What relationships exist between crime and firearm ownership? Should we do something?

Great Debates
21

There’s no reason to suppose that it’s connected to the Australian gun laws, unless the burglary rate is shown to have climbed since the more restrictive gun laws were introduced. I couldn’t get nationmaster.com to generate that kind of information.

My WAG is that (legitimate) gun ownership doesn’t stimulate crime and restricting gun ownership doesn’t prevent (very much) crime, but there may nevertheless be a correlation, in that social attitudes to gun ownership and social attitudes to crime may be affected by common factors. E.g. societies which are relativly tolerant of the use of force are likely to be relatively tolerant of/open to gun ownership and to certain kinds of crime.

Why does Australia have a high burglary rate? I don’t know, but I doubt very much if it is due to restrictions on gun ownership. We cannot assert that it is unless we are also prepared to explain why (say) Ireland, a country with per capita income not dissimilar to the US or Australia, whose gun laws are even more restrictive than Australia’s, has a lower burglary rate than the US. (It’s no. 19 in the list.)

My WAG (again) is that the Australian statistic is explained at least partly by the fact that Australia is one of the world’s most urbanised countries, and burglary is predominantly an urban crime. You expect higher burgary rates in more urbanised countries. But I’m sure there are lots of other factors at work as well.

22

Before we all get too excited, the Nationmaster site does have a disclaimer at the bottom of the crime stats:

“Definition: Total recorded burglaries. Crime statistics are often better indicators of prevalence of law enforcement and willingness to report crime, than actual prevalance. Per capita figures expressed per 1000 population.”

I think when comparing first-world countries we’re probably pretty safe, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the other countries on the list have lower stats than they should due to underreporting or poor policework. So Australia may have more burglaries than the US, but it may not really be the worst in the world.

23

I saw a cite from a pro-gun site which also said that most guns were banned and confiscated. That second part was incorrect, so I am a bit cynical about the quality of the first part (high burglary rates). I’d like another cite from a reliable source, perhaps a government website.

I also don’t think the two facts are linked. How do bans on certain types of guns lead to burglaries?

24

Lambchop, the statistics are from nationmaster.com, which is not (so far as I know) a pre-gun site. The comments about gun ownership laws in certain contries are not on the nationmaster site and, I guess, were added by Snakespirit by way of comment. (My apologies, Snakespirit, if that’s not the case.)

You could speculate that bans on relatively portable small weapons (handguns) might lead to a higher burglary rate, since burglars would be less concerned about the possibility of meeting armed resistance. Sure, if I can’t have a handgun I could keep my loaded shotgun by my bed every night but I’m less likely to do this because it would be akward, in the way, I can’t easily secure it from my children, I don’t have it primarily for personal protection so I tend to keep it with my sporting weapons/at my farm rather than my city apartment, or whatever. In practical terms, for whatever reason, people don’t tend to use shotguns and the like for personal protection in the way that they use handguns, and burglars know this.

But that’s just a speculation. We’d need figures showing that making gun laws more restrictive is actually associated with a rise in the burglary rate (or vice versa). And, even then, you’d need to consider whether other, possibly more signicant, factors were involved before concluding there was a causal link. (Rises in unemployment, povery, demographic changes, whatever.)

You could equally speculate that the response of a burglar who anticipates armed resistance may not be to abandon burglary, but to carry a sidearm himself. Even if we could show, therefore, that allowing handguns reduced the overall number of burglaries, it wouldn’t follow that the nation which allows handguns is better off. We’d need to look at the relative rates of armed housebreaking, and the individual and social consequences of that. I’ve mentioned Ireland before as a country with strict firearms controls and low burglary rates; it’s worth adding that armed housebreaking is extremely rare in Ireland.

25

OK, let’s frame the debate again. [ul][li]The total crime rate is similar for most industrialised democracies.[/li][li]The assault rate is similar for most industrialised democracies.[/li][li]The burglary rate is lower in the US.[/li][li]The murder rate is higher in the US.[/ul]What are we to make of this? [/li]
Places like South Africa are both violent and lethal. Places like Switzerland are non-violent, non-criminal and non-lethal. I would suggest that culture and demographics can explain these examples: drugs, desperate poverty, inadequate policing - these are all vastly different in, say, Colombia and Sweden and the statistics reflect this.

But what if levels of drugs, poverty and policing are largely similar? We can then begin to ask why some statistics show the variations they do.

