Guns

[Danoff]

The problem of the presence of guns isn't restricted to the actual presence of guns.

Well we're getting in to a more hypothetical, fantasy-based, discussion then, especially as it pertains to America. We've been over this one a bunch, but generally speaking the culture in the US is fairly violent.

 

[UKMikey]

If holding a cellphone can get you killed by police perhaps there should be firearms safety courses for non gun owners in the US. I wonder whether this is as much of a problem in countries like Canada with similar levels of gun ownership.

 

[Biggles]

Well we're getting in to a more hypothetical, fantasy-based, discussion then, especially as it pertains to America. We've been over this one a bunch, but generally speaking the culture in the US is fairly violent.

It's not a hypothetical, fantasy based discussion at all when the police frequently shoot unarmed citizens because of the possibility that they might be armed. The gas station shooting being just one example. General speaking is the culture in the US more violent than other developed countries ... or are there just so many more guns around that the cops are (not completely unreasonably) scared of being shot ... even during a trivial traffic stop.

 

[Exorcet]

or are there just so many more guns around that the cops are (not completely unreasonably) scared of being shot ... even during a trivial traffic stop.

Guns or not, it still takes some violent intent to really add risk to a mundane situation. A gun isn't likely to get you out of a ticket, unless you count trading one minor offense for a major one. There is of course always the chance for irrational thinking, but reaching for a gun in response to being pulled over or something is just bizarre.

If there is a problem here and we want to focus on guns rather than people, I'd still much rather look to technology as a solution rather than wrongfully taking them away. I've thought about guns that restricting arming to specific areas, maybe the police could carry something similar that disables firearms in their presence, possibly including their own. Gun owners could opt into the system. It wouldn't be a foolproof solution, and if it were to actually be put in place it would probably need a bit more thought put into it than what's in this post, but just knowing that it exists could help reduce tension.

 

[Biggles]

If holding a cellphone can get you killed by police perhaps there should be firearms safety courses for non gun owners in the US. I wonder whether this is as much of a problem in countries like Canada with similar levels of gun ownership.

Canada doesn't have "similar levels of gun ownership" as the US ... although it does have higher rates than most European countries.

A 2015 study in the American Journal of Public Health found that states with more civilian guns had more homicides of cops: For every 10 percent increase in the firearm ownership rate, there were 10 additional police killed while on duty.

In an interview, the study’s authors pointed to a few factors that play a role in how officers think about the risk of being shot: the militarization of police training, a police culture that amplifies tales of downed officers, and the proliferation of guns among civilians.

“What my ethnographic work shows is that police are systematically socialized to understand their work as predominantly dangerous, and to understand that the public is the key driver of that danger,” said Sierra-Arévalo. “So police are trained that there actually is no such thing as a routine traffic stop, there is no such thing as a routine call for service. Instead, they are trained to view the world as full of infinite threats, and to approach a situation as if it might devolve into a fight of their lives at any moment.”

 

[Danoff]

It's not a hypothetical, fantasy based discussion at all when the police frequently shoot unarmed citizens because of the possibility that they might be armed. The gas station shooting being just one example. General speaking is the culture in the US more violent than other developed countries ... or are there just so many more guns around that the cops are (not completely unreasonably) scared of being shot ... even during a trivial traffic stop.

I've posted in this thread before that the non-gun crime rate in the US is well above the entire crime rate of the countries that it is often compared to. The US culture is fairly violent compared to other nations, with AND without guns.

The fantasy-based discussion is to talk about a US without guns. It's not going to happen. The reality of the situation is that there are a lot of guns, and even if the 2nd amendment were removed through a constitutional amendment tomorrow (which also is not going to happen), those guns would stay. We have a lot of people that would just keep their guns even if it were illegal to do so. It is, after all, also illegal to shoot a cop, and to even carry guns into many of the places that they end up being used.

If the US is going to make any progress regarding police brutality, and violent crime in general, we need to take a good look at some of the big problems, both culturally and legally, that encourage violence. Rittenhouse is an example, but stand-your-ground laws are also similarly problematic for a lot of the same reasons. It should have been easy to prosecute Rittenhouse.

