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There's No Correlation Between Gun Ownership, Mass Shootings, & Murder Rates
Submitted by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,
While I was fact checking my previous article, I checked some correlation coefficients of my own so I didn't have to rely on Volokh's numbers as my only source.
I approached the data a little differently than Volokh did and instead of using a subjective ranking by an organization like the Brady organization, I just looked at the rate of gun ownership in the state. After all, the argument is often that more guns and more gun owners leads to more violence.
So, I looked at the correlation between the gun ownership rate (a percentage on the x axis) and the murder rate (n per 100,000 on the y axis) in each state. The visual result is this:
As you can see, there is no correlation. In fact, if you run the numbers, the correlations coefficient is 0.1, which suggests a negligible correlation, or none at all. The murder data is 2012 data from the Justice Department. The gun ownership rate data is from a 2015 report called "Gun ownership and social gun culture."
Just for good measure, I also went in and looked for a correlation between mass shootings and gun ownership rates. Here, I took the total number of mass shooting victims in all states so far in 2015. This is updated constantly by Mass Shooting Tracker, and includes the most recent Oregon mass shooting. Mass shootings here include a shooting involving 4 or more people, and do not necessarily mean school shooting. They can mean someone went nuts and shot his wife, her lover, and two bystanders at a birthday party when the shooter personally knew all the victims. There are not just cases of random public shootings. If we only included those, the total numbers would be microscopically small. Even with all mass shooting data together, it's obvious that your odds of being involved in one in any given year are vanishingly small, and less than 1 per 100,000 in 48 states. I've included all victims, not just fatalities here. If I used only fatalities, the mass shooting numbers would be much smaller:
There's even less of a correlation here: -0.006.
Now, I've noticed that when someone points out the lack of a correlation here, gun-control advocates are quick to jump in and say "but you didn't control for this" and "you didn't control for that." That's true. But what I do show here is that the situation is much more complicated than one would think from absurd claims like "states with fewer guns have fewer murders" and so on. Apparently, claims that new gun laws are commonsensical can't be true if the relationship between gun laws and murder rates require us to adjust for half a dozen different variables. In fact, by looking at the data, I could imagine any number of other factors that might be more likely a determinant of the murder rate than gun ownership.
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In fact, one study after another has shown that legally purchased weapons which followed all the normal firearms transfer rules accounted for somewhere between six and eight percent of all murders. And the majority of those were domestic violence incidents, violence between family members, crimes of passion and, yes… murders committed by the insane. But let’s give the gun grabbers the benefit of the doubt, round it up and say that ten percent were committed with legally purchases guns. That works out to around 850.
Virginia Tech Massacre: Gun Control—Or Immigration Control? Peter Brimelow (Former Executive Editor Forbes magazine) April 18, 2007
The Oregon Shooting Immigrant Murder, Disgruntled Minority Massacre, Christophobia—Or Memory Hole Peter Brimelow (Former Executive Editor Forbes magazine) October 2, 2015
Ann Coulter On Mass Shootings: The Problem Isn’t Guns Or White Men
Take a good look at those numbers. Of the actual 8,583 gun murders committed in 2011, 323were committed with “rifles.” And that’s all rifles, including bolt action, deer hunting rifles and all the rest. The number committed with so called “assault rifles” were a fraction of that. When you ask how dangerous those rifles are, compare that to nearly 1,700 who were stabbed as well as nearly 500 murdered with blunt objects and and more than 700 beaten to death by somebody with their bare hands. Enough said on that topic.
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the...
I've figured out the logic of abolish-gun-regulation idiots... "I can drink and drive responsibly, so everyone else should be able to." After all, alcohol doesn't kill, people who drink and drive kill kids. Why should we have any drunk driving regulations by this logic?
Keep banging your spoon on the empty bowl lumpy. Mom'll be down with s'more spaghettiO's soon.
Why have laws when only law abiding people abide by them? Let's just get rid of them all and get more guns to protect us... from lawlessness...
So we should require registration and licensing of every bottle of alcohol?
