Bowling for Columbine (Here we go again)

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-09-28 07:34pm

MKSheppard wrote:
fgalkin wrote:Interesting that the city is dirt-poor and almost 80% black.
You're thinking UN-PC thoughts Comrade, report to the re-education center, for reprogramming to the proper frame of mind

Why? It's not a secret that black people tend to be poor in the US, and that poverty breeds crime. Unless, of course, you're trying to say that blackness breeds crime, in which case you'll need a lot better evidence than that.

Nathan F · Post by **Nathan F** » 2003-09-28 07:35pm

Nathan F wrote:
Durandal wrote:
Frank Hipper wrote:What the fuck is going on in Anniston, Alabama? That's blood curdling!
Forget Alabama. Dickson, Tennessee has 4x more rapes per capita than New York City.
Source, please. I happen to live near Dickson, and I don't hear of that many rapes going on there in a county of 44 thousand. And I personally do not think that a single city on the outskirts of metro Nashville (That get's overflow crime from that city, without the population) is a very accurate reflection of crime in that state. Give me crime stats for some comparable towns, THEN use that as a base of an argument. That town is growing faster than the small police department can manage and the scumbags who commit crimes in Nashville have the odd habit of moving to smaller outlying towns when they commit their crime.

I decided to do a bit of research on your numbers.

http://www.fedstats.gov/mapstats/crime/ ... 47043.html

There were 0 murders, 14 rapes and 12 robberies, out of some 44,000 people.

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2003-09-28 07:48pm

2001 FBI UCR: Crime rates by Population Group:

Page 1
Page 2

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-09-28 07:52pm

aronkerkhof wrote:No, I was thinking more that if you start with a democracy, its harder to overthrow that democracy if the citizens are armed.

Why? Are you suggesting that the citizenry will rise up and revolt? My whole point was that this is not likely, nor is it likely to be effective without grossly unrealistic conditions in place.

I'm not an NRA supporter, nor do I own a gun. Do they really make such claims as far as gun ownership in other countries?

They claim their doctrines are broad societal rules, ie- more guns always equals less crime and better government. They actually cherry-pick stats from other countries in order to support this claim.

My thought was that US military units aren't going to gun down citizens en masse, though they might be willing to passively round them up. America does tend to romanticize revolution, though.

There won't be citizens "en masse" to gun down. You're thinking of a crowd of peaceful demonstrators being mowed down with machine-gun fire, when it's more like dissidents who get labelled as "domestic terrorists" for attacking government installations. Not as hard to get the military onboard for something like that.

As far as I could see, you listed rape statistics. Rape is particularly evil and vile, but it is only part of what makes up violent crime. The same site you got your stats states that violent crime rate in urban areas was about 74% higher than the rural rate and 37% higher than the suburban rate. And although actual use of a weapon only happened 30-40% of the cases, the rate was higher in urban areas.

The FBI website? Where does it say this?

Anyway, I tried taking their crime stats for 2001 and found that NYC ranked 416th out of 2711 cities and towns in the USA for violent crime rate (adding assault, murder, manslaughter, and rape together). Certainly not as high as you would think from the various anti-city claims being thrown around. The aforementioned Dickson, Tennessee (which Nathan was so hot to defend) ranked 243rd on the same index.

Yes, there seems to be something about flat, landlocked states and proximity to cows and corn that breeds socially regressive thinking.
Similarly, mass quantities of concrete, pigeons, and public transport must set off something primal and violent in the human psyche.

Check those stats again, buddy. Out of the top 25 cities and towns in the US for overall violent crime rates, only 1 (Springfield) has a population over 100,000.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-09-28 07:58pm

Nathan F wrote:I decided to do a bit of research on your numbers.

http://www.fedstats.gov/mapstats/crime/ ... 47043.html

There were 0 murders, 14 rapes and 12 robberies, out of some 44,000 people.

14 rapes divided by 43156 times 100000 gives a per capita rape rate of 32.4, which is 70% higher than NYC. Not 4x as Durandal said, but not exactly something to crow about either, wouldn't you say?