Edit: Obviously, obviously, qualified immunity is huge.

 

[Biggles]

The fantasy-based discussion is to talk about a US without guns. It's not going to happen.

I didn't write about "a US without guns". I recognize that it's not going to happen. I think it's still worth pointing out that most of the pro-gun beliefs about the real word benefits of gun-ownership are a complete fantasy. This latest police shooting being yet another example. It's always a good idea not to indulge fantasies. They are not helpful to the successful functioning of a society, as they promote unrealistic expectations & goals. All countries have their share of entrenched mythologies, but the US is in a class of its own IMO when it comes to an unrealistic self-image ... American Exceptionalism.

I've posted in this thread before that the non-gun crime rate in the US is well above the entire crime rate of the countries that it is often compared to. The US culture is fairly violent compared to other nations, with AND without guns.

I'm not sure that that is correct.

America doesn’t have more crime than other rich countries. It just has more guns.

Landmark research suggests that guns, not higher crime across the board, explain why America’s homicide rate is so high.

www.vox.com

 

[Danoff]

I didn't write about "a US without guns". I recognize that it's not going to happen. I think it's still worth pointing out that most of the pro-gun beliefs about the real word benefits of gun-ownership are a complete fantasy. This latest police shooting being yet another example. It's always a good idea not to indulge fantasies. They are not helpful to the successful functioning of a society, as they promote unrealistic expectations & goals. All countries have their share of entrenched mythologies, but the US is in a class of its own IMO when it comes to an unrealistic self-image ... American Exceptionalism.

I'm not sure that that is correct.

America doesn’t have more crime than other rich countries. It just has more guns.

Landmark research suggests that guns, not higher crime across the board, explain why America’s homicide rate is so high.

www.vox.com

That article isn't standing on much in terms of real evidence.

That's what I gave you, intentional homicides. You're lumping all of Europe in together to make the number seem larger. I'm comparing to the high income countries in this list:

edit:
[removed plot because it looks like it's not correct compared to others and I can't explain the difference]


Our non-gun murder rate is higher than almost every country on that chart up to and including Australia (not Israel, Portugal, and Chile). Get rid of every gun in the us, and assume for the sake of argument that no gun murders occur via any other weapon, and we still have like double the murder rate of spain*. Here's another:

Guns homicide removed, assume all gun homicide is prevented by the lack of guns, still almost double the homicide rate of the UK and Australia in 2012.

 

[Biggles]

I don't know that your charts reinforce your position: they appear to indicate that non-gun homicide rates in the US are only marginally higher than in many other countries, while the gun murder rates are massively higher.

 

[Danoff]

I don't know that your charts reinforce your position: they appear to indicate that non-gun homicide rates in the US are only marginally higher than in many other countries, while the gun murder rates are massively higher.

Nearly double is marginal?

I guess you're looking at Canada. In the US, we kill more people per capita without guns than Canada kills people per capita (2012). Take away all of the guns and some of the gun homicide incidents will still occur too.

Edit:

It's also I think somewhat illuminating to look at the non-gun rate in Canada and compare it to the non-gun rate in the US. Our non-gun homicide rate is so high (or was in 2010 and 2012), that it aligns with about double the non-gun homicide rate in Canada.

 

[Biggles]

Nearly double is marginal?

I guess you're looking at Canada. In the US, we kill more people per capita without guns than Canada kills people per capita (2012). Take away all of the guns and some of the gun homicide incidents will still occur too.

Edit:

It's also I think somewhat illuminating to look at the non-gun rate in Canada and compare it to the non-gun rate in the US. Our non-gun homicide rate is so high (or was in 2010 and 2012), that it aligns with about double the non-gun homicide rate in Canada.

Hmmm. Whatever way you look at it, your charts don't reinforce your position. Ok, more accurately the per capita without guns rate appears to be about 50% higher in the US than in the Canada, & about 100% higher than the UK & Australia, which is hardly "marginal" ... except in comparison to the per capita rate including guns, which is about 270% higher than it is in Canada & 450% higher than it is in the UK & Australia.

