How many Americans were killed by gun violence in 2004?

[Darth_Ole]

I've been looking for the numbers and can't seem to find it. Anyone know, or have a link?

[slackmaster]

1. Data not yet available from the CDC for 2004

The most recent year available from the CDC is 2002. If you exclude suicides, CDC gives a figure of 12,129, which includes homicide (murder) and legal intervention (justified shootings) but not suicides.

Try WISQARS. It's pretty cool. You roll your own query.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/wisqars/

[applegrove]

2. How about accidentals and kids?

[slackmaster]

3. Follow the link in my post and look it up yourself

Pick any age range you want, any time period for which data is available, and sort it as you please.

The figure I provided includes murder victims of all ages.

I did a query for all causes and all ages sorted by age range using the default settings. It's interesting how the probability of becoming a murder victim starts to fall precipitously around age 45. Older teens are at relatively high risk.

[applegrove]

4. Murder used to be just a tribal problem (where people talked and

lived their lives doing things to avoid being murdered all day long). Too bad guns bring tribalism back - and to the USA no less!

We outside the US have some feelings on why tribalism is allowed to exist in certain neighborhoods of the USA over the long term when tribalism in other societies is sussed out and destroyed. Michael Moore did a good job of explaining all about that in Bowling for Columbine. It seems the only thing that lets tribalism exist is power to circumvent the policing system. Guns will do that. I still say the causes of tribalism and the disconnect between the society and the governance that ends tribalism is guns.

Less guns, less tribalism in a place that has an adequate system of governance. Structural change is always the best in dealing with such an issue.

But like I say - I am woman and women get very little out of wars and guns - as most women do.

[slackmaster]

5. Are you actually interested in the subject, or just bashing the USA?

:boring:

[applegrove]

6. Excuse me if I do not want to repeat your mistakes as our economies

get closer & closer together and 'moral suasion' and 'political expertise' crosses the boarder in magnitudes not seen before. I like my health care. I don't like your guns. And I think I show constant concern for the victims of needless gun crime in the USA. Talking about somebody's issues is not considered 'fighting words' outside of adolescence or extended adolescence. People in your country bring the problems and the issues up all the time. I believe I am on a thread where this is an issue. Perhaps if I walked into your home and began discussing your issues it would be inappropriate (& very scary).

I wish you could accept that gun-love of your particular kind is part of a delusion and not healthy or normal. You have to admit it is a religion? At least admit that..

[slackmaster]

7. I get excellent health care and I like my gun collection too

I wish you could accept that gun-love of your particular kind is part of a delusion and not healthy or normal. You have to admit it is a religion? At least admit that..

In the interest of keeping this discussion civil I assume you mean the royal "your" in the first instance and me in particular in the second.

To answer your question, I think you are indulging in mass stereotyping and have no insight into the folly of your own thought. I don't believe you have given me any indication that you have any original thought about the subject, rather you have allowed yourself to be programmed by propaganda and media hype. I see it here every day.

BTW - I hope Darth_Ole found my first reply useful. At least our fruitless exchange here has served to keep the threat floating near the top of the stack for him.

[applegrove]

10. I have run into freepers or fundies or gop types on other sites. And

when they run out of ways to continue a rational discussion on a certain topic they start with the insults and inappropriateness of the words and argument itself - kicking the issue to the wayside.

Yes I am not so good a grammar. I am sorry for the lack of clarity inherent in my writing. It cannot be avoided often but I will try harder - so as to frustrate as little as possible.

As to me 'not having an original thought' - that is just an example of the above: dissecting and judging my argument on its structure and avoiding the issue all together. Had I come up with an original thought you would have said that "these silly dreams occurred inside your brain like ping pong balls and I do not think you should be sharing them". Also a very common pattern and tactic of the freepers, fundies, gops and trolls I have encountered before.

If you want to discuss the issue, an issue that affects us all, instead of the structure of the argument itself - then CALL ME!

Otherwise you have successfully ended the discussion by refusing to discuss the issue at all.

[slackmaster]

11. Sorry if my reply seemed too harsh

I deal best with strictly rational discussions, facts and figures and machines. You seemed disinterested in an actual answer that I offered to what seemed to be a specific question.

If you want to discuss the issue, an issue that affects us all, instead of the structure of the argument itself - then CALL ME!

Otherwise you have successfully ended the discussion by refusing to discuss the issue at all.

Yes, violent crime is bad. Okay? So is negligence. If you have a specific solution to offer I'd be happy to receive it. I'm sensitive to people trying to psychoanalyze a culture that I am a part of, or trying to sexualize (e.g. "gun-love") that which (to me at least) is the farthest thing from personal.

