The Oregon shooting

[Leg End]

In Idaho, a 15 year old boy threatened a school shooting because none of the girls (specifically cheerleaderS) would send him nude pics:

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2015/10/08/4025794/police-teenager-15-charged-after.html
https://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/idaho-teen-threatened-to-kill-all-the-girls-because-cheerleaders-wouldnt-send-him-any-freaking-nudes/

I'm looking for the link back to The Onion but I'm not finding it.

 

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

In Idaho, a 15 year old boy threatened a school shooting because none of the girls (specifically cheerleaderS) would send him nude pics:

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2015/10/08/4025794/police-teenager-15-charged-after.html
https://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/idaho-teen-threatened-to-kill-all-the-girls-because-cheerleaders-wouldnt-send-him-any-freaking-nudes/

I find it weird that a lot of these shooters do this because a woman won't fuck them. it's like they think women only exist to be a fuck toy to them. I kind of wondered why they think that.

ps. This question is coming from a 20 year old virgin, attention whore.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I find it weird that a lot of these shooters do this because a woman won't fuck them. it's like they think women only exist to be a fuck toy to them. I kind of wondered why they think that.

ps. This question is coming from a 20 year old virgin, attention whore.

Well, this would be one of the reasons why people keep talking about toxic masculinity.

To go into more detail, that other thread about the 11 year old and the babysitter? MarsAtlas correctly pointed out that the assumption that the boy was consenting is an example of toxic masculinity. Sure, the actual victim said he didn't, but we all know that boys are obsessed with sex, or should be, right? Half of every movie you've ever seen ends with the guy ending up with some hot girl (personality optional) as his reward for being at least somewhat less evil than Hitler. That is, every male is entitled to his fucktoy.

Assuming you are male, if you tell people you are a virgin, you'll stand a good chance of being met with derision and scorn, because any male past early teens that isn't a virgin is a pathetic loser, or so we are led to believe.

(You'll also note that this only applies to conventionally attractive women, others don't seem to exist)

 

[Carzinex]

At the end of the day, its a democracy. If the majority of Americans are voting in representatives who don't want to control guns like any other sensible country let them shoot the shit out of each other.

I'll never understand the hard on gun users get from it, ive shot a couple of shotguns before, it was ok but nothing for me to get in a patriotic tizzy over.

 

[Thaluikhain]

At the end of the day, its a democracy. If the majority of Americans are voting in representatives who don't want to control guns like any other sensible country let them shoot the shit out of each other.

I believe that the majority of US citizens support further regulation (to some extent), they just don't have political power. Hell, one of the states that put a Voter ID law in place has just happened to close all the places you can get IDs in everywhere that's predominantly black. To nobody's surprise.

EDIT: By which I mean the representatives may or may not be representative, not that black people are inherently inclined to favour gun regulation.

 

[CeeBod]

Countries with VERY large populations do tend to have higher murder rates than comparable economic countries with smaller populations. In other countries we see significantly more fatal bombings taking place all the time. Frankly, if these nutters go nuts it's oftentimes signifantly safer that they're using a gun than an explosive.

You're echoing statements I've seen other US gun enthusiasts make that boil down to essentially: "Everyone else is just as bad really, they just use knives/explosives/whatever instead of guns and even if we were slightly worse it's only cos we're bigger"

Looking at the homicide rate per 100,000 population as the UN Global study on Homicide does ( https://www.unodc.org/documents/gsh/pdfs/2014_GLOBAL_HOMICIDE_BOOK_web.pdf ) highlights the fact that whilst the US is far from the worst in the world, when it comes to homicide, it is massively worse than most of the rest of the first world. Also, using a rate like this actually penalises small countries not large ones (in 2008, Montserrat in the Caribbean had one of the highest murder rates in the world, purely because there was 1 murder, whilst the population is only about 5,000!)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate has a table that's somewhat quicker to read through than the 166 page UN report. In 2012 the USA had a murder rate of 4.7 per 100,000 - nowhere near as bad as Honduras' 90.4 or Mexico's 21.5 maybe, but wouldn't it be more sensible to aspire to the rates of civilised first world states like Canada (1.6), Australia (1.1), the UK and France (both 1.0) or even the insanely safe Japan (0.3)? You are over 15 times more likely to be murdered in the USA than in Japan!

