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Uh those numbers have been flipped:

In 1992 the number of murders was 23,760.
In 2015 the number of murders was 15,696.

The amount reduced!!
Source: http://www.disastercenter.com/...

Post a valid link, and assume people won't check it??

Those people have two basic choices- starve to death or steal the money from the rich.

False dilemma. We are importing hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants today, because — we are told — we must fill jobs, that Americans, allegedly, "just will not do"... Am I supposed to sympathize with your hypothetical "starving unemployed", who'd rather rob me, than take an honest job, which an illegal immigrant is happy to take?

History has shown us, starving people WILL rob & kill the wealthy to survive.

Has it shown us this? Citations?

But stipulating for a second it has... Your idea is to stave off such murders and robberies by paying off all of the potential robbers in advance? Is that, how you you'd advise all blackmail victims to react?.. What was that about surrendering an important liberty for the sake of temporary security — and losing both and deserving neither?.. Do you recall?

But, fine, since you are — refreshingly as well as commendably — not wrapping yourself in the flag of fake charity, let's discuss the hard cold numbers. Since waging the "War on Poverty" over 50 years ago, we've spent well over $20 trillion tax-dollars (inflation-adjusted) on various poverty-fighting programs. That's well over $400 billion per year on average in today's dollars. We are also losing about $200 billion each year to crime and crime-fighting.

Now, how much of a crime-increase will the complete abolition of the government's anti-poverty efforts cause? Even if it flat-out doubles the crime-rate — thus doubling the crime-related costs — we'll still save about $200 billion every year. But, of course, the crime will not "double" — just as it did not halve, when we started this ill-fated "war". If anything, it increased back then...

Which society do you want to live in?

I want a society, where criminals are harshly prosecuted and the innocents aren't compelled to pay them off, thanks for asking.

lol.. What an idiot. Whether a woman looks like a whore or not does not give anyone the right to violate her just as it doesn't give anyone the right to kick your ass- even though we might think you deserve it. When she says bugger off creep, you need to move on.

Rape statistics have little to do with it. For one, a lot of the rapes were unreported, for two, there was a level of social justice the simply is not tolerated today so rapists don't really have to worry about being hunted down a killed by her kin, three, in the 50s and 60s we institutionalize mentally ill people a lot earlier and a lot longer on a lot less grounds, and finally, and finally, we changed the laws on what was rape in the 60's including the reporting for record keeping to include more acts and again later in the 70s and 80s to include yet more activities.

If you look at the statistics which only include what was reported, you will see a jump in all violent, property, rape, robbery, assault, burglary and, motor vehicle theft crimes too. It seems the murder and larceny rates stayed about the same. Is that all because of how a woman started dressing or could there be other issues involved?

but hey, this has nothing to do with rapes as near as I can tell. None of the articles listed mention it. It is literally as I said, professional disclosure of personal information being used for non professional uses and behavior that would get most people fired from their jobs.

Lol.. Do you think saying "fuck" adds depth of meaning to your words?

I have better odds of making rich by hitting the lottery than I do of being incorrectly put to death by capitol punishment. There were 699,000 or so murders since 1976 when the death penalty numbers can be tracked. There has been 1379 executions in that time span which means less than two tenths of one percent where executed. Furthermore, there are 3035 death row inmates, if we add the already executed of 1379, it comes to a little over six tenths of one percent of all murders over a 4 decade period of time results in a death penalty. Assuming a 318 million population level and an average murder rate per year, I had a little over five thousands of one percent chance of even being charged with one of those murders. Of course that number is flawed because the population is not static but I'm much more likely to be murdered by someone than to be executed for a murder I did not commit.

It's too insignificant to be overly concerned about it as far as I can tell.

But now compare the violent crime rate.

Australia had a big gun-grab back in 1996. I want to know what effect
this has had, so I will start at 1995.

**Australia, 1995**
Population - 18,100,000
Murders - 321
Attempted Murder - 301
Manslaughter - 30
Robbery - 16466
Assault - 101149
Sexual Assault - 12809
Kidnapping - 469
Total Violent Crime - 131545
- - - - -
Murder, per million - 17.73
Violent Crime, per million - 7267.68

**Australia, 2010**
Population - 22,300,000
Murders - 260
Robbery - 14,582
Assault - 171083
Sexual Assault - 17757
Kidnapping - 603
Total Violent Crime - 204285
- - - - -
Murder, per million - 11.66
Murder, change from 1995 - 34.3% decrease
Violent Crime, per million - 9160.72
Violent Crime, from 1995 - 26.05% INCREASE

Yes, read that again. Murder dropped by 34.26%, but overall violent crime
is **up** by 26.05% For every life saved, an extra 312 people were the
victims of violent crime..