I contend that something is making the US far more lethal for the same crime and violence rate. Now, it has been ventured that “culture” might do this: movie violence and dubious morality regarding killing and vengeance, say some, is far more prevalent in the US. This makes Americans more likely to kill rather than wound. Where a Briton or Australian might beat someone up for whatever reason, the American would beat them to death. When a Frenchman or German uses a knife to slash or disfigure, and American uses it to stab repeatedly. And all because of their “culture”.

This, I feel, is a myth. Americans are not the psychopaths suggested by this line of reasoning. American film, TV and culture in general is no more ‘permissive’ or morally dubious than the rest of the industrialised democratic world, and I would challenge anyone who disagreed to provide a convincing source otherwise.

Another suggestion is ‘racial demographics’. It is true that the US is more ethnically diverse, but eg. the UK black community unfortunately also has a higher incidence of murder. This might explain some variation, but a fourfold increase? That stretches the bounds of credibility.

There are, I’ll admit, some reasonable cultural or demographic mechanisms whereby the US murder rate might be higher than comparable nations. But it is a lot higher, such that thousands more people are dying every year in the US for a similar number of crimes and assaults.

I contend that easy access (legal or not) to firearms is the major factor explaining this difference. Gun-owning, gun-loving US citizen audiolover thinks this is a reasonable contention also.

Now, I would be willing to believe that easy access to firearms lowers the burglary rate. (Whether all those thousands of additional deaths are a price worth paying for such a freedom is another matter.) I would also be willing to believe that very little short of banning firearm access outside of recreational facilities would make much difference to the murder rate, and that even such a ban would fail to reduce it to levels seen elsewhere in the civilised world.

If the US wanted to reduce its murder rate, it would merely be my suggested means to do so (and I’ll ask of all who demand proof that such a suggestion would work, how can one ‘prove’ that any suggestion would work without enacting it?) If it didn’t, ie. if it thought that an inflated murder rate was a price worth paying for easy access to firearms, it need do nothing at all. I am personally not too concerned about allowing the US to stand as a statistical example of policies and their consequences.

26

Snakespirit, dude, while you did write a decent OP, that wont do it when you’re cherrypicking statistis, ignoring debunks and even manage to repost the same flawed point. This board is about fighting ignorance, not evoking ignorance. It’s really tiresome to debunk posts where the flaws are so obvious as in yours.

First of all, Lamia has already debunked your conclusion on your data on per capita burglaries. As s/he said, there are those with strict gun laws both doing better and worse than the US. You should have seen that before posting. So get over it. Don’t repeat it.

Second, you posted some data to refute sinical brit claim that “US is a violent country”. I agree that he/she should have used per capita data, but you are no better:

a) You failed to mention the heading of your data, which was death stemming from assault with handguns per capita. Notice the words assault and handguns, I’ll get back to that later.

b) You claimed that the US is not #1, but#8 on the assault handgun death list. Personally, I don’t see how coming in #8, behind countries like Dominican Republic and Columbia, is something to rejoice about, but whatever gets you off.

So, lets look at the data. According to them there were 3.67 deaths per 1 million in the US. I don’t know how old the data is, so I’ll cut you some slack. We multiply 3,67 with 290 (290 million in the US), then we get: 1 058 deaths in the US that year from assault with handguns.

Now, let’s turn it around to see what’s missing. We know that there were 11 358 homicides carried out with guns in 2001, and we know that in 2002 77% of firearms homocides were carried out with handguns. Since we have data from 2001 and 2002, I’m once again going to cut you some slack and use 70%. So we have 11 358 deaths x 70% = 7 950 deaths with handguns in total, or a rate of 27,41.

Meaning, your post only include 1 000 handgun deaths, failing to explain the remaining 7 000. Why is that? If anything, you data only proves that most handgun-related deaths in the US are not connected to assault. Still the US ends up as high as #8 on the handgun assault list.

If we skip the handgun distraction, the rate for all gun-related deaths (excluding suicides) in the US is 43,8 per million. I’m pretty sure that’s a solid #1 - per capita.

27

Incidentally, if US culture did make assaults more lethal regardless of the weapon used, would that not show up in per capita mortality rates for assaults by:[ul][li]blunt instrument[/li][li]bodily force[/li][li]sharp object[/li][li]strangulation[/li][li]motor vehicle[/ul]and the like? These figure also show that the US is similar in lethality to other industrialised democracies - the differences are certainly nowhere near enough to account for the vastly higher US murder rate. [/li]
How is it that “culture” makes Americans more likely to kill rather than wound for the same assault rate but not with the things which citizens without easy access to firearms assault and murder each other with?

