Lowest Murder Rate in NYC: Fewer Guns...Fewer Murders. Shocking, I know.

[RealityInSeattle]

I know that at first it is hard to draw a conclusion.

There is no way that actually having fewer guns around could possibly, under any circumstances, in any way, contribute to fewer people actually being shot. It's ludicrous obviously, it's just not possible.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BR38320091228

As of Sunday, 461 murders had been committed, down from 516 in 2008 and the lowest number since comparable record-keeping began in 1963, the New York Police Department said.
.......
In announcing the 2009 statistics, Mayor Michael Bloomberg also gave credit to his efforts to clamp down on illegal guns.

I have to go work this out...how is it possible. How can fewer guns mean fewer murders? I need a super computer from NASA to run some simulations or something to solve this baffling correlation.

[drm604]

1. This'll be good...

:popcorn:

[MichaelHarris]

72. yup

Imma be an observer on this one.

[drm604]

84. I should have stayed an observer. n/t

[virgogal]

2. Are you being sarcastic?

[RealityInSeattle]

3. Um, yes, Virgogal

very very very very very sarcastic.

[virgogal]

7. Um,usually the little red sarcastic thingy is posted with sarcasm.

[AtheistCrusader]

53. So explain our lower murder rate in Seattle, where as you well know, we have guns.

Maybe... some other factor at work?

[MercutioATC]

4. Not "fewer guns", fewer ILLEGAL guns.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the total number of guns, it's about having fewer criminals with guns in their hands.

...which seems like a no-brainer to me.

[valerief]

6. Doesn't that still mean fewer guns? nt

[MercutioATC]

9. Not necessarily.

If you take 1000 illegal guns off the street and legal gun ownership increases by 2000 guns, there's a net increase in guns owned...but a decrease in crime.

The point is that the OP's claim of "fewer guns" is completely undocumented.

[valerief]

27. So Bloomberg made all the illegal owners legal owners? So now that they're legal, they don't shoot

each other?

Why would a whole bunch of people decide to buy more guns just when a whole bunch of illegal gun owners are given the boot from the city/or their guns are taken away?

[baldguy]

38. There are very few legal gun owners in NYC.

Anyone trying to make the case that crime went down because there are relatively more "legal" gun owners in the city have no clue what they're talking about and should be ignored because of their ignorance.

[MercutioATC]

40. Lets remove "guns" from the equation and just deal with the logical supposition.

We'll substitute "cars" for "guns".

Bloomberg said that a crackdown on drunk driving (people who use guns for criminal purposes) is attributable to the decreased number of driving deaths (gun crimes).

This does not mean that the total number of drivers in New York decreased nor does it mean that car ownership is detrimental to public safety. It means that removing cars (or guns) from the hands of people who use them counter to the social interest results in a benefit to society.

...and I think you'll find that most "gun nuts" wholeheartedly agree with this.

[valerief]

56. How convenient for you to substitute the weapon with a vehicle. nt

[MercutioATC]

61. Not "convenient", in the context of the logical discussion, it's a valid substitution.

Care to refute the actual issue?

[valerief]

65. I try to response but there are too many gun lovers posts here.

I'm not interested in guns enough to keep up with them.

:hi:

[eqfan592]

67. ......wow, really?

What a cheap cop-out! "Too many people aren't falling in line with the crap I'm posting and are actually asking me to support my bullshit posts with EVIDENCE! Time to call them a name and stomp off into fantasy land!"

Very well done, indeed, valerief. :P

[MercutioATC]

68. Ok, so you hold these strong beliefs, but you're unable to ignore other posters long enough to

explain them to me?


Look, if you want to bow out of this discussion, that's obviously your right...but I was hoping you'd actually defend your assertions.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

76. Run away, run away. Heaven forbid you challenge your presuppositions.

[tburnsten]

44. That's not even close to what he said

[tburnsten]

41. It means fewer guns possessed purely for criminal purposes

such as robbery and murder. So it isn't surprising that fewer criminal guns may help keep major crimes like murder in check, however, it has absolutely nothing to do with legally owned firearms which generally have no bearing whatsoever on crime rates.