EDIT: I just noticed that your link is for Dickson County, not just the town of Dickson itself. That's why your figures do not agree with Durandal's 4x figure. Both figures are actually correct.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-09-28 08:03pm

Glocksman wrote:2001 FBI UCR: Crime rates by Population Group:

Page 1
Page 2

Those stats are misleading in some ways. There are thousands of tiny towns where there has not been a murder in some years, so the murder rate is 0. This causes the average for small towns to drop significantly (obviously). However, the poorer small towns tend to have higher crime rates than cities (see the FBI link I've pimped twice already), which handily refutes the claim that there's something about urban life itself which breeds crime.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2003-09-28 08:27pm

Darth Wong wrote: Why? It's not a secret that black people tend to be poor in the US, and that poverty breeds crime. Unless, of course, you're trying to say that blackness breeds crime, in which case you'll need a lot better evidence than that.

Some Information on where the counties are:

Pretty close, a 30 minute drive from each other, yet drastic differences

Montgomery County,MD

http://www.fedstats.gov/qf/states/24/24031.html

Population Breakdown:
White persons, percent, 2000 64.8%
Black or African American persons, percent, 2000 15.1%
American Indian and Alaska Native persons, percent, 2000 0.3%
Asian persons, percent, 2000 11.3%

Monetary Breakdown
Median household money income, 1999 $71,551
Per capita money income, 1999 $35,684
Persons below poverty, 1999 47,024
Persons below poverty, percent, 1999 5.4%

Crime Breakdown for MoCo
http://www.fedstats.gov/mapstats/crime/ ... 24031.html

Total 27,840
Murder 12
Rape 177
Robbery 814
Aggravated Assault 873
Burglary 3,778
Larceny - theft 19,062
Motor vehicle thefts 2,904
Population 873,341

*******************

Prince George's County, MD
http://www.fedstats.gov/qf/states/24/24033.html

Population Breakdown
White persons, percent, 2000 27.0%
Black or African American persons, percent, 2000 62.7%
American Indian and Alaska Native persons, percent, 2000 0.3%
Asian persons, percent, 2000 3.9%
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, percent, 2000 0.1%

Monetary Breakdown:
Median household money income, 1999 $55,256
Per capita money income, 1999 $23,360
Persons below poverty, 1999 60,196
Persons below poverty, percent, 1999 7.7%

PG County Crimes:

Total 51,507
Murder 72
Rape 228
Robbery 2,938
Aggravated Assault 4,174
Burglary 7,043
Larceny - theft 26,626
Motor vehicle thefts 9,881
Population 801,515

Miscellaneous Stats
MoCo:High school graduates, percent of persons age 25+, 2000 90.3%
PGCo:High school graduates, percent of persons age 25+, 2000 84.9%

MoCo: Bachelor's degree or higher, pct of persons age 25+, 2000 54.6%
PG County: Bachelor's degree or higher, pct of persons age 25+, 2000 27.2%

MoCo:Persons per square mile, 2000 1,762.5
NF UTVol: PGCo:Persons per square mile, 2000 1,651.1

MoCo: Homeownership rate, 2000 68.7%
PG County: Homeownership rate, 2000 61.8%

Ok, so the only real differences are:

MoCo: Bachelor's degree or higher, pct of persons age 25+, 2000 54.6%
PG County: Bachelor's degree or higher, pct of persons age 25+, 2000 27.2%

MoCo: White persons, percent, 2000 64.8%
PG County White persons, percent, 2000 27.0%

MoCo: Median household money income, 1999 $71,551
MoCo: Per capita money income, 1999 $35,684

PGCo: Median household money income, 1999 $55,256
PGCo: Per capita money income, 1999 $23,360

So essentially, the differences are, MoCo has a majority White population, and
more College Grads, and about roughly 10-20k more spending power on average,
but looking at the stats:

MoCo: Median value of owner-occupied housing units, 2000 $221,800
PG CO: Median value of owner-occupied housing units, 2000 $145,600 PG

Houses tend to be more expensive in Montgomery County, as are Taxes, so it
tends to even out.