Can I conseal carry my bottle, or open carry only? Will capacity of my bottle be limited? Will the bottle opening size be restricted?
As stupid as this sounds, this is what regulators propose to address the gun situation.
In 2012, an estimated 47,989 people were diagnosed with HIV infection in the United States. In that same year, an estimated 27,928 people were diagnosed with AIDS.
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/statistics/basics/ataglance.html
You sampfags wanting to ban guns want to "save lives?" Ban sex you reprobates.
"There's No Correlation Between Gun Ownership, Mass Shootings, & Murder Rates"
no, but there is a correlation between the leftist-statist media, leftist-statist agendas and the leftist-statist dicktator obola and gun control
88.3% of political staticians make up 93.4%f of their statistics 74.5% of the time with a margin of uncertainty of 233%
I posted this on another thread....
interesting take on things....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1&v=jwLjFm6GMBM
Let's do a blacks/latinos gangs vs mass shootings correlation graph...
You could add race, population density, various economic factors, and maybe you'd get a more clear picture.
My favorite gun grabber argument and the one Obama keeps trotting out every time he opens his fucking pie hole is the ad nauseum reference to other OECD nations. That argument overlooks one simple fact. NO OTHER OECD nation has the gigantic criminal underclass the US has. Indeed, vast swaths of America resemble 3rd world countries for lack of a better comparison. In nearly every urban American city are ghettos that rival any ghetto in Rio, Haiti, Jo-burg or Nairobi for their pervasive poverty, violence and lawlessness. Now go back and compare those stats.
So shove your OECD comparisons up your ivy league privileged ass. You must be completely oblivious to not be aware of the economically dispossed criminal underclass that exists in the US.
China, Russia, Japan. These countries have damn few niggers or wetbacks. Import 10 million breeding pairs to each of these countries, wait 10 years, and then get back to me. I'll show you what 'diversity' brings.
One statistic that really stands out about mass shootings is the high number that occur in gun-free zones!
This stuff has already been studied ad nauseum. The only strong correlation with gun violence is poverty. America has the most gun violence of any developed nation because we also have the highest poverty rate of any developed nation.
If you want to stop school shootings, your best bet is to hire school security guards, because there is no telling when mentally disturbed white trash nerds who can't get laid will suddenly snap.
Why not just have the teachers exercise their constitutional rights?
Isn't that simpler?
The whole purpose of teachers is adult supervision and some teaching, no? Isn't it the responsibility of adults to protect kids?
Having said all of that, the last shooting was in a college, these were young adults who were STUPID enough to go into a gun-free-zone which actually means, "Defenseless-targets-zone-for_psychos".
NEVER enter a gun free zone.
Squid
I am not trying to be an ass or anything but try looking at the relationship between the concentration of black people and murders and I think you will zero in on where the problem is. Certainly not saying that there are not plenty of other problems in society but when it comes to gun violence, the black population is much more affected than any other group.
The Black population perpetrates more gun violence than any other group.
Let's speak clearly, shall we?
No.
Liberals prefer terms like 'poverty' when they actually mean blacks but would never say so as to risk being ousted from the hive-mind.
Sure I'm in.
According to the US Department of Justice, blacks accounted for 52.5% of homicide offenders from 1980 to 2008, with whites 45.3% and "Other" 2.2%. The offending rate for blacks was almost 8 times higher than whites, and the victim rate 6 times higher. Most homicides were intraracial, with 84% of white victims killed by whites, and 93% of black victims killed by blacks.
According to the National Crime Victimization Survey in 2002, the black arrest rate for robbery was 8.55 times higher than whites, and blacks were 16 times more likely to be incarcerated for robbery than non-Hispanic whites. Robberies with white victims and black offenders were more than 12 times more common than the reverse.
data should be from the same year
and you should include countries in europe where gunownership is much lower
I think there is a cost, but thats just the fee one pays for having a freedom to own guns, which should never ever be taken away.
Presumably as long as your not the one paying the cost?
How long before recreational drones will be armed and used to harm the public or as revenge against a particular individual?