This is just looking at homicides of course, but the rates of accidental shootings in the USA are also way higher than the rest of the first world, the rate of suicide by firearms, the rate of "justifiable homicides" from police shootings. Huge numbers of shootings occur every year from domestic arguments that got out of control, and obviously not every shooting results in a death. Around 75,000 gun-shot injuries are treated in US hospitals per year - around double the number of deaths. The facts are pretty clear that you're safer in every other first world country than you are in the USA, and whilst economic inequality is obviously a major contributory factor to that, so is the easy availability of guns.

I actually believe that dealing with the massive inequality in the USA would obtain better results than any gun control law would, but it seems like any debate on income and wealth redistribution is dismissed as just pinko commy talk, and if something isn't changed then the USA will soon be challenging for number 1 on the homicide rate tables (Washington DC already has a murder rate worse than South Sudan, a 3rd world country torn apart by civil war, with religeous extremist rebel factions and widely regarded as a failed state)

 

[Carzinex]

At the end of the day, its a democracy. If the majority of Americans are voting in representatives who don't want to control guns like any other sensible country let them shoot the shit out of each other.

I believe that the majority of US citizens support further regulation (to some extent), they just don't have political power.

Oh i wouldn't be surprised in the least if thats the case, as most human beings are sensible. Its just they've had so many years to get this right and im bored of hearing about it. I can only imagine how Americans who have been fighting for common sense feel.

I can't think of any other country which ties its patriotism into having guns as much as America. It just comes across as fuckin stupid. "it's mu gun and if anyone takes it away it makes me feel unamerican and bad" "murica pew-pew"

 

[Thaluikhain]

And another one:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/10/09/3710949/gunman-opens-fire-at-northern-arizona-university-killing-one-and-wounding-three-others/

 

[Lightknight]

http://www.justfacts.com/images/guncontrol/england-full.PNG

If that chart is correct, the bans did what?

/facepalm

It's very inconsiderate of you for not taking into account of the deaths caused by the IRA - a highly organised political militia. They imported the guns after the ban and we are still discovering large caches throughout England.

If you ever did do your history, England encountered terrorism long before your Al-Qaeda.

This is literally my exact point. Bans don't do anything because guns used in crime are already mostly acquired illegally. Even in the States where guns are legal, 93% of gun related crimes are committed with illegally acquired guns.

This means that a ban doesn't do anything but prop up the already existing illegal markets in these areas and make them even more profitable. We can't keep guns from criminals for the same reason we can't keep drugs from criminals. Smuggling is just too easy. So the only people gun bans hurt are mostly the law abiding citizens. A common phrase is that in a city where guns are banned then only the criminals own the guns.

It is depressing to see mass hysteria causing us such harm when there are actual and appropriate steps that can be taken. At our core we're still just one big lynch mob. Hanging first and getting the truth later when it's already too late.

We don't get the truth, though; it's not reported. Politicians make sure the only thing people hear is their propaganda.

Sandy Hook (school): before the massacre, the killer was denied a firearm purchase. His mother, a good, lawful human being who owned her own weapons, was the first one the maniac murdered after he stole her guns.

1) The system worked; a person that could have been prevented a firearm purchase was denied.
2) Someone who is motivated and determined found a way around gun laws.
3) No one, not even the killer's own mother, who was caring and supportive with him, saw dangerous signs and so didn't see him as a violent threat to anyone.

Charleston (church shooting): the killer legally acquired his weapons because he was not a criminal or a visible threat, and not even his family noticed he had developed serious issues.

Virginia (news crew shooting): same story as Charleston, only he was an adult, living on his own and thus lived a private life where no one could suspect he was (to quote him) a powder keg about to go off.