Wow, WHAT a slam dunk! Sign our country UP for some of that!

During the SAME period (1995-2010), here are the USA trends.
Murder - 42.6% down (compare to 34.3% down in Australia)
Violent crime - 43.5% down (compare to 26.05% UP in Australia)

Austalia, 1995 numbers.
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats...

Australia, 2010 numbers.
http://www.aic.gov.au/media_li...
I used 2010 becaise of this note:
2011 figure does not include information from Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania. Therefore, the assault figure **cannot be compared with those prior to 2011**

USA figures (spot-checked, and the numbers were very close to FBI estimates.
http://www.disastercenter.com/...

Violent crime is less than half what it was 20 years ago. And even less compared to 30 years ago.

I wouldn't argue with your points - or even your conclusion, but it should be noted that that same time period also coincides with the wide adoption of 3-strikes sentencing laws

California's murders peaked at 4096 in 1993. 3-strikes passed in 1994 and the murder rate has dropped almost every year since. It's now less than half what it was before 1884 in 2012.

You may want to read up on representation in the U.S. The founding generation considered it important enough to draft an amendment that would prevent Congressional districts from ever exceeding a population of 50,000. Democracy is not the sole cause of increases in prosperity. China and India are democracies, as are other countries that have not prospered as the U.S. has. When the factors are all weighed, what tends to be most prevalent is the freer the market, the more prosperity. We can find the same to be true with representation: the smaller the districts, the more economic freedoms and justice will prevail.

You're right, I misread your statement. What you're actually stating is worse: regardless of how much better bridges would be if they were all private, it wouldn't be worth it. I really don't understand this.

Clearly you have never looked at crime stats (originally I was able to find this data on the FBI website, but I can only find data there going back to 1992 now). Violent crime rates in the U.S. are up dramatically from when the USG first began keeping statistics around 1960. The trend was a steep rise until 1990 or so and a dramatic fall since then. However, rates are still up considerably from where they were in 1960. Why, I don't know, but there is one peculiar exception: the murder rate is lower. How can this be? There is no way to know, but my hypothesis is that missing persons are essentially no longer being investigated, which would result in lowered crime statistics since a reported missing person is not a report of a crime, but investigatng missing persons less will result in fewer reported crimes, and being that murder is already very low (.005%), it will have a real impact on the statistic. So when you are talking about murder, you are talking about something that is so infinitesimal that it has very little bearing when comparing to arguments on things that affect 100% of the population, which is why I consider the argument absurd.

A book I have not read, but have seen quoted many times, is The Not So Wild, Wild West, where the authors demonstrate that by every measure, the "wild west" was one of the most peaceful, least violent places in the history of the U.S., and it was mostly anarchy. However, even with that, I am not an anarchist, but my issues regarding this nation and democracy are that it doesn't work - reading about the history of the U.S. Constitution and what it was supposed to do is a miserable exercise that reveals how all sides (philosophically speaking) want to use the central government and bend the law to carry out their idea of how things should be, while the only group that really wins is special interests, the 'sides' both lose while the republic is transformed into a centrally controlled plutocracy.

The United States, through direct murder through wars of aggression and indirect murder through violently enforced policies such as at the 'drug war' make the United States Government one of the, if not the, biggest killer in the world. The point is not to be content that modern-day life in the U.S. is better than life in Spain during the Inquisition, but that we can always improve and make things better, and doing such will require casting aside those things which make life worse, and the U.S. Government is a single package that we should be weighing the total costs and total benefits of.

If you want to prevent child molestation, perhaps one way to accomplish that is to allow people an outlet which in fact, harms no children, such as stories or cartoons. Yeah, it's icky. But then so is murder, and billions of people enjoy fictionalized murder in the most gory ways fictionally possible. Look at murder rates: http://www.disastercenter.com/... (scroll down for the x/100k figure) -- they're the lowest now that they've been in half a century AND our movies and video games are more realistic and bloody than ever before imaginable. Not sayin' "causation" ... but I'm guessing there are plenty of areas that have been studied showing that a safe legal outlet reduces unwanted behavior.

You would think that watching the news, but look at the stats and you'd know you were wrong:

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

Example:

Crime rate per 100k people:
1968: 3,370.2
2011: 3,295.0

The peak was around from 1975 to 1996, ranging from about 5.2k to 5.8k per 100k population. It's been in the 3k range and steadily falling since 2004. But falling crime rates don't attract viewers.

