When the subject is gun control, those who demand more for the United States always point to Europe. Europe, they say, has more gun control than the United States, and lower murder rates. Europe, of course, is a diverse place. Some places have lots of guns and low murder rates. Some places have few guns and higher murder rates. The reason that many developed European countries have murder rates much lower than the United States is not guns or gun control. It is demographics.
In 2006 the Department of Justice issued a report on violent felons in large urban counties. It covered the period from 1990 to 2002, and included the 75 most populous counties in the United States. The study accounted for over half of all the murders in the United States in the covered period.
Revealed in the study was a simple breakdown of the demographics of the murderers that is not commonly available. Murderers were divided into three groups. Blacks were the most numerous at 46%. Hispanics were next at 27 percent. Non-Hispanic whites were last at 23 percent.
While the study does not account for all murders in the period studied, it accounts for more than half and almost certainly slightly understates the percentages of Black murderers, because the latest FBI statistics (for 2010) show that when all the murders in the U.S are taken into account, the percentage of Black murderers is over 53 percent.
No one would dispute that there are several distinct cultures among the American black population. No one would dispute that none of these cultures exist in Europe in any statistically significant numbers. Some of the Black American subcultures probably have very low murder rates. We cannot tell because we do not have the data to distinguish between them.
Similarly, there are a number of distinct Hispanic cultures in the United States. These are all derived from cultures in Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. They are not Spanish or Portuguese. No one would argue that any statistical number of these populations exist in Europe. No doubt, some of these cultures also have very low murder rates, but without data, we cannot separate them out.
Where does that lead us? If we take the 23 percent figure for non-Hispanic whites to be representative for the entire population (remember, it is likely a good bit lower), then the number of murders committed by non-Hispanic and non-black people in the United States for 2010 would be 2989.
The population of non-Hispanic whites for 2010 was 196.8 million. Applying the 2989 murders to this population gives a murder rate of 1.52 per 100,000 population. We cannot get a more precise figure unless we have more demographic data than that given. Asian-Americans, for example, have historically had very low murder rates, but we do not have the data. The 1.52 per 100,000 murder rate is right in the middle of the murder rate of developed European countries. Add the Black and Hispanic numbers back into the mix and apply to the entire United States population, and the murder rate goes up to 4.2 per 100,000. Guns or gun control simply do not correlate to higher murder rates, particularly when you consider that non-Hispanic Whites own guns at much higher rates than do Blacks or Hispanics in the United States.
There are huge numbers of German-Americans, English-Americans, Greek-Americans, Italian-Americans, Scandinavian and Swiss-Americans in the United States. There are no statistically significant numbers of African-American or Hispanic-Americans in Europe.
As a check, you might consider a non-European example. Japan has extreme gun control and extremely low murder rates. The FBI used to track murders by Japanese-Americans before 1980, when access to firearms was relatively easy.
The murder rate of Japanese Americans was less than half that of Japanese in Japan.
Murder rates are driven by cultural background, not by the instrument used.
European murder and gun ownership rates: Link
Department of Justice Study with demographic data: Link
FBI homicide statistics, 2010: Link
Japanese and Japanese American murder rates: Link
Household Gun Ownership Rates: Link
"In 2010, the homicide rate for black male teens was 51.7 per 100,000, more than 22 times higher than the rate for white male teens (2.4 per 100,000). Rates for other groups were 17.9 per 100,000 for Hispanic males, 11.9 per 100,000 for American Indian males, and 3.2* per 100,000 for Asian and Pacific Islander males. (Figure 3)"
Update: Here is a chart showing murder rates during the Middle Ages in Europe. Murder rates then were close to what is seen in African American cultures in the United States today, indicating that it is a cultural, not a racial relationship.
Link: Homicide Rates Before Guns?
Dean Weingarten
©2013 by Dean Weingarten Permission to share granted as long as this notice is included.
13 comments:
A study by the late psychologist Arthur Jensen demonstrated that nearly all violent crime is committed by persons with IQs between 70 and 90, regardless of ethnicity.
Ethnic groups with low IQs tend to commit more violent crimes.
A retired police officer talked to me about the article. He said "Any police officer could have told you that. We all know it, but we are not allowed to say it. We would be called racist and would be risking our job."
I disagree with the conclusion, Murder rates are driven by cultural background, not by the instrument used. Culture cannot explain black murder rates. Blacks have been living in the same culture with whites in North America and in England. Yet black violent crime rates are always at least 10 times the white rate. Black crime is much more "nature" than "nurture".
"Ethnic groups with low IQs tend to commit more violent crimes"...low IQs cross all ethnic lines so please explain why it would be called racist...unless of course one ethnic group would be singled out, then yes it would be racist
The vast majority of black crime is in very small areas in urban ghettos, with virtually no white people. The culture there has devolved into default mode, tribalism, now called "gangs". Anyone in the gang deserves some consideration, all outside of it are "the enemy" and are simply prey to be used.
Remove Judeo/Christian morality, remove the family stucture, remove economic incentives for good behaviour, this is what you get.
Guns don't kill people. Brown people do.
As far as I remember, the school mass murders in the U.S. were all committed by white males ...
Interesting study. But I fear that the comparison isn't valid with respect to other developed countries because they too have their own minorities and demographics that commit more crimes on average. For instance, Canada has a large native minority as well as their own hispanic, black, south asian, etc. communities. UK also has a large number of blacks and south asians. Switzerland takes in many Balkan immigrants. And so on.
@joe_g - Most American Blacks have little to do culturally with American Whites. Culture is definitively a key driver.
While Canada doesn't keep tabs on crime by race, they do have data on proportion of offenders. Blacks make up 2.5% of the Canadian population while their share of homicide offenses is 3.1% (5.5% for all crimes). This is only 20% above the average, while in the USA the black murder rate is 400-500% higher than the average. Obviously, the intrinsic skin color of the individual doesn't explain his likelihood of committing a crime.
Ethnicity disappears when you take in account marital status of the mother, Young males without a father in the home is the problem.
That would be interesting to see a study on. If fits with my suggestion that the high murder rates come from young males devolving to "tribal" culture in gangs.
This seems much more likely without a stable father in the family.
Anonymous: "As far as I remember, the school mass murders in the U.S. were all committed by white males …"
So what's your point? School mass murders are a TINY subset of the murder and violent crime total.
You can cherry-pick any special subset of crime you like to get the results you want. It's like arguing that the Chinese are responsible for the vast majority of female infanticide. Equally true, yet equally irrelevant.
If you don't believe there is truth in this article, visit here and play with the maps yourself:
http://www.gunlaws.com/GunshotDemographics.htm
Ironically, what isn't irrelevant about your observation is that the government and the media go ballistic only when cute white kids get killed. Black kids killing black kids for the past 40 years, oh well, ho hum.
Even though the black community represents 13% of the total population they make up over half of the murder victims in 2010 and 2011.
How did gun control affect each racial group in the US differently?
Could this be better understood looking at the W2 income of the victim?
White median net worth ($113,149) in the US is 22 times that of Black median net worth ($6,325) in 2010.
United States non-black population & non-black murders
Year/Rate/Population/Homicides
2011 / 2.27 / 272 million / 6,194
2010 / 2.41 / 270 million / 6,529
United States total population & total murders
Year/Rate/Population/Homicides
2011 / 4.06 / 311 million / 12,664
2010 / 4.26 / 308 million / 13,164
It is likely that cultures with low impulse control and lack of concern for future consequences would show a negative correlation to net worth and a positive correlation to murder rates.
It is reasonable that high murder rates and low net worth are both driven by the same causative factors independent of race.
Post a Comment