No Time to Post Here, But...

Instead I engaged in a short exchange with a commenter to a thread over at Dean Esmay's:

Stu:

If you're a young, urban, black American male you have a very high chance of being murdered. If you're a young, urban, hispanic American male, your chances are lower, but still quite high.

If you do not fit either of those demographics, your chances of being murdered are about the same as the average Canadian's. Perhaps lower, because young, urban black males in America die of homicide at six times the rate of the rest of our population.

In comparing the US and England, the homicide rate ratio between the two countries has always been in excess of 5:1 - even when neither nation had any gun control whatsoever. I believe the ratio is currently just under 4:1, but I cannot be sure of that at the moment.

And finally, "'The reality is that banning guns does not keep guns out of the hands of criminals;' The logic of that statement completely eludes me. The primary source of illegal guns is theft from legal gun owners. So eliminate ALL of the guns, and criminals have a much more difficult time accessing them."

England has tried that. It made possession of all handguns illegal in 1996. All 156,000 legally-owned handguns (Actually, I think it was 163,000) were turned in, along with 750,000 rounds of legally possessed ammunition. Handgun crime has gone UP every year since. England recently had a "firearm amnesty" where people could turn in illegal weapons, no questions asked. The collected almost 200,000 firearms and over a million rounds of ammo - but in the violence-ridden areas of London and Manchester there was almost no response.

Banning guns makes it more difficult for criminals to acquire them, but it does not make it effectively difficult, as England demonstrates.

It is not physically possible to "ELIMINATE ALL OF THE GUNS" - and since violent criminals represent somewhere around 1% of a population, it doesn't require very many guns to service that population. And they will be served - the first rule of economics is that demand will be met with supply.

Banning guns ignores these simple and obvious facts. And all it does is disarm the people you DON'T need to worry about. The inability to see this logic is what eludes me.


Posted by Kevin Baker on March 25, 2004 at 11:39 AM

Kevin: "If you're a young, urban, black American male you have a very high chance of being murdered. If you're a young, urban, hispanic American male, your chances are lower, but still quite high."

Chopping up demographics in this way is what I meant when I said "tortured statistics". Unless you're saying that this group doesn't count, or something.

Kevin: "In comparing the US and England, the homicide rate ratio between the two countries has always been in excess of 5:1 - even when neither nation had any gun control whatsoever. I believe the ratio is currently just under 4:1, but I cannot be sure of that at the moment."

Britain has had what would be considered to be tight gun control (in comparison to the US) since 1920. And the overall homicide rate ratio is 10:1

Kevin: "England has tried that. It made possession of all handguns illegal in 1996. All 156,000 legally-owned handguns were turned in, along with 750,000 rounds of legally possessed ammunition. Handgun crime has gone UP every year since."

And the homicide rate?


Posted by Stu on March 25, 2004 at 12:09 PM

Stu:

That's not "chopping up demographics" or "tortured statistics" - it's explaining that homicide is not homogenous throughout a society. Handgun ownership, for instance, is largely concentrated in the white male population, but homicide is heavily concentrated in the young, black, urban male population. You are attempting to make the case that "more guns = more homicide" yet that conclusion cannot be logically drawn given the facts. In the United States approximately 1 million handguns and two million long guns are added to the private market each year, yet we've had ten or more years of declining homicide rates.

Homicide in England has trended - slightly - UP since the handgun ban. The proportion of homicides committed with handguns has gone UP since the ban.

This suggests that guns are not the cause of homicide, yet gun bans treat them as though they are.

"Britain has had what would be considered to be tight gun control (in comparison to the US) since 1920. And the overall homicide rate ratio is 10:1" That is incorrect. The U.S. homicide rate in 2000 was 5.64/100,000. England & Wales had a rate of 1.61/100,000, for a ratio of 3.5:1. The firearm homicide ratio is 10:1. What you consider to be "tight" gun control may differ somewhat from mine.

Dean's comment section is not an appropriate place to hold this discussion IMHO. I have a blog that I set up specifically for discussions of this type. Would you be interested in debating this topic with me there?


Posted by Kevin Baker on March 25, 2004 at 1:39 PM

"Dean's comment section is not an appropriate place to hold this discussion IMHO."

I disagree. This is what the comments section is for.

Why did you just post the homicide rate for England and Wales, and not include those of Scotland and NI? Even so, what would attribute the higher homicide rate in America to?

Posted by Stu on March 25, 2004 at 1:57 PM

Stu:

It's inappropriate because it's his bandwidth, and it's an awkward place to make extended points - which a discussion of this type requires.

I excluded Scotland and Northern Ireland because they are not normally included in the general comparison between the U.S. and what most people here think of when you say "Britain." If you average England & Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, the rate is about 2.25/100,000. Both Scotland and Northern Ireland have higher homicide rates than England & Wales. That would bring the ratio down to about 2.5:1.

Homicide is a largely cultural thing, but it is exacerbated by the illicit drug trade and consumption of mind-altering substances, both of which are concentrated in specific demographics in both the U.S, the UK, and Canada. The culture of the U.S. is still relatively young compared to Europe, and it is historically violent. Europeans seemed to prefer engaging in killing wholesale (with war after war after war) we tend to do it retail. Canada seems to be more European in nature.


Posted by Kevin Baker on March 25, 2004 at 2:15 PM

I guess that means he won't debate me over at The Fabulous Baker Boys. Too bad. That would have been fun.