Surely it is because Americans assault each other with firearms instead?

28

From SentientMeat’s site:

World murder rates

Hey, we’re below Costa Rica and Poland. Could be worse.

29

You say that people in Australia can own guns, but then you say that most gun types are banned :confused: Are you only allowed to have muzzleloaders and flintlocks?

30

I asked **lambchops ** basically the same question too, but haven’t been answered yet.

31

I’m a bit time-limited right now, so some of this will have to be addressed later, however, I would like to take issue with some of SentientMeat 's allegations.

[QUOTE=SentientMeat]
OK, let’s frame the debate again. [ul][li]The total crime rate is similar for most industrialised democracies.[/li][/QUOTE]

Misstatement. There is quite a lot of latitude here. Switzerland is way low, for example. NZ is way higher, and UK is slightly higher.

[QUOTE]
[li]The assault rate is similar for most industrialised democracies.[/li][/QUOTE]

No significant argument.

[QUOTE]
[li]The burglary rate is lower in the US.[/li][/QUOTE]

Let’s say ***significantly * ** lower. Half that of the UK and NZ, one-third that of Australia.

[QUOTE]
[li]The murder rate is higher in the US.[/ul]What are we to make of this? [/li][/QUOTE]

The murder rate is 4 people per 100,000. Approximately half those are with handguns. The murder rate is four times that of UK, NZ and Aus.

What I make of this is that for some reason the culture of the US promotes, tolerates and does not adequately prevent murders as well as these other three countries. However, when you look at the whole murder scale, the per capita rate goes as high as, oh never mind, I’ll post the five highest:

  1. Colombia 0.63 per 1000 people
  2. South Africa 0.51 per 1000 people
  3. Jamaica 0.32 per 1000 people
  4. Venezuela 0.32 per 1000 people
  5. Russia 0.19 per 1000 people

Russia’a murder rate is almost five times higher than the US. The difference between the US and the UK is almost statistically insignificant!

I guess we need to find some statistics on drugs, poverty and policing.

And I contend that you are interpreting the statistics incorrectly. A difference of 3 people per 100,000 is not “far more lethal.”

Right. Culture includes things like prison release rates, recidivism, behavioral molding (parenting, media), attitudes toward firearms, emotional control (no ‘stiff upper lip’ in America), and in fact everything that makes a culture what it is!

If it’s NOT the culture, then what is it? There’s nothing left!

Well, this would answer for half of U.S. Murders, but without guns our rate is still twice that of the aforementioned countries. And, it is likely that if we were to ban firearms, most of those murders would be committed another way.

You are using guns as a strawman. The statistics do not support your contention.

As to the rest of your argument: another time.

S¬

32

No. The murder rate in the US is not 4 per 100 000. Do the math. In 2000 there were 16 765 homocides in the US, a population of roughly 275 million. That’s a murder rate of 6,09 per 100 00. NationMaster is a nice overview resource, but they CANNOT be trusted.

For what it’s worth, murder rates can only be compared between “stable” countries. Countries at war or countries who have recently changed political system has way higher crime rates than stable countries. (which would be the case for Russia and South Africa, for instance)

The murder rate in 2000 excluding guns in the US was 2.16. And it’s quite clear that easy access to firearms has an impact on murder rates. I would like to draw attention to two figures I posted earlier in the thread:

“A study of women physically abused by current or former intimate partners revealed a 5-fold increased risk of the partner murdering the woman when the partner owned a firearm”, and: “In homes with guns, the homicide of a household member is about 3 times more likely to occur than in homes without guns”

33

The kind of data that has been put forward on burglaries in this thread is useless for the dissussion. For instance, burglaries cannot be compared per capita, it must be compared per household. Further, before even trying to make the argument that a higher gun ownership rate leads to less burglaries, one needs to remove burglaries of non-occupied houses (vacation houses, cabins) from the data.

In particular, the difference in the data between Australia and the United States must be adjusted for the following:

[ul]
[li]household sizes: in Australia there’s roughly 5% less persons per household (distorts per capita figures)[/li][li]composition of housing: in Australia 80% of households live in detached houses (accessable from all sides)[/li][li]jail sentences: Australia has lower sentencing, US on the other hand takes repeat offenders off the street, sometimes for life[/li][/ul]
Other important factors:

  • alarm ratio per household
  • urbanization (consider Denmark 18,4 vs. Norway 1.1, per capita burglary rate)
  • vehicle access

The simple fact that countries with strict gun laws are on opposite sides of the burglary scale should be proof enough that burglary rates and gun ownership has virtually nothing to do with each other.