[drm604]

13. Yes, and those guns are illegal only because of gun laws - by definition.

Ergo, gun laws result in less guns and therefore less murders. At least I think that's the point the OP is trying to make.

[MercutioATC]

17. God, I hope not.

That's a nightmarishly childish interpretation of the issue.

[valerief]

19. I think a devoted affection for guns is nightmarish. nt

[MercutioATC]

26. I think you're reading too much into gun ownership.

I own guns. I like shooting them. I like the fact that they offer a degree of protection. I've taught my son (now 18 years old) gun safety and how to shoot. I'll vehemently fight to preserve our 2nd Amendment rights.

I'm no more a "gun nut" than the average stamp collector is a "stamp nut"...and I'm no more "dangerous", either.

[eqfan592]

28. .....ok?

Good for you...I guess? For what it's worth, I don't think gun owners inherently have a "devoted affection" for guns. If anything they have a "devoted affection" for their rights, including those that revolve around firearm ownership and usage.

[drm604]

24. I think "nightmarish" is a bit hyperbolic.

In fact it's nightmarishly hyperbolic. :evilgrin:

But let me clarify my statements.

Yes, and those guns are illegal only because of gun laws - by definition.
Ergo, gun laws result in less murders.

Whether the laws result in less guns is a separate question. But the experience in New York would seem to be a data point in favor of the idea that some gun laws (if they are enforced) result in fewer murders, at least in certain places or under certain circumstances.

[valerief]

29. So since Bloomberg made illegal guns legal, the illegal-now-legal gun owners stopped

shooting people. Is that it?

[MercutioATC]

30. It's "nightmarish" because people who think that simply are allowed to vote.

I understand your thought, but I don't know of anybody (least of all, responsible gun owners) who deny the benefit of responsible gun laws. Your post seemed to (and I'm sorry if I misinterpreted) suggest that gun rights supporters oppose ALL gun laws.

The argument isn't whether or not we should have ANY restrictions on gun ownership, it's where those limits should be set.

[drm604]

43. My point (perhaps poorly made)

is that logically careless discussion of "illegal guns" versus "legal guns" poisons the whole gun control discussion. What is or isn't "illegal" is purely at the whim of legislators, and possibly the courts, so discussion of gun statistics should be careful in the use of the ideas of "legal" and "illegal" guns.

The discussion should be about which types of guns, and which types of owners, cause the most difficulties, and then about whether or not the worst ones should be made "illegal" and removed.

The removal of illegal guns is the removal of guns that were made illegal in order to remove them.

[tburnsten]

48. But a drug gang possessing illegally acquired firearms

is something everyone can agree falls under the "illegal and illegitimate" gun umbrella, where a person who follows the laws and regulations of their state and purchases a firearm for recreation, hunting, or defense falls squarely into the "legal and legitimate" crowd.

[MercutioATC]

63. I agree with your statement as far as it goes.

However, I (perhaps incorrectly) sense that you're taking it further...and I'm not going to stipulate to the suppositions I see as possibilities.

[tburnsten]

70. It only "poisons" the debate if you fail to understand the difference

between a group of adults who seek out weapons for the sake of dominating their competition, murdering competitors for drug territory, kidnapping one another, again to advance the cause of drug trafficking (and I'm not talking about sensi) and gang activities, and adults who own guns for recreation, hunting, or personal protection.



Claiming there is no difference or that you can't understand the difference leads me to believe you are either mentally retarded, or more likely you are not actually interested in discussing the issue at all.

[tburnsten]

46. There is a difference between guns illegally acquired

strictly for the purpose of advancing criminal enterprises, such as gang wars and drug wars, and robbery, and guns that people own for legitimate, non-criminal uses. And gun laws don't result in less guns. That's like saying speed limits reduce the number of cars.

[drm604]

54. Hmm...

There is a difference between guns illegally acquired strictly for the purpose of advancing criminal enterprises, such as gang wars and drug wars, and robbery, and guns that people own for legitimate, non-criminal uses.

Yes there is. There are also guns that are legally acquired but intended to be use for criminal purposes. I'm sure there are also guns purchased illegally that are never used to further criminal purposes (other than the illegal ownership).