 

[Danoff]

Hmmm. Whatever way you look at it, your charts don't reinforce your position. Ok, more accurately the per capita without guns rate appears to be about 50% higher in the US than in the Canada, & about 100% higher than the UK & Australia, which is hardly "marginal" ... except in comparison to the per capita rate including guns, which is about 270% higher than it is in Canada & 450% higher than it is in the UK & Australia.

I don't think you understand my position. How do you explain the massive difference in per capita non-gun homicide?

 

[Biggles]

Homicide rates in different countries are due to a variety of different historical, cultural & socio-economic reasons. One of those reasons is the prevalence of gun ownership. The US has higher rates of non-gun homicide than other comparable countries, but massively higher rates when gun homicides are included.

 

[Danoff]

Homicide rates in different countries are due to a variety of different historical, cultural & socio-economic reasons.

Yes.

One of those reasons is the prevalence of gun ownership.

Is it? How do guns make people more violent?

 

[Biggles]

Yes.

Is it? How do guns make people more violent?

They make the consequences of their violence more likely to be deadly.

 

[Danoff]

They make the consequences of their violence more likely to be deadly.

Kinda dodged the question there right? I mean, I'm trying to figure out why the US non-gun homicide rate is high, you blamed it on guns, and then just sorta redirected the argument back to gun-related homicide.

 

[Biggles]

Kinda dodged the question there right? I mean, I'm trying to figure out why the US non-gun homicide rate is high, you blamed it on guns, and then just sorta redirected the argument back to gun-related homicide.

Actually, I didn't blame the US non-gun homicide rate on guns. I said that the overall homicide rate in United States is high due to a variety of different historical, cultural & socio-economic reasons - one of the reasons being the prevalence of gun ownership. The question you need to answer is why there are about 60% more homicides per capita in the US than in Canada excluding gun homicides ... but 270% more homicides when you include gun homicides?

 

[Danoff]

Actually, I didn't blame the US non-gun homicide rate on guns.

You did. Watch:

How do you explain the massive difference in per capita non-gun homicide?

One of those reasons is the prevalence of gun ownership.

Is it? How do guns make people more violent?

They make the consequences of their violence more likely to be deadly.

See? That's you blaming non-gun homicide on guns, twice. It really does dodge the question too... the question is how do guns make people more violent, not how do guns make people more deadly. You even seemed to acknowledge shifting the question in your response.

The question you need to answer is why there are about 60% more homicides per capita in the US than in Canada excluding gun homicides ... but 270% more homicides when you include gun homicides?

Let's answer that first one, it might help answer the second one. Here's what you've provided so far, aside from blaming guns for non-gun homicide, which you didn't substantiate:

I said that the overall homicide rate in United States is high due to a variety of different historical, cultural & socio-economic reasons

So do you think that the overall homicide rate being high, from a variety of different historical, cultural, and socio-economic reasons might show up in both gun and non-gun homicide rates? In otherwords, that the US has a violent culture, and both with and without guns, Americans are fairly violent.

 

[Biggles]

They make the consequences of their violence more likely to be deadly.

You're being deliberately obtuse. See again the above. The proclivity for violence may remain the same, but the presence of guns makes the likelihood of homicide greater. Hence the far higher rates of homicide once you factor in gun homicides.

 

[Danoff]

You're being deliberately obtuse. See again the above. The proclivity for violence may remain the same, but the presence of guns makes the likelihood of homicide greater.

I get that, in the gun-homicide cases. I'm not missing it, I understand it.

Hence the far higher rates of homicide once you factor in gun homicides.

The point I'm making, which you are for some reason trying to avoid acknowledging with this statement and others, is that the US has far higher homicide rates even if you factor OUT guns. America has a violent culture, guns or no guns, we kill a lot of people. More than other countries.

The same violent culture that kills more people without guns, also kills lots of people with guns, this should not be surprising.

 

[Biggles]

I get that, in the gun-homicide cases. I'm not missing it, I understand it.

The point I'm making, which you are for some reason trying to avoid acknowledging with this statement and others, is that the US has far higher homicide rates even if you factor OUT guns. America has a violent culture, guns or no guns, we kill a lot of people. More than other countries.