Other sources. Crime rate in the 00s. See PDF pages 3 & 4 (national rate steady decline): http://www.umassd.edu/media/umassdartmouth/seppce/centerforpolicyanalysis/crime.pdf

1991 -- 2010, FBI stats on Violent crime. 2010 level almost half of that in 1991: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/10tbl01.xls

Ohio has seen a number of tornadoes and seems' to average a pretty decent amount each year Ohio Tornadoe and even Michigan seems to average around 15+ tornadoes each year Michigan Now granted, they're typically not seen as clustered, or as strong as what you get in the plains/south but they still happen.

Many would argue that gun violence has become more pervasive, and I'd have a hard time arguing against that statement.

Why? It's quite easy to argue against such a statement: according to FBI crime statistics gun-related homicide rates are at their lowest level since 1964 (scroll down to get the normalized rate-per-100,000 people) and have been declining for years. You can get the raw data from the FBI directly, if you prefer.

By any objective measure, gun-related homicide in the US has decreased significantly even as the number of legally-owned guns in the country has increased. People may perceive that gun violence is increasing (and it may well be true in certain localities in the country), but overall that's not the case.

According to crime records, while there's been some year-by-year variation in the number of mass shootings and victims, overall the trend has been constant since at least 1980. Despite the enormous media attention they get, they are statistically very rare. Are there too many? Absolutely.

By the same token, most places aren't countries then. Western Canada is completely different than central or Eastern, north England is different than south, etc.

Regarding the Maryland stats Baltimore City schools are 13K, but Carrol county is 11K, a significant difference, but not that significant. Carrol County is also significantly more affluent ($81K median income) than Baltimore ($39K).

Spending in most of the affluent Maryland counties seems to be significantly less than in similarly populated counties with larger lower-income families, and even by district within counties. Howard County for example has million dollar houses a ten minute walk from community housing. You have schools like Centennial, where my younger sisters went, as one of the best high schools in Maryland, and less than 4 miles away is Wilde Lake High, where less than half of the students pass standardized test. People who are financially better off have more resources, obviously, so things like reduced funding lunches aren't very common, which significantly reduces the expense per student.

Again, the issue comes back to poverty. Increasing/decreasing the amount of guns available doesn't address the issue. Arming the entire population certainly won't end gun violence.

I was looking further into the Florida/Texas comparison as well. In 2010 Florida had a murder rate of 5.2/1000 people, Texas 5.0, Maryland 7.4, none of which are have a huge variance. Certainly not one that could be attributed to shoot back legislation, because New York, with oppressive gun control laws, was a 4.9, California, with significantly more repressive gun control laws was at 4.0.

However, DC may offer a pretty good argument for arming everyone, since they were at 127.

Regardless, guns aren't the problem, I agree. But they're not the solution either.

By the same token, most places aren't countries then. Western Canada is completely different than central or Eastern, north England is different than south, etc.

Regarding the Maryland stats Baltimore City schools are 13K, but Carrol county is 11K, a significant difference, but not that significant. Carrol County is also significantly more affluent ($81K median income) than Baltimore ($39K).

Spending in most of the affluent Maryland counties seems to be significantly less than in similarly populated counties with larger lower-income families, and even by district within counties. Howard County for example has million dollar houses a ten minute walk from community housing. You have schools like Centennial, where my younger sisters went, as one of the best high schools in Maryland, and less than 4 miles away is Wilde Lake High, where less than half of the students pass standardized test. People who are financially better off have more resources, obviously, so things like reduced funding lunches aren't very common, which significantly reduces the expense per student.

Again, the issue comes back to poverty. Increasing/decreasing the amount of guns available doesn't address the issue. Arming the entire population certainly won't end gun violence.

I was looking further into the Florida/Texas comparison as well. In 2010 Florida had a murder rate of 5.2/1000 people, Texas 5.0, Maryland 7.4, none of which are have a huge variance. Certainly not one that could be attributed to shoot back legislation, because New York, with oppressive gun control laws, was a 4.9, California, with significantly more repressive gun control laws was at 4.0.

However, DC may offer a pretty good argument for arming everyone, since they were at 127.

Regardless, guns aren't the problem, I agree. But they're not the solution either.

By the same token, most places aren't countries then. Western Canada is completely different than central or Eastern, north England is different than south, etc.

