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I am more interested in total homicides - since death is more meaningful to me than how it was accomplished. The total homicide rate in Australia has been declining over time, just as it has in the United States. The gun buyback program doesn't appear to have changed the rate of reduction in homicides. The % of homicides caused by guns is declining slightly over time but the decline began in 1971, well before the gun buyback program.
Like I mentioned before, you cannot argue humanely in a vacuum. Your premise that nations closer to Anarchy will exhibit much more violence holds true....give me an example of one nation closer to Anarchy that does?
Sudan, Chad, Mali, Ethiopia, Congo, Angola... you can go through most of Africa this way. And then in Central/South America you have desperate poverty fueling a nearly out-of-control drug war...Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, etc.
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Originally Posted by Hot_Handz
I will give you one... Somalia...(I already did in a previous post)... Somalia alone (Mogadishu not excluded) has less homicide per capita than the US.
Sure, cherry pick the one outlier that supports your story... But if you go back and honestly look at ALL of the other nations in your own link you will see that the clear trend across the so-called "third-world countries" that are much less developed than we are and are more prone to rule-of-law struggles is much higher homicide rates. By contrast, my data looked at ALL of the "first-world countries" in establishing the trend.
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Originally Posted by Hot_Handz
Also, controlling the "evolutionary phase of the nation" is a dishonest position because it only addresses violence domestically....is the "evolutionary phase" of all other nations now irrelevant because they aren't compromising humans welfare through firearms?
And when you say "controlling the evolutionary phase of the nation"...That really is double speak for Fascism or Authoritarianism because you are delegating the state to this matter.[/quote]
How do you "comprise human welfare through firearms?" Makes no sense to me. Neither does the fascism/authoritarianism comment. I'm just distinguishing between first-world and second/third-world countries, as political scientists, sociologists, economists, and historians have for decades.
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Originally Posted by Hot_Handz
It also ignores that the examples you might use (which will be the typical ones)...
Switzerland
Norway
Finland
Sweden
Don't have the racial and cultural phenomenon we have here as well. So they aren't honest examples. Generally, in police and welfare states... crime is lower. That's not what people should be "evolving" towards, IMO.
The demographics argument is the one where I'm most sympathetic. I'll have to do some more research into it. But on the other hand, if you look at the nations in my graph on the first page, you will find that there is A LOT of cultural/economic/social diversity reflected in there within the developed world. You have Europe, Asia, North America, and the Middle East represented. And the trend is consistently the same across all of them: other developed first-world nations have significantly lower homicide rates than we do. These nations look homogeneous to us, but they aren't - they have their own underclasses, histories of violence, etc. So I guess this one is a topic for deeper research.
If other first-world nations have more "socialism" and have "evolved" to a point of a more peaceful society while we have our guns and have "evolved" to angry/disturbed people massacring people in public venues every week/month and murders on an unseen rate in the developed world... then have we "evolved" in the right direction?
If the entire rest of the developed world across all continents has orders of magnitude lower homicide rates, then clearly, we're the exception and we're doing something WRONG.
Some of your points are taken, and some leave me rather unconvinced.
So the history of violence... I dunno. I guess if we could make a clearer statement as to the how/why, then I'd buy it. But most of the world has a violent history - European history is covered in blood; the last two world wars were started and primarily focused there, and that was still relatively recently.
It's not the history itself obviously, it's the cultural effect. Lump it in with number 1.
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Originally Posted by ambient
Size - not convinced on this one either. More telling than size to me would be some measure of the scaling of societal enforcement systems and structures across the nation - large country, larger/more systems for enforcing regulations - especially for a nation as rich as this one. I guess the size could make a difference, but it seems like there would be other factors that play a larger limiting role in the reduction of homicides.
Size is most relevant as it relates to #3. Cultural and geographical disparity lead to more detached and segregated society, which leads to less effective governance in general (especially related to sociological issues such as crime).
Look at the difference between major cities, their suburbs, and the rural areas outside, but the 3 are a hell of a lot more diverse in numerous ways than the whole of Denmark I'll bet.
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Originally Posted by ambient
As for demographics, I think this one may be the most convincing. This has been my leading theory, other than gun control. On one hand, those nations in aggregate do actually represent a fair amount of cultural and socioeconomic diversity. You have the gypsies as a notorious underclass in Central and Eastern Europe, and you get a lot of North African immigrants to the South. But by most measures of economic inequality, America is a high outlier, a distinction that it actually shares with many less developed countries. Most of the developed world has much rates of inequality (gini coefficient).
