Just another day in the US of A.

[weemadando]

SWAT member killed along with 4 other people during a siege in LA.

Six people including two police officers and the Mayor killed in Kirkwood Missouri

Can't see gun control being on the political agenda this weekend, can you?

[Jadeite]

First article: Los Angeles, enough said.
Second article: Shootings tend to come in groups. The first person to do it will spawn a wave of copycat shooters, and then it'll die down again for a while.

[Uraniun235]

Can't see gun control being on the political agenda this weekend, can you?

Not if the candidates have a lick of political sense.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Why would this change anything? Eleven people is a trivial blip in the US murder rate, and probably will be evened out over the rest of the year by Compton hiring another fifteen police officers for beat patrols in gangland or something so that the murder rate there dips and brings the national rate back into line again.

[Glocksman]

SWAT member killed along with 4 other people during a siege in LA.

Six people including two police officers and the Mayor killed in Kirkwood Missouri

Can't see gun control being on the political agenda this weekend, can you?

Only in the sense that none of the candidates will say 'I'm pro gun control. Vote for me'.
Even HRC and Barack Obama are soft pedaling the gun issue.
Seriously though, in a country where people view the right to bear arms as an individual right, blanket gun bans will go nowhere.

The best advice I can give an anti gun politician is to take it slow and move in incremental steps.

[weemadando]

I think that Duchess' comments that 11 dead " is a trivial blip" indicate why the rest of the world views the America as it does.

[Quadlok]

I think that Duchess' comments that 11 dead " is a trivial blip" indicate why the rest of the world views the America as it does.

well, considering that, in number terms, 11 people murdered in the US is like one guy in N.Z. getting a limb severed in a bar fight, I'd say it is relatively trivial.

[His Divine Shadow]

Just what kind of barfights do they have in NZ anyway?

[Broomstick]

I think that Duchess' comments that 11 dead " is a trivial blip" indicate why the rest of the world views the America as it does.

The Duchess is in no way a "typical American"

[Quadlok]

Just what kind of barfights do they have in NZ anyway?

eh, it was an easy way to imply that 11 people dead in the US is 1/8th of a person dead in NZ in percentile terms.

[Thanas]

I think that Duchess' comments that 11 dead " is a trivial blip" indicate why the rest of the world views the America as it does.

well, considering that, in number terms, 11 people murdered in the US is like one guy in N.Z. getting a limb severed in a bar fight, I'd say it is relatively trivial.

Nope. In terms of population, it is something more like three guys murdered in Germany - which would hit the national news immediately and would be nowhere trivial.

[Glocksman]

I think that Duchess' comments that 11 dead " is a trivial blip" indicate why the rest of the world views the America as it does.

The Duchess is in no way a "typical American"

I'm torn between 'Thank God she's not' and 'God, I wish she were'.
Though I will say that she's almost always thought provoking, and that's not a bad thing.

[Darth Wong]

While I have my disagreements with the Duchess on several issues, I can't fault her for saying that "11 dead in one day" is no big deal for the US. The fact is that the American homicide rate is rather high (16692 in 2005, according to the FBI). That works out to roughly 45 people getting murdered every single day in the US.

In other words, not only is "11 dead in one day" a blip, it's actually only a small fraction of the number of murders that probably happened during that particular day, most of which did not even register in the national news at all.

Quite frankly, the reason you don't hear about more murders in the US that the news typically ignores stories of poor people getting killed, especially if they're black.

PS. Even if you cut the US murder rate down to 1/3 of what it is right now (something that would probably be considered a minor miracle and cause for great celebration in the US), you would still have an average of 15 people getting murdered every day.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

I think that Duchess' comments that 11 dead " is a trivial blip" indicate why the rest of the world views the America as it does.

well, considering that, in number terms, 11 people murdered in the US is like one guy in N.Z. getting a limb severed in a bar fight, I'd say it is relatively trivial.

Except that the analogy doesn't really hold as getting a limb severed doesn't involve the permanent cessation of consciousness and loss of one or more human beings that death does. Your wife, or brother, or uncle can lose a limb and you can still talk to them the next day, can you say the same for someone who dies?

eh, it was an easy way to imply that 11 people dead in the US is 1/8th of a person dead in NZ in percentile terms.

Again, it doesn't really hold. You're either dead, or you aren't. I think a closer analogy would be progressive forms of brain damage that permanently erase portions of your consciousness.

PS. Even if you cut the US murder rate down to 1/3 of what it is right now (something that would probably be considered a minor miracle and cause for great celebration in the US), you would still have an average of 15 people getting murdered every day.

