Looking for murder stats - US is more violent in general? Punching?

[akodo]

I remember bumping across an argument that the US has such high homicide rates not because we are awash in guns but because we as a country are just more violent, and then data was shown that our murder rate for punching/kicking was higher than other countries.

I am having zero luck finding this again. I don't remember what countries they were comparing to the USA. Any help?

 

[milsurpguy]

It's 5 per 100,000. Probably higher for 2020.
That's a lot higher other developed countries, but other countries are the size of some of our states and don't have the drug and gang violence raging almost unchecked.
The anti gun people will try to make everything about gun deaths, until you point out that the blue states with the strictest gun laws are where the majority of the murders happen.

 

[Spats McGee]

I don't know where to find other countries' data, but data for the US can be found in the FBI's Uniform Crime Statistics.

 

[danez71]

I remember bumping across an argument that the US has such high homicide rates not because we are awash in guns but because we as a country are just more violent, and then data was shown that our murder rate for punching/kicking was higher than other countries.

I am having zero luck finding this again. I don't remember what countries they were comparing to the USA. Any help?

Here's the link up to 2019. It's for the US.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u....019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls

 

[CapnMac]

Never forget the adage: "Lies, Dam' Lies, & Statistics."

Remove the crime stats for the 5 largest US Cities and the US barely make the top 50 countries for "gun violence."

Helps to "cherry pick" the data, too--using only "developed" nation data allows skipping over, say, Honduras, which is a frighteningly violent place (as in you are safer in Detroit).

This can be spun in so many ways, it's dizzying.

 

[denton]

If you rank countries from best to worst, the US is right in the middle. We do not have a particularly high homicide rate, nor an exemplary low rate. Wikipedia has the data. Out of 230 countries reported, the US ranks 137th.

You do have to take the numbers with a grain of salt, though. Some countries do better at reporting than others. You can look at Malaysia at 2.11, and Indonesia at .4, and wonder how two nations with the same religion, culture, and language report such different numbers. Russian numbers were terrible, and then abruptly dropped for no apparent reason. If you believe the Chinese numbers, I have a bridge for sale in Brooklyn.

 

[1942bull]

I am with @CapnMac on this one. He wrote “Never forget the adage: "Lies, Dam' Lies, & Statistics.”

 

[Biker]

Or, as my old man used to say - figures lie and liars figure.

Mick

 

[CapnMac]

He wrote

Well, we used to joke that STAT 610 should have been titled "How to Make Your Research Mean What You Want it to" but "Graduate Statistics" was a lot shorter. []

 

[danez71]

I am with @CapnMac on this one. He wrote “Never forget the adage: "Lies, Dam' Lies, & Statistics.”

32% of people know that statistics are only about 68% meaningful.

 

[ApacheCoTodd]

I remember bumping across an argument that the US has such high homicide rates not because we are awash in guns but because we as a country are just more violent, and then data was shown that our murder rate for punching/kicking was higher than other countries.

I am having zero luck finding this again. I don't remember what countries they were comparing to the USA. Any help?

Remember that *murder* as well as all crime "statistics" are compiled by agenda driven organizations to already reach the conclusion desired by the contemporary; agency, body or organization.

The definitions and applicational parameters of; murder, assault, theft.... as well as categories of *victimhood* shift about as fast as a politician's promises.

Experts say that statistics have a 50/50 chance of being accurate, though there's only a 10 percent chance of that. Thanks here go to to Cpt. Ed Hocken.

Todd.

 

[Jim Watson]

Remove the crime stats for the 5 largest US Cities and the US barely make the top 50 countries for "gun violence."

Ethnicity matters, too. We WASPs are no more violent than those in the Civilized Countries of the Old World. I think some of those CCotOW are learning about that from their gastarbeiters and "refugees."

 

[Rockrivr1]

I was watching the BBC a couple weeks ago and there was a small riot that included a shooting in some crap hole in the UK that they were reporting on. The person doing the report finished off by saying that these are the kinds of things we hear about in the US all the time, but not here in the UK. Hummmm. Would seem we have a reputation.....

 

[denton]

Yes, we do have a reputation.

Sitting at dinner one evening in Sweden, I flatly stated that the US is not a particularly violent place, and my friends all laughed at the idea. Then I pulled out the actual numbers, and they were surprised.

