I brought this up in another topic and wanted to add to it.
This comparison with Europe suggests that the United States has neither a unique “culture of violence” nor inadequate gun laws. It turns out some of those US crime rate stats are skewed, that it’s not the “typical American” (as Europeans see us) abusing guns. Here’s some stats from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports:
Country (murder rate) Crimes per 100,000
Britain (7.4)
France (4.6)
Germany (4.2)
Italy (6.0)
U.S.A. (9.3)
however…
American Whites (5.1)* American Blacks (43.4)
It turns out the high crime rate European bash us for is not due to our gun laws or movies, but to a sizeable minority with a proclivity towards crime.
I thought about some of the reasons I’ve heard:
[ul][li]It’s because blacks suffered under slavery (yeah right, it’s been abolished 130 years ago)[/li][li]It’s because of white racism (hmm, whites told blacks to buy guns and shoot each other over the colors they wear?)[/li][li]It’s a government conspiracy that allows guns to get into the ghetto (are they that gullible? Then why not show the govt “it’s not going to work”?)[/li][li]It’s because of poverty (but even rich black entertainers (Puffy Combs) and athletes (Rae Carruth) act this way)[/li][li]It’s because of the way blacks are second-class citizens in the US (sorry, but it’s the same way over in Africa!!)[/ul][/li]
In this light, maybe blaming the NRA or movies on our murder rate may be a bit off. What say you?
*Whites should actually be a lot less lower. Many Hispanics call themselves “white”. In areas that treat the groups seperately, Hispanics are 2-6x more likely to commit crimes.
Note that also Britain does not include the deaths of those who die in the IRA/orangemen “conflict” (or similar)in their “crime” stats. They consider these “war” not crime, a specious arguement that significantly lowers the violent crime rate & gun crime rate.
For those of you who don’t know, KM2 is the second screenname of someone who was banned once. The original SN was klanman.
He got tossed once for going over the top. When he came back as KM2 he stuck to the safe routes-- faulty statistics C&P off racist propaganda sites. Then he vanished for a while.
Do us all a favor and go crawl back under your rock.
–John
'Twis brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Well, KM2 may be a racist, may be hateful, may even be scum, but his points (as poorly put as they are) still deserve to be responded to, imo.
Your designation of a “typical American” is pointless. Blacks aren’t atypical, and aren’t unamerican.
I don’t know if your crime stats are right - can anyone give a site? - but I’ll assume for the moment that they are.
Blacks in America are indeed much more likely to commit a violent crime than whites are. I wish this weren’t true, but it is.
It’s silly to think that 130 years of non-slavery would wipe out the effects of slavery. It was just a generation ago that, at a high school basket ball game at my high school, the losing team chanted “Our team’s all white!” to the winning team. Your own racist slant (implying blacks aren’t real Americans) gives evidence that our culture’s racism still hasn’t gone away.
Racism does not force people to shoot each other, as you so sarcastically point out. But racism does create a permanent underclass, with violence localized in that underclass. Without racism, people would still shoot each other; it just wouldn’t be so overrepresented in one group.
Try as I might, I can’t find the patience to respond directly to this anabashedly racist and hopelessly ignorant argument right now. Suffice it to say that, epidemiologically, violent crime is centered more around poverty than race, and that a white person in poverty is more likely to shoot someone than a middle-class black person. Poverty correlates with violent crime in Europe too.
News flash: many Hispanics are white. (And Christian, although I don’t expect you to let them into your clubs any time soon.)
Bottom line: Poverty always correlates strongly with violent crime. But in America, our poor are more likely to use guns. Blame whoever you want, it’s a free country, but blaming a whole race of people is neither very accurate nor very mature.
Wrong. It is the paramilitaries who insist it is a war, not the Government. Terrorist activity is counted in the crime stats, which is part of the reason that ours are higher than our neighbours’.
I’d be interested to hear where you got this impression.
What I want to know is what our bedsheet-wearing friend wants to do about this ‘minority with a proclivity towards crime’. Do we strip them of their rights? Deport them? Execute them? What?
