where do kids get the guns from?

[moke123]

The places in this country that have the most guns and the loosest controls on those guns also have the least gun violence and the fewest killings.

 

[AccessBlaster]

I heard that in the USA, you can buy guns in a supermarket called Walmart. Also, there are gunshops on virtually every town centre street. Apparently, it's harder to buy a drink than a gun.

Col

And yet people are still clawing their way in here every minute everyday, so clearly it's not having the effect you thought it might.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I heard that in the USA, you can buy guns in a supermarket called Walmart. Also, there are gunshops on virtually every town centre street. Apparently, it's harder to buy a drink than a gun.

Col

Walmart is a discount department store that includes a supermarket, so you are not totally far off. However, in New Orleans, it is decidedly NOT harder to buy a drink than to buy a gun.

My late father, for a few years after the end of WW II, was an advertising route representative for National Distillers (makers of several brands of whisky). His route was the uptown area which included the central business district plus a few residential areas. He knew all of the bars and other establishments in his area if they had a liquor license. He showed me the statistics once. IF you counted restaurants that were allowed to server liquor with their food as well as straight-up bars that had nothing to do with food, then the average was that you could not walk more than seven blocks in a straight line before you would find an establishment with a liquor license. In Louisiana, the groceries sell liquor of various sorts. Wine is almost trivial to find. Hard liquor is also on the shelves.

We used to have a chain store before the owner passed away (and his kids didn't want the store) called Schwegmann's - which was a HUGE store by any standards. If "Scheggie's" didn't have it, it was probably not a food item. Their largest store had five aisles dedicated to beer; wine; brandy and cordials; whisky; and various spirits like gin, vodka, and other exotics. (That was the contents of the five aisles IN ORDER.) That didn't count the cooking sherry which was on the baking aisle. So Col, have to tell you that getting a drink was and still is easier than buying a gun.

One other thing: The frequency of gun shops is not as high as you suggested, Col, because many states restrict gun sales. California, for example, has stricter gun laws than most states.

 

[conception_native_0123]

I heard that in the USA, you can buy guns in a supermarket called Walmart

don't you have Wal Marts in England?

Apparently, it's harder to buy a drink than a gun.

I'll have to fact-check that one.

 

[moke123]

California, for example, has stricter gun laws than most states.

California is #2, after Texas, in guns per capita.


here's an interesting perspective

To put things in perspective:

• In the US, there are approximately 50,271 more gun stores than McDonald's. Specifically, there are 14,146 McDonald's (as of December 2016) and 64,417 firearm dealers nationwide (as of September 2017).
• There are approximately 32,927 more gun stores than coffee shops (31,490 as of December 2015).
• There are approximately 39,017 more gun stores than grocery stores (25,400 as of December 2016).
• There are approximately 54,017 more gun stores than 7-11s (10,400 as of 2017).
• There are approximately 3,578 more gun stores than pharmacies (60,839 as of 2014).

 

[The_Doc_Man]

In the US, there are approximately 50,271 more gun stores than McDonald's. Specifically, there are 14,146 McDonald's (as of December 2016) and 64,417 firearm dealers nationwide (as of September 2017).

Considering how fast food screws with your digestion, lipids, blood sugar, and frustration based on how often they get your order wrong, I'm GLAD we have fewer McDonald's than we do gun stores.

 

[hkc94501]

But hkc94501, that is exactly the point. We are not talking about crimes in general, but gun violence. Now i do not know if these murders in the fbi report were committed by guns, knifes or whatever, but fact is that in the black community the murder rate is absurdly high.

Also these statistics do only include numbers, but not in relation to the actual population.
According to Wikipedia the percentage of white population is 72.6% in america, while black or african american are 13.3%.
That means the amount of white people in the USA is around 7x higher than black.

Now take into consideration your statistic. The total arrests of black people for whatever reason is mostly about 0.5-1 times the arrests of white.
The difference in numbers does not add up with the difference in population at all. The crime rate in the black community is SIGNIFICANTLY higher.