...which is really sad. I probably qualify as misanthropic, yet I can understand the ramifications of someone dying well enough that even if I dislike most people, I wouldn't wish death upon any of them. Yet a vast majority of the population who allegedly like their fellow man far more than I do simply don't care that several dozen of their neighbors die off every day.

[FSTargetDrone]

And a nursing student kills two of her fellow students and then herself in Louisiana today:

Student Kills 2, Self at La. College

By DOUG SIMPSON – 3 hours ago

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A 23-year-old woman killed two fellow students in a classroom at a vocational college Friday, then killed herself, police said. In South Carolina, a person was shot at Greenville Technical College, but was expected to survive.

The women apparently were shot in their seats in the second-floor classroom at Louisiana Technical College, Baton Rouge Sgt. Don Kelly said. About 20 people were in the room at the time, he said.

Officers ran into the building within four minutes of the first 911 call, which came at 8:36 a.m., Kelly said.

"There was mass pandemonium, people running," he said. "One officer — the first into the classroom — told me he could still smell gunpowder."

Police withheld the names of the shooter and the victims, ages 21 and 26, until their families could be notified.

The school — one of two LTC campuses in Baton Rouge and dozens around the state — offers classes in a dozen subjects including early childhood education, practical nursing, drafting and welding.

School administrators and campus police did not immediately return calls or e-mails.

Louis Davis, who said he was taking an automobile technology class Friday morning, said a teacher told the students to stay in class because there had been an incident, without adding details. Students had to stay in their classrooms for about two hours and were briefly questioned by police before being released for the day, he said.

Classes were canceled through Tuesday, and tentatively scheduled to resume Wednesday, said Jim Henderson, vice president of the Louisiana Community and Technical College System.

"This is a tragic day for Baton Rouge, when you come to a learning institution ... and become the victim of a violent crime," Mayor Kip Holden said at the scene.

In Greenville, S.C., a person was shot on the campus of Greenville Technical College and suffered non-life threatening injuries, said a city official who spoke on condition of anonymity because campus police were handling the investigation. Authorities were not immediately sure if the victim was a student, and few other details were available. The school, in the northern part of the state, planned an afternoon news conference.

Associated Press Writers Page Ivey in Columbia, S.C. and Janet McConnaughey in New Orleans contributed to this report.

[MKSheppard]

While I have my disagreements with the Duchess on several issues, I can't fault her for saying that "11 dead in one day" is no big deal for the US. The fact is that the American homicide rate is rather high (16,692 in 2005, according to the FBI). That works out to roughly 45 people getting murdered every single day in the US.

That's what 55.45 murders per million population?

Canada had 605 Homicides in 2006; for 18.11 murders per million population; so if you were as big as us; you'd have a death rate of 5,451.

Ah well.

USA USA USA USA USA!

[MKSheppard]

Holy shit.

There were 269 homicides in Baltimore in 2005

Sounds like the Sum of All Fears (movie) Solution would work in improving the place. The joke was around here when it opened was that nuking Baltimore would improve the place.

[FSTargetDrone]

Holy shit.

There were 269 homicides in Baltimore in 2005

Sounds like the Sum of All Fears (movie) Solution would work in improving the place. The joke was around here when it opened was that nuking Baltimore would improve the place.

And at least 272 in your fair city in 2006.

But we've got you beat in Killadelphia. 406 homicides in 2006.

Of course we have nearly twice your population.

By comparison, New York City had 596 homicides in 2006, with a population over 8 million.

New Orleans is up there somewhere, but I am too lazy to look it up.

[Darth Wong]

You people are fucked up. Toronto, with a population of 5.4 million, had 99 homicides in 2006. Link.

[Zablorg]

In a study in 2005-6, it was found that there was a homocide rate of 1.5 per 100000 people in Australia. Bleh.

[FSTargetDrone]

You people are fucked up. Toronto, with a population of 5.4 million, had 99 homicides in 2006. Link.

It doesn't help that Camden (New Jersey) is part of the Philadelphia metropolitan area. Camden (America's "most dangerous city" in 2004) is shit. They must get some of the dregs coming across the river in Philadelphia from there.

[MKSheppard]

So that's

NYC is 74.5 per million.

Killadelphia is 290 per million.

DC is 340 per million. Link to map of DC homicides

Conclusion - stay the hell out of SE Washington.

[aerius]

Holy shit.

There were 269 homicides in Baltimore in 2005

Sounds like the Sum of All Fears (movie) Solution would work in improving the place. The joke was around here when it opened was that nuking Baltimore would improve the place.

It's been known for a long time on self-defence and right to carry boards that the Baltimore area is a complete shithole that's only going to get worse unless the entire place is burned to the ground and rebuilt. Same thing with most parts of DC, the whole tri-state area might as well be a 3rd world warzone.

