hawaii’s murder rate is actually 1.24, and yes Hawaii has the lowest rate of gun ownership
However, Vermont has a similar murder rate (1.27 per 100k) and 42% of residents own guns. Likewise, New Hampshire has a rate of 1.29 per 100k with 30% of residents owning guns. We can go thru the list of the 10 states with the lowest rate of murder, but your implied hypothesis (i.e. murder rate is lower with lower gun ownership) is provably false.
Also, I’d like to point out that both Vermont and New Hampshire have ZERO restrictions on the carry of a firearm. Anyone legally allowed to own a gun may carry it concealed. No permit required. Vermont has historically had the LEAST restrictive gun laws in the country — even non residents may carry concealed in Vermont.
Of the states with the highest murder rates, the majority also have high gun ownership rates. There are some states that have lower murder rates while still having higher gun ownership rates, but they are the exception to the rule. Louisiana for example has a gun ownership rate approaching 50% (as does most of the US) and a murder rate of more than 11 per 100K of population. Most of the states that have high murder rates also have high gun ownership rates. Most of the states that have low murder rates have low gun ownership rates. There are some exceptions, Chicago springs to mind, but in general that is the case.
It’s easy to compare which states have the most or least restrictive gun laws, the Brady Campaign does that for us: http://www.bradycampaign.org/stategunlaws/
Notably, the states with the LOWEST rate of violent crime, almost all get a “zero” rating from Brady (rate per 100k, state, brady rating)
238 KENTUCKY 0
237 WISCONSIN 0
221 MINNESOTA 1
219 WYOMING 0
201 IDAHO 0
197 VIRGINIA 1
195 UTAH 0
188 NEW HAMPSHIRE 0
135 VERMONT 0
123 MAINE 0
And the states with the highest brady ratings? Almost all are at or well above the national average for violent crime:
1202 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 4 **
411 CALIFORNIA 4
428 MASSACHUSETTS 3
398 NEW YORK 3
308 NEW JERSEY 3
287 HAWAII 3
273 CONNECTICUT 3
494 MARYLAND 2
445 MICHIGAN 2
429 ILLINOIS 2
**Brady does not rate DC for obvious reasons, but DC’s gun laws are stricter than California’s and CA receives a rating of 4.
If stricter gun laws appreciably affected violent crime rates, then you’d see higher violent crime in VT or VA, not DC, CA or MA.
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http://www.bradycampaign.org/xshare/stateleg/scorecard/2011/2011_gun_trafficking_graph.pdf I think this says it all.
Isn’t it great that they can make a chart? No real data behind it at all. No references. I can make a chart showing blue unicorn farts smell better than pink unicorn farts. No references of course. Who needs ’em?
I’m using the same source you did for your argument. What’s good for the goose and all that..
I quoted their numbers to refute their implied claim. You posted a propaganda picture that has no attribution.
Since I am attacking their premise, I do not need to seek their attribution. Since you are purporting to accept and promote their claims, you are required to show attribution, otherwise you’re just posting useless propaganda.
I posted lots of other stuff too and the number in the “propaganda picture” are still true
Click to access Brady_GodBlessAmerica.pdf
Great, good way to shut down the discussion. Post some more biased figures, why don’t you?
Again, same source you used for your Brady rating. What’s good for…
Right, I am attacking their premise so of course I will use their figures, it’s not my responsibility to prove them true.
You’re trying to assert their other claims as true. They are not true, they intentionally ignore conflicting data.. Prove otherwise.
You were using their figures to try to prove your point. you weren’t attacking it, you were using it as ammunition.
Click to access Gun_Death_and_Injury_Stat_Sheet_2008__2009_FINAL.pdf
Americans like to murder each other. I would bet our murder rate overall, even exclusive of guns is higher than all of those countries. Moreover, this is what you call “select data.” Pick the examples that best fit your chosen outcome. Arthur Kellerman would be proud!
Cherry picking data is what you have been doing. You forgot though that along with the stuff on Brady that you want people to see and which is deceptive when presented by itself, there’s a whole lot more there that you don’t want people to see, so you call it cherry picking when people show everything, but not when you show just one thing. Mmm, smacks of hypocrisy to me.
Everything Brady publishes is cherry picked. Period. They have no desire to present any positive uses of firearms, and ignore the fact that “gun free” countries have higher rates of suicide and injury — but it’s OK because it wasn’t with a gun, right? Thrown out a window? Just fine. Shot with a gun?! ZOMFG!