[BoogDoc7]

8. A couple things...

Your argument has a couple holes:

In those states which have concealed/carry laws, for some reason (which may or may not be related, but still), crime is lower than those states without them (this statement may be a little too broad, but you may get the general idea). The problem isn't gun ownership, the problem is CRIMINALS who have the guns. This is a little off-the-cuff speculation, but I would wager that those gun owners with little to no criminal history in the US and who do not generally commit crimes (aka normal law-abiding people) may break your theory a little bit.

I also believe that in England - where you cannot own a gun - crime is going up.

Interesting stab at the left here - if there's so much conspiracy from the right wing, then why are we all allowed to keep our guns? Why aren't we required to register them?

[applegrove]

12. I am talking about the problem of guns in the hands of criminals &

children & those who should not have them. That is what i mean by gun control. As to conceal & carry - I know nothing about those laws or where they have been instituted but again that goes to tribalism. Every man had a spear eh? And every tribe made war. And that was the only way to be. So conceal & carry may just be the anti-dote to too many guns in the hands of criminals (it is also a tribal response). So if you like that crime is now between two individuals to solve (the speed of guns makes it so) then that is great.

But allot of people working long and hard to develop the type of government that would make tribalism unnecessary. Of course that type of tribalism is better for the gun industry. I just do not know if what is good for some corporation that exists only on paper is really what humans were after when they invented the corporations. Remaking our democracies in your image for your particular industry...I'm not sure that is a good thing.

As to England - they face a refugee crisis like never before. The growth of young in the middle east & the ending of communism resulted in quite a few shocks to their body politic. And millions of poor on desperate to integrate & find a place. England is also only now beginning to see the boom cycles that USA has seen for 60 years. I still think England is way behind the USA in crimes.

[rinsd]

9. Guns bring tribalism?

And murder is just a tribal problem?

"Less guns, less tribalism in a place that has an adequate system of governance"

Explain Switzerland then. And coversely explain England.

Does our violent culture have more to do with our murder rates and murder rates with firearms? Sure.

But how are guns causing this and will removing guns eliminate it?

[applegrove]

15. Guns cause it by undoing the rule of law in certain neighborhoods.

Cabals are just as effective in causing tribalism and undoing rule of law. That is why the US government has seen fit to create and institute laws that make it harder for cabals to exist. They are known as anti-racketeering laws.

I wish there were stronger laws that went after the 'structure' of gun trade (legal, illegal). That is what I mean by gun control. Hunters are cool and I know many people who come from a culture of hunting. Some will admit that if you add up all the costs - meat from the grocery story may only be a little more expensive... but they are honest in their relationship with nature and the meat they get by hunting has not destroyed the environment like the stuff I eat does.

I am not talking about removing all guns. Just dialing down the marketing. Dialing down the gun myths. And making structural changes so that it is not a free thing to flood the market with guns in order to create a need and sell more guns. For sure it will cost the gun companies business.

And in times before monotheism, benevolent government, rule of law people spent many hours in each day following norms and rules in order not to get murdered or sacrificed or sent to war on neighbors to get rich (or make someone else rich). We gained a whole lot of freedom when we got rid of murder as a pastime or a justified response to any perceived slight or simply a whim or because you were a slave. There are people in the USA who live in such situations. Think of the business owner who gets shook down for cash, etc. Think of the mother who lives in terror of what will happen to her kids when they are away from home.

How do I explain Switzerland or England? Look at the Vikings! No more brutal people existed in Europe except for perhaps under a sociopath when humans are at their notorious worst. Vikings now are those Nordic countries with mixed markets, social democracies. Norms! That is how you explain it. The norms are different. The murder rate has gone down considerably in the last 2000 years. Trust me it has.

[rinsd]

17. Benevolent government is a naive oxymoron....

Government is to always be viewed suspisciously even when appearing benevolent.

"How do I explain Switzerland or England?"

I stated explain Switzerland because there is mandatory military training and they are also well aremed. I also could have cited Cnada which has a very similar gun ownership rate to our own but has far less violent crime.

I stated England because their violent crime has gone up in the last few years even though they have very stringent gun laws.

Your point on cultures is a good one but one must realize the tools used by the culture are just tools.

"That is why the US government has seen fit to create and institute laws that make it harder for cabals to exist. They are known as anti-racketeering laws."

Funny you should bring that up. RICO laws are an overreach by law enforcement that were originally frustrated with organized crime. By lowering the bar for all of us, this law has already seen abuse and mis-use most glaringly in the drug war.

[applegrove]

19. But how is the mafia doing? Really bad - eh? I'll agree with you

on one point - when people start misusing tools anything can happen.

