Channel72 wrote:As you said, when discussing gun violence we generally only invoke "Chicago" (as a stand-in for inner-city violence in general) when a high-profile shooting occurs in a middle class area, like the Orlando or San Bernadino shootings. And I agree, stopping the occasional wannabe Jihadist is a very different problem from stopping South Side gang wars.
Well to be fair inner city violence and high profile mass shootings tend to be two very different beasts. Its not unreasonable to separate them when discussing violence considering both have different causes and different solutions (unless you are religiously devoted gun control nut who believe the solution to everything is to ban guns or religiously devoted gun rights nut who believes the solution to everything is a gun in every hand and a cap in every ass). It does anger me greatly the fact both sides just want to ignore inner city violence except to pad numbers.
But I want people to at least start admitting that guns make any sort of violence a lot more
convenient - and in that sense, both problems are highly
exacerbated by access to guns. Chicago is not the only place where this is happening. 2015 was a very violent year in the United States in general. Newark, New Jersey, a city I frequently visit, also had a
huge surge of gun violence in 2015. The same seemed to have happened in
Baltimore. It seems something non-localized is going on, that is causing a general up-tick in inner-city violence across the country. 2015 also saw record high purchases in terms of gun sales. Does this correlation mean anything? It's hard to say because there's evidence that these sales were in fact partially driven by sensationalized terrorist events and fear of future gun restrictions. Most inner-city violence is committed with illegally owned guns anyway, but many times these guns are obtained from legal gun owners in the suburbs. I realize it's complicated and highly inconclusive.
Certainly gun can exacerbate the problem. Doing drive bys with swords or crossbows might be a bit harder. The problem is thinking they are the cause or just removing them is the solution.
Violence is indeed up in the US, though nowhere nearly as high as it was in the 80s or 90s, but not because more guns are being sold. The economy is a mess, there is more drug war shenanigans happening, dealers are worried about legalization of some of their cash crops, education and youth programs have taken a nose dive thanks to a lack of funds, there is a crap ton of divisive topics on everyone's tongues that affect people in inner cities disproportionately, a hot winter and hot summer, police budgets are down, heroin budgets are up, or
who knows what else.
Gun sales are up too but for a very well known reason, the upcoming election. Everytime Hillary Clinton opens her mouth a thousand more AR-15s are sold (and the sad thing thats probably not even hyperbole). Gun owners are scared of their favorite range toys being banned, scalpers are jerking off at the thought of AR-15s being worth their weight in gold, and there is human sacrifice, cat and dogs living together, mass hysteria. Gun sales have been freaking sky high ever since Obama has been elected and will probably continue for the foreseeable future. Even if Trump is elected (I think I threw up in my mouth a little) panic mongers will still find away to get panic buying.
Regardless, gun violence is a major problem in the US, and it seems to have worsened in 2015 after declining slightly in 2013 and 2014. The overall picture is that the high rate of gun ownership in the US correlates to murder levels comparable to Central American third world nations like Guatemala, rather than the low murder rates of First World European nations. There seems to be an overall
correlation, at least, between
high levels of gun ownership and high levels of gun violence (at least in the US), and the US has a very high per-capita gun ownership rate.
Murder and violence in general actually
declined pretty
heavily since the sky high records of the 70s, 80, and 90s. Its not a recent thing that violence is down.
Crime is still higher then pretty much any other 1st World Nation but certainly nowhere near as bad as those places nor as bad as it used to be. Maybe our rates of gun ownership is the cause of our violence but maybe not. The fact is low gun ownership rates don't automatically translate into low homicide rates. Guatemala has a homicide rate of 31.2 but a gun ownership rate of 13.1. The most murderyest country in the world Honduras with a murder rate 84.6 only has a gun ownership rate of 6.2.
Now if you are looking at only gun violence there is probably some correlation but thats not exactly a good way to look at violence. Of course where there is more gun there is going to be gun violence, where there is more swords there is more sword violence, where there is more cars then is more road rage. Place without guns are going to have little gun violence. But do they have little violence? Survey says..........nyet.
Violence in general is bad. We need to look at ALL violence, not just gun violence.
Now, I know the go-to counter-argument here are nations like Switzerland and Finland* which have low rates of gun violence but high per-capita gun-ownership. I also acknowledge that the gun violence problem in the US is due to many factors, including lack of economic opportunities, lack of social safety nets, high incarceration rates and systemic racism. But the point is that the wide availability of guns exacerbates the shit out of this problem, creating a perfect storm for gun violence.
The rate of VIOLENCE is due to many factors, yes, the rate of gun violence could be attributed to just one, guns. The question is whether only gun violence matters or whether all violence matters. The answer is probably not 42.
More gun do exacerbate the problem of violence but as demonstrated high gun ownership doesn't automatically mean a place is violent nor does a low gun ownership rate mean a place is peaceful.
Although this fact is brought up all the time, it's interesting that most of the high rate of gun ownership in Finland and Switzerland is accounted for by hunting rifles, often used in rural areas. In the US, most people have handguns. Perhaps Finland and Switzerland are more like quirks which are the exception to the rule, due to cultural peculiarities and the fact that hunting rifles are rarely used for spontaneous gun violence.
Rural areas tend to be just less violent in general nearly anywhere. But Finland and Switzerland aren't lands of quirks (well the people are kinda quirky but thats part of their charm) they just demonstrate a fact, a country with less crime will have less crime regardless of weaponary. Social safety nets and other communist mumbo jumbo tend to help prevent crime. All the Eurocommie countries have similar systems, all have low crime rates no matter the weapon ownership rates, few if any have racially segregated economically wasted ghettos. America with its proud rugged individualism and patriotic letting poor people starve attitude has ghettos with high crime rates, has insufficient socialist safety nets, has.......high violence.
There is probably more to it then that but I dunno. Shitholes with shitty uncaring governments tend to be shitholes, places where the government cares enough of a fuck to take care of its citizens aren't shitholes.
