Excellent write up! I especially appreciate the point about suicide and "gun deaths." Lumping suicides performed by firearm with homicides performed by firearms is a classic case of extremely misleading statistics, and I would go so far as calling it an intentional lie. People care about murders and being murdered, but the number is inflated by a huge pile of suicides for no useful reason. No useful reason aside from lying, that is.
Damn, that is fabulous! Not only in the data and explanation (about how both sides are wrong), but also in the "How To Lie With Statistics" section that really highlights how the media actively mislead. Well done sirs!
To be fair, it may be a better comparison between guns and cars to consider miles driven per death. And then rounds fired, per death.
Actually, that probably wouldn't be fair either because I'm sure the ratio of rounds fired to deaths would be mind bogglingly one-sided as well.
Would be good number to know: for every X number of bullet wounds, Y bullets were fired without hitting anybody. You could even be charitable and count rounds fired *at* people in the same group as wounds. It would still be laughable one-sided.
There are ten billion rounds of ammunition manufactured in the USA every year. Enough to pump one full standard 30 round mag full of ammo into every man woman and child in the whole country.
Ratio of bullets fired to bullets that kill someone is .... loonytunes.
A gun doesn't have to be fired for it to provide protection.
Your metric of "Rounds fired per death" completely excludes something like 90% of Defensive Gun Usages, where a crime is deterred but the gun is never fired.
More largely, though, rounds fired per death includes the 500 rounds I shot at my last pistol class, and the 1000 rounds I shot at my last carbine class. It's absurd.
FWIW, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration cites absolute number of traffic fatalities per year along with fatalities per 100k and fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled.
There's a groups of activists, mainly anti-car, and "pro-bike", pro-transit, etc, who insist the US is suffering from an "epidemic" of what they call "traffic violence."
You'll usually hear them cite traffic fatalities in absolute terms which tend to sound scary. In absolute terms, traffic deaths peaked in the early 70s (54k deaths) and have dropped up and down in waves since then with a low of 33k in 2011 (last time deaths were in this range was in 1964), then they jumped back up into the high 30k and low 40k.
When portraying these fatalities in terms of per 100k people (the US population has grown continuously every year) or fatalities per 100M vehicle miles traveled (in recent memory, the only time this metric decreased was in 2020) the picture looks different.
“…from an "epidemic" of what they call "traffic violence."
What we are really suffering from is an “epidemic” of people who are prone to emotional hyperbole. Everything is now an “epidemic” a “genocide “ “extremist” and so on. Unfortunately words are losing their meaning
I know this is an old post but I just had a very tingling shower thought.
Taking the estimated 60-120 homicides a year with AR-15s.
How many of those are justified homicides by people defending their homes?
more to the point though
How many of those are police? Every couple of weeks I see a video from DonutOperator or similar, of police going after someone or other, and more often than not, especially when the suspect achieves the Room Temperature Challenge, these badges are using an AR-15 pattern long gun. If this number is under 30 a year I'll be shocked. I'd guess it's higher.
Is it possible that a significant percentage, perhaps even a MAJORITY, of AR-15 rifle related homicides in this country are by law enforcement?
I recall reading a few, but I don't read about as many as I do the murders. But that's media bias - it's not very often the incentives align for them to tell me about justified AR-15 homicides.
I think it's definitely possible, but I wouldn't know where to get the numbers.
That's the trick, isn't it? I don't think anyone is even attempting to track this. My gut says that law enforcement use of AR15s is a significant if not a majority proportion of fatal interactions involving the platform, but between inconsistent reporting of rifle use in homicide (What would a murder using a AK Draco be classified as? Depends on who's recording it and what day of the week it is.) and no interest in tracking the weapons used in officer-involved shooting fatalities, putting the data together would likely be a chore and a half.
If the data existed to do this properly, then my article would need to change too. It's likely that true AR-15 deaths, including cops and such, would move from between buckets and lawnmowers up to between deer and swimming pools.
