Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Further Proof that Gun Friendly States Have More Murders

In one of our recent, extremely tedious discussions, I was asked what states I consider gun friendly.  It was one of those fake questions designed to make the discussion as long and painful as possible, since everyone pretty much has the same understanding of which states are gun friendly and which are not.

But, I though it might provide another chance to make my point. The following are the top 15 states for murder followed by the bottom fifteen.  If my contention that gun availability has something to do with it is correct, you'd expect to have more gun friendly states in the first list than the second. The fact that the bottom fifteen is not comprised only of states which are not gun friendly should come as no surprise since, as Greg pointed out, most states are in fact gun friendly. And, needless to say this certainly does not disprove my claim.

In the top fifteen most murderous states, all but one of them are gun friendly.  In the fifteen least murderous states there are five states that are not gun friendly.

Conclusion: obviously, where there are more guns there are more murders per capita, of course.

1. District of Columbia 30.8 doesn't count . it's a city
2. Louisiana 14.2 friendly
3. Maryland 9.8 not
4. Alabama 8.9 friendly
5. New Mexico 8.2 friendly
6. South Carolina 8.0 friendly
7. Georgia 7.5 friendly
7. Nevada 7.5 friendly
9. Arizona 7.4 friendly
10. Mississippi 7.1 friendly
11. Michigan 6.7 friendly
11. Arkansas 6.7 friendly
13. Florida 6.6 friendly
14. North Carolina 6.5 friendly
14. Missouri 6.5 friendly
16. Tennessee 6.4 friendly

Out of fifteen, all friendly but one.

37. Connecticut 3.0 not
38. Massachusetts 2.9 not
39. Washington 2.7 friendly
40. Minnesota 2.2 friendly
40. Utah 2.2 friendly
42. South Dakota 2.1 friendly
43. North Dakota 1.9 friendly
44. Vermont 1.9 friendly44. Oregon 1.9 friendly46. Rhode Island 1.8 not
47. Hawaii 1.7 not
48. Maine 1.6 friendly
49. Montana 1.5 friendly
50. Iowa 1.2 friendly
51. New Hampshire 1.1 not

39 comments:

  1. Homicide rates are trivial with respect to the state power to enact a ban.

    The wise ruler needs no justification, other than force.

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  2. How about addressing my points as to why this type of method is poor and subject to manipulation? Because you proved my point exactly by picking your own boundary and then calling a group equal. I'll explain:

    Your first manipulation was a small slight of hand that ends up making all the difference. You called Michigan "gun friendly" and New Hampshire "not". Michigan has a higher Brady rating- and even this map that you referenced put it in the fourth quartile which is the highest with 9-24 gun laws. New Hampshire is in the second (3-4 laws). If we look at top 10, it's 2 to 2. So you had to go further- but not too far because you don't want to pick up California. No that wouldn't be good at all, because then you'd be at 3 to 4 and that might be even a stretch for you to call "proof".

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    1. There was no sleight of hand. You asked what I consider gun friendly. That's what I did, not according to the Brady scoring system but simply based on my general opinion as one who reads about gun rights and gun control every day. Make them both "friendly" and what changes? Not much, that's what.

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    2. It's funny that you call Michigan gun friendly. They have the 11th highest Brady score, so that falls right in line with what you just chastised Greg for (saying 4/5 states are gun friendly). If you don't want to use Brady scores, fine- that's why I asked for your complete list if what you call gun friendly states (you just gave us 30). But I'm sure there will be plenty of debate in that list. No, no- you're not claiming states like New Hampshire again.

      In the post that led up to this one, you claimed top 10 or 15 vs the bottom. We see that at 10 it's tied (at 2 each). At 5 it's tied (1). At 20 it's tied yet again (4). But you glom on to 15. That's all the proof you need to satisfy your preconceived notion. Talk about grasping for straws. Mike, there is no pattern in the distribution, but someone with an agenda can spilt hairs and try and draw the line to suite a goal (because it is not perfectly distributed). That is what is wrong with this method.

      I keep asking this, but what's wrong with what I did? I took into account that gun laws are on a sliding scale, and all 50 states. Showing us something else that is both partial and manipulated doesn't disprove what I did.

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    3. TS, you're a completely biased gun-rights fanatic. Sorry.

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    4. Wow. You have to be the one who is completely biased to make that accusation without even broaching any number of these legitimate criticisms I made.

      What’s funny is that when gun control types do the same type of regression analysis using “gun deaths” you repost it on your blog as “proof”. Baldr had a regression analysis of “gun deaths” on his site, that you called a “great post”:

      http://newtrajectory.blogspot.com/2011/01/important-data-trends-nra-doesnt-want.html

      I do the same thing with substituting “gun deaths” for murder rates, and all you can say is I am a biased fanatic.

