Dak
mentat
Gun crime outstrips all other forms of violent crime by a huge proportion? I'm going to give you a chance to redact that statement before you get laughed off the internet.
Gun Master Debate
- Thread starter King Richard
- Start date
matt schrauben
Curse You All Men!
Scott, what do you mean by this? If by gun culture you mean the widespread American belief that the citizens have the right to bear arms and protect themselves, I would have to disagree.
I assume you are talking about people who are "MY GUNS ARE BIGGER THAN YOURS!" and collect anything they can get their hands on. If that's the case, that's a small fraction of the population. Even then I don't think those people are the ones who would commit crimes as much as they are just avid collectors.
rms
Active Member
Even with any debate that's going on here, it would be impossible to enforce the kind of gun ownership some of you are suggesting, so why even bother? Unless of course you think a police state type world is what we should live in
UltimateApathy
Infinite Idiocy
Those are only mass shootings where more than 7 people died, and there plenty of mass killings happening in the USA all the time when less than 7 people are killed - I'm sure I could pull up dozens of articles right now about how the USA far outstrips the entire rest of world in this regard. It's also pretty obvious to see if you follow international news (which you obviously you don't), I follow it every day and I'm forever reading about the latest American mass shooting (wherein often less than 7 people die - but why would gun fetishists care about 7 people they don't know, right?) I have also also noticed (and statistics prove) that mass shootings in other countries, democratic or not, are far less frequent than in the USA - that's what happens when a society has too many guns. And you're comparing baseball killings to mass shootings - does your idiocy know no bounds? LOL! As I have already linked above, murders committed by guns in the USA far outstrip any other method of killing people BY A MILE. Wherever you turn you're just boxed in by your wall of NRA proganda, son.
UltimateApathy
Infinite Idiocy
Did you miraculously manage to avoid the chart I just posted in that topic? The first graph is crimes committed by guns compared to other weapons, and the second graph is murders committed by guns compared to other means. Guns reign supreme in both categories. This seems to be a recurring theme here for anyone with at least a half-logical brain, but muppets pounded down by political propaganda aren't know for their rational reasoning...
Scott Martin
YES! YES! YES!
- Nov 7, 2012
- 51
- 0
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I tend to think that our media glamorizes violence, particularly in terms of guns, more than any other country in the world. Westerns, gangster movies (keep the change you filthy animal), it's been that way forever. Just don't show a nipple. I enjoy all of these things. But as a society, we are pretty unapologetic about our depictions of violence, compared to how up-tight we are about other things. It's totally unfair to point a finger at any one person, like Marilyn Manson was vilified, but twhen violence is glorified as it is here, it shouldn't come as a surprise that more people commit mass acts of violence.
Drifting off topic here. This is metal after all. But I'm really referring to the street culture, gangs, criminals. You'll notice that the primary people complaining about gun control are people who are generally law-abiding. I don't think any criminals on the street care, because they know as well as anyone that they'll still be able to get their guns the same way they can still get their drugs. Bottom line, it isn't the guns IMO.
matt schrauben
Curse You All Men!
I'd agree that our culture glamorizes violence. But I'd say violence in general, not just gun violence. Slasher movies are extremely popular. More than any country in the world? I'm not sure about that, maybe.
Even if, I don't beleive the people who commit these acts of violence are motivated by the media portrayl of violence... at all. They are genrally insane, have a deep motive, or both. Depictions of violence in media and arts goes back to the dawn of theatre, so glamorizing violence isn't new or even unique to America. Really, pointing the finger at violence in media, glorified or not, (that means movies, shows, video games, etc..) isn't any different than pointing the finger at Marylin Manson after the Columbine shooting. It's just another scapegoat. If you are going to point towards something, I'd say modern society's regard (or lack therof) towards life, more broken familes, irresponsible parents/bad upbringing, and lack of resources for those that are mentally unstable is a MUCH bigger factor in the rate of violence than anything.
EDIT: This probably isn't the thread for this type of discussion, so I'm going to leave this alone. Sorry if it's too off topic guys...
Scott Martin
YES! YES! YES!
- Nov 7, 2012
- 51
- 0
- 6
Not intending to point a finger at all. Media is generally a reflection of society, not the other way around. Tool's Vicarious pretty much nails it on the head. And it isn't just gun violence. The biggest act of school violence was a car bomb in Bath, MI if I recall. There's the mental health thing to a large degree, too. There are just so many more reasons for where the numbers shake out than just how easily one can legally acquire a gun.
matt schrauben
Curse You All Men!