Hypocrisy? have a mirror.
What including the stuff you used. You Cherry picked one little thing from what they had to try to support your argument. We both got that info from Brady, the exact same place. I smell a Hippo.
IN ONE YEAR (all ages)
Î Almost 100,000 people in America
are shot in murders, assaults, suicides, accidents, or by police intervention.
31,593 people died from gun violence
12,179 people murdered.
18,223 people killed themselves.
592 people killed accidentally.
326 killed by police intervention.
273 died but intent was not known.
66,769 people survived gun injuries
44,466 people injured in an attack.
3,013 people injured in a suicide attempt.
18,610 people shot accidentally.
679 people shot in a police intervention.
IN ONE YEAR (ages 0-19)
Î Almost 20,000 American children and teens
are shot in murders, assaults, suicides, accidents, or by police intervention.
2,966 kids died from gun violence
2,037 children and teens murdered.
748 kids killed themselves.
123 children and teens killed accidentally.
19 killed by police intervention.
39 died but the intent was unknown.
14,008 kids survived gun injuries
10,038 injured in an attack.
165 injured in a suicide attempt.
3,588 shot accidentally.
218 shot in a police intervention.
EVERY DAY (on average)
Î Every day, 270 people in America, 47 of them children and teens
are shot in murders, assaults, suicides, accidents, and police intervention.
Î Every day, 87 people die from gun violence, 33 of them murdered.
Î Every day, 8 children and teens die from gun violence.
Î Every day, 183 people are shot, but survive their gun injuries.
Î Every day, 38 children and teens are shot, but survive their gun injuries.
It’s amazing that all this undocumented carnage is happening and it’s not recording in CDC WISQARS or in the FBI’s violent crime data. Absolutely amazing. The number of suicides, injuries and homicides from firearm use continues to decline as gun ownership goes up, up, up.
Oh but it is recorded by the CDC and others. You made your bed, now lie in it. You used Brady, but just one small part. You thought it would support what you have to say. When we make the rest of it available and visible you don’t like it. The homicide rate is going down all over the 1st world. However here it is many times higher than the rest of the first world. They have strict gun control laws and lower murder rates, we have very loose gun control laws and much higher murder rate and most of those murders are committed with guns.
No, it is not reflected in WISQARS, you’re welcome to post the chart number since you assert otherwise.
Including suicide figures is disingenuous. As show in Australia, the rate of suicide after gun confiscation did not change from it’s >80 year< average. Yes, "gun suicides" dropped to near zero, but overall suicide figures did not change — suicide is a cultural phenomena.
And for the small number of serious gun injuries, the vast majority are unintentional and the number is SWAMPED by every other category of nonfatal injury.
Motorcycles alone are involved in over 200,000 nonfatal injuries per year.
Dogbites over 350,000
Poisonings! over 1.2 MILLION
Gun injuries are 60,000? Wow, that's practically non existent compared to everything else . There are 300 MILLION guns in the USA, but only about 7 million motorcycles (according to NHTSA).
60,000 injuries? That's a pittance and not remotely a relevant figure.
I said the CDC, did you miss that?
Um.. yeah.. WISQARS is the CDC’s database.
If you’re looking at the CDC’s data, then you have to be looking at WISQARS.
nice try.
http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/index.html
From the link you just supplied
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6106a1.htm?s_cid=ss6106a1_w
Introduction
An estimated 50,000 persons die annually in the United States as a result of violence-related injuries. Homicide is the second leading cause of death for persons aged 15–24 years, the third leading cause for persons aged 1–4 and 25–34 years, and the fourth leading cause for persons aged 5–9 and 10–14 years. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for persons aged 25–34 years, the third leading cause for persons aged 10–14 years and 15–24 years, and the fourth leading cause for persons aged 35–44 and 45–54 years. Only unintentional injury in those aged 1–44 years and malignant neoplasms and congenital anomalies in children aged 1–14 years of age were more common
Here are some more links from what you supplied. Nice try, but you fail again.