It's really interesting that the crime rates are so fantastically different, what with
only 12 murders in Montgomery County, and 72 in Prince George's County,
and PG isn't a dirt poor county. It's only slightly less more affluent than MoCo -
a median income of 50k is nothing to sneeze at, no matter where you live.

Rape is pretty much equal in both sides, although it's slightly elevated in PG,
despite MoCo having 70k more people.

Robbery, OMFG, only 800~ in Montgomery County, vs 2,000~ in PG!

Aggravated Assault, only 400~ in MoCo, with OH MY GOD! 4,100~ in PG!

Burgalry, 3,700~ in MoCo vs 7,000~ in PG. I'm getting tired of the massive
differences So I'll let you make your conclusions.

Larceny - theft in MoCo is about 19,000~ vs 26,600~ in PG...

Motor Vehicle Thefts in MoCo are 2,900~ vs 9,800~ in PG...remind myself to
get that built in flamethrower as an option.

Total population of the two counties is very roughly equal, with 870,000~ peeps
in MoCo and 800,000~ in PG.

Very very interesting, especially that PG is one of the most affluent majority
black counties in the NATION, and they have a very very bad crime problem.

It's sort of sad, you know. At the turn of the century, in the 1900s, Blacks as
a whole were shit poor and yet had a lower per capita crime rate than whites
(read that somewhere and I'll have to find a link for that), and a hundred years
later, their social standing and fiscal standing has really greatly improved,
while their crime problem has skyrocketed to insane levels.

I blame the "new" black culture of hip hop motherfuckers who glorify crime and
Welfare destroying the traditional black family unit for this drastic reduction compared
to the "old" black culture, that while they were shit poor, behaved with dignity.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-09-28 08:36pm

MKSheppard wrote:It's really interesting that the crime rates are so fantastically different, what with
only 12 murders in Montgomery County, and 72 in Prince George's County, and PG isn't a dirt poor county. It's only slightly less more affluent than MoCo - a median income of 50k is nothing to sneeze at, no matter where you live.

A median income difference of some 20k is also nothing to sneeze at. If we could find a place with equal socioeconomic conditions but different racial makeup, that would be more convincing.

I blame the "new" black culture of hip hop motherfuckers who glorify crime and Welfare destroying the traditional black family unit for this drastic reduction compared to the "old" black culture, that while they were shit poor, behaved with dignity.

That hip-hop shit sucks, no question. However, it is difficult to establish your underlying claim that it's a cause rather than a symptom.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2003-09-28 08:38pm

Darth Wong wrote: A median income difference of some 20k is also nothing to sneeze at. If we could find a place with equal socioeconomic conditions but different racial makeup, that would be more convincing.

50K isn't nothing to sneeze at Mike, especially in an area with much lower
taxes and building costs. You can always tell you're in PG County versus
Montgomery County, because the roads go right to shit precisely on
the county line.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2003-09-28 08:41pm

Also, people in NYC might make more than people who live in Frederick, Maryland, but in NYC, you're going to pay an arm and leg to get a really
decent sized house in the NYC area, while in Frederick, MD, you can get
a much bigger house for about half the price you'd pay in NYC...so it does
even out.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2003-09-28 08:44pm

Another interesting tidbit- like PG County, the PG County Police force is
majority black too, and is always being cited for "human rights violations"

http://www.religionnewsblog.com/archives/00000628.html

Federal and local authorities must ensure that police actions in Prince George's County, Maryland, adhere to international standards on police use of force and on the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment, Amnesty International said today in a new report.

"While some reforms have been recently introduced to tackle police brutality and complaints have reportedly fallen in 2001, there remains a disturbing pattern of abuse, mainly against the county's African-American population," the organization added. Reports include shootings, deaths in custody from dangerous restraint holds or other use of force, and unresisting suspects being mauled by police dogs.

