Violence in the US

Is the US more violent than other developed countries? Here are assault deaths per 100,000 in the US (blue) and in other OECD countries excluding Estonia and Mexico (red) from 1960 through 2010 ...

(To enlarge the chart, click on it. To return, click outside the enlarged chart.)

On the whole, US violence is comparable to that in 16th and 17th century Europe. What parts of the US are most violent? From 1998 through 2010, the South, by a longshot ...

How do US regions compare with those OECD countries?

http://www.kieranhealy.org/files/misc/assault-deaths-oecd-vs-us-regions.png

How about the "race" of the victim?

http://www.kieranhealy.org/files/misc/assault-deaths-us-ts-race.png

What's the relationship with wealth and poverty? Not so strong ...

Do states that control gun ownership have less gun violence? On the whole yes ...

What are the biggest positive correlates of high gun death rates in US states? McCain's vote share in 2008, high poverty rates, a big working class, guns allowed in high schools ...

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/richard_florida/Gun%20ViolenceEDIT.jpg

What are the biggest negative correlates? The proportion of college graduates, Obama's vote share in 2008, and gun control legislation.

Gun advocates are wrong

They say more will guns protect us from homicide.

If more guns protected us from homicide, states and countries with more gun ownership and less gun control would have lower gun homicide rates.

The opposite is the case. Harvard studies found that even when you control for poverty, urbanisation and age, there is more gun homicide where there is more gun ownership. 

There are more gun homicides and overall homicides in US states with more gun ownership. That holds for men and women and all age groups, after accounting for rates of aggravated assault, robbery, unemployment, urbanisation, alcohol consumption, and poverty. 

Similar findings hold for high-income countries across the world.

Contrary to claims by gun advocates, Israel is not an example of a country where high gun ownership reduces gun homicide. The US has about 89 guns per 100 people. Israel has about 7 guns per 100 people. Israel severely limits who can own a gun. 

Neither is Switzerland. It has about half as many guns per capita as the US. Everyone serves in the army, and cantons used to let people keep guns at home, but they're moving these guns to depots.

None of this is secret knowledge ...

1. Hepburn L, Hemenway D, Firearm availability and homicide: A review of the literature. Aggression and Violent Behavior: A Review Journal. 2004; 9:417-40. 

2. Miller M, Azrael D, Hemenway D, Household firearm ownership levels and homicide rates across U.S. regions and states, 1988-1997. American Journal of Public Health. 2002: 92:1988-1993

3. Miller, M, Azrael D, Hemenway D, State-level homicide victimization rates in the U.S. in relation to survey measures of household firearm ownership, 2001-2003. Social Science and Medicine. 2007; 64:656-64.

4. Hemenway D, Miller M, Firearm availability and homicide rates across 26 high income countries. Journal of Trauma. 2000; 49:985-88.

5. Florida R, The geography of gun deaths, http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/01/the-geography-of-gun-deaths/69354/

Save the children. From our guns.

There are 2 to 100 times more gun murders and suicides per capita in the US than in other developed countries. 

You could argue that if US adults are crazy enough to elect politicians who are in the pocket of the gun lobby, if they're crazy enough to elect them over and over again, maybe they deserve their bloody fates.

But a child living in the US is 42 times more likely to die from gun violence than a child living in other developed countries.

Nobody has the right to do that to children.

Starting with the Appeaser-in-Chief, US politicians and pundits have already resumed the chant, "Now is not the time to debate gun control". 

This is exactly the time. 

Eliot Spitzer said it best:

There's the old line, now is not the time to talk politics. Let's be clear. Silence is politics. Silence is cowardice. Silence is acquiescence. Silence is what the NRA wants. Those who are silent should be thrown out of politics ... If you are silent, you are a coward. 

The biggest terrorist menace in the US is the NRA. Now isn't the time to be a coward.

P.S. To get a little closer to the 20 kids and six teachers killed at Sandy Hook, goto http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/15/connecticut-shooting-victims_n_2308463.html and scroll down to the slideshow.