Click to access ss5904.pdf
Here’s a rather telling report from the link you provided.
http://wonder.cdc.gov/wonder/prevguid/m0023655/m0023655.asp
Article
Injury is the leading cause of death for persons aged 1-44 years in the United States. More than half (55%) of all injury-related deaths are caused by motor vehicles and firearms (1). Although the number of deaths from motor-vehicle crashes has exceeded those from firearms, since 1968, differences in the number of deaths have declined: from 1968 through 1991, motor-vehicle- related deaths decreased by 21% (from 54,862 to 43,536) while firearm-related deaths increased by 60% (from 23,875 to 38,317) (1). Based on these trends, by the year 2003, the number of firearm-related deaths will surpass the number of motor-vehicle crashes, and firearms will become the leading cause of injury-related death (Figure 1). This report compares trends and patterns of deaths resulting from firearm- and motor-vehicle- related injuries in the United States from 1968 through 1991. Information about firearm- and motor-vehicle-related injury deaths was obtained from mortality data files maintained by CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. Rates were calculated by using population estimates obtained from the U.S. Bureau of the Census
Here’s some more
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwR/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6018a1.htm?s_cid=mm6018a1_w
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20571454
J Trauma. 2011 Jan;70(1):238-43. doi: 10.1097/TA.0b013e3181dbaddf.
Homicide, suicide, and unintentional firearm fatality: comparing the United States with other high-income countries, 2003.
Richardson EG, Hemenway D.
Source
Department of Health Services, UCLA School of Public Health, Los Angeles, California 90095-1772, USA. erin.richardson@gmail.com
Abstract
BACKGROUND:
Violent death is a major public health problem in the United States and throughout the world.
METHODS:
A cross-sectional analysis of the World Health Organization Mortality Database analyzes homicides and suicides (both disaggregated as firearm related and non-firearm related) and unintentional and undetermined firearm deaths from 23 populous high-income Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development countries that provided data to the World Health Organization for 2003.
RESULTS:
The US homicide rates were 6.9 times higher than rates in the other high-income countries, driven by firearm homicide rates that were 19.5 times higher. For 15-year olds to 24-year olds, firearm homicide rates in the United States were 42.7 times higher than in the other countries. For US males, firearm homicide rates were 22.0 times higher, and for US females, firearm homicide rates were 11.4 times higher. The US firearm suicide rates were 5.8 times higher than in the other countries, though overall suicide rates were 30% lower. The US unintentional firearm deaths were 5.2 times higher than in the other countries. Among these 23 countries, 80% of all firearm deaths occurred in the United States, 86% of women killed by firearms were US women, and 87% of all children aged 0 to 14 killed by firearms were US children.
CONCLUSIONS:
The United States has far higher rates of firearm deaths-firearm homicides, firearm suicides, and unintentional firearm deaths compared with other high-income countries. The US overall suicide rate is not out of line with these countries, but the United States is an outlier in terms of our overall homicide rate.
Violent crime contains a wide range of offences, from minor assaults such as pushing and shoving
that result in no physical harm through to serious incidents of wounding and murder. Around a half of
violent incidents identified by both BCS and police statistics involve no injury to the victim.
From this United Kingdom Home Office Report. (Copy and paste it)
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/crime-research/hosb1011/hosb1011?view=Binary
Here’s some more from the same report. You can read it here or go to the URL above.
There was no statistically significant change in the number of violent crimes estimated by the 2010/11
BCS compared with the 2009/10 survey (the apparent 6% increase was not statistically significant).
The underlying trend for violence was downwards on the BCS between 1995 and the 2004/05 survey
(although not all year-on-year changes were statistically significant) and overall BCS violence fell by
44 per cent over this period as a whole. Since the 2004/05 BCS, the trend has flattened, with the
minor year-on-year fluctuations that are to be expected with any survey-based measure being more
prominent in the absence of a strong directional trend. The 2010/11 BCS showed overall violence was
down 47 per cent on the level seen at its peak in 1995; representing nearly two million fewer violent
offences per year.
The introduction of the NCRS in April 2002 considerably increased the recording of less serious
violent crime by the police and figures are not directly comparable across this break in the series. In
more recent years, recorded violence against the person has continued to show declines – with yearon-
year reductions in the range of four to eight per cent in each of the last four years (down 6%
between 2009/10 and 2010/11).