Cases of particular concern to the organization, highlighted in the report, include:

The death of Prince Jones, an unarmed college student, who was shot in
September 2000after an undercover officer tailed his car for several miles, mistaking him for a black suspect involved in an earlier incident.

The deaths of two prisoners, in March and June 2002, after they were restrainedin a WRAP device (similar to a strait jacket and designed to prevent deaths from choking or asphyxia).

The shooting of five reportedly mentally ill or disturbed people in 2001, at least one of them fatally.

Although the Prince George's County Police Department has since introduced a range of non-lethal weapons -- such as pepper spray and bean bag rounds -- for dealing with suspects who are mentally ill or high on drugs, such devices are often not effective in such cases. In October 2001, Caesar Nathaniel Allen, a paranoid schizophrenic, was shot dead with 10 bullets after reportedly being pelted with four cans of pepper spray and 15 pepper ball missiles.

Amnesty International is also concerned about a "code of silence" which results in police officers failing to report misconduct, or even covering up abuses. "This 'code of silence' is reported to have hampered many investigations into police use of force," the organization stressed.

An investigation by the US Department of Justice, initiated in November 2000, is currently underway to determine whether the Prince George's County Police Department engaged in a "pattern and practice" of brutality and racial discrimination. Amnesty International is urging the Justice Department to release its findings and recommendations as soon as possible. In the summer of 2001, the organization sponsored three sessions in which Justice Department investigators were invited to hear complaints about alleged police misconduct.

"Police, County and federal authorities must send out a clear message that police abuse will not be tolerated and bring to justice those officers responsible for misconduct," Amnesty International said.
Background

Although pepper spray has been promoted as a safer and more effective alternative to mace or impact weapons, research has found that it can be harmful to people with respiratory problems or heart disease, and that it may not be effective against subjects who are extremely agitated or under the influence of drugs, possibly leading to over- use of the spray to dangerous levels. Pepper spray was demonstrably ineffective in the case of Caesar Allen (above). Amnesty International has called for an independent, national inquiry into police use of pepper spray and, in the meantime, for police departments to either cease using pepper spray or to introduce strict guidelines and limitations on its use, with careful monitoring procedures. Amnesty International believes that police departments should introduce training programs designed to minimize the risk of unnecessary force and death or injury in such situations.

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2003-09-28 09:17pm

There are thousands of tiny towns where there has not been a murder in some years, so the murder rate is 0. This causes the average for small towns to drop significantly (obviously). However, the poorer small towns tend to have higher crime rates than cities (see the FBI link I've pimped twice already), which handily refutes the claim that there's something about urban life itself which breeds crime.

Let's leave off the smaller towns and concentrate on what the FBI calls Group 1 (population 250k and up) and Group 2 (population 100k to 249,999) cities.

Group 1 Murder rate: 13.5
Group 2 Murder rate: 7.8

Group 1 Forcible Rape: 44.1
Group 2 Forcible Rape: 39.3

Group 1 Robbery: 406.0
Group 2 Robbery: 232.1

Group 1 Aggravated Assault: 604.2
Group 2 Aggravated Assault: 389.2

Group 1 Burglary: 1,017.4
Group 2 Burglary: 990.5

Group 1 Larceny-theft: 3,334.6
Group 2 Larceny-theft: 3,414.9

Group 1 Motor Vehicle theft: 942.5
Group 2 Motor Vehicle theft: 659.6

Statistically you are at greater risk to be a crime victim in a larger city as opposed to a smaller one.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-09-28 09:43pm

Interestingly enough, as long as we're now comparing only decent-sized cities to each other, you left out the part where the rate actually drops when you go above 1 million pop.

Nathan F · Post by **Nathan F** » 2003-09-28 09:54pm

Darth Wong wrote:Interestingly enough, as long as we're now comparing only decent-sized cities to each other, you left out the part where the rate actually drops when you go above 1 million pop.