I forgot, all the gun nuts are such marksmen that they can take a drone out with one shot.
Stop! That's several drones with one shot. How silly of me.
Go finish your homework.
The adults are talking here.
You Americans are ridiculous... Do the same correlation, but instead of using your states, use the USA as a whole and the civilized Western countries which ban gun ownership --> e.g. Australia, UK, EU, heck, even Russia and China...
"You Amercians are stupid...."
Hmmmm.... I'm not American and that statement is well.....
How did the chap put it a few post ago?
"The stupid is strong with this one".
The constitution is clear, "Shall NOT BE infringed".
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor they half considered landing troops in the Western US....but with every farmer and all the towns' folk owning rifles, they thought better of it. They'd not have been at war not with the US Army but with all the United States....which is how it was envisioned in the 1780s when the constitution was written.
Its not a good time to buy a fire extinguisher when your house is already ablaze.
Comments from Europeans that have accepted defacto vasectomies rather than stand up like men to their governments really don't have much to say on the issue. You are WAY more likely to get mugged in the UK than in the USA, even in bad neighborhoods simply because crooks are bold in the UK. What can happen to them? They do not fear the police and since its against the law to protect yourself, they do not fear their victims. Contrast that with Texas for example. A place where church going little old ladies are packing.....crooks are not so bold in Texas, in fact most move up north for the easy pickings in Vermont and New York State.....where the laws are more akin to the UK.
An armed society is a polite society.
There have been MANY shootings in the USA that were summarily cut short by a law abiding citizen exercising his constitutional rights by giving a new asshole to a crook that disparately needed one. These incidents are, of course, expunged from the news ASAP because they don't fit the narrative. Never mind, you're not American, its none of your business.
There is an entire section of the constitution on the "Amendment" process. If MOST Americans feel that the second Amendment has to be changed, then there is a method to do so.
And that, is that.
Squid
You are a fucking imbecile. Rus has conceal carry laws. Just commit suicide by cop now and relieve the rest of us from being exposed to your idiocy.
How very stupid. compare guns own in the US and guns own in other countries and see where all the shooting are. I don't know if i can even take this site seriously.
If you think your biased article is going to convince anyone. Everybody will however believe that there are real scientific results that always point towards the easy solution, more guns more gundeaths, including murder.
Oh let me correct that, this does not include Americans, they are the most stupid people on this planet and their view on guns is just more proof on that already insanely large heap of facts,that indeed the American people are the most stupid in the history of mankind.
Ok, but why not do the same analysis on a country by country basis? The 50 states are different in more ways than murder rates and gun ownership. There are large differences in population, age, education, and population density (as well as urbanization).
Look at Europe. Low gun ownership and low (often extremely low) levels of gun violence. (Many of you will argue that Europe is communist, socialist, stupid, ugly, etc. but that is not the argument here.) Taking guns away from people reduces gun violence and above all reduces mass slayings.
But, and this is a but which took me a long time to get to, I believe that the 2nd Amendment is the only part of the Bill of Rights which is still relatively intact. So while I believe the writers of the 2nd Amendment had a militia in mind (don't....please don't...that is my interpretation...just drop it, okay), I also think it would be nice to keep one civil right. If we can manage to somehow restore the other 9 bills, I would then go back to amending the 2nd. But not for now.
Are you talking about total murder rate, including by the state, or (as I suspect) only the "private" murder rate, by private individuals?
Because usually the European figures conventiently exclude the murders by the state, and these run into the tens of millions. So in terms of the magnitude of the word "mass", Europe has it down to a factory like process. People of undesirable character in one end, dead bodies out the other.
Seriously? Are you now going back to the holocaust and saying that it could have been avoided by allowing widespread gun ownership?
Is that the best you have? Ok, you win. I give up. I truly hope America gets 100% gun ownership and manages to kill themselves off before they continue their worldwide infection.
"The stupid is strong with this one."
Ok, here it is. If you get shot while I exercise my 2nd amendment rights, then it's a price I'm willing and will gladly pay.
How's that?
Are you getting the picture now?
