An idea for "Gun Control".

Originally posted by dadudemon
Well, the stuff I am finding is not that one from Google Books. It is mostly just gun advocacy sites listing what the homicide rates were in 1900.

Also, that spike in 1903 that you're talking about may be the Dick Act.

Listing the homicide rates in 1900 is extremely misleading even if you trust the numbers in those graphs. A linear regression is basically the worst possible way of looking at that data.

You'll have to give me a good argument for why the creation of the National Guard would cause the murder rate to multiply five times over. You'll also have to tell me why I should think it was the Dick Act and not a shift in the terrible mortality reporting standards of the previous decade that was happening at the same time.

Originally posted by dadudemon
Found something better:

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/hmrt.cfm

That's the same graph that's being criticized, just extended through 2006.

Originally posted by Robtard
Pretending that's true,

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Listing the homicide rates in 1900 is extremely misleading even if you trust the numbers in those graphs. A linear regression is basically the worst possible way of looking at that data.

1. I don't seen a linear regression being applied in that chart.

2. The book I originally found that data talked about why the homicide rates were lower and what contributed to increases in homicide rates...so at least some sociologists think that it was lower in 1900 than it was in 1980. If only I could find it...it was a college book on Google Books. And, yes, it was a book published after 2006.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
You'll have to give me a good argument for why the creation of the National Guard would cause the murder rate to multiply five times over. You'll also have to tell me why I should think it was the Dick Act and not a shift in the terrible mortality reporting standards of the previous decade that was happening at the same time.

I thought it was due to the criminalization of acts from the unofficial militias that were not legally operating under the new rules of the Dick Act. But I think I'm wrong after reading about it more. That was the only big thing, concerning "arms", that I could think of that happened in 1903.

Anyway...

Mortality data have been reported by all states since 1933. In 1900 only eleven states did so. Figures from early in the century are thus incomplete. It has been claimed that the sharp rise in homicide in the early 1900s was an artifact due to adding states with higher rates to the data set, and that the national rate was actually between two- and six-fold higher than stated.

So huge an error seems unlikely, for the following reasons:
1. Even the 1900 figures comprise 27 percent of the U.S. population and include New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and the District of Columbia, all of which have much higher homicide rates today. (The rate for the District of Columbia is now 46.7.) Hence the low homicide rates early in the century probably were realistic.

2) Suicide rates early in the century were as high as or higher than current rates, implying that underreporting was not a major factor.

3) The low homicide and high suicide rates resemble the rates in Europe, the birthplace of many Americans or their parents in the early 1900s.

4) There was a financial panic in 1905 and a severe recession lasting till 1908, perhaps in part explaining the rise in violent crime.

5) Homicide arrests in major cities rose sharply in the early 1900s, indicating that the sharp rise in the national homicide rate was genuine.

6) New York City police were not required to carry guns on duty until 1887, implying that much of the Nineteenth Century was less violent than the Twentieth. Granted, criminal investigation in 1900 was hardly what it is today. Some deaths surely were misclassified, but the figures are the only ones available. What do they show?

In 1900 there were few governmental welfare programs, though religious and community groups were active. New York City and other ports of entry were flooded with immigrants, who often arrived penniless. Whole sections of such cities were filled with recent immigrants who kept to their native ways and tongues. In 1900, 13.6 percent of Americans were foreign-born, compared with 7.9 percent in 1990. Only a minority of children finished high school. Overcrowded housing and extreme poverty were widespread, the gap between rich and poor was enormous, and working conditions were deplorable. Racial and religious bias was rampant. There were few firearm laws; New York had not yet enacted its handgun law or California its waiting period. Guns of all types could be ordered by mail or bought anonymously. Yet despite poverty, lack of governmental welfare programs, massive immigration, multiethnic cities, bigotry, and easy access to guns, the homicide rate in 1900 was roughly one-sixth of what it is today.

