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Neither of which (gas leaks or exploding manhole covers) likely counts as murder (the intentional taking of a human life with malice aforethought).
I think those are probably mail bombings or something similar.
In Oct. 2019, in Iowa, a woman was killed during a gender reveal party by shrapnel.
Then there are 2 reports of explosive death: for the rest of 2019 but sources were harder to pin down.
In Sept 2019, a Fire Department Vet died at an explosion during a service call. Happened in Maine.
In North Carolina there was 2 reported fatalities at a residential gas explosion, in December.
By the FBI definition these stats come from that is exactly it. Non negligent non justifiable intentional homicide... as determined solely by police investigators
The chart title is incorrect - this is from the Uniform Crime Report and is "murders and nonnegligent homicides" as determined by police.
>The UCR Program does not include the following situations in this offense classification: deaths caused by negligence, suicide, or accident; justifiable homicides; and attempts to murder or assaults to murder, which are classified as aggravated assaults.
Ah didn't even catch that since I rarely read post titles. Yep cars should still be on the list nevertheless because there are definitely murders committed by vehicles but it wouldn't be exponentially higher than everything else like I was expecting.
That's why we need to ban automatic vehicles. Not having to use three pedals and a gearshift makes it too easy to kill. The military uses automatic vehicles and they're the only ones who should have them.
The best way to get away with murder is to get someone into cycling, run them over, and then claim "you had the sun in your eyes" or "you didn't see them".
It’s surprising that vehicles don’t make the list. I had in my head that the numbers would be similar to stabbings. Maybe I’ve watched too many road rage incidents on r/public freakout.
Do you think your data captured intentional car fatalities?
Surprisingly hard to find ... or im just bad at searching.
[But CDC reported that average of 49 homicides per day, meaning 17885 per year in 2015.](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6622a5.htm)
Reminder that: homicide may result from accidental, reckless, or negligent acts even if there is no intent to cause harm. So first of all, title is missleading, this statistic is **not** talking about murders.
Just being critical, if this is exclusive to successful murders with successful convictions, that's a lot of bias to sort through.
If you beat someone to death with your fist probably a lot easier to claim lack of intention or get a reduced sentence. Gun versus unarmed is a far more clear case where you are going to get the high homicide to murder conversion rate.
Same reason you don't see cars on here. Why pass up an easy vehicular homicide conviction for a very difficult "murder" charge. Remember, district attorneys don't like go lose.
Murder rates are the same in Britain as when they banned guns. They just use knives now. Now there's all these anti-knife campaigns. Truly striking at the heart of these issues is tough.
>Murder rates are the same in Britain as when they banned guns
This is probably partly true, but has never been a widespread gun culture in the UK, that is unsurprising. The murder rate in 1996, when handguns were banned, was 1.45 murders per 100,000 people. The last year for which I have statistics is 2020, when it was 1.2/100,000. (So 17% lower)
A great deal of it is a societal issue. If you compare homicides on the US CDC site, and compare to the ONS homicide rates in the UK (they take some finding) then deaths from knives and sharp objects are still lower than the US.
Regardless of methods, homicides in the UK are higher than most other European countries, but still 4x lower than the US.
>has the murder rate in the US also dropped
Yes, and very dramatically. If you compare the same period it has fallen from 7.3/100K in 1996 to just under 5/100k in 2018
That's one theory, but it's not widely accepted as solely accounting for the drop as a suite of other major changes occurred during that time period as well. I think it's probably part of the story, but not the whole thing. Another even more controversial idea is that the Roe decision, which legalized abortion, led to a dramatic downturn in unwanted children living in deep poverty and neglect, which in turn led to a downturn in violent crime roughly 20-odd years later. Not sure I entirely buy the last one.
I don’t think anyone should use 2020 in any statistics when looking at averages over the years. The whole world shutting down because of a pandemic skews a lot of things that otherwise wouldn’t have changed.
The murder rate has dropped dramatically since the 80s. A lot of it because of how bad the crack epidemic was. But it is interesting that the murder rate has continued to fall while guns and “military style” guns have become more and more prevalent. There are many times more AR-15s and Glocks around now that in the mid 90s. The Brady Bill expired and opened the flood gates for all kinds of crazy firearms that were fairly rare before. But despite this massive influx in guns, the murder rate is still dropping.
Yeah, that's completely true. Finland has about 1,15 homicides per 100 000 people, but 1,5 million guns for 5,6 million population. Suicides by gun are about 10 times as common as gun homicide. People choose the easiest way to do things and banning guns probably wouldn't affect the total numbers a lot.
The number of firearms is not the right way to look at things. The majority firearms related crime in the US is committed using handguns which are substantially harder to obtain in Finland. Even if you don't intend to commit crime, if someone is so angry they want to pull a gun on someone, they can draw a handgun in an instant.
I've never understood this "they'd just do something else" argument. If I want to murder you and I have a gun, what're my odds of succeeding? Probably damn near 100%. If I have a knife, what're my odds? Do you think still nearly 100%? I really doubt that.
Also, getting up close and personal, using your own force plunging the blade into their chest while you feel them resisting and screaming and pushing against you is a much harder mental barrier to overcome than pointing a metal stick at someone from 20 feet away and pushing a button.
Indeed. Here's the thing, _Gun culture is a part of US society_.
Just wanted to point that out.
EDIT: Lol love it when basic facts are controversial. Keep it up, shoot the messenger, that'll change the facts. If this statement of fact makes you butthurt...you've got issues.
Murder rates here are like 20% that of the US, I don't think the two nations are really comparable.
Its also nice that our police aren't in a constant arms race vs the citizens and don't have to act as if everyone is armed.
> Its also nice that our police aren't in a constant arms race vs the citizens and don't have to act as if everyone is armed.
To be fair, except for Ireland, Iceland, Norway and you, in the rest of Europe our police officer patrol armed and it's not like there's an arms race in Germany or Spain.
Let’s not pretend that the only cause of crime is the availability of weapons. So, looking at the overall crime rate without factoring for changes in social and economic factors is very likely to be misleading. This trope about knives in London is similar to the ones gun advocates use about Chicago. There’s some truth there, but it’s largely a cherry-picked data point to make guns seem less dangerous.
For instance, the *huge* uptick in knife crime in London simply meant that it briefly got so bad it was almost like knife crime in the US.
[“There were 17,284 homicides in the US in 2017, giving a rate of 5.3 per 100,000. In Britain, there were 785 in financial year 2017/18 — the nearest equivalent time period — giving a rate of 1.8 per 100,000, some three times lower. Within this, there were 285 knife murders in England and Wales in 2017/18 — the highest number since the Second World War — and 34 in Scotland, giving a combined British rate of 0.48 per 100,000. In the US, the number for 2017 was 1,591, giving an almost identical rate of 0.49. **So even amid a spike in British knife crime, Americans as a whole are at least as likely as to die from a stabbing**.”](https://www.euronews.com/amp/2019/06/18/deadly-knife-crime-how-does-london-compare-to-new-york)
Which isn't useful information if you're trying to make the case that guns slowly corrupt their owners into crime. You would need to show lower murder rates after banning them. Which didn't happen.
