A comedy of failures and a mass shooting

[Fenring]

If it helps you understand what I wrote earlier, I suggested that instilling an aversion to the ownership and use of firearms in the USA, and reducing the number of firearms in the population, would lead to reduced incidence of the use of guns against people in the USA.

I said nothing about generalized violence, which your posts are consistently steering back towards.

He's saying that even if this is true, it might result in an increase in the kinds of crime that guns curtailed. That's why he keeps re-introducing the general violence stat. Your thesis of reducing gun violence becomes less interesting if it doesn't increase actual aggregate safety.

[DonaldD]

Sure, it could lead to more violence.  Or it might lead to less violence. It's basically a null argument.

It is almost a certainty, however, that it will lead to fewer deaths.

So the math goes something like this:

fewer guns and an increased aversion to their use means fewer deaths (with a very high probability)
BUT
fewer guns will mean either more or less violence, with little evidence to support the proposition, at best, in either direction.

[DonaldD]

BTW, what is the acceptable cost of aggregate safety?

The USA has 3 times the intentional homicide rate of Canada, five time that of the UK. 

Is the reduction of, say, half the intentional homicides worth an increase in muggings of 50%?

[TheDrake]

I don't really think you can correlate gun deaths with the number of guns. There just has to be a critical mass of guns and beyond that there are just "extra" guns. Those least likely to voluntarily give up guns would be the ones that use them all the time - hunters and criminals and gunophiles.

[D.W.]

BTW, what is the acceptable cost of aggregate safety?

The USA has 3 times the intentional homicide rate of Canada, five time that of the UK. 

Is the reduction of, say, half the intentional homicides worth an increase in muggings of 50%?

Depends on how many of those homicides were muggers...

[Seriati]

Sure, it could lead to more violence.  Or it might lead to less violence. It's basically a null argument.

It is almost a certainty, however, that it will lead to fewer deaths.

Why do you think that?  Most of the places on Earth with high death and murder rates have heavy gun restrictions.  Effectively, only those with power and a willingness to abuse it are armed.  If anything I think the counter case is actually proven.

Though it may be a bell curve, it seems the risk at the top end (the US) is far lower than at the bottom end.

So the math goes something like this:

fewer guns and an increased aversion to their use means fewer deaths (with a very high probability)

It doesn't mean that at all, since it's only a tiny fraction of the population that engages in murder (or really any crime), there may be no material impact.  In fact, I'd be willing to be if you got half the guns destroyed voluntarily, you'd see less than 10% reduction in deaths (mostly from suicides), and your homicide rate may even increase.

Whereas you'd almost certainly see an increase in home invasions, rapes, muggings and violent crime.

BUT
fewer guns will mean either more or less violence, with little evidence to support the proposition, at best, in either direction.

There's a lot of evidence on the point.  Not being willing to understand it, or address it cause it hurts your argument doesn't make it non-existent.

[Seriati]

To roughly quote myself, I said you were artificially constraining:

Are you suggesting that the statistics I listed above for "intentional homicides" include deaths that are not homicides?

and expanding:

t was also clear I was talking about how first world countries today do not have the violence problems that the USA suffers from, and that one common factor is that the USA has what the rest of the world considers an unhealthy deification of gun violence, at least partly based on a desire to leave the door open to violent overthrow of the government.

to avoid explaining the logical connection.  How does any amount of guns in the hands of people who aren't likely to commit murders impact the intentional homicide rate, or the "violence problems" of the US?  Other than by increasing it by reducing their ability to defend themselves.

[DonaldD]

There's a lot of evidence on the point.

What is this evidence - do you have statistics for first world countries changing their rates of gun ownership where the ownership rates drop and violent crime increases significantly, and where homicides do not drop?  Or where ownership rates increase significantly, and violent crime drops significantly?

Australia is the poster child for this type of change in a first world country; the data on homicides are clear (well, given that the Australian homicide was already quite low - on the order of 350 annually), whereas the changes in rates of non-homicide violent crime are less so:

http://theconversation.com/election-factcheck-is-crime-getting-worse-in-australia-60119
https://aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/tandi359

Part of the challenge in interpreting non-homicide violent crime is the divergence of police reported crime and data gathered by victimization surveys over that period in Australia the former showing significant increases in crime reports, whereas the latter shows little or no increase.

[TheDeamon]

England should be one that should present some data one way or the other. Didn't they ban handguns back in the 1990's? That should have resulted in some kind of measurable shift in the statistics. Although they seem to undergone a noticeable demographic shift since then that is probably likewise causing an uptick in violence, so that probably won't bode too well for the anti-gun side.

Although I understand rifles and shotguns are still allowed under the right conditions("hunting"). (Much like Canada)

[TheDeamon]

But even if you want to focus on all mortality instead of just firearm mortality, the USA still leads the way in the first world.  Here are the rate of intentional homicide per 100K as of 2015 (I left Mexico and the Baltic states in, even though I consider neither area to be first world):

Country or dependent area   Rate
 Mexico   16.35
 Russia   11.31
 Lithuania   5.98
 United States   4.88
 Latvia   4.11
 Estonia   3.2
 Canada   1.68
 Finland   1.6
 France   1.58
 Romania   1.49
 Hungary   1.48
 Israel   1.36
 Sweden   1.15

Basically, the USA still has an intentional homicide rate 3 times that of its closest 'competitor', Canada.

The thing here, and this point was already mentioned, is that there are "outlier communities" that exist within the United States. Even before considering mass shooting events. Certain cities historically (Like Washington D.C., NYC(pre-mid-90's), LA(80's/90's), Chicago(currently), and Baltimore as well as Miami also feature IIRC) tend to generate a very disproportionate number of those "firearm homicides" and at such a rate that they can potentially skew the numbers wildly by themselves. Also of note about those cities? They're controlled by Democrats, and aside from Miami, they also reside in state jurisdictions that are also controlled by Democrats. In the case of Chicago and Washington, they actually have been a "gun-free zone" until SCotUS killed them. As I recall, those laws weren't helping improve the situation.

Of course, the argument was "the criminals were buying (legal guns in that area) from 'out of area' and bringing (illegal) guns back into the 'gun free zone'" so their ineffectiveness had no bearing on local laws.

