Michael Moore

[bucknutz30]

Not that I agree with Moore or anything, but...
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_mur_cap

The US still does have a higher murder rate per capita than any of those other countries.

[rdp]

Are we looking at murder rate???
gun related murders??
or homicides with guns?? (which is broad to include all LE shootings and lawful uses of guns)

Stats are numbers............anyone can play with them to get whatever result they want......Just the way HCI (or their name of the week) considers child gun deaths up to the age of 19 on some days and up to 21 on the others. They also include all the ones killed lawfully by the police or citizens. They also lump in suicides.

[mdaley]

There are two reasons Moore may be reluctant to talk numbers rather than rates or probabilities.

First, the other countries he compares have a smaller (sometimes a much smaller) population) than the US. The US has a population of about 285 million: Canada about 31 million, Australia 19 million, Germany 81 million. For example, in 2000-2001 Australia reported 381 homicides among its 19 million people. If we were to apply its rate to the US population, that'd work out to 5,715 murders. (The above source puts a peculiar spin on this data, by the way. Although reporting a massive 20% jump in murders, and a 100% increase in intra-family killings, it is headlined that "In 2001-2002 there was a 25 per cent decrease in the use of firearms to commit homicide." Great: what it really means is that gun homicides fell slightly, but were more than offset by increases in all other means of murder. The above figure of 381 is, by the way, total homicides rather than gun homicides.... it's of no benefit to get killed with a knife or club, either.)

Second, the minute you get into rates it starts to become apparent that gun homicides are a very low probability event wherever you are. Phrased otherwise, the odds are enormously in favor of you or I dying of heart attack, stroke, or cancer, no matter what country we live in.

Here's the 1999 Center for Disease Control statistics (which is what Bowling uses) for the US:

Deaths from heart attack &

other cardiovascular failure: ........ 892,558

Deaths from cancer: ................... 549,838

Deaths from flu & pneumonia: .... 67,730

Deaths from kidney failure: ......... 35,525

Deaths from diabetes: .................. 68,399

Deaths from alcohol ingestion .....19,171

Deaths from gun homicides: ....... 10,217 (includes self-defense and police killings of criminals)

Deaths from gun accidents .............. 824 (not a typo)

Of the 2.39 million US deaths that year, gun homicides comprised 0.4%.And of course that probability can be sizeably reduced by a few lifestyle changes. E.g., don't deal crack. Gun accidents comprised three one-hundreds of one percent.

But you can't make much of a documentary around a theme of "The US has an enormous problem -- almost one-sixth as likely to kill you as the flu, and one-ninetieth as likely as heart failure."

[yahcanmicrowave]

Very insightful posting MDaley.

I agree with your assessment of "don't deal crack". I think they should automatically discount all gangbang verses gangbanger killings and all killings in which one drug dealer kills another. You knew the risk and you lost when you engage in these types of activities.

Statistics are an evil beast. You can manipulate them to justify any point of view you wish.

[canuckofapeach]

Originally posted by yahcanmicrowave


Statistics are an evil beast. You can manipulate them to justify any point of view you wish.

So true. The team of journalists who wrote an intrepid :rolleyes: series on racial profiling within our (police) force for Toronto's uber Liberal newspaper, are grateful for mathmatical manipulation ...

[bucknutz30]

Mdaley, while not trying to sound too much like a college prof, be careful about copying and pasting things without giving any kind of credit.

http://www.hardylaw.net/rates.html

[bucknutz30]

Originally posted by rdp
Are we looking at murder rate???
gun related murders??
or homicides with guns?? (which is broad to include all LE shootings and lawful uses of guns)

Go to that site I posted and you can choose what crime you want to view with the "with statistic" bar. For an interesting stat, look at rapes per capita and check out #'s 3 and 5. Also interestingly, when you look at the total crimes per capita, the US is below New Zealand, Finland, Denmark, and the UK. Good statistic to have handy when people talk about how crime-ridden the US is.

[mdaley]

oops, I thought I put the address in there as a link, but I guess not :(

[bucknutz30]

Originally posted by mdaley
oops, I thought I put the address in there as a link, but I guess not :(

No harm, no foul. Just pointing it out. I've read over that site so many times, I have practically the whole thing memorized. Very useful when I talk to any Micheal Moore supporters. :D

[mdaley]

The best part is sending Hardy's site as a link via e-mail to people who are intrigued about why I dislike Moore so much. They read it and almost always it changes their minds!