America is a high outlier in terms of both inequality and cultural diversity. Sure, they have their "minorities" but besides the relatively small populations, you have to keep in mind that this isn't only about minorities this is about the degree to which they are segregated. It's really not about minorities at all, but poverty and culture. Something very pronounced here in certain regional and racial demographics.
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Originally Posted by ambient
But I'd point out that if inequality drives more of this kind of violence, then that suggests that the "socialism" in Europe and other areas of the developed world really has a positive effect in terms of a more peaceful society overall less prone to things like a classroom of kinds shot to death.
Only to the degree that you can show that the "socialism" over there is directly responsible for that equality, and that "socialism" here would perform in the same manner.
Inequality can be a result of a number of things.
And as far as classroom shootings, you can give everyone in this country a big house and a million bucks, stuff like that will still happen. Those crimes have zero to do with poverty. I don't think Adam Lanza was struggling financially, and I don't think shooting himself was in his best financial interest either.
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Originally Posted by ambient
As for the fact that we're looking only at guns... it's interesting to point out that even if you just look at overall homicide rates, America is still a statistical outlier to most of the rest of the developed world. USA has somewhere around 5 homicides per 100K; most of the first-world nations have less than a third of that. But sure...getting killed with something other than a gun sucks, too.
I know we are more violent than most of Europe, but not to the same degree as if you are looking only at gun violence, so I feel that should be stated from the beginning as it would not invalidate your argument anyway.
Anyone making the gun control argument, I would like to hear their theory on Vermont. It's an outlier, but it's more comparable to Europe than most of the US.
This is another chart...//www.city-data.com/forum/gener...rder-rate.html
I think there are many more variables involved. Upper Midwest where there are lots of hunters, and I'll assume gun enthusiasts, has less per capita murders than many other states. To just blame incidents like this recent horrific example and suggest gun control is the solution is short sighted imo
Very good point....just look at the border states by Mexico compared to the ones by Canada.....
Once you look at it through this set of parameters...it shows you that you can't just lump America into the "similarly developed nations" argument because the US deals with a very unique phenomenon bordering Mexico
Actually, the failed decades-long "war on poverty" and an over-abundance of artificial financial support via various welfare entitlement programs has done a greatdeal of damage to the Black demographic, ensuring that a high percentage are trapped in poverty for generations.
Look at what has happened to the percentage of births to unwed mothers by race since the war on poverty and lucrative welfare benefits were instituted in 1964: http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/fa...5-FF-chart.jpg
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, National Center for Health Statistics, 2011.
Poverty is a substantial factor in gun deaths by metro, as it was in our previous state-level analysis. The percentage of a metro’s population below the poverty line is significantly associated with all three types of gun death — homicide (.45), suicide (.35), and the overall rate (.49).
Actually, the failed decades-long "war on poverty" and an over-abundance of artificial financial support via various welfare entitlement programs has done a greatdeal of damage to the Black demographic, ensuring that a high percentage are trapped in poverty for generations.
Look at what has happened to the percentage of births to unwed mothers by race since the war on poverty and lucrative welfare benefits were instituted in 1964: http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/fa...5-FF-chart.jpg
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, National Center for Health Statistics, 2011.
Yes, I have posted the same stuff in the past. I was trying not to overly expand the debate. Blacks, due to being mistreated for 300+ years, were in a particularly vulnerable position when government decided to engage in the twin evils of bastard subsidation and the war on drugs.
This compares the United States to other developed nations, which is the appropriate comparison...
It is not an appropriate comparison.
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Originally Posted by ambient
There are nations that have higher rates of gun violence than we do, including Mexico and Brazil. But if you want to include them, go ahead.....
You just answered your own question and you don't even know it.
Comparing the US to Mexico and Brasil is the proper comparison.
Like nearly all Americans, you were properly taught government in high school and you don't understand political science.
That is obvious by the fact that you erroneously used the word "nations" and then you immediately mentioned Mexico and Brasil --- neither of those States are nations -- they are countries...just like the US.
You compare nations with nations...nation-States with nation-States.....and countries with countries.
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Originally Posted by ambient
As you prepare your answer, note several things:
1. Crime in the USA has been on a downward trend, but even so, you can look at any data source on any website, and you will find clear, unmistakeable evidence that tells you that the USA as a huge statistical outlier in the developed world terms of gun deaths. And we've developed a world-wide reputation for the kinds of gun massacres that occurred yesterday.
