ctpost.com reports that Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy hearts The Center for American Progress. “These are great proposals,”Malloy pronounced after considering CAP’s 28-point civilian disarmament plan. [After the jump.] “To be sure, not every recommendation is appropriate or feasible in every state,” CAP admits. “State laws vary widely, and states often face varying challenges when it comes to gun violence. But the list of ideas offered in this report is intended to present wide-ranging options for state executives who are committed to taking real action to address gun violence in their communities.” And trampling on American’s gun rights . . .
Strengthening background checks
- Issue guidance to licensed gun dealers to encourage them to conduct voluntary background checks on behalf of private sellers
- Require background checks for private sales at gun shows that are held on publicly owned property
- Create an interagency working group to evaluate the state’s progress in providing prohibiting records to the background check system
- Apply for federal grant funding to improve background check records
- Ensure that all domestic violence and drug abuse prohibiting records are pre-validated and flagged in the background check system
Enhanced enforcement of current laws
- Investigate and prosecute cases in which prohibited individuals attempt to purchase guns from licensed dealers and fail a background check
- Create a dedicated gun crime investigative unit in state and local police departments to focus on illegal gun trafficking and gun crime
- Create an illegal gun tip line
- Increase the use of technology to solve gun crimes and prevent shootings
- Implement de-escalation training for police officers and increase the use of independent prosecutors in investigations of police officers who use lethal force
- Implement a lethality assessment program for officers who are responding to domestic violence calls
- Implement statewide standardized protocol requiring prohibited domestic abusers to surrender all firearms in their possession
- Provide guidance to local judges to ensure that they order the surrender of firearms by domestic abusers in appropriate cases
Improved data collection and analysis
- Require state and local law enforcement agencies to trace all crime guns
- Conduct an annual review of trace data to identify the largest sources of crimeguns in the state
- Create an opt-in program for law enforcement agencies across the state toshare trace data
- Create a review commission to study every gun-related death in the state
- Improve statewide collection of crime and gun death data
Enhanced community engagement
- Implement a violence-intervention program in local hospital emergency rooms for gunshot victims
- Implement community-based programs to prevent violent crime in vulnerable communities
Enhanced oversight of gun carrying
- Conduct an annual review of concealed-carry permit reciprocity agreements with other states and rescind those agreements with states that fail to meet certain standards
- Conduct monthly background checks to ensure continued eligibility for individuals who have been issued concealed-carry permits
- Use existing criminal laws to discourage reckless acts of open carry
Enhanced regulation of the gun industry
- Increase security measures and improve other business practices of gun dealers
- Create a grading system for gun dealers that incentivizes adoption of best practices
- Use state and local buying power to encourage best practices by gun manufacturers and dealers
- Divest public funds from gun manufacturers that fail to adopt best practices
- Enforce state sales tax laws on high-volume sellers of guns who have not obtained a federal firearms license
Surprisingly not all of these are terrible ideas. Some fall under the purview of enforcing the existing laws as they are written. Some of them are completely unrealistic and bat-sh!t crazy though.
I think that pretty well sums it up. Questions of the always-present possibility–or better, likelihood–of statist overreach aside, they mostly read like pretty weak sauce. But then–monthly background checks? seriously?
It all sounds very expensive to me. I wonder if the CAP would care to mention how much this would cost.
They would claim it’s revenue neutral. Just increase the costs of the permit until it covers the costs of the overhead and problem solved. Instead of $50 make it $500. Make a tax that doesn’t look like a tax and only certain people have to pay the tax and not everyone else, and the progressives will be happy. They won’t be footing the bill, we will.
$500? Hell, $5000!! Every year! Then shorten that to 6 mos. I can outbid that! $50,000 every 3 mos. If the government has the authority to charge $5 every 20 years, then they have the authority to charge $100,000 every week. In order to get permission to exercise a right which shall not be infringed. It is ALL unconstitutional.
Kentucky has monthly background checks for CCDW license holders.
Isn’t Illinois State Police running BC not only on concealed carry licence holders, but all FOID card holders daily?