[DonaldD]

Banning handguns would only be relevant if it led to a significant decrease in hand gun ownership - for the purposes of guns acting as a deterrent.

If there was little or no expectation or concern, prior to the handgun ban, that a potential victim was carrying a weapon, then any reduction in the dissuasive effect would be trivial.

For some context, there were about 6000 handguns handed in during the UK amnesty of 2003.  Or about 1 gun for every 10,000 residents.  Let's assume that 10 times that number were actually taken out of circulation around that time.  Then there would have been 1 fewer person per thousand with the possibility of carrying a hand gun at any given point in time.

The likelihood of this reduction having a significant effect on dissuading vs enabling potential violent criminals is highly unlikely.

[DonaldD]

The thing here, and this point was already mentioned, is that there are "outlier communities" that exist within the United States

There are outlier communities in all countries, and those outlier communities make up the vast majority of intentional homicides everywhere.

[TheDrake]

Whereas you'd almost certainly see an increase in home invasions, rapes, muggings and violent crime.

Yes, I'm sure there are thousands of would-be home invaders just biding their time because it is too risky with a potential gun owner behind the door.

Now if you mean an increase in successful home invasions, I might buy that. But I'm not sure it is as effective a deterrent as cameras and other home security systems or signs announcing them - except in much more remote or rural areas.

As for the others, not so sure.

[TheDeamon]

And doing some digging on my own.

https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/death-by-gun-top-20-states-with-highest-rates/

Guns are expected to surpass car crashes for the number of American deaths caused in 2015. In 2013, there were 33,636 Americans killed by guns versus 33, 782 fatal crashes. The most recent data from the National Center for Health Statistics released in 2013 shows the number of gun deaths by state - whether it was homicide, accidental discharge, or intentional self-harm.

Which state has the fewest firearm-related deaths? With a rate of 2.6 deaths per 100,000 population, it's Hawaii. Seven of the top ten states for gun violence also had higher than the normal homicide rate nationally. Which states had the most firearm-related deaths?

Ok, so in 2013, 146 more people were killed by automobiles than were killed by guns in the United States. I do find that statistic interesting as a top-line item. Even more interesting given the matter that the gun fatality number cited there includes suicides("intentional self-harm").

So as of 2013, you were more likely to be killed in an automobile accident than you were to be killed by a gun. If you're not suicidal, your odds of death-by-firearm drops even further.

But going back to the dot link CBS cited, https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

Fatalities per 100,000 population in an automotive accident in:
2013: 10.40 (32,893)
2015: 10.92 (35,092) -- Worst year since 2009

going to source CBS used for homicide rates(which actually was the aggregate total of firearm deaths in the number they reported, not homicides): http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/194/total_number_of_gun_deaths

2015 had 36,247 firearm homicides, gun violence seems to have spiked in 2015 and continued to rise into 2016 (38,658 deaths) so something seems to have happened in 2015 that is causing things to pick up in pace from 2013's 33,636 deaths.

Firearm suicide rates were reported as follows(and they seem to be citing CDC)

2016: 22,938
2015: 22,018
2014: 21,334
2013: 21,175

So it seems that while suicides account for ~1,750 of the ~5,000 additional deaths, something is certainly going on nationally.

For comparison, here are the national suicide numbers(includes firearm use)

2016: 44,876
2015: 44,145
2014: 42,773
2013: 41,149

So it seems gun use is involved in fully half of successful suicide attempts, and those suicide numbers also play hell on the state level fire-arm statistics as well. Particularly in low population (typically conservative) states as a handful of suicides can spike that number really quick.

But going for a recent breakdown of firearm homicides:

2016: 14,415
2015: 12,974
2014: 10,945
2013: 11,208

or per 100,000

2016: 4.46
2015: 4.04
2014: 3.43
2013: 3.54

So it seems your initially cited number already excluded suicides. Although their number is 4.04 for 2015, while the number you cited was 4.88 for 2015. But it still stands that this is a national statistic, let me see if I can get a homicide breakdown by state.

But even with the 4.88 number you cited(which is higher than the site CBS linked to provides), that is still less than half of the 10.92 deaths per 100,000 suffered in automotive accidents in 2015. So it can easily be said you are more than twice as likely to die in a car crash than you are to be killed by a firearm.

But doing some checking, and clicking on homicides(it seems state-level data newer than 2013 is unavailable at this source):
http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/illinois
Total homicides (Chicago?)

2013: 576
2012: 645
2011: 610
2010: 577
2009: 628
2008: 631
2007: 575
2006: 625
2005: 569
2004: 573
2003: 696
2002: 728
2001: 747
2000: 674
1999: 689

per 100,000

2013: 4.47
2012: 5.01
2011: 4.74
2010: 4.50
2009: 4.91
2008: 4.95
2007: 4.53
2006: 4.94
2005: 4.51
2004: 4.55
2003: 5.54
2002: 5.81
2001: 5.98
2000: 5.43
1999: 5.57

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/district-of-columbia
Total homicides

2013: 61
2012: 55
2011: 77
2010: 84
2009: 104
2008: 122
2007: 129
2006: 120
2005: 142
2004: 137
2003: 156
2002: 176
2001: 141
2000: 138
1999: 145

per 100,000

2013: 9.44
2012: 8.68
2011: 12.43
2010: 13.96
2009: 17.56
2008: 21.03
2007: 22.46
2006: 21.03
2005: 25.04
2004: 24.13
2003: 27.44
2002: 30.71
2001: 24.54
2000: 24.12
1999: 25.43

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/georgia-usa
Total homicides (Atlanta?)

