Speaking of state-level homicide, firearm prevalence, and states as
laboratories...
Homicide numbers can be sliced and diced to one's heart's discontent by year,
state, race, age, etc., here:
http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html and here:
http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/dataRestriction_inj.html .
Using the CDC data from above, Miller, et. al
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953606004898 ) (2007)
published an article stating, "Multivariate analyses found that states with
higher rates of household firearm ownership had significantly higher homicide
victimization rates of men, women and children."
The above paper didn't divide the groups further by race or ethnicity.
I recently ran some multiple regressions doing that. I'm still studying the
issue and the following is only *preliminary*.
After running a regression on white non-Hispanics (using the independent
variables listed in the paper as well as a few others), there was still a
positive correlation between homicides and states with higher firearms
availability. Of course the regression coefficient for firearms availability
was far smaller than it was for the black non-Hispanic group, but it was still
positive (however slight).
One doesn't have to run a regression analysis to see it (at a simple bivariate
level). If you run the data at either of the two links provided above, you'll
see that states such as Alaska and Arkansas, with high firearms ownership
rates, have higher levels of white homicide than average.
Currently the available data, such as it is at the state level, favors the
pro-control side allowing the Joyce Foundation to sponsor and crank-out these
studies at will.
What's missing from the equation, at the state level, are the prior records of
both homicide offenders and victims. As this page shows:
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvmurd.html ,
most of our homicide problem is probably a result of criminals (or those with
prior criminal behavior) misusing guns.
I don't think it's controversial to say more guns in the hands of criminals
leads to more homicides.
Of course this suggests until we have more complete information at the state
level, such analyses are suspect to begin with.
Parenthetically, the following shouldn't be necessary, but in case there are
some idiots out there who believe analyzing crime stats by race is bigotry, in
and of itself, the racial/ethnic categories serve as a proxy for socio-economic
factors and nothing more.
________________________________
From: Phil Lee <[email protected]>
To: "Olson, Joseph E." <[email protected]>
Cc: "Firearms Reg, List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2013 12:30 PM
Subject: Re: High, very high, rates of homicide and suicide in Black
communities.
If we dare to evade the "bigot embargo" and talk about firearm use by race, we
can note that whites suicide at about 1.8 times the rate of minorities in
Maryland (and likely elsewhere).
The lack of race based reporting of violence measures over-simplifies the
evaluation of different violence suppression policies and can produce the wrong
conclusions. If you view the states as a laboratory for the US as a whole, you
might wrongly judge a policy good, state A shows lower violence with that
policy, whereas that result is from a favorable demographic mix of races. A
better method of comparison would be to compare race by race (and age by age).
The race based violence issues haven't been a secret for a long time, I talked
about it in a posting http://www.mcrkba.org/InternationalCrime.html ("Comparing
International
Crime Statistics") where I noted, "No one publishes crime data using
demographically similar populations (accounting for differences in racial
populations, age distributions and migrant populations – especially considering
illegals) to make a comparison between the US and the UK or Canada." And I was
certainly NOT the first to notice race based violence issues and those related
to age and citizenship.
So, Maryland's suicide rate being lower than the US as a whole isn't like due
to its gun control policies, but more likely due to its large proportion of
minorities and Catholics who typically have low rates of suicide no matter
where they live.
Both sides use data selectively to make arguments and being aware of these
differences can speed the finding of the data to support an argument, but I
think the side opposing gun control has the better data -- if only pro-freedom
groups would make the investment in good statistical
analyses.
Phil
________________________________
From: "Olson, Joseph E." <[email protected]>
To: Phil Lee <[email protected]>
Cc: "Firearms Reg, List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2013 1:13 PM
Subject: Re: High, very high, rates of homicide and suicide in Black
communities.
The secret is out now. Last Summer the WSJ had a front page article on
Black-on-Black killings.
It's cultural. In the 1880's it was hopeless, chemically dependent young White
men in the "wild West." Now it's hopeless, chemically dependent young Black
men in urban areas. Both groups hid the nothing they had behind a great show
of bravado. You "diss" me and I'll kill you. According to retired UCLA
historian Roger D. McGrath the death rate was huge in this class but narrowly
limited to the West's version of the "bad man." Every one else was safe (safer
in 1880 when every other man carried a gun than today when you have to 'Dial
9-1-1" and wait for the professionals). In Minnesota, at least the pattern
continues in 2013.
On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 10:30 AM, Phil Lee <[email protected]> wrote:
A point to contemplate is the effect of the minority murder rates to effect
rates in the various states. So, southern states have high murder rates which
gun control groups blame on high gun ownership, but is more likely due to the
high proportion of minorities, who have low gun ownership rates. But we can't
talk about this issue lest we be labeled bigots.
>
>
>Phil
>
>Sent from my iPhone
>
>On Mar 24, 2013, at 7:00 PM, "Olson, Joseph E." <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>Yes. You are correct.
>>
>>
>>But this is politics not academia. Which is why the anti's use whatever
>>numbers that support the narrative (learned in J School?). I didn't write
>>the original piece and Belgium is a bad choice since it's suicide rate is
>>astonishing.
>>
>>
>>On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 5:52 PM, Volokh, Eugene <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> The CDC,
>>http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/su6001a14.htm, tbl. 2, reports (2007
>>data) that the white non-Hispanic homicide rate was 2.75 (averaging the male
>>and the female rates); among black non-Hispanics, it was 24, among Hispanics
>>7.5, among American Indians 7.85, and among Asians 2.4.
>>>
>>> But in any event, I don’t think it’s quite right to compare
>>>the white homicide rate in the U.S. against the total homicide rate in
>>>Belgium (or any similar country). Belgium presumably has its own minority
>>>groups, which might well have higher homicide rates for their own social
>>>reasons. So it seems to me that we should compare the homicide rate among
>>>the majority racial group in the U.S. against the homicide rate among the
>>>majority racial (or, as relevant, ethnic) group in the foreign country, not
>>>among the whole population of the foreign country.
>>>
>>> Eugene
>>>
>>>From:[email protected]
>>>[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Olson, Joseph E.
>>>Sent: Sunday, March 24, 2013 12:37 PM
>>>To: Firearms Reg, List
>>>Subject: High, very high, rates of homicide and suicide in Black communities.
>>>
>>>I believe this is true. Anyone have the cites to the data?
>>>
>>>"The homicide rate among whites in the US is roughly the same as the
>>>homicide rate in Belgium (1.5-1.7/100,000). Among Blacks, the rare is
>>>21/100,000. That's more than double the hispanic rate of 8/100,000. Of those
>>>three groups, blacks are the least likely to own a gun. Homicide in the US
>>>is not a gun problem, it is a young black man problem."
>>>
>>>Largely (entirely?) caused by social/cultural deficiencies.
>>>
>>>
>>>--
>>>**************************************************************************************************************
>>>Professor Joseph Olson, J.D.(Hon. Duke), LL.M.(Tax. Florida)
>>> o 651-523-2142
>>>Hamline University School of Law (MS-D2037)
>>> f 651-523-2236
>>>St. Paul, MN 55113-1235
>>> c 612-865-7956
>>>[email protected]
>>>http://law.hamline.edu/constitutional_law/joseph_olson.html
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>To post, send message to [email protected]
>>>To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see
>>>http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/firearmsregprof
>>>
>>>Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as
>>>private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are
>>>posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or
>>>wrongly) forward the messages to others.
>>>
>>
>>
>>--
>>
>>**************************************************************************************************************
>>Professor Joseph Olson, J.D.(Hon. Duke), LL.M.(Tax. Florida)
>> o 651-523-2142
>>Hamline University School of Law (MS-D2037)
>> f 651-523-2236
>>St. Paul, MN 55113-1235
>> c 612-865-7956
>>
>>[email protected]
>>http://law.hamline.edu/constitutional_law/joseph_olson.html
>>_______________________________________________
>>To post, send message to [email protected]
>>To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see
>>http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/firearmsregprof
>>
>>Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as
>>private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted;
>>people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly)
>>forward the messages to others.
--
**************************************************************************************************************
Professor Joseph Olson, J.D.(Hon. Duke), LL.M.(Tax. Florida)
o 651-523-2142
Hamline University School of Law (MS-D2037)
f 651-523-2236
St. Paul, MN 55113-1235
c 612-865-7956
[email protected]
http://law.hamline.edu/constitutional_law/joseph_olson.html
_______________________________________________
To post, send message to [email protected]
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see
http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/firearmsregprof
Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private.
Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can
read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the
messages to others.
_______________________________________________
To post, send message to [email protected]
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see
http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/firearmsregprof
Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private.
Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can
read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the
messages to others._______________________________________________
To post, send message to [email protected]
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see
http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/firearmsregprof
Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private.
Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can
read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the
messages to others.
