The Back Alley Archives

In the wake of the Aurora shootings back in July, some social scientist came up with this:

http://www.kieranhealy.org/blog/archive ... t-country/




This is the per capita number of deaths arising out of assault - including both gun- and non-gun-related deaths, in comparison to other "developed" countries. I think this is highly relevant to the current gun control debate.

In another post, he breaks it down by state and region, and ultimately by race:

The story here is depressing. Blacks die from assault at more than three times the U.S. average, and between ten and twenty times OECD rates. In the 2000s the average rate of death from assault in the U.S. was about 5.7 per 100,000 but for whites it was 3.6 and for blacks it was over 20. Even 3.6 per 100,000 is still well above the OECD-24 average, which–if we exclude the U.S.–was about 1.1 deaths per 100,000 during the 2000s, with amaximumvalue of 2.9. An average value of 20 is just astronomical. And this is after a long period of decline in the death rate from assault.

While that is disturbing, we can't blame all our problems on black people. As he points out, even American white people cause each others' deaths by assault at a rate that is more than triple the average of other developed nations.

So what's the dealio, yo? Is it because we tend to attack each other with guns rather than pointed sticks, resulting in more deaths than non-fatal injuries? Are we just more violent?

Guns are certainly more efficient at ripping flesh and organs than other instruments of attack, especially ones that have bullets traveling 4000 feet per second. I'd be interested in the number of assaults in each country whether the ended in death or not.

Speaking of violence, this was on the street behind ours:

http://www.jacksonville.com/news/crime/ ... d-edgewood

[quote=TheTodd]Guns are certainly more efficient at ripping flesh and organs than other instruments of attack, especially ones that have bullets traveling 4000 feet per second. I'd be interested in the number of assaults in each country whether the ended in death or not.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, he addresses that in his comments. Data on crime reporting in the various countries is not consistently collected, so it's difficult to really know if you're comparing apples to apples.

[quote=TheTodd]Speaking of violence, this was on the street behind ours:

http://www.jacksonville.com/news/crime/ ... d-edgewood[/QUOTE]

Didn't know you lived in Murray Hill. Don't know anything about that part of town except the old TV ads for Murray Hill Motors:

Murray Hill Motors,
Used cars for less,
Selection and value,
We pass the test!

But back to the topic at hand: you all know I'm very pro-individual-gun-rights. But at the same time, I can really understand the anti-gun reaction to events like Friday's. I'm still sick to my stomach when I think of it.

That's why I think it's important to consider data like this guy has put together - I think it pretty clearly shows that as a society, the USA has a culture of violence. I don't think it's easy to explain it, either. I'm loathe to blame video games, guns or the media. I do think that a certain part of it has to be blamed on the War on Drugs, but if I remember right, I think Canada has similar anti-drug policies and they don't see the drug-related violence we do.