Regarding the Maryland stats Baltimore City schools are 13K, but Carrol county is 11K, a significant difference, but not that significant. Carrol County is also significantly more affluent ($81K median income) than Baltimore ($39K).

Spending in most of the affluent Maryland counties seems to be significantly less than in similarly populated counties with larger lower-income families, and even by district within counties. Howard County for example has million dollar houses a ten minute walk from community housing. You have schools like Centennial, where my younger sisters went, as one of the best high schools in Maryland, and less than 4 miles away is Wilde Lake High, where less than half of the students pass standardized test. People who are financially better off have more resources, obviously, so things like reduced funding lunches aren't very common, which significantly reduces the expense per student.

Again, the issue comes back to poverty. Increasing/decreasing the amount of guns available doesn't address the issue. Arming the entire population certainly won't end gun violence.

I was looking further into the Florida/Texas comparison as well. In 2010 Florida had a murder rate of 5.2/1000 people, Texas 5.0, Maryland 7.4, none of which are have a huge variance. Certainly not one that could be attributed to shoot back legislation, because New York, with oppressive gun control laws, was a 4.9, California, with significantly more repressive gun control laws was at 4.0.

However, DC may offer a pretty good argument for arming everyone, since they were at 127.

Regardless, guns aren't the problem, I agree. But they're not the solution either.

By the same token, most places aren't countries then. Western Canada is completely different than central or Eastern, north England is different than south, etc.

Regarding the Maryland stats Baltimore City schools are 13K, but Carrol county is 11K, a significant difference, but not that significant. Carrol County is also significantly more affluent ($81K median income) than Baltimore ($39K).

Spending in most of the affluent Maryland counties seems to be significantly less than in similarly populated counties with larger lower-income families, and even by district within counties. Howard County for example has million dollar houses a ten minute walk from community housing. You have schools like Centennial, where my younger sisters went, as one of the best high schools in Maryland, and less than 4 miles away is Wilde Lake High, where less than half of the students pass standardized test. People who are financially better off have more resources, obviously, so things like reduced funding lunches aren't very common, which significantly reduces the expense per student.

Again, the issue comes back to poverty. Increasing/decreasing the amount of guns available doesn't address the issue. Arming the entire population certainly won't end gun violence.

I was looking further into the Florida/Texas comparison as well. In 2010 Florida had a murder rate of 5.2/1000 people, Texas 5.0, Maryland 7.4, none of which are have a huge variance. Certainly not one that could be attributed to shoot back legislation, because New York, with oppressive gun control laws, was a 4.9, California, with significantly more repressive gun control laws was at 4.0.

However, DC may offer a pretty good argument for arming everyone, since they were at 127.

Regardless, guns aren't the problem, I agree. But they're not the solution either.

By the same token, most places aren't countries then. Western Canada is completely different than central or Eastern, north England is different than south, etc.

Regarding the Maryland stats Baltimore City schools are 13K, but Carrol county is 11K, a significant difference, but not that significant. Carrol County is also significantly more affluent ($81K median income) than Baltimore ($39K).

Spending in most of the affluent Maryland counties seems to be significantly less than in similarly populated counties with larger lower-income families, and even by district within counties. Howard County for example has million dollar houses a ten minute walk from community housing. You have schools like Centennial, where my younger sisters went, as one of the best high schools in Maryland, and less than 4 miles away is Wilde Lake High, where less than half of the students pass standardized test. People who are financially better off have more resources, obviously, so things like reduced funding lunches aren't very common, which significantly reduces the expense per student.

Again, the issue comes back to poverty. Increasing/decreasing the amount of guns available doesn't address the issue. Arming the entire population certainly won't end gun violence.

I was looking further into the Florida/Texas comparison as well. In 2010 Florida had a murder rate of 5.2/1000 people, Texas 5.0, Maryland 7.4, none of which are have a huge variance. Certainly not one that could be attributed to shoot back legislation, because New York, with oppressive gun control laws, was a 4.9, California, with significantly more repressive gun control laws was at 4.0.

However, DC may offer a pretty good argument for arming everyone, since they were at 127.

Regardless, guns aren't the problem, I agree. But they're not the solution either.

20k mobile phone robberies. A hundred thousand cell phone robberies per year in 1993 seems a little hard to fathom. Although you're right that crime rates are going down.

According to the FBI's Uniform crime reports, http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/, and comparing that to the Texas A&M study http://econweb.tamu.edu/mhoekstra/castle_doctrine.pdf murder rates per capita have gone down in most of the states that have enacted Stand your Ground type laws. I'm afraid that my stats knowledge is not strong enough to go delving in the full study report, but it seems their best argument is that Stand your Ground states have not seen murder rates fall as fast as other states. That is a pretty hard position to argue.

