U.S. Violent Crime Rates Continue Sharp Decline

[LAGC]

The latest batch of nationwide FBI crime data, released Monday, shows that in 2014, violent crime in the U.S. continued its long decline. The murder rate was down. The robbery rate was down, too.

"The story is actually better than we all anticipated it would be," says John Roman, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute's Justice Policy Center. "Violence is down a little bit. Property crime is down a lot… and all of this suggests that crime in America is continuing to move in the right direction.”

Earlier this month, I joined a number of fact-checkers in pointing out that a breathless New York Times story, "Murder Rates Rising Sharply in Many U.S. Cities," was misleading. The 30 cities cited by the Times weren't randomly selected; rather, they appeared to suggest their own selection because they were cities that had experienced a recent rise in killings.

That the Times got that story wrong mattered because it appeared right in the middle of a debate over the existence of a so-called “Ferguson Effect”—the (false) idea that the Black Lives Matter movement has somehow been emboldening criminals. But a Vera Institute of Justice senior research fellow looked at the most recent homicide data from 16 of the 20 most populous U.S. cities, and found that just three showed a statistically significant increase. And homicide rates often fluctuate; in recent years, Chicago's has moved both up and down, pointing to no real trend at all.

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http://www.citylab.com/crime/2015/09/violent-crime-rates-still-declining/408103/

AIIIEEE!!! The sky is falling!! The sky is falling!! Gun violence EPIDEMIC!! We must do something about the GUNZ!!!



The reality is: despite the sensationalist MSM playing up these rare acts of mass violence, American cities and streets haven't been this safe in a long time.

Looking better each and every year.

[upaloopa]

1. With almost daily shootings it seems

cold that you can post this. It shouldn't be that these shootings don't matter because on the macro level in 2014 violent crime has gone down.
I am not for gun grabbing but I am for the idea that people should be concerned about the almost daily killings by people with guns.
That fact that you are not concerned says something about gun ownership I think and it isn't good.

[LAGC]

2. On the contrary...

I'm more concerned with the ROUTINE gun violence that takes place in our inner-cities that the media completely ignores, rather than these relatively few high-profile incidents that that the media keeps playing up.

So long as those aggregate violent crime numbers are going down, we are moving in the right direction. That needs to be acknowledged and improved upon, not twisted and lied about to promote a particular agenda.

[upaloopa]

3. To honor the 7 or 10 shot in Oregan about an hour ago

I want you to delete your OP

[LAGC]

4. As soon as all the posts blaming the tools get self-deleted.

Look: I'm a community college student myself.

These mass shootings on college campuses bother me. I just don't think we do any good focusing in the wrong direction.

The problem isn't the particular weapon of choice used to carry out these massacres, it's the depraved mindset that makes one even contemplate such a course of action.

Did you see that thread in GD? It sounds like the shooter was BRAGGING about what he was planning on doing on 4chan yesterday.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027219070

No one took him seriously at the time.

[upaloopa]

5. Sorry I don't have any respect for you or your opinion

[LAGC]

8. Likewise.

People like you who blame the tools but ignore motive are the reason we still have such a high level of gun violence in this country compared to other industrialized countries like Canada that have just as nearly high of a rate of per capita gun ownership but only a fraction of our violence.

[upaloopa]

12. Putting you on ignore

[LAGC]

13. BUH-BYE!

[flamin lib]

6. How many if he used a bat?

How many if he used a knife?

How many if he used poison?

How many if he used a hammer?

It's never the fucking gun. It's only a tool. A tool designed to kill people. Can't blame the tool just because it performed as designed. Oh fuck no!

[LAGC]

9. Or a bomb, or poison gas, or anthrax.

Yeah, let's keep blaming the tool...

[flamin lib]

10. Yeah, all that shit is readily available to any idiot with a few bucks.

Anthrax? Poison gas? This can't get any moren stupid.

OH! WHAT IF HE USED A THERMO NUCLEAR BOMB!!!!!

