Re: Re: knife ban going to work?

["Jarrod Frates" <jfrates.ml () gmail com>]

Wow...  There's a huge amount of willful bias on all sides here.
False dichotomies, lack of research, cherry-picking statistics when
research is done...  I think both DrSolly and Brian have their valid
points, but I think both of you also might want to take a step back
because you're getting a bit too wound into this.

I'd like to attempt to clarify a few things, particularly about the US
crime rate, though first I'll mention that the Shipman murders in the
UK skewed the crime rate for the year in which they were discovered
because they were all lumped in that one year.  The skewing is sort of
like the murder skew for 2001 when counting the 9/11 attacks: in both
cases, they are serious and significant anomalies that should not be
included in the general crime rate.

In the US, the authoritative source of crime information is the FBI's
annual Uniform Crime Report.  It breaks down violent and nonviolent
crimes by state, and in many cases by metropolitan district.  The
information is culled from actual police reports, so it's pretty
accurate.  (To my knowledge, no such analogue is available in the UK;
if there is, please do point it out, as I would like to add it to my
research bookmarks.)  Murders are broken down even further, classified
by weapon type, race and gender of the assailant(s) and victim(s),
circumstance of the murder (love triangle, business dispute, etc), and
relationship between the assailant(s) and victim(s) (spouse, friend,
colleague, unknown, etc).  Within that report, there is an explanation
that the "acquaintance" relationship category encompasses a very large
group.  If a gun battle erupts between gang members, and it can be
shown that they knew each other, that can be listed as an argument
between acquaintances rather than a drug turf battle between gang
members.  Narcotics murders are usually classified only when there is
clear and indisputable evidence that drugs were the reason for the
murder, and can include murder during theft or someone snapping
because of a drug's effects.

I've done a fair amount of research into gun violence in the past,
though not academically or professionally.  I've read books on both
sides, and I investigate the reports from the FBI and the UK's Home
Office when they come out.  From 1994 to 2002 (or thereabouts -- I'm
running from memory here), the murder rate in the UK has stayed
largely the same, with a dip the year after the Dunblane Massacre and
the firearm restrictions that followed.  This was hailed as a
milestone in crime management at the time, though the number of
murders began to increase within a couple of years, and returned to
about where it had been before the new legislation, with perhaps a
slight uptick (even discounting the Shipman murders).

The US murder rate in that same time dropped significantly, though it
leveled out roughly around 2003 and has held about steady since then,
with a little bit of an increase, IIRC.  The reasons seem to be more
economic than anything else, as cities such as Detroit and New Orleans
didn't experience the same economic revival as did much of the rest of
the nation, and their crime rates stayed relatively high.  In some
other cases, such as the Los Angeles Rampart Division, changes in how
police were allowed to work certain areas may have led to an increase
in the amount of gang violence as gangs became emboldened by what was
essentially a retreat of the police force.

I've been looking at the possibility that much of the reason for the
overall differences in crime rates between nations is cultural.
Different cultures see certain crimes as more or less acceptable
within the framework of their society.  Canada has a very similar
make-up to the US socially: we watch largely the same TV, we drive the
same cars, wear the same clothes, and have approximately the same
religious distribution.  Yet the murder rate is lower there, even in
areas that have high poverty rates and population densities.  One
crime that is higher is sexual assault, which according to the numbers
is something like three times that of the US.  Whether this is due to
a much more inclusive definition of sexual assault or just that
Canadians are more willing to push themselves on others, I'm not sure.
There are similar indications of cultural differences in suicide
rates when looking at the US (high gun ownership) and Japan (virtually
no gun ownership), where the latter has (or had, as of a few years
ago) a suicide rate three times higher than the former.

There is a tendency to look at information in an "all other things
being equal" mentality.  We do this in many situations where this type
of comparison is valid, but when comparing crime information across
national boundaries, it doesn't work all that well, and additional
information is required for accurate analysis.
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