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Posted by Yoepus on Sep-17-2003 22:10:

US Gun Crime

Well I just finished watching Bowling for Colombine.

I think it was a fun watch, a laughable attempt at making some dumb political points, but at the end it does pose one good question:

Why is American Gun Crime so much higher in the US then other places?

I do some of Mike's nudges that it might be due to the NRA, or TV News (making everyone scared) - as local TV did not scare me nearly a precent as much as his film did (I actually started thinking black ppl use more guns and that white ppl should be scared of blacks thanks to his scary movie )

I don't believe it has anything to do with history either.

The answer I do believe lies in culture.

But the closest answer I got to that was - Culture.

But what is it about US culture that is so different from the rest of the world?

And here I thought Charles (Heston) did have a good point - Ethnicity; meaning that the US is not as homogenous as the other places it is being compared to regarding gun crime.

So I looked up the stats for myself:

Mike, says Canada has only 13% minorities (and I will believe him for lack of being to lazy to look it up myself), that is in my opinion a completely homogenous society.

The US however has 25% - this is a partially homogenous society. The minorities are a minority - but a 1/4 of the populaiton is significant. source: US Census

US total population is : 281,421,906
US white population is : 211,460,626

I don't know, so I don't know if this is the best explination for it... what have you guys come up with?

Posted by ProDiGaL on Sep-17-2003 23:39:

well in australia, cureently most of the population wasnt born there. Not sure about colors and so forth. But Australia has tightest gun control: No semi auto rifles, and pistols are only for sports shooting. Which leads me to my next point, you cant buy a gun in aus for self defence, you cannot purchase a firearm with the intention to use it on a person. You have to have other reasons which are mainly sports or hunting.

He makes out that gun numbers are irrelevent but i disagree.
I mean having a gun and shooting some one, and not having a gun and not shooting someone, there cant be a connection can there??!!

Posted by Yoepus on Sep-17-2003 23:58:

Ya I'm curious.. if you aussies have a census maybe there can be more info broken down.

Still however, how many murders take place?

The thing I wonder and what the Columbine movie totally neglects is the ammount of murders in a country compared to another (factoring in population)... Any clue what the rate is in Australia?

As to your point however, I would have to disagree. He compared Canada where 10,000,000 ppl have 7,000,000 guns to the US and found much lower murder rate.

Posted by Dj O'Callaghan on Sep-18-2003 00:52:

I'll see if I can find some statistics for you. However I know murders involving guns in the UK have gone up by 70% cases when the murderer didn't know the victim i.e hitmen etc have gone up by 30%.

In the bigger cities London, Birmingham and Manchester they probably get 1 or 2 firearm murders a day or every other day, at the beggining of last year a big gangwar broke out and a lot of people got murdered in London it was turning into scenes out of 1920s Chicago.

Gun control here is tight since the Dublaine massacre, however gangs are getting guns, from Eastern Europe, Or the new niche blackmarket in the UK reactivating deactivated guns all that involves is putting a firing pin into a gun and a lot of ppl are obtaining guns that way. UK there is just about 70 million people and I would probably guess 250,000 odd firearms excluding the Miltaries and the Police.

Posted by ProDiGaL on Sep-18-2003 00:53:

yes but he compared canada only, like he declared no canadians lock their doors after he tried 3 doors. Aus population is around 18-19 million, so yes its low and it has a low muder rate, dont know exactly what it is exaclty, but its in the double figures i know for sure (around 70 or 80 from memory)
what i mean is that he made gun numbers seem totally irrrelevent, which is where i beg to differ, i think it does have a part in the problem, its not the source, but its a major player.

Posted by Yoepus on Sep-18-2003 17:32:

Currently I am thinking the two most contribution factors to gun crime are:

Urban Density

Ethnicity ratios

The higher both those figures the higher gun crime... I wish I could do a thesis about that shit and see if its true though

Posted by LiquidX on Sep-18-2003 20:54:

I see it more like this way.
Well, first of all, you gotta blame some of it to those government representatives ( uhum bushes and republicans ) have faught their teeth in making gun sell easily in the market, something that the opossed party ( democrats ) have tried to tighten that. Eitherway, the US is a country with an avarage of 300,000 million peeps. Its the richests country in the world, with one of the best styles of living, so that means that theres alot of wasted white kidds. Believe me- and this is for what Ive seen.. personal testimony.
I have a friend who lives in this very exclusive city, bunch of rich people ( Boca Raton - For those familiar with Florida ).. well, about everybody there goes to private schools, and everything is much expensier, for the obvious reason that its a rich community. Every single kidd in there was on drugs, into illegal stuff, and a great amount of those kids had guns.. just for fun, they would go to a deserted warehouse and play with them.. not harming or anything, but doing stupid crazy stuff.. sadly enough, a great amount of those rich kidds were involved into some kind of gang groupies.. doing all sorts of bad stuff. So this leads me to believe that the problem with the US is that its easy, and accesible to obtain guns, especially those wasted trashed rich kidds.. although in the case of California, ethnicity does play some role, because of the gangs. But overall, some of the worst shootings and terrorists attacks in the US ( Columbine and Oklahoma ) were all in heavily white sectors, byt white people.