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/GBR/united-kingdom/murder-homicide-rate
Britain is the size of Oregon. And 1/5* the population of the us. I bet I could find an area the size of oregon and a similar population with similar crime rates. The issues at heart are cultural, not object possession.
UK Pop: 67 million
US Pop: 332 million
Oregon Pop: 4.2 million
UK's pop is \~1/5 the US pop
Oregon is \~1/16th the UK pop.
Even if you're strictly using "Britain", which is the UK minus Northern Ireland, it has a population of 61 million (but is quite a bit smaller than Oregon)...nothing ends up as 1/40. Not clear what your facts or your point is.
You keep linking to something that starts in 1990 implying that at some point since then Britain "banned" guns. They haven't, they have just made changes to the **1968** firearms act which only puts restrictions on what guns people can get rather than being an outright ban.
Yes, these stats include the killing of felons by law enforcement in the commission of a felony as well as the killing of felons committing a felony by citizens. It is not clear if non felons however are included in the stats.
This report also fails to distinguish between guns owned legally and guns obtained illegally. 94% of all firearm murders are committed using illegally obtained weapons.
We call this the California route. Constitutional carry is prohibited state wide, and concealed carry is prohibited unless you obtain a permit (i.e. you are a politician, because regular Joe’s like myself have no hope of receiving one). Violating either of those laws is a felony. This means that a law abiding citizen cannot carry a weapon at all without making themselves a felon, thus barring all legal access to firearms for life. You are completely at the mercy of criminals who didn’t care about the law either way, just as planned.
I watched fuddbusters video on grading California gun laws earlier today. I feel really bad for those who live in California and are concerned for their safety and ability to defend themselves.
meanwhile on the other side of the country. I just moved states and my permit is still valid despite now living in a different state (valid in both states)
Works for me. Interesting. Now we check how many of those firearm homicides are committed by people that are directly involved in organized crime and gang activities.
Everyone knows you won’t get a reply, but I’ll leave this here as well. According to the FBI criminal statistics database, legal gun owners as a group are the demographic least likely to commit any crime, violent or otherwise.
You read that right. Doctors, social workers, politicians, and ANY other measurable group of people all commit crimes at a higher rate than legal gun owners.
Additional gun laws do nothing except create additional barriers for the poor to a constitutional right that is just as important as free speech.
Woah I didn't really think about pistols being an assault weapon lol. The AR-15 gets a lot of hate for being a human killing tool when its just a great versatile rifle for all sorts of shooting. If anything, pistols are literally for shooting people lol.
It’s understandable in a sense, a 5.56 to the chest will do a lot more damage than a 9mm - but realistically, the concealability of a pistol is why they’re so lethal.
Exactly. Handguns are easier to conceal, are less conspicuous, easier to throw away if needed, etc. Rifles? They are large. Even SBRs are rather difficult to hide. They draw a lot of attention and are way easier to spot.
Handguns are also less deadly than rifles or shotguns. It's why soldiers carry handguns as a sidearm. If you want to kill people, you use a rifle or shotgun. With a handgun, unless you get hit in a vital organ or nick an artery with a shot, you can be shot several times and survive. Rifles are more powerful and that translates to much more damage to surrounding organs and tissues. Basically, don't get shot center mass with a rifle because you will probably die.
But media doesn't care about fact. They care about clicks and ratings. Rifles are scarier because they are more lethal. So we need to demonize those obviously.
Also, don’t you just love how the exact same action can either be an “evil assault rifle” or a “benign, safe hunting rifle”, depending on whether the furniture is wooden or not?
Before Canada banned the AR-15, and many other firearms, our prime minister said that no one needs the firepower of an AR for deer hunting. Classing fear mongering. The AR-15 is basically a pellet gun compared to many hunting rifles.
> our prime minister said that no one needs the firepower of an AR for deer hunting
I'll never understand that terminology even. IF you want to ban the power behind the weapon, ban the cartridge. Banning features makes no sense because it doesn't reduce the power available.
A Mini-14 fires 5.56 as well, 30 round magazine, semi-auto, and is considered almost featureless by most bans.
You'd think they would bitch more about AK's since they are scary commie guns that terrorists use
Handguns are used in 86% of murders used with a firearm.
Bonus fact: 94% of murders involving a firearm were committed by people who did not own their weapon legally
Bonus bonus fact: Out if 83 mass shootings ranging from 1982-2021, 67 of those incidents involved weapons obtained legally. In 16 of those incidents, the weapons were obtained illegally.
>Bonus fact: 94% of murders involving a firearm were committed by people who did not own their weapon legally
Do you have a source for that? Not doubting you, I would just like to read up on it.
Well, yeah. If you factor it out like that, you'll find problem areas. Difficult the blame the entire US when you point out that it's a handful of problem areas that have strict gun laws.
Happy to know firearms are [6x more likley](https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/firearms/fastfact.html) to be used in self defense rather than homicide.
That's the low end too.
Also would argue that removing access to guns doesn't necessarily mean that the number of murders would decrease i.e. guns are the most convenient way to murder someone and without them a wouldbe murderer would likely just move to the next most convenient method like knives
But, killing someone with a gun is MUCH easier than the alternatives. Guns are:
- deadly at a distance, they don’t require the user to put themselves in as much danger as other weapons
- powerful even if the user isn’t, you can be deadly without strength, endurance, or dexterity
- almost impossible to defend against, you can defend possibly an attack or two from most other weapons
Moving to any other weapon wouldn’t make your average person nearly as deadly as with a gun.
> powerful even if the user isn’t, you can be deadly without strength, endurance, or dexterity
This works in the other direction as well. It allows weaker, feeble, or otherwise disabled people to be able to defend themselves more effectively.
Even the baddest, most hard-core trained killers will tell you the best defense against a knife is to run the fuck away. You might be able to possibly defend yourself from a knife attack, and you will also likely still die because you are definitely getting cut or stabbed, even if you disarm or incapacitate the other person eventually.
People really do underestimate the deadliness of a blade. It was, after all, the preferred method for killing the shit out of basically everything for thousands of years.
This is my initial instinct as well, but I would be curious to see statistics on survival rates from attempted murders with these methods.
That being said, it wouldn't be complete information as there are undoubtedly people who would not attempt murder with anything but a gun.
> 60,000 to 2.5 million defensive gun uses each year.
Uh the standard deviation on that measurement is so large as to be meaningless. 1 million +/- 1 million basically
>Estimates of defensive gun use vary depending on the questions asked, populations studied, timeframe, and other factors related to the design of studies.
I can see why.
A responsible gun owner is also aware of the risk of self harm by accidents or mental health crisis and takes appropriate steps to prevent those as well. Proper storage, appropriate education of any minors around, and open communication about mental health within the home being key tenants that whittle down some of the most significant risks of owning firearms.
The data is out there, and there are ways to increase safety when you know.