In fairness, the mouthbreather in chief did actually mention cancer. Claiming he was going to "beat it". So there was that...... I'm personally sick of the systemic assaults on our rights. Then again, that's why I'm an anarchist.....
I'd wondered that, since I never ever watch those things, but thankfully everyone else is going to forget he said that by tomorrow so I don't need to make any corrections. :)
I have a vague memory of listening to the car radio in the early 1970s just after I got my driver's license hearing the breathless news that Nixon was launching a war on cancer that was going to stop the disease in 5 years or something like that. Seemed ridiculous and lacking in specifics.
I was driving on the Maryland side of the DC beltway-freeway, but we lived in the Virginia side. I don't remember why I was driving, but sometimes I just took off exploring in the car, so maybe I wanted to drive all the way around or something like that (obviously that was before permanent gridlock that they reportedly have now). I may have pulled off at a park to walk the dog or go hiking. There were some of those WW2 or pre-WW2 military or govt buildings that were the austere version of post-art-deco or whatever that architectural style is.
Also, I find it hilarious our "leaders" are trying to ban vaping on the grounds of "safety", but not smoking. I don't use either product, but I would rather be around someone who vapes any day over someone who smokes. Don't get me started on the jerks that loiter in front of the doors of every establishment to get their last puff that I have to walk through.
There is some data on types of firearms used (p. 15) but it's sort of mushed together and somewhat distorted. For example, the report says that there were 173 mass attacks in the past 5 years. Of these, 126 involved firearms. Of those involving firearms, 40 involved "long guns." Rather than characterizing this as 23% of all mass attacks, they claim it's 32% -- meaning the % of all mass attacks using "long guns" vs. total mass attacks using firearms. Likewise, there's no way to suss out how many "long gun" mass attacks used shotguns, rifles or "assault rifles."
Still, you may want to give it a look since mass attacks seem to be the source of politicians' efforts to score points on "assault weapons."
Great write up, though I suspect it won't go over well with the 'don't bother me with the facts' crowd. Can't win 'em all. Now that COVID is fading from the headlines, fortunately or unfortunately, it appears that the 'don't bother me' crowd is increasing by leaps and bounds.
On the topic of cars, are you familiar with the wokism term "traffic violence?" It's being pushed by a lot of the "anti-car" activists, "urbanists," YIMBY's etc, such as supporters for "protected" bike lanes. These activists often the term "epidemic" too.
The "science" to support them is repeated over and over again in "the industry" but from what I've seen so far, they commit many of the same mistakes or misdirection as the anti-gun crowd and the charlatans pushing things such as gas stove bans. (and realistically, follow the money: https://principledbicycling.substack.com/p/the-streetsblog-files-part-i-of)
Here are some examples of some of these studies "debunked" :
Mass murders traumatize more people more seriously than random murders of abused girlfriends, bar patrons and armed robberies gone bad. That's why people want AR 15s and their ilk banned. Just the reality.
Re: cars, yes, they kill a lot of people, but there are constant efforts to improve their safety. Personally, I won't be happy until they perfect autonomous vehicles.
It's a little sloppy to not at least mention murders committed with "Firearms, type not stated". I would assume that some percentage of those were MSR's. You also haven't accounted for AR pattern pistols and other "assault pistols", which are used in some non-zero amount of murders. But, it's a good start.
I would assume that every single time someone gets murdered with an AR-15 that it is plastered all over the news as such, and that the cop isn't going to forget to put the type of weapon into the database. I also doubt that an AR-15 pistol goes into the database as a "pistol murder" when the cop doing the database entry probably doesn't know or care what weird esoteric ATF ruling is in play at any given moment.
Good point. The media awaits in breathless anticipation to report that an AR15 was used in yet another tragic murder, and don't miss a chance, even when it turns out it was just a Hi Point carbine or an umbrella. Corrections/retractions are published a week later, buried in a filing cabinet in a basement where the lights are out and also the stairs, and behind a door that says "beware of leopard"
What exactly is death by bucket? Is it like the practical joke where you balance the bucket full of water on the back of the door and some chump gets water dumped on them but it goes horribly wrong? ALS ice bucket challenge in the wrong hands? I make maple syrup every year and have over 100 three gallon buckets. Should I be storing those under lock and key so my kids are safe?
