Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Murder Rates

33 comments:

  1. "B-b-b-b-but...Chicago! DC! Also."

    --Gunloons

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  2. Fun with numbers. So in the most dangerous city in America, one has a bit less than 0.052% chance of being murdered any given year--or a bit better than a 99.948% of not being murdered.

    If you live there for 100 years, I see your chances of avoiding murder go down significantly--to almost 94.96%. Scary stuff.

    Of course, if you take steps to secure yourself from criminal violence, you can cut the risks considerably.

    Of those cities, I note that four of them (Richmond, CA; Baltimore, MD; Newark, NJ; and Hartford, CT) are in states whose gun laws the Brady Campaign mostly approves of. I notice also that three of them (Detroit, MI; St. Louis, MO; and Newark, NJ) are among among the poorest 10 cities in the U.S.

    Poverty kills--it should be illegal.

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  3. Zorro illustrates for us two very common gunloon tactics when presented with statistics.

    First, it's the "only .000068% of Americans ever get murdered--so what's the big deal?" This tactic ignores several issues, of course. First, many of these murders are preventable. Second, even if you discount the tens of thousands of American lives lost each year--we still get a huge economic cost. Gun violence costs Americans about $500B each year. That means we all get to pay more in terms of taxes, in terms of healthcare and in terms of higher consumer prices. And that doesn't count the lifes lost and the families that are shattered.

    Second, he pulls out the old "look!--Baltimore is in a state the Brady Campaign has given good gun law grades!" This is a bit like arguing Peyton Manning isn't a good QB because about 30% of his passes are incomplete or intercepted. Or that Albert Pujols is a lousy hitter because he fails to get a hit almost 70% of the time.

    When all else fails, gunloons like to pull the tactic that guns have nothing to do with gun violence--it's all economic.

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  4. "When all else fails," Jade?

    I'm still waiting for my first failure in this discussion.

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  5. Z: You've demonstrated nothing but 'FAIL' so far.

    To recap, you've demanded the mentally ill have unfettered access to firearms.

    You've provided the standard NRA talking points when it's pointed out cities with lax gun laws also have high murder rates.

    You falsely claim that PTSD victims won't seek treatment 'cause they're worried about their guns.

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  6. Jade, you're three for three on the lies. Awesome work!

    If only you could get paid to lie, you'd be set for life.

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  7. Oh, and one more thing.

    Jade:

    You've provided the standard NRA talking points when it's pointed out cities with lax gun laws also have high murder rates.

    There aren't any cities in the U.S. with "lax gun laws," because every city in the U.S. is (I wouldn't have expected even you to be sufficiently intellectually disabled to require assistance with this, Jade) in the U.S., and thus every resident of those cities is under the boot of our draconian federal gun laws.

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  8. Jade: “Second, he pulls out the old "look!--Baltimore is in a state the Brady Campaign has given good gun law grades!" This is a bit like arguing Peyton Manning isn't a good QB because about 30% of his passes are incomplete or intercepted…”

    No, it’s like arguing Ryan Leaf is a bad quarterback. Baltimore is the Albert Pujols of safe cities? What the…?

    Jade: “When all else fails, gunloons like to pull the tactic that guns have nothing to do with gun violence--it's all economic.”

    The line is “guns have nothing to do with VIOLENCE”, jade. Here you are pulling the “guns are the leading cause of gun deaths” talking point again…

    Jade: “You've provided the standard NRA talking points when it's pointed out cities with lax gun laws also have high murder rates.”

    Yes, because there is no correlation! Look at the damn list! What happens to your whole argument when Richmond, CA has a bad year and takes over number one? What were you saying when DC was number one?

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  9. MikeB has successfully employed the bait and switch. Note that this graph show murders per capita, not murders involving guns per capita. Any inference made into the success or failure of gun laws based on this graph should be ignored.

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  10. TS: The point is clear--even, I suspect, to you. Gunloons like to point out the anomaly or the outlier and pretend it represents the whole--when it suits their purpose. The fact is other cities in MD and NJ enjoy relatively low levels of gun violence. Why aren't you dredging up the gun violence levels of Bethesda, Annapolis, Silver Spring, Rockville, etc? That's right--because they don't fit the narrative.