In general, it’s virtually impossible to compare crime data across nations without indepth knowledge:

[ul]
[li]Different legal codes define crimes in different ways[/li][li]Recording practices differs, both among law enforcement officials and citizens reporting crime[/li][li]Allocations of police resources[/li][li]Operating practices: In some countries, the main decisions regarding a case are made at the prosecution stage, instead of at the report stage[/li][li]Factual inequalities: Differences among countries as to their population size, population makeup (for example, percent urban and rural, and percent older than 60 and younger than 25), and the size of the crime problem.[/li][/ul]
A good intro to the problems in comparing crime data is available here (UN researcher). Quote: “It is general criminological wisdom that the less serious the crime type, the more questionable the officially recorded figures”

34

Well, I haven’t had the time to investigate your claims yet, but in the meantime I can trust a website with literally tons of data or I can trust your math?

Sorry, no contest. If after I catch up I find reason to believe what you say I will consider the data appropriately.

Why do you say nationMaster can’t be trusted? And why should we believe you instead?

I read the John Hopkins report. Some of the data bolstered the nationMaster Data, other data was not included, other was from a different reporting year, JH was reporting homocides vs. NM reporting murders (you do know the difference, I assume?). Apples and oranges.

I don’t have time to analyze all of everyone’s data right now. I’ll do my best. In the meantime I’ll have to deal with the most important stuff first.

I’m not saying you’re wrong, yet.

35

Not for burgulary, at least not in any state I know of. That statement is patently false.

36

Weren’t you just making arguments based on crime statistics? Now you say they are unreliable?

I agree that there are a lot more factors to consider, and that some data can’t be compared, and particularly it’s useless to compare stats from two different sources because of differences in definitions and collection methods.

But you can’t have it both ways.

Your earlier comment :

You’re off base. Read my comment and lamias more carefully. If he debunked anything it wasn’t my contention. I was talking specifics, he was generalizing.

Calm down, get a grip.

37

Emphasis mine.

Guess not. Let me explain.

A murder is a *deliberate, premeditated * homocide. Other firearm homocides include:
Killings by police, military or other law enforcement.
Accidents.
Manslaughter
Self-defense

Suicide is usually excluded from homocides because it is not done by an other person.

Perhaps there’s a homocide rate of.0609 per 10,000, and a murder rate of .04.

38

I think I said just that in a recent post, but it may have been in one of the other threads.

For the record, from now on I’m only posting in this thread, to avoid confusion.

39

Hmm, except- look at the per capita murder rate for Switzerland “0.0 per 1000 people”. They are 56th of 62. (USA is only 24th) GB is 46th of 52 in per capita murders overall. And- every able bodied citizen in Switzerland has an assault rifle . You’d think the murder rate there (especially with guns)- would be like Columbia’s. But it’s not. Why- because Swiss don’t kill each other much. Guns or no guns.

There are places in the USA with very very strict gun control laws- NYC for example, and Wash DC- but they have much higher murder rates that other areas where guns are owned & carried freely. Why?

In fact- there seems to be no correlation AT ALL between violent crime rates and availability of firearms worldwide. Yes, you can pick put a nation with few guns and a lower murder rate- then I can show one with lots of guns, and little violent crime- and one with tough gun control laws, and lots of violent crime.

I do admit that the prevalence of guns in the USA does mean that *more often * when there is a murder- it is a gun murder. I don’t think that translates to more murders.

40

We’ve had four different sources of statistics so far, and they all seem to say something different. Or none of us knows how to read statistics.

I think we can agree on the following:

The U.S. Has a higher murder rate than other English speaking developed countries (specifically UK, NZ and Aus), but the difference per capita is small.
The US has more guns than those same countries (but less per capita than others with lower crime rates).
The US has lower burgulary rates than those same countries.
There are significant differences in the cultures of there countries (as was pointed out in Cite: A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE US AND OTHER RICH NATIONS).

I think we can agree that gun ownership may be a factor, but exactly how it factors in is more difficult to determine. It hasn’t been shown that eliminating firearm ownership will significantly reduce crime, or even how it would effect crime in toto.

There’s some conflict regarding the effect of gun laws on crime, and more conflicting statistics.

Posting conflicting statistics isn’t getting us anywhere. I think we can use statistics to show generalities (when we get agreement), but that’s about all.

Unless someone has something else meaningful and intelligent to post?

I’m all eyes. :slight_smile: