Re: High, very high, rates of homicide and suicide in Black communities.

[Dave Hardy]

Another factor is that, as Clayton once mentioned to me, the South (and from what I've seen, there was a western tendency here as well) evolved into an "honor society," where one's honor (not personal, but honor as seen by the community) was all-important. Turning the other cheek was not Christian forbearance, but proof that one was a coward and dishonorable. I've seen some comments about how this became esp. prominent in St. Louis and other parts west.... fighting duels was necessary to establish one's rise as a gentleman. And homicide rates do drop as one goes farther north.

(This might have something to do with climate, of course. I was just on a trip to Michigan ... given what I experienced in weather, I can appreciate that homicide rates might be lower if you have to postpone your homicidal rage until, oh, early May so you don't freeze to death before acting on them).

-----Original Message-----
From: "Olson, Joseph E."
Sent: Mar 25, 2013 6:58 PM
To: Phil Lee
Cc: "Firearms Reg, List"
Subject: Re: High, very high, rates of homicide and suicide in Black communities.

There is well done one study regarding domestic violence in New Orleans that found that all differences could be explained by non-racial factors.  Although it's a public health study since it doesn't deal with guns the figures are probably not "cooked."  It's Spring Break so I won't be able to post it until next week.

On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 7:41 PM, Phil Lee <maryland_al...@yahoo.com> wrote:

4. If you have a scientific justification for your claim that "the racial/ethnic categories serve as a proxy for socio-economic factors and nothing more", I would like to see a cite for it.  It would be a useful shield against a bigotry claim.  While this claim is an article of faith among some, I've never seen a study on the subject.

Phil 

---

From: GunCite <gunc...@yahoo.com>
To: Phil Lee <maryland_al...@yahoo.com>; "Olson, Joseph E." <jol...@hamline.edu>

Cc: "Firearms Reg, List" <firearmsregprof@lists.ucla.edu>

Sent: Monday, March 25, 2013 5:17 PM

Subject: Re: High, very high, rates of homicide and suicide in Black communities.

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 <maryland_al...@yahoo.com>
To: "Olson, Joseph E." <jol...@hamline.edu>
Cc: "Firearms Reg, List" <firearmsregprof@lists.ucla.edu>
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." <jol...@hamline.edu>
To: Phil Lee <maryland_al...@yahoo.com>
Cc: "Firearms Reg, List" <firearmsregprof@lists.ucla.edu>
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 <maryland_al...@yahoo.com> 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." <jol...@hamline.edu> 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 <vol...@law.ucla.edu> 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: firearmsregprof-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:firearmsregprof-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] 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

jol...@hamliine.edu                            http://law.hamline.edu/constitutional_law/joseph_olson.html

_______________________________________________
To post, send message to Firearmsregprof@lists.ucla.edu
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

jol...@hamliine.edu                            http://law.hamline.edu/constitutional_law/joseph_olson.html

_______________________________________________
To post, send message to Firearmsregprof@lists.ucla.edu
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

jol...@hamliine.edu                            http://law.hamline.edu/constitutional_law/joseph_olson.html

_______________________________________________
To post, send message to Firearmsregprof@lists.ucla.edu
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 Firearmsregprof@lists.ucla.edu
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

jol...@hamliine.edu                            http://law.hamline.edu/constitutional_law/joseph_olson.html

_______________________________________________
To post, send message to Firearmsregprof@lists.ucla.edu
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.