Homicide
The latest provisional figures showed that there were 642 homicides in 2010/11 (up by 4% from 618 in
2009/10 and including the 12 victims of the Cumbria shootings in June 2010). Final homicide data,
extracted from the Homicide Index,3 will be published in January 2012. Caution should be taken in
looking at short term changes in homicide figures, as they can fluctuate from year to year. Although
there was an increase of 24 homicides between 2009/10 and 2010/11, there has been a downward
trend in the number of homicides recorded in recent years. These falls have followed a pattern of
increasing levels of homicide (at around 2% to 3% a year) from the 1960s through to the end of the
twentieth century. Taking into account the inherent variability in numbers of homicide from one year to
the next, a trend analysis showed that levels of homicide incidents are statistically significantly lower
now than those seen in the early to mid 2000s, and are broadly similar to the levels seen in much of
the 1990s (Smith et al., 2011). The latest findings do not alter that overall picture and if the provisional
figure of 642 homicides is confirmed when the final figures from the Homicide Index are published, this
would represent a fall of 19 per cent in homicides since 2001/02.4
Use of weapons
Crimes involving guns or knives are always of great public concern and understandably attract a great
deal of attention. The number of such crimes is relatively low in volume terms and in a general
population sample survey such as the BCS the number of victims is too few to produce reliable trend
estimates. Bespoke data collections from the police provide better information on the number of such
offences but are limited in covering only those that have come to the attention of the police.
Provisional5 figures showed that 7,006 firearm offences were recorded in England and Wales in
2009/10, a 13 per cent decrease from 2009/10 and continuing a downward trend seen since 2005/06.
The provisional number of firearm offences in 2010/11 is 37 per cent below the number of offences
recorded in 2005/06.
3 The Homicide Index is a separate database to the main recorded crime dataset and contains detailed information about each
homicide recorded by the police in England and Wales. It is updated continually and is therefore a better source of data than
the main recorded crime dataset.
4 As measured by the Homicide Index. There are 794 currently recorded homicides for 2001/02 (the 943 currently recorded
homicides for 2002/03 include the 172 victims of Harold Shipman that were all recorded in 2002/03 but took place over a
number of years).
5 Final figures will be published in ‘Homicides, Firearm Offences and Intimate Violence 2010/11’ in January 2012
17
I find the ‘take the guns out of the equation’ to compare murder rates in the US and other countries to be a naive red herring. Yes, many shootings will take place ‘spontaneously’ and it is unlikely in those circumstances that the fatality would have occurred by other means but the reality is that those murders DID occur, and many of them would still occur if guns were not present.
In the UK we have fatal stabbings regularly occur. It is clear from reports that many of these are ‘spontaneous’. stabbings, in the same way that many of the shootings in the US are.
If the US had no guns people would still feel the need to arm themselves, and judging by the stats in numbers far higher than other Western countries. So in a way the gun lobby is right – people kill people. Why then is life so much cheaper in the US for so many?
יצחק בּוזוף No I didn’t miss the point at all. You wanted to show that the USA compares well, it doesn’t. You can’t use something to support your argument and then turn around and disown, when the fallacies of your argument are pointed out. You can’t compare yourself to the 99 countries that are worse off (all of which are 3rd world countries) and then say a comparison isn’t valid when comparing with other first world countries. You can’t have you cake and eat it too.
“Being a first world country is no guarantee of being crime free, however, the anti-gun folks like yourself want the world to believe that being “gun free” means being “violent crime” or “murder free.”
No one believes that being gun free is going to make a country murder free or violent crime free. What being gun free does do, which is borne out by the numbers from other first world countries, is reduce the overall murder rate by making murder much more difficult to commit.
Also you might want to check your facts before you make statements. You said
” In the UK, you may be detained by police without being charged almost indefinitely — also illegal in the USA.”
This is not true. http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/police/powers/custody/
“You can’t be kept at a police station for more than 24 hours without being charged, although this can be extended to 36 hours with the authority of a police superintendent, and for up to 96 hours with the authority of a magistrate.
The one exception is for arrests under the Terrorism Act, where you can be held without charge for up to 14 days.”
You also said “They can be searched on a whim by police, wheras in the US the police must have probable cause, or minimally, a reasonable suspicion to frisk.”
Again you are wrong: https://www.gov.uk/police-powers-to-stop-and-search-your-rights
“Stop and search: police powers
A police officer has powers to stop and search you if they have ‘reasonable grounds’ to suspect you’re carrying:
illegal drugs
a weapon
stolen property
something which could be used to commit a crime, eg a crowbar”
Even that is now going to have to be scrapped too. The European Court of Human Rights has declared Britain’s “stop and search” law illegal and has ordered its scrapping, something which the ConDem government is now obliged to do in terms of its continued membership of the European Union. The Home Office appealed the decision, but this week the EU Court refused to hear the appeal and ruled that no further appeals could be made.
As a result, the Home Office says it is now reviewing counter-terrorism laws.