Not that I'm doubting you, but I'm just kind of curious as to what the numbers are.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-09-28 10:18pm

Nathan F wrote:
Durandal wrote:
Frank Hipper wrote:What the fuck is going on in Anniston, Alabama? That's blood curdling!
Forget Alabama. Dickson, Tennessee has 4x more rapes per capita than New York City.
Source, please. I happen to live near Dickson, and I don't hear of that many rapes going on there in a county of 44 thousand. And I personally do not think that a single city on the outskirts of metro Nashville (That get's overflow crime from that city, without the population) is a very accurate reflection of crime in that state. Give me crime stats for some comparable towns, THEN use that as a base of an argument. That town is growing faster than the small police department can manage and the scumbags who commit crimes in Nashville have the odd habit of moving to smaller outlying towns when they commit their crimes.

Mike posted those statistics on the first page of the thread.

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2003-09-28 10:26pm

Interestingly enough, as long as we're now comparing only decent-sized cities to each other, you left out the part where the rate actually drops when you go above 1 million pop.

It drops, but not by very much and the drop isn't consistent across all categories.

Cities with 1 million and up still have a homicide rate of 13.2 compared to the 7.8 of Group 2 cities. The spike in Group 1 is for cities of 500k to 1 million that have a homicide rate of 14.3.

The one violent crime stat where the million+ cities actually do better than the Group 2 cities is a rape rate of 33.8 versus 39.3.

It still doesn't change the fact that you are more staticstically likely to be a violent crime victim in a large city with a million people than in a small city with a population of 150,000.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2003-09-28 10:28pm

Wow! Did you know, you're also statistically more likely to roll five 6's in a row if you throw the dice 20 times instead of just five?!

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2003-09-28 10:28pm

Nathan F wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:Interestingly enough, as long as we're now comparing only decent-sized cities to each other, you left out the part where the rate actually drops when you go above 1 million pop.
Not that I'm doubting you, but I'm just kind of curious as to what the numbers are.

2001 FBI statistics page 1
2001 FBI statistics page 2

These are gifs from the 2001 UCR .pdf file.

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2003-09-28 10:30pm

SirNitram wrote:Wow! Did you know, you're also statistically more likely to roll five 6's in a row if you throw the dice 20 times instead of just five?!

You can be as mocking as you want, but it still doesn't change the fact that you are safer in the average small city as opposed to the average large one.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2003-09-28 10:39pm

Glocksman wrote:
SirNitram wrote:Wow! Did you know, you're also statistically more likely to roll five 6's in a row if you throw the dice 20 times instead of just five?!
You can be as mocking as you want, but it still doesn't change the fact that you are safer in the average small city as opposed to the average large one.

If you can't fathom the point of what's being discussed, don't make stupid comments that are easily mocked.

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2003-09-28 11:06pm

SirNitram wrote:
Glocksman wrote:
SirNitram wrote:Wow! Did you know, you're also statistically more likely to roll five 6's in a row if you throw the dice 20 times instead of just five?!
You can be as mocking as you want, but it still doesn't change the fact that you are safer in the average small city as opposed to the average large one.
If you can't fathom the point of what's being discussed, don't make stupid comments that are easily mocked.

Let's see here:

Darth Wong:

New York was listed at 8.02M population, with 1530 rapes (19.1 per capita, ie- 100,000 population). A random sampling of small towns gave some interesting results. Fairfield, Alabama (pop 12429) had 24.1 rapes per capita. Anniston, Alabama (pop 24370) had 151.8 rapes per capita. Grand Island, Nebraska (pop 42989) had 41.9 rapes per capita. Dickson, Tennessee (pop 12353) had 81 rapes per capita.

In fact, you have to cherry-pick small towns in order to find examples with a lower rape rate than NYC, because you'll find a surprising number of small towns which have a rape rate which is far higher than that of NYC. Of course, small towns usually don't have their own local TV station to run around and hype up these crimes, so their citizens live in the delusion that big cities are hives of scum and villainy while their "wholesome" small towns are safe.

Funny how "common knowledge" facts about cities vs small towns can sometimes be total bullshit, eh?

