The stats from the CDC

[LibraLabSoldier]

Here is a list of links with the numbers for the Centers for Disease Control. They are non partisan.


http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lcod.htm

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/pdf/nvsr50_16t1.pdf

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/tables/2003/03hus047.pdf

I have looked at these statistics over and over again. First off, shooting deaths only account for a small percentage of accidental deaths, which isnt even in the top ten of causes of death.

Why all this time and money spent by groups like the VPC to discredit and attack gun owners? Cancers and heart disease and obesity related illnesses kill many many many more Americans than guns.....I dont see any laws passed banning fast food and mandatory exercise......So, Antigun folks, explain these numbers away.

I dont think you can really discredit the messenger on this one.

[Wonk]

1. So you're a fast food and cigarette grabber?

:shrug:

[lapfog_1]

2. I'm not a anti-gun person, or a gun nut

But there is one thing about gun deaths that is not true about
many other examples.

For the victim, it is not a matter of their choice (in almost every
case). For eating, exercise, smoking, drinking, and many other
forms of "non natural" deaths, it's the victims choice to engage
in their activity.

And, unlike most other accidental deaths, like automobile deaths,
guns deaths are entirely preventable without a major impact on
anyones life (again, without getting into "rights" or such). I.E.
if their were no guns, not very many things about our modern
lives would change, but the same is not true about almost any
other "implement" of accidental death in the world.

And last, the major function of a gun is to cause injury to something,
either animal or human. This is also not true of almost all other
implements of accidental deaths.

[LibraLabSoldier]

3. I agree with your assessment.

However, guns are only a small amount of accidental or homicide deaths. Most deaths are caused by blunt objects, knives, edged weapons, fists, rocks, ect. What we need is more crime control. Not fewer guns. I posted these stats to show that in the gun deaths were only a small portion compared to the others. In otherwords, why all this outcry when there are many other causes of death that are just as preventable, and far more deadly.

[Kagemusha]

4. Because they're not as preventable....

Take machetes. Sure, you can try to clamp down on machete deaths in places like Boston where machete killings have been catching on. They were big in London for a while. But, machetes are useful tools to hack brush. Therefore, it's politically impossible to control them.

Certain kinds of firearms are much easier to control than shotguns, small calibre hunting rifles used to shoot 'vermin', and so on and so forth. Not all preventions are created equal...

[LibraLabSoldier]

5. Ok, so squirrel hunters are harmless, and deer hunters are all dangerous?

The problem is that gun bans are like dominoes. Once one type or caliber or function falls, they all start to fall. I am not advocating the sale or legalization of fully automatic weapons. However, the vilification of firearms is just passing the buck. Besides, did you know that one of the most common calibers used to kill people is the .22? It is also the most popular target shooting and general handgun. My wife has a .22 because she has small hands and doesnt like larger guns...see how it becomes a problem. I posted those statistics for a reason. Why the big deal about guns? There are many, many other things that kill people much more effectively, at much greater cost to the rest of us(increased healthcare costs from the obese is one example). Guns are easy to take away from law abiding people.


NO thanks, I dont plan on disarming myself and becoming another possible victim.

[iverglas]

6. don't you choke on that straw from time to time?

Certain kinds of firearms are much easier to control than shotguns, small calibre hunting rifles used to shoot 'vermin', and so on and so forth. Not all preventions are created equal...
Ok, so squirrel hunters are harmless, and deer hunters are all dangerous?

First, of course, no one said anything about anyone being dangerous. The subject was firearms.

But the most interesting thing is how you seem to, uh, forget another common class of firearms. C'mon, you can do it. What else might the poster you were responding to have been thinking of?

Could it have been ... HANDGUNS?

Nah.


Besides, did you know that one of the most common calibers used to kill people is the .22?

Yeah ... once you look past those handguns ...

http://www.vpc.org/studies/dv4us.htm

When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 1999 Homicide Data
Females Murdered by Males in Single Victim/Single Offender Incidents
United States

1,750 females were murdered by males in the United States in 1999

... Most Common Weapons

For homicides in which the weapon used could be identified, 53 percent of female homicide victims (865 out of 1,647) were shot and killed with guns. Of these, 76 percent (656 victims) were killed with handguns. There were 318 females killed with a knife or other cutting instrument, 108 females killed by a blunt object, and 244 females killed by bodily force.

