Just to be clear I am not trying to pull a fast one with the 2006 cite from the Bureau of Justice Statistics which I consider a reliable source. I typed “gun” into their search engine and selected “Key Facts” and it gave me a page which has precisely one link on it…the one I cited (I cannot link that page directly but try it yourself if you doubt it). Just assumed they had nothing more recent.
Trying to find more recent cites I found this which shows gun homicides blipped up from 2004-2005, held roughly steady through 2007 and blipped down in 2008 (the last year for which they have firm data…2009 is listed as preliminary).
For the per capita cite you are looking for there was a tab on an earlier cite I gave which has the list below (partial). This is on a per capita (gun crime per 1000 people) basis. The US is listed 8th:
# 1 South Africa: 0.719782 per 1,000 people
# 2 Colombia: 0.509801 per 1,000 people
# 3 Thailand: 0.312093 per 1,000 people
# 4 Zimbabwe: 0.0491736 per 1,000 people
# 5 Mexico: 0.0337938 per 1,000 people
# 6 Belarus: 0.0321359 per 1,000 people
# 7 Costa Rica: 0.0313745 per 1,000 people
# 8 United States: 0.0279271 per 1,000 people
# 9 Uruguay: 0.0245902 per 1,000 people
# 10 Lithuania: 0.0230748 per 1,000 people
Those first three were tops in the other list too and look to be off the charts. The US in 8th place is still a dubious honor and does not speak well for us.
Beliefs have killed a lot more people than guns, so sure, if you want to get rid of people’s freedom to believe what they want, get rid of guns.
Alcohol, in a day-to-day setting, has killed more people than guns and destroyed far more livelihoods. If you’re willing to get rid of that, get rid of guns.
The protection of and existence of personal property – going by a Socialist-Christian metric – is the cause of most of the world’s suffering. If you’re hungry and don’t have bread and I do, I have no justification beyond personal property to not give it to you. If you’re cold and in the street and I have a house, I have no justification beyond personal property not to give you a room. Again, in a day-to-day setting, property has probably killed more people, made far more people starve, force them to live a life they wouldn’t choose, etc. than guns. If you’re willing to get rid of that, get rid of guns.
“Not going to fly here?” Who do you think you are on the Straight Dope message board, anyhow?
Weren’t you the one who deliberately posted that deceptive graphic which does not account for population growth over decades, and made the sweeping claim that "gun crime is on the rise recently? (recently defined by you as “4 years ago”) That “flies” like an osmium penguin.
And if I admit that a comparison is flawed - that more guns does not necessarily mean less crime - which IIRC was one of your points - that’s “handwaving.” :dubious: Hey, Mr. Hammer - I’m not your nail. I suppose you’re probably pretty angry over the McDonald decision, but don’t take it out on me.
In our whole Constitution the gun is the only “thing” you have a right to. You do not have a right to food or shelter or water or alcohol or anything else but you do have a right to a gun.
People with strong beliefs tend to use guns (or the best weapon at hand) to impose those beliefs on others.
Nobody questioned the source. I question using a population-tied statistic without putting it on the basis of dividing by the population to show a rate. Don’t you see why that is bothersome?
So you may need to revise your previous post then.
The US has a murder problem, and a gun-based murder problem. I can’t deny that, as it wouldn’t be factual. But I’m interested in the root cause of crime, which is why looking at Overland Park and comparing it to Chicago is useful. Is gun crime strictly tied to urbanization? If so, that backs up the efforts of mayors to have more restrictions within their cities. Is it tied to high proportions of mixed demographics? Is it race relations? Is it drugs? Is it tied to poverty? I posit that merely ending gun-enabled murders by banning guns is stupid even if or when or where it may appear to work, because it does not address the root injustice, inequity, or problem.
Knowing what’s going on can even help guide the proper gun control which is applied to each situation. Example: is it handgun bans which are needed, or mandatory training? Is it gun show bans which are needed, or much better oversight and zoning of existing dealers?
Point is you were trying to defang in advance an expected criticism of your argument by making it seem unimportant before people on the other side could show that it is, in fact, important. “Not going to fly here” means you should know as well as I do that such a debate tactic will be called out. The differences you noted are crucial ones and not to be dismissed.
I answered the question about my supposed deliberate deception in my last post. Please read it and note I provided more up-to-date stats for you. I am not trying to be deceptive and providing the best stats from reputable sources I can (as opposed to making an apples and oranges comparison between a city with 170,000 people and a city with nearly 3 million people).