And gun laws don't result in less guns.

I have no idea if that's true or not. On the surface, it seems like it would result in less guns but, as I said, I have no idea.

That's like saying speed limits reduce the number of cars.

No, I don't think it is. I don't see how speed limits could enter into the analogy. It's closer to saying that outlawing certain types of cars reduces the number of cars, although I'm not convinced that even that is a close analogy.

[MercutioATC]

66. Actually, it's like saying that imprisoning drunk drivers and seizing their cars results in fewer

driving deaths.

...which would be true.


However, that cannot be extrapolated to assume that either this enforcement results in fewer cars on the road.

[tburnsten]

69. Aha, that IS a better analogy

Although ole boy (girl, whatever) here seems to be advancing the theory that ANY gun law reduces the number of guns in existence.





Which is a theory that doesn't stand up to even momentary scrutiny.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

77. Most everyone here supports the reasonable restrictions in place in some states.

[Warren Stupidity]

80. NYC has one of the strictist gun control laws in the country.

It is quite difficult to get a permit and there is near zero tolerance for any violations. See Plaxico Burres. This is just one data point, and it is hardly that as there is not really enough data to make a point, but the NYC experience is not one that supports the guns everywhere makes us safe position.

[valerief]

5. If guns are outlawed, then...

You're right. It appears to be statistically impossible! Are the numbers correct? How can this be? What, are these stats from New York, Yukon Territory?

:shrug:

[slackmaster]

8. It's really very simple if you think about it

Guns behave exactly like gas molecules. They bounce around randomly, approaching a state of equilibrium in which they are distributed uniformly throughout whatever three-dimensional space is available.

Within the confines of that space, they behave completely randomly, bouncing around and occasionally going off when by chance ammunition falls into the chamber of a gun, and a collision between the trigger and a person's finger or other object causes the gun to discharge a bullet in a completely random direction.

So it's axiomatic that fewer guns within a given space will result in statistically fewer shootings. Of course fewer people in the same space would mean less of a chance that such a random firearm discharge will result in injury or death. New York has so many people they were forced to opt for reducing the number of guns - It's essentially saturated with targets, so even a small number of random shootings is bound to result in a high number of casualties. In places were there aren't many people, the number of guns is much less important.

[MercutioATC]

10. Sarcasm, or lack of critical thought?

The linked article says absolutely nothing about the total number of guns owned in New York either increasing or decreasing. It says that Bloomberg attributes the drop in crime to getting ILLEGAL guns off of the streets.

[eqfan592]

12. My guess is that slack is being sarcastic, but I won't speak directly for him. ;) (nt)

[MercutioATC]

16. It's so hard to tell with most gun posts.

There are people on both sides (mostly the antis, though) who really can't put facts together correctly.

[slackmaster]

20. Correct - it doesn't actually say anything about the number of guns in NYC, either legal or illegal

It attempts to attribute the reduction in crimes to a particular strategy of law enforcement in which problem areas are identified and worked by the police. That's been talked about for a long time, and it makes a lot of sense.

The OP attempts to make it a "gun" issue. The only mention of guns is Bloomberg blathering about cracking down on them, whether or not his police have actually been successful in that regard.

[eqfan592]

11. Ummm, what evidence is provided that there are actually fewer guns in NY?

All that is there is Bloomberg giving credit to his efforts to clamp down on illegal guns. There's no actual evidence provided to support this, or to even show that these efforts have resulted in significantly fewer illegal guns on the streets, much less fewer guns in general in the city of NY.

Sorry, but this post is a major logical fail, only made more ridiculous by the sarcastic tone. "reality" in Seattle indeed!

[safeinOhio]

15. Look a little farther at those stats

While crime in down in total and large cities, violent crime is actually up by almost 2% in smaller towns. What gives with that?

[eqfan592]

21. Which stats?

I'm not saying you're info is incorrect, but what stats are you speaking of? I did not see any such info present in the OP's article, unless I totally missed it.

As for why that may be, a 2% increase isn't much, and it could just be little more than a blip associated with our current economic crisis, but that's just my best guess.

[tburnsten]

57. Exactly. I bet substance abuse has gone up more than 2%

over the past couple of years.