Oregon (college): same story as Charleston and Virginia; killer acquired his weapons over several years and was involved in a lot of normal activities. Once again, his family was taken by complete surprise as he was not a criminal and showed no signs of mental issues.

Yet the "routine" we hear about is fictional reality, that every mass shooting is the same for different reasons. False reasons. It's a big lie that every shooting is about illegal guns and purchases through "loopholes", and the hate and raging that the NRA is trying to stick a gun into every baby crib in America makes people sound crazier than Republicans.

The depressing thing is that people do not get the truth and believe in total bullshit, and many of the people are otherwise intelligent and should be smarter than this.

People also aren't frequently reminded of the number of mass shootings that have actually been stopped by civilians with guns and that nearly every instance where the person doesn't kill themselves first is stopped by trained police with guns. I mean, there's a reason why the "successful" ones are carried out in gun-free zones.

In any event, these are incredibly rare. They hurt to see but they do not warrant legislating 300 million people because of the actions of a handful of individuals.

Countries with VERY large populations do tend to have higher murder rates than comparable economic countries with smaller populations. In other countries we see significantly more fatal bombings taking place all the time. Frankly, if these nutters go nuts it's oftentimes signifantly safer that they're using a gun than an explosive.

You're echoing statements I've seen other US gun enthusiasts make that boil down to essentially: "Everyone else is just as bad really, they just use knives/explosives/whatever instead of guns and even if we were slightly worse it's only cos we're bigger"

Looking at the homicide rate per 100,000 population as the UN Global study on Homicide does ( https://www.unodc.org/documents/gsh/pdfs/2014_GLOBAL_HOMICIDE_BOOK_web.pdf ) highlights the fact that whilst the US is far from the worst in the world, when it comes to homicide, it is massively worse than most of the rest of the first world. Also, using a rate like this actually penalises small countries not large ones (in 2008, Montserrat in the Caribbean had one of the highest murder rates in the world, purely because there was 1 murder, whilst the population is only about 5,000!)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate has a table that's somewhat quicker to read through than the 166 page UN report. In 2012 the USA had a murder rate of 4.7 per 100,000 - nowhere near as bad as Honduras' 90.4 or Mexico's 21.5 maybe, but wouldn't it be more sensible to aspire to the rates of civilised first world states like Canada (1.6), Australia (1.1), the UK and France (both 1.0) or even the insanely safe Japan (0.3)? You are over 15 times more likely to be murdered in the USA than in Japan!

This is just looking at homicides of course, but the rates of accidental shootings in the USA are also way higher than the rest of the first world, the rate of suicide by firearms, the rate of "justifiable homicides" from police shootings. Huge numbers of shootings occur every year from domestic arguments that got out of control, and obviously not every shooting results in a death. Around 75,000 gun-shot injuries are treated in US hospitals per year - around double the number of deaths. The facts are pretty clear that you're safer in every other first world country than you are in the USA, and whilst economic inequality is obviously a major contributory factor to that, so is the easy availability of guns.

You misunderstand. I'm not making an error of proportions when I say that larger nations have more crime. I'm saying that there is a correlation between higher populated nations with larger jurisdictions and the crime rate. A microcosm of this can be seen in large cities compared to small cities depending on the number of jurisdictions in each. You will frequently see a much higher average rates of crime in large cities (note that I said rate and not occurrence which would be obvious). Every year you will see small cities have disproportionately higher murder rates because they had a bad year, but overall the large cities will have a much higher aggregate. Now, you literally pointed out that using the rate can often frequently cast smaller demographics in a worse light than they really are. For example, Norway currently has a mass murder rate that is more than 15 times our own thanks to a really bad handful of incidents. But what you should have realized when saying that is this means that comparing just rates doesn't work unless you adjust for other variables.

Establishing the statistical relationship between population size and UCR crime rate: Its impact and implications [theipti.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/covariance.pdf]
The link that hyperlink goes to because the href function now appears to be broken on this site: theipti.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/covariance.pdf

That is a link to a pdf of the 2012 article published in the Journal of Criminal Justice and conducted by researchers at WVU. It shows a statistically significant correlation between crime rate, population size and number of jurisdictions. It explains why comparing crime rates without adjusting for population size and jurisdictions is a mistake and one which you have just committed in comparing nations with smaller populations and fewer largely populated jurisdictions to a nation with a much larger population and more largely populated jurisdictions.