I see what you mean. I'd actually agree too, but more so on the how the news just focuses on an act of violence for several weeks plus and just projects a view that the world is just full of psychos waiting to kill you.
The Bath bombing? I believe you are correct. That happened in the 30s I beleive.
Dak
mentat
So it's absurdly alarmist to be afraid of the gubment killing us all, instead we need to fear a Red Dawn scenario? I think you have been watching too many movies.
If you are so sure you can pull up all these mass shootings, please provide a few. Anyway, as I said before, "mass shootings" are only a small part of a larger body of statistics: homicides. So whether it's 100 killed one at a time or 100 killed at one time, it all winds up being factored in. And that overall number is relatively low.
You need to learn how to pay attention to the words described. You jump back and forth between gun crime and gun deaths and homicides and violent crime etc you don't know what the hell anyone is talking about, much less yourself. Your reading comprehension is abominable, so whatever you read is irrelevant since you can't understand what it is that is being said.
I can compare the total number of annual homicides achieved with a blunt object to the combined total of victims of mass killings. It's called statistical analysis, and it's quite valid. It provides perspective. When the combined total of death for nearly 50 years of something supposedly absolutely horrible is less than the total of one year of something seemingly more benign, I am going to charge paranoic fear-mongering to your position.
Here you go again. You said gun crime. Those charts don't compare gun crime to other weapons, it only compares homicide(murder) by firearm vs other weapons. So not only are you unable remain consistent as to what you are talking about, you can't even read graphs and charts.
The table of the raw data only gives rates of common types of gun crimes per 100,000 - not vs other types violent crime (IE, VC without a gun). As you can see, the homicide rate is only 2.75 nationally, which is down from the previous year. 2.75 is quite low absolutely and internationally, even though the US is far and away #1 in gun saturation.
None of this data backs up any possible point other than "people can do bad things with guns". But it further displays the point that "They very rarely do, and it's getting more rare each year" (even though there are more guns in circulation in the US than ever, and gun companies are selling faster than they can make them).
HamburgerBoy
Active Member
- Sep 16, 2007
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Civilian deaths are a requirement when you remove the ability of people to defend themselves in any society where violent members exist (which is basically everywhere). It is virtually impossible to reduce all civilian deaths. You might generalize Europe to having that ideal, but they will occur. The difference is in the circumstances that people are killed.
Sure it does; capital punishment and gun control are examples of government policies which inevitably affect non-murderers and result in their deaths to some extent. It's the ability to say "Yeah, John was an innocent man and our actions directly resulted in his death, but his ten cousins were bad guys so it's worth it".
UltimateApathy
Infinite Idiocy
So much for levels of mass murder rate decreasing, ignorant minions:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/14/mass-murder-rate-rising-newtown-shooting_n_2302590.html
Mass Murder Rate Still Rising, Experts Say
Mass killings, such as Friday's shooting in Newtown, Conn., have shocked the nation, but criminologists say to expect more.
Shooting sprees are on the rise and probably won't be subsiding any time soon.
"There's clearly been a major upswing," criminologist Gary LaFree of the University of Maryland told The Huffington Post on Friday.
How much of an increase is subject to debate. According to FBI statistics, the trend is inching upward. People killed in clusters of four or more averaged 163 annually between 2006 and 2008, just two more than back in the 1980s.
"Homicide trends don't look like EKGs," said LaFree, who is also director of the National Center for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. "They go up for a while and tail off for a while."
But, LaFree added, "What's interesting is that we're getting a specialized strain of violence when other forms are in decline."
One-on-one gun homicides have dropped more than 40 percent since 1980, according to 2010 FBI crime data. The firearm homicide rate sank from 10,000 in 2005 to 8,776 in 2010.
But shooting sprees are "not decreasing, because the motive in mass murder is so different from the motive for single-victim murders," Jack Levin, a criminology professor at Northeastern University and author of "Extreme Killing," told HuffPost in a previous report. "These are well-planned crimes ... Mass killings don't depend on any given time."
LaFree noted that one-on-one violence often erupts spontaneously and shows more of a correlation to economic conditions and drug circulation than mass murder.
Perpetrators behind large-scale homicides often choose assault weapons that fire multiple rounds for maximum carnage. "If those weren't available, it's hard for me to imagine that these mass killings wouldn't be reduced," criminologist Daniel Nagin of Carnegie Mellon told HuffPost on Friday. But, he quickly pointed out, whether stricter laws would be effective in doing so is a separate issue.
LaFree said gun control measures would probably have a greater effect on anger-ignited handgun violence than on killers hellbent on inflicting mass casualties.
