100 homicidal home invasions

[Blind groper]

Nicely put, Hermit.

Seth accuses others of cherry picking, but totally ignores that fact that he is cherry picking by referring to a drop in homicides from 1990, while ignoring everything that came before.

[Seth]

What happened prior to the 1990s is not relevant to what's happening today: More guns, less crime.

In short, "more guns, less crime" is true, except when it isn't. Therefore it is true? Curious concept.

Trigger Warning!!!1! :

Well, sort of. Remember we're discussing a timeline here, and the social history of the country is an important factor in analyzing the causes of, and cures for, violent crime.

As I said before, prior to about 1990 (which I will set as a general point of demarcation for ease of use), and from 1960 to 1990, several factors affected violent crime rates including the establishment of the welfare state and the concentration of the poor in urban slums which decayed over time, the crack cocaine epidemic, the civil rights conflict and other historical factors that also affected how and where crime was concentrated, which was, and still is, primarily in the inner-city minority areas.

During that period, while gun ownership increased with population increases, because of widespread laws against carrying in public the effect of this increase was mostly muted and limited to areas outside of the high-crime cities, which all but universally stringently banned guns and almost completely banned concealed carry.

When crime peaked in the 1990s, state legislatures began examining Florida's experiment with shall-issue concealed carry and saw the obvious benefits and lack of negative impacts and began expanding their own programs. This coincided with radical and ongoing drops in violent crime rates...and in fact all categories of crime with some exceptions in the property crime category. During the same period, with the liberalization of both concealed carry laws and the concurrent loosening of restrictions on urban residents obtaining firearms lawfully, except for places like NYC, Chicago, Detroit and LA, there was no evidence of an increase in gun crime, gun accidents or misbehavior by licensed persons, so the expansion spread and now covers all 50 states to one degree or another. This lack of negative consequences and self-evident positive consequences of liberalizing CCW was so compelling that it persuaded the Supreme Court in the McDonald case, to declare that Chicago's absolute ban on handguns, even in the home, to be unconstitutional. As Chicago tried to defy the forces of history, the Court said specifically that because Chicago could not substantiate ANY of it's claims about a link between lawful gun ownership and violent crime, its laws violated the constitutional rights of Mr. McDonald, a poor black man who had applied for a handgun permit so he could keep a handgun in his home for self defense.

The point is that the correlation of more guns and less crime is specifically related to not the raw number of guns in society, but to who specifically possesses them and where they may do so. It was the liberalization of the laws regarding carrying concealed handguns in public rather than just in one's home (as the McDonald Court held) that is largely correlated with, and I would even go so far as to say caused the precipitous drops in violent crime, especially street crime, as criminals came to learn that their intended victims were no longer rendered completely defenseless by the government but might actually be armed and prepared to kill their attackers if necessary.

It's hardly irrational to conclude that this link between armed potential victims and criminals deciding to find ways to fund their needs other than increasingly risky and potentially fatal street crime is the more or less direct result of a larger pool of armed citizens. Most criminals aren't in it just to be violent, they use violence as a deterrent to resistance and usually only as a threat, and their intent is to acquire the boodle without getting hurt or killed themselves. Anti-concealed carry laws that prevailed until the 1990s gave criminals the green light by helping to ensure that their potential victims would not be armed and would not therefore be able to effectively resist them, much less kill them.

That all changed in 1990 and the results are perfectly clear: More guns (carried concealed in public by law abiding citizens) means less crime (by cowardly street thugs who just want to get high, not killed). This link is also suggested by the small increase in property crimes, as opposed to personal crimes, that has occurred in some places as well. When street robbery became less safe, criminals turned to the safer trade of property crimes like burglary and auto theft where no potentially armed victims are around who might kill them.

So, to be perfectly correct, we should say "More guns carried concealed in public by permitted, law-abiding citizens, less crime, particularly crimes of personal violence such as armed robbery and street muggings." But that's a mouthful, so the shortened version "more guns, less crime" is perfectly appropriate because it's true, if somewhat abbreviated.

What we know with certainty from the statistics associated with the period from 1990 to now is that there has been no increase in gun-related crime or gun accidents, much less legions of police officers killed by law-abiding citizens legally carrying their personal defense weapons as was and is predicted by the anti-gun hysterics and hoplophobes every time the issue comes up.

