Firearm Homicides Dropping. Assault Weapons Ban Not Correlated With Decrease In Homicides.

William M. Briggs - Statistician to the Stars ^ | 16 January 2013 | W. M. Briggs

[Tirian]

Murder in the United States1 is illegal, and has been for over two hundred years. Strong penalties, up to and including the penalty of death, are incurred by those who commit this heinous crime.

Yet, strangely, despite murder’s high illegality, there were in 2011 over 12,000 of them committed! The largest number of murders were in 1991, with nearly 25,000 of these frowned-upon unlawful incidents.

It is difficult to imagine a penalty more severe than death, so it remains a curiosity that so many murderers are found when such strong laws are in place. Perhaps this scourge can be eliminated by even tougher laws?, say death by torture? Or maybe by creating Executive Orders bypassing the hindrance of Congress and Constitutional safeguards? We must protect the children!

But never mind. Let’s instead look at the number of murders and what devices were used in their commission.

[Tirian]

Thus begins an interesting look at numbers - very well explained and presented graphically - and some surprising conclusions. Highly recommended read

[Fee]

Reader Digest had a good snapshot of US in 1910. 20 percent of Americans cannot read, only 6 percent graduated from High School. Most were poor farmers and factory workers. No gun regs, you can own a machinegun if you can afford one. Total murder for the year in the entire US was about 230. I use this stat to challenge young people to figure out how in 1910 we had less in terms of wealth and education but we had very little murder compared to our advanced, better educated, materially better off present. Maybe it is not the gun, but our culture.

[New Jersey Realist]

Penalty of death? What a joke! How many criminals are executed each year?