... Victim/Offender Relationship

For homicides in which the victim to offender relationship could be identified, 92 percent of female victims (1,521 out of 1,654) were murdered by someone they knew. There were 133 female victims killed by strangers. Of the victims who knew their offenders, 60 percent (917 victims) were wives, common-law wives, ex-wives, or girlfriends of the offenders. Among the 917 female intimates murdered, 60 percent (546 victims) were killed with guns; 74 percent of these (403 victims) were shot and killed with handguns.

Now, let's all blame the war on drugs ... or shoot the messenger ... or engage in some other elaborate diversionary grooming ...

[MrBenchley]

7. And of course, let's keep pretending

that there's been no political interference with the CDC by the gun lobby and the GOP....even though that's a blatant lie....

"It is the NRA that is the true purveyor of fiction. In its paranoid world, any measure to make you safer is the first step on the slippery slope to taking away its members' rights: It supports the sale of assault weapons and 'cop-killer' bullets. It opposes closing loopholes that allow criminals, wife-beaters, terrorists, drug addicts and the insane to acquire firearms. It has blocked the CPSC from regulating guns to make them safer, so the commission now can regulate only toy guns, not the real ones. It has opposed measures specifically designed to protect kids, including requiring safety locks or putting indicators on guns to signal that they're still loaded. The NRA has claimed that all we need to do is enforce existing laws. But then it has riddled those laws with loopholes and gutted the agency charged with enforcing them, the BATF. And it has fought to keep Americans from knowing the facts by barring the CDC from investigating the costs and causes of gun violence."

http://democrats.com/preview.cfm?term=Gun%20Lobby

[goju]

12. Handguns?

Why all the jargon from the VPC (reaalll neutral source there :eyes:) I think he was talking about calibers, wasnt he?

[library_max]

24. According to the FBI Crime Statistics,

out of 14,054 murders in 2002, 9,369 were with firearms, 1,767 were with knives, 666 were with clubs and other blunt implements, 933 were with hands, feet, elbows, etc., and the rest by other means such as fire, poison, or drowning.

That means that 67% of the murders were with guns. Not a "small amount" but a sizeable majority.

Here's the link: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_02/xl/02tbl2-10.xls

[LibraLabSoldier]

28. Now you are changing your argument again....

Which is it? Assault weapons? Hand guns? Who are these criminals? Do you even care? What are the criminals other crimes commited along with the use of a firearm to commit a crime/ Like I said before, statistics can only show what the person is intending them to show.

[library_max]

32. Okay, so the FBI is a bunch of pinko gun-grabbers. Good to know.

The point is that most murders are committed with firearms, whereas you were trying to convince us that it was only a "small amount."

And what's this about "changing my argument"? This was my first post in the thread. I hadn't said anything at all about assault weapons or handguns. Nobody mentioned assault weapons or handguns specifically. And what's the point of "Who are these criminals?" Is that barrage of questions just a smokescreen, like the cloud of ink a squid emits so that it can get away? Because otherwise I don't see the point.

[Columbia]

8. Actually, you are quite wrong

The majority of the "gun deaths" are a matter of choice.

[lapfog_1]

9. Huh? Not for the victim.

The author of this thread was making comparisons between
gun deaths and such things as diet and exercise.

People who eat a "wrong" diet or who choose not to take care
of their bodies are exercising free will. Gun victims (other
than self inflicted) are not exercising free will.

[LibraLabSoldier]

10. I am not speaking about the choice of the victim

But the choice of the perpetrator of the crime. I am in favor of stiffer gun crime penalties. And I do not agree with everything the NRA stands on. But using scary labels is just a tactic. Assault weapons are only used in 2% of gun crime. I personally do not believe that anyone except collectors need them or even understand that they are no more powerful(and in most cases less) than your average deer rifle. And "cop killer" bullets are a joke. You might as well talk about regulating the "magic" bullets that killed Kennedy.

Lets face it. You guys assume that everyone who owns a gun is somehow just waiting for the chance to kill somebody.

[lapfog_1]

14. First off, please don't lump everyone together as "you guys"

Second, I never said that I was anti-gun.

All I did was point out that comparing gun deaths to, say, car
accidents, is really comparing apples to oranges. Comparing
gun deaths to knife deaths is much better.

I don't think of a gun owner as someone just waiting for a chance
to kill someone, I think of a gun owner has having a very easy
(and "long distance") means of killing someone when the urge to
kill is upon them. For many of those times, not having a gun would
be a large deterrent to carrying through on the urge.