It would be nice to believe that we could get our rate down to nations that have small populations but it really isn't viable and trying to compare apples to oranges isn't doing us any favors by perpetuating the misuse of data that doesn't relate in the way we think it does.

I actually believe that dealing with the massive inequality in the USA would obtain better results than any gun control law would, but it seems like any debate on income and wealth redistribution is dismissed as just pinko commy talk, and if something isn't changed then the USA will soon be challenging for number 1 on the homicide rate tables (Washington DC already has a murder rate worse than South Sudan, a 3rd world country torn apart by civil war, with religeous extremist rebel factions and widely regarded as a failed state)

Poverty is in some way the cause of most crimes. In times of low unemployment we do see drops in crime and we have been seeing a drastic drop in overall crime since the early 90's. One might claim that we are currently taking the right actions and time could continue to work itself out. But I can certainly see such a densely populated metro as D.C. having insane crime rates thanks to the extremely rich and extremely poor being so close together there.

 

[Thaluikhain]

This is literally my exact point. Bans don't do anything because guns used in crime are already mostly acquired illegally. Even in the States where guns are legal, 93% of gun related crimes are committed with illegally acquired guns.

Do you have any stats on where those illegal guns are acquired from, though? Are they smuggled across the border, or stolen from people who legally owned them?

 

[CeeBod]

I'm saying that there is a correlation between higher populated nations with larger jurisdictions and the crime rate. A microcosm of this can be seen in large cities compared to small cities depending on the number of jurisdictions in each. You will frequently see a much higher average rates of crime in large cities (note that I said rate and not occurrence which would be obvious). Every year you will see small cities have disproportionately higher murder rates because they had a bad year, but overall the large cities will have a much higher aggregate.

To be honest, this sounds like it's going to be a variant on the old "you can't compare with anywhere else because USA is speshul" argument. If it was the case of higher populated nations having higher crime rates, then why does India, with its population of 1.25 billion (nearly 4 times higher than the USA) have a homicide rate that's about 25% lower than the USA? (China's population is even bigger, and their rate is even lower, although obviously harder to verify!). Indonesia has a population not far short of the USA and also has a lower rate. There is also much more poverty in India and Indonesia than in the first world, so if anything you should expect their rates to be higher than for a first world superpower.

Looking at cities - Tokyo is generally regarded as the largest metropolis on the planet. It's both very highly populated and has a large number of jurisdictions (with the urban sprawl having swallowed up 86 other towns and cities including Yokohama and Chiba). It has a homicide rate per 100,000 of 0.4, which is barely above the Japanese national average. London's homicide rate is 1.6, and London's population is bigger than Chicago's (or any US city other than the big 2 of NY and LA) - so even comparing big cities for that apple to apple comparison you're looking for gives pretty much the same results.

Slice and dice the data however you want, it still comes out that the USA has a problem. Whilst it hasn't reached the scale of say the Brazilian favelas, it's more than slightly bizarre that a country that is usually so keen to tell the rest of the world just how brilliant it is, appears to be happy to settle for parity with 3rd world nations when it comes to how often its citizens are murdered.

 

[Lightknight]

This is literally my exact point. Bans don't do anything because guns used in crime are already mostly acquired illegally. Even in the States where guns are legal, 93% of gun related crimes are committed with illegally acquired guns.

Do you have any stats on where those illegal guns are acquired from, though? Are they smuggled across the border, or stolen from people who legally owned them?

