"Between 1993 and 2000, the gun homicide rate dropped by nearly half, from 7.0 homicides to 3.8 homicides per 100,000 people. Since then, the gun homicide rate has remained relatively flat. From 2009 to 2014, the most recent year data are available, the number of gun homicides has hovered around 11,000 and 12,000 per year."
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/20 ... -edges-up/

Their graph shows the rate at 3.4 in 2014.

Oh, wait...



CDFingers

Does anyone know how many homicides per year are gang-related?
The reason I ask is because when trying to have a reasonable dialogue with prohibitionists one of my arguments is that different kinds of gun related deaths need to be addressed differently, i.e. accidental deaths need to be addressed differently than suicides, addressed differently than murders, etc.
that's after/if we can get past "ban all the guns".

There are more guns in private hands than at any time in US history, yet the homicide rate is lower than when Howdy Doody was on the air. Somehow, prohibitionists still get to call this an epidemic.

14% or so are gang related. 2300 or so in the most recent year of reporting in the FBI UCR

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Bumbazine wrote:Does anyone know how many homicides per year are gang-related?
The reason I ask is because when trying to have a reasonable dialogue with prohibitionists one of my arguments is that different kinds of gun related deaths need to be addressed differently, i.e. accidental deaths need to be addressed differently than suicides, addressed differently than murders, etc.
that's after/if we can get past "ban all the guns".

See, I think you might be complicating things; if you just remove all guns from everyone, then there will be no gun deaths. Simple, no? I think this is the train of thought of many prohibitionists, anyway, and it has to be frustrating to them that gun owners can't recognize the logic in that.

Seriously, though, I totally agree that different types of deaths and injuries warrant different approaches. I would genuinely like to work with some of my liberal friends to act on root cause issues, but I haven't yet found a way around their single-track 'ban guns' approach.... except to suggest that their solution is illiberal.

senorgrand wrote:There are more guns in private hands than at any time in US history, yet the homicide rate is lower than when Howdy Doody was on the air. Somehow, prohibitionists still get to call this an epidemic.

You'd never know that from the news, which is partly the reason why we have disconnected from the 'tube. But then who can deny the epidemic when there's a mass shooting every day? Or is it one every minute... I'm confused.

Bumbazine wrote:Does anyone know how many homicides per year are gang-related?
The reason I ask is because when trying to have a reasonable dialogue with prohibitionists one of my arguments is that different kinds of gun related deaths need to be addressed differently, i.e. accidental deaths need to be addressed differently than suicides, addressed differently than murders, etc.
that's after/if we can get past "ban all the guns".

Around 60% -70% of gun homicides involve people with multiple felonies. A significant majority gun murders is in big cities and in these cities they are commited by felons. That leaves suburbs are rural areas where less than half are commited by criminals.

Bumbazine wrote:Does anyone know how many homicides per year are gang-related?

That's almost the right question. But the right question is: How many of these homicides are honor or status related?

Calling them gang murders implies they're over turf or drugs or something. When often they're just about somebody calling somebody else a liar. Or some other insult.

The good news is, there are programs out there that are proven to stop that type of killing. I've linked to this organization before, but here it is again, The National Network of Safe Communities.

And another way of looking at the gun problem, courtesy of John Lott
http://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/compar ... nd-europe/

COMPARING DEATH RATES FROM MASS PUBLIC SHOOTINGS AND MASS PUBLIC VIOLENCE IN THE US AND EUROPE

Mass public shootings – defined as four or more people killed in a public place, and not in the course of committing another crime, and not involving struggles over sovereignty. The focus on excluding shootings that do not involve other crimes (e.g., gang fights or robberies) has been used from the original research by Lott and Landes to more recently the FBI) from 2009 to the Charleston massacre (this matches the starting period for another recent study we did on US shootings and we chose that because that was the starting point that Bloomberg’s group had picked). The cases were complied doing a news search.

Apparently comparing the US with Germany or the UK is not really valid, unless you normalize some numbers for population.

10000 shootings. Then there would be twice as many suicides, so 20000. Lumping all gun uses together - justified, criminal, suicides, accidental, something around 30000 in a year, although I've heard the actual current number is less by 10% or so.

Given 300m guns in this country, that means one gun in 10000, or .01% of guns. So some extremist types believe that for every use against a human, 10000 guns should be confiscated in a crime against the constitution to keep us safe.

shinzen wrote:14% or so are gang related. 2300 or so in the most recent year of reporting in the FBI UCR

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Wow that's a lot lower than I remember reading elsewhere. I remembered something like 2/3ds or 80% or something. Of course I can't find that info anymore so it was probably on-the-fly stats (aka bullshit) that I just swallowed uncritically. Just goes to show, always check the sources and data!

Bumbazine wrote:Does anyone know how many homicides per year are gang-related?
The reason I ask is because when trying to have a reasonable dialogue with prohibitionists one of my arguments is that different kinds of gun related deaths need to be addressed differently, i.e. accidental deaths need to be addressed differently than suicides, addressed differently than murders, etc.
that's after/if we can get past "ban all the guns".

But if you break suicides and accidents out from murders, the numbers get smaller and less scary. I can pretty much guarantee you that if, in the course of a year, there were 29,997 justifiable homicides as the result of defensive firearms use along with one suicide, one homicide, and one accident, the prohibitionists would still be talking about 30,000 unnecessary deaths because of guns. They literally do not care about the reason, they only care about the method.

I was arguing with someone last week who seriously stated that overall homicide rate doesn't matter, only the firearms homicide rate matters. If gun control reduces the firearms homicide rate but the overall homicide rate stays the same or rises, it's a success.

Let that sink in for a moment. This person essentially said that substituting fatal stabbings/beatings/etc. for fatal shootings is a VICTORY.

pdoggeth wrote:

shinzen wrote:14% or so are gang related. 2300 or so in the most recent year of reporting in the FBI UCR

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Wow that's a lot lower than I remember reading elsewhere. I remembered something like 2/3ds or 80% or something. Of course I can't find that info anymore so it was probably on-the-fly stats (aka bullshit) that I just swallowed uncritically. Just goes to show, always check the sources and data!

That's the thing. The people pulling the trigger on those 14% that are "gang shootings" (actual direct turf/drug fights) are pretty much the same people pulling the trigger for non-gang related reasons. You know... gems like:
"You looked at my girl wrong."
"You 'disrespected' me."
"You scratched my car."

You know... things totally worth killing another human being over...