[library_max]

20. No, but everyone who is waiting for the chance to kill somebody

either owns a gun or wants to.

[FeebMaster]

21. Oh yeah?

How do you explain all of those non-gun murders and attempted murders?

[library_max]

25. Couldn't find a gun when they wanted one. /nt

[FeebMaster]

29. I thought they were wicked easy to get.

I mean that's why we need more restrictions on buying them, right?

[LibraLabSoldier]

30. Feeb

It doesnt matter what argument, reasoning, or data you present them with. They dont care. Guns are bad, and scary, and turn people into evil murdering psychos.....maybe its the smell of gun oil....Or the crack they are dealing...hmmmmm.

[library_max]

35. Remind me again how you want to have a serious discussion.

Seems like all you want to do is call names and pick fights.

[library_max]

34. Depends on what you mean.

They're too easy to get for people who are planning a crime. But in a moment of rage or insanity, a gun doesn't just automatically appear in a person's hand, especially if that person don't own a gun. Which is a lucky thing for the victim, because practically any other form of attack is more survivable than a gun attack.

[FeebMaster]

37. It must be nice having it both ways.

But in a moment of rage or insanity, a gun doesn't just automatically appear in a person's hand, especially if that person don't own a gun.

So are you claiming that all or most of non-gun murders are done in a fit of rage or insanity?


Which is a lucky thing for the victim, because practically any other form of attack is more survivable than a gun attack.

I'm sure you have some numbers backing that up beyond saying 30,000 people are killed by guns a year.

[library_max]

39. Regarding survivability of attacks,

ask an ER doc whether gunshot victims generally have a greater or lesser chance of survival than knife victims, blunt trauma victims, or beating victims.

Regarding rage and insanity, are you claiming that most murders with hands and feet, knives, miscellaneous blunt instruments, fire, strangulation, etc. are calculated and planned? Poison I'll grant you, but poison makes up less than one percent of all murders.

Regarding having it both ways, whatever are you talking about?

[FeebMaster]

49. I don't know any ER doctors.

Regarding rage and insanity, are you claiming that most murders with hands and feet, knives, miscellaneous blunt instruments, fire, strangulation, etc. are calculated and planned? Poison I'll grant you, but poison makes up less than one percent of all murders.

I'm not making any claims.


"Regarding having it both ways, whatever are you talking about?"


The "whole guns are so easy to get any criminal can buy one and go on a crime spree" vs the "guns are so hard to get that lots of people have to use inferior murder weapons" thing.

Or maybe it was the "guns make it too easy to kill people in a fit of rage" vs the "people in a fit of rage don't always own guns" thing.

I forget. It was probably the first one.

[skippythwndrdog]

62. Does that include terrorists with evening wear by DuPont?

I wish I could read minds that well.

[FeebMaster]

11. Columbia is saying that the majority of gun deaths

are suicides and therefor a matter of choice.

[LibraLabSoldier]

13. And the CDC backs that up...

But i guess it would be better for us all if these suicidal folks just used pills, or jumped off a bridge or something....For instance, most police are killed by their own service weapon. The cause, suicide. We should disarm all the police then to save them from themselves.

[lapfog_1]

22. Actually your sarcasm is correct.

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=38248

Locking up guns drops the rate of successful teen suicides.

Pills and bridges and other forms of suicide require more planning,
a sustained frame of mind, and aren't nearly as lethal

[CO Liberal]

15. But They're Preventable

And there's no denying that.

[FeebMaster]

16. No they aren't.

And there's no denying that.

Yes there is.


Weren't you just up in LBN advocating that Alan Keyes buy a machine gun and kill himself with it?

[CO Liberal]

18. He Can Choose to Do That or Not

Just like anyone with a gun is their hand can choose to kill or not.

[FeebMaster]

19. Oh good.

So next time someone whines about there being 30,000 gun deaths a year I'll expect to see you jump right in and let them know that the majority of those gun deaths were people who chose to take their own lives.

[CO Liberal]

23. If Guns Were Not Available To Them...

...they would not be able to make that choice.

Don't we, as a society, have an obligation to our fellow citizens to stop them from doing things that could cause harm to them or others? Or do we just stand there and watch?

[FeebMaster]

26. Huh?

"If Guns Were Not Available To Them......they would not be able to make that choice."

