Fewer Guns Mean Fewer Deaths

[dtotire]

Fewer Guns Mean Fewer Deaths
Gun Nation Study says lower rates of ownership and strict laws reduce gun deaths



Connecticut, thankfully, is one of the five states with the lowest per capita rates of gun deaths. The reasons may seem obvious.

An analysis of just-released 2007 federal data by the Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit that works to reduce gun violence, found that states with lower gun ownership rates and strong gun laws have the lowest rates of overall gun fatalities.

With a household gun ownership of 16.2 percent and a gun death rate of 4.27 per 100,000, Connecticut ranked fourth behind Hawaii, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and ahead of New York, among the states with the fewest per capita gun deaths. All were well below the At the other end of the spectrum, Louisiana, where 45.6 percent of households report owning guns, the death rate was 19.87 per 100,000. The next three states, Mississippi, Alaska, Alabama, all have gun ownership rates in excess of 50 percent and gun death rates in the range of 17 to 18 per 100,000.

The study would appear to challenge the notion, sometimes proffered by the gun lobby, that we'd all be safer if everyone had a gun. The more guns, this study indicates, the more gunshot wounds.

The challenge is to balance legal gun ownership with the daunting need to keep guns out of the wrong hands. We have a long way to go; guns are way too easy to get, even for terrorists. The New Republic reported this month that from 2004 to 2010, 1,225 gun purchases sought by people on the terrorist watch list were submitted for a federal background check, and 91 percent were approved. And in most of the past 30 years, there have been more suicides than homicides with guns. Is it a good idea to keep a gun in the house?

The Violence Policy Center analysis tells us to keep trying, that background checks for buyers and sales people, registration requirements, waiting periods and other laws do help. national average of 10.34 per 100,000, and all are credited with having strong gun laws.


http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-editorial-gun-study-20100616,0,3687335.story

[marmar]

1. K&R....before this thread gets overrun by the posse.

nt

[Oregone]

2. Cities with less crime have less fearful citizens buying guns

What causes one or the other?

[Travis Coates]

26. How do you explain Chicago?

It should have the lowest amount of gun related crime of any city in America. Oh wait....

[Doctor_J]

3. Really? This is hard to believe

:eyes:

[90-percent]

4. History Channel Stat

Or Discovery or TLC? They all bleed together, is that, from 1965 to 2004 there have been almost 1.5 MILLION firearms related deaths in America!

NUMBER ONE USA NUMBER ONE USA!

That is one hell of an accomplishment, American gun owners!

(I knew there was a reason I settled in Connecticut!)

-90% Jimmy

[Callisto32]

34. "That is one hell of an accomplishment, American gun owners!"

Broad brush is BROOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAD.

[SteveM]

46. Violent crime is down. Gun sales are way up. Hard fact.

Please read the rules about "broad-brushing" large groups of people, in this forum and elsewhere. There are at least 80,000,000 gun-owners in this country, many of whom you know and may even like.

[Tesha]

5. People inclined to violence and/or fear buy (and use) guns.

People who are happy, safe, and recognize their
happiness and safety neither buy nor use guns.

Tesha

[PavePusher]

7. Broad-brush, much? n/t

[slackmaster]

10. I'm happy and safe, and I buy guns because I like collecting them

:hi:

[jazzhound]

12. Another faux progressive displays their prejudice.

Even people who live in relatively safe areas are potential victims of violence.

The "fear" canard is as stale as it is stupid. People who safely and responsibly carry guns simply recognize that they are not "the chosen ones" who are somehow immune to criminal assault. In other words, they lack the arrogance which assumes that the violence which is guaranteed to be visited on someone in their community will be directed at "the other guy".

[proteus_lives]

23. Wow, stereotypes ahoy!

I've been a gun-owner since my early teens and I've certainly not inclined to violent acts, plus the fear canard.

Have any original thoughts?

[east texas lib]

27. Nice bumper sticker...

Very nice.

[Katya Mullethov]

28. "Happy People Dont need Guns "

[onehandle]

29. psst.

in this room they think that gun owners are a race or a creed or a color or a national origin... or something. i'm not really sure.

see. they took your comment very, very personally.

[Callisto32]

36. Actually, being a gun owner is much more personal than race, or national origin..or something.

Because it is a conscious choice, on my part to become so. Being a descendant of Germans is nothing I get riled up about, because I had no choice in the matter.