That's what it says on the side of the Home Depot buckets, hard to believe they're that lethal. Possibly a bigger issue than gun deaths is the lack of parental situational awareness?
Excellent write up! I especially appreciate the point about suicide and "gun deaths." Lumping suicides performed by firearm with homicides performed by firearms is a classic case of extremely misleading statistics, and I would go so far as calling it an intentional lie. People care about murders and being murdered, but the number is inflated by a huge pile of suicides for no useful reason. No useful reason aside from lying, that is.
https://hwfo.substack.com/p/everybodys-lying-about-the-link-between
Damn, that is fabulous! Not only in the data and explanation (about how both sides are wrong), but also in the "How To Lie With Statistics" section that really highlights how the media actively mislead. Well done sirs!
I believe BJ's very first gun article explored exactly that.
To be fair, it may be a better comparison between guns and cars to consider miles driven per death. And then rounds fired, per death.
Actually, that probably wouldn't be fair either because I'm sure the ratio of rounds fired to deaths would be mind bogglingly one-sided as well.
Would be good number to know: for every X number of bullet wounds, Y bullets were fired without hitting anybody. You could even be charitable and count rounds fired *at* people in the same group as wounds. It would still be laughable one-sided.
Ratio of bullets to homicides fired would be hilarious to calculate. Maybe I'll do that the next time they float "bullet tax."
Like "ok, fine, tax the bullets, but give us a deduction for any bullets fired that don't hit people."
That write-up would be absurdly hilarious.
There are ten billion rounds of ammunition manufactured in the USA every year. Enough to pump one full standard 30 round mag full of ammo into every man woman and child in the whole country.
Ratio of bullets fired to bullets that kill someone is .... loonytunes.
"Statistically indistinguishable from zero."
A gun doesn't have to be fired for it to provide protection.
Your metric of "Rounds fired per death" completely excludes something like 90% of Defensive Gun Usages, where a crime is deterred but the gun is never fired.
More largely, though, rounds fired per death includes the 500 rounds I shot at my last pistol class, and the 1000 rounds I shot at my last carbine class. It's absurd.
FWIW, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration cites absolute number of traffic fatalities per year along with fatalities per 100k and fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled.
There's a groups of activists, mainly anti-car, and "pro-bike", pro-transit, etc, who insist the US is suffering from an "epidemic" of what they call "traffic violence."
You'll usually hear them cite traffic fatalities in absolute terms which tend to sound scary. In absolute terms, traffic deaths peaked in the early 70s (54k deaths) and have dropped up and down in waves since then with a low of 33k in 2011 (last time deaths were in this range was in 1964), then they jumped back up into the high 30k and low 40k.
When portraying these fatalities in terms of per 100k people (the US population has grown continuously every year) or fatalities per 100M vehicle miles traveled (in recent memory, the only time this metric decreased was in 2020) the picture looks different.
“…from an "epidemic" of what they call "traffic violence."
What we are really suffering from is an “epidemic” of people who are prone to emotional hyperbole. Everything is now an “epidemic” a “genocide “ “extremist” and so on. Unfortunately words are losing their meaning
Yup
https://principledbicycling.substack.com/p/is-there-really-an-epidemic-of-traffic
Ban deer and bees. Anyone who has ever seen those fuckers in action knows they are up to no good.
The fucking BEES.
KILLING ME WON'T BRING BACK YOUR GODDAMN HONEY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UatQsjjOIAc
And swimming pools…
CODDLE THE NUKED, ENTITLED, TRANS-SPECIESIST, POLYAMOROUS, GAY BABY WHALES FOR JEEEEEBUS.
In a few months the usual, seasonal slaughter of baby deer by bears is going to commence.