[safeinOhio]

86. Crime drop was big in large cities 7% not so much in smaller ones

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/2009prelimsem/table_1.html

does not cut and paste to well, see link


Population group
Number of agencies
Population
Violent crime
Murder
Forcible rape
Robbery
Aggravated assault
Property crime
Burglary
Larceny-theft
Motor vehicle
theft
Arson
Total
11,728
244,233,379
-4.4
-10.0
-3.3
-6.5
-3.2
-6.1
-2.5
-5.3
-18.7
-8.2
Cities:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
1,000,000 and over
10
25,543,437
-7.0
-13.4
-4.1
-8.0
-6.2
-7.7
-5.5
-4.9
-21.9
-7.9
500,000 to 999,999
23
15,687,936
-6.1
-7.6
-1.6
-7.1
-5.8
-6.6
-1.6
-4.9
-20.8
-3.2
250,000 to 499,999
40
13,739,615
-4.5
-8.0
-0.3
-7.0
-3.1
-6.4
-2.8
-4.5
-19.6
-12.7
100,000 to 249,999
193
28,584,365
-5.1
-9.2
-3.1
-9.3
-2.6
-4.0
-0.8
-2.9
-16.7
-10.2
50,000 to 99,999
382
26,065,710
-4.1
-12.7
-4.5
-3.6
-4.1
-6.1
-4.4
-5.0
-17.0
-3.8
25,000 to 49,999
642
22,111,909
-3.1
+0.9
-3.3
-1.2
-4.0
-4.8
-3.4
-4.0
-15.6
-8.5
10,000 to 24,999
1,445
22,846,759
+1.7
-6.8
-1.2
-2.6
+3.8
-5.1
-1.0
-5.1
-16.3
-9.7
Under 10,000
5,971
19,228,259
-2.4
-7.5
-6.6
-3.0
-1.7
-5.9
-3.4
-5.8
-16.5
-7.4
Counties:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Metropolitan1
1,200
49,797,954
-2.1
-14.4
-4.9
-4.7
-0.6
-7.4
-1.9
-7.7
-17.9
-1

[RealityInSeattle]

25. Like I said

I know that there cannot under any circumstances be a correlation between fewer guns and fewer people having bullets shot into them. It is just not possible that those two things can be related in anyway.

[eqfan592]

32. You didn't even attempt to establish a correlation!

That's the point I'm making. Bloomberg makes a statement without any supporting evidence at all. You can't even draw a solid correlation from that, much less prove causation! Simply pointing out this failure does not equate to an irrational belief that no such correlation or causal relationship could ever be established, though I have my doubts that such an relationship ever will be established, as there seems to be a significant amount of evidence pointing to other factors playing a much larger role in the violence problem than firearms.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

14. Despite Bloomberg's accreditations, are there actually fewer guns in NY in 2009?

His attributation of the lower crime to "efforts" of pursueing illegal weapons possesion does not mean that the number of weapons, illegal or otherwise, actually decreased. Bloomberg can only crack down on illegal guns - it's entirely possible that total number of guns in NYC increases while illegal guns decrease.

[baldguy]

18. The central tenet of gun-worship is that gun control does not work.

It can't work, because if it did, the entire premise of their faith - that guns should be free to be used by anyone, any where and in any situation, in spite of their effect on the people around them - would collapse.

[slackmaster]

22. Nice straw man, baldguy

...the entire premise of their faith - that guns should be free to be used by anyone, any where and in any situation...

Is that the best you can come up with?

Did you bother to read the article cited in the OP?

[newtothegame]

23. Fewer guns v clamping down on illegal guns are 2 very different things though...

We have tons of guns here in Iowa as well, but we don't have the murders that NYC does because we don't have the PERCENTAGE OF ILLEGAL GUNS that NYC does.

ed for sp

[valerief]

31. You don't have as many people either. nt

[eqfan592]

35. lol, do you reallize what you're saying?

You're saying that there are OTHER FACTORS besides firearms at play when it comes to crime. In fact, your implication is that these other factors are much bigger factors than firearms, because if firearms were the main factor, then the presence (or lack-thereof) of the other factors wouldn't have such a large impact. So are you now trying to say that guns are not the major problem, but these other factors, thus backtracking on the original line you were hammering on?