2013: 472
2012: 481
2011: 439
2010: 443
2009: 456
2008: 515
2007: 557
2006: 495
2005: 439
2004: 419
2003: 493
2002: 477
2001: 454
2000: 442
1999: 438

per 100,000

2013: 4.72
2012: 4.85
2011: 4.47
2010: 4.57
2009: 4.74
2008: 5.42
2007: 5.96
2006: 5.41
2005: 4.92
2004: 4.78
2003: 5.72
2002: 5.61
2001: 5.42
2000: 5.40
1999: 5.44

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/idaho
Total homicides

2013: 14
2012: 18
2011: 16
2010: 12
2009: 10
2008: 13
2007: 29
2006: 24
2005: 28
2004: 16
2003: 19
2002: 15
2001: 25
2000: 14
1999: 16

2013: 0.87
2012: 1.13
2011: 1.01
2010: 0.77
2009: 0.64
2008: 0.85
2007: 1.93
2006: 1.63
2005: 1.96
2004: 1.15
2003: 1.39
2002: 1.12
2001: 1.89
2000: 1.08
1999: 1.25

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/iowa
Total homicides

2013: 24
2012: 33
2011: 31
2010: 34
2009: 19
2008: 34
2007: 18
2006: 38
2005: 23
2004: 30
2003: 24
2002: 30
2001: 24
2000: 25
1999: 28

per 100,000

2013: 1.78
2012: 1.07
2011: 1.01
2010: 1.12
2009: 0.63
2008: 1.13
2007: 0.60
2006: 1.27
2005: 0.78
2004: 1.02
2003: 0.82
2002: 1.02
2001: 0.82
2000: 0.85
1999: 0.96

Now, just as a refresher.

But even if you want to focus on all mortality instead of just firearm mortality, the USA still leads the way in the first world.  Here are the rate of intentional homicide per 100K as of 2015 (I left Mexico and the Baltic states in, even though I consider neither area to be first world):

Country or dependent area   Rate
 Canada   1.68
 Finland   1.6
 France   1.58
 Romania   1.49
 Hungary   1.48
 Israel   1.36
 Sweden   1.15

Basically, the USA still has an intentional homicide rate 3 times that of its closest 'competitor', Canada.

Clearly Iowa and Idaho are in desperate need of Gun Control legislation because their homicide rates with firearms are so far out of line with other first world nations. 

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/louisiana
Total homicides (New Orleans?)

2013: 446
2012: 428
2011: 431
2010: 432
2009: 449
2008: 430
2007: 488
2006: 443
2005: 457
2004: 480
2003: 473
2002: 467
2001: 400
2000: 427
1999: 342

per 100,000

2013: 9.64
2012: 9.30
2011: 9.42
2010: 9.53
2009: 10.00
2008: 9.69
2007: 11.15
2006: 10.30
2005: 9.99
2004: 10.54
2003: 10.46
2002: 10.38
2001: 8.93
2000: 9.55
1999: 7.67

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/maine
Total homicides

2013: 13
2012: 15
2011: 15
2010: 13
2009: 15
2008: 12
2007: 15
2006: 15
2005: 8
2004: 11
2003: 6
2002: 8
2001: 7
2000: 11
1999: 15

per 100,000

2013: 0.98
2012: 1.13
2011: 1.13
2010: 0.98
2009: 1.13
2008: 0.90
2007: 1.13
2006: 1.14
2005: 0.61
2004: 0.84
2003: 0.46
2002: 0.62
2001: 0.54
2000: 0.86
1999: 1.18

Looks like Maine also is in desperate need to take lessons from Europe regarding gun control.

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/maryland
Total homicides (Baltimore, Washington D.C. "spillover"?)

2013: 299
2012: 294
2011: 276
2010: 306
2009: 316
2008: 379
2007: 424
2006: 416
2005: 422
2004: 386
2003: 394
2002: 365
2001: 363
2000: 353
1999: 396

per 100,000

2013: 5.04
2012: 5.00
2011: 4.73
2010: 5.30
2009: 5.51
2008: 6.67
2007: 7.50
2006: 7.39
2005: 7.55
2004: 6.96
2003: 7.17
2002: 6.71
2001: 6.75
2000: 6.66
1999: 7.54

Looks like Massachusetts is roughly comparable to Canada's homicide rate per 100,000. Which kind of surprised me.

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/michigan
Total homicides (Detroit?)

2013: 493
2012: 579
2011: 511
2010: 440
2009: 495
2008: 489
2007: 506
2006: 536
2005: 491
2004: 488
2003: 477
2002: 489
2001: 499
2000: 504
1999: 516

per 100,000

2013: 4.987
2012: 5.86
2011: 5.17
2010: 4.45
2009: 5.00
2008: 4.92
2007: 5.06
2006: 5.34
2005: 4.89
2004: 4.87
2003: 4.75
2002: 4.88
2001: 4.99
2000: 5.07
1999: 5.21

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/minnesota
Ranges from 54 homicides in 1999 to 88 in 2005. with a per 100,000 rate that bottoms at 0.87 in 2009 and peaked at 1.72 in 2005 unsurprisingly.

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/california
Ranges from a peak homicide rate of 1,883 in 2006 (closely matched by 1,878 in 2005) to a bottom of  1,312 in 2013(closely matched by 1,314 in 2011. 2010, 2012, and 1999 also finish in the 1,300's with ascending tallies in that order). But even with 2013 being a "good year" in the prior 14 years of records being looked at, with 1,312 deaths in 2013 against a national total of 11,208 in 2013 California alone accounts for ~11.7% of gun homicides in the country by itself.
Their per 100,000 numbers ranged from a peak of 5.24 in 2005(5.23 in 2006), to a low of 3.42 in 2013 (3.49 in 2011, 3.58 in 2012) where they actually beat the national average by 0.06 deaths per 100,000 people.

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/alabama
http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/mississippi
Are weird, and I'm not sure what is going on in those states. They're lower than Lousiana, but higher than Georgia(which in turn tracks with Missouri(which has Kansas City and St Louis), Arkansas and Tennessee(Memphis, Nashville)), and while they do have some "Respectably large Cities" within their borders, I'm not sure that accounts for what is going on there. I'm thinking this is more an indicator of endemic poverty, something the south is notorious for, as are the inner cities, as the decisive factor in play here.

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/kentucky
Oddly, Kentucky is a full point below the average of Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas and Missouri and up to 2 points below Illinois. (it even beats out Indiana) Ohio and West Virginia do better with firearms still when it comes to homicides. Virginia seems to be a bit more mixed.

So it seems that while there is a definite "urban bias" it also does appear that in the South-eastern states, there also is "something going on" with regards to gun use.