    OTOH, gun friendly LA seems to have most of its major cities on the list.

    The obvious point, of course, is this is a moot point because it's been established states with lax gun laws have the most gun violence.

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  11. Actually, Ruffy, if you consider gun homicides by state--it works out worse for you and your NRA masters.

    Per capita gun homicides:

    LA 10.13
    MD 6.95
    MS 5.55
    AZ 5.22
    CA 4.82
    NV 4.72
    SC 4.64
    IL 4.59
    MI 4.55
    NM 4.44
    GA 4.43

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  12. Now we're jumping from cities to states. More bait and switch.

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  13. More proof of the saying, "There are lies, damned lies, and then there are statistics. And then there's Jadegold."

    LA sure looks bad, and I don't doubt that there are parts of it that suck worse than Chicago or New York, or Baltimore, or all three combined.

    But let's look at the other relevant numbers here. When we look at the total number of homicides in those states Jade listed, and the percentage of gun homicides vs other homicides, we see a much different picture.

    LA has a rate of gun homicides of 79.5%. That means almost 8 in ten murders were with a gun. In IL, the rate was 75.2% In MD, 74.2%. AZ, 72.4% CA, 72.2%. In general, they all have a rate of slightly greater than 7 in 10 murders with a gun, yet two of those states are somewhat gun-friendly and three are most decidedly not.

    To say that guns alone (or gun laws alone) can be blamed for the number is silly.

    Further, 9 of the 50 states have a rate of 7-in-10-or-greater rate of gun homicides. Twice that many have a rate of 60% to 70%.

    There are only 8 states that have a gun homicide rate below 50%. And only 2 below 20%. Hawaii and Vermont. You couldn't get more opposite states when it comes to gun laws, yet they have similar rates of gun homicide.

    The argument that gun laws are responsible for LA's high rate of murder and gun homicides is absurd.

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  14. Porr Ruffy..the numbers just don't support his side.

    But I'm amused at Mikey W's attempt to make lemonade.

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  15. Jade: “But I'm amused at Mikey W's attempt to make lemonade.”

    This coming from Jade “Country Time” gold. And the thing is you are not even making real lemonade- it’s artificially sweetened and tastes like crap.

    You didn’t address a single thing I said about correlation. Instead you said “Gunloons like to point out the anomaly or the outlier and pretend it represents the whole--when it suits their purpose”. How is that not what you are doing with LA? I am not trying to say lax gun laws prevent crime- I am trying to say there is no correlation, so any state regardless of gun laws could be number one. How else can you explain CA and MD being in the top five in the state “gun homicide” list that YOU provided for us? What did you do before Katrina? How did you even get up in the morning to face the blogosphere?

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  16. Poor JadeGold Thinks I care about what his cherry picked, bait and switch numbers don't actually show. I don't really care what the pathological liar puts on here, as it is suspect immediately.

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  17. "Murder Rates" are not a good comparison for either side to use. The truth is that trauma care as well as emergency transport and medicine have advanced exponentially in the last 40 years.

    Louisiana probably has a lot fewer doctors and medical facilities than Chicago or D.C.

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  18. "But I'm amused at Mikey W's attempt to make lemonade."

    Of course you're amused. Because you certainly can't refute it, so you just have to laugh.

    Still not Mike W, but thanks for the compliment.

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  19. One funny thing is the anonymous commenter who insists he's not Mike W., keeps saying it's a compliment to be called Mike W.

    RuffRidr, I have to give you credit. You are much too quick to be fooled by my attempts at "bait and switch."

    That's sarcasm.

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  20. Well, it is funny that Jade insists every anonymous poster must be Mike W. It's a peculiar lunacy. I figure, though, since Jade seems to have a hatred that borders on psychotic for this Mike W person, Mike W must be an okay guy.

    If Jade said he likes somebody, chances are they are a tyrannical, gun-grabbing, power-addicted asshole. To be disliked by Jade is, therefore, the highest compliment to any gun owner.

    Since Jade thinks I am Mike W (or at least keeps up the pretense that he thinks I am), I take it as the compliment it is surely meant to be.

    How else could I possibly view it, since I am not Mike W?