Since at the very worst the presence of more guns in society has not been the cause of, or even correlated with an increase in crime or gun-related accidents, there doesn't seem to be a rational reason to further restrict or ban the lawful possession of firearms of any kind.

So no, it's always been "more guns, less crime" although this correlation may have been masked by massive increases in crime caused by social factors other than guns.

That's an impressive list of ad hoc arguments.

Glad you like it.

Is it fair comment to say you changed your "more guns, less crime" mantra to "more liberal concealed carry permits, less crime" to make your thesis more accurate? If so, let's have a look at it.

Not really. I'm just filling out the details for those who appear to be incapable of understanding the nuances involved. But the basic fact remains true: more guns, less crime. That is simply an indisputable fact.

The first difficulty with it is the inability to explain why the violent crime rate in 1960 was less than half than in 2014. I don't think you would want to argue that concealed carry was twice as common then, and no, an appeal to latency won't wash.

Smaller, more rural population. I explained that already.

Next, murder rates have decreased in many countries. To cite one example I am familiar with, Australia, it halved in the past 15 years, and as you are most likely aware we have no concealed carry permits worth speaking of.

What about violent crime rates in general. Murder is not the only metric you see.

Then there are your various states to consider. Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Michigan, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Montana and Idaho have "Shall issue" policies. The murder rate in all of them is higher in 2012 than in 2000. Two more states, which have "May issue" policies in law but will issue in practice likewise have a higher murder rate in the same time frame. They are Connecticut and Delaware. In the latter case the rate has come within a whisker of doubling.

Once again, murder rates are not the only metric. But, supposing that what you say is true, for the sake of argument, there are many factors that might cause a higher murder rate that are unrelated to concealed carry. Overall however the trend is as I claim: more guns, less crime. Not just murder, but violent crime in general.

In the District of Columbia, which has probably the most restrictive gun controls in your nation, on the other hand, the murder rate has decreased to 25% in 2012 from its level in 2000.

Murder in DC was at 40.6 in 2001 and at 15.9 in 2013, which is a good thing. I have never claimed that ONLY more guns, less crime. There are of course plenty of ways to combat crime. But DC is still the murder capital of the US, with murder rates per 100,000 more than 3 times greater than today's national average (15.9 vs. 4.5 as of 2013). On the other hand, murder rates in neighboring Virginia, which has shall-issue to both residents and non-residents, were 7.5 in 1996 and 4.1 in 2014. More guns, less crime. How do you explain a murder rate of one-third of DC's murder rate in a state that borders DC if concealed carry is not a factor? Source

So, no, I don't think all that highly of your revised thesis either. You'll just have to continue backpedalling. Here's a suggestion, abandon that shit altogether and cover your retreat by saying it's all irrelevant anyway because the only thing that matters is the threat of your tyrannous government to its freedom and peace loving citizens. That's really all you have left to go to.

Not really. I have the fact that nationally, violent crime continues its steady decline while the number of guns, and the number of people carrying them for self defense, increases. More guns, less crime. Anomalies in some areas does not change that fact. A murder rate in a particular area, be it local or state, can jump 100 percent overnight because of a single incident...if the murder rate was quite small to begin with. It can also change radically due to population and social changes.

In North Dakota, for example, the murder rate per 100,000 was 2.2 in 1996 and 3.0 in 2014, however, during that period its murder rate was as high as 3.6 (2012) and as low 0.5 (2008) and between 1997 and 2010 ranged between 0.5 and 1.9. The increases in murder rates, and the increases in violent crime seen beginning in 2012 coincide with the discovery and development of oil and gas in the Bakken formation and the enormous increase in population that took place as roughnecks from all over migrated to North Dakota for work. As you can see, there are plenty of factors that affect crime and murder rates locally, but the fact remains that in 1970 the national murder rate per 100,000 was 7.9 and as of 2014 it is 4.5.

More guns, less crime. Source

[Seth]

Nicely put, Hermit.

Seth accuses others of cherry picking, but totally ignores that fact that he is cherry picking by referring to a drop in homicides from 1990, while ignoring everything that came before.

Actually you lie again.