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/texas
Seems to indicate that while you're safer from a gun-homicide in Texas when compared to Tennessee and company, you're safer still in Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia respectively.

But we'll close this with another one of the few states that seem to be in dire need of a European intervention when it comes to firearm homicides.
http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/utah
Total homicides

2013: 33
2012: 28
2011: 27
2010: 27
2009: 30
2008: 24
2007: 40
2006: 29
2005: 33
2004: 30
2003: 37
2002: 27
2001: 40
2000: 16
1999: 30

per 100,000

2013: 1.14
2012: 0.98
2011: 0.96
2010: 0.98
2009: 1.10
2008: 0.90
2007: 1.54
2006: 1.15
2005: 1.34
2004: 1.25
2003: 1.57
2002: 1.16
2001: 1.75
2000: 0.72
1999: 1.36

[DonaldD]

I'm sure you thought you were making a point somewhere in all that.

[TheDeamon]

I'm sure you thought you were making a point somewhere in all that.

I was regurgitating data.

Some states were high, and they tracked with large population centers known for having impoverished urban(usually populated by minorities) cores.
Other states that were high also rank high for poverty incidence rates.

However, it also is apparent that "Gun culture" doesn't account for everything. Iowa, Idaho, Utah, and Maine are four states I cross-posted numbers for who routinely post gun-violence rates that put even the numbers boasted by Sweden to shame.

Utah in particular is noteworthy because of the Salt Lake City metro-plex is pushing into the millions of residents, and yet they're still tracking below Sweden in terms of gun violence numbers as of 2013. But then, SLC's "ghetto" in so much as they have one, isn't much of one.

Iowa has some significant urban concentrations as well, with Omaha right on the western border, Des Moines, and the tri-cities on their eastern one. Idaho is starting to become highly urbanized in and around Boise as that metroplex is now well past half-a-million at this point. 
Maine is frankly outside of my awareness, other than I know it has a lot of near-wilderness areas, so I know hunting and fishing is very much a thing up there.

It frankly was interesting to see red state vs blue state didn't track very well with that data. The definite spike/high-homicide-rate pretty much across the former Confederate States was very "interesting" to say the least. California seems to have done a reasonably decent job of cleaning up things in their urban areas, or they've just become better at treating gunshot wound victims. As their firearm homicide rate is nearly spot on with the national average(in 2013) with a long-term trend towards decreasing violence with that conclusion at least. (That data set seems to be available at the linked to site, I just wasn't looking at that one)

In many of the smaller population states, it also was interesting to see how "spiky" their data was going from year to year. Particularly when you could see what looked like huge swings in the per 100,000 number, only to find out the difference in the total number of deaths involved is often fewer than a dozen. Such as Idaho going from 2000(1.08) to 2001(1.89) which looks really bad, until you see the raw score went from 14(2000) to 25(2001) which was a near doubling in the number of firearm deaths, both "only" a change of 11 deaths in total.

Whereas California only had one year where their year-over-year change was +5 in 2005 to 2006, while their more typical change was anywhere from 30 to several hundred.

It makes for good demonstrations of "lies, damned lies, and statistics" when you look at those number under differing filter criteria. Cherry picking years, or specific data points, you make a case for almost anything with this stuff. But I'll leave it to someone else to try to drill into firearm homicide by city or county. If you can even find data for that in most places.

[LetterRip]

TheDeamon,

In many of the smaller population states, it also was interesting to see how "spiky" their data was going from year to year

that is simple statistics - samples from larger populations are more representative of the true mean.  Smaller populations will fool you into thinking there are trends and variations that aren't really there - the low years will be consistent underestimates, and the spike years will be consistent overestimates.  If you broke a big state into multiple small states you'd see the same 'spike and lull' patterns going on.

[TheDeamon]

TheDeamon,

In many of the smaller population states, it also was interesting to see how "spiky" their data was going from year to year

that is simple statistics - samples from larger populations are more representative of the true mean.  Smaller populations will fool you into thinking there are trends and variations that aren't really there - the low years will be consistent underestimates, and the spike years will be consistent overestimates.  If you broke a big state into multiple small states you'd see the same 'spike and lull' patterns going on.

I know and understand that. Still qualifies as "interesting" to see real-world demonstrations of that principle. Even if the subject matter at hand is rather morbid.

[Crunch]

So it seems that while there is a definite "urban bias" it also does appear that in the South-eastern states, there also is "something going on" with regards to gun use.

The “urban bias” reflects gang activity. For example:

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), gang homicides accounted for roughly 8,900 of 11,100 gun murders in both 2010 and 2011. That means that there were just 2,200 non gang-related firearm murders in both years in a country of over 300 million people and 250 million guns.

This is why black men make up more than half the people killed with a gun.

Suicide is even more impactful, from 538.com:

Two-thirds of the more than 33,000 gun deaths that take place in the U.S. every year are suicides

you can try to pin access to guns on this but Japan disproves that as they have far fewer guns while having nearly double the suicide rate.

When looking at desth rates like this and trying to compare with vehiclular desths and not correcting for this so that it seems guns are so much more dangerous to the general public, that’s simple and dishonest propaganda.

The reality is, if you’re not suicidal or not involved in criminal gangs, your odds of being killed by someone with a gun falls by more than  70%. It’s dishonest to compare death stats without that information.

We don’t have a gun problem, we have a gang and mental health problem.

[DonaldD]

The percentage of gun-related homicides attributed to gangs in Canada was 54% in 2016, the last available year.  Call it 50% of the total.

That still puts the frequency of non-gang related homicides in the USA attributed to firearms at over three times the rate in Canada.

The reality is, if you’re not suicidal and not involved in criminal gangs, your odds of being killed by someone with a gun are still three times higher in the USA than in Canada.  Of course, some people also care about the lives of people with mental illness and even the lives of people who are criminals, if not just the societal effects of those murders, so won't just discount the actual higher rate.

As an aside, believing that other countries do not have gangs and do not have mental health issues is lazy thinking.

[TheDeamon]

So it seems that while there is a definite "urban bias" it also does appear that in the South-eastern states, there also is "something going on" with regards to gun use.