Generally speaking, Europe has not ever had widespread public gun ownership (except maybe switzerland), and low levels of gun violence clearly result from that fact. Taking away guns in America would be far different and have widespread negative consequences as compared with Eurpoeans never really having them in the first place. So I think comparisons between very different cultures and cultural attitudes toward firearms is not relevant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pELwCqz2JfE
" So while I believe the writers of the 2nd Amendment had a militia in mind (don't....please don't...that is my interpretation...just drop it, okay), I also think it would be nice to keep one civil right."
Define militia for me, so I can understand your thought here a bit better.
But there is a correlation between mass shooting and Jewish domestic terrorist. Starting with Columbine.
This entire article and survey is meaningless and pointless. It must be clear to everyone by now that the push for "gun control", (really the abolition of guns in the hands of American citizens) has nothing whatsoever to do with any concern for the safety and well being of the American people and everything to do with government's ability to control and enslave the American people without challenge or fear of reprisal.
there is also no correlation between the justice department and justice...................or public schools and education.............remember war is peace................the whole world is ass backwards and retarded.............if your a loving parent you need to go into the street and cut you kids fucking off to prove it to the state
Liberal-Progressives just want 200,0000 more women raped and 1.5 million more violent crime victims EVERY YEAR
"As many as 200,000 women use a gun every year to defend themselves against sexual abuse.(23)"
"Even anti-gun Clinton researchers concede that guns are used 1.5 million times annually for self-defense. According to the Clinton Justice Department, there are as many as 1.5 million cases of self-defense with a firearm every year. The National Institute of Justice published this figure in 1997 as part of "Guns in America"—a study which was authored by noted anti-gun criminologists Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig.(24)"
"Armed citizens kill more crooks than do the police. Citizens shoot and kill at least twice as many criminals as police do every year (1,527 to 606)(25). And readers of Newsweek learned that "only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The ‘error rate’ for the police, however, was 11 percent, more than five times as high."(26)"
https://www.gunowners.org/fs0404.htm
point the guns at the totalitarians.
What if the SSRI theories and the CIA operation theories are both correct? What if the CIA hit a gold mine with the MK Ultra program. If you unaware of this program or are too embarrassed to research here is a quick run down (wikipedia for expedience). Keep in mind that the Church Committee was on of the last times the government under official capacity revealed anything of large significance that the CIA has been involved in and this occurred in the 50s. It can't be denied as a possibility.
"Project MKUltra—sometimes referred to as the CIA's mind control program—was the code name given to an illegal program of experiments on human subjects, designed and undertaken by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Experiments on humans were intended to identify and develop drugs and procedures to be used in interrogations and torture, in order to weaken the individual to force confessions through mind control"
"MKUltra used numerous methodologies to manipulate people's mental states and alter brain functions, including the surreptitious administration of drugs (especially LSD) and other chemicals, hypnosis,[9] sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, as well as various forms of torture."
"The scope of Project MKUltra was broad, with research undertaken at 80 institutions, including 44 colleges and universities, as well as hospitals, prisons, and pharmaceutical companies.[10] The CIA operated through these institutions using front organizations, although sometimes top officials at these institutions were aware of the CIA's involvement.[11] As the US Supreme Court later noted, MKULTRA was:
"concerned with "the research and development of chemical, biological, and radiological materials capable of employment in clandestine operations to control human behavior." The program consisted of some 149 subprojects which the Agency contracted out to various universities, research foundations, and similar institutions. At least 80 institutions and 185 private researchers participated. Because the Agency funded MKULTRA indirectly, many of the participating individuals were unaware that they were dealing with the Agency."[12]
deceitful malarkey, obtuse reasoning
there's a correlation between a proliferation of guns available everywhere in the USA and murder rates
where the shooter gets his guns makes no difference to the murdered, and the shooter gets them easily in a number of ways because they are everywhere in a gun infested country
It is just too bad that the stats don't back up your horse shit.
you have a vested interest in your country remaining psycho
Adam Lankford, an associate professor at the University of Alabama Department of Criminal Justice who studied mass shootings around the world from 1966 to 2012, found that countries with higher rates of gun ownership recorded more mass shooters per capita.