Is shooting yourself the only method of suicide available? Even assuming you could make guns completely unavailable, you've only removed the option of killing themselves with a gun. They still can make the choice to kill themselves. I, for one, support their right to make that choice.


"Don't we, as a society, have an obligation to our fellow citizens to stop them from doing things that could cause harm to them or others?"

Themselves, no. At least not beyond verbally trying to stop them by trying to talk them out of it or something.


"Or do we just stand there and watch?"

I don't know, what were you advocating when you said: "Alan Should Take One Of Those Machine Guns and blow his f**king brains out. Useless asshole."

[21stcentprogressive]

27. Nonsense. Since when are guns the only tools of suicide?

And whatever happened to freedom of choice? If I want to take my own life, that is my right and you have no business infringing on my right. It is my life, my body, and my business, you have no business dictating what is "right".

[FeebMaster]

61. Here's your chance CO.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=81719&mesg_id=82597&page=

[library_max]

17. Not every cause of death is subject to control.

You can't outlaw cancer or heart disease. As for obesity, try to phrase a law against fast food or junk food that wouldn't also illegalize healthy foods. The problem of obesity isn't what kind of food anyway, it's how much food and how much exercise.

And you can't design a law to make "exercise" mandatory either. What constitutes exercise? Exactly how much is required per person? What about the handicapped?

We're talking about reasonably preventable deaths here. Everybody dies of something eventually, but guns are indiscriminate in taking the young, the old, the healthy, and the sick. As you yourself have pointed out, they tend to favor taking the young, which is actually a bad thing, not a good thing.

Y'see, nobody has whipped cancer or heart disease or automobile accidents or any of the rest of that. But many enlightened nations have strict gun control laws and have homicide rates that are a small fraction of ours.

Now if you have a cure for cancer in your back pocket, let's have it. Otherwise, cancer statistics have got exactly zero to do with guns.

[LibraLabSoldier]

31. And taking guns away from law abiding gun owners

Does nothing to reduce criminal activity. Most guns acquired for criminal activities are not bought through the regular channels. Do us a favor, and stop trying to control everyone elses lives.


You know why gun control is so popular? It is so much easier to take guns out of the hands of law abiding people, than it is to go out and get the scary criminals.

[MrBenchley]

33. And clearly we Democrats are just rounding those guns up....

"Do us a favor, and stop trying to control everyone elses lives."
Especially those who keep loaded shotguns where small children can grab them....

"You know why gun control is so popular?"
Because most people aren't paranoid imbeciles too dumb to see through obvious lies by some of the scummiest public figures around?

[LibraLabSoldier]

45. Thanks for the name calling.

Here are two words for you . One is really long, and the other not so long.

Supercillious

Asshole.

[MrBenchley]

50. Yeah, the two words fit you perfectly.

[library_max]

36. Where do those guns come from, then? Thin air?

Where do you think criminals get their guns? They buy them or they steal them. If they buy them, they do it legally (because they haven't been convicted of anything yet) or illegally from someone else who bought them legally. Or they steal them from someone who bought them legally. There is no source of guns for criminals if there is no source of guns for law abiding people. Criminals aren't magicians.

And once again, many enlightened nations have had great success with gun controls, so there's no point is pretending that they don't work.

[slackmaster]

38. I'm afraid I'm going to have to call you on this one max

And once again, many enlightened nations have had great success with gun controls...

Please define "success" and cite evidence to show what kind of gun control implementation produced it where and when.

[library_max]

40. England and Australia have less than one third our murder rate per capita.

And they have strict gun controls. Do I need to look up a bunch more? Because they do exist.

[slackmaster]

41. That doesn't prove anything

What kinds of controls were implemented at what times?

What were the murder rates before those changes in the laws?

Give me deltas, dammit.

[library_max]

42. Deltas?

The laws evolved, as laws do. There wasn't a sudden overnight switch from gunzapalooza to tight gun controls. So you're not going to see a neat cutoff period in which stats changed from night to day.

See, that's the problem with trying to apply the standards of scientific proof to social problems. You can't conduct controlled experiments on entire nations. You can't control the variables.

But the UK and Australia and Canada are the three nations most like ours culturally. All of them have tighter gun laws than we have and all have less than a third of our homicide rate. There is nothing in our society that isn't in theirs as well - unequal division of wealth, laws controlling narcotics, history of violence, urban metropoli, they've got the same as we have. But they've got gun controls and they've got much less homicide.