I missed your “admission”. I will re-read your post.
I am not particularly fussed by McDonald as after Heller I viewed it as a foregone conclusion. I am mad over Heller though which I think was an awful decision.
Personally I agree with a previous poster that the Bill of Rights should be incorporated wholesale. I just disagree with the (current) SCOTUS interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. It is deeply flawed.
We take a lot of steps to deal with the problems caused by cars. We license, regulate, enforce speed limits, alcohol limits, limit where and when they can be used.
But not guns, can’t touch guns. Why? Because someone might storm the White House.
Your comment implied to me that I was being deceptive. I may be wrong, I may be off-base, I may be an idiot, but I am not being deceptive.
I was making the argument that generalizations about the tie between guns and crime are dangerous with a very pointed example. I think the Overland Park case is a little embarrassing to the anti-gun extremists - how can a city which is approaching a fifth of a million people - which is directly inside a metro area of 2 million or so - have such a low murder rate when it has (comparatively) very little gun control?
You are at a disadvantage in that I neglected to mention that OP is part and within a medium-sized metropolitan area. That negligence is my fault. It’s a subgroup of a larger metro area, and only a couple of dozen blocks from KCMO on the east side - which has a rather high murder rate per capita.
I’m almost afraid to ask, but does not even the right to an effective, personal self-defense outlined in Heller - assuming it were independent of guns - get any support from you?
What about comparing the US and the UK? According to this Wikipedia page, the homicide rate in the UK is 1.49/100k, for the US it is 5.5/100k (for 2005, the last year that both countries have stats listed). What do we take from that?
Do the amount of these deaths rise to the level where they threaten to throw us into a state of lawlessness? No.
Incidents of gun violence may be terrible tragedies to those who are affected by them but they are nowhere close to universal. Society can continue to function with the amount of gun violence we have in this country.
I should also note that murder/crime rates in Chicago can vary dramatically between neighborhoods. Sometimes to the point where being on one side of the street or the other can make a difference (really…Cabrini Green housing project area had expensive housing across the street…the trouble stayed on the Cabrini Green side). Overland Park being near a metro area helps your argument not at all. I could take you to very wealthy, low crime areas of Chicago within walking distance of pretty bad areas.
I certainly believe in self defense as a right. I do not believe that right sprouts from the 2nd Amendment nor does any reasonable reading of it suggest that it is there. It is a horrible contortion to get it from there. I believe it should come out of the 9th Amendment (although I guess the SCOTUS is loathe to use that one for anything).
Rather than a Pit-worthy “Poopy-head! Poopy-head!” shouting match masquerading as a debate, I for one welcome emack’s underhanded slow-pitch for our 3,784th GCD.
Anyone with the reasoning ability of a 5 y/o can knock this one out of the park.
I take from it that the US has a less homogeneous makeup, more poor, and a greater difficulty in protecting our borders from drug traffickers.
I also would point out that the homicide rate has been on the decline in the US and on the rise in the UK for about the last decade, that there’s never been evidence of a correlation to murder rate and gun ownership nor the legality of gun ownership. Regions that allow concealed carry seem to have fewer cases of things like random muggings. Places that allow guns have slightly higher rates of suicide.
Let’s look, for example, at the rate of gun ownership compared to the rate of intentional homicide, by nation. Comparing the US and UK is rather farcical when there’s dozens other countries that could be compared.
If there is a correlation, it’s more than negative, the chances that you’ll get murdered rise exponentially as gun ownership decreases. But as the position of the UK and Australia shows, ultimately it’s the economic state of your country that matters more. If I graphed out economic freedom versus homicide or income distribution versus homicide, you would probably get a stronger correlation. You’re better to worry about solving the problem of America’s poor than to focus on guns. If anything, there’s only anything to be risked by lowering the ownership of guns. And heck, there’s 45 guns per 100 people in Switzerland. It’s safer in Switzerland than the UK.
I’m calling bullshit on this use of the term “gun ownership” in your stats.
Criminals do not show up as “gun owners” and hence, a society with zero gun ownership could still have millions of illegal guns, leading to millions of gun related murders.
Canada has lots of gun deaths each year, regardless of gun ownership, because they are brought in illegally from the US. Most of those happening in larger urban centers.