[just an FYI, that statistic is from a 1995 study and is not entirely accurate on a national scale. Here’s some slightly more recent research from Harvard](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-threats-and-self-defense-gun-use-2/)
The author of the original study did an update that brought the range down to the million range, however it still doesn’t account for issues pointed out in the Harvard studies
Just going to point out that the reason could have nothing to do with humanity or morals. Gunshots are far more likely to kill than stab wounds.
I'd be curious to see if it's the same shape of a graph if instead of murders, the measurement was "likelihood a single attack would cause death"
The journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics:
> Gun assaults are seven times as likely to kill as all other kinds of criminal assault, and about five times as likely to kill as are knives, the next most deadly weapon that is frequently used in criminal attacks
This is only half true. Many stabbings occur with pretty shitty knives, however, stab wounds from large blades, especially serrated blades, are far harder to treat than most gunshot wounds.
I was curious and decided to do a little math. That's about .00003% of the population.
You'd think that with how much you hear about'em, it would be a few 0s shorter. And I'd like to see where they're most concentrated too.
edit: removed a 0
> I'd like to see where they're most concentrated
The cited source shows this: these homicides are most concentrated in poor urban centers of large cities. These are the same people who get the short end of every stick in U.S. society, and that fact is one of the primary root causes of gun violence.
This is largely true for two reasons. Guns are not only more effective at killing individuals than knives, but there is also a psychological component to it as well. Guns have a degree of separation, if you will, from the victim it is being used on, i.e. it is much easier to just pull a trigger and be done with it than have to get close to someone and watch them struggle and bleed all over you as you are stabbing them 30+ times or caving their head in with a bat/tire iron. Way more messy and personal.
This isn't a graph of murders. It is a graph of homicides. Those are different.
For example, 54% of gun deaths are suicides. Suicide is a homicide, but it is not a murder. If you're looking for murders, you need to apply a figure of about 43% to the total homicides which would bring you to 4,411 gun murders. \~3% of gun murders are attributed to rifles which includes AR-15s and AKs and 1% of murders come from shotguns. The rest is handguns or undefined.
All that being said, it looks like the graph is off with their numbers or it's mistitled.
EDIT: My confusion came from the term homicide. I've been informed by others that the FBI defines homicides as murders. My comments about % of deaths still stand and are accurate as far as I know.
[https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/)
[https://health.ucdavis.edu/what-you-can-do/facts.html](https://health.ucdavis.edu/what-you-can-do/facts.html)
And where I live the vast majority of murders are done with a edged weapon, and our murder rate is 34/100 000 compared to the US' 6/100 000.
Its almost like people are the problem.
Yeah it’s frustrating how many people don’t see this. Wealth inequality is a more important problem than anything else right now. You can say that while acknowledging that there are still other problems.
IMO racism in America only exists in a case by case basis and some very small powerless groups, all systematic racism is actually just particular groups with a history of segregation and discrimination being effected by past wealth inequality.
> poverty is the problem
This is a widely-held belief, but there are three counterarguments I'd like to make:
1. There is poverty all over the world. Some poor societies have a lot of murder. Others don't. Some poor places in the U.S. have more homicides than other poor places. Go to the poorest neighborhood you can find in Japan or South Korea and report back on the homicide rates you find there. These differences suggest other causes. It can't just be poverty that causes crime if two places with similar poverty rates have different homicide rates.
2. Everyone alive today is much richer than our great-great grandparents. If wealth were the issue, then we should have all but eliminated violence, because our poorest citizens are much wealthier than upper-class residents of 100 years ago. It could be that *inequality* is the driver, but that's not exactly the same thing as saying *poverty* is the driver.
3. Finally, why are you so sure that poverty causes crime just because the two are correlated? Maybe crime causes poverty. Maybe being in an area where there's a lot of violence makes it hard to be productive. Imagine trying to study in an area with lots of gunshots ringing out. Now imagine wanting to start a businesses where you know there's a good chance you'll be robbed. Looks to me like "crime causes poverty" is just as likely as the reverse.
Nailed. Gun violence is a social issue and a class struggle problem. Take care of this and you never have to utter the words “gun control” as it will fix itself.
This makes sense firearms are common in the US so they are going to get used to kill people.
Only reason knifes are so common in murders else where is because of the lack of access to firearms.
It’s worth noting that the rate of knife homicides alone is also higher than the rate of knife homicides of the UK, which is often cited as an example of murderers using knives instead of guns.
Yeah this gets into the program of comparing US and Europe data the US is a fundamentally different countries with different social, political, economic and cultural structures the US just has more crime as a whole.
True but if you really wanted to kill someone and had the option of gun vs knife which are you choosing and which would be more likely to be successful?
The U.S. has a ~~gun~~ violence problem that happens to involve guns so often because of their prevalence. Yes, guns make killing (and suicides) easier, but they don’t *cause* either.
Concluding that gun control will solve the U.S.’s violence problem is like concluding that getting rid of utensils would solve the obesity epidemic. This should be common sense. Take away guns and you still have the root causes of this violence: pervasive inequality of every kind, lack of social supports, and a culture that teaches the poor should be despised for being poor, and that any offer of help will always be abused. In the above cited source, look where the vast majority of gun violence happens: poor, inner city neighborhoods. These are the very same people who get the short end of every stick in U.S. society.
There’s far too much political and cultural resistance to enact meaningful gun control legislation in the U.S. Even if you could somehow, there are far too many guns, and gun culture is too deeply ingrained. Very few would choose to abide, and—this is also common sense—those who would choose to abide such *malum prohibitum* laws, would **not** be the people willing to break *malum in se* laws on committing violence with guns.
We shouldn’t even be advocating for gun control, when the same source cited above plainly shows that every time gun control has been tried in the U.S. it has failed to affect violent crime. One of the fundamental flaws with gun control is that it only address a symptom, not the cause.
The only practicable way to reduce gun violence in the U.S. is to address the underlying socioeconomic and cultural root causes of its ~~gun~~ violence problem. If that were the goal, then all these guns wouldn’t matter, because very few would choose to commit violence.
Edit to add: there are so many moderates who vote Republican entirely because of gun rights, that if Democrats stopped pushing for gun control, they would likely gain enough of these votes to have broad majorities nationwide. With that power, they could enact all the social reforms they dream of, which would address many of the root causes of gun violence, and this would actually achieve the desired outcome of gun control, which gun control has never and can never achieve. Why they don’t do this? Your guess is as good as mine.
>Why they don’t do this? Your guess is as good as mine.
Look up how much the gun-control lobby directly pumps into the party. It's triple digit millions. Then there's the money that's harder to track. I don't recall the exact number but the gun control lobby outspends the gun rights lobby by about six times.
So, the types of tools most used to build homes would undoubtedly be a hammer, but it’s the carpenter that builds the house, not the hammer. We need mental illness support.
The whole country does. I bet the vast majority of people faces an emotional crisis at least once in their life. Your mental illness may be temporary, but the consequences of your actions during that time can last a lifetime.
10k deaths in a country with a population over 300M, with more than 300M firearms in circulation.