A good 60% of these suggestions sound good, but wouldn’t have any affect on crime. They would be a good way to increase bureaucracy and increase expenditures.
Databases are dangerously inaccurate l. I’ve seen addresses like: 24st St. Occupations like: Message Therpy, Massagists… etc
The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the bureaucracy.
And there you have it. Case closed! The bureaucrats need more bureaucrats. 75% of the suggestions on the list wouldn’t change crime statistics or move the needle one way or the other barely a tick. But it will create thousands of new job openings in government for paper pushers (democrats) and people to have jobs and pensions plans that we can’t afford to fund anymore for new hires to manage the forms we would need to fill out and make ordinary people stand in line like the DMV to get a picture taken or some other nonsense. Stand in line A to pick up your form, Stand in line B when it’s filled out. Stand in line C to get your picture taken and stand in line D (cashier) to pay your mandatory fee to exercise your rights on the way out. We will mail you your license in 16-20 weeks, don’t hold your breath.
>> Databases are dangerously inaccurate l. I’ve seen addresses like: 24st St. Occupations like: Message Therpy, Massagists… etc
FWIW, there are technological solutions to this sort of inaccurate data – various fuzzy match algorithms.
Not ALL of these are terrible ideas, but a lot of them are TERRIBLE ideas, as in camel’s nose terrible.
Items 1-5 relate to background checks. Since the entire purpose of background checks is to deny a person’s Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms the entire system, and these supposed tweaks to same, is unconstitutional on its face.
Items 6/7/8/12/13: Prohibited persons, illegal guns, confiscation from suspected domestic abusers – all infringe on the Second Amendment and the RKBA. I do not condone domestic abuse, by EITHER spouse, but abusers should be prosecuted for actual crimes committed, not subject to unconstitutional pre-crime confiscation of one of the tools they might possibly use to commit domestic abuse in the future.
Items 21/22/23 regarding carrying a firearm open or concealed – all such permitting or other restrictions are obvious violations of the Second Amendment “…shall not be infringed.”
Items 24/25/26/27/28 are just more statist regulations burdening an industry that is already highly regulated on the federal level. The intent would seem to be to the greatest extent possible regulate them out of business. When the difficulties and expense of complying with more and more regulations coming at you from every level of government outwieghs the profitability of the business only a fool will continue that business.
Absolutely correct.
Yeah, there is nothing in there that is nuts. Investigate and prosecute straw purchases? Well count me in!
“…shall not be infringed.”
They had me (more or less) up to number 21…
I agree. A lot of these sound like good ideas and I have no problem with their implementation.
We should be going after criminal buyers. We should have FFL’s who are willing to help private sales if an individual wants a background check before selling their firearm to a stranger. We should absolutely be keeping the NICS list up to date with correct information.
My biggest problem is that I don’t trust the source. The cat is out of the bag, they want our guns. Why trust anything they say when they’re trying to move the ball towards their end zone?
NICS is completely worthless, a waste of taxpayer money. How do we get rid of it? We do not need to worry about how to persecute violators of a law which makes no sense and is unconstitutional.
Hmmm. I was expecting the usually extreme ‘RAWR’ nonsense. I didn’t have issue with a few of those. Maybe I need to increase my medication 😉
Problem is, any power government has will, sooner or later, be abused.
Brought to by John Podesta aka Clinton’s Lacky, and George Soros.
Bet they worked real hard on those ideas. Thankfully the founders of the country were much smarter.
Russia had the right idea shutting down Soros and freezing all the assets of his various globalist initiatives in their country. Lets just hope they send out a FSB hit squad.
That is one guy who is very dangerous to America and Liberty.
Kill all those who insult
IslamLiberty!Wow! Not one thing about high capacity clipazines or the shoulder thingy that goes up…
Impressive.
That’s because they know they get used up once they run out of .9mm or .223mm.
Shall we do a 28 point breakdown on why this is a complete flop?
Hmmm….. may I?
