General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forumschillfactor
(7,566 posts)great ammunition to use on trolls who keep hyping the Chicago rate of homicides in their rants..thank you!
BainsBane
(53,003 posts)The rate in 2012 is likely higher, but it has since dropped for 2013
mucifer
(23,374 posts)Skittles
(152,965 posts)their ignorance is staggering
friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)I can see why- it kind of derails the meme that 'gun availability drives crime'
when a gun-friendly megacity in a gun-friendly state that's surrounded by gun-friendly
states has a murder rate that's less than half of Chicago's
From the link in the poster:
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-6
Crime in The United States 2011
City of Chicago
Population: 2,703,713 431 murders
City of Houston
Population: 2,143,628 198 murders
Skittles
(152,965 posts)LOLOL
Squinch
(50,774 posts)BainsBane
(53,003 posts)pretend Japan doesn't exist.
No one with a functioning brain stem thinks more guns actually lead to fewer shootings. I don't believe even the most die hard gun evangelist believes that. They simply do not care.
friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)What statistics show is that more guns don't necessarily lead to more shootings.
friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)I daresay Japanese suicides are no less dead for largely not having used a firearm.
Heywood J
(2,515 posts)gun availability? Just curious...
friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)Jamaica and Mexico have few legal guns available to the public but have horrible murder rates.
Finland and Switzerland have high rates of civilian gun ownership, but far lower murder rates than
the US.
The US has a murder problem and a gun culture. They aren't the same thing.
Heywood J
(2,515 posts)It's difficult from this end to see how pumping out millions of firearms (of all kinds) year after year in a country already afloat in them can help with a murder problem. If it did, you'd think we would have seen it by now.
I would be curious to see the statistics on the type of firearm ownership - e.g. do the Finns or Swiss own mostly hunting rifles, antiques, or semi-automatics?
friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)And all this while the number of guns skyrocketed.
You don't have to take my word for it- just use the Crime In The United States site, per the OP:
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/1995/95sec2.pdf
(Chart 2.6)
and Table 2.3
Down 9 percent from 1994, the national murder rate in 1995
was 8 per 100,000 inhabitants, the lowest rate since 1985. Five and 10-year trends showed
the 1995 rate was 16 percent lower than in 1991 and 5 percent below the 1986 rate...
The Finns and Swiss mostly own rifles, the Swiss ones tend to be semi-automatic (the dreaded
"assault weapons", iow)
hack89
(39,171 posts)it is hard to argue that more guns = more gun violence when the hard facts say exactly the opposite.
Heywood J
(2,515 posts)http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/20/2012-census-state-populations/1781993/
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2011/05/13/7-ways-the-us-population-is-changing
I don't know that it's possible to sort any one of these factors out from the others.
To be fair, I care far less about someone owning a rifle for hunting two weeks out of the year than I do about the apparent ability of people with proven histories of mental instability to obtain anything they like.
hack89
(39,171 posts)there are simply fewer murders now then there were 20 years ago regardless of population.
The solution to people with mental health issues getting guns is single payer health care with full mental care coverage. Lets fix root issues.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Instead the right wing gun lobby allowed/encouraged100 million more guns to be produced to soothe baser instincts of gun cultists.
suffragette
(12,232 posts)Many of whom keep their guns at home?
That would also account for the type of gun you note below.
friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)Hoyt
(54,770 posts)of ammo people can keep, etc. You know, the kind of reasonable restrictions that would make gun cultists here, pucker.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)City Population Murders per 100,000 people
1. Flint, Mich. 101,632 61.98
2. Detroit, Mich. 707,096 54.58
3. New Orleans 362,874 53.18
4. Jackson, Miss. 175,939 35.8
5. St. Louis, Mo. 318,667 35.46
6. Baltimore, Md. 625,474 35.01
7. Newark, N.J. 278,906 34.06
8. Oakland, CA. 399,487 31.54
9. Birmingham 213,266 31.42
10. Baton Rouge 231,500 28.5
Chicago, which is consistently in the national headlines for its gun violence, ranked 16th with 18.46 murders per 100,000 people, behind cities like Cleveland, Memphis, Richmond, Va., and Atlanta, though it was second among cities with more than one million residents, behind Philadelphia (21.5). New York City's murder rate was 5 per 100,000 people.