According to a Scripps-Howard study of FBI statistics, 4,685 people died in 965 mass-murders between 1980 and 2008. A USA Today article put the yearly average of incidents at about about 20 a year.
A quick look at some of the more notable multiple slayings this year doesn't seem to point to a huge spike. Incidents in Aurora, Colo., Oak Creek, Wisc., Oakland, Calif., Portland, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and now Newtown add up to less than half of the average 163 annual victims noted above. But the quick tally does not account for every clustered killing, and data-collecting can vary (through the years and by agency, too).
Still, the numbers LaFree has seen moved him to offer a grim forecast.
"My guess is that we're witnessing a phenomenon that we're likely to see for the forseeable future," he said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/14/mass-murder-rate-rising-newtown-shooting_n_2302590.html
Mass Murder Rate Still Rising, Experts Say
Mass killings, such as Friday's shooting in Newtown, Conn., have shocked the nation, but criminologists say to expect more.
Shooting sprees are on the rise and probably won't be subsiding any time soon.
"There's clearly been a major upswing," criminologist Gary LaFree of the University of Maryland told The Huffington Post on Friday.
How much of an increase is subject to debate. According to FBI statistics, the trend is inching upward. People killed in clusters of four or more averaged 163 annually between 2006 and 2008, just two more than back in the 1980s.
"Homicide trends don't look like EKGs," said LaFree, who is also director of the National Center for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. "They go up for a while and tail off for a while."
But, LaFree added, "What's interesting is that we're getting a specialized strain of violence when other forms are in decline."
One-on-one gun homicides have dropped more than 40 percent since 1980, according to 2010 FBI crime data. The firearm homicide rate sank from 10,000 in 2005 to 8,776 in 2010.
But shooting sprees are "not decreasing, because the motive in mass murder is so different from the motive for single-victim murders," Jack Levin, a criminology professor at Northeastern University and author of "Extreme Killing," told HuffPost in a previous report. "These are well-planned crimes ... Mass killings don't depend on any given time."
LaFree noted that one-on-one violence often erupts spontaneously and shows more of a correlation to economic conditions and drug circulation than mass murder.
Perpetrators behind large-scale homicides often choose assault weapons that fire multiple rounds for maximum carnage. "If those weren't available, it's hard for me to imagine that these mass killings wouldn't be reduced," criminologist Daniel Nagin of Carnegie Mellon told HuffPost on Friday. But, he quickly pointed out, whether stricter laws would be effective in doing so is a separate issue.
LaFree said gun control measures would probably have a greater effect on anger-ignited handgun violence than on killers hellbent on inflicting mass casualties.
According to a Scripps-Howard study of FBI statistics, 4,685 people died in 965 mass-murders between 1980 and 2008. A USA Today article put the yearly average of incidents at about about 20 a year.
A quick look at some of the more notable multiple slayings this year doesn't seem to point to a huge spike. Incidents in Aurora, Colo., Oak Creek, Wisc., Oakland, Calif., Portland, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and now Newtown add up to less than half of the average 163 annual victims noted above. But the quick tally does not account for every clustered killing, and data-collecting can vary (through the years and by agency, too).
Still, the numbers LaFree has seen moved him to offer a grim forecast.
"My guess is that we're witnessing a phenomenon that we're likely to see for the forseeable future," he said.
UltimateApathy
Infinite Idiocy
I think you've been force-fed too much NRA propaganda if you think you'd be able to resist the government with your precious little guns.
HamburgerBoy
Active Member
- Sep 16, 2007
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UltimateApathy
Infinite Idiocy
Since all the gun nuts conveniently ignored this when I posted it earlier, I'm gonna post it again for shits and giggles. Note to brainwashed puppet pawns: your propaganda overlords are evil
http://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-nra-kills-gun-violence-research-2013-1
How The NRA Killed Federal Funding For Gun Violence Research
More than 100 scientists from universities in the United States lobbied Vice President Joe Biden, asking him to allow the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to once again fund research into the public health impacts of guns.
The scientists signed a letter to Biden last week, urging him to consider making "direct investments in unbiased, scientific research and data infrastructure" related to firearm safety.
The CDC isn't allowed to pursue many kinds of gun research due to the lobbying strength of the National Rifle Association.
As a result of the National Rifle Association's lobbying efforts, governmental research into gun mortality has shrunk by 96 percent since the mid-1990s, according to Reuters.
Prior to 1996, the Center for Disease Control funded research into the causes of firearm-related deaths. After a series of articles finding that increased prevalence of guns lead to increased incidents of gun violence, Republicans sought to remove all federal funding for research into gun deaths.