Items 1 through 5 are simple enough. Nothing in there to compel the criminals to comply so they help how, exactly?
Items 6 through 13 are even simpler. You just admitted there are current laws making all those things you are on about illegal. Kinda makes your request to add some more laws seems silly, doesn’t it?
Items 14 – Why? How does ‘tracing crime guns’ help? The very idea implies that someone other than the shooter is responsible for the crime.
Item 15, see item 14.
Item 16, See item 14.
Item 17, a Review Commission? Really? So more bureaucracy is the answer?
Item 18, did you just tell us that police aren’t collecting sufficient crime data now?
Item 19, bit late if they are already in the ER, doncha think?
Item 20, I like this idea. How about a community-based program of teaching people in vulnerable communities how to properly handle firearms? How about teaching them to be able to take care of themselves, teaching them to be able to shoot back?
Item 21, meh. See item 17 above about adding to the bureaucracy.
Item 22, Monthly? Really? Sure, because we are all just criminals waiting for the chance to go on a shooting spree! See, again, item 17 about adding to the bureaucracy. And also look up the concept of Due Process of Law, innocent until proven otherwise.
Item 23, besides being vague you just admitted, again, that there are already laws in place to prevent the very thing you seem to want to make laws to cover.
Items 24 through 28, whatever. Are you even aware of the fact that ‘state and local buying power’ of firearms is the smallest percentage of sales for any firearms manufacturer?
“19. Implement a violence-intervention program in local hospital emergency rooms for gunshot victims”
huh?
Amusing. I already have a violence intervention program. I carry it with me everyday.
While I think many are actually not bad idea’s, I don’t think it will impact the use of guns by criminals in the least.
Example “22. Conduct monthly background checks to ensure continued eligibility for individuals who have been issued concealed-carry permits”
I get it. I am in IT, simple automated monthly batch job that checks CCW holders criminal records and produces a report of new violates. Some CCW owner commits a real crime, a crime that would not allow them to get a CCW now if they were trying to get one. So its revoked, legally. Do you think it matters to them? Are you going to knock on their door and ask for their permit? It they are bent on using a gun in a crime are they now going to say “well gee I lost my CCW so I can do this now”???
14. Has this ever solved a crime?
Please add:
29. Lifetime revocation of firearm possession rights for all politicians and law enforcement that propose legislation that infringes on 2A.
Rand, Point of Order. Your recommendation #29 is in itself a violation of the Second Amendment. Please report to your local pre-crime department and turn in all of your firearms.
There is a fix, though: 29. Any political officer, either elected or appointed, who votes in favor of any legislation, law or regulation later found to be in violation of the Second Amendment of the Constitutional of the United States of America shall be immediately removed from his position and shall for the remainder of their lifetime be ineligible to hold any position or office paid for by public funds.
“Items 14 – Why? How does ‘tracing crime guns’ help?”
They want an eventual ‘paper trail’ on every firearm.
They will claim it will help police solve crimes, but it’s real purpose will be to generate a database of firearms for confiscation.
You misspelled it…much like commonsense (which my phone just autocorrected to something else until I forced it) the term used was “crimeguns”. Whatever the hell that means. Sounds like the name of a prog rock band to me.
*yawn* 🙂
28 points, and not a single one will do anything at all to prevent evil, violent people from doing evil, violent things, with guns.
Picky, picky, picky.
It’s for the CHILDREN!
Look at this baby!
How about a hi ho go F yourself citizen group think. Here’s the deal. 2A as written. Zero background check. Tax credit of 3000 dollars for CCW carry and if you stop a crime with a gun you get another tax credit of $10,000.00. If you engage Jihadist and win, you pay no taxes that year.
Crime will be just above zero. And terrorists will stay in Europe.
It is apparent that these guys don’t know how guns are traced. They have seen too many TV shows or movies where the good guy spouts some moronic line like “the gun’s legally registered”, so they think all guns everywhere are registered. If implemented according to our very manual trace system, all that tracing would bring the system to its knees. Same for the background checks. If they did monthly checks on the tens of thousands of permit holders in a typical shall issue state’s jurisdiction, the system would collapse! It would be funny to watch until they asked for more money to ‘improve’ things.
