Crime in the Unite States

[Sheldon]

Bumped into this site FBI Crime in the States Data it could be handy information next time you get in a discussion with a anti.

[capo2186]

Very nice find. I love how antis think that violating our 2A right will fix this. WOW!

[Scarecrow]

Originally Posted by capo2186

Very nice find. I love how antis think that violating our 2A right will fix this. WOW!

no kidding!
thanks for the good post.

[dancingwolf]

Good post. Thanks for sharing!

[gdcleanfun]

Recently I was attempting to use the FBI stats to explain the lowered crime rates in certain states for certain crimes to a fellow in my church and he accused me of trying to spread propaganda! Go figure! It was such a preposterous thing for him to say that I just had to What else could I do?

[toreskha]

I know I'm a party pooper sometimes, but I just can't let this slide.

These stats are fairly inaccurate at best. First off, it's well known in criminology that you can mathematically create a crime wave simply by reclassifying different types of offenses. Politicians do this all the time to prove that they made crime go down or their opponent made it go up. A "decline" in crime can happen just because people stop reporting certain incidents, or police don't document it properly. Some unsolved crimes might get totally reclassified if they're borderline - ie, a few possible homicides get urgently relabeled as suicides or accidents and the cases are closed.

Secondly, the FBI doesn't go around adding all of these crimes up and making sure the reports jive with the statistics. LE agencies all over the United States report them and the FBI just puts the numbers into a big chart. There's no accounting for changes in classification and there's no federal audits or anything like that. It's just an honor system. A good number of violent crimes typically go unreported for various reasons. Most murders do get reported, except for an insignificant number where the victim simply "disappears".

Then there's the old problem of quantity. Most murders are also robberies, and sometimes rapes. If you have a robbery, rape and murder, is that all of the above or just a murder? Is it an assault, battery and kidnapping too? If two guys break into one house, is that two burglaries or one? This can get fairly involved and change crime stats significantly.

The main factors that influence violent crime are economic conditions and average age of the population. Poverty and young people are usually the main ingredients for an increase. I don't know whether concealed carry actually has a significant increase on crime. The number of CWP holder is so small relative to the population - even in good states like Florida - and violent crime is actually quite rare, so the twain do not typically meet. There's no reliable numbers to say one way or another.

Here's my opinion, though. I don't need any kind of benefit for society as a motivator for my gun ownership or carrying. It's my individual right, and that's all. The right to carry is an inherent, natural right and doesn't need to be justified with anything. Carrying because one can should be good enough for anyone.

[tattedupboy]

All the more reason law abiding citizens need to be armed and not rely on the police.

[gdcleanfun]

Yup, we know all that, and we know how to lie with statistics. But it's the best we have on which to rely, unless there are stats quoted from elsewhere for which maybe you can provide directions to us?


***


[quote=toreskha;41465]I know I'm a party pooper sometimes, but I just can't let this slide.

These stats are fairly inaccurate at best. ...

[kwo51]

The group that give s the results is the key.FBI,NCI,or Insurance company's. All these have an interest in crime.The number of deaths caused by crime at best a good guess. Here in Florida it is way down and coincides with the legal carry of arms. Ins.co. have reports on thief and so on, if crime is down it is way down. This would show a slit decline.

[toreskha]

Originally Posted by gdcleanfun

Yup, we know all that, and we know how to lie with statistics. But it's the best we have on which to rely, unless there are stats quoted from elsewhere for which maybe you can provide directions to us?

Those statistics are widely used because they're made available and have a big name attached to them. Accurizing these numbers would be a huge effort that will not happen anytime soon, because no one wants to admit that they've been doing it all screwy for so long. There may also be variables we hadn't thought of- for example, when they outlawed guns in DC, crime went up. But what were the specific crimes? Could some of those "crimes" have been ordinary people who got arrested for defending themselves against violent criminals? Probably.

First, someone would need to come up with a standardized way of reporting different types of crime on a national basis. All states, counties and municipalities would need to use the same definitions and count crimes in the same way. This already introduces a problem because some areas have crimes that other areas don't have, and it may affect how defendants can be charged. If we statistically count an assault as one crime, and we count an assault followed by a battery incident as one battery, then defense attorneys might use that to get fewer charges for their clients - and so on.

So, we'd need to artificially weight those statistics according to the standard scale when they're reported to the FBI. That's some extra paperwork for someone to get to do. Then we would need to ask local LE agencies to compile their old data according to the new standards and re-report it, so that we have something to compare the new data to. Again, more fun for someone. This is a process that would take a decade or more to complete.

I don't think there's an easy answer to this - but as a general rule, when politicians say "crime is up/down" or "jobs were created/lost" or whatever, take it with a whole shaker of salt, because it's a totally meaningless statement. Even the "unemployment rate" deserves some further elaboration, because it only counts certain people.