[slackmaster]

43. This doesn't have to be all that difficult

See, that's the problem with trying to apply the standards of scientific proof to social problems. You can't conduct controlled experiments on entire nations. You can't control the variables.

You don't have to control the variables. All you need to do is dig up gross statistics or infer them from other available information if necessary.

What was England's murder rate before 1920? That year marks the first implementation of strong gun control in England. Before 1903 there were no gun controls whatsoever there. Starting in 1903 one needed a license, easy to obtain, to carry (not to own) a gun.

Was there ever a time in the last 500 years when England had a murder rate anthing close to what the USA has today?

How does our rate of NON-gun murders compare with the non-gun murder rates of England, Australia, and Canada?

Some of that information is available on the Net but I haven't found any more than bibliographies for English crime rates before the mid 20th century, e.g. http://www.earlymodernweb.org.uk/embiblios/emcrimebib.htm and http://www.victorianweb.org/history/hader2.html

Being in a library you have a leg up on me. I'd appreciate any light you can shed on this.

[library_max]

44. Non-gun murders per 100,000 persons.

US, 1.98. England and Wales, 1.3. Australia, 1.42. Canada, 1.4.

So although their rates are lower than ours, the ratios are much closer than the firearm murder figures. England and Wales have 65% as many non-gun murders and 25% as many murders altogether. Australia has 72% as many non-gun murders and 33% as many murders altogether. Canada has 71% as many non-gun murders and 33% as many murders altogether.

Judging by those figures, even if we could not get all the way down to their murder figures by enacting comparable gun controls, we ought at least to be able to cut the number of murders in half.

[LibraLabSoldier]

46. Well, gee mister

Come get my guns before they are stolen or I give them to someone to commit a crime. Feel free to move to a gated community or a safer country. I will help you pack.

[library_max]

47. Who are you, and what have you done with that guy

who was so determined to have a civil and intelligent discussion about gun controls? You have become your side's MrBenchley, except that he does frequently post relevant facts and articles.

[MrBenchley]

51. Hey, Max...

I do leave a non-loaded non-gun where children could reach it, but I'm not proud of it....

[slackmaster]

48. Your figure for the US is way off

WISQARS gives the non-gun homicide rate for the US as 3.14 per 100,000 for the year 2001.

See http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html, choose the Homicide and Non-gun radio buttons; defaults for all other options.

Assuming your figures for England and Wales, Australia, and Canada are correct that makes the US non-gun murder rate more than twice the non-gun murder rate for those countries; and (making a safe assumption due to the low rate of gun murders in all three) substantially higher than the TOTAL murder rate for those countries.

Judging by those figures, even if we could not get all the way down to their murder figures by enacting comparable gun controls, we ought at least to be able to cut the number of murders in half.

Please show your work, cite sources for your figures, and list any assumptions e.g. what percentage of people who would like to shoot someone would substitute another weapon given the unavailability of a gun.

I see the figures as indicative that we have a problem with violent crime in our society. Guns in the wrong hands exacerbate the problem. The Gun Control Act of 1968 IMO correctly identifies people who should not have them. I say efforts at gun control should focus on making that law work rather than revoking the rights of people who don't contribute to the problem.

[library_max]

53. Here's the link to the site I used.

I ignored the spin and just looked at the table. I think you'll see why.

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvinco.html

If you try to take statistics on different countries from different sites, you're likely to wind up with apples-and-oranges comparisons.

Show my work? Okay. Take Australia. Australia's non-firearm murder rate is 72% of ours. That means that they have 28% fewer non-firearm murders per capita than we do, and we have 39% more non-firearm murders per capita than they do. That math you can do on any calculator. Now adopting their firearm laws shouldn't change the non-firearm murders, only the firearm murders. Our overall murder stats would be 39% higher, just as our non-firearm murder stats are now. Less than half, see?

If you want to assert that people who kill with firearms would necessarily kill just as many people without them, that's your assertion, and the burden of proof would be yours, not mine.

And for the bazillionth time, there is no way to tell prior to sale whether a gun buyer is careless, stupid, an undiagnosed loony, or an unconvicted criminal. It's dumb to wait until the horse is gone (chalk outlines on pavement) before you lock the barn door.

[slackmaster]

57. I question your core assumption

i.e. Now adopting their firearm laws shouldn't change the non-firearm murders, only the firearm murders.