Yes, as I posted in my original comment the majority of them are acquired via Straw Sales (two guys walk into a place, one guy points at a gun and the other guy buys it then money and guns exchange hands afterwards. The store is supposed to refuse sale as it is frequently blatant in this event but frequently does not because they like money as most businesses do) or licensed firearm dealers who are corrupt but are just outright selling it to people they know are illegal vendors. The corrupt firearm dealers account for the majority of crimes whereas stolen guns only account for 10-15% (13% in LA, for example) but are frequently sold to and distributed through the same corrupt but licensed firearm dealers as mentioned earlier. Another hilarious overlap is that some of the illegal vendors double dip into the system by selling a shipment of guns illegally and then reporting the shipment as stolen so they can also get the insurance money. VERY lucrative to be able to sell the gun at a premium and get bonus money. But these guys often over-report stolen shipments and get investigated. But there are also smuggled guns that are sold via illegal vendors too. Personal connections are a common source who themselves may or may not have obtained the guns legally.

So better policing of licensed dealers could have the single greatest impact on gun related crimes. The laws in place are good ones but they aren't being enforced. Criminals don't even hold onto their guns for lengthy periods of time. So disrupting the supply chain would directly impact gun crimes. It's just that the supply chain is from people who are gaming the system rather than legal gun purchases.

Also, we should consider stricter enforcement of cases where a person's gun was found at the scene but they hadn't reported it stolen.

 

[Lightknight]

I'm saying that there is a correlation between higher populated nations with larger jurisdictions and the crime rate. A microcosm of this can be seen in large cities compared to small cities depending on the number of jurisdictions in each. You will frequently see a much higher average rates of crime in large cities (note that I said rate and not occurrence which would be obvious). Every year you will see small cities have disproportionately higher murder rates because they had a bad year, but overall the large cities will have a much higher aggregate.

To be honest, this sounds like it's going to be a variant on the old "you can't compare with anywhere else because USA is speshul" argument.

I come to you with a claim that average high populations have a statistical relationship with crime and you come back to me with a country that has a third of our population and one that specifically has one of the lowest homicide rates in the world? It's a fairly isolated island which greatly changes how things can be policed and smuggled with a social disposition towards the respect of laws and people in power (they have what's known as a high power distance which does impact crime rates). Hell, they don't really even allow foreigners to be part of their population. 98.5% Japanese? That's pretty damn isolationist especially considering that they purged (aka killed) most anyone from elsewhere in WWII. You could perhaps be making more of a case for certain homogenous populations with specific cultural practices being able to have really low crime rates than you would be making a comment about crime in the average nation. They've also managed to increase in wealth without having huge numbers of impoverished individuals which in my opinion is the biggest factor (I think poverty or perceived poverty (aka greed that is confused with need) is the number one cause of crime). They also have a social stigma on violence which we certainly don't have and 98% of their murders actually get solved.

How about you pick a country more comparable rather than clear outliers. Or, how about you figure out a way to disprove the studies showing the correlation on average rather than pointing out specific samples that don't align with the average?

What's more is that people complain about homicide rates fail to identify that a difference of 00.3% (3 people per 100,000) isn't as tremendous as we're making it out to be. We can use words like "FOUR TIMES" to sounds all scary-like but developed worlds have done a really good job at reducing homicide rates overall.

 

[CeeBod]

How about you pick a country more comparable rather than clear outliers. Or, how about you figure out a way to disprove the studies showing the correlation on average rather than pointing out specific samples that don't align with the average?

What's more is that people complain about homicide rates fail to identify that a difference of 00.3% (3 people per 100,000) isn't as tremendous as we're making it out to be. We can use words like "FOUR TIMES" to sounds all scary-like but developed worlds have done a really good job at reducing homicide rates overall.

So I guess you missed me comparing the USA with India's 1.25 billion population first then? Or China, or Indonesia - directly looking at the 4 biggest populations on earth (including the USA obviously!) seeing as your point was supposedly that high populations are highly correlated with crime rates. An average correlation analysis wouldn't be very useful as using all 200-odd countries will cause any regression analysis to rapidly approach zero - there's too much statistical noise, and including third world nations, not to mention including places where there's an active uprising or civil war doesn't seem an entirely sensible comparison.