Also: "Psst, capitalization matters."

Your typing is almost as lazy as your cognition.

[onehandle]

37. i was being vewy vewy quiet.

Also, I own a portable phone/Internet device/music player. Please put me on a pedestal for purchasing a consumer item.

[Callisto32]

35. My trap guns say you are a liar, or at least horribly misinformed about firearms use.

Trap is a game, by the way.

And the "I'm more 'highly evolved' than gun owners" argument is really, REALLY tired.

This is more self-puffing than anything...

[Abq_Sarah]

43. I just bought a new firearm Saturday

I am safe, happy and secure in the knowledge that I can take care of and defend myself without having to depend on anyone else to do it for me. That is the ultimate in freedom and security.

[SteveM]

47. Your social analysis falls flat...

I feel relatively "happy, safe and recognize happiness and safety," yet I own and continue to purchase guns. And use them. Your remark is slap-dash moral speculation, not observable fact.

[SPedigrees]

6. I live in Vermont and we have very liberal gun laws and

high gun ownership per capita combined with a very low homicide rate. Connecticut, along with other New England states, never had a high murder rate, before or after legislation restricting gun ownership. Probably the reason for this is the educated and civilized rational nature of its populace. New England states consistently score high on the national stats for intelligence of its inhabitants.

Left out of the equation in this article are large cities with stringent gun laws and high rates of gun-related homicide, DC being the most notable.

[dmallind]

8. Hmm bet I can cherrypick too

DC compared to Vermont?

Illinois compared to New Hampshire?

[PavePusher]

31. You're right... what are D.C. and Illinois (Chi-town) doing wrong?

Oh, that's right... violating Civil Rights.

Wow.

[slackmaster]

9. "Gun death" rate is a meaningless, bullshit measure that tells you nothing about public safety

ID, IA, ME, MO, NE, NH, ND, OR, SD, UT, WA, WI, and WY all have lower murder rates than Connecticut, and I'd bet that most of them have higher rates of gun ownership than Connecticut.

Some states that have strict gun control laws and presumably low rates of gun ownership (e.g. CA, NJ, NY), all have higher murder rates than does Connecticut.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004912.html

N&U for posting an obviously biased opinion piece that claims to draw data from an unreferenced "study", and even implies a CAUSAL relationship between gun ownership and crime, when there is no data to support such a conclusion.

:nuke:

[spin]

11. There are far more guns in this country today than in 1970 ...

And there has been a dramatic increase in gun sales since Obama was elected. Many states now allow citizens to carry concealed firearms with a license.

So therefore it would be logical to say that crime and violence should be increasing in our country. Strangely, it isn't.

Summary findings

According to the BJS's National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)--

* Since 1994, violent crime rates (murder, rape and sexual assault, robbery, and assault) have declined, reaching the lowest level ever recorded in 2005. emphasis added
* Property crime rates (burglary, theft, and motor vehicle theft) continue to decline.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reports--

* The violent crime rate decreased 1.4% from 2006 to 2007. From 1998 to 2007 the rate fell 17.7%.
* The property crime rate decreased 2.1% from 2006 to 2007. From 1998 to 2007, the rate fell 19.5%.

The FBI's Uniform Crime Reports Program (UCR) collects information from local law enforcement agencies about crimes reported to police. The UCR crime index includes seven offenses; homicide, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft.




http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=3

The Real Murder Mystery? It’s the Low Crime Rate

MAYBE it is time to call in one of those clairvoyants who help detectives solve the case. Because no one else can explain what criminals have been doing in the first half of 2009.

Not that the news is bad — from New York to Los Angeles to Madison, Wis., major crimes, violent or not, are down between 7 percent and 22 percent over the same period last year. In Chicago, the number of homicides dropped 12 percent. In Charlotte, N.C., hard hit by the banking crisis, that total fell an astounding 38 percent. It is too soon to conclude that crime will decline throughout the recession, and the new numbers, which come from standardized reports that police departments send to the F.B.I., have yet to be made into a national measure. But crime was supposed to go up, not sharply down.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/weekinreview/02dewan.html

How Obama Reduced Crime Rates Last Year

Posted By John Lott On June 8, 2010 @ 7:29 am

President Obama surely didn’t intend it, but he deserves some credit for last year’s 7.4 percent drop in murder rates <1>. His election caused gun sales to soar, and crime rates to plummet.