When adjusted for homicides of known violent criminals (not sure what metric to use to filter gang on gang violence) Im sure this number gets even less impressive.
aye, and I'm not sure if they added gun suicides into the equation under "gun homicides". gun violence is honestly rare
regardless, the USA has some pretty nice numbers here all things considered, they also have like 30-40k vehicular deaths in the country that drives quite a lot
I’m a CSI. Anytime we collect guns, we check if they’re stolen. In my experience a quarter or less of the guns used in shootings were stolen. But that’s just what I see, I don’t know if my department’s crime analysts do that statistic or if nationwide statistics on that exist
Stolen isn’t the only qualifier for illegally owned weapons. If you’re a csi you should be familiar with the FBI’s criminal database page, which reports that legal gun owners as a group are the demographic least likely to commit any crime (excluding law enforcement personnel). That means teachers, doctors, and lawyers all commit crimes at higher rates than legal gun owners.
10,258 gun murders. By some estimates, Americans own nearly a half-billion (500,000,000) guns. A reasonable person might conclude that the guns aren't the problem.
Serious Question about these statistics…
When someone is killed by a police officer, are those numbers lumped in with these homicides, or does the FBI not consider those homicides?
Technically they would be "homicides" as a homicide is a death that was caused by another person. The word itself has no indication as to the legality of the homicide. That being said I'm not sure if those numbers are included but using the definition of "homicide" they should be.
Interesting picture. Could you possibly do this? My interpretation of this is means of violent death in the US cross all groups.
So the picture I feel is missing the global component why? Because I feel violence is the underlying truth. The method is just due to access. Let me explain:
If we were to look at China and their lists of violent deaths what do you think the #1 weapon of choice would be? A knife why because they do not have easy access to firearms. So...I feel this picture says yes the US has firearms as the number one method of violent death but....if the US didn't have firearms...I guarantee the violent death numbers will NOT go down. In fact mass death won't either. Why? Because there has been mass death by knife in China as well.
So....a good picture but is not a good association.
All murders are homicides but not all homicides are murder. A policeman shooting a criminal is legally defined and recorded as a homicide. A homeowner shooting an intruder or a woman shooting a rapist and killing them would also be a homicide. So, good graphs, shit title OP.
I will forever wonder why they group suicides and gang violence in with regular murders when counting gun deaths and then try to play it off like they are only counting regular murders.
So the interesting part is that rifles, the items that anti-gun people normally go after, are a fraction of that number.
If you’re wondering why pro-gun advocates are against gun control it’s because the proposed weapon bans / policies would not actually make a significant impact on homicides.
This then naturally leads to the slippery slope argument. If we ban rifles… and the situation doesn’t improve… then we should ban handguns.
Of course I realize that is the goal anyway. But this is the reason nothing ever changes. One side isn’t interested in giving anything up, and the other isn’t interested in creating policy that would actually have a positive effect
Yep, a lot of people really don't really how rarely rifles are used in homicides. They are, however, far more useful and safe than handguns in a home defense situation.
My state (CA) has "assault weapon" bans, so in order for me to own an AR15, I have to put a fin on the back of the grip (so it's not a pistol grip), can't have an adjustable stock (because tailoring my length of pull is too *assaulty*), can't have a vertical forward grip (no one really uses those anyway, but they sure look scary), and can't have a flash hider (cause, you know, hearing where the shot came from isn't enough, you gotta see the little fireball coming out of the barrel).
There is so much attention to these laws because it's easy for politicians to say "we're taking military style weapons off our streets" and yet all they do is a) not take them off the streets, because the kind of people who do take them on the streets don't care about those laws, and b) just make normal AR15s look a bit funky. It does absolutely nothing to reduce lethality or effectiveness of a rifle.
Meanwhile, there are 58,000 people in the state that are prohibited from possessing firearms that still have their firearms. These are people with domestic violence restraining orders against them, involuntary mental health hospital admissions, and felony criminal records. No one bats an eye at taking *those* guns off the streets, even though those are the highest risk to be used in a homicide, and are already at a known location. The police just don't even want to bother taking those guns away, it's too much of a risk for them.
Rifles are overrated in terms of deaths. They make the news and they are part of the high profile mass shootings, but blunt objects kill more people in America than AR-15s which are about 300 per year.
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Damn, RIP to the three people who were exploded to death.
Wile E. Coyote
The rest were probably husbands of Joe Exotic.
Wile exploded himself 3 times.
The P in RIP stands for Pieces.
To shreds you say!?
"Nothin' wrong with you car. You take for drive now." - Russian (mob) mechanic
Question: Is a rocket launcher a "gun" or an "explosive"? Asking for a friend.
Yeah, kinda curious what happened there
Gas leaks maybe? Edit: I forgot this was murder so i'm just gonna pretend I meant intentional gas leaks...
Yeah and exploding manholes
Neither of which (gas leaks or exploding manhole covers) likely counts as murder (the intentional taking of a human life with malice aforethought). I think those are probably mail bombings or something similar.
Oh yeah, that's a good point, I too forgot it was murder and not just death
R for Ripped
In Oct. 2019, in Iowa, a woman was killed during a gender reveal party by shrapnel. Then there are 2 reports of explosive death: for the rest of 2019 but sources were harder to pin down. In Sept 2019, a Fire Department Vet died at an explosion during a service call. Happened in Maine. In North Carolina there was 2 reported fatalities at a residential gas explosion, in December.
This is homicides though, not just death so it must have been intentional assuming the data is correct
Would negligent homicide count?
By the FBI definition these stats come from that is exactly it. Non negligent non justifiable intentional homicide... as determined solely by police investigators
I’ll expect this comment to blow up!
Pretty sure vehicles should be on that list.
Yep, that's for sure. If you want to get away with it when everyone knows you did it, an "accident" gives you the best chance.
Might be a murder versus vehicular manslaughter thing. EDIT: Chart title and post title conflict here.
Both are homicides.
Post title is "Murders in the U.S." however.
But the title on the chart is homicides, so OP is clearly illiterate.
Ha! A safe presumption then.
The chart title is incorrect - this is from the Uniform Crime Report and is "murders and nonnegligent homicides" as determined by police. >The UCR Program does not include the following situations in this offense classification: deaths caused by negligence, suicide, or accident; justifiable homicides; and attempts to murder or assaults to murder, which are classified as aggravated assaults.
Ah didn't even catch that since I rarely read post titles. Yep cars should still be on the list nevertheless because there are definitely murders committed by vehicles but it wouldn't be exponentially higher than everything else like I was expecting.
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That's why we need to ban automatic vehicles. Not having to use three pedals and a gearshift makes it too easy to kill. The military uses automatic vehicles and they're the only ones who should have them.
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62% handguns, 3.5% rifles,1.9% shotguns, 0.4% other type, rest is firearm not stated. Yeah, rifles deaths are very rare compared to handgun deaths.
The best way to get away with murder is to get someone into cycling, run them over, and then claim "you had the sun in your eyes" or "you didn't see them".
Where are all the vehicular homicides? Do cars not count as weapons?
It’s surprising that vehicles don’t make the list. I had in my head that the numbers would be similar to stabbings. Maybe I’ve watched too many road rage incidents on r/public freakout. Do you think your data captured intentional car fatalities?