The “urban bias” reflects gang activity. For example:

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), gang homicides accounted for roughly 8,900 of 11,100 gun murders in both 2010 and 2011. That means that there were just 2,200 non gang-related firearm murders in both years in a country of over 300 million people and 250 million guns.

This is why black men make up more than half the people killed with a gun.

Suicide is even more impactful, from 538.com:

Two-thirds of the more than 33,000 gun deaths that take place in the U.S. every year are suicides

you can try to pin access to guns on this but Japan disproves that as they have far fewer guns while having nearly double the suicide rate.

When looking at desth rates like this and trying to compare with vehiclular desths and not correcting for this so that it seems guns are so much more dangerous to the general public, that’s simple and dishonest propaganda.

The reality is, if you’re not suicidal or not involved in criminal gangs, your odds of being killed by someone with a gun falls by more than  70%. It’s dishonest to compare death stats without that information.

We don’t have a gun problem, we have a gang and mental health problem.

Well, that number was working from a "biased source" as I noted in the post, in the cited article, they cited the gun death statistic as being the gun homicide statistic. Which were two entirely different numbers, even on the site they referenced for that number. But that mis-citation on their part made a more comparable number to make it seem as "commonly dangerous" as cars in general.

When the reality is, as I demonstrated when I pointed out that number could be dropped to roughly a third of their claimed number in order to reach the true homicide rate, at which point you're more than twice as likely to be killed by an automobile than a gun. Further narrowing the field, as you did by filtering out "gang violence" from the homicide statistics likes drops the odds even further(down to nearly 1/4th of the initial homicide rate) for people not living anywhere that gangs operate in. (They do shoot people other than just rival gang members too)

But that would point to how Idaho for example takes that risk from "comparable to a car accident" (actually worse in Idaho when you do include suicides) to less than half of that initial number, and then down to under a quarter of even that second number where it then manages to beat out even Sweden in most years when it comes to non-suicides.

But going back to why I referenced it against risk of death in car accidents. It was to point out that while fatal car accidents are in fact far more frequent, and much more "random" virtually all motor-vehicle accidents are preventable as well. Yet we're collectively shrugging that one off  and going "oh well" and even increasing vehicle speed limits, which is known to increase the lethality of the accidents that happen. While likewise not talking about "better screening" of people attempting to get a drivers license, or when registering a vehicle for operation in a given state(to ensure it is "safe to operate" to start with).

But oh my, Guns are positively out of control, that your odds of being "radomly killed" by somebody with a gun are "unacceptably high" and requires immediate action now. Even though you're far more likely to get randomly killed while using a local roadway when somebody decides their cellphone or GPS is a higher priority than safely operating their vehicle.

[DonaldD]

Reducing gun-related homicides does not preclude reducing vehicular deaths. You can walk and chew gum at the same time.

Just jump to the conclusion: everybody dies from something, 100% of the time.  Gun homicides - heck, even all gun related deaths - make up only a small fraction of all deaths. Clearly, we should focus on the majority of deaths first before looking at those attributed to guns.

[TheDeamon]

Not saying that well purposed gun controls in general are a bad thing or pursuit of them is invalid on the previous basis.

However, it does leave a rational objective individual to wonder at the tens of millions of dollars thrown around regarding gun control. While automotive safety groups are on a comparative shoestring even though that issue is one of the most expensive economic line items out there.

[DonaldD]

Without even getting into the fact that hundreds of millions of people are required to use motor vehicles in the USA every day...https://icsw.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/import/FMVSS/

[TheDeamon]

Without even getting into the fact that hundreds of millions of people are required to use motor vehicles in the USA every day...https://icsw.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/import/FMVSS/

And all the safety standards in the world don't make a lick of difference the moment you put 1 "idiot" behind the steering wheel.

Much like happens with firearms. But IIRC, something like 90% of licensed drivers in the United States think they're "above average drivers" so I guess we can rest easily on that front. 

[DonaldD]

Also, MADD alone raised 40,000,000$ in 2013 - that's one group that raised, on its own, the equivalent of "the tens of millions of dollars thrown around regarding gun control."

As for standards and idiots - you are simply wrong. Those crash worthiness standards, airbag, seat belt, bumper, frame standards - they all save countless lives exactly when idiots get themselves in trouble.

Do those standards save everybody?  No.  But they absolutely reduce the number of deaths.  Anybody who convinces you that with today's technology, and the economy of transporting hundreds of millions of people every day, that motor vehicle deaths can be eliminated, well, they're selling you a bill of goods.

[Seriati]

There's a lot of evidence on the point.

What is this evidence - do you have statistics for first world countries changing their rates of gun ownership where the ownership rates drop and violent crime increases significantly, and where homicides do not drop?  Or where ownership rates increase significantly, and violent crime drops significantly?

Artificial narrowing. Like I said.

There is plenty of evidence of the rates of violent crime compared to the current rate of gun ownership.  There is direct US evidence of the "impact" that has resulted from every single gun control law that has been passed to date (pretty much it doesn't show the impact that was promised).

It's also notoriously difficult to study the impact of a single change on a society, when there are dozens if not hundreds of variables changing at the same time.

Australia is the poster child for this type of change in a first world country; the data on homicides are clear (well, given that the Australian homicide was already quite low - on the order of 350 annually), whereas the changes in rates of non-homicide violent crime are less so:

Is it "clear"?  You understand that the number of firearms in Australia has been increasing year on year ever since the 1996 buy back?  That at no point did they remove all firearms? 

If your argument were true, the increase in fire arms should have been causing the rate to increase, shouldn't it?  Yet the rate steadily goes downward.  So what gives, well killing others with a gun became far more abhorent in Australia in 1996, and the impact of that pyschologically is probably feeding the trend more than the reduction in firearms.

You'll note - in the US - we've become less repulsed about the idea of killing by firearm in that time period.  We've desensitized ourselves both from seeing other people as real and from the idea that shooting people is a personal event.  That's something that is far more influenced by our culture than by the weapons themselves.

[Seriati]

The thing here, and this point was already mentioned, is that there are "outlier communities" that exist within the United States

There are outlier communities in all countries, and those outlier communities make up the vast majority of intentional homicides everywhere.