“… It would be funny to watch until they asked for more money to ‘improve’ things.”
They already asked for more money, right there in number 4. “Apply for federal grant funding to improve….”
They haven’t even started and they are asking for more money. Their default position is more State and more Federal monies to pay for the more State.
#4 & 5 may as well since background checks are in constant use across the country, and will likely remain that way. Not point in having an bad system with outdated information.
#8 Not sure how much use an illegal gun tip line would get but as long as not too many anti-2A’s know about could be an effective tool in actually stopping some illegal firearms.
The rest of them not so much of good ideas
S T O P – U S I N G – O U R – F L A G
C_AP
PROGRESS = COMMUNISM
PROGRESSIVES = COMMUNISTS
HISTORICALLY, WHEN THEY F WITH US, THE U.S. KILLS COMMUNISTS AT WILL AND ON SIGHT, OPEN SEASON, NO BAG LIMIT, NO TAG.
FUCAP
how would more paper pushing do anything?oh right what was I thinking its the government
“Conduct monthly background checks on those with CCW permits”
LOL. What a waste of time and resources.
The single most law-abiding demographic in the country, carry license holders. The money involved would be better spent hiring a private investigator to look into the secret activities of every politician every month.
Under the second section “Enhanced enforcement of current laws” should be added………….. oh, wait, if law enforcement and prosecutors just DID enforce current laws that add years to sentences for use of a firearm in the commission of many crimes, or truly locked up the criminals instead of letting them right back out with a slap on the wrist, we just might see a reduction in “gun violence.”
This whole screed is focused on the gun, and not on the person who commits the crime or manipulates the inanimate object to commit “gun violence.” THAT, my friends, is what is totally wrong with this list.
I believe Smith and Wesson tried this once upon a time .. how did that work out for them?
I know who I will be targeting when the shooting starts.
It seems to me that many of the items are already being done.
1. They already want to so they can get the transfer fee. Don’t be daft.
2. People will go across the street to the McDonald’s.
3. Talk to the FBI.
4. What? States do not perform these background checks, and if they do, they talk to the FBI.
5. Pre-validated? That’s not possible. Either they are valid or they are not. You mean prioritize entry? Maybe.
6. If it is a crime, it is already illegal. Prosecutors prosecute everything they can. Rest assured, little fraidy-cat.
7. LEOs and their organizations definitely have resources to do this. Forget about all that robbery nonsense.
8. Already exists, dial 911 or click ‘contact us’ on the BATFE website.
9. Gotcha. We’ll just put all this shiny shit from the ballistics lab back in the box and ask for an upgrade.
10. The only intelligent point. Everyone, please note this point. Oh, right, we already have started.
11. Don’t shoot, we’re only disagreeing!
12. Already in place and active. Perhaps you’d like to volunteer your personal time to do more of it?
13. See Response #12.
14. Define crimeguns please. Also, already done when appropriate.
15. Theft is almost certainly the largest source.
16. A little more redundant government never hurt anyone.
17. Have at it, this is your gimmie.
18. We can’t trust states to do this, since they already fiddle with the numbers or don’t report at all to the FBI.
19. What everyone needs when suffering from a GSW is a talking-to about violence since they may not be familiar with the consequences.
