Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Assault Rates

All the anti's like to cry wolf due to the number of homicides in the US, from firearms. A recent UN report posted that the US had 270 million firearms, more than any other country, & more per capita than any other country. So it would stand to reason that since we have more guns than anybody else we would indeed have more homicides with firearms.
But really the homicide rate has stayed fairly steady since 1959, at about 6.5 per 100,000.
But in the last 50 years medical care has vastly improved, better hospitals, better treatment, better medicines, trauma units.
Even if you are badly wounded, if you are transported quick enough your chances of survival are really pretty good.

So if we really want to see where crime is going, look at the assault rates, & not the homicide rates for example:
USA 7.569/1000 assault rate
England 7.459/1000 assault rate
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_ass_percap-crime-assaults-per-capita

Here is another example:
Minnesota
Homicide Rates Aggravated Assault Rates (per 100,000)
1960..1.2....................... 10.6
1970..2.0....................... 51.2
1980..2.6...................... 102.9
1990..2.7 ..................... 176.7
2000..3.1..................... 156.7
2001..2.4..................... 141.1
2002 .. 2.2................... 141.4
2003..2.5..................... 142.0
2004..2.2..................... 146.1
2005..2.2..................... 158.9
2006..2.4..................... 172.6
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/mncrime.htm

Minnesota has a fairly low crime rate but you will find the same types of increases in most of the states. The Homicide rate has increased, but not at nearly the same rate as Assaults, if we had the same Hospitals, skilled doctors, etc as we had in 1960 the Homicide rate would be much higher.

So although many say England has lower "Gun" crime, chances of assault are about the same as the USA, so anytype of gun ban is not going to lower the crime rate, it's only going to change the method.

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