Usually i do not like to talk about race, because it is a sensitive topic, and i don't mean to offend anyone in any way.
But calling these facts prejudices is just wrong.
If you would increase the population of black/african american to the same amount as white people, the crime rates of this community would be 3.5-7x higher.

Saphira, What exactly are you getting at?
I guess I'll just ask directly, Are you claiming that black people are inherently more criminal than others?
That is pretty dangerous ground. The notion that black people are more criminal than white has been a key element of white supremacism since the Nat Turner rebellion and the liberation of Haiti. It gave rise to the Ku Klux Klan and the lynching of thousands of black men.
Don't confuse correlation with causation.

 

[hkc94501]

Keep in mind the FBI is not a reliable source of information, this may surprise some people but the FBI has always been compromised going back to Hoover, Nixon, Obama, recently used against Trump, and now clearly used by Uncle Joe.

I wonder what you do consider a reliable source of crime statistics? The FBI at least is clear about their sources of error and has all kinds of guidance on how to and how not to interpret their data.
Perhaps you prefer Tucker Carlson?

 

[AccessBlaster]

I wonder what you do consider a reliable source of crime statistics? The FBI at least is clear about their sources of error and has all kinds of guidance on how to and how not to interpret their data.
Perhaps you prefer Tucker Carlson?

The FBI is a political tool used by both parties.

 

[Isaac]

View attachment 95128

The screenshot you posted is meaningless - it's a ranking by frequency, not per capita. Texas and California have a lot of people

Here's the exact same information, for 2019, sorted by rate. (like the screenshot says, but then doesn't do).
And..........Texas doesn't even make the top 20:

So you have to focus on rate, not frequency, because populations differ of course......

One final note. Note that Alaska is #1.

Does that answer my rhetorical question about gun accidents being included in these totals.......

 

[Isaac]

California is #2, after Texas, in guns per capita.


here's an interesting perspective

Nope, Texas isn't even in the top 20.

 

[hkc94501]

And I agree with Saphirah, I don't like to directly mention races either, but someone brought it up, and I feel that these conversations should begin - like, everyone comes to the table, conversation-wise- from a basis of Truth. If we can't lay out the actual facts, there's no reason to even debate the points.

@hkc94501 , you're completely wrong about publishing the race of the victim. One true thing you said is that interracial violent crime is relatively rare anyway (a small % of the total violent crime), but if you'd like to bring it up, black-on-white is twice the rate of white-on-black.
A quick look here shows you that you can, indeed, easily obtain the perpetrator and victim race pairings of violent crime:

Expanded Homicide Data Table 6

ucr.fbi.gov

A quick look here reveals several facts, which does confirm what I've said earlier in this thread and in other posts, there is very little interracial crime anyway - nothing like CNN likes to portray, as if one race is slaughtering the other. The truth is, most races are committing violent crimes against their own (including whites). But if you wanted to focus on the little bit of interracial violent crime that there is, here is the breakdown:

perp-on-vic:

• white-on-white: 2594 out of 3299 white victims (approx 80%, as I've said in other posts)
• black-on-black: 2574 out of 2906 black victims (88%)
• white-on-black: 246 out of 2906 black victims (approx 8%)
• black-on-white: 566 out of 3299 (approx 17%)

Totally different than the media portrays, in more than one way, isn't it?

Next,
It took me 5 minutes to get these facts from https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/table-43

355,244 violent crime arrests
209,848 white (59.1%) (1 % underrepresented, as the population is 60.1%)
129,346 black (36.4%) (2.7 times overrepresented, as the population is 13-14%)

I will stand corrected in my previous usage of "vast majority" - I should have referred to ratios and proportions, rather than using that term, since the majority actually ARE committed by whites (of course, they are the majority of the population, so that ratio holds to expectations)

Now, in all fairness, poverty and growing up in a fatherless household are also strong predictors of crime, statistically.

This is why America (and each group's culture, which plays a significant role) ought to be encouraging normal, 2-parent married households as much as possible - in the tax law, welfare structure and everywhere else. Right now welfare strongly incentivizes not getting married - but still having kids. Even a cursory look at data trends shows that this policy has failed miserably, and led to huge rises in crime and poverty.
Honestly, in my opinion, that is what policy makers and social 'engineers' (which are everywhere now) ought to be focusing on.