20. All our previous efforts in this arena have been terribly effective. See your own recommendations 1-19, 21-24.
21. Permit holders are far less likely to perpetrate a crime. Do you only want perpetratourists?
22. Who would pay? The often cited Government grants? Also, OPM data breach.
23. Only if they’re reckless, though.
24. Needs a higher ratio of specificity to shift the paradigm to a more consistenttttttttttttt.. Sorry I fell asleep.
25. See Response #24. Also, what is the point?
26. Best practices according to whom?
27. The state can manage its finan… Well, maybe not. Also, profit. Don’t you like profit?
28. The state wrings every dollar it can out of taxpayers, of this you can be certain.
6. If it is a crime, it is already illegal. Prosecutors prosecute everything they can. Rest assured, little fraidy-cat.
Actually, I think that they have a point here. A lot of gun related crimes go unprosecuted. Not everywhere – Maricopa County, AZ apparently does a good job of going for sentence enhancements when firearms are involved, and, esp. when you have felons in possession (of a firearm). I know of one female felon who got an extra 5 years for merely possessing a handgun, and not using it, or even apparently displaying it, when doing the drug business she ultimately was busted for. And, surprisingly, felon Freddie Gray, who died after fleeing the police, had been arrested for an illegal weapon, and was on his way to jail, when he was supposedly fatally injured.
But, that is the problem also – the cities with the biggest inner city gang problems tend to have the biggest presence of apologists for their (mostly black) gang members, and in those cities there is often a lot of political pressure not to prosecute for mere felon in possession, or to utilize gun related sentence enhancements.
“8. Create an illegal gun tip line”
Why would they want a “gun tip line” that was illegal. Tip lines ought the be legal.
/sarc
Yeah, I’d love a line I could call for tips about guns. Now, do you think they are talking about tips on which gun would be the best for me (or someone else)? Or do you think the tips would be about how to improve your aim, etc?
These were my favorites:
26. Use state and local buying power to encourage best practices by gun manufacturers and dealers
27. Divest public funds from gun manufacturers that fail to adopt best practices
28. Enforce state sales tax laws on high-volume sellers of guns who have not obtained a federal firearms license
#26 seems to be saying that the govt. should buy guns from the companies that are the most politically correct. But, the logical correlation there is that they buy inferior firearms for their law enforcement officers at higher prices just to make this point. Wouldn’t want to be one of their LEOs.
#27 seems to be saying that they would disinvest from companies that piss them off. But, governments don’t really invest money. Rather, their pension plans do. And, inevitably, disinvestment results in a lower return on investments. So, they are essentially suggesting increasing the underfunding of their pension plans (likely increasing the likelihood of bankruptcy down the road) in order to harm these companies a minor amount – except that this sort of boycott is the thing that increases gun sales for the company being boycotted. So, we are back to increasing government pension underfunding as the advantage, traded off against increased sales by the object of the boycott.
#28 – Wonder if they have figured out yet that high volume gun dealers already either are federally licensed or committing federal crimes. Already. They don’t have to increase taxes on them – all they need to do is throw them in jail. Which is to say that this is all malarkey, since those high volume gun dealers are already going to be licensed.
1) Issue guidance to licensed gun dealers to encourage them to conduct voluntary background checks on behalf of private sellers
Silly all the way around. Why would someone want to do a background check? You do them because the govt. demands that they be done. Yes – maybe in a one in a million situation, you have a sketchy buyer, but then, why not just walk away if it bothers you.
And, who is going to pay for this stuff? Oh, the licensed dealers. I am sure that they are excited about that. But, why should they do this service for free? Because they are so civic natured?
2) Require background checks for private sales at gun shows that are held on publicly owned property
This might be plausible. But, of course, there just aren’t that many transactions at gun shows that would benefit from that, because most of the people selling guns at such have to be federally licensed already. This is almost entirely cosmetic. And, would essentially mean that that publicly owned property cannot rent for as much as it would otherwise, which means that this attempt at shifting the cost would, of course, fail.
Enhanced oversight of gun carrying
21. Conduct an annual review of concealed-carry permit reciprocity agreements with other states and rescind those agreements with states that fail to meet certain standards
Cheap, and who can complain? This is probably being done anyway.
22. Conduct monthly background checks to ensure continued eligibility for individuals who have been issued concealed-carry permits
Just what we need – clogging the background checking systems to double check the demographic most likely to have clean records every month.We are probably talking tens of millions of extra background checks every month, and for what? And who would pay for it?