If (and I acknowledge it's a big unknown) some people who have decided to commit a murder and would have used a gun but were unable to get one, substitute a different weapon, the change in firearm laws would indeed affect the non-firearm murder rate.

Australia's murder rate has been dropping steadily since 1998 but so have rates of all other kinds of crime.

http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/ABS@.nsf/b06660592430724fca2568b5007b8619/76c8926bd8a12e1fca2568a9001393f2!OpenDocument

[library_max]

58. I repeat.

If you wish to assert that people who commit murders with guns would, if guns were unavailable, commit the same murders with other weapons, that would be your assertion. The burden of proof would be on you.

Crime rates have been dropping in the US, too, owing to the aging of the population. Probably something like that is happening in Australia. None of which alters the fact that Australia has a murder rate that is less than a third of ours.

[slackmaster]

59. Australia's murder rate has been lower than the US rate for a long time

(on edit - Couldn't get the graphic to work, please scroll about halfway through document linked below)

A lot longer than they've had strict gun control. Clearly something other than gun control must be responsible for a share of the difference.

Homicide rates for the period 1915 to 2000 have fluctuated, often substantially from one year to the next, but overall within a relatively small range, i.e. between extreme lows and highs of 0.8 and 2.4 homicides per 100,000 persons per annum
(see graph below). Despite the annual fluctuations and some decades of relative stability, there were some longer periods over which the rates tended to rise and fall. Broadly described, these include a decline in the rates after the 1920s, down to lows recorded during the 1940s - around the time of World War II. After that, there was a long term upward trend which reached a peak of 2.4 homicides per 100,000 persons in 1988. After falling back to 1.8 homicides per 100,000 persons in 1992 the annual rates though the 1990s have fallen slightly further. In 2000 there were 313 homicides recorded in the cause of death statistics: 1.6 homicides per 100,000 persons. Similar data compiled from police records since 1993 indicate little change through the 1990s.

Source: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/94713ad445ff1425ca25682000192af2/24d4f763d69b9c0eca256bdc00122407!OpenDocument

And I think it's not at all clear that gun control in the US has had any effect on long-term homicide rates. Here's some data that goes back to 1950:

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/totalstab.htm

Until 1968 anyone could buy a gun by mail order with no questions asked. So why the rather sudden increase to then-unprecedented levels in the early 1970s? There was no real change in gun technology at that time; guns available today are pretty much the same as they were 40+ years ago.

[MrBenchley]

60. "why the rather sudden increase to then-unprecedented levels"

When did the gun industry start turning out "Saturday Night Specials?" When did the "Ring of Fire" manufacturers start flooding the market? Oh, yeah, since the 1970s....

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/guns/ring/companies.html

[slackmaster]

52. Let me reiterate one question here

What was the murder rate in England (or England and Wales) before there was any real gun control there? For example, in 1920 or 1900.

:shrug:

[library_max]

54. I can't find them either.

But the relevance would be highly questionable even if you or I did find those figures. Because firearms have evolved drastically since 1900 or even 1920. Also, America was hardly the same country before World War II that it is now. 1900 is practically frontier days. I will concede that people used to need guns back in the days when hunting for food was necessary in the winter and early spring and when predatory animals were a common problem in many states and territories.

[slackmaster]

55. England was just about as developed in 1900 as it is today

I doubt there were very many subsistence hunters in England at the time, certainly not in the cities.

But the relevance would be highly questionable even if you or I did find those figures. Because firearms have evolved drastically since 1900 or even 1920.

By 1920 the types of guns most commonly used in crimes - Concealable semiautomatic handguns and revolvers - were widely available. Improvements in metallurgy have made them a little stronger, but among handguns the caliber most commonly used in crime is the .22 Long Rifle.

My question remains open for anyone who can shed light on the issue: What was the murder rate in England in 1920? If the country was experiencing a wave of violent crime then it might suggest that gun control contributed to the present low rate of murders.

:shrug:

[library_max]

56. The fact that England was developed beyond subsistence hunting

is kind of my point - comparing England in 1900 to the US in 1900 would be invalid. They're much more alike now.

I did read somewhere that the total murder rate in England dropped 25% between 1920 and 1921, but I can't find it now. Also, the overall murder rate was about half what it is now, but again there's a world of difference between 1920 and modern times no matter where you are.