7. The population in 1900 was more rural, and rural areas tend to have lower homicide rates than urban areas. Conversely, medical care was primitive. Antibiotics and resuscitation were unknown. Blood transfusion and surgery of the chest, brain, or blood vessels were in their infancy. Many died who would now survive. (A wounded man was 10 times more likely to die in World War I than in Vietnam.) If modern care had been available in 1900, the homicide rate would have been even lower. Indeed, the number of homicides equals the number of serious attempts minus the number saved by medical care. The homicide rate should have decreased over time as medical care improved. That it did not implies an increasing tendency to violence.

That all came from David C. Stolinsky, MD. It is outdated, though, as he states that the violent crimes in the UK and Australia increased after their virtual gun bans...which was true at the time of his writing but is no longer true, today.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
That's the same graph that's being criticized, just extended through 2006.

There is data published out there as far back as the 1600s for American homicides.

Not that I disagree (I actually do disagree with the exactitude or correctness of the BJS' numbers) but why does the Bureau of Justice Statistics report a different number than the estimate provided by that gentleman?

I guess that a first good step would be to ban automatic guns, and everything with more that 6 or 8 ammos in the loader.

Originally posted by Bouboumaster
I guess that a first good step would be to ban automatic guns, and everything with more that 6 or 8 ammos in the loader.

I thought autos were banned, already? I think you have to be ...special...and licensed in some way to get and/or own a fully automatic weapon.

Originally posted by dadudemon
1. I don't seen a linear regression being applied in that chart.

It seems to be how you're thinking about it.

There hasn't been "an increase in homicide since 1900" there have been two large spikes in the late 20s and the late 80s, the second of which we are still coming out of.

The real question should be why is there an enormous spike around 1905? All the factors applied in 1900 applied then (loose gun laws, poverty, etc) and yet suddenly reported homicide rates multiplied five times over.

Originally posted by dadudemon
1. Even the 1900 figures comprise 27 percent of the U.S. population and include New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and the District of Columbia, all of which have much higher homicide rates today. (The rate for the District of Columbia is now 46.7.) Hence the low homicide rates early in the century probably were realistic.

The only problem is that this isn't true. The combined average homicide rates in those 10 states plus this District of Columbia was then and is now less than the national average.

Originally posted by dadudemon
2) Suicide rates early in the century were as high as or higher than current rates, implying that underreporting was not a major factor.

Reported suicide rates jumped 64% between 1900 and 1910 as reporting improved. The same time that the rate "suspicious accidental deaths" suddenly dropped and the rate of homicides increased. Deaths were not underreported but they were given to the statistics bureau with missing information. In fact more than 60% of deaths had to be reported as having unknown cause.

Originally posted by dadudemon
4) There was a financial panic in 1905 and a severe recession lasting till 1908, perhaps in part explaining the rise in violent crime.

There was also a small financial hiccup called the Great Depression that started in the 1930s and did match up with anything like murder rates multiplying themselves five times over. Actually there was a decrease in murder rates.

Originally posted by dadudemon
6) New York City police were not required to carry guns on duty until 1887, implying that much of the Nineteenth Century was less violent than the Twentieth. Granted, criminal investigation in 1900 was hardly what it is today. Some deaths surely were misclassified, but the figures are the only ones available. What do they show?

If the data is flawed than the data is flawed. Aren't you a programmer? Haven't you ever heard the phrase "garbage in garbage our?"

Originally posted by dadudemon
Not that I disagree (I actually do disagree with the exactitude or correctness of the BJS' numbers) but why does the Bureau of Justice Statistics report a different number than the estimate provided by that gentleman?

I'm not as confident in Eckberg's exact numbers as he is but the criticisms he makes of the mortality statistics are salient. I can PM you a PDF of his paper.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
It seems to be how you're thinking about it.

There hasn't been "an increase in homicide since 1900" there have been two large spikes in the late 20s and the late 80s, the second of which we are still coming out of.

I never said that. What I did do is compared two data points: now and 1900. Since I posted the graph to which I was referring, you cannot conclude "linear regression" because it does not show one. Was my use of the word "increase" what made you think I intended linear regression? If so, there definitely was an overall increase in the murder rate per 100,000 people from 1900 to present. I did not mean to imply that the graph I saw showed a line from 1900 to 2011 providing a linear regression.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
The real question should be why is there an enormous spike around 1905? All the factors applied in 1900 applied then (loose gun laws, poverty, etc) and yet suddenly reported homicide rates multiplied five times over.