You said: “The real proof of gun control laws isn’t how they perform in one country, or in only “1st World” countries. It is how they perform in EVERY country they exist, and what the murder and violent crime rates are. If every gun is banned, but the murder rate is still 20 times that of the USA, that is one failure.”
Of course it’s a failure, but you only see those failures in 3rd. World countries. If you are going to compare the USA to other countries you need to compare them to countries that have similar legal systems (such as the UK for example) and a similar standard of of living, education etc. You wanted to compare with other countries and used the UN report to try to make your point. But that same report bunches us in with ONLY 3rd world countries, You can’t have it both ways.
Really before you make statements, you might want to check their accuracy.
Some people think that disarming the average American citizen would substantially reduce the number of homicides that occur in the US. Others argue that such measures taken in other countries have seen overall violent crime rates rise afterward instead of fall.
There is one major factor that is overlooked in most of these arguments: The vast majority of murders are committed by a small subset of the criminal population, not by the “average” criminal. Over 80% of murders are committed by these criminals, who often have a history of other violent offenses. The size of this subset of the criminal population varies regionally, but some studies have claimed that these truly violent offenders are less than 12% of the overall criminal population.
These people can not easily be disarmed. They WILL get their hands on some sort of weapons, no matter how much effort or cost is involved. These are the same type of criminals as those who manage to fashion “shanks” or “zip guns” in a prison yard: They will certainly find a way to arm themselves while in the free world.
Any theory that doesn’t address these “superpredators” will fail to meaningfully address violent crime. Historically, the most effective way to shut down their predation is through placing more police officers on the streets and follow up their efforts with vigorous prosecution.
FFS! Kentucky boy, 5, accidentally shoots to death 2-year-old sister..
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-kentucky-boy-accidental-fatal-shooting-sister-20130501,0,2768797.story
..with a .22 calibre rifle he had been given as a gift.
They actually market these things for children. With pink ones for girls.
IT’s a real tragedy that the parents left the kids alone with such things.
However, the CDC says there were 606 people (adults and children) killed in accidents with firearms in 2011. That’s a tiny fraction of the more than 300 million privately owned firearms, held by about 80 million Americans. If you assume each individual is a separate household, that’s 606 out of 80,000,000 homes where there are fatal accidents with a firearm, or if you like decimals, thats 0.000007575%
There are more people dying in bathtubs.
It is no less tragic, and the parents should be held to be at fault though.
Sick fucks!
Arguing with people that believe guns need to be banned is a worthless endeavor. They want everyone to be helpless and dependent because that is going to somehow help everyone.
It didn’t help the peaceful protesters in China, Russia, or elsewhere who were killed by an armed Socialistatorship. It didn’t help the Jews in Europe. It won’t help anyone ever.
The British system is broken, just like China’s and Russia’s and they all want ours to be the same. It nearly is already.
PEOPLE rob, assault, and harm other people in the UK and there’s nothing they can do to stop it as citizens. It’s learned helplessness and they don’t know anything else. The US is headed in the same direction with the entire world- BACK into the abyss of feudalism where an unarmed populace is PREY.
Misery loves company. People don’t care enough about each other to protect one another in other countries like they once cared for each other in the US. That’s the only thing that will save this country- respecting and protecting each other’s rights. Otherwise we, too, will just be pigeons strutting around looking for and expecting someone else to feed us, protect us and fight our battles, and disappointed and helpless when we learn no one is going to do it after all.
This is all wrong. The U.K. doesn’t report murders as they happen, but when they solve them. So there are tons of dead people not accounted for. Also, a violent assault death isn’t considered a murder there, but in the U.S. it is. Add to that a self defense killing is also not a murder in the U.K., then we get some more. If you take the real numbers then the U.K. murder rate is 8.5 per 100,000 or about 177% of the US murder rate. Don’t base U.K.’s murder rate off the Home Office, go from the real numbers in the deaths register.
Moreover, even using the UK’s data, if you look back to 1898, the murder rate per 100k people has not change much over 120+ years. The murder rate in UK has always remained between about 1.2 to 2.0 per 100k people. They banned machine guns, then pump shotguns, then handguns, then bb guns, and now toy bubble gum guns and the murder rate is still around 1.4 per 100k — right in the range of the over than 120 year average.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/historical-crime-data
Does anyone know where I could find historical statistics on the percentage of homicides in Britain carried out with a firearm? There was a time – i.e. before 1920 – when Britain had less gun control than even the most gun-friendly states in the US today. People credit the low gun crime rate in Britain to the rigorous gun control laws, but I suspect it was low even when guns were more readily available.