Is this a better way to look at "The Gun Problem"?

2015-11-01T13:21:19-05:00

From fivethirtyeight.com

Murder Rates Don’t Tell Us Everything About Gun Violence

In the middle of a Tuesday afternoon last December, a shootout erupted at a busy intersection in the Mid-City neighborhood of New Orleans. Nearly 50 rounds were fired, riddling several cars with bullets, yet only one person was hit; the man sustained a leg injury that was not life-threatening.

A year and a half before, in September 2013, an all too similar gunfight took place around midnight in the city’s Carrollton neighborhood. This time, a bullet pierced a nearby home, striking and killing an 11-year-old girl.

These two unrelated cases in one of the country’s worst cities for gun violence can help us understand why murder statistics alone are a bad metric for measuring gun violence trends. Both featured groups of gunmen firing wildly in the vicinity of innocent bystanders, but only one ended in a tragedy receiving extended public attention. So even though 90 percent of New Orleans murders are committed with a gun, looking at total shooting incidents tells us more — by focusing attention on all the gun violence in a city, in addition to those shootings that end in a fatality.1 The open data movement is making it possible to evaluate thousands of shooting incidents and develop analytic insights into gun violence’s big picture. These conclusions in turn can help us evaluate the effectiveness of programs seeking to reduce gun violence.

Any shooting can become a tragedy for the victims and their families, but my analysis of thousands of incidents in two cities over several years suggests that whether an individual shooting ends in a fatality is largely random. There can be a number of factors — the distance between shooter and victim, the number of bullets fired, the shooter’s age and experience with a firearm, the amount of daylight/moonlight, etc. — that influence whether a shooting incident is fatal or not. This randomness can be the difference between a rain of bullets hitting one person in the leg or killing a young girl in her bed.

EDITORIAL COMMENT:- Although it seems obvious to anyone in the military, the civilians don't seem to get the connections between "number of rounds down range", "weapons user's proficiency", and "casualties. You could cut the number of incidents in half while doubling the shooters' accuracy and the number of casualties would remain constant. In fact, if you could raise the shooters' accuracy to 100% you would cut the number of incidents down by at least 90% (maybe even as high as 99%). The "murder rate" would remain constant but the streets would be one hell of a lot safer. So maybe the "solution" is mandatory marksmanship training for drug dealers.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/murder-rates-dont-tell-us-everything-about-gun-violence/

Murder Rates Don’t Tell Us Everything About Gun Violence

In the middle of a Tuesday afternoon last December, a shootout erupted at a busy intersection in the Mid-City neighborhood of New Orleans. Nearly 50 rounds were fired, riddling several cars with bu…

Response by Capt Seid Waddell made Nov 1 at 2015 2:30 PM

2015-11-01T14:30:32-05:00

The problem is more one of gangs than of guns themselves. Diverting the attention from the criminal mind to the tool he/she uses is the first mistake that will lead us away from effective solutions to the problem.

Response by CPT Jack Durish made Nov 1 at 2015 5:12 PM

2015-11-01T17:12:02-05:00

I have shocked family and friends on more than one occasion by suggesting that we should provide weapons training to gang members. Your analysis of the poor hit ratio tends to support my theory. Wouldn't fewer innocent bystanders be hurt if gangsters delivered ordnance more effectively on target? Wouldn't crime be better suppressed if gangsters killed one another with greater efficiency thus reducing their numbers? Seems reasonable to me, but there's more to the story.

The real problem that such weapons training would not address is that gangsters are fundamentally stupid, ineducable, untrainable. If they were smarter and had some gumption they most likely would be better citizens, better educated, and gainfully employed. Yes, they think they're clever, but act with stone age mentality. Thus, until we either find a way to instill people with courage and raise their IQs or, alternately, begin euthanizing the cretins, we're going to have this problem.

Oh, and those who propose to solve the problem by controlling guns or seizing them, are about as clever as the criminals and just as gutless...

Response by SSgt Alex Robinson made Nov 1 at 2015 5:40 PM

2015-11-01T17:40:27-05:00

Good post

Response by Cpl Private RallyPoint Member made Nov 1 at 2015 7:42 PM

2015-11-01T19:42:20-05:00

I see a fallacy. Training a drug dealer? if you are that close to the drug dealer, why isn't the dealer in cuffs? If the drug dealer isn't on the streets, the rounds aren't going down range.

Response by PO1 John Miller made Nov 1 at 2015 10:54 PM

2015-11-01T22:54:39-05:00

One thing this article fails to take into account is, how many of these murders were committed with illegally obtained guns?

Response by CPO Bill Canada made Jun 24 at 2016 5:54 PM

2016-06-24T17:54:18-04:00

I figure that if you killed off the drug dealers and bang banger idiots you would likely eliminate about 99.99% of the gun violence casualties. Locking them up does not work as the country practices catch and release. Being arrested is considered a badge of honor so it deters nothing. Harsh? You bet it is, but very effective and you do not get repeat offenders or overpopulate the jails and court system.