[rinsd]

23. Mafia? Which one.....

Is the Italian mafia in worse shape now then say 30 years ago? Probably. But then you have Chineses, Korean,. Russian etc etc.

Did we as citizens lose some rights so the FBI and various Federal agencies could proclaim brief victories in the war on crime? Yes just like with the drug war.

[applegrove]

26. And you don't think that it has anything to do with the law not having

as much of a upper hand?

[rinsd]

30. "People who trade liberty for security deserve neither" (nt)

[applegrove]

20. You don't trust your government? Did you trust it 8 years ago?

Twenty years ago? Thirty?

I am so sorry for you.

[rinsd]

24. 8 years ago?

Not really. Why should I with manadatory minimums, a Patriot Act prequel among other stupid things?

20 years ago and you start to get to a time in my life when I was just too young to even know.

"I am so sorry for you."

Don't be sorry a wiseman once said the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

[Deep13]

13. "CDC gives a figure of 12,129"

Let's compare that to some other causes of death in the USA.

Traffic fatalities I understand to be about 50,000 per year and tobacco related deaths are just under half a million per year. There are some 300 million Americans. While I do not want to denegrate the suffering of the actual victims, the fact is that firearm related deaths are not that much of a problem when compared to other causes. Gun laws seem to have little to do with crime rates generally. Now, I cannot speak for specific cities like New York where firearms are highly restricted. I believe the correlation between states with loose gun laws and low crime rates are questions of demographics more than anything else. It highly urban states have the tightest gun laws and necessarily the most crime.

Just because someone is a foreigner does not mean she does not have the right to express her mind, even if that means being critical of the USA. Frankly, I want to know what the rest of the world thinks. Where ever we choose to draw lines on the map, the fact is we are all crammed together on the same speck of dust.

England and Switzerland are not appositive examples on the issue of gun control. Both of those countries have unique histories, culture and politics. The fact that something is true there does not make it so here. I think the problem in the UK is a general distrust of authority and an unwillingness to crack down on property offenses generally. I spent three weeks as a exchange student in 1993 in London and noticed how skeptical jurors were of the police. That is a good thing for civil liberty, but not for law and order. Switzerland has a nation-wide organized militia that involves every man of a certain age. That is a lot different than simply handing out guns to any dude who can come up with the purchase price.

Yah know, I have a gun and I have an automobile. I do not think it is unreasonable to impose licensing requirements on cars or pollution controls or registration. Why are guns different?

[hfojvt]

25. I was surprised by the 12,000 number

because I remembered over 20,000 homicides per year in the 1990s. Then it occured to me that the other 8,000+ homicides must have used something other than guns.

[Mairead]

14. If people want to behave rationally (rather than rationalisingly)

they should avoid accepting knee-jerk proposals from self-interested groups.

Look at the distribution of violence. Look at other factors with which it correlates well. Determine the real causal relationships.

THEN think about what the most effective solutions would be!!

I believe that anyone who does that will conclude that the vast majority of violence has nothing to do with the availability of firearms and EVERYthing to do with (a) a high level of inescapable stress and (b) a lack of nonviolent outlets for settling conflicts.

Firearms are tools for committing violence, not the cause of the violence. Absent firearms, some other tool would be chosen, because the problems would still be there demanding solution!

Why does this seem to be so hard to see?

[Cuban_Liberal]

16. As a former LE officer, I agree.

I would add to your analysis the additional factor of violent, predatory criminals and other sociopathic persons.

[applegrove]

18. Exactly. And Anti-socials are at 4% of USA population with psychopaths

at 1%. You give one of them a gun - they will make a tribe in no time and then the people start really getting hurt.

[Cuban_Liberal]

21. Those figures sound pretty high.

What is/are the source(s) of those statistics?

[applegrove]

22. 4% is from book review in February Psychology today. A Harvard

psychologist whose name escapes me. I just read the article and not the book. 1% is from Robert Hare a world renowned expert from BC and I think he includes all sub-types of psychopaths.

[paineinthearse]

27. Including Iraq? nt

[hansolsen]

28. Thousands more people were killed by guns, in part because bone

headed gun control legislation has actually resulted in the sale of tens of millions of hand guns to non hunters who never would have purchased those guns before the open political warfare between Diane Feinstein, et al, and the NRA.

[Igel]

29. I was killing time on the job in 1997 or '98, and looked

at bicycle accident numbers (I had just flipped over my handlebars, bounced off the car that hit me, and landed on my back on the pavement -- my powerbook broke my fall).

The then-most recent year they had numbers for had just about the same number of pedestrians and bikers killed by cars as there were gun-related deaths (and half of those were suicides).