[valerief]

39. More people, more guns, more murder counts. Duh. nt

[eqfan592]

45. *sigh*

Not "duh." More like "logic fail for you." You are either stating that high firearm ownership rates lead to more violence or your not, which would apply to rural and urban areas alike. If you are, then provide evidence to support this claim. If you are not, then please state clearly what it is you are attempting to claim?

[valerief]

55. More people, more guns, higher murder count. Duh. nt

[eqfan592]

59. Proof?

Also, which factor do you say plays a larger role in the higher murder count, the people or the guns?

I wonder now if you will actually answer the question or you'll just copy and paste the same nonsense. Oh, I'm sure you thought you were being SO very clever in doing that, didn't you? "duh" indeed ;)

[GreenStormCloud]

82. Then why is the violent crime rate in the entire US down?

Fact: In the last twenty years, over 100 million guns have been purchased in the US.

Fact: The violent crime rate in the US is down by about half.

[newtothegame]

36. You're right, but the ratio is skewed beyond the population difference, which is why..

I think it's more based on the % of guns that are illegal. More guns do not mean more murders, as post #33 pointed out. What is it about NYC compared to Wyoming, Alaska, that people feel the need to own their guns illegally AND kill people with them?

PS There's a lot of poverty in those Western states too, so poverty=crime is not an easy out on this one.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

78. So they have more armed people and less violence. According to the OP that is impossible.

[baldguy]

34. That's a distinction without a difference - there are very few legal guns in NYC.

If fact, there's a large trade in illegally purchasing guns in states with lax or non-existent gun laws - and avoiding the licensing & registration requirements - via the infamous "gun-show loophole".

[eqfan592]

37. More like "non-existant gun-show loophole."

At worst there is a private party sales loophole, which might be closed with the opening of the background check system to private sales, something which many of us around here support.

[baldguy]

47. A NYC investigation documented dozens of improper sales AT GUN SHOWS

http://www.gunshowundercover.org/

And the one solution you point out - opening of the background check system to private sales - is exactly the kind of reasonable action 2nd Amendment absolutists refuse to support & lobby against. Why do you think that loop-hole is there in the first place? It's to allow illegal gun sales to continue.

[eqfan592]

50. *facepalm*

Baldguy, if they were breaking the law, then they WEREN'T EXPLOITING A LOOPHOLE!!! The idea of a legal loophole is that they find a way to do something that would normally be illegal in a legal fashion, not that they manage to get away with an illegal act in spite of the existing law.

"Why do you think that loop-hole is there in the first place? It's to allow illegal gun sales to continue."

If there were, in fact, a legal loophole that was being exploited, then the sales themselves would not be illegal. And you can argue that private sales are a type of legal loophole (which is why calling it the "gun show loophole" is counter productive and disingenuous). But because somebody has concerns about opening up the background check system does not equate to them being in favor of the selling of firearms to those who are not legally eligible to possess them, and attempting to put them in such a negative light is intellectually dishonest in the extreme.

Many people have genuine concerns with the possibility of the instant background check system being abused by private citizens, resulting in extreme violations of privacy. Any law opening up the usage of the system to private dealers will have to incorporate privacy protections.

Baldguy, you need to stop trying to paint gun owners as mini-Hitlers. It's doing your cause absolutely no good whatsoever.

[tburnsten]

74. That's ridiculous

at every forum I have participated in, the shooting community is in support of having some way for private citizens to be able to unobtrusively determine that the person they are selling a gun to is not a prohibited person. The difficulty is in finding a reasonable and non-invasive way to accomplish this.


Some on this site have floated the idea of having a very small mark on state IDs and driver's licenses which can be checked instantly, will let the seller know for sure that they are not an unwitting rube in some felon's attempt to gain a weapon, and will not inconvenience either people who do not want to own a gun or people who do want to own a gun. Seems like a pretty ideal setup to me. The other reasonable option would be to open up a public NICS center, specifically for private sales. Probably want to have a dedicated center, not just opening up the current center to private citizens, so that businesses do not get unduly harmed by it through high call volume.