[LAGC]

11. People who are intent on doing harm WILL find a way.

Granted, anthrax may be a bit hard to come by, but explosives are quite easy to construct using basic instructions found readily on the Internet and household supplies found at the neighborhood store, and even community colleges have chemistry stockrooms that wouldn't be that hard to pilfer dangerous chemicals from.

The point is: we're never going to get a handle on this problem even if we were somehow able to repeal the Second Amendment and get rid of all the guns.

We need to focus our energies in directions that can really help and make a difference.

[flamin lib]

16. If you've read the Anarchists Cookbook you know that although it is possible

to build bombs with household chemicals it's damn dangerous and even experienced anarchists blow themselves up more often than they blow up others.

Guns in hands that should not have them is the problem, therefore guns are half of the problem. If we are to focus our energies, guns and their easy availability have to be addressed.

It is at least 50% the gun's fault. That 'tool' does what it does very well which is why it is the overwhelming choice of killers.

[LAGC]

23. I don't know, my friend...

Two college kids in Boston did quite a bang-up job with just a few pressure cookers and some emptied fireworks.

Unless you think we should start banning household kitchenware and the freaking Fourth of July...

[pablo_marmol]

20. "I want you to delete your OP."

Why, most certainly Your Majesty!

[Katashi_itto]

7. +15 shot now in Oregon. That must be a statistical anomaly.

[branford]

15. From an entirely clinical standpoint,

it indeed is not particularly noteworthy in relation to all criminal violence. That's precisely why all policies, no less ones that concern constitutional rights like the Second Amendment, should be formulated based on actual data, not perceptions or emotions.

For instance, just this weekend, 14 people were shot in Chicago, and it's hardly a complete anomaly for the city. Theses victims are no less dead or injured than the poor souls in Oregon, but I don't recall any discussion threads about it on DU.

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/14-People-Shot-in-15-Hours-in-Chicago-Following-Violent-Weekend-329949051.html

In any event, what remedies do you propose that are both constitutional and can realistically muster sufficient popular and electoral support for passage and implementation?

Although information is still scarce, what common gun control legislation would have prevented this particular tragedy?

[Katashi_itto]

18. Lucky for you and your guns there is nothing one can do about it

[upaloopa]

21. Same old obfuscation gudgeon shit

I hope some day society begins to see people with opinions like yours on guns in a negative light

[Lurks Often]

22. It's the gun controller's opinions that are being increasingly viewed in a negative light

People are waking up and seeing the lies and the absurd arguments from the gun control advocates, it's why for the last 20 years the gun control advocates have been losing in Congress, losing in the state legislatures and losing in the courts.

[virginia mountainman]

24. Problem is..

You do realize that a majority of people see YOUR opinions in a negative light...

[jimmy the one]

14. a little bit sharp?

LAGC's city lab link: Earlier this month, I joined a number of fact-checkers in pointing out that a breathless New York Times story, "Murder Rates Rising Sharply in Many U.S. Cities," was misleading.

Any more misleading than the title of LAGC's own OP?

LAGC's OP: U.S. Violent Crime Rates Continue Sharp Decline

Your very chart from citylabs shows a slight decline in rates the past 4 years, with little percentage change from 2013 to 2104, seems about from 385 to 375 +/- 5, not that sharp. John Roman from your city lab link said: "Violence is down a little bit."
As well, it noted this:

The FBI’s data did show an increase in aggravated assaults and an increase in rape cases. And the data only goes through the end of 2014, so it’s certainly possible that 2015 numbers will eventually show a somewhat different story.

city lab's unsharp title: Violent Crime Rates, Still Declining

[Glassunion]

17. Violent crime is down, I'll concede that. Yet, your timing is disgusting.

But since you like numbers... Days between mass shootings is declining significantly (which is bad). In the years prior to 2011, the average number of days the U.S. would go without a mass shooting was 200. Since 2011, that number sits at 64 days. Basically they are 3x more frequent...

[davidpdx]

19. Violence overall maybe down

But mass casualty shootings are up. More people have been killed by guns in the last decade than by terrorism.