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-06-03/news/bal-baltimore-ranked-6th-in-murder-rate-in-2012-20130603_1_murder-rate-top-10-cities-per-capita-murders
On edit: the data above are for the city limits; using metropolitan areas is misleading.
mucifer
(23,374 posts)I'd like to know if in these other cities the violent crime is as concentrated in a few neighborhoods the way it is in Chicago. I live in Chicago and know in certain areas it is unbearable and has been for decades.
frazzled
(18,402 posts)it's one of the least segregated Northern cities, imo, in terms of mixes of people in the life of the city itself. Ride the El, take a bus, go to Millennium Park for a concert, have lunch in the Loop with workers, go to a club (well, certain clubs) ... this is a very black/white city in that sense.
I moved here from Boston (before that, Minneapolis and NYC). I mean, you rarely see a black person in Boston, unless they're on the faculty at one of the universities or at a law firm. Yet I know Roxbury is still very black. My husband just got back from New York and had gone up to Harlem one evening to eat dinner. He said, you know, Chicago really is a much more black city than New York, until you get into certain areas. Midtown Manhattan and downtown Chicago are like night and day, pretty much, in that respect. In the working parts of the city, it's a much more mixed environment.
I ride the Green line a lot, so maybe I see more black faces every day than people who live up on the North Side and take the Brown line. The Green line goes from the concentration of black neighborhoods on the West Side to the concentration of black neighborhoods on the South Side. But neighborhoods in between also have a rising middle-class black population.
I don't ignore the deep pockets of black poverty in certain neighborhoods that has existed since the Great Migration. But I also love to say, eat Sunday breakfast at Valois, down in Hyde Park, where the Church families and the U of C professors, the old black guys in their suspenders talking politics, and young white families are all eating together. Or go to the jazz festival around Labor Day, where everyone sits under the stars together. I think it feels like the real America. Not one I see very much anywhere else.
Grant Park in November 2004 ... now that was Chicago. At least for a moment.
mucifer
(23,374 posts)I'm a hospice nurse and I work all over the city including the south and west sides and I do see a lot of segregation. I've never been to Boston. The statistics show that there are a very few very impoverished African American neighborhoods where most of the violent crime is taking place.
From The Chicago Reader:
Concentrated poverty and homicide in Chicago
Posted by Steve Bogira on 07.26.12 at 02:22 PM
Poverty, Race, and Homicide in Chicago Community Areas:
The chart above illustrates the relationship between concentrated poverty and homicide. I culled figures from a data set published earlier this month by the Chicago Department of Public Health. The chart shows the five poorest, and five least-poor, community areas in the city (based on the percentage of households below the poverty line), and their homicide rates from 2004 through 2008. Because concentrated poverty in Chicago is inextricably linked to being African-American, I've also included the percentage of African-Americans in these community areas, calculated from 2005-2009 Census Bureau estimates.
http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2012/07/26/concentrated-poverty-and-homicide-in-chicago
I must say I was at Grant Park in 2004 and I was totally blown away by the emotion of the potential for racial harmony.
frazzled
(18,402 posts)Race = poverty = increase in crime
Will this cycle ever be broken here? One factor we haven't discussed is youth. Most of these homicides are among the very young, and much of it is gang-related. Here the problem we have is related in large part to the reign of gangs in these neighborhoods. There are many, many good people living in Englewood and Garfield Park ... but they're living in terror of this gang activity. Solve that, and you'll see the homicide rate really go down, even if segregation, poverty, and some elements persist.
Bless you for the work you do for people as a hospice nurse. You're one brave and dedicated person.
elehhhhna
(32,076 posts)People don't know how segregated Chgo is. I didn't know until we moved - that's just how Chicago always was. We now live in the most diverse county in the US (yes, in Texas). Weird.
BainsBane
(53,003 posts)but it is helpful to have the more recent figures.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)look at the bottom of that poster: "data reflects metropolitan statistical areas". The numbers I posted are for within the city limits.