      Admitting that I am right (or at least have some valid points) isn’t the end of the world. You can always fall back on your “we have no gun control in this country” bit. You can say I’ve proven that the little bit of gun control here and there hasn’t worked, which is why we need to institute King MikeB’s “proper gun control” on a national scale. Depending on the day of the week, that’s been your position anyway.

      As frustrated as I am with you right now, I would still like to wish you and your family a very happy Thanksgiving. Cheers.

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    5. You know I live in Italy, right? Thanks for the Thanksgiving wishes anyway.

      Isn't it possible for you to be a biased gun-rights fanatic and still have some good points? They're not mutually exclusive.

      How about me, do I have some good points?

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    6. Yes, I know you are from New Jersey and living in Italy.

      Yes, you have a good point when you say local and state gun laws don't matter for much because we have open borders between cities and states. It's just that half the time you don't believe yourself.

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  3. Your list is garbage. Post the real statistics please.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States_by_state

    New Hampshire is not a gun friendy state? Haha, what?

    Top 10 states with the lowest homicide rates.

    New Hampshire: 1.0 Gun ownership: 30%

    Vermont: 1.1: Gun ownership: 42%

    Iowa: 1.2: Gun ownership 42.9%

    North Dakota: 1.3 Gun ownership: 50.7%

    Idaho: 1.3 Gun ownership: 55.3%

    Wyoming: 1.4 Gun ownership: 59.7%

    South Dakota: 1.7: Gun ownership: 56.6%

    Minnesota: 1.7 Gun ownership: 41.7%

    Maine: 1.8 Gun ownership: 40.5%

    Hawaii: 1.8 Gun ownership: 1.8

    All of those states have lax to nil gun laws. New Hampshire and Vermont have nil gun laws.

    Your blog is bad and you should feel bad. Lastly DC is not a city, it is a district. How convienent of you to exclude it, right?

    Source: FBI UCR 2010

    I compiled the states from that list and excluded DC. The correlation coeffcient indicates no correlation. Even without DC.

    http://i.imgur.com/4jE1ZxR.jpg

    Good game.

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    1. Sorry forgot to mention all of those states except Hawaii. Hawaii also has a gun ownership percentage of 6.7%

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    2. Mike, please take a look at this scatter plot that Anthony provided:

      http://i.imgur.com/4jE1ZxR.jpg

      It's a good visual representation of what I have been saying all along. Can you honestly tell me that you see a trend in those dots? That flat line is the regression analysis. Flat means no correlation.

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    3. Is that really "a good visual representation?" Does it show which states correspond to which marks on the chart? Does it account for the difference between loose gun laws and high gun ownership? No, it doesn't do those things, but what it does do is support your denial that what I posted above is, in simple language with no scientific or statistical double-talk, pretty convincing that more guns in a state means more murders.

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    4. Mike: “Does it show which states correspond to which marks on the chart?”

      It doesn’t matter. They are all just data points. Putting 50 labels on it would just make it hard to read. You can tell which one is Louisiana pretty easily, though.

      Mike: “Does it account for the difference between loose gun laws and high gun ownership?”

      This one is gun ownership. I did correlation calculations for both gun ownership, and gun laws separately, and they both turned out with a correlation of zero. Technically, this graph is more pertinent as a rebuttal when you falsely claim “more guns = more murder” because it is looking at the amount of gun ownership. Of course one can combine both gun ownership and gun laws into a bi-variant regression and then your graph would be 3-D.

      Mike: “in simple language with no scientific or statistical double-talk.”

      You seemed to have no problems with these methods as long as it was a gun control supporter using “gun deaths” as the feature. Why wasn’t it “statistical double talk” then?

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    5. I think I admitted you had a good point about the "gun deaths" thing.

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    6. You see when federal statistics don't agree with you you need to resort to moving the goalposts.

      FBI statistics do not support the claim that gun ownership by state and homicide rates are correlated. Prove it wrong witjout going "NUH-UH" like a petulant child.

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    7. Yes, you did admit that. It took an exceedingly long time, and that's probably the reason why I haven't given up on you with this murder correlation thing.

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    8. Anthony, I proved it wrong in this post, but you refuse to accept what's plain to see. Who's the petulant child?

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    9. I don't remember it quite like that, TS. I thought I got your point about the "gun murder" trick right away, but I wouldn't swear to it. In either case I have you to thank for that. I often see gun control arguments that contain that flaw and I avoid them now.

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    10. You haven't proved anything wrong though. You just claimed that the states were not labeled in the chart.

      Pull up that Wikipedia article. Do the math yourself. DC included or not included. There is absolutely no correlation between gun ownership and homicide rates iby state. Go ahead and prove it wrong.

      Or are you going to do a double-take and claim the FBI is NRA-funded now?