In 1996, Republican Rep. Jay Dickey removed $2.6 million from the CDC budget — the precise amount the CDC spent on gun research in 1995 — at a time when the center was conducting more studies into gun-related deaths as a "public health phenomenon," according to The New York Times. The NRA and some pro-gun Congressmen perceived this as more of an attack.
Here's an excerpt of a 1997 article in Reason about the fight to kill gun science:
Since 1985 the CDC has funded scores of firearm studies, all reaching conclusions that favor stricter gun control. But CDC officials insist they are not pursuing an anti-gun agenda. In a 1996 interview with the Times-Picayune, CDC spokeswoman Mary Fenley adamantly denied that the agency is "trying to eliminate guns."
At the behest of the NRA, Congressional Republicans successfully removed all federal funding to the Center for Disease Control that would have gone into researching the effect of guns and the root causes of gun violence.
That funding was eventually reinstated, but has been decreasing since, and the CDC re-designated the money to conduct research on traumatic brain injuries.
The current law reads: “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”
Because of the NRA's successful campaign to eliminate the scientific research into the public health effect of firearms, very few researchers specialize in the field anymore, University of California, Davis, professor Garen Wintemute told Reuters. He said there isn't enough money to sustain research.
Since there is a lack of funding for independent research, the gun debate has been lacking in unimpeachable statistics that could effect a change in the status quo.
As it stands, the main available statistics regarding the gun debate are raw gun homicide and suicide stats collected through the FBI, international data and data from groups with a direct stake in the gun debate — for instance, pro-gun stats from the NRA and pro-gun control stats from the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence.
The scientists writing the letter to Biden wrote that, effectively, the NRA has successfully hamstrung a credible gun control conversation. When the only statistics available are imperfect, it becomes that much easier to disregard them.
http://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-nra-kills-gun-violence-research-2013-1
How The NRA Killed Federal Funding For Gun Violence Research
More than 100 scientists from universities in the United States lobbied Vice President Joe Biden, asking him to allow the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to once again fund research into the public health impacts of guns.
The scientists signed a letter to Biden last week, urging him to consider making "direct investments in unbiased, scientific research and data infrastructure" related to firearm safety.
The CDC isn't allowed to pursue many kinds of gun research due to the lobbying strength of the National Rifle Association.
As a result of the National Rifle Association's lobbying efforts, governmental research into gun mortality has shrunk by 96 percent since the mid-1990s, according to Reuters.
Prior to 1996, the Center for Disease Control funded research into the causes of firearm-related deaths. After a series of articles finding that increased prevalence of guns lead to increased incidents of gun violence, Republicans sought to remove all federal funding for research into gun deaths.
In 1996, Republican Rep. Jay Dickey removed $2.6 million from the CDC budget — the precise amount the CDC spent on gun research in 1995 — at a time when the center was conducting more studies into gun-related deaths as a "public health phenomenon," according to The New York Times. The NRA and some pro-gun Congressmen perceived this as more of an attack.
Here's an excerpt of a 1997 article in Reason about the fight to kill gun science:
Since 1985 the CDC has funded scores of firearm studies, all reaching conclusions that favor stricter gun control. But CDC officials insist they are not pursuing an anti-gun agenda. In a 1996 interview with the Times-Picayune, CDC spokeswoman Mary Fenley adamantly denied that the agency is "trying to eliminate guns."
At the behest of the NRA, Congressional Republicans successfully removed all federal funding to the Center for Disease Control that would have gone into researching the effect of guns and the root causes of gun violence.
That funding was eventually reinstated, but has been decreasing since, and the CDC re-designated the money to conduct research on traumatic brain injuries.
The current law reads: “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”
Because of the NRA's successful campaign to eliminate the scientific research into the public health effect of firearms, very few researchers specialize in the field anymore, University of California, Davis, professor Garen Wintemute told Reuters. He said there isn't enough money to sustain research.
Since there is a lack of funding for independent research, the gun debate has been lacking in unimpeachable statistics that could effect a change in the status quo.
As it stands, the main available statistics regarding the gun debate are raw gun homicide and suicide stats collected through the FBI, international data and data from groups with a direct stake in the gun debate — for instance, pro-gun stats from the NRA and pro-gun control stats from the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence.
The scientists writing the letter to Biden wrote that, effectively, the NRA has successfully hamstrung a credible gun control conversation. When the only statistics available are imperfect, it becomes that much easier to disregard them.
