This guy rocks a v-neck so deep it’s off screen… don’t let that get in the way of what he’s got to say though:
I wonder if “Violent crime” is defined hugely different across countries?
So the violent crime rate dropped 50% in the U.S. in the past 20 years? Yea an assault weapons ban is definitely going to cut that in half again *eye roll*
I gotta keep an eye on this AmidsTheNoise guy… I like his style. Just waiting for when he changes the game with even more advanced v-necks.
Thoughts?
Hat tip: Jon
Comments
13 responses to “Choose Your Own Crime Stats”
Great find.
I used the FBI crime stats in my letter to my reps. I also pointed out the percentage of rifles used in homicide. Good find.
I’ve been sharing this guys vid. I like his style too. And his truth is a bludgeoning instrument.
I’ve been posting it in anti-gun FB pages too. Yeah, I know. But it’s still fun.
*slow clap*
MAC just put it on facebook and shared it there.
the numbers never lie.
I need to buy this guy a drink..
Right fucking on, man!
Thanks for posting! And yeah, I love the v-necks, especially when hot brass flies down my shirt. New vid coming this weekend.
When complaining about how other people manipulate statistics, it is generally a good idea not to use your own manipulated statistics. You can’t do an apples-to-apples comparison of UCR to Home Office violent crime statistics — the UK includes assaults which would not rise to the level of aggravated assault in the US, which inflates their number considerably.
My own extremely non-scientific analysis makes it look like the UK’s violent crime rate by US definitions is actually about 3/4 of ours.
Actually if you just take England and Wales violent crime that includes injury and keep ours the same, however not all of our violent crimes include injury, intent of the perpetrator has much to do with the charge. You will see the England and Wales rate is still 70% higher than ours.
The point of all this is that, again everyone wants to focus on the the country to country comparison while ignoring that the sky isn’t falling in the US. I clearly state comparing country to country is difficult, many factors must be considered. If I wanted to manipulate numbers I wouldn’t have told everyone where to go and look. I would also encourage people to read the Government Statical Survey on the UK crime stats which discusses collection of the data and recommendations for improving it. There is much debate in the UK media that their numbers are highly manipulated. I don’t doubt that the US has some manipulation as well. At the end of the day we need to look at something. I believe the sources I provided are a good place to start. And what I love about this country is people can disagree. If we wake up one day and 99% of us agree, we should all be very worried.
It you look up the UN Criminal Victimization Survey, it attempts to normalize crime stats across countries account for unreported crimes and eliminate differences in reporting by actually doing standardize surveys of household. And it tends to confirm your numbers, with England and Wales with higher violent crime (don’t have the exact numbers at hand right now) and lower murder rates. Also, much higher rates of property crime. This has been pretty clear for anyone willing to look at the data with an open mind for some time now.
I find it sad that the video lacks in depth when comparing the rates from UK and the US.
‘Violence against the person’ is not the same as ‘violent crime’: On page 16 in the HOSB it details which aspects are included and which are not, like “Public fear, alarm or distress”. I doubt this is what is included under ‘violent crime’. Additionally, he doesn’t take into account the possibillity that UK law may differ in some points, making it hard to pinpoint the data.
An interesting take would have been an analysis of the different coloums in the UCR compared to the UK:
‘Violent crime’ consists of murder/forcible rape/aggravated assault/robbery.
Homicide is a subpoint of ‘violence against the person’ on page 16. It amounts to 638 cases in total plus 528 attempted murders. The rate therefore is
UK 1 (1.8) US 4.7
Robbery is listed seperately in the HOSB has a total of 74690. The rate therefore is
UK 118.2 US 113.7
Rape is a subpoint of sexual offences, is listed on page 17 in the HOSB and has a total of 15892 cases. The rate therefore is
UK 25.2 US 26.8
So far, there is little difference besides the murder rate. Aggravated assault is more difficult. I tried the following aproach and added these points mentioned on p16, feel free to add if think something is missing: 5A 8F 8H 4.10 8J 8K 3B 104 105A 105B adding up to 601383. It would lead to a rate of
UK 951.8 US 241.1
Looks striking at first. But it doesn’t tackle the possibillity that there may be differences in the law. Murder is rather universally defined, whether a punch counts as an assault not. It should have been dealt with much deeper.
On another note: Even if you assume that the UK is a more violent country than the US, they still have a smaller murder rate. Maybe it does indicate that less guns lead to less people dying even in more violent countries?
Concerning the decrease in overall violent crime rates in the UCR table 1:
http://www.vpc.org/studies/ownership.pdf
In 1990 gunownership per houshold was at 45%. It dropped harshly till 2000 down to 35%, and then started to fall slowly with occasional bumps down to 32%.
The UCR Table says that between 1990 and 2000, the rate fell by 250 points. Between 2000 and 2011 it only fell by 120 points. Couldn’t that be an influencing factor as well?
First, to AmidstTheNoise, Great article. Admitting that comparing the statistics from two countries is very difficult, you have done a great job of starting a discussion on how the statistics are being manipulated by politicians and the press. I will add a note for your research that I found a very convincing argument in the book “Freakonomics” that the biggest (not the only) reason for the drop in crime that started in the 90s was the Roe vs Wade decision.
Another issue to consider, but more specifically in the murder statistics, is how many murders are directly related to the illicit drug trade. Several years ago I took a course in “Drugs and the Law” taught by a police officer involved in attempting to reduce the drug trade (not really possible). One of the things he noted was that cocaine virtually never hit the street at greater than about 30% purity, but still sold for about $100 per gram. However, at that time, medically pure cocaine sold to hospitals for about $16 per ounce (which is a bit more than 28 grams!). As long as drugs are illegal, the profit margin is going to be high enough that killing to keep or take your place in the sales chain is going to make sense. So why aren’t we talking about legalizing drugs?
The news media wants to sell their wares, and wants to exert a level of control over the populace. To do so, they misrepresent the truth, and hide behind freedom of speech. The politicians want to increase their security in office, and increase their control over the populace, so gun control is a very good thing from their standpoint. The average non-gun owning citizen wants to be “safer”, so they support gun control, because guns scare them (as the press/media has worked very hard to ensure.) I do not mean to be a conspiracy theorist, but look at what drives each group in any debate, and how the “other” groups respond.