23. Use existing criminal laws to discourage reckless acts of open carry
Yeh – I remember this in the City and County of Denver. If you could see the butt of the gun in a holster, it was brandishing, and otherwise, you needed a concealed carry permit – which the county would only give to close friends of the mayor (or of the sheriff whom the mayor appointed). What is a reckless instance of open carry? I suspect that they mean someone seen open carrying by someone who doesn’t like guns.
the three points that I completely disagree with are 6, 22, and 23. Six I disagree with because I have had family members that had problems with drugs earlier in their life and then they decided to go and buy a gun since from what he understood he would be clear to purchase one. He failed the test and under that ruling he would be prosecuted and could end up in jail. As for 22 come on now month to month tests they must be some kind of stupid to think that everyone is going to go in every month to re apply. Lastly 23, define reckless. That’s what they don’t want to do cause reckless open carry to them would be strapping an AR on your back and walking out. They don’t understand that that isn’t reckless open carry its just open carry. I personally wouldn’t do that because I don’t feel the need to however I’m fine with anyone who chooses to. Open carry with a rifle is no more illegal or legal than open carrying with a handgun. These are my thoughts in those three points.
25. Create a grading system for gun dealers that incentivizes adoption of best practices
“What are they going to do, give you some big bad piggy points?”
#1 “conduct voluntary background checks.” While “private sales” is mentioned, this is really a “may sell” scheme. As over 98% pass the NICS background check. the plan will be to go after the LGS whenever there’s a shooting. That will be based on not doing a “voluntary background check.”
#6 “Prosecute those that fail a background check.” Given, in 2012 only 13 guilty pleas were obtained out of over 70,000 denials. Point is, 98% of the denials aren’t sent to prosecution.
#21 “Reciprical concealed carry” while this sounds good, note that the standard isn’t listed. Only that some states could be rejected. My read is the bar to obtain a CCW will to “may issue” as found in NJ, or DC.
I hope they find the same success with the war on guns as was achieved in their war on poverty, their war on drugs and their current differences with terrorists.
“Investigate and prosecute cases in which prohibited individuals attempt to purchase guns from licensed dealers and fail a background check”
So you’re saying they should actually enforce the law? Who would have thought of such a thing
I’m one of those people in the middle. I want to protect the Constitution, but gun owners (not liberals) are the ones swaying me into supporting more controls. On number 14, why wouldn’t you go after the illegal sale of the gun to the criminal? At some point, someone buys a gun legally and then sells it illegally. I would think every responsible gun owner would want those people found.
Actually, no. The most likely transfer in this case is:
a) Law-abiding lawfully acquires firearm
b) Criminal unlawfully steals firearm
c) Criminal unlawfully transfers firearm
The initial sale from the gun maker to the original owner is most likely a legal sale, correct? If so, all uses of illegal guns that number 14 would be going after would be due a legal ownership getting transferred to an illegal ownership or theft. I would also think theft is a convenient way to hide an illegal sale.
Again, I would think legal gun owners would really want to get to the bottom of how criminals get there guns.
We already know how they get them:
40% steal them
40% get them from friends/acquaintances/fellow gang members (the genesis of these also, likely, being theft)
About 10-15% of them purchase from an FFL. (How can such people pass the background check? See, for example, any one of the recent, mass murders.)
Of the rest, there is some mixture of straw purchases, third-party private transfers, etc.
Are there some “bad apples” somewhere in there? Sure, of course. There is a non-zero number of FFLs and third-party private persons who knowingly violate the law in transferring firearms to such people. But is that non-zero number significant? There is no evidence to suggest that it is.
Chip,
If you are correct, then gun owners should be pushing for a huge project to prevent theft, correct? Should we be pushing for more burglar alarms and gun safes in gun owners’ homes? How can we prevent all of these thefts?
As for friends getting your guns, what should we do to prevent that? How can we make that an illegal transfer or is it already illegal and we need to prosecute more?
Our homicide rate vs the rest of the civilized world is upsetting and embarrassing. If we want to show the beacon of liberty to the rest of the world, we need to get this under control.