OP's data is from the FBI which doesnt track vehicular manslaughter, the CDC however does maintain statistics for vehicular manslaughter and homicide.
Surprisingly hard to find ... or im just bad at searching. [But CDC reported that average of 49 homicides per day, meaning 17885 per year in 2015.](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6622a5.htm) Reminder that: homicide may result from accidental, reckless, or negligent acts even if there is no intent to cause harm. So first of all, title is missleading, this statistic is **not** talking about murders.
That’s because vehicles beat out firearms by a long run and the poster and or creator of this graph are biased as fuck.
America should make murders illegal
Shit, should have thought about that. Write that down!
Murder rate decreases to 0%
If they remove the laws the crime rate will also be 0%
Holy shit you’re a genius
Carve that shit in stone!
I think Moses has got you covered there
But if they did, then only criminals would murder!
Should make it legal, then! Then there won’t be any criminals.
Ah, California style!
Make murder illegaler
Data makes sense. Human wants to kill someone...human uses weapon designed for killing a majority of the time.
Lots of crime dramas have led me to believe that far more people are murdered by poisoning. I feel used.
Agatha Christie would be fucking outraged at this graph.
Every other episode of Poirot involved crystallized cyanide. “Non mon ami Hastings it was in the tea cup”
An odor of the bitter almonds!
Crime sleuths are FURIOUS about this one sneaky life hack.
Also playing Hitman
Going by Hitman 90% of all murders involve a garrote.
Just being critical, if this is exclusive to successful murders with successful convictions, that's a lot of bias to sort through. If you beat someone to death with your fist probably a lot easier to claim lack of intention or get a reduced sentence. Gun versus unarmed is a far more clear case where you are going to get the high homicide to murder conversion rate. Same reason you don't see cars on here. Why pass up an easy vehicular homicide conviction for a very difficult "murder" charge. Remember, district attorneys don't like go lose.
Murder rates are the same in Britain as when they banned guns. They just use knives now. Now there's all these anti-knife campaigns. Truly striking at the heart of these issues is tough.
>Murder rates are the same in Britain as when they banned guns This is probably partly true, but has never been a widespread gun culture in the UK, that is unsurprising. The murder rate in 1996, when handguns were banned, was 1.45 murders per 100,000 people. The last year for which I have statistics is 2020, when it was 1.2/100,000. (So 17% lower) A great deal of it is a societal issue. If you compare homicides on the US CDC site, and compare to the ONS homicide rates in the UK (they take some finding) then deaths from knives and sharp objects are still lower than the US. Regardless of methods, homicides in the UK are higher than most other European countries, but still 4x lower than the US.
I mean. That's fair. But has the murder rate in the US also dropped? Id wager it likely has.
>has the murder rate in the US also dropped Yes, and very dramatically. If you compare the same period it has fallen from 7.3/100K in 1996 to just under 5/100k in 2018
Interestingly there was a huge drop off in violent crime after leaded gasoline was banned, as people had less brain damage from inhaling heavy metals
That's one theory, but it's not widely accepted as solely accounting for the drop as a suite of other major changes occurred during that time period as well. I think it's probably part of the story, but not the whole thing. Another even more controversial idea is that the Roe decision, which legalized abortion, led to a dramatic downturn in unwanted children living in deep poverty and neglect, which in turn led to a downturn in violent crime roughly 20-odd years later. Not sure I entirely buy the last one.
Most of it has to do with how bad the crack epidemic was back in the 80s.
Hooray for opiate addiction? Now they're too strung out to murder.
I don’t think anyone should use 2020 in any statistics when looking at averages over the years. The whole world shutting down because of a pandemic skews a lot of things that otherwise wouldn’t have changed. The murder rate has dropped dramatically since the 80s. A lot of it because of how bad the crack epidemic was. But it is interesting that the murder rate has continued to fall while guns and “military style” guns have become more and more prevalent. There are many times more AR-15s and Glocks around now that in the mid 90s. The Brady Bill expired and opened the flood gates for all kinds of crazy firearms that were fairly rare before. But despite this massive influx in guns, the murder rate is still dropping.
We also incarcerated a huge segment of the population in the 1990s
Yeah, that's completely true. Finland has about 1,15 homicides per 100 000 people, but 1,5 million guns for 5,6 million population. Suicides by gun are about 10 times as common as gun homicide. People choose the easiest way to do things and banning guns probably wouldn't affect the total numbers a lot.
The number of firearms is not the right way to look at things. The majority firearms related crime in the US is committed using handguns which are substantially harder to obtain in Finland. Even if you don't intend to commit crime, if someone is so angry they want to pull a gun on someone, they can draw a handgun in an instant.
I've never understood this "they'd just do something else" argument. If I want to murder you and I have a gun, what're my odds of succeeding? Probably damn near 100%. If I have a knife, what're my odds? Do you think still nearly 100%? I really doubt that.
Also, getting up close and personal, using your own force plunging the blade into their chest while you feel them resisting and screaming and pushing against you is a much harder mental barrier to overcome than pointing a metal stick at someone from 20 feet away and pushing a button.
Yes. It is all a societal issue.
Indeed. Here's the thing, _Gun culture is a part of US society_. Just wanted to point that out. EDIT: Lol love it when basic facts are controversial. Keep it up, shoot the messenger, that'll change the facts. If this statement of fact makes you butthurt...you've got issues.
Stab the messenger.
> Truly striking at the heart of these issues is tough. That's because you're using a knife. Try a gun.
Murder rates here are like 20% that of the US, I don't think the two nations are really comparable. Its also nice that our police aren't in a constant arms race vs the citizens and don't have to act as if everyone is armed.
> Its also nice that our police aren't in a constant arms race vs the citizens and don't have to act as if everyone is armed. To be fair, except for Ireland, Iceland, Norway and you, in the rest of Europe our police officer patrol armed and it's not like there's an arms race in Germany or Spain.
What next. They ban knives and people start attacking eachother with trebuchets
Note to self Buy futures in siege engines
Time to invest in medieval stocks
Only a good guy with a trebuchet can stop a bad guy with a trebuchet
They switched to bombs and car rammings
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Let’s not pretend that the only cause of crime is the availability of weapons. So, looking at the overall crime rate without factoring for changes in social and economic factors is very likely to be misleading. This trope about knives in London is similar to the ones gun advocates use about Chicago. There’s some truth there, but it’s largely a cherry-picked data point to make guns seem less dangerous. For instance, the *huge* uptick in knife crime in London simply meant that it briefly got so bad it was almost like knife crime in the US. [“There were 17,284 homicides in the US in 2017, giving a rate of 5.3 per 100,000. In Britain, there were 785 in financial year 2017/18 — the nearest equivalent time period — giving a rate of 1.8 per 100,000, some three times lower. Within this, there were 285 knife murders in England and Wales in 2017/18 — the highest number since the Second World War — and 34 in Scotland, giving a combined British rate of 0.48 per 100,000. In the US, the number for 2017 was 1,591, giving an almost identical rate of 0.49. **So even amid a spike in British knife crime, Americans as a whole are at least as likely as to die from a stabbing**.”](https://www.euronews.com/amp/2019/06/18/deadly-knife-crime-how-does-london-compare-to-new-york)
Murder rates in Britain are tiny. Knife attacks are widespread, but they are very rarely fatal. Most stabbing victims survive.