You should really try to check out your oppositions' actual thoughts and feelings on the issues instead of making a straw man to joust against.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

79. Why didn't they arrest people for those illegal sales? That's right they weren't illegal.

[AtheistCrusader]

87. Point out a second amendment absolutist that does not want NICS opened up

There is only one kind I know of, the ones that consider NICS to be a form of registration, and that it should not exist at all. That group is a tiny minority.

[tburnsten]

89. Oh and the only people who were against the two proposals I highlighted

were anti-gunners. Not one person who owned a firearm was against it.






Stick that up your ass and smoke it.

[tburnsten]

71. Or the percentage of heroin and cocaine traffickers I'd bet

[newtothegame]

73. Amen n/t

[Goldstein1984]

33. Not that simple

Alaska, where the percentage of citizens owning guns is estimated at 57.8%, second only to Wyoming (59.7%) and on par with Montana (57.7%), had a murder rated of 4.1 per 100,000 citizens in 2008, below the national average of 5.4, below the lowest regional average of 4.2 (Northeast) and well below the highest regional rate of of 6.6 (South).

Montana's 2008 murder rate was 2.4
Wyoming's 2008 murder rate was 1.9

I'm going to download the data and do some analysis, but a quick scan suggests that firearms and dense human populations are a bad mix. If correct, this would be supported by studies of rat behavior.

Yes, I know the rat comparison is going to offend a few.

Sources:
http://www.schs.state.nc.us/SCHS/brfss/2001/us/firearm3.html
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm

[eqfan592]

42. I would disagree.

Dense human populations and guns are not a bad mix inherently, and I would say there is evidence to support this when studying other nations that have moderate firearm ownership rates as well as dense population centers. I would say there are other factors that may be at play in some dense population centers that lead to more violence in general, with our without the presence of guns.

[Goldstein1984]

49. I was just glancing at the data...

I'm going to pull up population data and anything else I can find. It will be fun to analyze.

But you are correct that other factors might come into play. The best I would be able to show with a solid relationship between murder rate and population density is a correlation, not necessarily cause-and-effect. Other factors, such as drug traffic through a region, economics, gang-related activity, etc. could come into play.

But I think that the numbers I did toss out don't support the hypothesis of a relationship between murder rate and gun ownership. But I'll check that against the whole data set, too.

Good point. Thanks for tossing that in.

G1984

[eqfan592]

51. Not a problem at all :)

I hope you're able to share your findings with us when you get the chance to. Should make for interesting conversation one way or another. :)

[Goldstein1984]

58. I will do that

I won't pretend that I'm not on the liberal left of almost every issue, but the gun thing has never made sense to me. I've owned "guns" of one form or another since I was eight years old, and, except for shooting myself in the nose with a BB gun when I was about 10 years old, I've used them responsibly and without incident.

(When a Navy surgeon was removing the BB when it showed up in a dental x-ray 12 years later while I was in the Marines, he said, "Well, better to shoot yourself in the nose with a BB gun at 10 than with an M-16 when you're twenty. Marines.")

[eqfan592]

60. Well, as many around here would say....

....defending 2nd amendment rights IS a liberal left issue. ;)

[Goldstein1984]

62. It's my personal interpretation that the authors of the

Bill of Rights had in mind the ability of the nation not only to defend itself from foreign armies, but the ability to keep our own government in check.

They had just used firearms to eject an unjust government. I can't believe it wasn't on their minds.

[AtheistCrusader]

52. How'd you extrapolate that? I see: Fewer Cops, Fewer Murders. Correlation/causation.

NY City's murder rate for 2008 was 6.1 per 100,000. Seattle 5.1. We have guns. Lots of guns. NY does not.

Try out 'fewer guns = fewer murders' in Chicago.


Also, I'd like to see some credible numbers about how many guns Schumer has 'removed' from NY in the last year. Something that might correlate to that murder rate.

[Tejas]

64. So,

how many of those murders were by firearm?

How many murder weapons were recovered?


How many of those murders were solved?

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

75. You actually mean fewer illegal guns fewer murders.

Even the NRA is in favor of stopping illegal guns. Good job you and the NRA are on the same side.