My own feeling is that it probably does not affect violent crime rates at all, it just means fewer people go to jail for defensive shootings. In Ohio, if I shoot someone in self defense (there is an exception if I am in my home or my car), whether I am a murderer or not depends on if I tried to run away or not. If I did not try to run, I'm a murderer. If I did try to run, or if I claimed I was unable to run, then the cops and the courts would have to do some work to decide if I am guilty or not. Before Ohio passed a Castle Doctrine law, if someone broke down my door and started shooting, I could not legally return fire until I had retreated to another room and been pursued. Granted, the odds of a stranger trying to force their way into my house while I am home is small, but I know of a few cases in the surrounding cites where men went to jail for murder simply because they defended their homes.

Incidentally, Florida's Stand Your Ground law does not apply in the Zimmerman case because he claims to have been retreating to his car when the fight started and that he was on the ground with Martin crouched over him and reaching for the gun when he fired. Even without a Stand Your Ground type of law, that is a defensible case. It's going to come down to if the jury believes Martin or Zimmerman was the aggressor.



There are many studies that show that gun ownership is dangerous. Some do so by including suicides in the statistics. None of them include (as far as I have seen) defensive uses of firearms when no one is killed. On the other hand, gun ownership rates are higher than ever in the US and murder rates continue to drop.

That statistic is meaningless. Go here: http://www.disastercenter.com/cdc/Leading%20Cause%20of%20Death%201999-2005.html

In 2005 in the US, in the age group 15-24 including both males and females, the TOTAL mortality is 80 per 100,000 or 0.08%.

It doesn't take many deaths in this group to be a large statistic.

Here's a stat for you:
"The mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate associated with all causes of death for females 15-24 years old." source: American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 152 (7), July 1995, p. 1073-1074, Sullivan, Patrick F. (from http://www.anad.org/get-information/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/) I haven't read the article, so they may have just made it up.

Given 100,000 people age 15-24, 3-4 of those 100,000 will both die and be female. Is it hard to imagine that 2 of them will die of eating-disorder related issues?

The U.S. has joined Iran, North Korea etc. on my list of "Places that are too dangerous to visit right now."

This makes me believe that you've never been to any of those places, and that you spend too much time listening to lunatics on-line/in print/on television.

Sure, we've passed some wacky laws recently, but for 99.999999999999999% of people here, life hasn't changed a ton since the 90's (except maybe a bit less financial stupidity). That opinion might not be popular if you live in Detroit or any other large, industry based city, but it's true.

The closest center for urban decay to my geographical location is Chicago. Even its worst neighborhoods are startlingly safe compared to what the media would have you believe. SURE, don't walk around flashing money, but that rule applies in every urban center, regardless of crime rate.

This tells me that crime rates are dropping across the nation. There are more out there, a quick search turned up two other sites to support my claims.

It has been my experience that the people that bitch the loudest about how terrible it is here are the people who have never really traveled outside of their county, let alone state, or (God forbid) country.

Or, I could be all wet on this one, but I doubt it.

1972, Pong is released. Violent crime rate in the US (includes murder, rape, and aggravated assault) is 0.2%.
1993, Doom, the first 3rd-person shooter video game, is released. Violent crime rate in the US (includes murder, rape, and aggravated assault) is 0.4%.
2010. Video games, many of them violent and played by surly teenagers, are bigger than movies. Violent crime rate in the US (includes murder, rape, and aggravated assault) is 0.2%.

Source: http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

That isn't entirely accurate. Most people who are murdered are usually involved with crime or involved with someone who is. I hate the near mythical, some one breaks into your house scenario. It is rare for someone to break into another person's house with a gun. When someone breaks into your home they are far more likely to do it without a gun and most defiantly while you are not at home.

Crime causes far more murders then guns do. People don't rob a bank because they have a gun, they rob a bank because they feel it's the only way they can get money or for the rush. People have robbed banks with snapping turtles so there is obviously no need for a gun to do it.

Look at these numbers http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm.
In 1993 there were 9.5 murders per 100,000 in the USA.
In 2010 there were 4.8 murders per 100,000 in the USA.
The numbers show a steady decline, but during that time gun laws have primarily become less restrictive. Conceal carry laws have been created and the assault weapon ban was allowed to expire.