UltimateApathy
Infinite Idiocy
Did you miss the numerous memos earlier about gun crime making up more than 65% of all murders in the USA every year? I know, I understand, mindless puppets of propaganda don't comprehend anything that doesn't agree with their carefully "constructed" view of reality.
HamburgerBoy
Active Member
- Sep 16, 2007
- 15,042
- 4,850
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UltimateApathy
Infinite Idiocy
Here are 12 facts that all go to prove you mindless puppets wrong on just about every scenario you've tried to argue for or against in this topic:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...guns-and-mass-shootings-in-the-united-states/
Twelve facts about guns and mass shootings in the United States
"When we first collected much of this data, it was after the Aurora, Colo. shootings, and the air was thick with calls to avoid “politicizing” the tragedy. That is code, essentially, for “don’t talk about reforming our gun control laws.”
Let’s be clear: That is a form of politicization. When political actors construct a political argument that threatens political consequences if other political actors pursue a certain political outcome, that is, almost by definition, a politicization of the issue. It’s just a form of politicization favoring those who prefer the status quo to stricter gun control laws.
Since then, there have been more horrible, high-profile shootings. Jovan Belcher, a linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs, took his girlfriend’s life and then his own. In Oregon, Jacob Tyler Roberts entered a mall holding a semi-automatic rifle and yelling “I am the shooter.” And, in Connecticut, at least 27 are dead — including 18 children — after a man opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
If roads were collapsing all across the United States, killing dozens of drivers, we would surely see that as a moment to talk about what we could do to keep roads from collapsing. If terrorists were detonating bombs in port after port, you can be sure Congress would be working to upgrade the nation’s security measures. If a plague was ripping through communities, public-health officials would be working feverishly to contain it.
Only with gun violence do we respond to repeated tragedies by saying that mourning is acceptable but discussing how to prevent more tragedies is not. “Too soon,” howl supporters of loose gun laws. But as others have observed, talking about how to stop mass shootings in the aftermath of a string of mass shootings isn’t “too soon.” It’s much too late.
What follows here isn’t a policy agenda. It’s simply a set of facts — many of which complicate a search for easy answers — that should inform the discussion that we desperately need to have.
1. Shooting sprees are not rare in the United States.
Mother Jones has tracked and mapped every shooting spree in the last three decades. “Since 1982, there have been at least 61 mass murders carried out with firearms across the country, with the killings unfolding in 30 states from Massachusetts to Hawaii,” they found. And in most cases, the killers had obtained their weapons legally:
(graph)
2. 15 of the 25 worst mass shootings in the last 50 years took place in the United States.
Time has the full list here. In second place is Finland, with two entries.
3. Lots of guns don’t necessarily mean lots of shootings, as you can see in Israel and Switzerland.*
As David Lamp writes at Cato, “In Israel and Switzerland, for example, a license to possess guns is available on demand to every law-abiding adult, and guns are easily obtainable in both nations. Both countries also allow widespread carrying of concealed firearms, and yet, admits Dr. Arthur Kellerman, one of the foremost medical advocates of gun control, Switzerland and Israel ‘have rates of homicide that are low despite rates of home firearm ownership that are at least as high as those in the United States.’”
*Correction: The info is out-of-date, if not completely wrong. Israel and Switzerland have tightened their gun laws substantially, and now pursue an entirely different approach than the United States. More details here. I apologize for the error.
4. Of the 11 deadliest shootings in the US, five have happened from 2007 onward.
That doesn’t include Friday’s shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. The AP put the early reported death toll at 27, which would make it the second-deadliest mass shooting in US history.
5. America is an unusually violent country. But we’re not as violent as we used to be.
Kieran Healy, a sociologist at Duke University, made this graph of “deaths due to assault” in the United States and other developed countries. We are a clear outlier.
(graph)
As Healy writes, “The most striking features of the data are (1) how much more violent the U.S. is than other OECD countries (except possibly Estonia and Mexico, not shown here), and (2) the degree of change—and recently, decline—there has been in the U.S. time series considered by itself.”
6. The South is the most violent region in the United States.
In a subsequent post, Healy drilled further into the numbers and looked at deaths due to assault in different regions of the country. Just as the United States is a clear outlier in the international context, the South is a clear outlier in the national context:
(graph)
7. Gun ownership in the United States is declining overall.
“For all the attention given to America’s culture of guns, ownership of firearms is at or near all-time lows,” writes political scientist Patrick Egan. The decline is most evident on the General Social Survey, though it also shows up on polling from Gallup, as you can see on this graph:
The bottom line, Egan writes, is that “long-term trends suggest that we are in fact currently experiencing a waning culture of guns in the United States. “
8. More guns tend to mean more homicide.
The Harvard Injury Control Research Center assessed the literature on guns and homicide and found that there’s substantial evidence that indicates more guns means more murders. This holds true whether you’re looking at different countries or different states. Citations here.