The U.S. ranks first in gun ownership per capita, with roughly 270 million firearms, or 89 firearms per 100 residents, according to the Small Arms Survey 2011, a Geneva-based research project that collects information on small arms. Yemen ranks second, with an estimated 55 firearms per 100 residents for a total of 11.5 million. Switzerland comes in third with 3.4 million firearms, or 46 guns per 100 residents.
Switzerland’s culture of gun ownership is a consequence of that country’s military conscription, said Martin Field, a spokesman for the Small Arms Survey, adding: “Correlations between gun ownership and gun crime are not exact.”
The U.S. represents less than 5% of the 7.3 billion global population but accounted for 31% of global mass shooters during the period from 1966 to 2012, more than any other country, Mr. Lankford said, adding that he defines a mass shooter as one who killed at least four victims. The 90 killers who carried out mass shootings in the U.S. amounted to five times as many as the next highest country, the Philippines, according to his research.
Adjusting for population, the difference was smaller: The number of public mass shooters for the U.S. was 65% higher per capita than the per capita rate for the Philippines.
Mr. Lankford, who collected information on mass killings from law-enforcement reports, scholarly articles and news articles, found that mass shooters in the U.S. were much more likely to strike at school and workplace settings, and to use multiple weapons compared with the other countries in the study, more that 170 in all.
Now you are just making horseshit up. Dismissed. See the new firearms post from Bill Whittle, liar.
Guns are a non issue. Sure, they are in the constitution, although I'd feel better if those carrying them swore an oath to the constitution. These are valid stats that show guns are not a problem. They also show they do not help.
I've spent time with a handle in my hand. I know the feeling of empowerment and security. It's an illusion. Too often these crime are commited in the presence of someone carrying, and doing nothing.
It still comes back to high-trust vs. low-trust cultures (read "Bowling Alone"). If I lived in a low trust culture I'd carry. But remember only high-trust cultures can sustain good government and a good economy. Low-trust cultures have too much paraticic loss from those who prey on the weak.
Look at the people around you. Do strangers help each other out? Hold doors open at the store, offer the handicapped guy a closer parking spot? Or have people shut down, suspicious of everyone who looks "different". Go ahead and carry, but you will only make your neigborhood better by reaching out and helping those around you.
Gun ownership doesn't hurt, but it's not a solution. It's a symptom.
I can't argue the statistics part but I know that having protection mattered to these people. I feel as though Phoenix would be Chicago in a heartbeat if it wasn't for the fact that the home invaders and psychos know that they are likely to get shot. I could post these all day it's really incredible, these are all from the Phoenix area.
14 Yo shoots home invader who brandishes gun at him. http://news.yahoo.com/14-old-phoenix-boy-shoots-armed-intruder-181216213.html
Widow hiding in her bathroom shoots home invader after he breaks down door and beats her (obviously he was after her and cops were not going to be there in time) http://abcnews.go.com/US/audio-captures-moment-phoenix-widow-shot-intruder/story?id=25244068
http://archive.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/free/20140117phoenix-home-intruder-shot-killed-arizona-abrk.html
2 men invade home, one gets shot other runs like hell.http://www.kpho.com/story/23654946/home-intruder-shot-killed-in-phoenix
Dumb bastard breaks into a home and then tries to kick in the bedroom door, gets shot in the face. http://www.guns.com/2013/07/26/az-homeowner-shot-intruder-in-the-face-but-may-face-charges-over-pot-plants-found-in-home-video/
Peeping tom tries to get at 17 year old girl, she shoots his ass. http://www.guns.com/2013/07/26/az-homeowner-shot-intruder-in-the-face-but-may-face-charges-over-pot-plants-found-in-home-video/
47 year old woman who lives alone shoots bastard after he breaks in and cleaves her over the head with a garden tool... once again cops were not going to make it.
http://www.guns.com/2013/07/26/az-homeowner-shot-intruder-in-the-face-but-may-face-charges-over-pot-plants-found-in-home-video/
Thank you. You are entirely correct.