I agree that the developed world has mostly done a pretty good job of reducing homicide rates, and the US rates have improved when compared with previous decades, but they are still amongst the worst in the developed world. I also think it's disingenuous to talk about the rates as percentages to try to make them less scary, and make the differences appear less significant than they are. The UK has a population a fifth as big as the USA. If you multiply the raw number of murders in the UK by 5 and compare that with the raw numbers for the USA (in order to compare equal populations), then there would have been 3,265 homicides in this inflated UK and 14,827 in the USA - over 4 times the number of dead people. Spin that how you want, it's still 4 times as many dead people.

As I said before, feel free to compare the US with Brazil if you want to feel that it's all just about population size, and you want to feel good about being better than someone, but if we're looking at industrialised, western, first world countries, then it's the USA that's the outlier, not the norm.

 

[andago]

How about you pick a country more comparable rather than clear outliers. Or, how about you figure out a way to disprove the studies showing the correlation on average rather than pointing out specific samples that don't align with the average?

What's more is that people complain about homicide rates fail to identify that a difference of 00.3% (3 people per 100,000) isn't as tremendous as we're making it out to be. We can use words like "FOUR TIMES" to sounds all scary-like but developed worlds have done a really good job at reducing homicide rates overall.

Then how come you used the UK and a single city in America to prove your point that restrictive gun laws won't reduce homicide rates in America as a whole? I would think that a country with an already comparatively low amount of gun related homicides would be minimally affected by restrictive gun laws. Similarly a city with no border regulations situated in a country with widespread gun ownership is hardly a convincing case study.

Furthermore using comparative numbers across countries is generally unreliable, as they only count convictions in their homicide rate. You could argue that gang related firearms death may have been drastically reduced by gun restrictive laws, but being harder to convict was never shown in official numbers. You could also argue the opposite, that gun related crime has drastically risen since restrictions were enforced, but since the guns involved are more likely to be illegally sourced, the crimes are harder to solve. Either way, it isn't really a reliable data set, and as you pointed out is hardly comparable to the US in the first place.

EDIT: I think the thing that confuses me the most is that the US is perfectly happy embargoing kinder surprise eggs with more dubious evidential reasons than they are firearms without people being up in arms over their rights, but that's purely anecdotal.

 

[Lightknight]

How about you pick a country more comparable rather than clear outliers. Or, how about you figure out a way to disprove the studies showing the correlation on average rather than pointing out specific samples that don't align with the average?

What's more is that people complain about homicide rates fail to identify that a difference of 00.3% (3 people per 100,000) isn't as tremendous as we're making it out to be. We can use words like "FOUR TIMES" to sounds all scary-like but developed worlds have done a really good job at reducing homicide rates overall.

Then how come you used the UK and a single city in America to prove your point that restrictive gun laws won't reduce homicide rates in America as a whole? I would think that a country with an already comparatively low amount of gun related homicides would be minimally affected by restrictive gun laws. Similarly a city with no border regulations situated in a country with widespread gun ownership is hardly a convincing case study.

Furthermore using comparative numbers across countries is generally unreliable, as they only count convictions in their homicide rate. You could argue that gang related firearms death may have been drastically reduced by gun restrictive laws, but being harder to convict was never shown in official numbers. You could also argue the opposite, that gun related crime has drastically risen since restrictions were enforced, but since the guns involved are more likely to be illegally sourced, the crimes are harder to solve. Either way, it isn't really a reliable data set, and as you pointed out is hardly comparable to the US in the first place.

EDIT: I think the thing that confuses me the most is that the US is perfectly happy embargoing kinder surprise eggs with more dubious evidential reasons than they are firearms without people being up in arms over their rights, but that's purely anecdotal.

I wasn't comparing those two cities. I was showing homicide statistics before and after two of the most famous gun bans were put in place. One study was from Chicago, the other was from the UK. Homicide rates are virtually unaffected by gun bans.

 

[Lightknight]

How about you pick a country more comparable rather than clear outliers. Or, how about you figure out a way to disprove the studies showing the correlation on average rather than pointing out specific samples that don't align with the average?