While gun sales started notably rising in October 2008, sales really soared immediately after Mr. Obama won the presidential race. 450,000 more people bought guns in November 2008 than bought them in November 2007 <2>, that’s over a 40 percent increase in sales. By comparison, the change from November 2006 to November 2007 was only about 35,000. Over the last decade, the average year-to-year increase in monthly sales was only 21,000.

The increase in sales continued well beyond November 2008. From November 2008 to October 2009, almost 2.5 million more people bought guns in the 12 months after the election than in the preceding 12 months. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, doesn’t tell us how many guns each person bought just the number of people who bought them. Most likely though, gun sales rose by more than the number of people who purchased them.

At the same time gun sales were soaring, there was an unusually large drop in murder rates. The 7.4 percent drop in the murder rate was the largest drop in murder rates since the 1999. For those who don’t remember, 1999, when President Bill Clinton and Columbine occurred, was another time when gun sales soared. With people such as Elena Kagan serving as Mr. Clinton’s deputy domestic policy adviser were pushing hard for more gun control, Americans were worried that more gun bans were coming. And in response gun sales soared.

Just as higher arrest and conviction rates, longer prison sentences, or the more frequent use of the death penalty reduce crime, so does letting victims defend themselves with guns. More certain or greater penalties make it more risky for criminals to commit crime. Victims who can defend themselves can also make committing crime more dangerous and deter criminals.

Americans living in the District of Columbia and Chicago have seen this phenomenon themselves. After the ban went into effect in both cities, murder rates rose dramatically. After the Supreme Court threw out DC’s ban and gunlock laws in 2008, the District’s murder rates plunged by 25 percent in 2009. Indeed, my research in the just released third edition of More Guns, Less Crime <3> shows that every place in the world that we have crime data for has seen murder rates climb when guns were banned.

If Mr. Obama really understood that letting law-abiding citizens defend themselves reduces crime, it is unlikely that gun sales would have had to increase. Yet, if the Supreme Court strikes down the Chicago gun ban this month, Americans may get to see yet again that more guns mean less crime.
http://biggovernment.com/jlott/2010/06/08/how-obama-reduced-crime-rates-last-year/print/

I will not state that more guns = less crime. The reduction in the violent crime rate could be caused by many factors including better policing.

But it is obvious that more guns does not equal more crime. There are by some estimates as many as 300 million firearms in our country.

Just for kicks and grins lets compare violent crime in the U.K. and Europe where draconian gun laws are common and firearms are rare.

The most violent country in Europe: Britain is also worse than South Africa and U.S.

By James Slack
Last updated at 12:14 AM on 3rd July 2009

Britain's violent crime record is worse than any other country in the European union, it has been revealed.

Official crime figures show the UK also has a worse rate for all types of violence than the U.S. and even South Africa - widely considered one of the world's most dangerous countries.

The figures comes on the day new Home Secretary Alan Johnson makes his first major speech on crime, promising to be tough on loutish behaviour.

The Tories said Labour had presided over a decade of spiralling violence.

In the decade following the party's election in 1997, the number of recorded violent attacks soared by 77 per cent to 1.158million - or more than two every minute.

The figures, compiled from reports released by the European Commission and United Nations, also show:

* The UK has the second highest overall crime rate in the EU.
* It has a higher homicide rate than most of our western European neighbours, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
* The UK has the fifth highest robbery rate in the EU.
* It has the fourth highest burglary rate and the highest absolute number of burglaries in the EU, with double the number of offences than recorded in Germany and France.

But it is the naming of Britain as the most violent country in the EU that is most shocking. The analysis is based on the number of crimes per 100,000 residents.

In the UK, there are 2,034 offences per 100,000 people, way ahead of second-placed Austria with a rate of 1,677.



The U.S. has a violence rate of 466 crimes per 100,000 residents, Canada 935, Australia 92 and South Africa 1,609.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-country-Europe-Britain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.html

[jazzhound]

22. One helluva problem for the foaming righties!

President Obama surely didn’t intend it, but he deserves some credit for last year’s 7.4 percent drop in murder rates <1>. His election caused gun sales to soar, and crime rates to plummet.

The RW has most certainly attributed the rise in gun sales to the election of President Obama. At the same time, they hold to John Lott's thesis that more guns = less crime. So indeed, it looks like our Pres. gets the credit for the reduced crime!!