The short answer is: man has yet to create a law that will compel or constrain the actions of criminals. Trespassing in homes is already against the law. Breaking into homes is already against the law. Stealing is already against the law. What new law would you propose?
Safe storage laws and the like do nothing to prevent crime. They merely provide a means to punish the victims of crime.
And safe storage itself doesn’t prevent crime. Right here on TTAG a few days ago, we read the story of a man from Ft. Wayne, IN, who had his firearms collection stolen, safe and all.
The solution is to separate criminals from the law-abiding, through incarceration.
If we’re talking about criminals getting guns from friends/family: the vast majority are a) prohibited persons themselves, or b) breaking the law by transferring a firearm to a known prohibited person. What law is going to stop that?
As for prosecution: how? Criminals trading guns is not something that is practically prosecutable. And the recovery rate for crime guns is rather low, to begin with. No gun, no opportunity to trace.
Again, the solution is separating criminals from firearms, through incarceration.
Our homicide rate is not especially out of line, to begin with. But (and I’ve run through these numbers before, with sources cited, I’ll just summarize here): anywhere from 2/3 to 90% of homicides in the US involve a felon perpetrator and/or a felon victim, gang activity, and/or drug-related activity.
We do not have a homicide problem, or a gun problem; we have a violent criminal problem. Once again, the solution is separating violent criminals from their would-be victims, through incarceration.
Chip, Just so you know, I’m trying to have a meaningful conversation and not looking to trip anybody up. I’m honestly concerned about our country and how violent it is, so please take my questions in that type of light.
You don’t think we have a homicide problem in our country based on these type of numbers? Are they not accurate somehow?
The US is at 4.88 homicides per year per 100,000 people.
The UK is at 0.92
Canada is at 1.68
France is at 1.58
Israel is at 1.36
(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate )
Do these places not have gangs, drugs, etc.? What is so different about the US that makes are rate so high?
Pete, I would not assume otherwise.
First, country-to-country homicide rate comparisons are not always accurate, because different countries report differently. (And the UK, in particular, is known to report in such a way that any comparison is truly apples-to-oranges.)
Second, look at where/why/how (and by whom) the homicides occur in the US. They are highly concentrated in about 1% of the counties in the US. Outside of these high-felon-concentration areas, the homicide rate is minuscule. The reality is: if you are not engaging in felony behavior or associating with felons, you have little to no probability of being a homicide victim.
Is there a culture problem? Yes. The biggest cohort of homicides are 15-35 year old black males killing other 15-35 year old black males. But talking about the cultural problems that leads to that result is all but verboten.
(IMHO, it can largely be tied to the decline of the family as the core social unit, and the general, moral decline of the country as a whole – both of which lead to myriad societal ills, and create the circumstances and environment that result in so many of the homicides that take place.)
Chip, I appreciate your honest dialog.
We would all agree that 15-35 year old black males are just as much Americans as you and me. Germany had to absorb all of East Germany into their statistics, yet they are at 0.85 per 100,000. What is wrong in our Republic vs their system? The UK may report slightly different, but not a factor of 5. Their countries have poor people and problems as well. Why are their numbers so much lower? Can it all be explained as a decline of the family unit and this is a pure American problem? My understanding is families are in pretty rough shape in the UK as well.
As for being miniscule, it doesn’t feel miniscule to me where I live. I’m a world traveler and when I am in Paris, London, and Tokyo, I just don’t hear about the day to day murders and shootings like we see here. They do have their rare terrorist events, but even those are incorporated into their numbers.
I’m a big believer in LIBERTY and the single biggest liberty you can take away from someone is their life. I would never look at that as insignificant.
Pete,
I think TTAG had a story on this report recently; I can’t remember:
https://crimeresearch.org/2017/04/number-murders-county-54-us-counties-2014-zero-murders-69-1-murder/
51% of homicides in the US take place within 2% (I think I said 1% earlier) of US counties; 68% of homicides in the US take place within 5% of US counties.
Meanwhile, 54% of US counties have zero murders (and that number used to be even higher), and 92% of US counties have 10 or fewer homicides per year.