[TPaine7]

81. I am shocked

by your inability to make a coherent point based in reason and evidence.

Headline: "Fewer Guns...Fewer Murders"

Text: "having fewer guns around could ... contribute to fewer people actually being shot."

Other text: "...fewer guns mean fewer murders..."

So what is your actual point? is it that depriving people of guns by means of making laws will cause less of them to murder each other (by any means whatsoever) or that it will cause fewer of them to shoot each other (whether or not the shootings are fatal)?

The difference is important. Every logical person must concede that, at least in the most extreme case, less guns = less shootings. The most extreme case, of course, is no guns at all--for anybody, including police, Secret Service, bodyguards, soldiers, corporate security, billionaires, etc. If there were no guns at all there would be no shootings, at least no shootings with guns. (We would have to come up with a new term for people being struck with arrows from bows, bolts from crossbows, darts from blowguns devices, etc. But we could all rejoice in the elimination of "shootings" and "shooting deaths" no matter what direction the statistics on the total murder rate went.

Now if your contention is that fewer guns = fewer murders overall, that is a point worthy of consideration. It will not override the right to the means to self-defense, IMO, but it would be an actual respectable point. It seems intuitively obvious to some, like the less guns = less suicides logic, but we know that isn't so. (Compare Japan and the US, for instance.)

So assuming that you are trying to make this latter argument, you will have a valid public policy point if you can support it with data. Which brings me to another problem; your data is amusing.

As of Sunday, 461 murders had been committed, down from 516 in 2008 and the lowest number since comparable record-keeping began in 1963, the New York Police Department said.

Ok, there are less murders in NY City. Nothing about the murder rate, mind you, we are simply given raw numbers. Nothing about whether crime dropped in the rest of the country where Second Amendment rights are respected and guns sales are up (it did), we are simply given raw numbers.

So murders dropped in New York. Even if we ignore what murder rates in the rest of the country did, we still need more data. And what do you give us?

"In announcing the 2009 statistics, Mayor Michael Bloomberg also gave credit to his efforts to clamp down on illegal guns."

Wow, that's impressive. A politician "gave credit to his {own} efforts." Could anything be more unbiased and reliable?

:rofl:

......

You appear to be new here, so I will be on my best behavior. Welcome to DU.

I have noticed on DU that it's best to know your point before you post and to have actual support for your statements. And if you choose to condescend to others, it's best to do so from a much loftier intellectual perch than you have assumed here.

There are many people on this site who can (and have) taken apart stronger and better arguments with ease. No supercomputer (or even moderately difficult thinking) required. It's not a good idea to condescend to them.

[GreenStormCloud]

83. Take a look at a larger statistical sample.

Across the entire US, over the last twenty years.

Over 100 million guns have been purchased. That is a rather large increase in guns.

According to the FBI, the violent crime rate for the entire country has gone down dramatically.

You may also wish to notice that crime is also down in cities with easy gun laws. So in cities with more guns, crime is also down. Would you care to explain that?

[Kaleva]

85. Economic conditions and social unrest have a greater impact on the homicide rate then availability o

[spin]

88. More firearms may not mean less crime ...

many other factors are at play. Better policing is one.

But more firearms or the dramatic increase in concealed carry licenses does not result in an increase in crime. The number of firearms in the United States has skyrocketed in the last 30 years. Strangely violent crime and property rates have fallen.





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States

[benEzra]

90. Hmmm, the Guliani/Bloomberg Surveillance Nation crap

and billions of dollars of "anti-terrah" equipment and police on the street couldn't possibly have ANYTHING to do with it, right? Thing is, the gun laws in NYC haven't changed. NYC crime has gone up and down and up and down with no change in the gun laws, so how can one ascribe the drops to the gun laws?

For the nation as a whole, the crime rate has been in steady decline since the early '90s, even as gun sales increased and the market shifted toward the more modern-looking guns that the prohibitionists wish to ban. The legal gun ownership rate doesn't correlate with criminal misuse.

FWIW, New Hampshire and Vermont are more pro-gun than the South, yet consistently have the lowest rates of violence in the nation. There's more going on than lawful gun ownership...