I also take no joy in discussing race in this context, but the national conversation in this country has, frankly, gotten a bit ridiculous. We should start out figuring out what the truth is and go from there. Right now the truth is Taboo, and so, naturally, it's been suplemented with all kinds of alternative theories on why not everyone who wants to achieve or get out of crime & poverty has done so. The fact is, those alternative theories are not doing ANYONE any good - nobody.

Isaac, Thanks for the additional information. I didn't spend enough time on the FBI site. If you were to add in the number of black people killed by police (not listed as crimes) it would about double the number of white on black homicides.

I agree with you that 2 parent stable families are a good thing and conducive to better social order but that alone won't solve the problem. America needs to face its history of black suppression with honesty. In addition to favoring 2 parent families the US needs to remove the obstacles that have prevented Black Americans from acquiring capital. Ownership of capital assets is the only sure way to raise families out of poverty and to prevent them sliding back into it.

400 years of oppression have created a permanent black underclass in America. Don't fool yourself that this ended in 1865. From 1865 until the 1960's Black Codes restricted the freedom and limited the ability of black people to consolidate capital. The Tulsa Massacre of 1921 was largely directed against a thriving black middle class in Tulsa and it destroyed black capital never to be recovered.

After WW-II the GI bill and the creation of the FHA led to a huge expansion of the American middle class. Suddenly millions who could never have hoped for higher education or a single family home could acquire these keys to a better life. But those opportunities were systematically denied to black people. Dejure restrictions at the FHA and the legality of racial covenants kept black people out of white suburbs. These legal restrictions were far more insidious than the white on black violence that often followed if a black family was allowed to move in.

The GI bill which sent millions to college was de facto limited to whites. Unlike the FHA the GI bill did not have de jure racial discrimination. The problem was that public colleges and universities in the South, where most black GI's originated, were racially restricted. Therefore, even if a black GI could get GI Bill money he could not find a local institution of higher education that would admit him.

The effects of institutional racial discrimination's like these and many others are far more insidious than the overt racial terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan and other White Supremecist groups because they tend to be universal in applicability. Violence is usually restricted to individuals but institutional racism can silently steal the opportunity from a whole class of people.

 

[AccessBlaster]

400 years of oppression have created a permanent black underclass in America.

400 years?

Where did that number come from?

 

[hkc94501]

The screenshot you posted is meaningless - it's a ranking by frequency, not per capita. Texas and California have a lot of people

Here's the exact same information, for 2019, sorted by rate. (like the screenshot says, but then doesn't do).
And..........Texas doesn't even make the top 20:
View attachment 95134


So you have to focus on rate, not frequency, because populations differ of course......

One final note. Note that Alaska is #1.

Does that answer my rhetorical question about gun accidents being included in these totals.......

I can't tell where your data is coming from or how you compute it. How about posting a spreadsheet?
Incidents/population = per capita it tells the likelihood of a random individual being a victim of an incident.
Kentucky with a population of 4,467,673 had 241,668 violent crimes that gives a per capita incidence of .0541 violet crimes per capita.
California had a population of 39,512,223 and 1,014,785 violent crimes or .0257 crimes per capita

Conclusion is that your random citizen of Kentucky is twice a likely to be the victim of a violent crime than your random citizen of California.
If you want to criticize this analysis then you should point out that the assumption of random selection is unreasonable.
Its pretty clear that not all citizens of a state have equal probability of being the victim of crime.

Similarly, it is not reasonable to assume that all citizens will be victims of gun violence.
Turns out that victims are much more likely to live in houses with guns.

 

[hkc94501]

400 years?

Where did that number come from?