No, those factors did not. Some did but not all and of those some, they applied more severely in the later years of the 1900s. Basically, I'm trying to say that there was no massive/magical improvement on how the "did the numbers" in 1900 and in 1909.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
The only problem is that this isn't true. The combined average homicide rates in those 10 states plus this District of Columbia was then and is now less than the national average.

I am either missing your point entirely or your information is wrong. I respectfully assume the latter and here's why:

The current National Average for Homicide: 4.7.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-state

Is 4.7>1.2? Yes. So your statement is not making sense to me. But I'll humor your point some more to be sure I am not being a complete idiot (hey, it does happen, sometimes):

The current DC homicide rate:
17.5

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/dccrime.htm

At the time of that writing (when he wrote it), that link says 40.3. I assume the figures were corrected after his article was published because 2002 shows 46.4...close to the quoted 46.7.

There is no need to average any of the states, for today, because none of them approach the average of 1900 much less the 10 states used. Even if we step outside of those 10 states, we only find one modern state that has a murder rate per 100,000 that is the same as the average in 1900: Hawaii.

So what was your point, here? Or rather, what did I miss?

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Reported suicide rates jumped 64% between 1900 and 1910 as reporting improved. The same time that the rate "suspicious accidental deaths" suddenly dropped and the rate of homicides increased. Deaths were not underreported but they were given to the statistics bureau with missing information. In fact more than 60% of deaths had to be reported as having unknown cause.

1. I looked and I could not find a source for what you were talking about. Not even an expert opinion. For example, nothing I found says "more than 60% of deaths had to be reported as having unknown causes" or something similar. Furthermore, nothing out there says that those deaths were 'probably homicides/suicides/natural causes that had no medical and criminal experts on hand to assess." We could just as easily assume they were unexplainable medically related deaths as we could homicides. In fact, it would probably be more accurate to assume they were mostly unknown medically related deaths rather than homicides due to the contemporary reporting from other countries comparable to 1900 US homicide rates: their numbers coincided with the immigrant communities from which the immigrants emigrated (see "my" point #6 in the previous post of mine you quoted).

2. Suicide rates and homicides have been shown to not be covariant. Stolinsky, S.A. & Stolinsky, D.C. (2000). Suicide and homicide rates do not co-vary.
Journal of Trauma, 48, 1168-1169.

3. Do you think the suicide rates during that peroid had anything, at all, to do with the following:
Panic of 1901
2 year recession that lasted from 1902-1904
Panic of 1907 (which scared the shit out of people so much, for the last time, that the Federal Reserve was created out of the ashes).
Panic of 1910–1911 (the enforcement of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act)

4. The data does not generally agree with your implied conclusion (that the homicide rate was underreported in 1900). However, I will make a concession, on this point (Just go to the end of my post if you don't want all the other stuff).

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
There was also a [1]small financial hiccup called the Great Depression that started in the [2]1930s and [3]did match up with anything like murder rates multiplying themselves [4]five times over. Actually there was a [5]decrease in murder rates.

I labeled each point in this section of your post to make it easier to follow:

1. It was not a small financial hiccup. Yes, I know you were being sarcastic. 😉

2. The Great Depression started in September of 1929 and was fully realized during the crash of October 29th, 1929. Recovery started in 1933. The New Deal is at least partially credited by historical economists (I do not know if that is what they call themselves...but I am referring to the branch of economic study that focuses on history rather than contemporary application of economic theory) as either creating the recovery or increasing the recovery rate.

3. Murder rates sharply soared very shortly after the crash of 1929. The murder rate increased until the enactment of the New Deal and/or Roosevelt took office in which case it dropped. It was eerily spot-on, too. The next time you hear an anarchist preach about how impotent the PotUS is, just remind them that Roosevelt taking office turned around a soaring murder rate (and economy) almost at the same exact time he took office: now that is influence.