What's more is that people complain about homicide rates fail to identify that a difference of 00.3% (3 people per 100,000) isn't as tremendous as we're making it out to be. We can use words like "FOUR TIMES" to sounds all scary-like but developed worlds have done a really good job at reducing homicide rates overall.

So I guess you missed me comparing the USA with India's 1.25 billion population first then? Or China, or Indonesia - directly looking at the 4 biggest populations on earth (including the USA obviously!) seeing as your point was supposedly that high populations are highly correlated with crime rates. An average correlation analysis wouldn't be very useful as using all 200-odd countries will cause any regression analysis to rapidly approach zero - there's too much statistical noise, and including third world nations, not to mention including places where there's an active uprising or civil war doesn't seem an entirely sensible comparison.

I agree that the developed world has mostly done a pretty good job of reducing homicide rates, and the US rates have improved when compared with previous decades, but they are still amongst the worst in the developed world. I also think it's disingenuous to talk about the rates as percentages to try to make them less scary, and make the differences appear less significant than they are. The UK has a population a fifth as big as the USA. If you multiply the raw number of murders in the UK by 5 and compare that with the raw numbers for the USA (in order to compare equal populations), then there would have been 3,265 homicides in this inflated UK and 14,827 in the USA - over 4 times the number of dead people. Spin that how you want, it's still 4 times as many dead people.

As I said before, feel free to compare the US with Brazil if you want to feel that it's all just about population size, and you want to feel good about being better than someone, but if we're looking at industrialised, western, first world countries, then it's the USA that's the outlier, not the norm.

Are you aware that those countries are notorious for underreporting? They frequently have low numbers because there are no numbers in a lot of cases. The US has some of the best statistical collections and reporting of any nation. Most things get reported here. But our numbers will only be as good as the ones reported.

I will also say that we have many other differences. For example, a lot of murders in the US don't get convictions whereas the conviction rates in those other countries are much higher (like double). So it's also possible we just let murderers keep murdering because of a wussy legal system. But China convicts 98% of those prosecuted... Maybe if we threw nearly every person in jail that was ever arrested we would be doing just as well?

I guess the main point are that there are soooo many variables and the only examples we have of gun bans had little to no effect on homicides or even gun related homicides.

 

[Lightknight]

How about you pick a country more comparable rather than clear outliers. Or, how about you figure out a way to disprove the studies showing the correlation on average rather than pointing out specific samples that don't align with the average?

What's more is that people complain about homicide rates fail to identify that a difference of 00.3% (3 people per 100,000) isn't as tremendous as we're making it out to be. We can use words like "FOUR TIMES" to sounds all scary-like but developed worlds have done a really good job at reducing homicide rates overall.

So I guess you missed me comparing the USA with India's 1.25 billion population first then? Or China, or Indonesia - directly looking at the 4 biggest populations on earth (including the USA obviously!) seeing as your point was supposedly that high populations are highly correlated with crime rates. An average correlation analysis wouldn't be very useful as using all 200-odd countries will cause any regression analysis to rapidly approach zero - there's too much statistical noise, and including third world nations, not to mention including places where there's an active uprising or civil war doesn't seem an entirely sensible comparison.

I agree that the developed world has mostly done a pretty good job of reducing homicide rates, and the US rates have improved when compared with previous decades, but they are still amongst the worst in the developed world. I also think it's disingenuous to talk about the rates as percentages to try to make them less scary, and make the differences appear less significant than they are. The UK has a population a fifth as big as the USA. If you multiply the raw number of murders in the UK by 5 and compare that with the raw numbers for the USA (in order to compare equal populations), then there would have been 3,265 homicides in this inflated UK and 14,827 in the USA - over 4 times the number of dead people. Spin that how you want, it's still 4 times as many dead people.

As I said before, feel free to compare the US with Brazil if you want to feel that it's all just about population size, and you want to feel good about being better than someone, but if we're looking at industrialised, western, first world countries, then it's the USA that's the outlier, not the norm.

Are you aware that those countries are notorious for underreporting? They frequently have low numbers because there are no numbers in a lot of cases. The US has some of the best statistical collections and reporting of any nation. Most things get reported here. But our numbers will only be as good as the ones reported.