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    11. No, you're wrong. There is a clear correlation. What's not able to be proven is the causation. I've provided several examples of correlation including this post. You just keep denying it and pointing to other reports that are less clear.

      Here's the simplest proof, and I repeat: If nearly 70% of all murders are committed with guns, how can gun availability NOT result in more murders. Riddle me that one Batman?

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    12. "No, you're wrong. There is a clear correlation. What's not able to be proven is the causation. I've provided several examples of correlation including this post. You just keep denying it and pointing to other reports that are less clear. "

      Your post does not detail gun ownership percentage by state. You incorrectly label New Hampshire as not being gun-friendly. All I ask you is that you look at the FBI statistics and gun ownership percentage by US state. The correlation coefficient indicates no correlation. Move along. Do you have statistics proving otherwise? No you do not.

      "Here's the simplest proof, and I repeat: If nearly 70% of all murders are committed with guns, how can gun availability NOT result in more murders. Riddle me that one Batman?"

      Because the percentage of whatever tool used in homicides HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE OVERALL RATE.

      The vast majority of homicides in Switzerland are committed with guns. However the homicide rate for Switzerland is LESS than the UK, Italy and almost all other Western European countries.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

      Another example. Taiwan and South Korea. Both have even stricter gun laws than Japan and have homicide rates of 3.2 and 2.6 respectively. Higher than many gun-touting nations.


      Is there a correlation between GUN-related homicides and gun ownership? Yes. Is there a correlation between overall homicides and gun ownership? Absolutely nil.

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    13. Change New Hampshire and the point remains. The percentage of murders that are committed with guns certainly does have something to do with the fact that where there are more guns there will necessarily be more murders. You mischaracterized that in some bumbling attempt at being slick.

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    14. I give up. If federal data won't convince you then nothing will.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States_by_state

      Look at the top 15 states with the lowest homicide rates. All of them have high gun ownership EXCEPT HAWAII.

      The correlation coefficient doesn't indicate a correlation, therefore there is no correlation between gun ownership and homicide rates among US states. The way you arbitrarily define whether a state is "gun-friendly" or not

      You're choosing to be stubborn on purpose. Keep engaging in that rhetoric denialism in your echo-chamber of a blog.

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    15. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States_by_state

      Top 15 states with lowest homicide rates except Hawaii.

      All high gun ownership. Lax to no laws.


      "More guns equals more murder" = debunked. Have a nice day.

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    16. Anthony, I already provided a list of the 15 least murderous states. What, you didn't like mine and went looking for a better list? Besides that Wikipedia list is alphabetical.

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    17. Click the ascending tables.

      My data is more up-to-date than yours and shows gun owner alongside overall murder rates and gun murder rates. In the top-fifteen states with the lowest homicide rates, only one of them is not a gun-friendly state and has low ownership. That is Hawaii.

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    18. Yeah, more up-to-date, huh? You mean cherry picked by some gun nut like yourself and posted on Wikipedia because it supports your bizarre ideas. My 15 states include 5, or 4 if you wanna be picky, states with fairly decent gun control laws. To get that list I did a google search and picked the first entry.

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    19. "Yeah, more up-to-date, huh? You mean cherry picked by some gun nut like yourself and posted on Wikipedia because it supports your bizarre ideas."

      Now you're just going full conspiratard. Congrats. The citation is on there. Those are FBI statistics.

      http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/10tbl04.xls

      Read it and weep. If federal statistics are "cherry-picked", then nothing will convince you. Keep moving the goalposts.

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  4. New Hampshire is gun friendly, and the fact that California has about the same homicide rate as Tennessee says a lot, as does the fact that D.C. tops the list. As does the fact that New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont all have lower rates than Massachusetts.

    Mikeb, if something is needless to say, you shouldn't say it. But in this case, since what you say is false, you shouldn't say that, either. What these data show is that gun laws and homicide rates have no correlation.

    That is needed to say.

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    1. You're blind from your bias. Either that or you're lying again.

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    2. The data don't support gun control. You're insisting that they do, despite the clear evidence. If you want to know why you're losing, here's one reason.

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    3. Where is your evidence that gun control does not work? Saying something does not make it so.

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    4. The evidence is right here. No correlation between murder rates and gun laws. How hard is that to understand?

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    5. It's false. You are easily fooled. No surprise there.

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    6. The gun control argument, in essence, is about control. Asking for facts and logic shows a counterproductive resistance to being controlled.

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    7. It's a lie to say gun control does not work. He is a fool because he does not know that given the proof in American history, that gun control has worked.

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    8. And Greg will be the last one to give facts. He is just a name calling lying criminal coward

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  5. Ducking the problem fighting the numbers. Childish. The deaths go on, which you never address. Obviously you don't care about the deaths, just looking for that "gotcha" moment, which proves nothing. Childish.

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