Removing those worst 2% or 5% of US counties would lower the US homicide rate to 3 ans 2.5 per 100,000, respectively.
I don’t say that to imply that those homicides – or the victims of those homicides – do not matter, but rather to point out that there is a distinct dichotomy, and one that requires distinct differences in order to resolve.
Are the cultural, demographic, or other problems in the US different from other countries? Yes/no/maybe? It depends. The US has a very distinct gang problem. The US also has a very distinct, drug-related crime problem (and a wholesale-failure “war on drugs” that, if anything, has worsened the problem). The US also has a very large border with a country that exports both gang members and drugs. The UK is an island.
(By the way: speaking of the UK: their reporting differences do not account for a five-fold discrepancy, but a two- or three-fold discrepancy is entirely plausible.)
Ultimately, there are very complex, very difficult-to-solve, cultural, social, and political problems that contribute to the US homicide rate. But guns aren’t the problem.
Chip,
I don’t think you can pick and choose our data when comparing to other peer countries. I think in solving the problem, we can use the data. In these counties that have issues versus other counties that have issues in other countries, could the effectiveness of the weapons available be part of the issue? Could gangs and bad guys have more access to more effective tools here in the US vs in other countries?
Do you not agree that a gun is a very effective way to hurt someone? Trucks, knives and airplanes have all been used. The airplane is probably the most effective in this list, but we have done things to protect us from them (armoring the cabin for example). Trucks are a problem, but we are installing poles on sidewalks to prevent them from coming onto the sidewalk. Knives really don’t have as much potential due to the close nature of that type of assault and amount of expertise that is necessary to use them effectively. Grenades and rockets are pretty effective, too, but we do try to limit how many people have access to grenades and rockets.
I agree that guns are not the problem, USE of guns is a problem. Again, homicide is the main problem.
I agree. What I’m primarily arguing against is the ex hoc ergo propter hoc logically fallacy of the argument that more guns = more homicide.
There are many data that can be compared, including rates of other violent crimes.
Certainly; which is a point I was driving at.
One, that can be difficult to determine, because a) the clearance rate for homicide in such counties is often not great, and b) the crime gun recovery rate is even worse.
But, based on what guns are recovered, and what homicides are cleared, we can surmise that street guns are… not exactly the highest of quality.
I would first look at the nature of gang activity in the US vs. other countries. But I would counter that criminal gangs are exactly the type of people who have better access to more-effective tools, through the black market. That remains true – and more obvious – in countries like the UK, that have effectively banned guns, and yet the criminal element continue to commit crime using guns.
Certainly – and for the same reason that a gun is the single, best self-defense tool.
I think the UK would beg to differ. Their ban on guns has not proven effective in reducing violent crime, and for some time now, the UK has been pushing efforts to ban knives.
Criminals will use, abuse, and misuse whatever tools at their disposal, in unlawful ways, to commit crime. Magic away every hand weapon in the world, and criminals will use sticks, rocks, and their bare hands. (The latter is important to remember: the firearm is the single-best tool to level the disparity-of-force playing field that would otherwise subjugate the weakest among us to the whims of the strongest.)
The only real solution is to separate violent criminals from the tools they would use – not the other way around. More violent criminals need to be serving more life (or near-life) sentences behind bars, where they cannot prey on law-abiding society.
Chip,
You will notice if you go through the thread, I never say take the guns away. I think that is a ludicrous concept with over 300 million guns in the country. You would lose more lives just trying to get them and you would turn law abiding people into felons.
That being said, I do believe we need to punish those who sell illegal guns. I realize it is hard to track things back, but the only way to deter the sale is make examples of those who violate the current gun laws. When police do recover guns, how successful are they at tracking who originally sold the person the weapon? My guess is things go over State lines pretty quick and local police don’t have the manpower and authority to follow them back. I had an identity theft problem happen to me and I figured out who did it. They were across the country and my local police department had no desire to follow the chain.
Comments are closed.