US murder rate close to historic lows.

[CapnAwesome]

With mass shootings dominating headlines, I think people have to take a step back and remember that the last few years the US has had a historically low murder rate. Although some of it could be attributed to an aging population (most murders are committed by and against young men) 2014 saw the lowest murder rate the US has had in it's history and 2015 is probably again going to be a year with historically low murder rates. Also the idea that the US is somehow the most violent country on the planet or the only one with mass shootings is absurd propaganda and we will never be able to address the root causes of crime until people get passed that idea.

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/cr...es/table-4

[Reforged]

I think how hilariously unstable almost all aspects of media and politics are in this a first world country that claims to be the worlds guiding light of civilization is the reason America is the butt of alot of jokes.
The violence is just cream.

[Minimalist]

It isn't "crime" that's the problem....it's psychos with guns.


BTW, according to your own chart the number of murders was much lower in 1962.


But this is just about guns.

http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

• Total Number of Incidents 48,321
  
• Number of Deaths1 12,224
  
• Number of Injuries1 24,730
  

And does not include suicides.

[CapnAwesome]

It isn't "crime" that's the problem....it's psychos with guns.


BTW, according to your own chart the number of murders was much lower in 1962.


But this is just about guns.

http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

• Total Number of Incidents 48,321
  
• Number of Deaths1 12,224
  
• Number of Injuries1 24,730
  

And does not include suicides.

Read the chart. Murder rate is 4.6 (per 100,000) in 1962 and 4.5 in 2014 So it was slightly lower. Don't know how you read it that way. Murders per capita is the important statistic.

I made this thread because when I made one about why the mass shooting/terrorist act in France most of the replies were all about the murder rate. (In fairness to you, you weren't one of those people, but that was by far the number one response I got there.)

I've always considered 'gun crime' to be a pretty imaginary statistic and raw numbers to be very manipulative considering the US is the third most populated country on the planet. However anti-gun people always frame stats that way instead of per capita. Why? Does a murder victim or their family really care how the crime was committed? If we dumped a bunch of cheap guns into a low crime society like Japan would their murder rate rise to US levels?

Edit: Also I know you have guns on the brain, but this is a thread made by me, and you should note that the word gun doesn't even appear in the opening post.

[Cato]

[CapnAwesome]

It's sort of interesting that you'd say something like that when you'd kudo a post like this in my thread about the France terrorist attack/mass shootings:

I'm guessing it has to do with lower per-capita murder rates, as spelt out above. You might want to read that post.

While you're at it, you might want to read, and perhaps answer if you're not too tired, my first post in this thread.

Finally, let me just say that your putative argument falls afoul of the guideline of let not the perfect be the enemy of the good. Simply because a law doesn't eliminate all acts it outlaws doesn't mean that law should be stricken.

I'd suggest that you start thinking without allowing your agenda (obvious as it is) to be your mental filter (again, obvious).

Is the per capita murder rate not important to this discussion but important to that one? Or is it possible that your agenda is controlling your mental filter? I almost never see it brought up in the threads about mass shootings unless it's to compare it to the UK or the small amount of countries in western Europe with low crime (excluding Switzerland and Norway.) Even though those countries have always had lower crime than the US, even when they had similar gun laws prior to the 1960s.

The per capita murder rate is the most important stat when it comes to this issue and yet very rarely discussed. At best you get a 'gun deaths' stat, which groups in suicides and pretends to be the per capita murder rate. (Which again, was exactly what the quote above was actually dishonestly refering to, it wasn't even a per-capita murder stat, which is why I made this thread to start with.)

I'm not even particularly pro-gun. I just wish there was more honesty from the anti-gun crowd on these forums, and less appeals to emotion and propaganda.

[Cato]

The mistake you're making is assuming that I gave kudos to Thump's post because of the per capita murder rate comment (more on that in a moment). My agreement with Thump in that post was the more substantive "...let not the perfect be the enemy of the good. Simply because a law doesn't eliminate all acts it outlaws doesn't mean that law should be stricken."

The identified problem is mass murders with guns, not murder in general. Invoking general murder and violent crime statistics is a red herring as its only purpose is to distract from the original problem. The only position you can possible be taking is that since the general per capita murder statistics are relatively low in global comparisons is that there isn't really a problem to be resolved.

You are also wanting it both ways. You figuratively hug up to friends and family of victims and the population in general with the 'too soon to talk about it' and 'people are politicizing a tragedy' schtick; however, obfuscating the problem and not addressing it is nothing more than a giant 'fuck off and quit whining' to the same when you pretend there isn't a problem to be solved at such time you think it's appropriate to have the discussion.

[The Valkyrie]

If nut jobs couldn't get their hands on assault rifles and such, the rate would drop dramatically, too.

[CapnAwesome]

If nut jobs couldn't get their hands on assault rifles and such, the rate would drop dramatically, too.

Personally, I don't see the need for people to own an assault rifle. However, we don't live in some sort of bubble where these bans haven't been done before. We have tons of case studies across the board. Where was the dramatic drop in the crime rate in the UK (or other countries, the UK is just the example I'm most familiar with) when their gun laws went into effect?

When they UK gun laws went into effect, the murder rate went up for the next decade. Now correlation isn't causation, but the promised drop in the murder rate seems largely to be a myth. I think if gun control reduced murder, it would be very cut and dry. You'd show the countries the enacted gun control and show how the murder rate went down right afterwards. That just isn't the case though and it needs to be pointed out. Instead the stat 'gun murder' had to be invented just to fool people into thinking this is the case.

[CapnAwesome]

The mistake you're making is assuming that I gave kudos to Thump's post because of the per capita murder rate comment (more on that in a moment). My agreement with Thump in that post was the more substantive "...let not the perfect be the enemy of the good. Simply because a law doesn't eliminate all acts it outlaws doesn't mean that law should be stricken."

The identified problem is mass murders with guns, not murder in general. Invoking general murder and violent crime statistics is a red herring as its only purpose is to distract from the original problem. The only position you can possible be taking is that since the general per capita murder statistics are relatively low in global comparisons is that there isn't really a problem to be resolved.

You are also wanting it both ways. You figuratively hug up to friends and family of victims and the population in general with the 'too soon to talk about it' and 'people are politicizing a tragedy' schtick; however, obfuscating the problem and not addressing it is nothing more than a giant 'fuck off and quit whining' to the same when you pretend there isn't a problem to be solved at such time you think it's appropriate to have the discussion.

Here is the thing, compared with murder in general, mass shootings that get brought up here all the time are a drop in the bucket. What percentage of murders in the US are a result of this? There is never a thread about inner-city violence, never a thread about drug violence, never a thread about the link of alcohol to violence. It's all about these mass shootings and it's very frustrating to watch on here. That's why I felt the need to point out that despite what people seem to imply all the time, we live in the safest time in the history of our country. Also I do think that it is a positive thing that we have the lowest murder rate in our history and that positivity should be pointed out. Of course people who want a change is policy are never quick to point out positive things like this.