National murder rates per 100,000 in 1970 were 7.9. As of 2014 it's 4.5. In between national murder rates moved up and down, peaking in 1974 at 9.8 and at 10.2 in 1980 and again at 9.8 in 1991. Since 1991 (with a small blip of 0.2 in 1992) however the decline has been steady, particularly between 1991 and 2000 where the rate dropped from 9.8 to 5.5. And since 2000 the rate has continued to decrease steadily to where it is today.

This precipitous decline starting in 1993 coincides with the increase in public concealed carry and increases in gun ownership generally. More guns, less crime.

So, while prior to the liberalization of public concealed carry murder rates went up and down between 7.2 and 10.9, the effects of public concealed carry are quite obvious after 1991.

More guns, less crime.

Source

[Hermit]

Your bias is laughable.

For increases in crime you cite a whole raft of factors;
Welfare state
Urban slums
Crack cocaine epidemic
Civil rights conflict
Demographic change

For any decrease you cite one:

More guns
followed as of today by a vague wave of the hand at "plenty of ways to combat crime".

Given your blinkered approach I cannot take your argument seriously.

And just a reminder: While I do not subscribe to your more guns, less crime mantra, I do not share Blind groper's opinion that more guns means more crime (except for the incidence of loons committing massacres) either.

[laklak]

The black swan is the inescapable fact is there are now more guns and less crime.

[Hermit]

The black swan is the inescapable fact is there are now more guns and less crime.

Is it an inescapable fact that therefore there were more than twice the number of guns in 1960 compared to 2014?

[Blind groper]

There are also fewer gun owners.

As I have pointed out several times, the University of Chicago carried out a study to show that, while the number of guns has increased, the number of people owning guns has dropped.

If one person commits a murder, and if that one person has two guns it does not translate into two murders. Gun nutters owning more than one gun is unimportant. What is important is the number of gun nutters, and that figure is dropping.

[Tero]

The problem in the US is that there is never a shortage of guns. Most of them not locked up. The number of people committing crimes is small. There are probably hundreds of guns relative to each active criminal. It's not hard to locate those guns. Only a sledge hammer is needed to burglarize a gun.

[Seth]

Your bias is laughable.

For increases in crime you cite a whole raft of factors;
Welfare state
Urban slums
Crack cocaine epidemic
Civil rights conflict
Demographic change

Indeed, because all are causal factors in crime.

For any decrease you cite one:

More guns
followed as of today by a vague wave of the hand at "plenty of ways to combat crime".

Given your blinkered approach I cannot take your argument seriously.

I cite the fact that more guns and less crime coincide because the subject of the thread is gun control and the argument made is that more guns results in more crime, which is demonstrably false.

This is not a thread about the general causes of violent crime nor is it about methods of preventing violent crime other than the possession and use of lawfully-owned firearms by law-abiding citizens.

The arguments that triggered my response were the specious allegations that the "more guns, less crime" rubric is somehow false because there is not a direct one-on-one correlation between increases in firearms ownership and decreases in crime. I point out that there are many reasons for increases in crime, which happen to include more criminals using firearms in crimes, but that the general trend downwards of violent crime that coincides with the general trend upwards in the public carrying of concealed weapons are causally linked, as many studies have concluded.

I have pointed out that crime went up and down between 1970 and 1990 and some of the factors that are likely candidates as causes for those variations, and then I point out that the steady decline in violent crime beginning in 1990 or so is related to an increase in firearms possession by law abiding citizens, but I have never suggested or claimed that this is the ONLY reason for declines in crime, merely that it is one reason, and further that this proves absolutely that the claim that more guns results in more crime is simply false. More guns, less crime and more guns, more crime are mutually exclusive propositions and facts are on my side in that respect.

And just a reminder: While I do not subscribe to your more guns, less crime mantra, I do not share Blind groper's opinion that more guns means more crime (except for the incidence of loons committing massacres) either.

Glad to hear it. But again, the subject of this thread is the assertion that more guns results in more crime and that claim is simply demonstrably false. My citing of specific statistics is simply a rebuttal to that specious assertion and not suggestive of a claim that ONLY more guns results in less crime.

[Seth]

The black swan is the inescapable fact is there are now more guns and less crime.

