Guns used for lawful self defense

[amused]

That's about what I expected, oh well. Living and working in downtown DC is the goal here, so I'll try to avoid the dots on this map:

http://apps.washingtonpost.com/investigative/homicides/

[laklak]

Jesus fucking christ, 108 homicides in 2011? That's 17.45/100,000 in D.C. vs 3.68/100,000 for Sarasota country for the same time period.

So, the murder rate in the most restrictive jurisdiction in the country is 5 TIMES that in one of the least restrictive (and with one of the highest percentages of concealed carry permits also).

It's obvious we need to restrict gun ownership, so we can all enjoy a safe environment like D.C. [/sarcasm]

[amused]

One of the murders in my neighborhood was by drowning. He was 42 years old. WTF?

[laklak]

Guns don't kill people, bathtubs kill people.

[Ian]

Jesus fucking christ, 108 homicides in 2011? That's 17.45/100,000 in D.C. vs 3.68/100,000 for Sarasota country for the same time period.

So, the murder rate in the most restrictive jurisdiction in the country is 5 TIMES that in one of the least restrictive (and with one of the highest percentages of concealed carry permits also).

It's obvious we need to restrict gun ownership, so we can all enjoy a safe environment like D.C. [/sarcasm]

X+Y does not necessarily equal Z.

There are lots of reasons for a homicide rate to be higher or lower from one place to another, or increase one year or decrease the next, etc. (DC's rate has declined steadily for years, btw). New York City's homicide rate for 2010 was 6.4/100,000, much lower than DC's rate. And NYC doesn't exactly have lax gun control laws. One place that does though is Houston, which had a homicide rate of 11.4/100,000 during the same year, nearly double NYC's rate.

So maybe just looking at gun control laws to explain a statistic like homicide is poor analysis, because you just can't compare homicide rates from Sarasota to Washington DC to New York City to Houston without a much more detailed discussion than what the local gun control laws look like.

[Blind groper]

There are lots of reasons for a homicide rate to be higher or lower from one place to another,

The problem is that you cannot compare one US state with another in terms of gun availability. Gun availability, to all intents and purposes, is the same everywhere within the USA. That is : close to 100% availability. Anyone who wants a hand gun will get one, even if it requires a trip into the next state.

So any "logic" about murder rates from one state to the next, related to gun availability, is logical bullshit.

[laklak]

There are lots of reasons for a homicide rate to be higher or lower from one place to another,

The problem is that you cannot compare one US state with another in terms of gun availability. Gun availability, to all intents and purposes, is the same everywhere within the USA. That is : close to 100% availability. Anyone who wants a hand gun will get one, even if it requires a trip into the next state.

So any "logic" about murder rates from one state to the next, related to gun availability, is logical bullshit.

Whoa, hang on a minute here. Why can I not compare D.C. with Sarasota county? Blind_Groper, you have argued repeatedly in this thread (and others) that Western Europe and the U.S. have cultures similar enough that you can compare overall homicide statistics and come up with a valid conclusion. D.C. and Sarasota county are far more similar, culturally speaking, than the U.S. as a whole and the U.K. or France. Why is the difference between U.K. and U.S. homicide rates easily explained by the availability of guns but the differences between Sarasota and D.C. are not?

I'll buy some level of difference due to cultural factors - D.C. is far more gang ridden and is generally poorer (EDIT strike that, see below) than Sarasota, but really - 5 TIMES the murder rate? So what is the reason, then? Maybe it's poverty, maybe D.C. is much poorer than Sarasota. Oh, hang on, median income in D.C. per household is $83.884, compared to $49,388 for Sarasota. OK, how about average education level, lets check that. In D.C., 21.64% have graduate degrees, 19.16% have bachelors degrees, 3.28% have associates degrees. In Sarasota county, 11% have graduate degrees, 18% have a bachelors and 7% have an associates. Hmmm. So far it looks like Sarasota is losing badly to D.C. in all the areas that are usually cited as reasons for high crime levels. Is it because D.C. is much blacker than Sarasota? Best stay away from that argument unless you want to be labeled a racist, eh?

As for gun availability - if you try to buy a handgun (your bugbear of choice, BG), you have to submit to a background check. It's the same check in Florida that it is in D.C. Are the folks doing the background checks in D.C. vastly less competent than the ones in Sarasota?

Come on, y'all, I'm doing my research here. Why don't you do yours so we can avoid the "logical bullshit"?

http://www.clrsearch.com/Washington_Dem ... Statistics

http://www.sarasotacoast.com/Sarasota_Census_Data

[Seth]

Jesus fucking christ, 108 homicides in 2011? That's 17.45/100,000 in D.C. vs 3.68/100,000 for Sarasota country for the same time period.

So, the murder rate in the most restrictive jurisdiction in the country is 5 TIMES that in one of the least restrictive (and with one of the highest percentages of concealed carry permits also).

It's obvious we need to restrict gun ownership, so we can all enjoy a safe environment like D.C. [/sarcasm]

X+Y does not necessarily equal Z.