9. States with stricter gun control laws have fewer deaths from gun-related violence.
Last year, economist Richard Florida dove deep into the correlations between gun deaths and other kinds of social indicators. Some of what he found was, perhaps, unexpected: Higher populations, more stress, more immigrants, and more mental illness were not correlated with more deaths from gun violence. But one thing he found was, perhaps, perfectly predictable: States with tighter gun control laws appear to have fewer gun-related deaths. The disclaimer here is that correlation is not causation. But correlations can be suggestive:
(map)
“The map overlays the map of firearm deaths above with gun control restrictions by state,” explains Florida. “It highlights states which have one of three gun control restrictions in place – assault weapons’ bans, trigger locks, or safe storage requirements. Firearm deaths are significantly lower in states with stricter gun control legislation. Though the sample sizes are small, we find substantial negative correlations between firearm deaths and states that ban assault weapons (-.45), require trigger locks (-.42), and mandate safe storage requirements for guns (-.48).”
10. Gun control, in general, has not been politically popular.
Since 1990, Gallup has been asking Americans whether they think gun control laws should be stricter. The answer, increasingly, is that they don’t. “The percentage in favor of making the laws governing the sale of firearms ‘more strict’ fell from 78% in 1990 to 62% in 1995, and 51% in 2007,” reports Gallup. “In the most recent reading, Gallup in 2010 found 44% in favor of stricter laws. In fact, in 2009 and again last year, the slight majority said gun laws should either remain the same or be made less strict.”
11. But particular policies to control guns often are.
An August CNN/ORC poll asked respondents whether they favor or oppose a number of specific policies to restrict gun ownership. And when you drill down to that level, many policies, including banning the manufacture and possession of semi-automatic rifles, are popular.
(graph)
12. Shootings don’t tend to substantially affect views on gun control.
That, at least, is what the Pew Research Center found:
(graph)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...guns-and-mass-shootings-in-the-united-states/
Twelve facts about guns and mass shootings in the United States
"When we first collected much of this data, it was after the Aurora, Colo. shootings, and the air was thick with calls to avoid “politicizing” the tragedy. That is code, essentially, for “don’t talk about reforming our gun control laws.”
Let’s be clear: That is a form of politicization. When political actors construct a political argument that threatens political consequences if other political actors pursue a certain political outcome, that is, almost by definition, a politicization of the issue. It’s just a form of politicization favoring those who prefer the status quo to stricter gun control laws.
Since then, there have been more horrible, high-profile shootings. Jovan Belcher, a linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs, took his girlfriend’s life and then his own. In Oregon, Jacob Tyler Roberts entered a mall holding a semi-automatic rifle and yelling “I am the shooter.” And, in Connecticut, at least 27 are dead — including 18 children — after a man opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
If roads were collapsing all across the United States, killing dozens of drivers, we would surely see that as a moment to talk about what we could do to keep roads from collapsing. If terrorists were detonating bombs in port after port, you can be sure Congress would be working to upgrade the nation’s security measures. If a plague was ripping through communities, public-health officials would be working feverishly to contain it.
Only with gun violence do we respond to repeated tragedies by saying that mourning is acceptable but discussing how to prevent more tragedies is not. “Too soon,” howl supporters of loose gun laws. But as others have observed, talking about how to stop mass shootings in the aftermath of a string of mass shootings isn’t “too soon.” It’s much too late.
What follows here isn’t a policy agenda. It’s simply a set of facts — many of which complicate a search for easy answers — that should inform the discussion that we desperately need to have.
1. Shooting sprees are not rare in the United States.
Mother Jones has tracked and mapped every shooting spree in the last three decades. “Since 1982, there have been at least 61 mass murders carried out with firearms across the country, with the killings unfolding in 30 states from Massachusetts to Hawaii,” they found. And in most cases, the killers had obtained their weapons legally:
(graph)
2. 15 of the 25 worst mass shootings in the last 50 years took place in the United States.
Time has the full list here. In second place is Finland, with two entries.
3. Lots of guns don’t necessarily mean lots of shootings, as you can see in Israel and Switzerland.*
As David Lamp writes at Cato, “In Israel and Switzerland, for example, a license to possess guns is available on demand to every law-abiding adult, and guns are easily obtainable in both nations. Both countries also allow widespread carrying of concealed firearms, and yet, admits Dr. Arthur Kellerman, one of the foremost medical advocates of gun control, Switzerland and Israel ‘have rates of homicide that are low despite rates of home firearm ownership that are at least as high as those in the United States.’”