EDITED TO ADD: Perverted logic, I know........but so fun nevertheless.

[spin]

32. So if we want to eliminate all violent crime ...

we should just elect Democrats in the future.

Not a bad idea.

[GreenStormCloud]

13. The terrorist watch list is a pathetic joke.

They don't put genuine terrorist on the list because they don't want to tip the person off that he/she is being watched.

But loads of innocent people are on the watch list. In fact, I would not be surprised if almost the entire watch list were actually innocent of being terrorists. But no one knows since the list is secret.

It is amazing to watch progressives approve such an unconstitutional item as the watch list.

[tularetom]

14. It isn't lax gun laws that account for the high crime rates in some states

It's the low level of education and intelligence among the residents.

[SPedigrees]

15. A more concise summary of what I tried to say in post 6. Thanks! nt

[TPaine7]

16. LOL! n/t

[TPaine7]

17. In other news: study by Flat Earth Society shows... wait for it... "Earth is Flat" n/t

[jazzhound]

25. Just thought about this the other day...........

BEWARE THE GUN CONTROL REALITY DISTORTION FIELD!

This would make an outstanding (custom) bumper sticker.

If I pull the trigger on this, will you sue me for infringement? :-)

[TPaine7]

30. I'm easy. I'll take 2% of net sales. n/t

[east texas lib]

40. Make sure you have a "residuals in perpetuity" clause...

;)

[Pavulon]

18. Greenwich or Shithole CT?

telluride co, rich people, and guns. No crime. Poverty drives violence.

[safeinOhio]

19. You are all wrong

has nothing to do with gun ownership or laws.
FACT
The states with the highest crime rates also have the highest number of criminals. Duh.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

20. VPC? at least use a credible source when you go trolling

[X_Digger]

21. Connecticut also has the second highest tax rate on cigarettes!

Louisiana has the lowest!

....

Therefore.. High Taxes on Cigarettes Lead to Lower Gun Deaths!

Yeah, doesn't work for that stat, either.

False causation implied from dubious correlation (cherry picked data).

[proteus_lives]

24. VPC? Automatic fail.

[Callisto32]

33. I'm starting to think ALL of these studies are worthless.

They invariably reflect the personal bias of the researchers.

Almost like the methodology is DESIGNED to get a specific result. Rather than controlling variables OUT they are manipulating them.....sad.

[derby378]

38. Then why are murder rates falling in Dallas?

They've been falling for the past two years, at least. We had a 24-day streak last summer without a single murder. All in a large metropolitan area that's CHL-friendly, brimming with gun shows, and has seen a huge influx of Democratic judges since 2006 - not to mention a kickass Democratic DA.

[slackmaster]

39. Maybe more guns also means fewer deaths

Or maybe the number of guns has no real connection with murder rates.

[Katya Mullethov]

41. That particular demographic has shifted to Arlington .

Apparently , the bureau of touristy and conventions have been running a very popular "Thanks Arlington" promotion .
http://www.klif.com/Podcasts/tabid/237/Default.aspx
first one at the top , "new ad" .

[Taitertots]

42. Ignorance and statistics is a dangerous combination n/t

[AtheistCrusader]

44. I would believe it with a slight tweak of the title.

Fewer guns means fewer gun deaths.

Almost no gun deaths in prison, for instance.
America is plenty violent with or without breaking out a subset of deaths based on the implement by which they were orchestrated.

[SteveM]

45. I hope you reviewed the hard data concerning this "issue"...

Especially outlined in Post #11.

Since about 1995 and until 2005, the number of firearms in civilian hands has gone up from approx. 190,000,000 to approximately 290,000,000; by now the number may be some 330,000,000. Yet during this time the nation's violent crime rate has fallen. Does this prove that "more guns = less crime?" No. It only shows that the tired mouthing of the anti-gunners, "fewer guns = fewer crimes" is clearly not proven.

Perhaps in the future a statistical model will be developed which might indicate a long-term downward trend in the number of violent crimes (employing guns) is related to thug perception that there are many more people with guns, including a relatively new yet significant population of concealed-carry gun-owners, which would cause the thug to change his/her behavior lest they lose their lives. For now, we should be somewhat assured that the great increase in firearms among the civilian population did NOT lead to greater increases of "gun-related" crime.