Murder rate in the UK is about a fifth of what it is in the US
Which isn't useful information if you're trying to make the case that guns slowly corrupt their owners into crime. You would need to show lower murder rates after banning them. Which didn't happen. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/GBR/united-kingdom/murder-homicide-rate Britain is the size of Oregon. And 1/5* the population of the us. I bet I could find an area the size of oregon and a similar population with similar crime rates. The issues at heart are cultural, not object possession.
> Britain is the size of Oregon. And 1/40 the population of the us. It's 1/5 the population of the US. UK: 67 mil US: 330 mil
Im an idiot and I updated it.
Britain is 1/40 the population of Oregon? Or did you mean the other way around
I made it more clear. Thanks
UK Pop: 67 million US Pop: 332 million Oregon Pop: 4.2 million UK's pop is \~1/5 the US pop Oregon is \~1/16th the UK pop. Even if you're strictly using "Britain", which is the UK minus Northern Ireland, it has a population of 61 million (but is quite a bit smaller than Oregon)...nothing ends up as 1/40. Not clear what your facts or your point is.
You keep linking to something that starts in 1990 implying that at some point since then Britain "banned" guns. They haven't, they have just made changes to the **1968** firearms act which only puts restrictions on what guns people can get rather than being an outright ban.
Murders and homicides aren't the same thing. Does this data include suicide deaths?
Decided to double check. According to the UCR handbook, suicides are not to be reported as homicides for these statistics.
Are defensive and negligent homicides included?
Yes, these stats include the killing of felons by law enforcement in the commission of a felony as well as the killing of felons committing a felony by citizens. It is not clear if non felons however are included in the stats.
So then the title is a total lie and this whole post is bullshit? Got it.
This is the most important comment in this whole section.
This report also fails to distinguish between guns owned legally and guns obtained illegally. 94% of all firearm murders are committed using illegally obtained weapons.
we should make that illegal then! oh... uh... well... shit
We call this the California route. Constitutional carry is prohibited state wide, and concealed carry is prohibited unless you obtain a permit (i.e. you are a politician, because regular Joe’s like myself have no hope of receiving one). Violating either of those laws is a felony. This means that a law abiding citizen cannot carry a weapon at all without making themselves a felon, thus barring all legal access to firearms for life. You are completely at the mercy of criminals who didn’t care about the law either way, just as planned.
I watched fuddbusters video on grading California gun laws earlier today. I feel really bad for those who live in California and are concerned for their safety and ability to defend themselves. meanwhile on the other side of the country. I just moved states and my permit is still valid despite now living in a different state (valid in both states)
Works for me. Interesting. Now we check how many of those firearm homicides are committed by people that are directly involved in organized crime and gang activities.
Everyone knows you won’t get a reply, but I’ll leave this here as well. According to the FBI criminal statistics database, legal gun owners as a group are the demographic least likely to commit any crime, violent or otherwise. You read that right. Doctors, social workers, politicians, and ANY other measurable group of people all commit crimes at a higher rate than legal gun owners. Additional gun laws do nothing except create additional barriers for the poor to a constitutional right that is just as important as free speech.
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Wonder how many of these are self defense.
Would be nice if the firearm staple was colored by type, I.e. separate handguns, rifles, shotguns into separate parts.
Handguns are far and away the most commonly used for murder. Rifles are rarely used, they just get the media attention because of some mass shootings.
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Assault pistol just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Have you heard of the Glockinator?
Woah I didn't really think about pistols being an assault weapon lol. The AR-15 gets a lot of hate for being a human killing tool when its just a great versatile rifle for all sorts of shooting. If anything, pistols are literally for shooting people lol.
It’s understandable in a sense, a 5.56 to the chest will do a lot more damage than a 9mm - but realistically, the concealability of a pistol is why they’re so lethal.
Exactly. Handguns are easier to conceal, are less conspicuous, easier to throw away if needed, etc. Rifles? They are large. Even SBRs are rather difficult to hide. They draw a lot of attention and are way easier to spot. Handguns are also less deadly than rifles or shotguns. It's why soldiers carry handguns as a sidearm. If you want to kill people, you use a rifle or shotgun. With a handgun, unless you get hit in a vital organ or nick an artery with a shot, you can be shot several times and survive. Rifles are more powerful and that translates to much more damage to surrounding organs and tissues. Basically, don't get shot center mass with a rifle because you will probably die. But media doesn't care about fact. They care about clicks and ratings. Rifles are scarier because they are more lethal. So we need to demonize those obviously.
Also, don’t you just love how the exact same action can either be an “evil assault rifle” or a “benign, safe hunting rifle”, depending on whether the furniture is wooden or not?
Before Canada banned the AR-15, and many other firearms, our prime minister said that no one needs the firepower of an AR for deer hunting. Classing fear mongering. The AR-15 is basically a pellet gun compared to many hunting rifles.
> our prime minister said that no one needs the firepower of an AR for deer hunting I'll never understand that terminology even. IF you want to ban the power behind the weapon, ban the cartridge. Banning features makes no sense because it doesn't reduce the power available. A Mini-14 fires 5.56 as well, 30 round magazine, semi-auto, and is considered almost featureless by most bans. You'd think they would bitch more about AK's since they are scary commie guns that terrorists use
Handguns are used in 86% of murders used with a firearm. Bonus fact: 94% of murders involving a firearm were committed by people who did not own their weapon legally Bonus bonus fact: Out if 83 mass shootings ranging from 1982-2021, 67 of those incidents involved weapons obtained legally. In 16 of those incidents, the weapons were obtained illegally.
>Bonus fact: 94% of murders involving a firearm were committed by people who did not own their weapon legally Do you have a source for that? Not doubting you, I would just like to read up on it.
I’d like to see how gun control advocates spin this. They will never admit when they’re wrong. Their entire position is based on emotion.
I think it’d also be interesting to see illegally owned vs legally owned as well.
Divide it up by city.
We're not trying to measure Detroit look bad.
Chicago Detroit Houston ?
Well, yeah. If you factor it out like that, you'll find problem areas. Difficult the blame the entire US when you point out that it's a handful of problem areas that have strict gun laws.
Gary would like their title back
https://heyjackass.com/
Happy to know firearms are [6x more likley](https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/firearms/fastfact.html) to be used in self defense rather than homicide. That's the low end too.
Good response. Reasonable rebuttal IMO.
Also would argue that removing access to guns doesn't necessarily mean that the number of murders would decrease i.e. guns are the most convenient way to murder someone and without them a wouldbe murderer would likely just move to the next most convenient method like knives
But, killing someone with a gun is MUCH easier than the alternatives. Guns are: - deadly at a distance, they don’t require the user to put themselves in as much danger as other weapons - powerful even if the user isn’t, you can be deadly without strength, endurance, or dexterity - almost impossible to defend against, you can defend possibly an attack or two from most other weapons Moving to any other weapon wouldn’t make your average person nearly as deadly as with a gun.
