On Friday, we talked about comparing the US murder rate to the rest of the world.
Monday, the subject was what’d happen if we excluded America’s top forty highest-crime cities from the average.
Yesterday, we talked about what’d happen if we left the Old South, with its centuries of relatively violent Scots-Irish heritage, out of the nation’s murder rate.
In every case, the results were big.
Now, let’s go bigger.
The Math: Here’s what it comes down to.
If you take the US’s 319 million people and 12,000-odd homicides (about 8,000 of which involve guns), and subtract:
- murders in the states of the Old South, the former Confederate and Border states (with population and murders from from Southern cities among “Top Fifty” cities’ overlapping murder rates removed, since they’re counted in the next bullet, and we wouldn’t want to deduct them twice)
- murders in the fifty US cities with the highest murder rates
And what does that leave?
Peace And Tranquility: Incredibly, of the roughly 12,000 murders in the US in 2014, around 8,700 took place in either the Top Fifty crime cities, or the former slave states.
That’s 71% of the homicides for the entire US.
In other words, just a little over a quarter of all murders in the US happen outside the Old South and the fifty cities and the slightly over a third of the population, with the highest murder rates.
The homicide rate for rest of the US – including many of its largest cities, and all of its urban and suburban areas outside Dixie – falls to…1.8 per 100,000. That’s the same as Israel – and it’s tied for #163 in the world. It’s about 20% lower than Norway’s murder rate. It’s not a lot higher, statistically, than Belgium, Canada, or Finland.
It’s about the same as North Dakota’s was, before the oil boom. Or Vermont today.
Or, as a matter of fact, almost identical to that of…
…wait for it…
…no, wait for it…
Peaceful, placid, passive-aggressive Minnesota. North Minneapolis included.
And firearm crimes are more like 1.1-1.2/100,000. Not “vanishingly low”, but pretty low. About the same a Croatia, Macedonia, or Israel.
So…What?: One of the Second Amendment movement’s oldest, most successful aphorisms is “guns don’t kill people; people do”.
And people do evil, or stupid, things for as many reasons as there are people.
But there are some overarching patterns that drive violence in the US; a violence-prone urban culture, with its gangs and black-marketeering and deeply dysfunctional justice system, and a deep south with a tolerance for petty and major violence that far exceeds the rest of the country.
And with those controlled for, the level of violence in the US, by world standards, is to say the least, low.
- Last Friday: Intro
- Monday: The effect urban crime has on America’s murder rate.
- Yesterday: The murder rate in the Deep South.
- Today: What the US’ murder rate would be without its biggest social pathologies.
Where the Numbers Came From; OK, this is simple math – but pay attention. I don’t wanna repeat myself.
- From the population of the US, I subtracted:
- The population of the 50 highest-crime cities
- The population of the old slave states…
- MINUS the populations of any of the cities with the Top Fifty murder rates. I didn’t want to subtract them twice.
- From the murder totals for the US, I subtracted
- The murders in the top fifty highest-crime cities
- The murders in the former slave states…
- MINUS the murders in any cities in the South that were among the Top Fifty.
- I divided the number of remaining murders by the (remaining population/100,000).
Fun facts for those America haters who always say how much better Scandinavia is than the US.
A) Norwegians in the US test better than Norwegians in Norway schools
B) Norwegians in the US have a higher income & standard of living than Norwegians in Norway do.
C) Areas of the US dominated by Norwegian-Americans, well, see Mitch’s numbers above.
So if you take the Scandinavian lifestyle, and put it in the democratic free market capitalist US, you live fairly comfortably.
It’s worth noting, as I believe our host has before, that Norwegian (and Swedish to a degree) prosperity really derives from pre-socialism industriousness and North Sea Oil. Ooops on that narrative again. I remember going to a museum in Stockholm and being appalled that they credited socialism for their prosperity, but made no mention of the profits of selling iron ore and steel to the Nazis. Just sayin’.
One thing that would be really interesting would be, if it were possible, to calculate the murder rate by marital status of the perpetrator’s parents. Given that a lot of places aren’t doing well at all solving murders, this is a pipe dream, but I remember back as far as the 1980s, the relative rate of crime by the children of unwed parents was about ten times that of the children of married parents. I would guess that the differences would be even more profound.
The 1.8 per 100,000 is just a tad below the 2.0 per 100,000 here in the Czech Republic (as I shared a few days ago). Here, a reported 48% of the population has a permit to purchase, which also allows you to carry.
There’s a long history of firearms here; the Czechs are even credited with coining the word pistol (pistala) back in 1420 when the Hussites used them to defend their religious freedom against the Pope (and doing it very effectively). Private ownership of firearms has pretty much been the standard except for two eras: when the Nazis where in control, and when the Communists were in control.
Private ownership of firearms has pretty much been the standard except for two eras: when the Nazis where in control, and when the Communists were in control.
Corollary: orcs are either Nazis or communists.
There’s a long history of firearms here; the Czechs are even credited with coining the word pistol (pistala) back in 1420 when the Hussites used them to defend their religious freedom against the Pope (and doing it very effectively).
Yep.
They also have been among the top arms producers; Czeskoslovenska Zbrojovka (CZ) produces some excellent pistols, including at least a few I lust over in my heart; the Brno factory designed what became the Bren and Besa machine guns, two of the main British machine guns during the war.
Most of the European arms manufacturers have plants here as well.
That happened largely to get around import restrictions from the Clinton years, as well as various Euro export restrictions (like the Swiss ones – which is why SIG allies with the German “Sauer” company to build for export, and why they built their SIG plants in the US).
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