I think that a lot of the reputation comes from our TV and movies, which tend to be very violent. That entertainment is consumed worldwide.

 

[Ignition Override]

The OP mentioned "punching", "kicking". I have no idea about any statistics.
With a thug's serious punching or grabbing/choking, you would need both arms to block the next punches or loosen a grab then try to counterpunch/elbow/kick or escape.
* -- No third hand to reach for a carry gun.--

You can do something about a lack of training,-- try several classes for Free -- even though the odds are very slim that you will ever be attacked if you mind your own business.

My twice/week Krav Maga self-defense class attendance began in mid - 2019, then age 64. Check the basics on Youtube. Very organized and controlled, using strike "shields".

denton: "Conny", a former coworker from Sweden had his family come for a visit to the Memphis TN area.
At first, they could not understand why many people decide to carry guns - but after some drives inside the city, they told Conny that they understood.

 

[shafter]

Or, as my old man used to say - figures lie and liars figure.

Mick

I heard it a little different. "Figures don't lie, but liars can figure."

 

[whisler]

Then there are such things as statistics for children being murdered where children are defined as 19 Y.O. and younger. I wonder how many gang members are 18-19 Y.O.
Also didn't realize that we allowed "children" to join the armed forces.

 

[ozarkhillbilly]

What I find interesting is looking at a countries death rate. That measures death for any reason an all of a sudden the United States drops to the middle of the pack for western countries. Take any country that has enacted gun control and you might find that firearms deaths go down but the death rate does not change.

 

[webrx]

Quoting an old post:

As my grandpa used to say, "One should never let the truth get in the way of a good story".

You can't push an anti 2A agenda or that strict gun laws work using real data, Chicago is a prime example of this, so, they have to deflect the blame on something/someplace else to stay on agenda, that is how it has been for a lot of years and for a lot of topics and for a very long time.

This is why people should do their own research.
DON'T trust my research, don't trust the media, do your own research.

Quick Stats I have found from 2016 CDC and US Department of Justice Data:

~ 35k annual gun deaths in 2016
65% Suicide
15% law enforcement in the line of duty
17% criminal activity (gangs, drugs, initiations, etc)
3% accidental discharge

So 35k is actually more like ~6k actual "gun violence" (~17% of 35K)
(note 40,000+ died from a drug overdose that year, and 36k died from car accidents)

6k (17% of 6k):
701 Los Angeles (11.7%)
480 in Chicago (8%)
344 in Batimore (6%)
333 in Detroit (6%)
119 in Washington DC (2%)

About 1/3 = 33% of all gun violence happens in 5 major cities (not states) all of these cities are in states with very strict gun laws

This basically leaves 4000 for the entire rest of the nation, ~80 deaths per state on average.
NOTE: That is an average because some States have much higher rates than others. For example, California, a strict gun law state, had 1,169 deaths and Alabama had 1.

To add to this, statistics can be manipulated to say what you want just by setting the right criteria.

Murders are always represented as number per 10,000 or 100,000 or 1 million people, not usually, but it is there if you look for it, total number by city.

This allows you to make a city like Salisbury North Carolina (Ranked #9) which has a population of 34k and 14 "murders", look more dangerous in the rankings than a city like Chicago (Ranked 24th) which had 765 "murders" but has a population of 2.7 million people.

Similarly, mass murders are defined as any murder where 4 or more people are killed by one or more shooters - it used to say not include "gang violence" in this category, but not any longer because it is too hard to accurately determine if there was a gang relationship to a murder.

D

 

[CapnMac]

Then there are such things as statistics for children being murdered where children are defined as 19 Y.O. and younger. I wonder how many gang members are 18-19 Y.O.

Was at least one that included "children" aged 13-22. Yes twenty-two. (Kind of makes it obvious they were harvesting tax dependents to create the data set, and glossing over all the potential mismatches in doing so--a common problem when you come to a conclusion before assembling the data.)

To this point, "gang members" ought to include ages down to around 12-13, when "shorties" get recruited (this is why high school "gang interventions" are so hugely unsuccessful kids are joining in middle school & dropping out).

Mind, given the numbers of places that "press gang" children as young as 10 into "militia" bands (usually right after making them orphans by slaughtering their parents) around the word complicates the data.

