Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware

[Anonymous]

Idiotic to equate gun ownership and the 2nd Amendment with freedom.

Private American citizens owning guns have not had anything to do with freedom in over 200 years.

[Anonymous]

If you were one of the victims of Elliot Rodger or so many other shooters who never should have had access to guns, you had the freedom to die. You didn't have the freedom to live.

Assholes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, most of the decline is gang-on-gang violence.

So basically my odds of getting killed by a criminal with a gun are still about the same.

Exactly. This is empirically proven to be true. It's great that gang violence is down. However, my kid's chance of being killed in what we used to think of as a "safe" public space is much higher than it was when we were kids. Unacceptable.

Link?

Not that poster, but if you read this report: http://gspp.berkeley.edu/assets/uploads/research/pdf/0526_metropolitan_crime_kneebone_raphael.pdf

You can see the government data shows major drops in violent crime in cities between 1990 and 2008, and increases in violent crime in emerging suburbs and exurbs.

Did you actually read the article you just posted to support your statement? Although the greatest decrease in violent crime is in the cities, violent crime in the suburbs decreased by 7% over the same period. Try harder to find a study to support your predetermined position.

Keep reading, it's not that hard. My statement was correct. Go to the chart which breaks the suburbs into the close in, the emerging suburbs and the exurbs.

[Anonymous]

Still does not alter the basic premise of Pew's fine research establishing that the gun homicide rate has dropped by 49% since 1993 and people mostly fail to realize that fact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Still does not alter the basic premise of Pew's fine research establishing that the gun homicide rate has dropped by 49% since 1993 and people mostly fail to realize that fact.

Right, which misses the point entirely. I realize that fact, and have for many years. Nonetheless, that decrease is due to the decrease in drug/gang violence. That's wonderful. I know the people who were instrumental in making that happen. But you and I and our children are at more risk of being shot in places that we used to consider "safe" than we were 10, 20, and 30 years ago. Non gang and drug related gun violence has increased.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've tried to follow this issue recently. Finding non-partisan facts is tough; everyone has an agenda and both sides distort the facts badly.

So when the Pew research article came up, I was surprised by this fact:

"Despite national attention to the issue of firearm violence, most Americans are unaware that gun crime is lower today than it was two decades ago. According to a new Pew Research Center survey, today 56% of Americans believe gun crime is higher than 20 years ago and only 12% think it is lower."

Link: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/07/gun-homicide-rate-down-49-since-1993-peak-public-unaware/

Of course, there are still too many violent crimes in the US; even one is too many. But, is the public being misled that this is as big an issue as its made out to be? Is the bulk of the problem going away on its own?

Maybe there are other law-enforcement priorities we need to look at? For example, law enforcement has radically changed recently as far as arrests for use of marijuana, the focus on Muslim-Americans in areas like NYC, and that city's "stop and frisk" policy. Maybe its time to think outside the box on other areas?

Irrelevant. Guns have been used to kill children. Even the murder of one child would demand the prohibition of guns. The numbers don't matter.

The government should take your guns away, OP. I'll gladly stand and clap while they do. And if you retort that the government can have them when they pry them from your cold, dead hands, that, too, can be arranged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Still does not alter the basic premise of Pew's fine research establishing that the gun homicide rate has dropped by 49% since 1993 and people mostly fail to realize that fact.

Yes, it's going down in the cities and up in the outer suburbs, exurbs, etc. I think that everyone in a city knows the homicide rates in the big cities have dropped, at least if you live in one.

Regrettably that does nothing for me. The risk of my kids dying is going up, not down, as I do not live in the city.

[Anonymous]

The risk to your kids from such incidents is minuscule. They face a much greater risk of injury or death from just driving on the beltway.

Further, the increasing prevalence of texting while driving presents a greater risk to your kids - and it's preventable (not to mention illegal and not constitutionally protected). Then there is drunk driving - which is common among undocumented males. What about that threat? Done anything about that?

Why aren't you raising the alarm about those risks?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The risk to your kids from such incidents is minuscule. They face a much greater risk of injury or death from just driving on the beltway.

Further, the increasing prevalence of texting while driving presents a greater risk to your kids - and it's preventable (not to mention illegal and not constitutionally protected). Then there is drunk driving - which is common among undocumented males. What about that threat? Done anything about that?

Why aren't you raising the alarm about those risks?

First of all, no. The number of non-driver fatalities in the US is about 9,000 per year, which is much lower than homicides. So my kids are at greater risk of homicide than automobile fatality.

Second, of course I care about vehicle safety, about texting and driving, and about drunk driving. That's why we make laws against them. Consider the alarm raised.

And lastly, every year cars are used 392 billion times for legitimate purposes, with 30,000 fatalities. When guns can match that safety record, maybe I will consider them equivalent risks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The risk to your kids from such incidents is minuscule. They face a much greater risk of injury or death from just driving on the beltway.

