Why are there so many murders in the US?

[Charlie_Tan]

Shetland pony:

I read the article, which in part deals with Centerwalls thesis and with some guys trying to refute him. It was the best link I could find on short notice, where there is some dealing with his theory.

In 1994 US-type violence came to Sweden:

• Three guys, having been denied entrance to a club, drove off, picked up an illegal automatic weapon, came back and fired same into the line waiting to get in.
• A military guy, frustrated of getting dumped, took a weapon off his army base in a rural district and tokk a walk/shooting spree in the local village.

[Uncle_Toby]

Amarone

Well I lived in England and France for some time and I can tell you my impression of crime; that it’s different. Property crime, especially vandalism of property perceived as belonging to a ‘wealthy’ person is rampant compared to the US. I think this fits with a ‘social’ theory of crime. There is more class antagonism than ethnic antagonism in European cultures.

I don’t know the current statistics but I think if you look at people of similar ethnicity you find the US murder rate about 1.2 times the European one and as I said there is little doubt that shooting someone is more likely to be lethal than stabbing him. Banning guns therefore would help little even supposing it could be effectively done. In any case if the goal is to save innocent lives no matter what the cost to the individual it would be far more effective and feasible to reduce the speed limit to 30 miles per hour. But then it would take too long to commute from the suburbs and there’s only so much sacrifice people are willing to undergo for their fellow man. Generally they are more willing to undergo it if it’s somebody else’s sacrifice, I find.

[lucwarm]

*Originally posted by amarone *
**
I think it is instructive to compare the US with European countries. For example, the levels of almost all types of crime are broadly similar in the US and UK. Except murder and, I think, rape.

If the general level of crime is similar between the two countries, why would murder be much, much more common in the US (by a factor of about 7, last time I saw statistics)? **

I’d love to see evidence that the rate of robbery is “broadly similar in the US and UK.”

Can you give me a cite plz?

[ShetlandPony]

Lucwarm,

This Website give some comparative results for Crime Victimisation but the figures are extremely difficult to directly compare due to differences in terminolgy, reporting methodologies etc. It does however give an insight
http://ruljis.leidenuniv.nl/group/jfcr/www/icvs/data/i_VIC.HTM

This site give comparative murder fugures

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00119-27.asp

[amarone]

*Originally posted by Uncle Toby *
**Amarone

Well I lived in England and France for some time and I can tell you my impression of crime; that it’s different. Property crime, especially vandalism of property perceived as belonging to a ‘wealthy’ person is rampant compared to the US. I think this fits with a ‘social’ theory of crime. There is more class antagonism than ethnic antagonism in European cultures.

I don’t know the current statistics but I think if you look at people of similar ethnicity you find the US murder rate about 1.2 times the European one and as I said there is little doubt that shooting someone is more likely to be lethal than stabbing him. **

I’ve lived in England and the US, and visited France and Italy many times. I would tend to agree with the impression you state in your first paragraph, although I wouldn’t include Italy with England and France. However, the statistics in the cite given by ShetlandPony show minor crime to be similar across all three European countries.

Taken with the figures in SP’s other cite, it does support my earlier post that UK/US crime is comparable (UK about 25% higher in all categories), but murder is much higher in the US - more like 4 - 5 times higher in those statistics.

I don’t agree with the posters who say that it is meaningless to try compare. Look at the figures. When every category of crime is similar, except one that is very different, it shows that you can compare in almost all cases. So why is murder so much higher in the US? Several possibilities have been mentioned. What could cause it?

• availability of guns. I have no doubt that this causes some arguments that would be assault in Europe to become murder, I don’t think this reason comes close to being the main factor - there would not be several thousand of these instances each year.

• the “drug war”. The US drug war results in huge profits being available to the winners, with extreme violence being used to become the “winner” amongst the drug dealers.

• race wars. Given the history of violence against the blacks, it is not surprising that there is more of a culture of resolving differences with lethal force.

• it’s always been that way. Having lived in the US, there seems to me to be a much greater willingness to settle things by killing. Life is cheap (does the death penalty help foster this thinking?)
  Anyway, I don’t know the answer, but I think it is interesting to discuss.

[Uncle_Toby]

Well if I am right about the origin of violent crime and these statistics aren’t cooked maybe the question should be, “why are US murders so low?” because the closest comparison country would be South Africa.