*Correction: The info is out-of-date, if not completely wrong. Israel and Switzerland have tightened their gun laws substantially, and now pursue an entirely different approach than the United States. More details here. I apologize for the error.
4. Of the 11 deadliest shootings in the US, five have happened from 2007 onward.
That doesn’t include Friday’s shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. The AP put the early reported death toll at 27, which would make it the second-deadliest mass shooting in US history.
5. America is an unusually violent country. But we’re not as violent as we used to be.
Kieran Healy, a sociologist at Duke University, made this graph of “deaths due to assault” in the United States and other developed countries. We are a clear outlier.
(graph)
As Healy writes, “The most striking features of the data are (1) how much more violent the U.S. is than other OECD countries (except possibly Estonia and Mexico, not shown here), and (2) the degree of change—and recently, decline—there has been in the U.S. time series considered by itself.”
6. The South is the most violent region in the United States.
In a subsequent post, Healy drilled further into the numbers and looked at deaths due to assault in different regions of the country. Just as the United States is a clear outlier in the international context, the South is a clear outlier in the national context:
(graph)
7. Gun ownership in the United States is declining overall.
“For all the attention given to America’s culture of guns, ownership of firearms is at or near all-time lows,” writes political scientist Patrick Egan. The decline is most evident on the General Social Survey, though it also shows up on polling from Gallup, as you can see on this graph:
The bottom line, Egan writes, is that “long-term trends suggest that we are in fact currently experiencing a waning culture of guns in the United States. “
8. More guns tend to mean more homicide.
The Harvard Injury Control Research Center assessed the literature on guns and homicide and found that there’s substantial evidence that indicates more guns means more murders. This holds true whether you’re looking at different countries or different states. Citations here.
9. States with stricter gun control laws have fewer deaths from gun-related violence.
Last year, economist Richard Florida dove deep into the correlations between gun deaths and other kinds of social indicators. Some of what he found was, perhaps, unexpected: Higher populations, more stress, more immigrants, and more mental illness were not correlated with more deaths from gun violence. But one thing he found was, perhaps, perfectly predictable: States with tighter gun control laws appear to have fewer gun-related deaths. The disclaimer here is that correlation is not causation. But correlations can be suggestive:
(map)
“The map overlays the map of firearm deaths above with gun control restrictions by state,” explains Florida. “It highlights states which have one of three gun control restrictions in place – assault weapons’ bans, trigger locks, or safe storage requirements. Firearm deaths are significantly lower in states with stricter gun control legislation. Though the sample sizes are small, we find substantial negative correlations between firearm deaths and states that ban assault weapons (-.45), require trigger locks (-.42), and mandate safe storage requirements for guns (-.48).”
10. Gun control, in general, has not been politically popular.
Since 1990, Gallup has been asking Americans whether they think gun control laws should be stricter. The answer, increasingly, is that they don’t. “The percentage in favor of making the laws governing the sale of firearms ‘more strict’ fell from 78% in 1990 to 62% in 1995, and 51% in 2007,” reports Gallup. “In the most recent reading, Gallup in 2010 found 44% in favor of stricter laws. In fact, in 2009 and again last year, the slight majority said gun laws should either remain the same or be made less strict.”
11. But particular policies to control guns often are.
An August CNN/ORC poll asked respondents whether they favor or oppose a number of specific policies to restrict gun ownership. And when you drill down to that level, many policies, including banning the manufacture and possession of semi-automatic rifles, are popular.
(graph)
12. Shootings don’t tend to substantially affect views on gun control.
That, at least, is what the Pew Research Center found:
(graph)
UltimateApathy
Infinite Idiocy
Those memes that Summerian posted earlier are just too good to not be on the front page of this topic, they really deserve a re-posting:
UltimateApathy
Infinite Idiocy
http://rt.com/usa/news/mass-year-people-massacre-710/
Deadly count: US averages 20 mass shootings every year
All of the US has turned to Aurora, Colorado after a Friday morning shooting left more than a dozen movie-goers dead. But while the latest massacre has scarred millions of Americans, it's also just another item added to a list of gruesome sprees.
According to an ongoing tally kept by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the United States is experiencing an average of around 20 mass shootings each year. While Friday morning’s incident inside of a Aurora movie theater has perhaps the unfortunate distinction of being the most violent in recent memory — taking no fewer than 12 lives and injuring around 50 more — it is only yet only one example out of many that has marred society this year.