4. They did not multiply themselves 5 times over. The increase in the 1900s was from 1.2 in 1900 to 4.2 in 1909. 4.2/1.2=3.5. The average rate of change over that 10 year period is +0.35 homicides per 100,000 people, per year. Your* comparable period, from 1929 to 1933, went from 8.4 in 1929 to 9.7 in 1933. 9.7/8.4=1.15. The average rate of change over that 4 year period is: +0.29. To make an mathematically correct statement, you'd say something like "the yearly rate was 1.2 times greater in the 20th Century's first decade than when the Great Depression hit." Now, that hardly has the same punch you were going for, but it is not only a correct statement, it is also a fair comparison.

5. There was no a decrease in murder rates until Economic Recovery was underway under the Roosevelt administration in 1933.

*I excluded the drop portion because you were initially including part of the recovery and I was obviously not.

And here is an extra point:

6. If the murder rate was underreported in 1900 but self-corrected to almost exactness by 1908, what factors contributed to the better data recording? How do the other factors I mentioned that contributed to the homicide rate affect that number's inflation (in other words, how do you control for those other factors that did increase the homicide rate so you can get a "pure" number that truly represents the increase in reporting accuracy)?

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
If the data is flawed than the data is flawed. Aren't you a programmer? Haven't you ever heard the phrase "garbage in garbage our?"

That is not necessarily true. Incomplete data does not mean any and all analyses of that data are meaningless. For example, the accuracy of those conclusions may have a larger confidence interval, but that does not make the data useless.

Also, even in programming, taking garbage data and turning it into something awesome is done much more often than you think. That is pretty much what random number generators do...and any modern (post-1950s) decryption algorithms.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
I'm not as confident in Eckberg's exact numbers as he is but the criticisms he makes of the mortality statistics are salient. I can PM you a PDF of his paper.

I do not doubt some of his conclusions. I do not doubt you, either. I think you're pretty much right about your main point and I concede the error in my thought almost hands down. I just disagree with how strong his arguments are considering others call into question, using data as well, the notion that the 1900 figures are grossly underrepresented. I do not want to say the truth is somewhere between the poles of Solinksy and Eckberg. However, you know me well enough to know that I am a data-purist: I like the actual collected data rather than the extrapolation and intelligent guesswork from Eckberg.

Originally posted by Colossus-Big C
Print one out. We need the support.

Support for what, exactly?

More stupidity?

Originally posted by Colossus-Big C
Its True.

Then you should have no trouble proving it.

Originally posted by Robtard
Then you should have no trouble proving it.

Originally posted by dadudemon
I never said that. What I did do is compared two data points: now and 1900. Since I posted the graph to which I was referring, you cannot conclude "linear regression" because it does not show one. Was my use of the word "increase" what made you think I intended linear regression? If so, there definitely was an overall increase in the murder rate per 100,000 people from 1900 to present. I did not mean to imply that the graph I saw showed a line from 1900 to 2011 providing a linear regression.

If you compare only two point then you're making a linear regression (and a really bad one at that). I can pick a few years later on the graph and talk about how the murder rate was much higher than we have today. I feel like you're not only ignoring both the problems with the data but also what that flawed data is showing you in order to paint a misleadingly nostalgic picture.

Did something change in 1905 that we never recovered from? It would have to be huge. There has never been an increase or decrease in murder rates like that on record so whatever it was it would have been huge.

Anyway this started with talking about why murder rates today are higher than in 1900. If we take the data at face value then comparing today with 1900 is the wrong thing to do. We should compare 1900 with 1905 because that was apparently when we started killing each other left, right, and center.

Originally posted by dadudemon
No, those factors did not. Some did but not all and of those some, they applied more severely in the later years of the 1900s. Basically, I'm trying to say that there was no massive/magical improvement on how the "did the numbers" in 1900 and in 1909.

What massive nationwide change was there between 1900 and 1905?

Except that they were getting more representative data, they were asking for more useful data, and coroners were being instructed to fill out standardized death certificates that for the first time required them to mention if the death was by homicide.

Originally posted by dadudemon
I am either missing your point entirely or your information is wrong. I respectfully assume the latter and here's why:

Yes, DC has a higher murder rate but that's not my point. Murder rates weren't being measured only in DC. When you take the 10 states plus DC that were being measured in 1900 their average murder rate today (together) is lower than the national average today. That was also true continuously from 1933 through 1986 (when Eckburg was looking). That selection of state, through no fault of the samplers, has always underrepresented the homicide rate in the country.