I can't wait for the animal rights activists to get involved in stopping the bears from eating baby deer.
A political wedge issue, useful to politicians and the press. AR-15 style pictures just produce terror in some people not familiar with guns.
I know this is an old post but I just had a very tingling shower thought.
Taking the estimated 60-120 homicides a year with AR-15s.
How many of those are justified homicides by people defending their homes?
more to the point though
How many of those are police? Every couple of weeks I see a video from DonutOperator or similar, of police going after someone or other, and more often than not, especially when the suspect achieves the Room Temperature Challenge, these badges are using an AR-15 pattern long gun. If this number is under 30 a year I'll be shocked. I'd guess it's higher.
Is it possible that a significant percentage, perhaps even a MAJORITY, of AR-15 rifle related homicides in this country are by law enforcement?
I recall reading a few, but I don't read about as many as I do the murders. But that's media bias - it's not very often the incentives align for them to tell me about justified AR-15 homicides.
I think it's definitely possible, but I wouldn't know where to get the numbers.
That's the trick, isn't it? I don't think anyone is even attempting to track this. My gut says that law enforcement use of AR15s is a significant if not a majority proportion of fatal interactions involving the platform, but between inconsistent reporting of rifle use in homicide (What would a murder using a AK Draco be classified as? Depends on who's recording it and what day of the week it is.) and no interest in tracking the weapons used in officer-involved shooting fatalities, putting the data together would likely be a chore and a half.
If the data existed to do this properly, then my article would need to change too. It's likely that true AR-15 deaths, including cops and such, would move from between buckets and lawnmowers up to between deer and swimming pools.
This is a persuasive one.
Straightforward, simple, easy to follow.
3.27 OJ's better than the Gun Argument Tree.
"by bucket"? Seriously?
Is there a tally for "choked on avocado toast"?
"Bucket" is usually the total national count for toddlers who fall head first into buckets with water in them and drown themselves.
In fairness, the mouthbreather in chief did actually mention cancer. Claiming he was going to "beat it". So there was that...... I'm personally sick of the systemic assaults on our rights. Then again, that's why I'm an anarchist.....
I'd wondered that, since I never ever watch those things, but thankfully everyone else is going to forget he said that by tomorrow so I don't need to make any corrections. :)
I have a vague memory of listening to the car radio in the early 1970s just after I got my driver's license hearing the breathless news that Nixon was launching a war on cancer that was going to stop the disease in 5 years or something like that. Seemed ridiculous and lacking in specifics.
I was driving on the Maryland side of the DC beltway-freeway, but we lived in the Virginia side. I don't remember why I was driving, but sometimes I just took off exploring in the car, so maybe I wanted to drive all the way around or something like that (obviously that was before permanent gridlock that they reportedly have now). I may have pulled off at a park to walk the dog or go hiking. There were some of those WW2 or pre-WW2 military or govt buildings that were the austere version of post-art-deco or whatever that architectural style is.
http://www.city-data.com/picfilesc/picc71301.php
Also, I find it hilarious our "leaders" are trying to ban vaping on the grounds of "safety", but not smoking. I don't use either product, but I would rather be around someone who vapes any day over someone who smokes. Don't get me started on the jerks that loiter in front of the doors of every establishment to get their last puff that I have to walk through.
I don't know if this may be of interest, but it seems up your alley. The Secret Service released its report on 173 mass attacks over the past 5 years. https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/2023-01/usss-ntac-maps-2016-2020.pdf
There is some data on types of firearms used (p. 15) but it's sort of mushed together and somewhat distorted. For example, the report says that there were 173 mass attacks in the past 5 years. Of these, 126 involved firearms. Of those involving firearms, 40 involved "long guns." Rather than characterizing this as 23% of all mass attacks, they claim it's 32% -- meaning the % of all mass attacks using "long guns" vs. total mass attacks using firearms. Likewise, there's no way to suss out how many "long gun" mass attacks used shotguns, rifles or "assault rifles."
