Interesting cross-post: More Police die by gunshot violence in States that have more guns

[jmg257]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/08/more-police-officers-die-on-the-job-in-states-with-more-guns/

...."The results (of the study) were shocking: line-of-duty homicide rates among police officers were more than three times higher in states with high gun ownership compared with the low gun ownership states. Between 1996 and 2010, in other words, there were 0.31 officer fatalities for every 10,000 employed officers in low gun ownership states. But there were 0.95 fatalities per 10,000 officers in the high gun ownership states."


What I find interesting, is that all of the states which had NO LE deaths, are high gun states.
0 deaths over 15 years!!! Yet all have higher gun rates then Georgia & Texas.

From the "study".

The states with the most homicides were California (n = 77), Texas (n = 70), Florida (n = 39), Georgia (n = 36), and North Carolina (n = 33).

Iowa, Maine, Vermont, and Wyoming experienced zero homicides of LEOs during the study period.

Low gun states: CT, DC, HI, IL, MA, NJ, NY, RI.
High gun states: AL, AK, AR, IA, ID, KS, KY, LA, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, OK, SC, SD, TN, UT, VT, WI, WV, WY.

*Maine is 40.5% owner - similar to Georgia and Oregon.

And also weird, is that California leads the nation in LE deaths, yet is #42 in ownership these days, while Florida, also top 4 LE death state, is like #41; but neither made their low gun state list. Wonder why they didn't make the "low gun state" along with all the others? They got like 8 right, and stopped there, due to 'population equivalence compare control', or something(??).

VERY confusing, this study.

"For example, Wyoming had the highest firearm ownership rate and zero LEO homicides, whereas the District of Columbia had the lowest firearm ownership rate and was in the highest quintile for homicide rates. It appeared that both the state levels of firearm prevalence and violent crimes affected the LEO homicide rate; however, further research is necessary to identify other state-level predictors of LEO homicide rates."

Huh - even they are left wondering by the numerous "outliers"...wonder what else may be at fault here?


http://usliberals.about.com/od/Election2012Factors/a/Gun-Owners-As-Percentage-Of-Each-States-Population.htm

40. Delaware - 25.5%
41. Florida - 24.5% (Battleground state. See Florida in 2012 Elections.)
42. California - 21.3%
42. Maryland - 21.3%
44. Illinois - 20.2%
45. New York - 18%
46. Connecticut - 16.7%
47. Rhode Island - 12.8%
48. Massachusetts - 12.6%
49. New Jersey - 12.3%
50. Hawaii - 6.7%

[MH1]

1. Raw number, not per capita?

Per capita may not be right either (also depends on ratio of cops to population, plus rural vs urban), but damn sure better than raw number of homicides. California has a higher number of police homicides by gun than Wyoming? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you ...

[jmg257]

2. They use homicide rates per 10,000 LE...number of states used in sampling in both goups

were meant to balance out the overall numbers of LE considered.

Strange they stopped at 8 Low Gun States, when #9 & #10 would have been a HUGE impact on their study (along with Maine=#24 high gun state)

ETA: http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdf/10.2105/AJPH.2015.302749

[Eleanors38]

3. "Confusing?". Don't worry, MSM will be glad to clear things up...

[Eleanors38]

4. Hhh-heh-heh Florida behind Delaware Hhhh-heh-heh-heh.. nt

[jimmy the one]

5. inter alia population density

"For example, Wyoming had the highest firearm ownership rate and zero LEO homicides, whereas the District of Columbia had the lowest firearm ownership rate and was in the highest quintile for homicide rates.."

Population density. Wyoming is a large state with ~600,000 people. DC is a small city (80 sq miles) with about the same population as wyoming, but crammed into a much smaller space.
.. Consider all these states combined: wyoming, both dakotas, idaho, montana, vermont, maine, new hampshire, iowa. Those 9 states comprise about 25% of the area of the continental USA.
Consider New York City metro area including newark NJ, in comparison a little finger smudge on a US map, has more people living with it that all of those states combined - 15 million to maybe 10 million.
Toss in alaska & the land mass becomes about a third of the USA, & NYC still has about 5 million more people.

The states with the lowest rates of gun ownership tended to be high-population places such as New York, while the highest rates of gun ownership were in low-population places such as Wyomi

Higher levels of private firearm ownership likely increased the frequency with which officers faced potentially life-threatening situations on the job," the study says. High rates of officer homicides appeared to be caused "by more frequently encountering situations where privately owned firearms were present," it says.

Law enforcement officers "working in states with higher levels of gun ownership faced a greater likelihood of being shot and killed on the job compared with their peers in states with lower gun ownership," the study concludes. The relationship was strong enough that every 10 percent increase in gun ownership correlated with 10 more officer deaths over the study period.
"If we're interested in protecting police officers, we need to look at what's killing them, and what's killing them is guns," said the study's lead author,

Numbers such as these are one reason many law enforcement groups have been the staunchest supporters of stricter gun control measures.
The International Association of Chiefs of Police, for instance, supports a reinstatement of the federal ban on assault weapons, broadening background checks and creating a national gun offender registry. The Major Cities Chiefs Association, representing police chiefs in the country's largest cities and metro areas, support similar proposals.
By contrast sheriff's groups, which tend to represent law enforcement officers from more rural areas where gun violence is less of a problem, tend to be more skeptical of stricter gun control measures.

[jmg257]

6. Thanks Jimmy, always interesting in getting your take! Cheers! nt