Many Chicago neighborhoods are hell holes because the gang bangers and druggies rule, even when police are present. IF those communities had law abiding men and women with the guts, to obtain and keep weapons in the home, the murder rate by gang bangers would be cut in half. They dont have the guts. They dont have the will to band together as communities and drive the gangbanger out.
All the do is to appeal to their politicians for help and the politicians lament they cant enact gun laws. But what can they expect.
Chicago and the state of Illinois have been Democratic Plantation Hell holes controlled by Democrats since the late 1940's.
Chicago has gun violence because the citizens allow for gun violence to flourish by electing the same idiot politicians every 2 to 4 years.
Another thing that probably comes into play at some point is the system treating psychopaths with too much leniency and leaving the public at risk. It's an uncomfortable subject but a tiny little grade school girl was dragged off and raped waiting for the bus here the other day. These guys almost always get out of prison eventually and continue to prey upon society.
At the very least these guys should serve life in prison. If a guy sticks his hands down a little boys pants he should get life, he sodomizes the kid he is a psychopath and should sit the electric chair without delay, I am actually okay if we execute both of them. This is not cruel or unusual. Both types of sexual offenders mentioned above will be released into society again and when has the public ever supported that? The problem with these sick bastard is that through their sadism they replicate themselves.
If you exucuted every violent child rapist in less than 5 years everything would be a lot safer for little kids to wait for the bus. With politicians, judges etc that have been implicated in victimizing children, especially in Britain, you have to wonder if they keeping us from solving this problem.
The same goes for violent offender of any kind, if the population defended themselves the problem would decrease massively within just a matter of years. Why are these people more important than our children, I just don't get it. These politicians and the legal system are leaving us defenseless and treating monsters with little kid gloves and then blaming our right to defense as a cause, it's ludicrous and I could care less what the bleeding hearts think about it anymore.
There wouldn't be enough room in prison. Too full of weed smokers.
Besides, prison hardens criminals greatly increasing the odds of re-offence.
Just gang tazer them right at their court sentencing. Leave them curled up crying for mommy. Its saves us the cost of incarceration, and the criminals won't be stupidly proud of their "hard time".
That raises another question. Why are we allowing these sick bastards to sadistically continue to abuse people in prison? This in turn creates secondary psychopaths and then we release them. It's absolutely crazy. We should also execute prison inmates that abuse and rape other inmates and we should also execute the guards that are participating in prison rape. Psychopaths are not fixable. Our system is completely twisted, it's not our system it's theirs.
I made an error on that post too. One of the links is a repeat and is in the wrong spot.
If I lived there I'd carry until I moved.
Where I live carrying make no sense. It would more likely make me a target instead. Maybe I'm just lucky. I currently live in a high-trust culture and my kids have accidently left the front door open on our home.
Strangers here are more likely to walk up and close our door and leave in peace.
...
I live in a nation with a high gun ownership rate, but low rate of shootings. Sure, most weapons are long guns, and autos are banned. Is that the reason for the low shooting rate? I don't think so.
Yes, the nature of the weapons available in the US may have some impact (availability of automatic weapons, easily concealed weapons make multiple shootings easier to perpetrate), but I'm convinced the root cause is psychological. There is some aspect or aspects of American society, upbringing, experience that trigger a psychosis. Maybe the SSRIs are contributing, maybe even a significant factor. But its probably more than just SSRI medications - maybe, probably, that factor is just a symptom, not cause. Many maybes.
But its not gun ownership per se. Its whats happening between the ears that causes these events.
Why not compare real gun control variations like Seattle vs Vancouver, or Windsor vs. Detroit, or Toronto vs. New York?
This study is akin to comparing the degree of insanity among those in the asylum.
The long and short of the question is that the founding fathers in their wisdom believed the people need a final recourse from tyranny and the Second amendment was that final recourse.
Those who try to sell us gun control are no different than the snake oil salesmen of old.
http://incapp.org/blog/?p=2671