The same violent culture that kills more people without guns, also kills lots of people with guns, this should not be surprising.

The numbers show this: the US has about 60% more non-gun homicides than Canada, but 270% more homicides including gun homicides. The US has about 90% more non-gun homicides than the UK, but about 450% more homicides when you include gun homicides. To any objective, rational person, these statistics would suggest that while the US may be more prone to homicides in general, the presence of guns is the most notable contributing factor to its anomalous overall homicide rate.

I might add, that it's not just the mere presence of guns, but the surrounding gun culture that has grown up in the US, which marks the US as an outlier among developed countries.

 

[Exorcet]

To any objective, rational person, these statistics would suggest that while the US may be more prone to homicides in general, the presence of guns is the most notable contributing factor to its anomalous overall homicide rate.

It's not really obvious, especially without linking it to the number of guns in other countries. Admittedly your Vox article does this, but also shows huge variation relative to the trend line. It suggests that it takes more than guns to cause the problem, or perhaps that a low crime rate is possible despite guns.

Edit - the graph isn't actually that great at linking crimes and guns actually because it only takes into account gun crime/deaths.

 

[Biggles]

It's not really obvious, especially without linking it to the number of guns in other countries. Admittedly your Vox article does this, but also shows huge variation relative to the trend line. It suggests that it takes more than guns to cause the problem, or perhaps that a low crime rate is possible despite guns.

Yes, because it's not just the presence of guns ... but the presence of guns within a certain social & cultural climate. So, it's not particularly instructive to compare the US to Switzerland, for instance. There are lots of places in the world that have much higher rates of homicide than the US ... but they are places like El Salvador, Jamaica, Venezuela, Brazil & the Central African Republic that are poorer & more unstable, politically & socially.

 

[Famine]

the US has about 60% more non-gun homicides than Canada, but 270% more homicides including gun homicides. The US has about 90% more non-gun homicides than the UK, but about 450% more homicides when you include gun homicides. To any objective, rational person, these statistics would suggest that while the US may be more prone to homicides in general, the presence of guns is the most notable contributing factor to its anomalous overall homicide rate.

But... isn't it quite clearly @Danoff's point that the culture in the US is already significantly more violent even without the guns? Has he not quite clearly said that the USA's non-gun homicide* rate is higher on its own than the total homicide* rate of most other developed nations worldwide?

I've posted in this thread before that the non-gun crime rate in the US is well above the entire crime rate of the countries that it is often compared to. The US culture is fairly violent compared to other nations, with AND without guns.

Taking your numbers as presented, the USA has a homicide* rate just for homicides* without guns that is 160% of Canada's entire homicide* rate and 190% of the UK's entire homicide* rate.

That is an enormous difference for what should, by most other points of reference, be broadly comparable cultures. It speaks for a culture that is massively more violent, or prone to violence, than its peers. The gun-related deaths are additional to that and push the numbers even higher - the ****** cherry on a particularly ****** cake.

To look at it another way, Americans take action to kill other Americans five times more often than British people take action to kill other British people. About 60% of the time, they pick up a gun to do it, but in the other 40% they don't - and that's still twice as often as British people take action to kill other British people. By the time a British person has picked up a cricket bat or whatever to kill someone, two Americans have chosen a weapon other than a gun to kill someone and another three Americans have chosen a gun (or one American has chosen a gun to kill three people, which is part of the anti-gun argument; that they make it easier to kill more, while the cricket bat-wielding Brit really has to work at it).

Another, further way of looking at it is that If one were to genie away all of the USA's firearms, the killing-each-other rate would fall by 60%, leaving it still at double the rate of the UK, because 40% of homicides don't involve guns. Actually it'd probably fall by less than 60%, as some of the people who chose guns to kill would still kill, but they'd do it without guns; on the flip side, some of the homicides without guns might also fall because there's less fear that the other guy might have a gun and less need for pre-emptive deadly violence - but we don't need to invoke that for this particular hypothetical.


Those numbers say that Americans are considerably more likely to take action to kill than British or Canadian people, whatever weapon they choose to carry out the act. The fact they choose a gun 60% of the time looks like a symptom, rather than a cause, of a violent culture which kills each other at a considerably higher rate than other developed nations.