That's a dismissive answer of a real problem.  Outliers in the US have fundamentally larger difference characteristics than those in virtually every other company.  Well at least until recently, with the massive influx of third world refugees into Europe.

[Seriati]

TheDeamon,

In many of the smaller population states, it also was interesting to see how "spiky" their data was going from year to year

that is simple statistics - samples from larger populations are more representative of the true mean.

You forgot to say "all other things being equal."  And in fact they are not equal.  Urban populations have fundamentally different characteristics that sub-urban and rural.  TheDeamon could get to a very impressive N value by aggregating all rural together, all sub-urban together and all urban together, and then comparing those internal populations against each other and looking for internal characteristics in each that were influencing what's going on.

You'd still find that gun violence in the US is a very narrow problem.

Smaller populations will fool you into thinking there are trends and variations that aren't really there - the low years will be consistent underestimates, and the spike years will be consistent overestimates.  If you broke a big state into multiple small states you'd see the same 'spike and lull' patterns going on.

Again though, you wouldn't see quite the same spike if you say broke a state in Detroit area vs rest of Michigan or Chicago Area versus rest of Illinois.  Nor if you did the Rural Midwest versus the Urban midwest.

[TheDrake]

Is it "clear"?  You understand that the number of firearms in Australia has been increasing year on year ever since the 1996 buy back?  That at no point did they remove all firearms? 

True, which is good data however:

"Remember there were several massacres in Australia - Port Arthur wasn't the only one - and during the period that people were thinking about those massacres a total of a million guns were surrendered," he said.

"What's happened since then is that gun imports spiked while people replaced them, and then crashed again for several years and they were way down at lower levels.

"But then gradually for the past 10 years they've been creeping up again and Australia has now replaced that million guns."

Professor Alpers says the guns that have been imported are not the semi-automatics that were banned after Port Arthur.

At the heart of the push was a massive buyback of more than 600,000 semi-automatic shotguns and rifles, or about one-fifth of all firearms in circulation in Australia. The country’s new gun laws prohibited private sales, required that all weapons be individually registered to their owners, and required that gun buyers present a “genuine reason” for needing each weapon at the time of the purchase. (Self-defense did not count.)

So, in other words, they managed to restrict the most dangerous mass-shooting type weapons and put some controls in place to ensure that the wrong kind of people (buy their standard) did not have access to a gun, and required people to present some kind of reason for having the gun.

A good first hand account from an Australian who loves his guns:

I love firearms. I collect them and I enjoy shooting them. I probably have 30 pistols and 20 rifles or shotgun combinations. My family has always had lots and lots of firearms.

Then, after the 1996 massacre, I probably had to hand in six to eight semiautomatic rifles and shotguns to the police. We got fair value for them, but I wasn’t thrilled to be doing it because I thought “Well gee, what have I done wrong?” Would anything untoward ever have happened with the firearms I owned? No.

It’s actually not that hard to own a gun. But you do have to have a genuine reason. You have to be a member of a target shooting club or a hunter and you have to prove it.

All applicants undergo a background check by the police and there is a mandatory 30 day cooling off period for all license applications, both long arms and pistols. Firearms safety training courses are mandatory as well.

An H license is for handguns. If you want to buy a pistol in Australia you’ve got to be a member of a target pistol club. You’ve got to do a minimum of eight competition shoots per year to keep your license. If you don’t, you lose it.

Another part of the law that changed is that the police can come to your house and inspect your storage. When we renovated our house, I built a room dedicated to my firearms collection. They’re all in large safes.... I’m happy for them to do it. I want them to see that it’s safe.

I would feel less safe where in Texas where everybody’s walking around with open carry. That would freak me out. It freaks me out enough to see the police all armed at the airport. Would I walk around the street with a pistol loaded on my waist? No way.

In Australia we don’t want guns to protect our homes. That idea’s ridiculous. When I was growing up, I kept rifles under my bed. One day I was home sick and I was on my way to the loo when I see this guy at the front door shining a flashlight. I thought: I could get the rifle; and then I thought, I’ll just turn the lights on and he’ll run away, which is just what he did. Why would you shoot anybody?

When then Prime Minister John Howard proposed the gun law I marched like everybody else did in opposition to it. But I now fully endorse what he did. I didn’t like handing over my rifles, but at the end of the day, it’s a small price to pay not to have the nut-jobs walking through shopping centers and massacring innocent people.

What it's Like to Own Guns in a Country with Strict Gun Control

[Seriati]

So anyone noticing the wall to wall coverage of yesterday's school shooting?  Surely, in the immediate aftermath of the school shooting in Fl (which was wall to wall for a week, with coverage of the "kid's movement" in great detail thereafter), another school shooting should be wall-to-wall as well?

That's odd that it seems to already have largely disappeared.

Wonder what could have caused that?  Couldn't be the presence of an armed guard almost immediately ended the threat could it?  It's not so useful for the narrative if a shooter is immediately shut down.

[NobleHunter]

Now why wouldn't an attack where only the attacker died not get as much coverage as one where 17 people were murdered? It must be the MSM's dastardly anti-freedom agenda!

[LetterRip]

Wonder what could have caused that?  Couldn't be the presence of an armed guard almost immediately ended the threat could it?  It's not so useful for the narrative if a shooter is immediately shut down.

Actually the presence of the guard was likely irrelevant - the shooter had a single clip and no other preparations.  He shot his ex-girlfriend and one other person who was present.  The reality is that most school shootings the individual only shoots one or two targeted persons than stops and waits for the police then commits suicide - regardless of whether they are confronted.

[D.W.]

Wonder what could have caused that?  Couldn't be the presence of an armed guard almost immediately ended the threat could it?  It's not so useful for the narrative if a shooter is immediately shut down.

Actually the presence of the guard was likely irrelevant - the shooter had a single clip and no other preparations.  He shot his ex-girlfriend and one other person who was present.  The reality is that most school shootings the individual only shoots one or two targeted persons than stops and waits for the police then commits suicide - regardless of whether they are confronted.

All of that makes sense, but are we to draw conclusions or plan countermeasures based upon such information? 

You can't know in advance what the motivations are of the shooter.  In this case, they were quickly stopped.  Does it make for as much of a media circus?  Of course not, but it should be part of the discussion. 