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  21. You've got Sitemeter, use it. It's pretty trivial to determine if the Anonymous poster is Mike W or not (Hint: it's not). Or perhaps JadeGold just likes perpetuating another of his lies.

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  22. RuffRidr, Do you really call that "lies." Didn't you see that post today about Ann Althouse?

    What Jadegold does in this Mike W. business is ball-breaking perhaps. But to call it "lies" is just silly.

    I don't check IP addresses.

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  23. "What Jadegold does in this Mike W. business is ball-breaking perhaps. But to call it "lies" is just silly."

    Pretty sure he's not talking about that, but I'll let RuffRidr have his say to clarify. I would think that Jade's repeated claim that concealed carry permit holders are criminals (despite evidence that this is not so), that almost everybody involved in a shooting is an NRA member (even when they are not), that the NRA is racist (depsite tenuous-at best-links), etc. is the kind of thing RuffRidr meant.

    Another bait and switch argument, as RuffRidr would say?

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  24. What Jadegold does in this Mike W. business is ball-breaking perhaps. But to call it "lies" is just silly.

    Use whatever term you want to enable JadeGold's bad behavior, but it is dishonesty. Just as many of Jade's other proclamations are.

    What I find curious is that you would allow this type of behavior to continue. It has devolved your blog into little more than an area to sling mud at each other. It is quite a far cry from the place I started visiting about a year ago. At them time we could actually have thoughtful conversations without the constant personal attacks.

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  25. It has devolved your blog into little more than an area to sling mud at each other.

    Well what did MikeB expect bringing the perpetually dishonest Jadegold onto his blog?

    I think he thought that by ratcheting up the crazy and the personal attacks his sad little blog might become more popular. Instead the opposite has occurred.

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  26. Remember how Jerry Springer started off trying to be a serious show?

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  27. "Devolved?" Give me a break.

    RuffRidr said about my blog, "It has devolved your blog into little more than an area to sling mud at each other."

    You, sir, are a liah!

    Wait a minute, you can't call someone a liar for their opinion. So, that means that in my opinion you are sadly mistaken. The blog is a bit more than mud slinging, even at its worst.

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  28. "Devolved?" Give me a break.

    A year ago you would reprimand someone who so much as insulted another poster. Today there are entire posts dedicated to insulting and making fun of posters. Today you actually encourage this behavior for the one most responsible. That is why I feel your blog has devolved. I think if you look back at what you once had, you might agree.

    You, sir, are a liah!

    I've outlined my opinion above. Call me a liar if you like. Because of the treatment I have received here, I no longer value your opinion anyway.

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  29. C'mon, RuffRidr, lighten up will ya? Do you think you hurt me by taking away from me the idea that you value my opinion? The truth is it does hurt - but only a little. I would feel pumped up if you said you value my opinion but vehemently disagree with it, or that you disagree with what I say but you like the way I say it. How about the idea that you respect my persistence and production day after day, or that in spite of the minor inconsistencies you sometimes point out, you respect my consistency and sticktoitiveness.

    You're right I've changed on the rules a bit over the last year or so, but I really don't think it's worse now than before. I'm consistently and persistently singing the same song, same one Jadegold sings, guns do more harm than good.

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  30. C'mon, RuffRidr, lighten up will ya?

    How about this. I will treat you with the same amount of respect that you and your coauthor afford to me and others on here. Deal?

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  31. Ruffridr:

    I will treat you with the same amount of respect that you and your coauthor afford to me and others on here.

    Oh, I think you can afford to continue to hold yourself to a higher standard than that--I doubt you can really bring yourself to stooping to their level.

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  32. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  33. By the way, good news regarding the protection of veterans' fundamental human right to keep and bear arms. Congressman John Boozman (R-AR) successfully amended H.R. 5360 so as to require a judge's determination that the rights-threatened veteran actually poses a threat to himself or others, before his rights can be trampled. Far better than the current system, in which VA bureaucrats submit veterans' names to the NICS list, merely for needing help balancing the family budget.

    The main part of H.R. 5360 is even less controversial than Boozman's amendment, so chances of passage would seem pretty good (who would want to go on record as opposing making it easier for wounded veterans with vision problems to get specialized housing?).

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