And how's this for another eye-opener? Remember Fairfield, Alabama, with their 24.1 rapes per capita? Well, I swear I just picked them randomly the first time I checked those stats, but they also happen to have the country's highest murder rate, at 96.5 "murders and non-negligent manslaughters" per capita.

Well, I've learned one more thing from this: stay the fuck away from Fairfield, Alabama.

Yes, there seems to be something about flat, landlocked states and proximity to cows and corn that breeds socially regressive thinking.

Check those stats again, buddy. Out of the top 25 cities and towns in the US for overall violent crime rates, only 1 (Springfield) has a population over 100,000.

Interestingly enough, as long as we're now comparing only decent-sized cities to each other, you left out the part where the rate actually drops when you go above 1 million pop.

Hm...

1. We're discussing crime and crime rates in various sized communities. Mike points out that common knowledge is bullshit sometimes regarding small vs. large communities.
2. I use the FBI stats to point out that 'common knowledge' still holds true on average WRT crime.
3. DW pointed out that I didn't include in my post that the rate drops slightly for cities above 1 million as opposed to cities in the 500k-1 mil range.
4. I post back that may be true but the rate is still almost double that of the 100k-250k cities and that you are statistically safer in the average Group 2 city as opposed to being in the average Group 1 city.
5. That may be stating the obvious, but there are some people who are oblivious to the obvious.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-09-29 12:18am

Frankly, I have doubts about the usefulness of so-called "overall violent crime" statistics, since they include assault, and this means that the "bar fight" syndrome skews cities way out of proportion. Nightclub scene fights are the predominant source of assault charges in cities.

The thing is that when people worry about what kind of crime is likely to affect them, bar fights really aren't on the radar, for the simple reason that these things only happen if you choose to put yourself in that situation. People just don't have that much sympathy or concern for guys who get themselves into bar fights, because they usually figure it's their own fault.

Going back to the original metric, the rape stats favour large cities, while the murder stats favour small ones, although not by anywhere near the margin that people believe (honestly, who would have expected that New York City would not even be in the top 100 cities for murder?), and contrary to popular belief, the worst cities in the nation are some of the smallest, not the largest. This remains unchanged; the statistical averages are altered by the fact that there are lots of very sleepy little communities out there, but there are lots of horrible small towns as well; smallness does not necessarily confer safety, and subjective impressions are misleading (Nathan F proved this point very elegantly for me by openly disputing the rape stats for Dickson, Tennessee based on his anecdotal knowledge even though they were completely accurate).

Also, beware statements such as "your chance of being murdered in an average city ..." because that is a serious misapplication of statistical theory. An individual's chance of being murdered in a large city is heavily dependent upon his behaviour; there are certain crime patterns in cities that are very easy to avoid, so they do not actually factor into the likelihood that an individual who's not looking for trouble will find it. The kind of violence that truly worries people is the random kind, not the kind that involves somebody who goes looking for drugs or a fight at a club in a bad part of town at 2am.

Nathan F · Post by **Nathan F** » 2003-09-29 12:29am

Darth Wong wrote:Frankly, I have doubts about the usefulness of so-called "overall violent crime" statistics, since they include assault, and this means that the "bar fight" syndrome skews cities way out of proportion. Nightclub scene fights are the predominant source of assault charges in cities.

The thing is that when people worry about what kind of crime is likely to affect them, bar fights really aren't on the radar, for the simple reason that these things only happen if you choose to put yourself in that situation. People just don't have that much sympathy or concern for guys who get themselves into bar fights, because they usually figure it's their own fault.

Show that bar fights are going to be a huge impact on it. You are now doing the same thing that I did, using common knowledge instead of hard facts. Any bar fights that happen in big cities are going to happen as well in small cities, in other forms, such as parking lot fights. They all really even out, when you think about it. I'll concede the point if you can show me some numbers that actually prove that bar fights make up a large percentage of that.