[Wayward Son]

So anyone noticing the wall to wall coverage of yesterday's school shooting?  Surely, in the immediate aftermath of the school shooting in Fl (which was wall to wall for a week, with coverage of the "kid's movement" in great detail thereafter), another school shooting should be wall-to-wall as well?

That's odd that it seems to already have largely disappeared.

Wonder what could have caused that?  Couldn't be the presence of an armed guard almost immediately ended the threat could it?  It's not so useful for the narrative if a shooter is immediately shut down.

Come on, Seriati.  Only three people were shot, and only one died.  It wasn't a mass shooting.

If the news media had to do wall-to-wall coverage of every shooting in schools, we wouldn't have time for any other news.

[D.W.]

So the argument is: 
Shooters unopposed on mass shootings qualify as news, and motivate political action;
Shooters opposed and stopped with force prior to them qualifying as mass shootings are not news, and should not be part of the debate on firearms?

Just making sure I've got that correct.

[NobleHunter]

Body count matters. A car crash that kills 2 people is only local news (self-driving cars excepted). A car crash that kills 200 people is quite likely national news.

[TheDrake]

There's not much controversy, that's part of the answer. I haven't heard anybody say that armed resource officers are a bad idea. They are trained, it is their profession. It's arming the lunch lady and the Geometry teacher that inspires a discussion.

Anything short of throwing a week long parade of joy for the gun blazing hero would be unlikely to satisfy card carrying members of the NRA.

From reports I've read, it is not even clear whether the resource officer hit the shooter with the single round he fired or if the shooter killed himself.

[Wayward Son]

So the argument is: 
Shooters unopposed on mass shootings qualify as news, and motivate political action;
Shooters opposed and stopped with force prior to them qualifying as mass shootings are not news, and should not be part of the debate on firearms?

Just making sure I've got that correct.

No, no.  Shootings with one to three victims killed are common.  They're no big deal.  They happen every day.  On average, 24 people were murdered today with a firearm in the U.S., not counting justifiable shooting deaths like this one.  This was just another shooting, albeit one that occurred at a school, as opposed to everywhere else.

If the news media should have wall-to-wall coverage on this shooting, what about all those other shootings?  Even CNN couldn't handle it.  We would need a 24-hour channel devoted to just shooting deaths, updated hourly.

This shooting got so much coverage because it was the next school shooting after Parkland.  But if it wasn't for Parkland, it would haven't had as much coverage as it got.  Just a minor item at the end of the 6 o'clock news, if that.  To expect it to get more coverage ignores the fact that it was such an every-day occurrence.  Make a huge deal out of this, you'll need to make a huge deal out of all of them.

And we don't have the bandwidth for that. 

[Fenring]

So the argument is: 
Shooters unopposed on mass shootings qualify as news, and motivate political action;
Shooters opposed and stopped with force prior to them qualifying as mass shootings are not news, and should not be part of the debate on firearms?

Just making sure I've got that correct.

No, no.  Shootings with one to three victims killed are common.  They're no big deal.  They happen every day.  On average, 24 people were murdered today with a firearm in the U.S., not counting justifiable shooting deaths like this one.  This was just another shooting, albeit one that occurred at a school, as opposed to everywhere else.

I think DW's point went a bit 'whoosh', based on your reply. The argument is that if you treat 'small' shootings as 'no big deal', and include among these shootings that were small because they were prevented by measures being suggested to correct the mass shooting situation, then you're manipulating the public debate by making it look like mass shootings can't be stopped since the only ones being discussed are ones that weren't prevented. Do you see? You're creating a circular argument (prevention doesn't work because we're not counting cases that were prevented) as well as a cluster fallacy (how come every time a potential mass shooter does their thing they succeed?). In this particular case maybe the shooter wasn't geared up for mass mayhem anyhow, but the presence of someone to stop even minor carnage should be highlighted by the media as a job well done. But nothing other than scary news sells copies, right?

[D.W.]

For the record, I know how the media works and what generates add revenue.  I wasn't so much suggesting I didn't know that was how things are, and more lamenting how frustrating the situation was and how it distorts the conversation.

[Wayward Son]

So the argument is: 
Shooters unopposed on mass shootings qualify as news, and motivate political action;
Shooters opposed and stopped with force prior to them qualifying as mass shootings are not news, and should not be part of the debate on firearms?

Just making sure I've got that correct.

No, no.  Shootings with one to three victims killed are common.  They're no big deal.  They happen every day.  On average, 24 people were murdered today with a firearm in the U.S., not counting justifiable shooting deaths like this one.  This was just another shooting, albeit one that occurred at a school, as opposed to everywhere else.

I think DW's point went a bit 'whoosh', based on your reply. The argument is that if you treat 'small' shootings as 'no big deal', and include among these shootings that were small because they were prevented by measures being suggested to correct the mass shooting situation, then you're manipulating the public debate by making it look like mass shootings can't be stopped since the only ones being discussed are ones that weren't prevented. Do you see? You're creating a circular argument (prevention doesn't work because we're not counting cases that were prevented) as well as a cluster fallacy (how come every time a potential mass shooter does their thing they succeed?). In this particular case maybe the shooter wasn't geared up for mass mayhem anyhow, but the presence of someone to stop even minor carnage should be highlighted by the media as a job well done. But nothing other than scary news sells copies, right?

Although I do like your point, and D.W.'s as well, I was responding to his interpretation of Seriati's point that this latest small shooting should get the same coverage as the Parkland shooting.  After all, this tragedy did receive national attention, so it is not like the incident was suppressed or anything.  But you cannot expect it to be treated like a shooting that killed 17 people unless you expect all similar small shootings to get the same treatment.  And there are just too many of those.

[TheDeamon]

School shootings actually aren't that common, or at least weren't in the 1980's and 1990's. Plenty of the events listed had a (low) single digit body count, if any.

Shootings in general are another matter.

Speaking of events that avoided much time in the press. Remember that Church Shooting in Texas? You know the one that ended with the shooter being killed while being pursued by a (armed) former NRA instructor? The body count certainly came up again after Parkland, but its media screen time lasted only a few days before they swiftly found other things to discuss. Even though it had a comparable body count to Parkland.

