(How conservatives manage to fit into their mythology the fact that violent crime rates kept climbing overall during the Reagan/Bush/Moral Majority decade and only started to decline when Bill Clinton was in office is not really clear to me.)
While the percentage of gun-owning US households mostly hovered at a little over 50% from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, it has since declined to somewhat over one-third of households. What has been increasing is not the percentage of households owning a gun but the number of guns per capita, apparently because many gun owners are expanding their arsenals even as the incidence of gun ownership declines. In fact, it appears that about 3% of Americans own about half of all civilian firearms in the US.
Since it doesn’t really make sense that the same gun owner is somehow deterring more crime by owning, say, eight guns than by owning two, your hypothesis that increased gun purchases are responsible for the decreasing violent crime rate doesn’t hold water.
Illegal drug use by American teens is actually at an all time low, and teen smoking and drinking rates are down too. Drug addiction rates are still comparatively high among adults, especially opiates, meth and heroin, but per capita alcohol consumption rates have dropped back down from a 1980 high to about where they were in the 1950s. Cigarette smoking rates, of course, are now about half of what they were in the 1950s.
So compared to the 1950s, the US today is actually much less poorly educated, about equally crime-ridden, and somewhat more drug-addicted, except for alcohol and tobacco. I don’t think that adds up to as much of a “cesspool” as you seem to believe.
Just wandered in to see what this thread is about, but this struck me as worth quoting:
Exactly. Man, I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to make this exact point and here all I had to do was have you do it! This meme that things are so horrible today, that everything is spinning out of control and dogs and cats are living together is just really, really annoying.
As for the OP…oh, why bother? My WAG as to why no one pitted the shooter is that this was a pretty minor event that was only blown up by the media and that it happened to YouTube. The only death was the shooter, and on that day a quick Google search shows a lot more things to pit in the US than that happened.
Why do you think we give a shit when you turn off your computer for the night? You going to talk about your bowel movements too?
I have a couple of challenges for you, Starving Artist. Don’t worry, I’m not going to trick you, make you look bad or embarrass you. I’m going to throw you a softball first.
You know who Mickey Mouse is right? You know his face, his cartoons, his ears? Pretend his name is Mickey Mammoth, because he’s an elephant. He’s got 4 massive feet, a trunk, a couple of tusks, and big floppy ears. Can you do that?
Know what we did here? We took how you perceive the world and made a slight change, and it didn’t cause your way of life to collapse. It’s just a hypothetical and you don’t have to prove any points.
Now here’s a harder challenge. You can do it. I believe in you.
Pretend you live in a world where liberals aren’t trying to undermine society. Pretend liberals aren’t trying to erode American values. Pretend liberal activists aren’t trying to brainwash schoolchildren to reject conservatism. Pretend science is a good thing.
[okay, nobody say a word…just leave him alone like that…]
2006! That’s when this god damn country started going to hell! Right down the fucking tubes! God damn rock and roll music! Pot smoking hippies! That pinko Dubya! Naked ladies!
“We would like to apologize for the way in which politicians are represented in this programme. It was never our intention to imply that politicians are weak-kneed, political time-servers who are more concerned with their personal vendettas and private power struggles than the problems of government, nor to suggest at any point that they sacrifice their credibility by denying free debate on vital matters in the mistaken impression that party unity comes before the well-being of the people they supposedly represent, nor to imply at any stage that they are squabbling little toadies without an ounce of concern for the vital social problems of today. Nor indeed do we intend that viewers should consider them as crabby ulcerous little self-seeking vermin with furry legs and an excessive addiction to alcohol and certain explicit sexual practices which some people might find offensive. We are sorry if this impression has come across.”
Bull-fucking-shit. Like it’s been mentioned, no one has pitted the Austin bomber, a white fundamentalist Christian who initially targeted and killed minorities.
We’re supposed to pit someone that didn’t kill anyone other than herself? The utter ego you must have to claim hypocrisy while ignoring murderers is wildly apparent.
Rape statistics are dodgy, at best. Only a fraction of rapes are reported, and as SaneBill pointed out back in post #63, what legally constitutes rape and the willingness of the rape victims to press charges vary wildly between countries. I’m pretty certain that the high numbers for Sweden is a statistical outlier caused by those effects.
My point with those numbers was that despite the fact that people in civilized countries “lack the means to defend themselves”, there are no data indicating that they are killed or raped more often than people in the US. Quite on the contrary: the US tops the homicide statistics and is fairly close to the top in the rape statistics. And is at the top in gun ownership per capita, way above the others. So I guess having nearly unlimited access to “the means to defend themselves” doesn’t help much against being killed or raped.
While I admire the tenacity to try and get Starving Artist to think rationally, use evidence to support his hypothesis, and respond with facts rather than idiotic blather, I see no point. He’s terminal. It’s over. The horse is dead, the fat lady has sung, the curtain has come down. No amount of actual FBI crime stats, no amount of facts about gun ownership, no amount of well-reasoned arguments, will ever, EVER dissuade him from his false preconceptions or make him a legitimate, honest debater. You are more than welcome to continue to tilt at the Starving Artist windmill (and as a passive observer, I do get something out of the factual information many of you brave, but silly, souls have presented), but expecting him to change now after all this time, is a wishful thinking.
I hate to bother Mr. Artist who’s been over all this many times, but … what in hell is he talking about?
Crime? Does it know that crime rose with the increasing persecution of the poor under Reagan? Under both Clinton and Obama, crime rates fell.
If he’s talking about the liberal demands that public venues offer 17 different restrooms for 17 different genders, we’ll need a cite. IIRC it’s Neanderthals like Mr. Artist who are so focused on public restrooms.
Please tell us what he’s talking about. Assuming he’s focused on crime, I wonder if he knows that Salt Lake City —a Mecca for dirty hippies? — leads the crime stats for U.S. cities in its population class. #4 out of 211 for property crimes, #3 for larceny-theft, #10 for auto theft, and #20 out of 211 for most forcible rapes.
Is that it? Is it all the hippies that have taken over the Mormon Church that have Mr. Artist so upset?
Yanno, Starvy, someone who wanted not to be thought of as a sicko perv would probably show a *little *less fascination with pounding little boys’ butts than you do. Just something I’m throwing out there.