More Guns (In The Hands Of The Law Abiding) And Fewer Liberals = Less Crime

After every mass-shooting incident, both sides in the Second Amendment debate sound off.  The left believes “commonsense gun control” leads to less crime.  The right believes “more guns equals less crime”.

Both sides tend to leave it at the level of chanting points, without ever really submitting evidence, much less proving anything [1].

So I thought I’d give it a shot.  What brings more “gun safety” – more guns, or less?

Definition Of Terms:  To start with, I took crime data from the states and the the 70 or so largest US cities – places with over 250,000 people.

For lack of a better measure, I used each state’s governor s the bellwether of the city’s political makeup – which may not be academically perfect, but as a practical matter it’s as useful a measure of each state’s sympathies as we have.

States of Affairs:  And the murder rates break down like this:

  • Democrat States: 12.2 murders per 100,000
  • GOP States: 11.0 murders per 100,000 (all figures henceforth will be per 100,000).

Well, that looks pretty even; that’s like an 10% variation.  Hardly outside the margin of error, really (although as we discussed some time ago, there’s plenty of variation there, too).

The differences in violent crime, robberies and aggravated assaults and rapes and the like, are a tad more dramatic – but only just:

  • Democrat States: 841.18
  • GOP States: 749.12

Democrat states have 12% more violent crime.  Again – could be just statistical noise.

Urbanity:  But if you’re from Minnesota, or most states with a large urban area that controls half the population, you know that state politics don’t tell you everything.  In places like Illinois, Wisconsin, Oregon, Washington, Michigan, Iowa, even New York and California, solid-blue cities float in huge placid prosperous lagoons of red.

Again – I broke out “control” by the city’s current mayor, or in the case of the few cities using  Manager/Commission government, the control of the commission.

So when you break out the murder rates of American cities of over 250,000, they come out more like this:

  • Democrat Cities: 12.9
  • GOP Cities 7.77

So the murder  rates in cities that have mayors from the Democrat Party are 60% higher than in GOP-run cities.

OK, that’s significant.  And the violent crime rates are similarly skewed:

  • Democrat Cities: 875.3
  • GOP Run Cities: 561.0

There is 56% more violent crime in cities run by Democrats.

More Guns, Less Guns…:  But when cornered by Gun Rights supporters, gun control activists punt to the line that “it’s all about the availability of guns”.

The only true measure of the availability of guns is “can you find one that you can afford without breaking the law?”

But I figured I’d meet the left and the gun grabbers halfway on this one; I measured all cities by the “Brady Campaign Scorecard” rating of the state in which they reside (which is a little unrealistic, since some cities have “tougher” gun laws than their states; I’ll work on that).

The assumption:  A “high” Brady rating, an A or B, implies “tougher” gun laws and, by extension, fewer guns (for the law-abiding).

And the numbers break out like this (“winners” will be in bold type):

Brady Rating  All Cities Democrat Cities GOP Cities Difference
A 12.48  13.3  8 Democrat cities rate 66% higher
B 12.75  13.75 None No B-rated GOP cities.
C 14.16  16.1  6.4 Democrat cities have 251% higher murder rate.
D 10.22  10.7 11.25 (two cities) GOP cities 5% higher.  Skewed by Oklahoma City’s crime rate.
F 10.51  11.77 8.03 Democrat cities 47% higher.

Violent Crime by Brady rating

 Brady Rating All Cities Democrat Cities GOP Cities Difference
A 816.73  909.88  499.5 Democrat cities rate 82% higher
B (only Boston and Chicago) 835  835 (only Boston reported)  NA No B-rated GOP cities
C 913.85  1032.2 440 235% higher in Democrat cities
D 727.97  770.35  558.45 38% higher in Democrat cities
F 758.1 805.75 673.56 20% higher in Democrat cities.

So the big variables seem to be not so much the availability of guns or the strictness of gun control laws, which doesn’t seem to be correlated with any rises and falls in murder or violent crime rates.

But being controlled by the Democrat party?  There’s a straight line correlation there.

Now, I’m not saying that Democrats cause crime.  Democrats bleed just like the rest of us do.

But the pathologies that one-party “progressive” Democrat rule inevitably brings do seem to be correlated with higher murder and violent crime rates.

Correlation doesn’t mean causation.  But it suggests a possible path to causation.

[1] I know – the Second Amendment crew does submit evidence, and has proven its case to everyone but our idiot media.  I’m just saying it for purposes of argument.

25 thoughts on “More Guns (In The Hands Of The Law Abiding) And Fewer Liberals = Less Crime

  1. Using the governor is a shit idea. There are plenty of states- KY comes to mind – with a Dem governor (a pretty liberal one) and a Republican legislature where the state is generally perceived to be more conservative, producing senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul in elected office for example. You also don’t factor in other key items, like total population and population centers versus rural areas.