Originally posted by dadudemon
1. I looked and I could not find a source for what you were talking about. Not even an expert opinion. For example, nothing I found says "more than 60% of deaths had to be reported as having unknown causes" or something similar.

It's not an "expert opinion" its written in Mortality Statistics 1909.

Originally posted by dadudemon
Furthermore, nothing out there says that those deaths were 'probably homicides/suicides/natural causes that had no medical and criminal experts on hand to assess." We could just as easily assume they were unexplainable medically related deaths as we could homicides.

Except that the moment coroners were asked to explain them they did so obviously they were unexplainable, merely unexplained. We also know that once they started explaining the unexplained deaths homicide and suicide rates spikes to a degree never seen before or since. Now you could put that down to coincidence but the fact of the matter is that those rates never recovered after we started getting better data even as homicide rates crashed going into the 50s.

Originally posted by dadudemon
3. Do you think the suicide rates during that peroid had anything, at all, to do with the following:
Panic of 1901
2 year recession that lasted from 1902-1904
Panic of 1907 (which scared the shit out of people so much, for the last time, that the Federal Reserve was created out of the ashes).
Panic of 1910–1911 (the enforcement of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act)

All of those would explain a bump but a bump isn't what we see. We see rates rise and then never fall to their previous level again. Unless you think people are still killing each other over the Panic of 1907.

Originally posted by dadudemon
4. The data does not generally agree with your implied conclusion (that the homicide rate was underreported in 1900).

I'm not sure what that's even supposed to mean. Of course the data doesn't show that the collection methods were flawed. There's no way for it to show that. The facts about the collection methods showed that the collection methods were flawed.

Originally posted by dadudemon
[B]6. If the murder rate was underreported in 1900 but self-corrected to almost exactness by 1908, what factors contributed to the better data recording? How do the other factors I mentioned that contributed to the homicide rate affect that number's inflation (in other words, how do you control for those other factors that did increase the homicide rate so you can get a "pure" number that truly represents the increase in reporting accuracy)?

Well for starters they started asking what the homicide rate was which was something they actually didn't do before. In 1900 they just accepted the death certificates, which varied form state to state, and wrote them down. By 1909 a new death certificate had been designed that required the coroner to say the cause of death and if it was believed to be accidental, suicidal, or homicidal and (according to Eckburg) they had started returning incomplete forms and asking for them to be finished rather than just writing down "unknown".

Originally posted by dadudemon
That is not necessarily true. Incomplete data does not mean any and all analyses of that data are meaningless. For example, the accuracy of those conclusions may have a larger confidence interval, but that does not make the data useless.

Incomplete in a very specific way. Lower. The moment data collection got better homicide rates got higher.

Originally posted by dadudemon
Also, even in programming, taking garbage data and turning it into something awesome is done much more often than you think.

That would be what Eckburg was doing. Taking garbage data and using the fragments that are available to correct it.

Originally posted by dadudemon
However, you know me well enough to know that I am a data-purist: I like the actual collected data rather than the extrapolation and intelligent guesswork from Eckberg.

If you're willing to have blind faith in the data then I have a cold fusion generator to sell you. The data unambiguously shows I'm creating excess heat.

Originally posted by Colossus-Big C
This

This what?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2252856/Christmas-Eve-gun-horror-Two-firemen-shot-dead-assault-rifle-gunman-set-blaze-lure-deadly-trap.html

Pretty clever, in a sick kind of way.

Originally posted by Tzeentch._
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2252856/Christmas-Eve-gun-horror-Two-firemen-shot-dead-assault-rifle-gunman-set-blaze-lure-deadly-trap.html

Pretty clever, in a sick kind of way.

Wow. Just wow

Originally posted by Tzeentch._
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2252856/Christmas-Eve-gun-horror-Two-firemen-shot-dead-assault-rifle-gunman-set-blaze-lure-deadly-trap.html

Pretty clever, in a sick kind of way.

Do you know what clever means?

Yes.

In your own words, what does clever mean?

Smart

I would call it crafty or canny--I don't know if it's really clever.