2021 - 1619 = 402

 

[The_Doc_Man]

@hkc94501

Ever since the 1960s, institutional racism started to diminish as more and more justice department lawsuits forced reconsideration of the laws through court challenges. I'm old enough that I remember it happening. I'm going to call "error" on your comment and substitute one word that I think corrects the statement: VESTIGIAL racism still exists - because diehards won't let it go. However, if you can find ANY WRITTEN LAW in the USA that explicitly discriminates against blacks, you can take that law to court and get it overturned. Affirmative action is actually a vestige of the attempt to reverse the pendulum so that instead of discriminating against blacks, colleges discriminate against whites. In the strict meaning of the word, institutional racism doesn't exist. Vestigial racism does. This is a case where we cannot blame the government now for the idiocy of its citizens who grew up in a different social climate.

It is incredibly common and incredibly incorrect to claim institutional racism as a widespread thing. Derek Chauvin was a bad individual who badly overreacted to a situation, egregiously so. If you called him a criminal, you'd get no argument from me. But where I call foul is to claim that the actions of a few bad actors represent a trend. YOU are complaining about how people look at statistics as indicators of the criminal nature of blacks. Then you look at corresponding statistics to prove your comments about whites. But it just doesn't work that way. There is not a true sword that won't cut on the forward stroke AND the backstroke.

Now, I'm not going to make assumptions about anyone's race here. Unfair is unfair, whether it is vestigial or institutional. However, if you can't call something bad by its correct name, that misdirection will make it much harder to root out. It will make people look for the wrong thing and waste everyone's time, thus actually prolonging the life-span of that unwanted vestige.

You also asked a question of Saphirah:

Are you claiming that black people are inherently more criminal than others?

Don't know if Saphirah will step into that one, but I will. Statistically, per capita, black people are inherently more disruptive, disdaintful of property rights, and generally more violent. But I don't believe for a microsecond that it is due to genetics. This is the old nature vs. nurture question. Your arguments in your post #32 above provide the basis for that "nurture" leg of this discussion. Society is reaping what it has sown by nurturing some of its own citizens in an unpleasant direction. So my direct answer to your question is "Yes, but given the past treatment of blacks, what did you expect?"

I will add that I have worked around many black people and, in fact, FOR black people. When I was a contractor with the U.S. Navy, the two best companies I worked for were black-owned. Two best upper bosses I ever had. They were smart and capable. So before you accuse me of anything, just look carefully at what I'm saying. I'm actually looking at the problem that exists and laying blame on past white behavior. It's just that I believe in calling something correctly. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and flies like a duck, it ain't a poullet-doux. (Tossed in an old Cajun phrase for that one...)

 

[hkc94501]

@hkc94501

Ever since the 1960s, institutional racism started to diminish as more and more justice department lawsuits forced reconsideration of the laws through court challenges. I'm old enough that I remember it happening. I'm going to call "error" on your comment and substitute one word that I think corrects the statement: VESTIGIAL racism still exists - because diehards won't let it go. However, if you can find ANY WRITTEN LAW in the USA that explicitly discriminates against blacks, you can take that law to court and get it overturned. Affirmative action is actually a vestige of the attempt to reverse the pendulum so that instead of discriminating against blacks, colleges discriminate against whites. In the strict meaning of the word, institutional racism doesn't exist. Vestigial racism does. This is a case where we cannot blame the government now for the idiocy of its citizens who grew up in a different social climate.

It is incredibly common and incredibly incorrect to claim institutional racism as a widespread thing. Derek Chauvin was a bad individual who badly overreacted to a situation, egregiously so. If you called him a criminal, you'd get no argument from me. But where I call foul is to claim that the actions of a few bad actors represent a trend. YOU are complaining about how people look at statistics as indicators of the criminal nature of blacks. Then you look at corresponding statistics to prove your comments about whites. But it just doesn't work that way. There is not a true sword that won't cut on the forward stroke AND the backstroke.

Now, I'm not going to make assumptions about anyone's race here. Unfair is unfair, whether it is vestigial or institutional. However, if you can't call something bad by its correct name, that misdirection will make it much harder to root out. It will make people look for the wrong thing and waste everyone's time, thus actually prolonging the life-span of that unwanted vestige.