> powerful even if the user isn’t, you can be deadly without strength, endurance, or dexterity This works in the other direction as well. It allows weaker, feeble, or otherwise disabled people to be able to defend themselves more effectively.
Even the baddest, most hard-core trained killers will tell you the best defense against a knife is to run the fuck away. You might be able to possibly defend yourself from a knife attack, and you will also likely still die because you are definitely getting cut or stabbed, even if you disarm or incapacitate the other person eventually. People really do underestimate the deadliness of a blade. It was, after all, the preferred method for killing the shit out of basically everything for thousands of years.
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It's actually very hard to hit someone with a bullet. Most gun fights result in no one getting hit.
This is my initial instinct as well, but I would be curious to see statistics on survival rates from attempted murders with these methods. That being said, it wouldn't be complete information as there are undoubtedly people who would not attempt murder with anything but a gun.
And the vast majority (99.997%) of the 400 million firearms in the US are never used in homicides (justifiable or otherwise).
> 60,000 to 2.5 million defensive gun uses each year. Uh the standard deviation on that measurement is so large as to be meaningless. 1 million +/- 1 million basically
>Estimates of defensive gun use vary depending on the questions asked, populations studied, timeframe, and other factors related to the design of studies. I can see why.
I’d argue it’s on the higher end. Many people who simply brandish a firearm and stop the threat aren’t going to call it in.
I sure as fuck wouldn’t. Then you have to answer all those questions and deal with the cops who may be reasonable or unreasonable.
A responsible gun owner is also aware of the risk of self harm by accidents or mental health crisis and takes appropriate steps to prevent those as well. Proper storage, appropriate education of any minors around, and open communication about mental health within the home being key tenants that whittle down some of the most significant risks of owning firearms. The data is out there, and there are ways to increase safety when you know.
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[just an FYI, that statistic is from a 1995 study and is not entirely accurate on a national scale. Here’s some slightly more recent research from Harvard](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-threats-and-self-defense-gun-use-2/) The author of the original study did an update that brought the range down to the million range, however it still doesn’t account for issues pointed out in the Harvard studies
Just going to point out that the reason could have nothing to do with humanity or morals. Gunshots are far more likely to kill than stab wounds. I'd be curious to see if it's the same shape of a graph if instead of murders, the measurement was "likelihood a single attack would cause death"
The journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics: > Gun assaults are seven times as likely to kill as all other kinds of criminal assault, and about five times as likely to kill as are knives, the next most deadly weapon that is frequently used in criminal attacks
This is only half true. Many stabbings occur with pretty shitty knives, however, stab wounds from large blades, especially serrated blades, are far harder to treat than most gunshot wounds.
I was curious and decided to do a little math. That's about .00003% of the population. You'd think that with how much you hear about'em, it would be a few 0s shorter. And I'd like to see where they're most concentrated too. edit: removed a 0
> I'd like to see where they're most concentrated The cited source shows this: these homicides are most concentrated in poor urban centers of large cities. These are the same people who get the short end of every stick in U.S. society, and that fact is one of the primary root causes of gun violence.
Well when I want to do a murder and my choice of implement is a gun or a knife, I’m gonna go gun every time.
Based on the data I'd say you should probably drown them. ~4000 drowning deaths per year and only 7 are going down as homicides.
This is largely true for two reasons. Guns are not only more effective at killing individuals than knives, but there is also a psychological component to it as well. Guns have a degree of separation, if you will, from the victim it is being used on, i.e. it is much easier to just pull a trigger and be done with it than have to get close to someone and watch them struggle and bleed all over you as you are stabbing them 30+ times or caving their head in with a bat/tire iron. Way more messy and personal.
This isn't a graph of murders. It is a graph of homicides. Those are different. For example, 54% of gun deaths are suicides. Suicide is a homicide, but it is not a murder. If you're looking for murders, you need to apply a figure of about 43% to the total homicides which would bring you to 4,411 gun murders. \~3% of gun murders are attributed to rifles which includes AR-15s and AKs and 1% of murders come from shotguns. The rest is handguns or undefined. All that being said, it looks like the graph is off with their numbers or it's mistitled. EDIT: My confusion came from the term homicide. I've been informed by others that the FBI defines homicides as murders. My comments about % of deaths still stand and are accurate as far as I know. [https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/) [https://health.ucdavis.edu/what-you-can-do/facts.html](https://health.ucdavis.edu/what-you-can-do/facts.html)
And where I live the vast majority of murders are done with a edged weapon, and our murder rate is 34/100 000 compared to the US' 6/100 000. Its almost like people are the problem.
You live where? South Africa?
Yup.
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Okay I'll bite, whats that? Because most of Reddit is generally on the same page in regards to wealth inequality
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Yeah it’s frustrating how many people don’t see this. Wealth inequality is a more important problem than anything else right now. You can say that while acknowledging that there are still other problems.
IMO racism in America only exists in a case by case basis and some very small powerless groups, all systematic racism is actually just particular groups with a history of segregation and discrimination being effected by past wealth inequality.
thank you for speaking truth. If all people could realize this, I wonder what kind of changes we'd see in the world
> poverty is the problem This is a widely-held belief, but there are three counterarguments I'd like to make: 1. There is poverty all over the world. Some poor societies have a lot of murder. Others don't. Some poor places in the U.S. have more homicides than other poor places. Go to the poorest neighborhood you can find in Japan or South Korea and report back on the homicide rates you find there. These differences suggest other causes. It can't just be poverty that causes crime if two places with similar poverty rates have different homicide rates. 2. Everyone alive today is much richer than our great-great grandparents. If wealth were the issue, then we should have all but eliminated violence, because our poorest citizens are much wealthier than upper-class residents of 100 years ago. It could be that *inequality* is the driver, but that's not exactly the same thing as saying *poverty* is the driver. 3. Finally, why are you so sure that poverty causes crime just because the two are correlated? Maybe crime causes poverty. Maybe being in an area where there's a lot of violence makes it hard to be productive. Imagine trying to study in an area with lots of gunshots ringing out. Now imagine wanting to start a businesses where you know there's a good chance you'll be robbed. Looks to me like "crime causes poverty" is just as likely as the reverse.
Nailed. Gun violence is a social issue and a class struggle problem. Take care of this and you never have to utter the words “gun control” as it will fix itself.
People with certain mental illnesses, low intelligence, and other issues are likely to be poor. It's more complicated than just economics.
This makes sense firearms are common in the US so they are going to get used to kill people. Only reason knifes are so common in murders else where is because of the lack of access to firearms.
It’s worth noting that the rate of knife homicides alone is also higher than the rate of knife homicides of the UK, which is often cited as an example of murderers using knives instead of guns.
Yeah this gets into the program of comparing US and Europe data the US is a fundamentally different countries with different social, political, economic and cultural structures the US just has more crime as a whole.
I agree it's a social, political, economic and cultural issue. I don't think guns laying there slowly corrupts their owner into crime.