A clear statistical outlier according to whom? All I see is bull-****.
If you want to discuss statistical data, then present data showing the legality of the fire-arm used in the following manner:
1] all acts of gun-violence where the fire-arm was legally obtained (meaning properly purchased and registered and in compliance with the laws); and
2] all acts of gun-violence where the fire-arm was illegally obtained (meaning the individual used a weapon that was smuggled into the US, or purchased the weapon on the street or stole the weapon or obtained the weapon through other illegal means to subvert the legal process); and
3] all acts of gun-violence where the fire-arm was legally obtained, but then used illegally.
Then we can have a rational statistically fact-based discussion on the matter without anyone's jerking knee interfering.
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Originally Posted by ambient
2. Notice Switzerland, Finland, and Israel on the chart - they all have relatively widespread gun ownership but much lower homicide rates. They also have much tighter gun control laws than we do.
Finland is failed comparison. Finland is a nation-State even though Finland consists of two nations, the Finns and the Lapps.
Finland fails again as a comparison because Finland is a unitary State, and a unitary State is an appropriate political system for Finland.
Israel fails as a comparison because Israel is a nation-State. Israel uses the unitary System which is again appropriate.
Although Switzerland is a country consisting of three nations -- the Germans, the French and the Italians --- and it appropriately uses the federal system, it necessary to consider the geography of Switzerland as it impacts society.
If you can manage to cram the entire US on top of a mountain, let me know, because then we could compare the US with Switzerland.
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Originally Posted by ambient
3. Notice, too, that these are many of the "liberal lifestyle" countries that are oftentimes derided for implementing "socialism."
Your silly chart identifies 30 political States of which....
23 are nation-States --- meaning they have a homogenous society ---- in stark contrast with the US which is a country made up of more than 100 nations and has an heterogeneous society.
5 are countries, but they employ the correct political system with respect to land area, population size and geography: Hungaria, Britain, Canada, Australia and Belgium.
That leaves Chile and the US and how bizarre is it that Chile and the US are both countries consisting of dozens and dozens and dozens of nations resulting in a heterogeneous society and that both countries on paper appear to be federal republics but in fact operate as quasi-unitary States?
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Originally Posted by ambient
4. The USA is among the top most heavily armed, if not the most heavily armed, nations on the planet. If more guns are the differentiating factor to make us safer, then we should be among the safest countries on the left-hand side of the chart, along with Switzerland, Finland, Israel, and all of the other nations off to the right with increasing bar sizes.
The primary purpose of having an heavily armed citizenry is to protect against abuses by the government, not to "make us safer."
If you want answers the start looking for answers in earnest.
Seriously, Iceland? Population 397,000?
Why don't you compare Iceland to US counties that have populations of approximately 397,000 and see what the statistical rate is?
But before you do that, you should really read publications by the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare....
Pines, M. 1971. “How the social organization of animal communities can lead to a population crisis which destroys them,” in Julius Segal (ed.) National Institute of Mental Health; Mental Health Reports – 5; U.S. Department of Health Education & Welfare.
Calhoun, J. B. 1963a. The Ecology and Sociology of the Norway Rat. Bethesda, MD: U.S. Department of Health, Education & Welfare.
Read this only if you dare....
Dominant males became aggressive, some moving in groups, attacking females and the young. Mating behaviors were disrupted. Some became exclusively homosexual. Others became pansexual and hypersexual, attempting to mount any rat they encountered. Mothers neglected their infants, first failing to construct proper nests, and then carelessly abandoning and even attacking their pups. In certain sections of the pens, infant mortality rose as high as 96%, the dead cannibalized by adults. Subordinate animals withdrew psychologically, surviving in a physical sense but at an immense psychological cost. They were the majority in the late phases of growth, existing as a vacant, huddled mass in the center of the pens. Unable to breed, the population plummeted and did not recover. The crowded rodents had lost the ability to co-exist harmoniously, even after the population numbers once again fell to low levels. At a certain density, they had ceased to act like
rats and mice, and the change was permanent.
[Note: Underlined emphasis mine for discussion]
Yeah, so let's not pretend that population size relative to space -- the density thing -- and geography doesn't factor in, okay?
Yes, I have posted the same stuff in the past. I was trying not to overly expand the debate. Blacks, due to being mistreated for 300+ years, were in a particularly vulnerable position when government decided to engage in the twin evils of bastard subsidation and the war on drugs.
End them both. I would fully support doing so.
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