Gun violence: past the talking points

[mrkelley23]

Interesting article on 538 right now -- a relatively unbiased, data-driven look at murder rates and shooting rates in various big cities. No huge takeaways, but there are some interesting points made:

[jaybee]

Could be that the thugs in Chicago are prone to the TV classic "dive through a doorway with the gun held sideways while shooting" method while the bad guys in Baltimore take more of a proper shooters stance. Comes down to who is aiming better.

[silverscreenselect]

Could be that the thugs in Chicago are prone to the TV classic "dive through a doorway with the gun held sideways while shooting" method while the bad guys in Baltimore take more of a proper shooters stance. Comes down to who is aiming better.

It could also come down to which city has the better emergency response capabilities and hospital trauma units. Or to the closeness of available hospitals. We live about three miles from a major medical/hospital complex with two full-service hospitals and lots of specialized facilities. If I were to be shot at home, the ambulance would have me at a hospital within ten minutes, easily.

[mrkelley23]

Could be that the thugs in Chicago are prone to the TV classic "dive through a doorway with the gun held sideways while shooting" method while the bad guys in Baltimore take more of a proper shooters stance. Comes down to who is aiming better.

It could also come down to which city has the better emergency response capabilities and hospital trauma units. Or to the closeness of available hospitals. We live about three miles from a major medical/hospital complex with two full-service hospitals and lots of specialized facilities. If I were to be shot at home, the ambulance would have me at a hospital within ten minutes, easily.

That was actually addressed in the article. Most deadly shootings in Baltimore occur within a 3 mile radius of Johns Hopkins. I'm sure their trauma unit doesn't match up with yours, though.

[BackInTex]

4 of the 11 largest cities in the U.S. are in Texas (4. Houston, 7. San Antonio, 9. Dallas, 11. Austin).

Phoenix is #6.

Not one of this listed in the article. I didn't see how they chose the list.

Texas is a big conceal 'n carry state, Arizona a big open carry state. Texas is open carry but openly carrying has not gained popularity, thankfully. But you'd think, or rather SSS would think that we would be at or near the top of the list, at least one of our large cities. Hmmm... Makes you, not SSS, think.

[Bob78164]

4 of the 11 largest cities in the U.S. are in Texas (4. Houston, 7. San Antonio, 9. Dallas, 11. Austin).

Phoenix is #6.

Not one of this listed in the article. I didn't see how they chose the list.

Texas is a big conceal 'n carry state, Arizona a big open carry state. Texas is open carry but openly carrying has not gained popularity, thankfully. But you'd think, or rather SSS would think that we would be at or near the top of the list, at least one of our large cities. Hmmm... Makes you, not SSS, think.

The author explains this in the article. "Cities are not required by the FBI to track shootings specifically, and many cities choose not to count them." He says he collected data from as many big cities as he could. --Bob

[Bob Juch]

4 of the 11 largest cities in the U.S. are in Texas (4. Houston, 7. San Antonio, 9. Dallas, 11. Austin).

Phoenix is #6.

Not one of this listed in the article. I didn't see how they chose the list.

Texas is a big conceal 'n carry state, Arizona a big open carry state. Texas is open carry but openly carrying has not gained popularity, thankfully. But you'd think, or rather SSS would think that we would be at or near the top of the list, at least one of our large cities. Hmmm... Makes you, not SSS, think.

Arizona is not a big open carry state. That's due to having no concealed carry permit requirement.

[Spock]

Obviously, total speculation here.

I am wondering if gang shootings might be more deadly than other shootings.

After looking at the list a couple of times-as a broad generalization-the cities with the highest death per shooting rates tend to be a little smaller with possibly a more concentrated gang problem.

Chicago is about 4 times as big as Baltimore, and while it obviously has a gang problem-maybe it is big enough that there are enough other non-fatal shootings of a non-gang type there that it affects the rate.

[Bob Juch]

Obviously, total speculation here.

I am wondering if gang shootings might be more deadly than other shootings.

After looking at the list a couple of times-as a broad generalization-the cities with the highest death per shooting rates tend to be a little smaller with possibly a more concentrated gang problem.

Chicago is about 4 times as big as Baltimore, and while it obviously has a gang problem-maybe it is big enough that there are enough other non-fatal shootings of a non-gang type there that it affects the rate.

While I was there the news reported that almost all shootings were gang vs gang.

[Spock]

Obviously, total speculation here.

I am wondering if gang shootings might be more deadly than other shootings.

After looking at the list a couple of times-as a broad generalization-the cities with the highest death per shooting rates tend to be a little smaller with possibly a more concentrated gang problem.

Chicago is about 4 times as big as Baltimore, and while it obviously has a gang problem-maybe it is big enough that there are enough other non-fatal shootings of a non-gang type there that it affects the rate.

It almost isn't fair to just compare city to city without looking at metropolitan areas. To compare smaller, eastern cities that have been hemmed in by suburbs for decades with huge, sunbelt cities like Phoenix that were able to grow and, essentially, include large suburban areas doesn't tell you much for crime rates and so forth.

Even with the Baltimore/Chicago comparison. Compared to Baltimore, Chicago includes a huge portion of what would be suburbs in Baltimore. Baltimore has about 620,000. It would be interesting to include enough of the Baltimore Metropolitan Area that approximates the population of Chicago (2.7 Million).

Then compare shooting death rates (and so forth) under those conditions.

[Spock]

In my above post-I went "Big" but metro-wide crime rates really don't tell you anything-Obviously, you have to dial way down to get usable info.

City-wide crime rates (as bad as they are) for a city as big as Chicago don't really tell you anything.

All indications are that the problem is concentrated in some southern and western neighborhoods of Chicago. The murder rates (etc) in those areas have to be absolutely horrific. Some might even consider them apocalyptic.