    Here are facts. Facts do not support your claims. You don’t really care if they do, you want what you want by pretty much any means possible, more guns.

    http://projects.oregonlive.com/ucc-shooting/gun-deaths

    Sure looks to me like those are primarily red states with conservative dominated counties having a lot more of those gun deaths. Those are CDC statistics, not shit statistics.

    There are plenty of analyses far better than yours — you are great at many things, my friend, truly, but statistical analysis is one at which you suck (remember how you have gone through excruciating analysis of polling only to fail abysmally most of the time). It’s just not your strongest suit (mine either, which is why I seek out more qualified sources instead of doing such analyses myself, and doing them badly.)

    And there is plenty of information out there that shows more guns equate to more gun violence, and not to lower crime rates. In that context, we also have an increase in mass shootings, and an excellent body of research by people far more qualified than you are that have been studying it. Further, since there is piss poor evidence to show that ordinary Joe Blow citizen with a gun is stopping mass shootings or much of anything else criminal, and that law enforcement IS doing so, it is incumbent on you in your evaluation to include those mass shootings and other crime that is stopped before it results in killing or injuring anyone.

    http://www.npr.org/2014/01/09/260980072/mass-shootings-across-u-s-are-on-the-rise

    THAT is the preferred outcome – no one is killed or injured.

    Your premise is flawed, from start to finish. The very notion that there ARE such things as good guys with guns versus bad guys with guns is shit. All people, including you and I, are sometimes less than perfectly law abiding. We speed, at least a little; we overstay our parking meter, etc. People with guns, more to the point, who to any ordinary person would appear to be ‘good guys’ who are law abiding, sometimes snap and do violent and bad things, out of despair, out of anger…. for many reasons. That is why we see one of the worst and most persistent kinds of violence inside families and households, with romantic partners, whether spouses or less formal relationships, being such a common source of gun violence.

    http://nij.gov/topics/crime/gun-violence/Pages/affected.aspx
    “Intimate partner violence can be fatal when a gun is involved — from 1990 to 2005, two-thirds of spouse and ex-spouse homicide victims were killed by guns.”

    The reality is that no matter how you try to slice and dice it, more guns lead to more gun violence and there is strong evidence that fewer guns result in less gun violence, ranging from suicide to homicide to injury shootings that are not fatal, to accidental gun deaths. And contrary to what a lot of people believe, less gun availability does NOT mean people will simply commit suicide some other way. There is strong evidence that there is very limited substitution for committing suicide, and that removal of a means reduces suicides overall.

    You are doing crap analysis Mitch. The simple reality is that we make gun violence too easy too accessible, and that we do not effectively or adequately regulate who gets their hands on guns or how they are stored. Other free developed countries have done a better job– and are just as free as we are, and a lot safer, not to mention a lot better off financially by not having the cost of gun deaths and injuries afflicting their economies, in addition to the very real cost in more human terms.

  2. DG,

    You insult my statistical analysis – and then prove you haven’t the foggiest idea about it, or about logic. You deflect into “intimate partner violence” – which is PART of the stats I went through – and a lot of vague promises that there is “plenty” of evidence that I’m wrong…

    …but no evidence.

    Because there is none.

    You are doing crap analysis, Mitch. The simple reality is…

    So against my “crap” analysis, we have…your word for it.

    Sorry, DG. Ad hominem and “DG says so” is not an argument.

  3. You didn’t break it down by race, but it is safe to say that Democrat run cities (in Red or Blue states) have higher rates of armed, young, unemployed black men. Wolf packs running through flocks of pajama boys, riot grrrrls and withered old hippies.

  4. Another opportunity for dg to whip out teh FACTS from The Journal of Threat Assessment and Management and Behavioral Science and the Law, and she cites NPR & OregonLive.

    lol. You pathetic, lying little dimwit; you are so far out of your league no one would trust you to carry water.

  5. Interesting analysis with a bit of a unique approach. Thanks for the effort and for the thinking outside the lines.

  6. Must post to facebook. Well done research mitch. The NRA should take this data and run with it.

  7. “Now, I’m not saying that Democrats cause crime”

    But maybe Democrat policies cause crime?

  8. But maybe Democrat policies cause crime?

    Just saying there seems to be a correlation.

  9. DG,

    Your complete inability to make a logical argument, to marshal “facts” that reinforce that argument, and to learn from your many, many repeated mistakes in this area is somewhere between “amusing” and “depressing”.

    Y’know what’d be interesting? If you’d stick around a thread and defend some of your premises. Although in your post above, you really didn’t even go that far; just ad-hominem, deflection and a bunch of unsubstantiated and unsubstantiable claims that we’re supposed to accept because you say so, many of them claims that’ve been debunked in this space, over and over again.