Going back to the original metric, the rape stats favour large cities, while the murder stats favour small ones, although not by anywhere near the margin that people believe (honestly, who would have expected that New York City would not even be in the top 100 cities for murder?), and contrary to popular belief, the worst cities in the nation are some of the smallest, not the largest. This remains unchanged; the statistical averages are altered by the fact that there are lots of very sleepy little communities out there, but there are lots of horrible small towns as well; smallness does not necessarily confer safety, and subjective impressions are misleading (Nathan F proved this point very elegantly for me by openly disputing the rape stats for Dickson, Tennessee based on his anecdotal knowledge even though they were completely accurate).

Dickson is an odd case. I know a bunch of people who have lived there all their lives and have never seen nor known of a person to get killed malaciously. And yes, Dickson isn't the safest place in the world, as the numbers show, however, due to it's close proximity to Nashville, it get's alot of the big city crime, with a small town population.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-09-29 04:34am

Nathan F wrote:Show that bar fights are going to be a huge impact on it. You are now doing the same thing that I did, using common knowledge instead of hard facts. Any bar fights that happen in big cities are going to happen as well in small cities, in other forms, such as parking lot fights. They all really even out, when you think about it. I'll concede the point if you can show me some numbers that actually prove that bar fights make up a large percentage of that.

The local police force in Toronto says that nightclubs are the biggest problem for violent crime in the city because of the sheer number of altercations that take place at such establishments. Take it up with them if you don't believe me.

Dickson is an odd case. I know a bunch of people who have lived there all their lives and have never seen nor known of a person to get killed malaciously. And yes, Dickson isn't the safest place in the world, as the numbers show, however, due to it's close proximity to Nashville, it get's a lot of the big city crime, with a small town population.

Explain why Dickson's rape rate is higher than that of Nashville, then. Your claims are still based on the ASSUMPTION that crime is somehow caused by cities.

aronkerkhof · Post by **aronkerkhof** » 2003-09-29 08:11pm

Why? Are you suggesting that the citizenry will rise up and revolt? My whole point was that this is not likely, nor is it likely to be effective without grossly unrealistic conditions in place.

Well, to be honest, I guess its never occured to me to question the likelihood of the citizens revolting if the government crossed certain lines. I kind of take it for granted, and you can pin that on nationalism or watching too many Westerns or whatever. I guess the reason I've never thought about it carefully is that I can't envision something so bad that it would come public and popular revolt.

For example, let's say that the NRA's ultimate nightmare came true, and all guns were banned outright, tomorrow morning. I can see, if not out right armed resistance, enough shootouts with law enforcement and national gaurd types to cause pressure against the government to relent. And I think that if the issue were pushed, military and law enforcement types wouldn't be on board, because if anything they tend to lean as far right as many NRA members. But this itself is a highly unlikely scenario, let alone the level of outright facism that would reach a threshold to spark a rebellion. Is it even worth thinking about? Probably not.

Anyway, we're talking about this because I mentioned it as an argument Bowling missed, and you said its because its a wacko non-mainstream argument. However, it seems that the 2nd amendment serving as a bulwark against government tyranny *is* a mainstream view in America, especially among pro-gun types. As far as it being wacko, that it might be, but that didn't stop Moore from discussing the violent entertainment angle, which I think is as loony as anything the NRA comes up with on the face of it. Anyway, a small critique.

The FBI website? Where does it say this?

Actually, its not the FBI, it was the DOJ site that I linked to. And its important to note that if you add up the population stats in the spreadsheet you link to, you'll find that it comes up to around 150 million. This leaves out the truly "rural" segments of America where the crime rate is far lower than urban areas, as the dept of justice link shows.

I was joking about the concrete and pidgeon remark, as I thought you were about the cows and flatlands. Clearly, as you say, "big cities" don't cause crime, although there is a strong correlation between violent crime and *gun* deaths and urban areas. I don't think its bullshit or a myth to say they do. Just as cows and corn don't actually breed ignorance, though you are right to note there is a correlation between the two and overall levels of ignorance.

Glocksman's analysis was something I was also working on today, although I divided it up into bigger than 100k and smaller than 100k groups, and the rates for murder and rape were higher for the larger cities. The DOJ breakdown supports this conclusion as well.