How many guns did the airport screeners catch in 2000? For whatever reason, references for comparison are not so easily found, but if you are advocating that this is an improvement, I want to see the evidence.

According to these statistics, crime rates are actually lower than a decade ago and have not been below this level since 1973. That's before the end of the Vietnam War.

I really doubt that Google will enable you to make a realistic comparisons because the TSA, as a unified reporting agency, did not exist in 2000. Screening equipment was in place, though, and it was protecting flights regardless. According to this article there was only one US-related hijacking from 1987-2000

Crime is going through the roof all over the U.S. and it's because there is no opportunity.

Crime rates per capita are at the lowest levels since the 1960's. 1991 was the peak, its been going down ever since.
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

Hoodlums /= "civil unrest", and the baseline violence level in the US is trivial compared to the Bad Old Days.

For example, walking in Central Park is no longer considered attempted suicide. Have some stats:

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/nycrime.htm

Want "civil unrest"? Have some "1967 riots". THAT was civil unrest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBhaiJ5YNiM

But not a majority of guns are used in violent crime.

* Roughly 7% of all violent crime in 2008 involved a firearm... ( http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/percentfirearm.cfm )
* Number of violent crimes in the US in 2008 - 1,392,628 ( http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm )
* Quick math: 97483.96 ... let's say 98,000
* there were over 4 million firearms manufactured in the US 2008 (4,152,082) ... this does not include manufactures outside the US.
* there were about 3.8 million produced in 2007

That's 2.4%-2.5% of guns produced (just of the US made guns, so this is a high estimate) being used for crime.

US crime rates have been dropping for nearly 10 years, and the recession, unemployment, etc. haven't caused an increase so far. Your theory doesn't match the data

The software isn't supposed to predict specific crimes, but areas/times. e.g. it is probable that 10 houses in this neighborhood will be burgled this month during work hours.

Violent crime rates in Michigan went up or remained stable with the rates of 1980 till 1996 http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/micrime.htm They began to drop after the economy began do pick up and were at a low around the period of time the jobless rate was at a historical low http://www.bls.gov/web/laus/lauhsthl.htm they begin to get worse again during the economic troubles of the 2004-2006 and drop off again due to a population exodus from the state (fewer people competing for jobs).

While I'm all for Correlation != Causation there is an undeniable correlation between jobless rates/economy of a region and crime rates. It's been documented worldwide.

Hmmm... seems every one of my guesses at the statistics was 180 degrees off. Literally, every one of them. ;) A 2005 misleading press release (called "States with Higher Gun Ownership and Weak Gun Laws Lead Nation in Gun Death") by the Violence Prevention Center did conclude that "More guns means more gun death and injury. Fewer guns means less gun death and injury. It's a simple equation." Unfortunately, their pronouncements on the five-state statistics only prove that you can make a small subset of a dataset say the opposite of what the whole dataset says.

I grabbed stats for gun ownership rates by state from the Washington Post, and you can get violent crime rates from a variety of sources (e.g. violent crime rates by state for `04 and `05, or gun crimes by state for 2009).

If you merge all that together, it shows a mildly negative correlation between per-capita gun ownership and gun homicide (-0.2612653943), and similarly between gun ownership and robberies with firearms (-0.2144191759) [varies depending on the years you compare & whether you include Puerto Rico, etc.]

They still don't. Weapon-based violence in school is extremely rare, but has always been present. Columbine got massive media attention because of the sheer scale of the attackers' plans, but in the end, the only thing that's changed is that the MSM has gotten more desperate for viewership.

When I was in middle school (I'm 27 atm if you want a time period), I threw the school bully into a display case, not hard enough to send him through it, but hard enough that he knew I could. He got the message, and he never bothered me again.

Some fights in the school did go a bit further, but the worst thing that ever happened in there was a fistfight sending someone to the ER with a broken nose. No one *ever* pulled a weapon, and plenty of students had knives, simply because this was before the age of paranoia, and a utility knife was simply a common thing to have, especially if you had shop class.

The media loves to report about the "zomgepidemicofviolence!" because it gets people to watch the show. They don't care that it turns the younger generations away, because we all get our news online anyway, and couldn't care less what the networks are showing.

Here's the raw numbers on violence when you take the sensationalist media out of the picture:
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
Notice the population keeps going up, while the crime count keeps going DOWN? Yeah, I'm not seeing a problem here.

Twelve murders would be the average amount for a city of 240,000. St. Petersburg Fl, Jersey Ciy NJ and Chandler AZ are all around that size. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population. I haven't found the actual crime figures for these places, but I think that the residents would only be upset if the number was far above twelve per year.