Posted by rizo on Sep-18-2003 22:07:

quote:
Originally posted by Yoepus
Urban Density

Ethnicity ratios
yes and no. Oakland, CA a city not so far from me (probaly 40miles), has probaly the highest murder rate at the moment, most of the murders are all related to black gang rivaries. so theres no ethnicity ratios there, however there is urban density. another example maybe my own city, San Jose (silicon valley), CA where theres a large mixture of ethnicity, and we are also very spread out, its like one huge suburb. our murder rate is not high, i think its around 35 a year in a city of one million plus. most of those murders also have nothing to do with ethnicity but drugs/gangs and domestic violence. it is different in every city though.

Posted by ProDiGaL on Sep-19-2003 02:48:

Posted by JM on Sep-21-2003 05:38:

shooting guns is fun!....

actually, really it's only OK. (i meant shooting at targets at gun shooting range)

basically, a US citizen may get a gun very easily legally, and anybody can get one easily non-legally too. gun control would fail. ppl will still get guns, maybe not as easily, but maybe even more violently.

>JM<

Posted by Orbax on Sep-23-2003 16:12:

quote:
Originally posted by LiquidX
I see it more like this way.
Well, first of all, you gotta blame some of it to those government representatives ( uhum bushes and republicans ) have faught their teeth in making gun sell easily in the market, something that the opossed party ( democrats ) have tried to tighten that. Eitherway, the US is a country with an avarage of 300,000 million peeps. Its the richests country in the world, with one of the best styles of living, so that means that theres alot of wasted white kidds. Believe me- and this is for what Ive seen.. personal testimony.
I have a friend who lives in this very exclusive city, bunch of rich people ( Boca Raton - For those familiar with Florida ).. well, about everybody there goes to private schools, and everything is much expensier, for the obvious reason that its a rich community. Every single kidd in there was on drugs, into illegal stuff, and a great amount of those kids had guns.. just for fun, they would go to a deserted warehouse and play with them.. not harming or anything, but doing stupid crazy stuff.. sadly enough, a great amount of those rich kidds were involved into some kind of gang groupies.. doing all sorts of bad stuff. So this leads me to believe that the problem with the US is that its easy, and accesible to obtain guns, especially those wasted trashed rich kidds.. although in the case of California, ethnicity does play some role, because of the gangs. But overall, some of the worst shootings and terrorists attacks in the US ( Columbine and Oklahoma ) were all in heavily white sectors, byt white people.

hehe...yeah...or they were just the most publicized because someone was like a WHITE person did that?! WTF!!!

White people are usually serial killers and very rarely do anyone but minorities commit mass murders. You can look this up, I believe the FBI page has some info on it as well. We discussed this a lot in my criminology courses (pre-law) and most of the court cases we look at tend to follow this trend as well...

Also from most of the murder/shootings i have studied most stem from drug deals, and surrounds. White people tend to traffic in cocaine powder and weed, where as crack cocaine, and pretty much everything else is brought in by non-white foreigners. Yakima A little bit south of where I live (like couple hundred miles) is one of, if not THE, largest heroin or cocaine entrances into the US, it also has about a million meth labs. I have a mexican by ancestry uncle down there and most people there are also mexican because of the large orchard industry.

I also hate sayings its a "white" or "mexican" problem, i was just kind of using your language.

Its a cultural thing. Ghetto culture establishes mob rule and violence, while upper class society looks down on that. My area the average income is 120, 000 a year. Lots of blacks, mexicans, orientals, etc... Every ethnicity is well represented, and most are cool as shit. We ARE human, so you get some assholes. But violence here is nothing. Rich people dont want to do that shit. too much to lose.

The foreign countries #1 dont give a FUCK about the US and its population, and ... fuck im just thinking of alimentary canal smuggles. The cartels take a family hostage and tell the person to fly to US with balloons of drugs shoved up their ass. THey OD on anti-bowel movement meds and then swall and push until they are tight as a fucking drum... one little woman like 4 foot 10 had something like 80 ballons in her body. Sometimes the cartels get iun a hurry though...lots of little airstrips in Miami, FL are found with eviscerated people.

the culture is too blame, not the race/ethnicity.

Posted by Izzy on Oct-03-2003 18:35:

ATLANTA (Reuters) - A report published by the Centers for Disease Control on Thursday found no conclusive evidence that gun control laws help to prevent violent crime, suicides and accidental injuries in the United States.