There are lots of reasons for a homicide rate to be higher or lower from one place to another, or increase one year or decrease the next, etc. (DC's rate has declined steadily for years, btw). New York City's homicide rate for 2010 was 6.4/100,000, much lower than DC's rate. And NYC doesn't exactly have lax gun control laws. One place that does though is Houston, which had a homicide rate of 11.4/100,000 during the same year, nearly double NYC's rate.

What NYC has is a police state with more than 34,000 uniformed officers who routinely engage in tens of thousands of illegal and unconstitutional warrantless, suspicionless "stop, question and frisk" abuses every day. With enough police officers on the street, any city can be safe. I had a friend who was a travel agent who went on a "fam" trip to Moscow in the 70's and she said she never felt safer than walking through downtown Moscow and Red Square alone at 2 am because there was a soldier with a machine gun on literally every street corner.

You want to live in that kind of police state, be my guest...move to Moscow...oh, wait, Moscow now has one of the highest crime rates (and most stringent gun laws) in the world. Go figure. I guess Communism was good for something.

I prefer to provide for my own safety and not depend on the non-present or corrupt police or military to "protect" me because in fact when the police have that much power, they become the criminals, as anybody in NYC can tell you about NYPD police officers who can do just about anything they want and get away with it.

[Seth]

There are lots of reasons for a homicide rate to be higher or lower from one place to another,

The problem is that you cannot compare one US state with another in terms of gun availability. Gun availability, to all intents and purposes, is the same everywhere within the USA. That is : close to 100% availability. Anyone who wants a hand gun will get one, even if it requires a trip into the next state.

So any "logic" about murder rates from one state to the next, related to gun availability, is logical bullshit.

Whoa, hang on a minute here. Why can I not compare D.C. with Sarasota county? Blind_Groper, you have argued repeatedly in this thread (and others) that Western Europe and the U.S. have cultures similar enough that you can compare overall homicide statistics and come up with a valid conclusion. D.C. and Sarasota county are far more similar, culturally speaking, than the U.S. as a whole and the U.K. or France. Why is the difference between U.K. and U.S. homicide rates easily explained by the availability of guns but the differences between Sarasota and D.C. are not?

Nicely done. Groper has just hoist himself on his own rhetorical petard with that little slip of the lip.

[Blind groper]

. Why can I not compare D.C. with Sarasota county? Blind_Groper, you have argued repeatedly in this thread (and others) that Western Europe and the U.S. have cultures similar enough that you can compare overall homicide statistics and come up with a valid conclusion.

Because people in DC and Sarasota can both freely buy hand guns, even if they have to cross a state border to do so. US versus UK is different, because people in the UK cannot.

[Wumbologist]

. Why can I not compare D.C. with Sarasota county? Blind_Groper, you have argued repeatedly in this thread (and others) that Western Europe and the U.S. have cultures similar enough that you can compare overall homicide statistics and come up with a valid conclusion.

Because people in DC and Sarasota can both freely buy hand guns, even if they have to cross a state border to do so. US versus UK is different, because people in the UK cannot.

They still have to pass a background check to "freely" buy it.

[Blind groper]

Whatever.
The end result is that anyone in the USA who wants a hand gun, can get one. I have been told by an American I know, that even if the legal authorities turn you down, it is not hard. Just a little more expensive.

In western Europe, though, it is almost impossible to get a hand gun, and very, very few possess one. Since half of all murders in the USA are done with hand guns, this goes a long way to explaining why murder rates are so much lower in western Europe.

[laklak]

You're still not addressing my points. There is a vast difference in murder rates between Sarasota County and the District of Columbia. A far greater disparity than the murder rates between Sarasota County and Western Europe. Sarasota County has a 6% concealed carry percentage, D.C. has zero. Why is Sarasota not a blood bath and D.C. a crime free paradise? And as I have also pointed out, if you factor out gang on gang violence Sarasota's murder rate is lower than the UK and equivalent to the safest places in Western Europe. Law abiding citizens owning handguns and carrying concealed weapons is obviously NOT the problem. Why do you refuse to accept the irrefutable statistical evidence I've presented in several well researched posts? The links are there, go look for yourself if you don't believe my analysis. You don't win an argument by saying "whatever" and then restating your position, a position that is contradicted by reality.

[Jason]

. Why can I not compare D.C. with Sarasota county? Blind_Groper, you have argued repeatedly in this thread (and others) that Western Europe and the U.S. have cultures similar enough that you can compare overall homicide statistics and come up with a valid conclusion.

Because people in DC and Sarasota can both freely buy hand guns, even if they have to cross a state border to do so. US versus UK is different, because people in the UK cannot.

Just to highlight what Lak already wrote, you're not addressing the issue (as usual). If guns are equally available in Sarasota as they are in D.C. why are the homicide rates so disparate? Clearly it points to something other than the availability of guns and you don't wish to address it.

[Blind groper]

laklak

I have already said there is more than one factor. The main difference between western Europe and the USA is guns. The difference between DC and Sarasota is obviously something else, since they both have access to guns. I cannot say what that difference is, since I do not have the local knowledge. However, both places will have a murder rate higher than it would otherwise be if hand guns were not readily available.