Which is what @Danoff said originally, I guess.

I've posted in this thread before that the non-gun crime rate in the US is well above the entire crime rate of the countries that it is often compared to. The US culture is fairly violent compared to other nations, with AND without guns.

*Although we have to be careful with the term "homicide", because different nations don't classify it the same way; the UK's "murder" stats don't include manslaughter (second- and third-degree murder) or suicides, though both manslaughter and suicide are homicide.

 

[Danoff]

I'll avoid piling on to what @Famine said above, since that was my point. But I'll address this:

To any objective, rational person, these statistics would suggest that while the US may be more prone to homicides in general, the presence of guns is the most notable contributing factor to its anomalous overall homicide rate.

Guns do make people more effective at killing. Massively so. It is, after all, why they were invented. I absolutely wholeheartedly concede that the existence of guns in the US makes murder much easier, and makes would-be murderers much more effective. One need only look at the Las Vegas shooting (or others) to see this. Timothy McVeigh famously pointed out how easy it is to use other methods, but guns remain the weapon of choice for a reason.

To pretend that guns are the US's big problem though, is to miss the real story. Take a look at just how quickly some politicians (not just people, but elected representatives - people that lots of people support) have started calling for violence against their countrymen, and other elected representatives, and how palatable that is to the general population. People that are advocating crimes against other Americans are still winning elections, and quite popular, partly FOR their advocacy of violence. It took the US absolutely no time at all for this to become normal.

Our violence problem is well beyond gun ownership, and it is deepening.

 

[Michael88]

In case you missed this, because I realize you were posting at nearly the same time.

But truly, we would all like to know what was so funny.

Every time a cop draws his gun, there is a chance of injury to innocent bystanders. Yet they are trained to minimize that chance. So why not require similar training in order for civillians to get a concealed-carry permit?

Training requires ammunition which is expensive, especially nowadays, and lessons would be expensive and time consuming too. So you would basically prevent hard working people with minimum wages - or families with kids that don't have lots of spare money and time- their right to defend themselves properly. That cannot be the the right approach, can it?

 

[UKMikey]

An eighteen-year response... is this a record?

 

[Danoff]

their right to defend themselves properly

Hang on a second... you're saying that training for a concealed carry permit shouldn't be required because it would cost money?

 

[Danoff]

*Although we have to be careful with the term "homicide", because different nations don't classify it the same way; the UK's "murder" stats don't include manslaughter (second- and third-degree murder) or suicides, though both manslaughter and suicide are homicide.

In 2019/20, the homicide rate per million population in England and Wales was 11.7, in Scotland it was also 11.7 and in Northern Ireland 10.6.

The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program defines murder and nonnegligent manslaughter as the willful (nonnegligent) killing of one human being by another.
...
Justifiable homicide—Certain willful killings must be reported as justifiable or excusable. In the UCR Program, justifiable homicide is defined as and limited to:

• The killing of a felon by a peace officer in the line of duty.
• The killing of a felon, during the commission of a felony, by a private citizen.

Because these killings are determined through law enforcement investigation to be justifiable, they are tabulated separately from murder and nonnegligent manslaughter.
...
There were 5.0 murders per 100,000 people in 2019.

So the 2019 figures line up with the BBC chart I showed earlier. The homicide rate in "England and Wales" is 1.17 per 100k. It looks to me like the figures for the US in the BBC plot do not include "justifiable homicide", or suicide, or negligent homicide, but they would include non-negligent manslaughter.

As we get into the weeds on this one, we run in to the problem that many people in the US are convicted of a lesser crime than they were prosecuted for, because many cases are plea bargained. So I'm not sure it's worth significantly pursuing the difference in figures for manslaughter.

 

[Biggles]

In the meantime ... a father buys a handgun in a "Black Friday" sale. Four days later his teenage son takes that gun to school & shoots 11 people, killing 3 of them.

Sheriff: Oxford High School shooting suspect used gun dad bought on Black Friday

The 15-year-old sophomore had a 9mm Sig Sauer SP 2022 pistol and at least two, 15-round magazines, said Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard.

www.freep.com