BainsBane
(53,003 posts)I would guess by municipality.
friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)For example, per the CITUS 2011 site in the OP, the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX M.S.A.
had a muder rate of 5.4/100,000.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)more than the rather arbitrary city boundaries do.
But it is interesting about the rates, that apparently more murders happen in the cities than do in the suburbs. Perhaps because there is more poverty in the cities than in the suburbs.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)I don't see a metro area as defining a city at all. A city isn't a suburb.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)but it is rather absurd to call St. Louis a city of 350,000 like that 350,000 is somehow comparable to the population of Topeka at 124,000. Really? St. Louis is only 3 times the size of Topeka? It's smaller then than Wichita at 370,000? And so is Minneapolis? Ridiculous.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)For cities.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)The metro area is based on economic ties to the core city.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_statistical_area
X_Digger
(18,585 posts)LOUISIANA New Orleans 58
MICHIGAN Flint 51
MICHIGAN Detroit 48
MISSOURI St. Louis 35
NEW JERSEY Newark 34
MARYLAND Baltimore 31
MISSISSIPPI Jackson 30
LOUISIANA Baton Rouge 28
CALIFORNIA Oakland 26
CONNECTICUT New Haven 26
otohara
(24,135 posts)always try to minimize the damage of guns and point straight to Chicago with glee.
It's downright creepy.
Thanks for posting this...every little bit of truth helps.
friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)City of Houston
2,143,628 198 murders
City of Chicago
2,703,713 431 murders
Why does Chicago have more of a problem? One word: Poverty
derby378
(30,252 posts)They went far behind the "readin', writin' and 'rithmetic" fundamentals, insisting on a well-rounded education that included exposure to the fine arts. ChickMagic fondly remembers school field trips to see the city's symphony orchestra perform. Her grades were above average.
And then when her father got transferred to Dallas, our school system didn't know what to do with her, so they just stuck her in an LLD class with the head cases and the slow students. I've been in LLD classes in my earlier years due to ADHD, and ChickMagic had no business being in such a learning environment.
But I digress. Houston is obviously doing something right.
Jeff In Milwaukee
(13,992 posts)Chicago has a mind-boggling amount of gang activity, and the overwhelming majority of homicides are gang related.
alphafemale
(18,497 posts)Stats in thread on Flint floored me.
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)Population is down 50% since 1960 leaving 100 K population that is 57% African American in a metro area of 422 K population.
valerief
(53,235 posts)Iliyah
(25,111 posts)would be there somewhere.
coldmountain
(802 posts)pintobean
(18,101 posts)and how it's had little to no affect on the gun crime statistics. I know St. Louis doesn't have a gun ban, but it's not legal guns that are driving those statistics.
BainsBane
(53,003 posts)pintobean
(18,101 posts)Carrying, open or concealed, is still illegal. CCW is a new state law and implementation is still in the works.
ETA link
BainsBane
(53,003 posts)I appreciate the clarification.
pintobean
(18,101 posts)and who is applying.
Gidney N Cloyd
(19,781 posts)Not that it had little to no affect.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)had no measureable positive effect on Chicago's murder rate.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)throughout USA. Easily transported to Chicago, or elsewhere.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)People get around them.
LWolf
(46,179 posts)OldRedneck
(1,397 posts)Notice that of the ten cities with murder rates higher than Chicago . . . seven of the ten are in RED states . . . KS, LA, AL, FL, TN, OK, MI
X_Digger
(18,585 posts)MICHIGAN DETROIT 54.6
LOUISIANA NEW ORLEANS 53.2
MISSOURI ST. LOUIS 35.5
MARYLAND BALTIMORE 35.0
NEW JERSEY NEWARK 34.1
CALIFORNIA OAKLAND 31.5
CALIFORNIA STOCKTON 23.7
MISSOURI KANSAS CITY 22.6
PENNSYLVANIA PHILADELPHIA 21.5
OHIO CLEVELAND 21.3
Looks about 50/50 to me.