You also asked a question of Saphirah:



Don't know if Saphirah will step into that one, but I will. Statistically, per capita, black people are inherently more disruptive, disdaintful of property rights, and generally more violent. But I don't believe for a microsecond that it is due to genetics. This is the old nature vs. nurture question. Your arguments in your post #32 above provide the basis for that "nurture" leg of this discussion. Society is reaping what it has sown by nurturing some of its own citizens in an unpleasant direction. So my direct answer to your question is "Yes, but given the past treatment of blacks, what did you expect?"

I will add that I have worked around many black people and, in fact, FOR black people. When I was a contractor with the U.S. Navy, the two best companies I worked for were black-owned. Two best upper bosses I ever had. They were smart and capable. So before you accuse me of anything, just look carefully at what I'm saying. I'm actually looking at the problem that exists and laying blame on past white behavior. It's just that I believe in calling something correctly. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and flies like a duck, it ain't a poullet-doux. (Tossed in an old Cajun phrase for that one...)

Yes de jure discrimination by race is illegal now but de facto racial discrimination persists. This can be seen in continuing discrimination against blacks in housing and employment. It also persists in private enterprises and organizations not subject to federal anti-discriminaton laws.

 

[moke123]

The screenshot you posted is meaningless - it's a ranking by frequency, not per capita. Texas and California have a lot of people

Here's the exact same information, for 2019, sorted by rate. (like the screenshot says, but then doesn't do).
And..........Texas doesn't even make the top 20:
View attachment 95134


So you have to focus on rate, not frequency, because populations differ of course......

One final note. Note that Alaska is #1.

Does that answer my rhetorical question about gun accidents being included in these totals.......

Gun violence and gun deaths are different statistics.

From personal experience, I've had hundreds of gun cases over the years and a very small percentage had a death involved.

 

[ColinEssex]

don't you have Wal Marts in England?

No we don't have Walmart per se. But I believe the company (Walmart) owns one of our supermarket chains (Asda)

Col

 

[The_Doc_Man]

It also persists in private enterprises and organizations not subject to federal anti-discriminaton laws.

And NOW we get to the meat of this problem. There is no law that requires a private individual to be fair-minded. More precisely, there is no such law that it wouldn't overstep the "Freedom of Association" and "Security in one's business" ensconced in the U.S. Constitution. Just as "Freedom of Religion" has in the past been interpreted to include "Freedom FROM Religion" (for atheists), so "Freedom of Association" cannot block people who DON'T want to associate with certain others. And there have been many cases regarding privacy of business rights.

We are dealing with something that is ingrained in our evolution - the tendency to form selective groups. In anthropological studies, "MAN" is counted as a "gregarious" animal. If you look up that word, the first (therefore, primary) definition is "tending to associate with others of one's kind." The second definition relates to companionship.

How many "Karen" incidents have we seen? How many cases of anti-semitism or in fact any kind of religious persecution have we seen? The side effect of living in a free country is that people are free to isolate themselves within a smaller group and you cannot legally take that freedom away from them. In a sense, the extreme anti-vaxxers are another example of people who are choosing which herds to follow.

It comes down to this: The USA is a balancing act that allows or even encourages disparate and distinct groups to gather together in peace. We are ALL members of a living, breathing, MOSTLY peaceful but often self-contradictory uber-group. I make no excuses for ANY individual group that takes things to extremes. But here, folks have the right to associate with whom they please and to avoid those with whom they are displeased.

So... what about "non-discrimination in business" laws? Well, that gets into the question of Fourth Amendment rights (essentially, the right of privacy in our business dealings). I can't tell you at what level those laws become intrusive, but I will say that there are lawyers working attacking the fringes of those laws. A lawyer friend of mine once said that "law is made at the edges of conflicts." If you think about the really big decisions with the Supremes, they have had to rule MANY times regarding which law prevails when two laws are in conflict. So don't ask me what is legal. But I will say that there are enough different creeds that you KNOW some of them are in conflict as well.

In summary, while I certainly do not like the uneven and unfair way some people are treated, I question whether it will be possible to quickly improve matters. I don't think we know how without violating someone else's rights in the process.