There are a lot more Craigslist users then in any of those places, even though they don't "live" there.

Not a problem.

US Crime Rates are down or unchanged on average since 1978 across the board in the US, so the increase in violent video games has *not* caused a corresponding increase in crime.

You've never been in the situation, perhaps for a reason...

Property crime rates in Canada, 2004: approx 4000 per 100,000 population.
Property crime rates in Texas, same year: over 5000 per 100,000 population.

Violent crime rates: both about 500 per 100,000 population.

So tell us again, how gun ownership and trigger-happy laws make everyone safer?

And I live in one where you can't carry a gun unless you get a letter -from- City Hall and the state AG's office. As far as I know, none have been issued in a long time.

Crime here dropped like a rock in the past few years, too. Nothing to do with guns.

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/ricrime.htm

There are three factors I think are at work:

1. Legal abortion and widespread subsidized contraception in the 1980s prevented the people most likely to rob me from existing in the first place.
2. Credit is still easy to get. It's easier and less risky to just 'put it on the credit card' than it is to steal. It's far less detrimental to have a bankruptcy than a felony conviction on your record. You can rack up $30k in debt before people start coming after you, try robbing people and you'll be caught in a few weeks.
3. We have a huge number of people who are already locked-up. They're not robbing me. The government is robbing me to keep them incarcerated, but that's not the point of the discussion.
4. We have more cops than ever. If I stand at the end of my street at midnight, police passes of my block average one every 4 minutes. Response time when I have called has been less than two minutes for one car to arrive, three minutes for three cars.

I'm not advocating any of those things one way or another, just pointing them out.

With concealed carry laws in Texas, violent crime has dropped significantly, even as it rises in other populous nations.

Nonsense.

Texas
New York

With concealed carry laws in Texas, violent crime has dropped significantly, even as it rises in other populous nations.

Nonsense.

Texas
New York

Chicago gun ban (actually ceasing to issue permits) happened in 1982

Homicide rates:

1980: .02933%

1985: .0222%

1990: .03057%

1995: .02996%

2000: .02178%

source: http://www.disastercenter.com/illinois/crime/3111.htm

This really tells us nothing except that after the ban went into effect the homicide rate fluctuated quite a bit.

I understand your point, but my point is that historically prohibition does not work. It didn't work for alcohol, it doesn't work for drugs, and it doesn't seem to work for guns.

You've also made my point for me which is that it is more complicated by far than simply more guns = more murders.

Yet interestingly enough after the 2000 ban crime rates have dropped across the board in Illinois

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/ilcrime.htm

The problem with a larger picture is that each country has different critera as to what constitutes a specific type of crime whereas they almost all universally agree as to what constitutes a homicide. I do agree there is a downward trend (for instance, the US rate was twice what it is now as compared to the rate in 1980), but that downward trend for homicide has slowed and actually reversed in recent years and is now waffling between 5 to 6 (it's actually increased slightly from 2000 to 2008).

Here's a nice slice of crime from 1960 - Current: http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

In both of the last two nieghborhoods I've lived in I've only locked the doors while on vacation. Do we really need locks on our doors?

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/

Looking up the crime statistics in the counties I've lived in, it would appear that maybe 1% or less of the population participates in crimes worth monitoring. For the most part people don't steal and don't assault people. Yes there are some and occasionally a nut job kills a few people, but that is a few people out of 300,000,000. Do we really need to alter our lives or society to protect against this insignificant amount deviance from the norm?

Seriously, the entire post 9-11 culture disgusts me. Everyone started cowering in fear and giving up every ounce of self respect and freedom to keep themselves safe from another terrorist attack. Yet every one of those same people probably gets in a car every day. Boggle...

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

Crime rates doubled, tripled per capita across the board since 1960.

Historical crime statistics

Since 1960, violent crime has tripled, robberies quadrupled.... pretty much every crime rate has at least doubled or tripled per capita.

Here's a start: death rates by age.

You mean this site? Overall, murders are very rare.

USA: 5/100,000 people
Utah: 2/100,000 people
Iowa: 1/100,000 people

Iowa has more people than Utah and doesn't have such draconian moral restrictions. In fact, they're much more liberal than Utah. Does that mean liberalism has concrete benefits in terms of murder rates?