...

But a national task force of health-care and community experts found "insufficient evidence" that bans on specific guns, waiting periods for gun buyers and other such laws changed the incidence of murder, rape, suicide and other types of violence.

...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...ealth_guns_dc_2

Posted by St_Andrew on Oct-03-2003 18:56:

quote:
Originally posted by Izzy
ATLANTA (Reuters) - A report published by the Centers for Disease Control on Thursday found no conclusive evidence that gun control laws help to prevent violent crime, suicides and accidental injuries in the United States.

What laws for prevention?! :S

bowling for columbine is a great movie, it has some good points but i can't agree with michel in his conclusions.
of course weopond laws is the mayor problem. i don't know about the rest of the world but here in sweden it is really hard to even get a gun (or rifle for hunting)! and if you want heavier things you have to a military! this has to make a big inpact of the murder rate.
I agree with you Yoepus, it is very much about cultural problems. US citizens tend to use violence to solve all their problems (just look at their foreigens policys). But this is just to basic to have an easy solution for.
The third problem really is the political system of US, you don't give a fuck about thoose sick guys like those who did the columbine shooting.

Posted by Psionic on Oct-03-2003 19:43:

quote:
Originally posted by St_Andrew
What laws for prevention?! :S

bowling for columbine is a great movie, it has some good points but i can't agree with michel in his conclusions.
of course weopond laws is the mayor problem. i don't know about the rest of the world but here in sweden it is really hard to even get a gun (or rifle for hunting)! and if you want heavier things you have to a military! this has to make a big inpact of the murder rate.
I agree with you Yoepus, it is very much about cultural problems. US citizens tend to use violence to solve all their problems (just look at their foreigens policys). But this is just to basic to have an easy solution for.
The third problem really is the political system of US, you don't give a fuck about thoose sick guys like those who did the columbine shooting.

I agree that we live use violence to solve our problems as Americans, but as Michael Moore said as an example, Germany had a somewhat violent society during the Nazi era, and nowadays they aren't killing each other as much as Americans are.

As for your third "problem", I'm not quite sure what you are trying to say.

Posted by St_Andrew on Oct-03-2003 20:29:

quote:
Originally posted by Galapidate
I agree that we live use violence to solve our problems as Americans, but as Michael Moore said as an example, Germany had a somewhat violent society during the Nazi era, and nowadays they aren't killing each other as much as Americans are.

No but maybe they learned a lesson. I don't really know but anyway Germans nowadays are pretty peaceful. There is also a big different between 1940's German and todays US. They where desperate and their economy where terrible and the biggest problem was Hitler, not the Germans. Maybe you can blame US politicians for the gun murders in US but not as much as you can blame Hitler for the killing of jews.

quote:
As for your third "problem", I'm not quite sure what you are trying to say.

I was trying to say that in most European countries the government takes care of people who can't make it by their own. Of course this can't be 100% successful but i think it will prevent some of it.

Posted by Psionic on Oct-03-2003 20:33:

quote:
Originally posted by St_Andrew
No but maybe they learned a lesson. I don't really know but anyway Germans nowadays are pretty peaceful. There is also a big different between 1940's German and todays US. They where desperate and their economy where terrible and the biggest problem was Hitler, not the Germans. Maybe you can blame US politicians for the gun murders in US but not as much as you can blame Hitler for the killing of jews.

I was trying to say that in most European countries the government takes care of people who can't make it by their own. Of course this can't be 100% successful but i think it will prevent some of it.

In the first point, America has had a bloody past. Our earlier generations practically wiped out an entire race (Native Americans), enslaved Africans, etc.

Second, or rather third since it was your third point hehe, I definitely agree with that. The U.S. government, especially during these times, does very little to help the unemployed, homeless and poor. There have been numerous studies that show how poverty leads to crime, and I'm expecting that crime will continue going up until the economy gets better.

Posted by St_Andrew on Oct-03-2003 21:01:

quote:
Originally posted by Galapidate
In the first point, America has had a bloody past. Our earlier generations practically wiped out an entire race (Native Americans), enslaved Africans, etc.

That is true but it can have something to do with that "earlier generations" thing =) It can also have something to do with that you actually won over them. And it can defiantly have something to do with you fighting against the Indians pretty much without any leader forcing you to fight them. Germans where under the tyranny of Hitler and afterwords thought the violence where just terrible meanwhile the Americans fought for their "freedom" and therefore didn't think of violence in the same negative way.

Or maybe it's just everything of this plus another 2000 reasons =)

Posted by Psionic on Oct-03-2003 21:11:

quote:
Originally posted by St_Andrew
That is true but it can have something to do with that "earlier generations" thing =) It can also have something to do with that you actually won over them. And it can defiantly have something to do with you fighting against the Indians pretty much without any leader forcing you to fight them. Germans where under the tyranny of Hitler and afterwords thought the violence where just terrible meanwhile the Americans fought for their "freedom" and therefore didn't think of violence in the same negative way.