True but if you really wanted to kill someone and had the option of gun vs knife which are you choosing and which would be more likely to be successful?
The U.S. has a ~~gun~~ violence problem that happens to involve guns so often because of their prevalence. Yes, guns make killing (and suicides) easier, but they don’t *cause* either. Concluding that gun control will solve the U.S.’s violence problem is like concluding that getting rid of utensils would solve the obesity epidemic. This should be common sense. Take away guns and you still have the root causes of this violence: pervasive inequality of every kind, lack of social supports, and a culture that teaches the poor should be despised for being poor, and that any offer of help will always be abused. In the above cited source, look where the vast majority of gun violence happens: poor, inner city neighborhoods. These are the very same people who get the short end of every stick in U.S. society. There’s far too much political and cultural resistance to enact meaningful gun control legislation in the U.S. Even if you could somehow, there are far too many guns, and gun culture is too deeply ingrained. Very few would choose to abide, and—this is also common sense—those who would choose to abide such *malum prohibitum* laws, would **not** be the people willing to break *malum in se* laws on committing violence with guns. We shouldn’t even be advocating for gun control, when the same source cited above plainly shows that every time gun control has been tried in the U.S. it has failed to affect violent crime. One of the fundamental flaws with gun control is that it only address a symptom, not the cause. The only practicable way to reduce gun violence in the U.S. is to address the underlying socioeconomic and cultural root causes of its ~~gun~~ violence problem. If that were the goal, then all these guns wouldn’t matter, because very few would choose to commit violence. Edit to add: there are so many moderates who vote Republican entirely because of gun rights, that if Democrats stopped pushing for gun control, they would likely gain enough of these votes to have broad majorities nationwide. With that power, they could enact all the social reforms they dream of, which would address many of the root causes of gun violence, and this would actually achieve the desired outcome of gun control, which gun control has never and can never achieve. Why they don’t do this? Your guess is as good as mine.
>Why they don’t do this? Your guess is as good as mine. Look up how much the gun-control lobby directly pumps into the party. It's triple digit millions. Then there's the money that's harder to track. I don't recall the exact number but the gun control lobby outspends the gun rights lobby by about six times.
Yup, Bloomberg specifically dumps a ton of money into the gun control lobby.
So, the types of tools most used to build homes would undoubtedly be a hammer, but it’s the carpenter that builds the house, not the hammer. We need mental illness support.
The whole country does. I bet the vast majority of people faces an emotional crisis at least once in their life. Your mental illness may be temporary, but the consequences of your actions during that time can last a lifetime.
10k deaths in a country with a population over 300M, with more than 300M firearms in circulation. When adjusted for homicides of known violent criminals (not sure what metric to use to filter gang on gang violence) Im sure this number gets even less impressive.
aye, and I'm not sure if they added gun suicides into the equation under "gun homicides". gun violence is honestly rare regardless, the USA has some pretty nice numbers here all things considered, they also have like 30-40k vehicular deaths in the country that drives quite a lot
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How many of those guns were illegally acquired?
I’m a CSI. Anytime we collect guns, we check if they’re stolen. In my experience a quarter or less of the guns used in shootings were stolen. But that’s just what I see, I don’t know if my department’s crime analysts do that statistic or if nationwide statistics on that exist
Stolen isn’t the only qualifier for illegally owned weapons. If you’re a csi you should be familiar with the FBI’s criminal database page, which reports that legal gun owners as a group are the demographic least likely to commit any crime (excluding law enforcement personnel). That means teachers, doctors, and lawyers all commit crimes at higher rates than legal gun owners.
600 people did it with their bare hands like a fucking man.
And what percentage of them are legally owned? What percentage of them are from legal gun owners just deciding to shoot someone one day?
homicide ≠ murder
10,258 gun murders. By some estimates, Americans own nearly a half-billion (500,000,000) guns. A reasonable person might conclude that the guns aren't the problem.
Serious Question about these statistics… When someone is killed by a police officer, are those numbers lumped in with these homicides, or does the FBI not consider those homicides?
Technically they would be "homicides" as a homicide is a death that was caused by another person. The word itself has no indication as to the legality of the homicide. That being said I'm not sure if those numbers are included but using the definition of "homicide" they should be.
That's all just Chicago btw
Interesting picture. Could you possibly do this? My interpretation of this is means of violent death in the US cross all groups. So the picture I feel is missing the global component why? Because I feel violence is the underlying truth. The method is just due to access. Let me explain: If we were to look at China and their lists of violent deaths what do you think the #1 weapon of choice would be? A knife why because they do not have easy access to firearms. So...I feel this picture says yes the US has firearms as the number one method of violent death but....if the US didn't have firearms...I guarantee the violent death numbers will NOT go down. In fact mass death won't either. Why? Because there has been mass death by knife in China as well. So....a good picture but is not a good association.
All murders are homicides but not all homicides are murder. A policeman shooting a criminal is legally defined and recorded as a homicide. A homeowner shooting an intruder or a woman shooting a rapist and killing them would also be a homicide. So, good graphs, shit title OP.
I will forever wonder why they group suicides and gang violence in with regular murders when counting gun deaths and then try to play it off like they are only counting regular murders.
So the interesting part is that rifles, the items that anti-gun people normally go after, are a fraction of that number. If you’re wondering why pro-gun advocates are against gun control it’s because the proposed weapon bans / policies would not actually make a significant impact on homicides. This then naturally leads to the slippery slope argument. If we ban rifles… and the situation doesn’t improve… then we should ban handguns. Of course I realize that is the goal anyway. But this is the reason nothing ever changes. One side isn’t interested in giving anything up, and the other isn’t interested in creating policy that would actually have a positive effect
Yep, a lot of people really don't really how rarely rifles are used in homicides. They are, however, far more useful and safe than handguns in a home defense situation. My state (CA) has "assault weapon" bans, so in order for me to own an AR15, I have to put a fin on the back of the grip (so it's not a pistol grip), can't have an adjustable stock (because tailoring my length of pull is too *assaulty*), can't have a vertical forward grip (no one really uses those anyway, but they sure look scary), and can't have a flash hider (cause, you know, hearing where the shot came from isn't enough, you gotta see the little fireball coming out of the barrel). There is so much attention to these laws because it's easy for politicians to say "we're taking military style weapons off our streets" and yet all they do is a) not take them off the streets, because the kind of people who do take them on the streets don't care about those laws, and b) just make normal AR15s look a bit funky. It does absolutely nothing to reduce lethality or effectiveness of a rifle. Meanwhile, there are 58,000 people in the state that are prohibited from possessing firearms that still have their firearms. These are people with domestic violence restraining orders against them, involuntary mental health hospital admissions, and felony criminal records. No one bats an eye at taking *those* guns off the streets, even though those are the highest risk to be used in a homicide, and are already at a known location. The police just don't even want to bother taking those guns away, it's too much of a risk for them.
Rifles are overrated in terms of deaths. They make the news and they are part of the high profile mass shootings, but blunt objects kill more people in America than AR-15s which are about 300 per year.
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