HemiCuda brought up a point regarding the rate of violence in Calgary compared to a place like Chicago. Really, you would be hard pressed to find a better city to live in than Calgary. But if you were to compare the social structure, demographics and employment opportunities, it would paint a much different picture between the two cities. Recognize that and you may recognize that in Chicago there is a social problem, not a gun problem.
How, then, do you explain the relative homicide rates of Seattle vs. Vancouver, two cities that are very similar in almost every respect?
...the two cities, one in the United States, one in Canada, had about the same population, the same household income, the same unemployment, the same crime rate, and whose citizens even watched the same television shows during the six years of the study.
"Burglary rates in Seattle and Vancouver were nearly identical," wrote Bogus. "There were almost identical rates of assaults with knives, clubs and fists, but there was a far greater rate of assault with firearms in Seattle. During the seven years of the study, there were 204 homicides in Vancouver and 388 in Seattle."
The reason for that difference -- and the fact that the adolescent suicide rate in Seattle is 10 times higher -- is the availability of guns. It is simply easier for people to kill others or themselves with the power of a gun in their hands. There were then guns in 41 percent of Seattle homes, but in only 12 percent of Vancouver homes.
When people get angry enough or depressed enough to want to kill someone or kill themselves, they grab the heaviest weaponry around. If that weapon is a knife or a club, there will probably be blood, broken bones and bruises. If a gun is handy, it is more likely there will be a corpse.
And the abstract from the original study as published in the New England Journal of Medicine:
To investigate the associations among handgun regulations, assault and other crimes, and homicide, we studied robberies, burglaries, assaults, and homicides in Seattle, Washington, and Vancouver, British Columbia, from 1980 through 1986. Although similar to Seattle in many ways, Vancouver has adopted a more restrictive approach to the regulation of handguns. During the study period, both cities had similar rates of burglary and robbery. In Seattle, the annual rate of assault was modestly higher than that in Vancouver (simple assault: relative risk, 1.18; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.15 to 1.20; aggravated assault: relative risk, 1.16; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.12 to 1.19). However, the rate of assaults involving firearms was seven times higher in Seattle than in Vancouver. Despite similar overall rates of criminal activity and assault, the relative risk of death from homicide, adjusted for age and sex, was significantly higher in Seattle than in Vancouver (relative risk, 1.63; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.28 to 2.08). Virtually all of this excess risk was explained by a 4.8-fold higher risk of being murdered with a handgun in Seattle as compared with Vancouver. Rates of homicide by means other than guns were not substantially different in the two study communities. We conclude that restricting access to handguns may reduce the rate of homicide in a community.
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Gang issues in the States and Canada aren't even remotely comparable, though.
With an almost free boarder to the south that is full of cartels that will do anything to get their drugs across the boarder we're almost the same exact gang issue as Canada...
Canadian gangs go around thanking people for absolutely nothing..
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Those numbers are complete BS. The police have been switching homicides to manslaughters instead, just to reduce the #'s. There is no drop in murders at all.
Can you please back this claim up with some actual evidence? I'd love to see those numbers, it would be very telling if the Chicago PD is openly lying about the reduction of homicides in Chicago.
I'd explain it by pointing to the gang issue, something that clearly biased 25 year old article completely misses. Of all the quotes you managed to pull from that article, you missed one big one.
"The study of the city of Washington compared gun-related violence for the nine years before and the nine years after the District of Columbia, in 1976, re-registered firearms and prevented new handgun purchases within the city. Gun-related homicides dropped 25 percent and suicides by 23 percent through 1985, although there was no reduction in gun-related incidents in the communities surrounding the city. Then, Washington rates began to climb again, a violence generally associated with the rise in the use of crack."
The federal gov't spends what, 12 billion or 14 billion a year (offhand I cannot remember which, I can look though) on the war on drugs. Its effectiveness is clearly not up for debate. The only thing the war on drugs manages to do is create a black market for said drugs, and the gangs that come with them. So maybe theres something there that can be done? Chicago had terrible gun crime back in the days of Al Capone, and when prohibition ended, so did the illegal alcohol trade and the crime that was associated with it. But back to your articles...
The data used to produce the article is over 30 years old. The article itself was written in 1992, at the height of the "gun control debate" in the US. Well, they got their gun control that they wanted with the 1994 weapons ban. We can look at data produced since before that time and see that gun crime in the US has been on a steady measurable decline for the last 30 years, the same has been happening in Canada, but that trend has been visible for 50 years.
The issue of criminals buying firearms outside of Chicago and bringing them back into the city is a testament to Chicago's failed logic in writing policy. There are more ways to acquire illegal firearms other than simply driving out of city limits, or from straw purchasers. This from the FBI's 2011 national gang threat assessment...
"Gang members acquire firearms through a variety of means, including illegal purchases; straw purchases through surrogates or middle men, thefts from individuals, vehicles, residents and commercial establishments, theft from law enforcement and military officials, from gang members with connections to military sources of supply, and from other gangs, according to multiple law enforcement and NGIC reporting."
