Family Blames Gun-Seller for Murderous Rampage

[Glassunion]

168. I have slight issue with the data presented

The percentages used does not take into account all homicides. 2 Reasons.
1. These percentages are determined only by the crimes where the offender / victim relationship was known. All others are discarded.
2. The Wolfgang & Ferracuti thesis was based solely on Black crime in one city with a focus on interpersonal crime. IIRC it consisted of data from the late 50's of about 950 homicides in Philly.

So the author saying that only 12% of the cases involved complete strangers is not an accurate reflection of true crime. It is however all that is available for homicide data as you cannot ask a victim of homicide if they knew the offender.

If you look at all violent crime you get different numbers.
Strangers were offenders in about 39%(more than 3x the known homicide data your link provided) of all violent victimizations during 2010. Women are more likely to be a victim of violent crime committed by a non-stranger.

Male victims of violent crime:
Non-Stranger
Intimate 5%
Other relative 6%
Friend/acquaintance 29%

Stranger 48%

Unknown 12%

Female victims of violent crime:
Non-Stranger
Intimate 22%
Other relative 9%
Friend/acquaintance 33%

Stranger 30%

Unknown 6%

Also the statement that the home and one's own neighborhood are the places where one is most likely to get hurt is also not true.
Only 18% of violent crime occurs in the home.
Another 15.7% occurs near one's home.

The other 2/3 of violent crime occurs away from one's home and neighborhood. The stats are quite dated.

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=3