[The Dark]

I think that Duchess' comments that 11 dead " is a trivial blip" indicate why the rest of the world views the America as it does.

well, considering that, in number terms, 11 people murdered in the US is like one guy in N.Z. getting a limb severed in a bar fight, I'd say it is relatively trivial.

11 people murdered in the US is equivalent to 0.15 dead Kiwis as far as percent of population.

You people are fucked up. Toronto, with a population of 5.4 million, had 99 homicides in 2006.

The weird thing is, gun control doesn't matter. NYC always has a per-capita murder rate about three times higher than London, regardless of which city (if either) has gun control laws. And it's held relatively steady for the last 200 years. It's a bizarre situation where I can't imagine there being a real correlation, but for some reason our murder rates remain relatively level, even when laws are passed to try to reduce them.

[Broomstick]

I'm not going to argue that gun control is useless - it will certainly diminish murders performed with guns - but it often focuses overmuch on the weapon in particular rather than the root cause someone killed someone else. If you took all the guns away you might make a dent in US murders but you sure as hell wouldn't eliminate all of them - many of them now are carried out by means other than firearms, after all. In at least some cases murderers would switch to other weapons.

If NYC has, for centuries, had a murder rate averaging three times that of London then there is something more than just a particular weapon at work. I could propose several possible factors which are probably not at all inclusive:

1) NYC has a higher percentage of immigrants for whom English is not a native language, thereby generating far more opportunities for miscommunication, some of which get really out of hand

2) NYC has a higher percentage of immigrants and thus a lower percentage of people sharing a common culture learned from toddlerhood, thus, again, providing many opportunities for misunderstanding as well as means of providing unintended offense whether with language, cooking (I've had neighbors that prepared "traditional" meals that could empty out an apartment building due to what other groups perceived as a nauseating stench), relations between the genders, and a multitude of other cultural nuances.

3) Fear of one's children, especially daughters, marrying outside acceptable groups - presumably, most people in London have historically been English. Parents might fear darling daughter marrying outside her class, but in NYC there is the worry of outside one's class and foreign. In truth, it is QUITE common for 2nd or 3rd generation post-immigration to marry outside the group in the US, so this fear is not entirely without basis. There have certainly been murders in recent years of people killing young people involved in "unacceptable" romances, I would assume this has gone on in the past.

4) Lack of social safety net. My limited understanding of the UK leads me to say that the British have a much better safety net currently than people in NYC do - I don't know how they compare historically. However, the fewer resources you have the more desperate you are likely to become, which can lead to some bad actions.

5) Different sorts of "acceptable" violence. The UK became well known for "social hooliganism", a form of behavior that is rare in the US and when it does occur does not, apparently, get as intense as in the UK - but at the same time may allow a release for tensions that, in the US, have no outlet until they explode into murderous violence. This is not held up to condone any sort of public violence.

6) Different tolerances for violence - I do believe the US society has long had a tolerance for certain levels of violence, certain forms of violence, and violence against certain groups. I don't know enough about the UK to speak authoritatively about it on the same subject, but significant differences could account for much here.

7) Different tolerance for carrying weapons. There are still parts of the US where guns are considered necessary tools - Alaska, wilderness areas, etc. - and this was even more true in the past. As an example, as recently as 50 years ago in the area where I live (which was farmland at the time, very rural) it was nothing unusual for teen aged schoolboys to carry a gun to school to get some hunting in either before or after the school day (long guns, not handguns, which had to be left in the coatroom and were not taken into classrooms). If you have a lot of people carrying weapons on a daily basis and an argument breaks out there is a higher potential for a lethal outcome than if you have a society where people have not felt a need to carry weapons for a long time and such a habit has fallen out of favor.

Just as there places in the US that have murder rates that seem more appropriate to a warzone than a civilized city, we also have places that go decades between murders. Sometimes, they're in very close proximity. Both Chicago and Gary, Indiana have held the title "US Murder Capital" but some of their suburbs go a long time between murders, 10 or 20 or more years.

It's also politically incorrect to point it out, but in the US the majority of murders, most especially the majority outside of families, are young black men killing other young black men, with a subset of young hispanic men killing young hispanic men. That has a lot to with long-standing social problems that exist in the US but not the UK (on the other hand, the US did not have to deal with IRA-style bombings). Street gangs and drug dealers, two closely linked groups, are over-represented in the US murder totals. If you can avoid belonging to any of those particular groups your odds of being killed in the US drop dramatically. I don't know, perhaps murder rates in the UK are distributed more uniformly across the population than in the US. Maybe the UK has groups that are particularly vulnerable. I don't know. It would be interesting to find out.