In 2007 there where:

301,621,157 people in the US
11,251,828 Total CRIMES
1,408,337 Violent (seperate from murders)
16,929 Murders (not included in violent)
855,856 Aggrivated Assault - a reckless attack with intent to injure seriously (as with a deadly weapon)
2,176,140 Burglaries - Lowest since 1991

This gives a .47%violent crime rate in America ((1,408,337+16,929)/301,621,157)

Source http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

In 2005 there were:
419,640 - Non fatal Gun crimes
8,478 - Handgun deaths
2,868 - other gun deaths
2,147 - Knife deaths
671 - Blunt object deaths
2,528 - Other object deaths

USDOJ Source.gov http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/weaponstab.htm

UK Crimes

In 2007 there were:
60,975,000 - Total Population (estimate)
1,045,369 Violence crimes
621,958 Burglaries
3,810,971 Total Crimes

This gives a 1.7% violent crime rate (1,045,369/60,975,000)

http://212.78.84.22/superweb/login.do?guest=guest

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=6

So the UK has a crime rate roughly 3.61 times worse than the US in violent crime rates.

Does fear of being shot deter criminals in the U.S.? Are citizens of the U.K. better at reporting crimes?

Shamelessly copied from http://runryder.com/helicopter/t471261p1/

"It's not the people who want my property that worry me - it's what they're prepared to do to access the said property."

What worries ME is exactly that kind of thinking. Since you assume THEY are capable of hurting your loved ones, you justify killing THEM. That opinion in widespread form, and you can count on that anyone breaking into your house WILL be prepared to kill you, since they assume otherwise you will kill them.

You enter a bad circle and finally you end up with the middle-east, or for that matter the crime statistics of the U.S. with a homicide-rate of over 5.5%, compared to Sweden with 1.1% (for 2006).

Information Source:
U.S: http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
Sweden: http://www.bra.se/ (authorative statistics-source for crime in Sweden. In Swedish, I think google translate will do a decent job).

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

For every 100 people, almost 4 crimes have been REPORTED, and estimates range as much as 10x for unreported crimes relative to reported.

You may call it paranoid, but for many of us, it's obvious that crime is rising, as is passive criminal behavior. Cities covered in graffiti? Check. Corruption in politics and in businesses? Check. Tons of petty crime not worth reporting but prevalent? Check.

It's not paranoid to note that "my fellow man" is not a uniform quantity. Some people are good, and some are bad news. If that offends you, I have to ask which group you're from ;)

Absolutely correct; it's not like the elderly are the only people who have accidents. In fact, teens have about as high a death rate as the elderly from traffic accidents, probably because teens' recklessness is comparable to seniors' physiological limitations, mediated by seniors' tendency to drive less as they age (see this link for some statistics).

We have enough technology now to really reduce motor vehicle fatalities, yet we haven't implemented many of them. Today, every car should have a collision avoidance system that kicks in when a collision is likely. For example, lots of crashes happen on high speed roads when people change lanes without looking. So why not have the car warn you--for a few hundred dollars you could have these little laser thingies that would detect approaching vehicles from several angles, and squawk at you when you're about to do something stupid.

Another feature might be a slow-down signal that your car sends out to cars behind you in the event that you suddenly stop, like to avoid a deer or another accident. This might reduce pile-ups on the highway.

When some idiot is running a red light and is about to cream you side-on, you are not going to have an engine in front of you to absorb much of the impact, just some reinforced side panels and maybe a side airbag or two. That's not going to be of much help if they're going 60 or more. But if you had some explosive collision absorbers in the side of the car, it might bounce some of the force away. Also, the drunk who is coming at you should have an emergency braking system that kicks in to prevent him killing you (and maybe himself). Lots of people hit trees and this would help with that problem as well.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. I'm no automotive engineer and surely the big brains in Detroit, Berlin, and Tokyo can come up with even better and more practical ideas to make traffic fatalities history. GM's windscreen concept is a great start and at the very least it will stimulate some discussion as Joe Public begins to dimly perceive how technology could save lives.

So are are the things listed here. Wow looking at that gives you quite an indication of the crime rate. In 1960, the murder rate was .005%, and in 2006, the rate was .0057%. The rate hasn't gone up much, but if you watch the news, it seems like it's happening a lot more.

Or you could look at the violent crime statistics of areas with high ownership of firearms vs areas with low ownership of firearms.

That handgun ban sure has helped in DC.
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/US_States_Rate_Ranking.html

It's far easier to procure firearms in neighboring Virginia and Maryland. They must have higher violent crime rates! Oh, wait, no they don't. I guess the availability of firearms doesn't actually increase the incidence of violent crime. So much for a gun ban making violent crime harder to occur. Thanks for playing though.