London murder rate rises higher than NY City

The reason why I conclude that gun availability has little impact on homicide rates is because statistics show very clearly that gun availability has very little correlation with homicide rates.

 

But statistics show that gun availability has a high impact on mass homicides and school killings! Scale is important. And its really not true that gun availability has little impact on homicides in the U.S. Firearms account for over 67% of homicides in the United States.Source: CDC, WISQARS Database, cdc.gov According to the FBI (2011) 67.7 percent of all murders, 41.3 percent of robberies and 21.2 percent of aggravated assaults were conducted with guns.

 

Perhaps. But massacres are a very small part of the overall homicide rate.

Here are the homicide stats that Balbus posted here:
Justice Thomas: 2a Won't be Touched
with data on gun availability added from here:
Estimated number of guns per capita by country - Wikipedia
and with Taiwan added for a bit of balance:

US
Homicide rate: 5.1
Gun availability: 101

Canada
Homicide rate: 1.6
Gun availability: 30.8

England and Wales
Homicide rate: 0.93
Gun availability: 6.2

France
Homicide rate: 1.2
Gun availability: 31.2

Germany
Homicide rate: 0.8
Gun availability: 30.3

Luxembourg
Homicide rate: 0.8
Gun availability: 15.3

Switzerland
Homicide rate: 0.57
Gun availability: 24.45

Taiwan
Homicide rate: 1.72
Gun availability: 4.6

Note the weak correlation between gun availability and homicide rates.

All that shows is that criminals will use a gun if they can get their hands on one.

It doesn't change the fact that criminals will just use a different weapon if they cannot get their hands on a gun.

 

Did you not notice that the US has the highest homocide rate on that list and the highest rate of gun ownership?

 

There's also a population aspect that is generally ignored. The "rate" figure goes astray when the populations being compared are so wildly different.

If we're going to accept statistics about this as "concrete", are we willing to do the same for other issues? Such as crime statistics?

Not likely.

 

I noticed. But I don't attach any significance to it.

Notice also that Taiwan has fewer guns than the UK and a higher homicide rate, while Switzerland has more guns than the UK and a lower homicide rate.

 

Taiwan and the UK's gun rate/homocide rate are pretty close

Switzerland is an interesting example because they have a unique gun culture, and guns are also much more regulated than in the US

 

1.72 is nearly double 0.93 on the homicide rates.

It wasn't too long ago that you could buy a machine gun in Switzerland without a background check. They only imposed regulations because the Europeans wouldn't let them into the Schengen Agreement unless they did so.

Even today people there can buy a semi-auto rifle or semi-auto shotgun merely by passing a background check. Bolt-action rifles and double-barrel shotguns don't even require a background check.

The only area that I can see where Switzerland is more restrictive than the US is, they don't allow people to carry guns in public. Guns there are only for hunting or home defense.

 

It gets worse....

Mayor Sadiq has banned knives in London .

Gun control? London’s Muslim Mayor Sadiq Khan bans knives

This is insane. Maybe if we send him to prison, he will know how easy it is to craft a "shank" out of literally anything you have access to.

If it were up to me, I'd lock Mr. Khan up in a holding cell and feed him glazed ham only. My muslim ex-roommate from Senegal once told me that the only time it would be acceptable for him to eat pork, is if his only choice were to eat pork or willfully starve to death. He said it was because starving deliberately is suicide, and suicides in his religion go straight to hell.

 

But politics aside, I still would love to visit London one day.

One project I worked on, is currently on display in one of London's fine museums, in a high profile exhibit. I hope one day I can see it before they remove it.

 

But will do significantly less damage in mass killings. Your statistical analysis is crude. A more sophisticated statistical analysis was done by Hemenway and Miller (2000),Journal of Trauma, 985-988, who looked at data for 26 highly industrialized countries including the U.S. and found "in simple regressions there is a strong and statistically significant relationship between gun availability and homicide rates. A review by Hepburn and Hemenway of the academic literature found that a broad array of evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for homicide, both in the United States and across high-income countries. Case-control studies, ecological time-series and cross-sectional studies indicate that in homes, cities, states and regions in the U.S., where there are more guns, both men and women are at a higher risk for homicide, particularly firearm homicide. Aggression and Violent Behavior: A Review Journal. 2004; 9:417-40. Finally, Miller, Azrael and Hemenway analyzed the relationship between firearm availability and homicide across 50 states over a ten-year period (1988-1997). After controlling for poverty and urbanization, for every age group, people in states with many guns have elevated rates of homicide, particularly firearm homicide. A second study by the same authors using survey data on rates of household gun ownership, examined the association between gun availability and homicide across states, 2001-2003. They found that states with higher levels of household gun ownership had higher rates of firearm homicide and overall homicide. This relationship held for both genders and all age groups, after accounting for rates of aggravated assault, robbery, unemployment, urbanization, alcohol consumption, and resource deprivation (e.g., poverty).