[Wayward Son]

Speaking of events that avoided much time in the press. Remember that Church Shooting in Texas? You know the one that ended with the shooter being killed while being pursued by a (armed) former NRA instructor? The body count certainly came up again after Parkland, but its media screen time lasted only a few days before they swiftly found other things to discuss. Even though it had a comparable body count to Parkland.

Possibly, although I suspect you are comparing apples and oranges.

How much of the Parkland coverage involves the shooting itself versus the actions that were inspired or initiated by the shooting?  It's seems to me that there was more ancillary events that happened after the Parkland shooting--the student protests, the meeting with the President, the legislative battles--than happened after the Texas Church shooting.  If you count those as part of the Parkland shooting media coverage, then it's obvious why there was more coverage, and it was obviously not because the Texas Church shooter was killed at the scene.

[Fenring]

How much of the Parkland coverage involves the shooting itself versus the actions that were inspired or initiated by the shooting?  It's seems to me that there was more ancillary events that happened after the Parkland shooting--the student protests, the meeting with the President, the legislative battles--than happened after the Texas Church shooting.  If you count those as part of the Parkland shooting media coverage, then it's obvious why there was more coverage, and it was obviously not because the Texas Church shooter was killed at the scene.

Isn't this potentially another circular argument, where the lack of all these ancillary events may be linked to the lack of initial major coverage in the first place? These types of broad social memes that turn into national walkouts and so forth are generally the result of a major media event going viral. Remember Ferguson, and all the media frenzy that resulted from the shooting of one person? This kind of whirlwind generally results from the spark generated by media attention, and then can take on a life of its own. This doesn't always happen, but when the media passes it by it will also be much less likely to develop into a viral meme.

When the event is 'sexy' enough or somehow sparks into a flame we can see these Ferguson, or now Parkland situations turning into the catalyst for national-level debate. That won't happen if there's no spark in the first place and no one fans the flames.

Not saying you're totally wrong, I actually don't know. But suggesting that the lack of aftermath excitement for an event that didn't get that much coverage seems circular to me.

[D.W.]

Remember that Church Shooting in Texas?

There's another thing at play here as well. 

School > Children > Innocents

Mention of "church" immediately triggers biases in some or at least associations.  Church > Conservative > Republican > Pro Gun > less sympathetic

It's messed up, but it's baked in there. 

[TheDeamon]

When the event is 'sexy' enough or somehow sparks into a flame we can see these Ferguson, or now Parkland situations turning into the catalyst for national-level debate. That won't happen if there's no spark in the first place and no one fans the flames.

Not saying you're totally wrong, I actually don't know. But suggesting that the lack of aftermath excitement for an event that didn't get that much coverage seems circular to me.

The other example, and that one can be pointed to as media manipulation(also in play in Ferguson), was the whole Trayvon Martin affair as well.

Using pictures of him when he was much younger to portray the victim(as happened again in Ferguson), selective editing of the dispatch tape recordings, so on and so forth.

[LetterRip]

The other example, and that one can be pointed to as media manipulation(also in play in Ferguson), was the whole Trayvon Martin affair as well.

Using pictures of him when he was much younger to portray the victim(as happened again in Ferguson), selective editing of the dispatch tape recordings, so on and so forth.

You are wrong - his 11th grade photo ID is about the same as the photo used by the media - the only significant difference is he is smiling in the photo provided to the media - the photo used by the media is only with him 6 months younger than the age that he died.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/false-trayvon-martin-photographs/

There are some cases of shootings where the photo used was misleading - for instance the Tamir Rice shooting.  Where Tamir was 80-100 pounds heavier when he was shot compared to the photo used (Both autopsy and eye witness testimony were that he was 5'7"/5'8" and 195 lb).  As far as I'm aware though that is the only photo of Tamir that was publicly available.  The autopsy information also wasn't available till after the photo was circulated, so there is no reason the media should have known that it was a younger picture of him (he 'looks' 12 in the photo).

[Wayward Son]

How much of the Parkland coverage involves the shooting itself versus the actions that were inspired or initiated by the shooting?  It's seems to me that there was more ancillary events that happened after the Parkland shooting--the student protests, the meeting with the President, the legislative battles--than happened after the Texas Church shooting.  If you count those as part of the Parkland shooting media coverage, then it's obvious why there was more coverage, and it was obviously not because the Texas Church shooter was killed at the scene.

Isn't this potentially another circular argument, where the lack of all these ancillary events may be linked to the lack of initial major coverage in the first place? These types of broad social memes that turn into national walkouts and so forth are generally the result of a major media event going viral. Remember Ferguson, and all the media frenzy that resulted from the shooting of one person? This kind of whirlwind generally results from the spark generated by media attention, and then can take on a life of its own. This doesn't always happen, but when the media passes it by it will also be much less likely to develop into a viral meme.

When the event is 'sexy' enough or somehow sparks into a flame we can see these Ferguson, or now Parkland situations turning into the catalyst for national-level debate. That won't happen if there's no spark in the first place and no one fans the flames.

Not saying you're totally wrong, I actually don't know. But suggesting that the lack of aftermath excitement for an event that didn't get that much coverage seems circular to me.

But we are also dealing with a media that responds to viral memes.  As we have seen from the Russian interference with the last election, some of their memes became so popular that they were reported on by the media.  So a viral meme can get media coverage, which further flames the meme, which the media covers, etc., etc., etc.

We can still compare coverage by comparing just the coverage of the event itself.  Even then, we have to take other factors into account, too, like the fact that the killer in the Parkland shooting was not immediately caught  (the ancillary stories were who was the shooter and when he would be caught) and the relative ease of reaching the shooting site (five minute drive from a local station gets more coverage than a thirty minute drive for similar incidents--sad but true).  But it would be a fairer comparison.

The bottom line, though, is that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to assign the differences in coverage to the idea that the mainstream media is specifically trying to suppress the coverage of shooters who weren't taken out by other armed people.  I would find it very hard to reach that conclusion without a good running jump.

[D.W.]

Excellent points Wayward.  I think it's safe if we just assume everyone is lying to us or misinformed or has an agenda and is telling only part of the story.  Or all 3 at once!