Seth wrote:Hermit wrote:Seth wrote:All you've shown is that the rate of certain categories of crime were higher per 100,000 in 1962 than they were in 2012. But then again there were far fewer people in the US in 1962. [...] Your statistics lie.
WTF? Which part of "per 100,000" don't you understand?
Which part of "two data points does not accurately reflect the trend line. I said "in the last 40 years or so," I didn't say "in 2012 the X crime rate was lower than the X crime rate in 1962."
Over the last 40 years or so the crime rate has gone up and down, and from it's most recent peak it has been steadily, although perhaps not perfectlh linearly declining despite the burgeoning supply of guns in the US. That is incontrovertible. More guns, less crime. Even if the rates did not change, it's not more guns MORE crime, therefore reducing the number of guns in the hands of law abiding citizens has no identifiable effect on the general crime rates, as the Australian government itself admits in response to their gun ban.
You lose.
Let me explain the concept of "per 100,000" to you. Let's use murder as an example. The Uniform Crime reporting system says there were murder convictions 8,530 in 1962, and 14,827 in 2012. I did not quote them. Why? Those figures are totally misleading because they do not take population growth, which went from 185,771,000 in 1962 to 313,914,040 in 2012, into account. Murder rates
per 100,000 of population, however, do exactly that. In 1962 there were 4.6 murder convictions
per 100,000 population. In 2012 there were 4.7 murder convictions
per 100,000 population. The ratio
per 100,000 population is therefore comparing apples with apples. In case of murder the increase is relatively small. In the other classifications it is rather larger.
Be it as it may, your assertion that in the last 40 years or so the number of guns in US society has exploded, which resulted in the drop of murder, violent crime and certain categories of property crimes. I have provided Uniform Crime Report statistics demonstrating that even after adjusting for population growth, this is not the case. It does not matter how much the population has grown. Aggravated assault convictions of 88.6 for every 100,000 of population, no matter what the total population is at the time is still a lot more crime than 242.3 for every 100,000 of population, again no matter what the total population is at the time.
In short, your assertion that the explosion of the number of guns in the last 40 years or so resulted in the drop of murder, violent crime and certain categories of property crimes, is contradicted by Uniform Crime Reports. After 40 years or so of the explosion of the number of guns crime rates are higher than 50 years ago.