 

[rabid wombat]

Remove the crime stats for the 5 largest US Cities and the US barely make the top 50 countries for "gun violence."

In support of @CapnMac, read the following...

https://crimeresearch.org/2017/04/n...54-us-counties-2014-zero-murders-69-1-murder/

 

[reddog81]

Murders are always represented as number per 10,000 or 100,000 or 1 million people, not usually, but it is there if you look for it, total number by city.

This allows you to make a city like Salisbury North Carolina (Ranked #9) which has a population of 34k and 14 "murders", look more dangerous in the rankings than a city like Chicago (Ranked 24th) which had 765 "murders" but has a population of 2.7 million people.

That's not necessarily being manipulative. In Chicago there are many neighborhoods larger than 34K that see no homicides in a given year. There are a few real bad areas of Chicago and many areas that are actually pretty safe. The areas with no murders just don't make the news.

 

[Spats McGee]

Then there are such things as statistics for children being murdered where children are defined as 19 Y.O. and younger. I wonder how many gang members are 18-19 Y.O.
Also didn't realize that we allowed "children" to join the armed forces.

And this is why we should all read the "definitions" section of every study we want to use.

 

[CapnMac]

And this is why we should all read the "definitions" section of every study we want to use.

Amen

and many areas that are actually pretty safe. The areas with no murders just don't make the news.

Which, as above goes to the rigors, the difficulties in creating a dataset. Whether the data is from a single source, or from multiple sources, they need correlation. And that correlation needs documenting.

So, yes, a "small" city in Cook County probably does not well match one in, say, Jefferson. Similar issues arise with the various polities in and near NYC. The NYC metro area has about 20 millions in it--or equal to about 80% of the population of Texas. Ditto the LA area which has several hundred towns & municipalities within its reach.

If you don't account for these things, you cannot even begin to make a fair and honest study of the data within.

 

[webrx]

That's not necessarily being manipulative. In Chicago there are many neighborhoods larger than 34K that see no homicides in a given year. There are a few real bad areas of Chicago and many areas that are actually pretty safe. The areas with no murders just don't make the news.

I wholeheartedly agree with you that there are many areas in Chicago that are not as bad as others. Not arguing that at all. what I am saying is there were over 765 people killed in Chicago, vs 14 in another small town and the other town has a higher "Murder rate". even though 751 less people were murdered there due to using the Rate vs the total number of people murdered. So while the data isn't lying, it is manipulating the "message".


Also, going along with manipulating the message, I live in Reno, a lot less people get murdered in Reno than in Las Vegas, but, I am still part of Nevada so we get lumped into the "Nevada" group we are listed as 27th, middle of the pack when you look at 2019 Murder rate with a rating of 4.6. In 2019 the news said murders in Clark county (Las Vegas) Plummeted to 144 out of a population of 634k people living in Clark county. There were 12 murdered in Reno population around 450K people. Interesting that most stats show there were a total of 143 murders in Nevada in 2019 - when did 144 + 12 equal 143, and what about the rest of the state? There is more to Nevada than Clark county and Reno.

Also, if you sort by total murders not murder rate, Nevada ends up at 32nd with a 4.6 murder rate not 26th. There is a difference of 318 dead people or 76 delta between 26 and 32 those positions and the states between them are Washington, New Mexico, Wisconsin, DC, and Massachusetts.

Interesting enough, sorting by murder rate, DC has the highest at 23.5 with 166 murders and California, with a murder rate of 4.3 (lower than Nevada) has the most murders by state at 1690. While Illinois is at 6.6 and 832 murders.

So, what are the stats really telling us? What do you want the stats to tell you, one way California is safer then Nevada and DC, another DC is the worst, California can be displayed as the largest number of murders or 24th on the list if you go by rate.

The total number murdered in a state or city, the Rate of people murdered in a state or city, the ranking of that state by total or by rate, etc.

Here is the link I used of Wikipedia (not the most reliable I know, but this is supposedly sourced from the FBI - Crimes in the US database)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_intentional_homicide_rate

Yes, you can manipulate the message.

If you ask yourself prior to reading this what is the worst state for murders in the US, you might think Illinois, or DC, but the truth is California has more total murders than either of those based on this chart, followed by Texas and Florida.

d