[lucwarm]

*Originally posted by ShetlandPony *
**Lucwarm,

This Website give some comparative results for Crime Victimisation but the figures are extremely difficult to directly compare due to differences in terminolgy, reporting methodologies etc. It does however give an insight
http://ruljis.leidenuniv.nl/group/jfcr/www/icvs/data/i_VIC.HTM

This site give comparative murder fugures

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00119-27.asp **

I took the liberty of doing a couple of my own google searches to find a crime study that incorporates both muder and non-murder crimes.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/html/cjusew96/crpr.htm

According to police statistics for 1996 –
the U.S. murder rate was 5.7 times higher than England’s (0.074 per 1,000 population versus 0.013) (figure 5)
the U.S. rape rate was about 3 times higher than England’s (0.71 per 1,000 female population versus 0.22) (figure 6)
the U.S. robbery rate was 1.4 times higher than England’s (2.0 versus 1.4) (figure 7)
the English assault rate was 1.1 times higher than the U.S. rate (4.4 versus 3.9) (figure 8)
the English burglary rate was 2.4 times higher than the U.S. rate (22.4 versus 9.4) (figure 9)
the English motor vehicle theft rate was 1.8 times higher than the U.S. rate (9.5 versus 5.3) (figure 10).

There were also figures based on victim surveys:

According to 1995 crime victim surveys, the –

English robbery victimization rate was 1.4 times the U.S. rate (7.6 per 1,000 population versus 5.3) (figure 1)
English assault victimization rate was 2.3 times the U.S. rate (20.0 versus 8.8) (figure 2)
English burglary victimization rate was 1.7 times the U.S. rate (82.9 per 1,000 households versus 47.5) (figure 3)
English motor vehicle theft victimization rate was 2.2 times the U.S. rate (23.6 versus 10.8) (figure 4).

Very interesting, although murder obviously cannot be included in victim surveys.

Anyway, I was surprised to see that crime rates in the United States were not higher across the board. Although it’s interesting that as crimes become more violent, the United States pulls ahead (according to police reports, anyway). I’m not sure what this says about the various theories that have been thrown around in this thread, but I’ll give it some thought.

[Beagle]

**ExTank:

Well, we didn’t have much luck controlling illegal access to alcohol in the 20s and 30s, we aren’t having much luck controlling illegal access to drugs currently, so what the does anyone think about our chances of controlling illegal access to guns?

** I wish someone, other than a libertarian moderate like myself, would address this. I find this inherent contradiction on both sides of the political fence. Liberals tend to see that the war on drugs does not work but have high hopes for a war on guns. Conservatives, vice versa. Me, I say let the armed druggies shoot it out. joke alert

The reality is much of the drug violence goes away if we decriminalize or go to a registered addict program. On guns, there is a deterrent effect from guns which is hard to quantify. Prison surveys show that big dogs, monitored alarms, and guns (I forget the actual order) are the three best deterrents to crime. When criminals know many in a community are armed it helps prevent crime even in the unarmed houses. Of course domestic disputes can turn into gunfights, yadda, yadda.

YMMV, but around here police move more slowly than a glacier. Example, once I heard a man scream at his female companion, “I’m going to kill you.” I called the police. One hour later, a single marked unit showed up. Without guns around here it would be open season on home invasions. Of course, lousy policing has other relevant effects as well.

My theory on the OP: the U.S. contains a lot of inherently restless people. Even the ‘Native’- Americans decided that the eurasian landmass was not big enough for themselves and everyone else and got the hell out. Maybe we are just a nation of dissolute malcontents. [Bill Murray in Stripes] “We were kicked out of every decent country on the face of the Earth.” [/BMiS]

[ExTank]

Actually, Beagle, those who have enhanced gun control as their pet hobby-horse will readily claim that Prohibition was an outstanding success, and that the War on Drugs is doing even better. :rolleyes:

They will point out that it is inherently easier to smuggle truckloads of alcohol than truckloads of guns (quick: how much does a ton of feathers weigh?).

The only valid points to their argument is that guns require ammo, so there is a certain amount of in-built logisitcal bottleneck, and that guns are durable items, unlike alcohol and drugs which must be purchased again-and-again for their effects.

Guess they’ve never heard of home reloading kits. Or considered the consequences of total bans on some fairly basic machine tools, chemistry labs, or even bulk lead.

Which sort of simplifies the “durable” product quandry above; after a certain point (assuming a firearm black-market saturation within a given period of time), the “bad guys” needn’t do anything else but manufacture ammunition.

Imagine: the ABC Metalworks Co., manufacturing widgets by day (and showing a profit to prove their legitimacy), and 158 gr. SJHP .357 Magnum by night

Or considered the fact that Columbian drug lords, flush with cash from growing, refining, packaging, shipping and distributing their product, reinvested a portion of their profits on sophisticted labs, with educated technicians and pharmacologists to run them.

The exceedingly simple concept that, in a free-market economy, any commodity which is in demand which is subsequently banned or severely restricted will be provided by those with:

A) an entrepreneurial bent,

B) little regard for the arbitrary laws of man.

The most successfull of which have one additional element:

C) a willingness and ability to exercise violence in the pursuit of A.

Oh. yeah. We already knew that, didn’t we? I guess pure motives and moral self-righteousness will allow a ban on guns to prevail where the bans on alcohol and drugs failed, and are in the process of failing, respectively.

Ahh. I’m drunk and rambling. I’ll shut up now.