TMR
LETS RIDE THIS SAUCER FULL OF SupErlovE INTO OUR FORTOLD UTOPIAN MILLENIUM…
Violence localized in the lower class is an unfortunate byproduct of capitalism (a byproduct which is amplified in this country by drugs). Arguably, so is the localization of minorities in the lower class. The only way you can historically attribute the problem of violence in America directly to African-Americans is by acknowledging that they were crucial in getting our economic system up and running. While there are certain stupid violent acts that I have a hard time attributing to “the system” (gang violence comes to mind), I think it’s both unfair and cowardly to write off the entire problem to “those friggin <insert your favorite racial epithet>s.”
“History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.” -Winston Churchill
I am going to refrain from flaming you but I will ask all those who read this to think of how they would describe a person who quotes “facts” which are not true when that person is aware of the real information.
I note from another poster that you have an agenda .
So for the benefit of others who may be misled(doubtful given the collective intelligence I see on here)
Murder rates fact-UK last year a total of 750 died and the previous year it was 748,of these 50 were gun related.
Fact-the population of the UK is 56 million
Your quotes of capital offences are grossly inaccurate I wonder why you do that?
US murder rates per 100000 are VERY much higher than ours.
Please note that I got these figures from the UK home office web site.
For anyone with any interest in US crime statistics I would suggest that they look up this information which is available on the Federal Justice Departments own web site which compares US crime rate and types of offence to those of Europe ,the UK and Australia.
You will also note if you inspect these figures that the overwhelming majority of US murders are committed on people within the offenders own ethnic grouping.
Isn’t it interesting that KM2 chooses to lump ALL blacks together as one group when in fact Africa is far larger than the US and so has many differant racial groupings of a diverse peoples but he chooses not to do this but with whites whom he separates into nationalities when they are more homogenous than the “ethnics”?
Please note that Hispanics are culturally closer to KM2s own ethnic grouping than say the Arabs are to the Zulus so why does he seem to think that they warrant a special mention of exclusion?
The last time this individual was identified by a poster for what he is KM2 dissappeared. I guess he thinks that the coast is clear now but keep your eyes open as he will almost certainly try to change his label.
KM2 just leave,go ,you are not wanted liked or admired .The world will continue to spin on its axis without your presence.
casdave, although I agree with what you say, I find it hard to believe the last point. The troubles have claimed over 3500 lives; over 3500 people were murdered in New York last year?
Sorry Android it was an old figure sometime during the late 1980’s I think it happened to be an horrendous year in both New York and statistcally worse still in Washington.
I remember all the hand wringing in the media.
The NY/NI figure I have heard is that more people are murdered in one year in New York City than have been murdered in Belfast during the Troubles. According to the latest FBI Uniform Crime Report, there were 341 murders in New York last year.
I also discover from looking at the UCR from 1997 that the numbers cited by KM2 in the OP are based on the race of the person first arrested for the offence, not the person convicted.
You’ve not got listings from Africa, where the murder rate is far above any nation in the world. They do not keep very good records either of their population or what happens to them but the murder rate is very high there and not because of the type of racism we tend to think about.
Murder in China is very high also but the records are often doctored before being released because the Communist government will not release the true figures.
The rate is higher in Iraq than in the US.
Don’t forget Russia, which doctors or simply fails to record all of the murders and toss in Rumania and Yugoslavia, though many murders there will not be considered as such, being put down to civil war, but the majority are due to racism.
Trying real hard not to sound racist, the high crime rate among Blacks in America is mainly Black on Black crime.
From what ive heard 85% of black crime is black on black crime. The #1 reason is the fact that drugs are illegal. Drugs seem to be the eaisest way to make money and power to them so they do that. If drugs were legal then i think almost all of that crime would stop.
Engaging in ‘debate’ with a narrow-minded idiot with skewed statistics and an unwillingness to listen to what you say is pretty stupid, folks. But it does feed his/her sense of self-importance.
jk