Youre aware that the rest of the planet have stricter gun laws and the American problems are fairly unique?

This is even after controlling for things that exacerbate crime like high economic inequality.

For instance, Brazil [1] (a much poorer and more unequal country than the USA) has lower murder rate than a lot of cities now than the USA. The murder rate of Rio seems to be about on the level of Houston (17/100k), or about a third of Detroit (47).

But Rio clearly has __a lot more crime__ than Houston. It's palpable when you're in either city. Even with the Favelas and heavily armed gangs, the murder rate is comparatively low because *normal people dont have guns at nearly the same rate*.

And it shouldn't take a leap of faith to figure out that higher gun ownership leads to more deaths. Guns are the one tool we have intentionally made to cause death.

1. I'm aware that Brazil has a higher murder rate, but comparing cities is a better pick. The northeast of Brazil is in another league than anywhere in the USA in economic conditions; it's not comparable. The only city I can think of with USA levels of economic development would be Florianopolis (murder rate 7/100k) or maybe Balneario Camboriu, or some parts of Sao Paulo like Vila Olimpia.

▲

mothballed 8 hours ago | parent [-]

[flagged]

▲

VHRanger 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Ah, some egregious misuse of statistics!

Murder is a byproduct of crime. Crime is, largely, downstream of economic conditions with some obvious caveats.

New Hampshire has the 2nd lowest crime rate of the USA states. You could make the same argument for, say, Switzerland (high gun ownership but no crime/murder). But no one would be surprised if you had high gun ownership in Monaco.

Similarly for the ethnic argument you're trying to make: Majority black neighbourhoods in the USA tend to be poor. They also tend to be near more affluent places. Unlike poor white neighbourhoods, which are on average more rural in the USA.

Being poor, and being next to rich people, and being excluded from legal increases of becoming rich, will increase crime.

This should be obvious. Brazil has famously Favelas right next to wealthy areas and has a persistent crime problem for example.

---

In short, it's really incredible how far some Americans will go to deny the obvious truth: *gun prevalence increases deadly crime*.

Sure, some cultural factors will increase crime/violence on the margin. But the reason y'all have a bunch of shootings is that you have a bunch of guns to do shootings with. That simple.

	▲	fc417fc802 17 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I don't think it's good to hold a misunderstand of the statistics against someone when (as in this case) they're so easy to read in a certain way. > the reason y'all have a bunch of shootings is that you have a bunch of guns to do shootings with Yet by your own admission poverty and inequality appear to account for the bulk of the effect. Actually I think you'll find that plenty of Americans will acknowledge the link you point out. Just not in a politically charged exchange where the other party appears to have an ideological axe to grind. Where they'll likely disagree is the extent or significance of it. In many cases they will object that rights should never be curtailed for the purpose of lowering petty crime (I tend to agree). I think it's also worth mentioning the statistic that legal gun owners (which is a wildly low bar in the US) have a lower rate of violent offense than the police.
	▲	mothballed 36 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Ah it seems you finally understand the point. Blaming the skin pigment is as silly as blaming the gun. Murder rates in US have very little to do with gun law, and they have very little to do with skin color, even though they're heavily correlated to the latter and weakly correlated to the former.

▲

Hikikomori 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

A map over poor people would likely look the same.

	▲	mothballed 30 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Which shows how ridiculous it is to assign that as the cause, doesn't it? It's almost as if pointing to a lot of guns or black people in one spot doesn't show that's why murders are happening, only allows you to tie statistical correlation.