The Aurora massacre is believed to be one of the worst incident on American soil since a rampage at Virginia Tech in 2007 left 32 people dead. The Fort Hood, Texas massacre two years later also ended with massive bloodshed, as well, with 13 people losing their lives in that event.
Since 2005, however, the Brady Campaign says that these events are occurring, at least on some scale, in remarkable numbers.
According to the campaign, who brands itself with the slogan “sensible gun laws save lives,” the Aurora incident is already the sixth mass shooting in the month of July alone.
Only three days earlier, 17 people were injured in Tuscaloosa, Alabama after a gunman opened fire in a downtown bar. One week prior, three people were killed and two were injured after another rampage erupted during a Dover, Delaware soccer tournament.
In Chicago, Illinois, where the homicide rate for June 2012 was 50 percent higher than just a year earlier, three separate outbursts in only the last 20 days have left four people dead and at least another 13 seriously hurt. So far in 2012, more people have been killed in the metropolitan Midwest city than the number of US servicemen in Afghanistan.
Earlier this month, two suspects fired at least 61 bullets in an outburst in Queens, NY that, while yielded no fatalities, left several people injured — including children. At the time, the Wall Street Journal reported that the NYPD recorded 730 shooting incidents this year alone, showing a 12 percent increase from the same time in 2011.
"Children are becoming victims more and more in these communities," Rev. Taharka Robinson, founder of the Brooklyn Anti-Violence Coalition, told the Huffington Post after the NYC mass shooting weeks ago. "If you can have an individual spray bullets where children are playing nearby, there's something wrong. We need to get to the root of the problem."
It’s been a sentiment echoed countless times in recent years, especially after the 1999 Columbine, Colorado massacre reintroduced mass shootings as a mainstream issue. Despite continuing pleas, though, the Brady Campaign’s statistics seem to suggest that little is being done to curb the crime.
According to Brady, the number of homicides in America that occurred in 2012 as a result of mass shootings totaled 50, even before Friday’s massacre in Colorado.
Deadly count: US averages 20 mass shootings every year
All of the US has turned to Aurora, Colorado after a Friday morning shooting left more than a dozen movie-goers dead. But while the latest massacre has scarred millions of Americans, it's also just another item added to a list of gruesome sprees.
According to an ongoing tally kept by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the United States is experiencing an average of around 20 mass shootings each year. While Friday morning’s incident inside of a Aurora movie theater has perhaps the unfortunate distinction of being the most violent in recent memory — taking no fewer than 12 lives and injuring around 50 more — it is only yet only one example out of many that has marred society this year.
The Aurora massacre is believed to be one of the worst incident on American soil since a rampage at Virginia Tech in 2007 left 32 people dead. The Fort Hood, Texas massacre two years later also ended with massive bloodshed, as well, with 13 people losing their lives in that event.
Since 2005, however, the Brady Campaign says that these events are occurring, at least on some scale, in remarkable numbers.
According to the campaign, who brands itself with the slogan “sensible gun laws save lives,” the Aurora incident is already the sixth mass shooting in the month of July alone.
Only three days earlier, 17 people were injured in Tuscaloosa, Alabama after a gunman opened fire in a downtown bar. One week prior, three people were killed and two were injured after another rampage erupted during a Dover, Delaware soccer tournament.
In Chicago, Illinois, where the homicide rate for June 2012 was 50 percent higher than just a year earlier, three separate outbursts in only the last 20 days have left four people dead and at least another 13 seriously hurt. So far in 2012, more people have been killed in the metropolitan Midwest city than the number of US servicemen in Afghanistan.
Earlier this month, two suspects fired at least 61 bullets in an outburst in Queens, NY that, while yielded no fatalities, left several people injured — including children. At the time, the Wall Street Journal reported that the NYPD recorded 730 shooting incidents this year alone, showing a 12 percent increase from the same time in 2011.
"Children are becoming victims more and more in these communities," Rev. Taharka Robinson, founder of the Brooklyn Anti-Violence Coalition, told the Huffington Post after the NYC mass shooting weeks ago. "If you can have an individual spray bullets where children are playing nearby, there's something wrong. We need to get to the root of the problem."
It’s been a sentiment echoed countless times in recent years, especially after the 1999 Columbine, Colorado massacre reintroduced mass shootings as a mainstream issue. Despite continuing pleas, though, the Brady Campaign’s statistics seem to suggest that little is being done to curb the crime.
According to Brady, the number of homicides in America that occurred in 2012 as a result of mass shootings totaled 50, even before Friday’s massacre in Colorado.
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