Few countries are worse reporters of gun crimes than the U.S., which notably often fails to centrally report and collate officer involved shootings for god's sake. You tried to a common tactic, you were busted, no need to keep going with it.

Got citation?

 

[andago]

I wasn't comparing those two cities. I was showing homicide statistics before and after two of the most famous gun bans were put in place. One study was from Chicago, the other was from the UK. Homicide rates are virtually unaffected by gun bans.

My point is that neither are comparable to what a gun restriction would change in the US. The UK's statistics are provably unreliable with regards to homicide rates as I pointed out in my previous post, and using Chicago as a relevant statistic when discussing the potential effect of gun laws in the US as a whole is just as troublesome. The US itself is such a statistical outlier with regards to widespread gun ownership that it isn't really comparable at all.

What you did is no different from others saying Australia had a massive downward trend in the amount of mass shootings since they enforced stricter firearm licensing, therefore the US would as well. It is a completely endogenous statistic that has no reflection on relevant social conditions.

How much did gun ownership actually change in Chicago, and did rise or drop again in the following years? How easy was the import and export of firearms into the city from the surrounding country? How much did social attitudes towards guns change in the aftermath of the ban and did that change with time? Was there any difference in policing before and after the ban? Was there a large change in organized crime statistics in Chicago? Then question how many of these and other factors would be the same on a national scale? Could you even compare the rates of crime and gun ownership between Chicago, and the Southern United States relevantly?

I was just suggesting that none of the comparisons are really apt, including the two you used to back up your point.

 

[AgedGrunt]

I find it weird that a lot of these shooters do this because a woman won't fuck them. it's like they think women only exist to be a fuck toy to them. I kind of wondered why they think that.

ps. This question is coming from a 20 year old virgin, attention whore.

Well, this would be one of the reasons why people keep talking about toxic masculinity.

Off the top of my head I can think of one mass shooting that involved a male that was mentally ill and distressed over success with women, where that reason drove them to it. Can either of you reference the "lot of these (mass) shooters" where this is the case? I'll give this a chance to be taken seriously, but I feel like I'm about to question Anita Sarkeesian.

Half of every movie you've ever seen ends with the guy ending up with some hot girl (personality optional) as his reward for being at least somewhat less evil than Hitler. That is, every male is entitled to his fucktoy.

I don't see a break where there isn't made-up hyperbolic nonsense. Are you linking films to shootings, or saying that they make guys into entitled losers that evolve into mass killers when their stories don't end with them getting their hot fuck toy rewards for not being an asshole in life? Either way you should just stop.

Assuming you are male, if you tell people you are a virgin, you'll stand a good chance of being met with derision and scorn, because any male past early teens that isn't a virgin is a pathetic loser, or so we are led to believe.

This is a societal problem, something both sexes can judge negatively and it's even something that exists in both sexes, though with women it's far more complicated. Nevertheless, it's a totally different discussion.

Your other link to a recent US shooting was a different kind of event in which a fight broke out and someone pulled a gun. One shooting is not the same as another, despite what far left blogs and radical ideology might be suggesting to you.

At the end of the day, its a democracy. If the majority of Americans are voting in representatives who don't want to control guns like any other sensible country let them shoot the shit out of each other.

I believe that the majority of US citizens support further regulation (to some extent), they just don't have political power.

Oh i wouldn't be surprised in the least if thats the case, as most human beings are sensible. Its just they've had so many years to get this right and im bored of hearing about it. I can only imagine how Americans who have been fighting for common sense feel.

I can't think of any other country which ties its patriotism into having guns as much as America. It just comes across as fuckin stupid. "it's mu gun and if anyone takes it away it makes me feel unamerican and bad" "murica pew-pew"

You know that look and feeling that British people get when an American tries a British accent and starts talking of tea and crumpets and how la-dee-dah it is to be English? That feeling. I feel like I'm going to repeat myself a lot if I go on making more replies, but you should just stop.