Hell, even Californias leading gun control advocate outside of Diane Fienstien, Leland Yee, Democrat Senator for San Fran was arrested for charges that include scheming to defraud citizens of honest services and conspiracy to illegally traffic firearms. He was caught trying to smuggle illegal firearms and military grade weapons through Newark NJ and then sell them to gangs at a profit. All the while trying to take firearms away from law abiding people.
Another part of that article, which has no basis in fact is the suicide claim of rates being higher where firearms are present. At least in Canada, we can look at stats that showed that regardless of the amount of controls placed on firearms, overall suicide rates stayed exactly the same. When the long gun registry was introduced, suicide rates by firearms dropped slightly, however the overall rate stayed the same with other methods picking up the slack.
We can also look at stats that show the ending of the long gun registry (contrary to the cries from the Liberals and left wing funded orgs such as CFGC) had no effect one way or another on homicide rates by firearms. Again I will dig these stats up and their sources if you like, I don't have them offhand.
Another poster made a comment about how the US is a violent place filled with irrational people. I dont know about the irrational part, but it certainly is a nation born from violence and thats part of their culture. I believe Canada (this is just my opinion) has less gun crime because our country was not molded in that violence that identified Americans. We keep hearing about how "more guns means more gun crime" and all that BS yet why do we not have more gun crime in Canada than what we do? It certainly is not from a shortage of firearms.
Again if Chicago can find a way to fix their gang problem they will certainly make a massive dent in their gun crime. It's not regular, law abiding people going around making Chicago the murder capital of the US.
Can you please back this claim up with some actual evidence? I'd love to see those numbers, it would be very telling if the Chicago PD is openly lying about the reduction of homicides in Chicago.
Chris Hayes on MSNBC has had several stories about it in the past couple weeks on his show. That's where I got it from.
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Chris Hayes on MSNBC has had several stories about it in the past couple weeks on his show. That's where I got it from.
Chris Hayes also said that firearm ownership is an act of violence itself.
Sorry, but Chris Hayes saying so doesnt make it true. MSNBC is to left wing media what Fox news is to right wing media. MSNBC is not credible when it comes to reporting the facts on firearm issues in the US.
Last edited by Shnabdabber; 07-12-2014 at 03:57 PM.
Chris Hayes also said that firearm ownership is an act of violence itself.
Sorry, but Chris Hayes saying so doesnt make it true. MSNBC is to left wing media what Fox news is to right wing media. MSNBC is not credible when it comes to reporting the facts on firearm issues in the US.
From what I recall, he interviewed the family of one victim who was shot in the back of the head and it was classified as manslaughter. There have been others that he also profiled, but I can't remember the exact details of them at the moment.
Regardless of who is delivering the news, doesn't that raise an eyebrow that something might be awry there?
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Chris Hayes also said that firearm ownership is an act of violence itself.
Sorry, but Chris Hayes saying so doesnt make it true. MSNBC is to left wing media what Fox news is to right wing media. MSNBC is not credible when it comes to reporting the facts on firearm issues in the US.
LOL, equating MSNBC to Fox is a disgrace.
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I'd explain it by pointing to the gang issue, something that clearly biased 25 year old article completely misses.
You failed completely to understand the point of the article. The study compared crime in Seattle and Vancouver over a six year period. During that time, the socio-economic conditions of both cities were nearly identical, and rates of crime of all types were very similar (e.g. roughly the same number of muggings, assaults, burglaries, etc.). Yet despite these similarities, Seattle had nearly twice as many homicides over the course of the study, almost all of them committed with a handgun.
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From what I recall, he interviewed the family of one victim who was shot in the back of the head and it was classified as manslaughter. There have been others that he also profiled, but I can't remember the exact details of them at the moment.
Regardless of who is delivering the news, doesn't that raise an eyebrow that something might be awry there?
It absolutely does raise an eyebrow, which was my concern and why I asked for a source in the first place. If there is misreporting on behalf of the Chicago PD, that raises a huge red flag. Those who play a part in influencing policy, if lying about their stats, need to be shown the pasture.
Again though, if it comes from MSNBC, and its related to firearms, you can be assured that its bunk.
You failed completely to understand the point of the article. The study compared crime in Seattle and Vancouver over a six year period. During that time, the socio-economic conditions of both cities were nearly identical, and rates of crime of all types were very similar (e.g. roughly the same number of muggings, assaults, burglaries, etc.). Yet despite these similarities, Seattle had nearly twice as many homicides over the course of the study, almost all of them committed with a handgun.
And even though you quoted part of my post, you still missed how that article failed to address the gang equalities/inequalities between the two cities, and is based off 30 year old data. During that time the US has seen a steady decline in gun crime.
Not once were gangs mentioned. If you look at the FBI's gang report, you will see that the states with the highest amount of gang activity are also those most negatively affected by gun crime.
Viewership does not equate to quality programming or even truthful reporting. Millions of people watch the Kardashians and Honey Boo Boo. It doesn't make either show worthwhile.
MSNBC is certainly left-leaning, but to compare it to Fox News is excessive. Fox News quite literally just makes stuff up pretty regularly.