SunSeeker
(51,377 posts)RB TexLa
(17,003 posts)NewThinkingChance40
(289 posts)Detroit still has 100,00 people
I kid, I kid, Seriously though, would not know this from the numbers the news reports. Thanks for the info.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)I'm in what is, by some standards, the second most violent city in Canada and our homicide rate's around 4.4. (The highest is Winnipeg, at a little over 5.)
I can't wrap my head around 20 or 24.
BainsBane
(53,003 posts)It's a national sickness.
Pelican
(1,156 posts)... but look at how terrible and awful other people are for other reasons!
BainsBane
(53,003 posts)This is simply a listing of homicide rates. Throughout the US, the reason is the same, guns. That is why we have the highest homicide rate in the First World, and that is exactly how gun evangelists want it.
cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)in the First World? To what end?
I would also ask... when you say "that is exactly how gun evangelists want it", does that mean you're citing some kind of fact or is it just your opinion? Is there a link you can provide where proven facts lead to the conclusion that "gun evangelists" want the United States to have the highest homicide rate in the first world?
The reason I ask is I've found you to post some pretty convincing arguments about a wide range of subjects in the past, but when you use hyperbole and pejoratives like you did there, it makes you no better than Hoyt, whose pronouncements about guns carry about as much weight as hydrogen.
BainsBane
(53,003 posts)So they profit from selling to criminals. They also profit from the fear that prompts citizens to feel the need to buy guns to protect themselves.
Gun evangelists who don't directly profit from gun sales but nonetheless advance the same positions as the gun lobby must be happy with the existing state of affairs or they wouldn't so vigorously fight to maintain them.
cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)...evangelists want it."
Bullshit.
hack89
(39,171 posts)means the gun lobby is not as powerful as you say? Because such a large drop is a massive fail if their stated goal is to keep our murder rate as high as possible.
BainsBane
(53,003 posts)As demographic factors have changed, crime has declined. We continue to have the highest homicide rate in the first world, with the exception of Russia (depending on how you want to categorize them).
hack89
(39,171 posts)interesting.
Perhaps you are on to something - lets look at the demographics of those most likely to commit gun violence and tailor our solutions to address those specific groups.
As for our murder rate, you need to be patient. It took 20 years to cut it in half - in another 20 years it will be lower yet.
branford
(4,462 posts)and Chicago is an important city in the gun debate both because: (i) until recently, both the State of Illinois and City of Chicago had some of the most draconian gun laws in the country, and (ii) it is the hometown of our President, who spent many of his prior professional years as an elected representative in the state, both at the state and federal level.
BainsBane
(53,003 posts)and every other city in the country as well.
branford
(4,462 posts)Chicago is nevertheless important politically for the reasons I cited.
I should have also included the fact the Rahm Emmanuel, the current mayor of Chi-town, was the President's first Chief of Staff.
For good or ill, anything that happens in Chicago has the potential for national news. Sadly, we also live in a time where the news relies on the old axiom, "if it bleeds, it leads."
Jamaal510
(10,893 posts)KC, Jax, and OKC being on this list. I hardly ever hear anything about those cities when it comes to crime and murder rates.
BainsBane
(53,003 posts)and it's interesting how much they diverges from actual crime stats.
nomorenomore08
(13,324 posts)Because I lived in West Oakland from 2009-2012 and it's like the fucking Wild West out there. Hearing sirens and gunshots was so common that it became just part of the background noise.
X_Digger
(18,585 posts)So hot spots got watered down by neighboring areas with less crime. That same year, using city data, here's the list:
LOUISIANA New Orleans 58
MICHIGAN Flint 51
MICHIGAN Detroit 48
MISSOURI St. Louis 35
NEW JERSEY Newark 34
MARYLAND Baltimore 31
MISSISSIPPI Jackson 30
LOUISIANA Baton Rouge 28
CALIFORNIA Oakland 26
CONNECTICUT New Haven 26
nomorenomore08
(13,324 posts)nt
X_Digger
(18,585 posts)Jenoch
(7,720 posts)Chicago is a large population center. They have a lot of homicides, but I don't know how the total number of homicides compares with other localities.