Further, the increasing prevalence of texting while driving presents a greater risk to your kids - and it's preventable (not to mention illegal and not constitutionally protected). Then there is drunk driving - which is common among undocumented males. What about that threat? Done anything about that?

Why aren't you raising the alarm about those risks?

First of all, no. The number of non-driver fatalities in the US is about 9,000 per year, which is much lower than homicides. So my kids are at greater risk of homicide than automobile fatality.

Second, of course I care about vehicle safety, about texting and driving, and about drunk driving. That's why we make laws against them. Consider the alarm raised.

And lastly, every year cars are used 392 billion times for legitimate purposes, with 30,000 fatalities. When guns can match that safety record, maybe I will consider them equivalent risks.

Did you simply make up the figure "392 billion times" every year? Looks that way.

Luckily, rational people stick to evidence and facts. Fact is, studies confirm that every year in the US, there are 2 million or more, defensive gun uses (DGUs). Here is a peer - reviewed academic study (as opposed to your apparent use of made-up members):


(Source: Gary, Kleck and Marc Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun," Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 1995, Vol. 86 No. 1.)

But I guess your blind hatred towards guns is immune to facts?

[Anonymous]

^^^ guns obviously have "legitimate purposes" the main one being self defense - often a woman defending herself from attack or attempted rape. Anti gunners love to imply we should ban guns because they have no legitimate purpose.

The facts speak otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The risk to your kids from such incidents is minuscule. They face a much greater risk of injury or death from just driving on the beltway.

Further, the increasing prevalence of texting while driving presents a greater risk to your kids - and it's preventable (not to mention illegal and not constitutionally protected). Then there is drunk driving - which is common among undocumented males. What about that threat? Done anything about that?

Why aren't you raising the alarm about those risks?

First of all, no. The number of non-driver fatalities in the US is about 9,000 per year, which is much lower than homicides. So my kids are at greater risk of homicide than automobile fatality.

. . .

Only 9,000 huh? That sounds like a low number, comparatively. Nice try at a deflection.

In reality, in 2012 there were 34,080 motor vehicle fatalities in the US. But you dodged the question of what you propose to do about that - other than "caring."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The risk to your kids from such incidents is minuscule. They face a much greater risk of injury or death from just driving on the beltway.

Further, the increasing prevalence of texting while driving presents a greater risk to your kids - and it's preventable (not to mention illegal and not constitutionally protected). Then there is drunk driving - which is common among undocumented males. What about that threat? Done anything about that?

Why aren't you raising the alarm about those risks?

First of all, no. The number of non-driver fatalities in the US is about 9,000 per year, which is much lower than homicides. So my kids are at greater risk of homicide than automobile fatality.

Second, of course I care about vehicle safety, about texting and driving, and about drunk driving. That's why we make laws against them. Consider the alarm raised.

And lastly, every year cars are used 392 billion times for legitimate purposes, with 30,000 fatalities. When guns can match that safety record, maybe I will consider them equivalent risks.

Did you simply make up the figure "392 billion times" every year? Looks that way.

Luckily, rational people stick to evidence and facts. Fact is, studies confirm that every year in the US, there are 2 million or more, defensive gun uses (DGUs). Here is a peer - reviewed academic study (as opposed to your apparent use of made-up members):


(Source: Gary, Kleck and Marc Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun," Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 1995, Vol. 86 No. 1.)

But I guess your blind hatred towards guns is immune to facts?

Sigh. More math impaired people. One would think you could pull out a calculator and check that number, but fine here is the source: http://nhts.ornl.gov/2009/pub/stt.pdf I guess the federal government is lying to make guns look bad.

Enough posters have pointed out the problems with Kleck's single, decades old paper, but even if I assume it to be true, AND I take his biggest number, guns are 163,000 times more dangerous.

Gee, and I did that calculation without the ability to see.

[Anonymous]

Only 9,000 huh? That sounds like a low number, comparatively. Nice try at a deflection.

In reality, in 2012 there were 34,080 motor vehicle fatalities in the US. But you dodged the question of what you propose to do about that - other than "caring."

PP said the 9,000 were non-driver fatalities. Since we are talking about kids getting killed while riding in cars, that's really the more relevant number than all motor vehicle fatalities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^^ guns obviously have "legitimate purposes" the main one being self defense - often a woman defending herself from attack or attempted rape. Anti gunners love to imply we should ban guns because they have no legitimate purpose.

The facts speak otherwise.

Fine, come up with a logic that suggests at least 392 billion legitimate uses per year. Even if you counted every single bullet as equivalent to an entire car trip (I dunno maybe you go out to the range, fire one round and go home), you would be off by a factor of 40. And since you are going to claim I am pulling numbers out of my ass, I got this one from the NRA:

http://www.nranews.com/home/document/why-weve-had-an-ammunition-shortage