 

Yes and I’ve looked at what you have said about this and as others have pointed out it just doesn’t stand up.

Your contention seems to be that easy access to guns has no effect on the number of homicides within your society, that the level of deaths would be the same if that ease of access was reduced.

Well the first part has been disproved many times as Scientific America has pointed out - More than 30 peer-reviewed studies, focusing on individuals as well as populations, have been published that confirm…that guns are associated with an increased risk for violence and homicide. “There is really uniform data to support the statement that access to firearms is associated with an increased risk of firearm-related death and injury,” said Garen Wintemute, a physician and noted gun violence researcher at the University of California.

Research reviews by the Harvard School of Public Health’s Injury Control Research Center have concluded that more gun ownership leads to more gun violence. Studies have found this to be true again and again — for homicides, suicides, domestic violence, and violence against police. Other factors (such as socioeconomic issues) contribute to violence, but guns are the one issue that makes America unique relative to other developed countries in comparable socioeconomic circumstances.

Even the figures you present don’t back up your stance – I mean as I and may others here have repeatedly said we accept gun ownership by the responsible and law-abiding who may never use their gun for a crime but some will and that is your official ownership but according to the FBI virtually all guns in criminal hands were bought legally in the US by American citizens. They were either stolen from the legal owner or passed on to a criminal for favour or money. And the Bureau of Justice Statistics has reported that the number of firearms stolen during burglaries and other property crimes from 2005 through 2010 was about (many thief’s are not reported) 1.4 million guns, or an annual average of 232,400.

That is related to the ease of access to guns due to irresponsible legal ownership and not having prudent gun control.

And as said while it’s been found that everyone is at a greater risk of dying by homicide if they have access to a gun, the connection is stronger for women. In a survey of battered women, 71.4 percent of respondents reported that guns had been used against them, usually to threaten to kill them. A study comparing abused women who survived with those killed by their abuser found that 51 percent of women who were killed had a gun in the house. By contrast, only 16 percent of women who survived lived in homes with guns.

To say ease of access to guns has no connection to the use in crimes and homicides (not to mention suicides, accidents etc) just does not stand up in any rational or reasonable way when looked at.

And stamping your foot and repeating it is, it is, IT IS with your fingers in your ears doesn’t work.

But as said I don’t think the gun lobby is interested in being rational or reasonable, they are about spreading myth and rumour and falsehood, so I’m sure this will be dismissed.

 

Some Americans yes.

 

Mass killings account for a very small portion of homicides.

If you want to compare more countries, these pages have a wider array of data:
GunCite-Gun Control-International Homicide Comparisons
GunCite-Gun Control-International Homicide and Suicide Rates

Comparing America to other high income countries skews the data. Our high homicide rates are not coming from high income areas.

Their results are certainly not mirrored in comparisons of homicide rates between various nations.

 

All nations have some people that are more murderous and savage than their counterparts; in effect you haven't answered the question but stated a generalization that applies to all.

 

Statistics are very clear on the fact that there is only weak correlation between gun availability and homicide rates.

Increases in firearm-related deaths is not the issue. The point is that overall homicides do not increase.

One more gun-related death means one less-knife related death.

The victim is just as dead whether they were killed with a gun or a knife.

Increases in gun-related violence are not increases in violence however. All it means is that one weapon was swapped for another.

The statistics are very clear on the weak correlation between gun availability and homicide rates.

Maybe so, but that doesn't result in an increase in homicide rates.

These women would be just as dead if a knife had been used to kill them.

Maybe so, but I'm not saying that more guns won't result in more guns being used in homicides.

I'm just pointing out that more guns won't result in more homicides.

 

But a portion which poses a special risk to society and therefore a special urgency to address.

I'd prefer some multivariate statistical analysis, not more raw data.

Do you mean here that the homicide rates of high income countries are coming from low income areas withing them? A comparison of those captures that. I don't think statistics for underdeveloped countries are particularly relevant to discussions about guns in the U.S. and U.K.

Show us the statistical analysis (not just tables of raw data.)

 

Unacceptable, that would make it more difficult to obfuscate.

 

No I didn't. I said some Americans are more murderous than others. I have no doubt that applies to any population as well.

The question answered was so Americans are more murderous than other nations.

Yes unfortunately for us some are. We didn't use to be. It's part of our changing Anerican Demographics.

 

What part of U.S.demographics makes some Americans more murderous than their international counterparts?