# Record low murder rate

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-low-murder-rate/658825>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [May 20, 2013, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-low-murder-rate/658825 "2013-05-20T15:22:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 4

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2013, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-low-murder-rate/658825/61 "2013-06-04T16:24:06Z")

</div>

> [@rat\_avatar](#):
>
> Lead may be part of the reason but it ignores that that uptick was a tiny uptrend in a long historical drop in the murder rate in the western world.
> 
> WARNING PDF
> 
> [http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/postgraduate/ma\_studies/mamodules/hi971/topics/interpersonal/long-term-historical-trends-of-violent-crime.pdf](http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/postgraduate/ma_studies/mamodules/hi971/topics/interpersonal/long-term-historical-trends-of-violent-crime.pdf)  
> Also look at figure 2 on page 67 of the following cite, total lead per capita was actually lower in the mid 1900’s due to paint…yet if it was the primary cause why would it not also follow the historical context.
> 
> Warning PDF
> 
> [http://www.nber.org/papers/w13097.pdf?new\_window=1](http://www.nber.org/papers/w13097.pdf?new_window=1)  
> But the biggest issue with claiming that Leaded gas was the main cause is that the only way they hand wave away the other potential causes and over decades the main proponents just keep adding more things to blame lead on over the years without ruling it out for anything they have published.
> 
> Now…to fight off the inevitable straw man arguments, I think lead exposure, especially in young developing humans is a very bad thing and I am quite happy the laws have been moving towards exposure reduction. But that mixed with all the “toxins” talk hits my Baloney Detection Kit. Note I realize there are serious ethical issues with “double blind” human studies and that is not what makes me want to look at this closer.  
> IMHO, one factor people just plainly ignore is that it wasn’t just birth control, Eisenstadt v. Baird was decided in 1972 just two years before Roe v. Wade. Previous to that there was no “right” for unmarried couples to use birth control and a short 7 years prior to that Griswold v. Connecticut was decided which had given married couples the right to use birth control.
> 
> Mix in the equal pay act, no fault divorce and you have women and couples gaining more control control of family planning.
> 
> There are probably lots of reasons the rate has dropped…and I don’t doubt that the reduction in lead exposure is part of the solution. But I also highly doubt that it was the primary cause.
> 
> If I had to guess I would say it was due to a complex mixture of increased education, reduced poverty, increased access to family planning and real family planing information, increased access to recreational outlets and a whole lot of luck.
> 
> I hope the whole subject receives more study right now there “answers” are mostly seem to be guesses and pseudoscience.

The reason I can’t buy the lead argument:

- Everyone knows that there must be other primary factors that influence the rate of violent crime. Reason? The rates per population vary quite widely between places - the rate in Toronto is not the rate in New York, and naturally, this is the result of other factors - poverty levels, social infrastructure, race relations, etc. No-one claims that (say) Canadian cities used less leaded gas that US cities, so the difference between places can’t be caused by lead.

- The graphs showing the correlation between lead use and violent crime show a good “fit” at (say) the city level. The implication is that, all other things being equal, it is lead that makes the difference in crime rates over time within each city. So, presumably, if Toronto has a much lower violent crime rate than (say) New York, that’s due to “other factors” - but the variation over time within each city is due to lead.

- However, this would only make sense if all the other factors, which we know must make the majority of the difference between cities, remained constant over time - which simply cannot be true. The cities have changed, and presumably, in different ways.

- Given that we know (a) that other, non-lead factors make most of the difference in crime rates, as evidenced by the fact that violent crime rates differ significantly between cities, and (b) that these factors do not remain constant over time, then (c) it cannot be the case that lead use would perfectly correlate to the increase and decrease of violent crime over time. Even assuming the theory that lead use had a significant impact were true, one would predict that it would be difficult to tease out the data from the noise cause by the other factors.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-low-murder-rate/658825.md?page=3)