Still, you may want to give it a look since mass attacks seem to be the source of politicians' efforts to score points on "assault weapons."
Biden is a senile puppet, but even if he wasn't I doubt that he would have had the intellectual honesty or integrity to tell the truth.
Great write up, though I suspect it won't go over well with the 'don't bother me with the facts' crowd. Can't win 'em all. Now that COVID is fading from the headlines, fortunately or unfortunately, it appears that the 'don't bother me' crowd is increasing by leaps and bounds.
On the topic of cars, are you familiar with the wokism term "traffic violence?" It's being pushed by a lot of the "anti-car" activists, "urbanists," YIMBY's etc, such as supporters for "protected" bike lanes. These activists often the term "epidemic" too.
The "science" to support them is repeated over and over again in "the industry" but from what I've seen so far, they commit many of the same mistakes or misdirection as the anti-gun crowd and the charlatans pushing things such as gas stove bans. (and realistically, follow the money: https://principledbicycling.substack.com/p/the-streetsblog-files-part-i-of)
Here are some examples of some of these studies "debunked" :
https://cyclingsavvy.org/2020/07/bike-lane-sidewalk-roadway-safety/
https://cyclingsavvy.org//2020/07/motorist-caused-bike-crashes/
https://cyclingsavvy.org/2020/07/bikeway-study-safety-strategies/
http://john-s-allen.com/pdfs/Kary2014UnsuitabilityOfEpid.pdf
Mass murders traumatize more people more seriously than random murders of abused girlfriends, bar patrons and armed robberies gone bad. That's why people want AR 15s and their ilk banned. Just the reality.
Re: cars, yes, they kill a lot of people, but there are constant efforts to improve their safety. Personally, I won't be happy until they perfect autonomous vehicles.
In other words, most of those "more people" are traumatized by TV NEWS. Just the reality.
I'm traumatized when I eat restaurant food with too much black pepper because it gives me profuse amounts of noisy, unpleasantly aromatic flatulence.
I'm traumatized by pointless, inane comments on social media, which are like smelling someone else's profuse mental flatulence.
I'm traumatized when I'm offended by people that are too easily offended.
It's a little sloppy to not at least mention murders committed with "Firearms, type not stated". I would assume that some percentage of those were MSR's. You also haven't accounted for AR pattern pistols and other "assault pistols", which are used in some non-zero amount of murders. But, it's a good start.
I would assume that every single time someone gets murdered with an AR-15 that it is plastered all over the news as such, and that the cop isn't going to forget to put the type of weapon into the database. I also doubt that an AR-15 pistol goes into the database as a "pistol murder" when the cop doing the database entry probably doesn't know or care what weird esoteric ATF ruling is in play at any given moment.
Good point. The media awaits in breathless anticipation to report that an AR15 was used in yet another tragic murder, and don't miss a chance, even when it turns out it was just a Hi Point carbine or an umbrella. Corrections/retractions are published a week later, buried in a filing cabinet in a basement where the lights are out and also the stairs, and behind a door that says "beware of leopard"
What exactly is death by bucket? Is it like the practical joke where you balance the bucket full of water on the back of the door and some chump gets water dumped on them but it goes horribly wrong? ALS ice bucket challenge in the wrong hands? I make maple syrup every year and have over 100 three gallon buckets. Should I be storing those under lock and key so my kids are safe?
It's mostly toddlers who fall head first in the bucket and drown because they can't get out.
That's what it says on the side of the Home Depot buckets, hard to believe they're that lethal. Possibly a bigger issue than gun deaths is the lack of parental situational awareness?
I actually have a picture of this warning. I was shocked to know this was actually a thing.
It's an incredibly small rate. Not too different than the rate of kids being cooked in cars by parents who leave them in car seats.
Or, well, AR-15 murders.
Well, we do have warnings now in new cars to "check the backseat". One death is "too many". Or something.
As an ADHD sufferer, I think any reminder that helps me not accidentally kill someone is a good thing!