    You’re kind of into pooping and running. And its’ getting kind of predictable.

  10. Dog Gone said:

    ” Those are CDC statistics, not shit statistics”

    As if the CDC were not able to produce “shit statistics” (such language, my word *fans self*).

    For your information, Dog Gone, the CDC is peopled by … people. There are just a likely to produce “shit” (oh my) as anyone else, and your appeal to their authority is both ignorant and sad.

  11. I’m still really hoping for DG’s explanation on how Bruce Jenner’s DNA has changed. That would be one long screed that I’d definitely read!

  12. Oh, yeah, DG:

    “” Those are CDC statistics, not shit statistics”

    I’ve seen them, and debunked their use in attacking gun crime in the past.

    Do you know how and why, DG?

    The map charts per capita gun deaths.

    ALL gun deaths. Per capita.

    Can you see the difference between comparing all gun deaths and gun homicides?

    I doubt you can; your MO seems to be “condescend first, ask questions later”. Pride cometh before a fall and all that.

    The map also counts suicides, DG. Suicides are 2/3 of the gun deaths in this country. And it’s a form of suicide “preferred” by rural, white men, mostly lonely, very frequently mentally and/or terminally ill. It’s especially prevalent in…the rural west.

    And it’s a tragedy – but no worse than any other form of suicide (the US’s suicide rate is much lower than many countries that control guns strictly). And, being prevalent in lots of sparsely populated rural western and southern counties, it skews a lot of those little red blotches that have you so tingly.

    But you’re comparing apples and Penigma posts. It’s a non-sequitur.

    As I showed, gun homicides and violent crime do correlate with Blue states at an urban level.

    So it’s you, not me, DG, who has the problem with – as you so charmingly put it – “shit analysis”.

    You never learn, do you?

  13. Using the governor is a shit idea

    And who better to know about shit ideas? Shit for brains, of course! From one shit to another!

  14. C’mon, you gotta agree DG has shit for brains. How else would you explain all that verbal diarrhea she spews constantly.

  15. And back on topic – wait for DG to come back with another diarrheal rant about a toddler offing his (her?) gramma. Sad… Not sure whether Darwin award was served.

  16. The Democrat party was founded specifically to organize the southern states and its slaveholders against a popular abolitionist movement. Since its inception, the Democratic party has gained power by playing on racial fears and parceling out government privilege based on race. The post 1968 Dems are really no different than the pre-1968 Dems. All that has changed is the groups they favor and disfavor. This leads to insanity like the fake outrage used to demand the disarming of working class and middle class whites, while the overwhelmingly vast amount of gun violence in this country is committed by Black males with Black males as the victims. This insanity has the same source as the idea that Kennedy died as the result of a conspiracy by the military-industrial complex, or a ‘climate of right-wing hate’, when Kennedy’s assassin was an avowed communist, married to a Russian communist, who had defected to the Soviet Union.
    Stay away from them. Hide your thoughts from them. Treat them as you would treat a mad dog.

  17. Oh, yeah. Almost missed this one:

    Using the governor is a shit idea

    It’s imperfect, partly because of states like Minnesota. But the governor IS the result of a statewide public opinion poll whose methodology (says you, DG) is impeccable and utterly above board. You got a better one?

    No, you don’t.

    And the way you are starting to pepper conversations with “shit” as an adjective? It is starting to look like English is your second language. Class it up a bit, mkay?

  18. And the way you are starting to pepper conversations with “shit” as an adjective?

    her language reflects her nature – it portrays what she always has be – a coarse vulgar person who speaks appropriately for her station.

  19. Good catch, Mitch. The “gun deaths” map includes suicides which is why it’s ridiculous for the map to imply that walking down a street in Anchorage (high suicide rate but low murder rate) is more perilous than walking down a street in Baltimore (low suicide rate but high murder rate).

    Mass Shootings were on the rise in 2014 because the statistics keepers redefined what constitutes a “mass shooting” so naturally, there were more after the redefinition than before – indeed, some suspect that was the whole point of the redefinition, to pump up the numbers to create a sense of crisis.

    “The very notion that there ARE such things as good guys with guns versus bad guys with guns is shit.” This, at least, explains why Liberals hate cops – because cops are not good guys, there ARE no good guys. Although if that’s the case, then why do Liberals want only cops to have guns? If there are no good guys, then nobody should have guns, including cops. Consistency being the hobgoblin of small minds, that idea should be right at home in Liberal minds. I call on Heather Martens to introduce legislation in the next session to strip cops of firearms (through one of her proxy seat-holders in the legislature).

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  21. There you go again using logic and facts, JD. It’s all about the emotion, dontcha know?

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