Is it an inescapable fact that therefore there were more than twice the number of guns in 1960 compared to 2014?

Sophistry. You are attempting to argue that there must be a direct and exclusive causal link between guns and crime that is putatively disproven by the fact that prior to 1990 violent crime rates went up and down. This is not the case, as I have explained. The significant factor, which you consistently ignore, is the liberalization of public concealed carry that began in the late eighties and began to show statistical effects in the early nineties.

The correlation between the number of guns in society and the amount of violent crime is neither a one-to-one relationship nor is it an exclusive link. Many other factors are involved, even after 1990, but the fact remains that since 1990 there are many more guns in society, and many more being carried publicly for self defense and there is less violent crime. More guns, less crime.

[Seth]

There are also fewer gun owners.

As I have pointed out several times, the University of Chicago carried out a study to show that, while the number of guns has increased, the number of people owning guns has dropped.

Which of course is a completely bogus claim because nobody knows how many guns there are in the US, nor who has them, nor how many any one person has because our system is set up to prevent that information from being collected by the government. The study you cite is based on limited surveys of specific demographic populations that are not representative of the truth about US gun ownership and is factually untrue today anyway.

What we know for a fact is that however many gun owners there may be or may have been in the past, and however many guns each may own, there are at least 12 million more people carrying a gun in public for the purposes of self defense than there were prior to 1990, as proven by the official records of the states that issue permits to do so, and that this increasing number of firearms possessed under conditions that permit their immediate use in public for self defense clearly coincides with the steady and uninterrupted decrease in violent crime. So even if your Harvard pets are correct about the overall population of gun owners, their conclusions are patently false because they did not factor in the concealed carry data, which proves that more guns, less crime.

This fact, even if your theory is true, demonstrates the "force multiplying" nature of shall-issue concealed carry. A relatively small number of citizens licensed and willing to carry arms in public results in large and ongoing drops in violent crime, meaning that the effect of even ONE person carrying concealed lawfully has a disproportionate effect on criminality, which benefits not just the person carrying the gun, but all of society.

So even if you are right and gun ownership decreases by 50 percent, if the remaining 50 percent of gun owners are willing to carry their guns concealed in public, and use them when necessary to defend themselves, others, and society in general, it is better for society that those who are willing and able to carry concealed be not just permitted but encouraged to do so, for the benefit of everyone.

[Seth]

The problem in the US is that there is never a shortage of guns.

That's not a problem, that's a specifically intended feature.

Most of them not locked up.

What's your evidence of this ass-ertion?

The number of people committing crimes is small.

And getting smaller every year thanks to law-abiding citizens carrying guns.

There are probably hundreds of guns relative to each active criminal.

Yup. And more importantly, hundreds, if not thousands of guns relative to the number of guns the federal government has available to the standing army, which is an important aspect of the 2nd Amendment as well.

It's not hard to locate those guns. Only a sledge hammer is needed to burglarize a gun.

Which, although a complete fabrication and unproven claim, is all the more reason to make sure that burglars seeking guns don't have a second chance to attempt it.

[laklak]

The black swan is the inescapable fact is there are now more guns and less crime.

Is it an inescapable fact that therefore there were more than twice the number of guns in 1960 compared to 2014?

No idea what the gun stats were back then. Crime was lower in general, except for 1 - murder. Murder rates in 2014 are tied with murder rates in 1961 at 4.8/100,000. Given the rather massive increase in the number of guns floating about one would expect a corresponding increase in murder rates. After all, that's what the anti-gun contingent seems to concentrate on. But that isn't the case.

http://leftcall.com/4557/u-s-crime-rate ... prise-you/

I am not making the argument that more guns = less crime either. The crime rate is independent of gun ownership levels. If that is true (which despite the reported numbers many here will claim it isn't) then there is no logical reason to restrict gun ownership.

[laklak]

BTW, I do not for a second believe gun ownership percentages have been falling over time. There are no statistics except self-reporting to work from.

[Hermit]

I cite the fact that more guns and less crime coincide

I cite the fact that in post WWII Germany a decreasing number of storks and a decreasing birth rate coincide, and that's an undeniable fact. Is the stork theory of procreation therefore correct?