Or maybe it's just everything of this plus another 2000 reasons =)

What does fighting for freedom have to do with stealing Native American land and killing the Native Americans in attempt to make the entire race become extinct? Looks a lot like some of the things Hitler did, but in a shorter period of time...

Posted by St_Andrew on Oct-03-2003 21:24:

quote:
Originally posted by Galapidate
What does fighting for freedom have to do with stealing Native American land and killing the Native Americans in attempt to make the entire race become extinct? Looks a lot like some of the things Hitler did, but in a shorter period of time...

for them (US) the violence brought much more good things and i think that's a big difference. Germans really learned a lesson while Americans learned the wrong lesson (violence benefit).

Posted by DrUg_Tit0 on Oct-03-2003 21:26:

I must agree with those who said that the culture is the problem for such a hightened gun crime rate. Or to be more specific, the culture which worships one's individuality and individual success. On the other hand, it is also a culture which doesn't allow a person to stumble or fail. It's a sort of social darwinism at work, a system where if a person fails, no institution is going to help. For example, if a person becomes unemployed, and before finding another job gets seriously ill, he/she is doomed to oblivion (I'm feeling poetic today). Anyway, since it is obvious that in such a culture a person's well being is solely dependant on that one person only, that encourages a sort of "every man for himself" mentality. That mentality in turn encourages people to take justice in their own hands. And once that step is made, the rate of violent gun crimes is certain to go up.

Posted by Psionic on Oct-03-2003 21:29:

quote:
Originally posted by St_Andrew
for them (US) the violence brought much more good things and i think that's a big difference. Germans really learned a lesson while Americans learned the wrong lesson (violence benefit).

That is true, but back then there was no force to stop the U.S., since Natives lacked technology but also no other countries seemed to care.

Posted by gOOD-tRiP on Oct-07-2003 02:05:

i think the reason is because americans thinks its not a big deal shooting people then in other countries and it just grew from there. I mean it became so common to solve problems by shooting the enemy that americans lost all morals. so reason why people think this way? maybe the peers.

Posted by Psionic on Oct-07-2003 20:59:

quote:
Originally posted by gOOD-tRiP
i think the reason is because americans thinks its not a big deal shooting people then in other countries and it just grew from there. I mean it became so common to solve problems by shooting the enemy that americans lost all morals. so reason why people think this way? maybe the peers.

LOL did you watch Bowling for Columbine? "Forget the police, I take the middle man out of the equation and do it myself!"

Posted by tathi on Oct-09-2003 01:23:

today, Germany is one of the most pacifistic countries in the world, and it's sad that a country has to lose a war to realise that war is stupid, i only wish the obsequious wanker that represents me could understand that violence isn't the key.

Personally i wouldn't classify bowling for columbine as a documentary, it's way too biased. I'm not saying it's bad i love moores insight, and am a regular viewer of the awful truth. I don't think Moore will be able to make another movie like bowling for columbine, one of his main tactics was to secure interviews with people that thought he was a fan or underestimated him, now that he is well known, who in their right mind would want to be interviewed by him now?

australian statistics:
- population: 19,959,782
- one birth every 2 minutes and 8 s
- one death every 3 minutes and 56 s
- a net gain of one international migrant every 4 minutes and 40 seconds

ethnic ancestry stats:
http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/[email protected]?OpenDocument
couldn't find anything more up to date, you have to order it from the ABS.
6.7 million Australian
6.4 million English
1.9 million Irish
500,000 - 999,999 Italian, German, Chinese, Scottish
etcetera

i wouldn't classify ethnicity as a reason for violence

the gun buyback scheme: where people hand in their guns of their own will to be destroyed and are reimbursed with a fraction of the guns price

quote:
The Federal government hopes to net more than 65,000 guns under the $118 million scheme agreed by governments after two students were shot dead last year when a licensed shooter opened fire on a classroom at Melbourne's Monash University.

It's the nation's second gun crackdown. The Federal Government spent about $315 million buying back more than 640,000 guns after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996.

Posted by Nadi on Oct-09-2003 04:36:

I dont think our(the u.s) insane gun related crime rate has much to do with how easy it is to get a gun legally. I think the real problem is how easy it is to get one unregestered. I don't have any hard statistics but arn't the guns in murders generally unregistered? I think thats something that really needs to be cracked down on.

The second reason is our gang culture, which is diffrent than the gang culture anywere else in the world. I mean in L.A people get shot for graffiting on another gangs "turf" its just insane.

The media's not to blame, neither is the nra, the guy who sells stolen guns and the gangs are.

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