"The chance of it sustaining that pace for the next 15 years is more unlikely than me winning a Nobel Prize in crime data analysis newsletter writing."
Pretty insane to write this article and not mention race. More interesting is when homicide rate for U.S. whites and Asians would reach European levels, which is much, much sooner.
The US has the highest gun rate on the planet @ 120.5/100 people. The Falklands are #2 @ 62.1/100 and Germany, for example, has 19.6/100. In addition, US gun control laws are lax compared to our European peers - for example, 29 US states allow concealed carry w/o any form of permit
Per Pew Research, 76% of US murders are committed with a gun. Wikipedia shows that gun murder rates in our peer European nations are very low.
Just for giggles, it would be interesting for you, Jeff, to calculate the avg gun murder rate in those peer nations, then back gun murders out of the overall murder rates in both the US and our peer nations and see how the US compares in "gun-free" murder rates.
I suspect that we'd compare favorably. I did a quick and dirty, back of the napkin calculation and came up with .85 as the "gun-free" US murder rate (based on 24% "gun-free" out of roughly 12,000 murders in 2025), but I would not bet the tractor on that - as I said, it was a quickie calculation.
The point is that GUNS are what make the US the murder outlier. All it would take to dramatically reduce the US gun murder rate is for Republican elected officials to support the sane, reasonable gun control laws that exist in Europe and that most Americans support. Of course, it would take a while since we're so loaded w/ weapons, but over time our gun murder rate would drop.
Literally none of that is true. You do realize there is a very active extant body of researchers and research on the relationship of firearms and crime, right?
The US murder rate is driven by small, incredibly localized, sub-cultures of violent people and their associates who take turns as victim and perpetrator. They are not "normal people" who somehow turn murderous due to access to, nor the presence of, firearms.
The US, for a variety of historical reasons, seems to have a disproportionate number of these sub-cultural groups when compared to the typical cherry-picked group of northern European societies, with very different histories than ours, that are usually trotted out by people who don't understand the perils of superficial cross-cultural comparisons on any topic, particularly crime. Culture is what matters.
Opinions, Matthew, are like, um, noses. Most folks have 'em and most of 'em smell. Miss Anne prefers data and facts over opinions. The facts are 1) The US has more guns/capita than any other nation, 2) The US suffers far more gun deaths that do our peer nations all of which have much lower gun ownership, 3) US gun control laws are overall very weak compared to our safer Euro peers.
One fact I didn't include in my first post is that Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) data shows that 64% of victims were killed by friends/acquaintances, 16% by family members and 20% by strangers.
Here's the sources for the specific points I made in my first post that you deemed to be untrue:
BJ might be the most numerate, thorough semipro gun policy analyst around; he's a hydrological engineer by trade, so he crunches (flood) statistics for a living, and he was one of the 23 panelists in public health researcher Michael Siegel’s recent Bridging The Divide On Firearm Policy initiative.
The first two are indeed facts. The third is a value judgment in terms of defining "weak". I mean, Mexico has incredibly stringent gun laws, yet they have a very high murder rate.
When you look at most countries in the world the US is on the low end for homicides per capita, and many of those with higher rates have absolutely draconian firearms restrictions, yet you, and others, continue to cherry-pick a small group of primarily northern European countries that have different cultures than the US to try to make your point.
For instance, would you happen to know when England first put in place their truly restrictive laws? Would it surprise you to know doing so had effectively zero effect on their prior homicide rate trends? That that is the case for basically all the European countries commonly cited?
What you are making is a common "post hoc" error.
You do realize I was summarizing the BJS data when I noted how concentrated homicide is, right? "Friends and acquaintances" are primarily criminal associates. Family are primarily domestic violence cases. The "stranger" category can include persons killed as "collateral damage" in cases of interpersonal violence in public, as when a perpetrator shoots at a rival and the people nearby become unintended innocent victims.
Andrew Papachristos has done some fantastic work in the field.
In any event, the correlation between the locales of the majority of lawful gun ownership and where firearm homicides are actually committed, and by whom, as noted above, is almost inverse in the US. It certainly disproves causality.
If the problem in the US was simply access to firearms, then we would expect to see homicide and violent crime involving firearms be more evenly distributed and/or concentrated in the areas with the weakest laws and higher per capita possession rates. But we don't.
A recap: Jeff’s column speculated on if/when the high-but-dropping US murder rate might meet Europe’s much lower rates. Since 76% of America’s murder are committed w/ a gun and fewer of Europe’s are, I opined that backing out gun murders would show similar non-gun murder rates. I also said that if the US would implement stronger gun laws ala peer nations, our murder rate would drop, but (R) Congress Critters refuse to support such laws.
You came in hot, incorrectly charging, "Literally none of that is true.” You then CHANGED MY TOPIC to something about “not normal”… “murderous”… “localized" people who “somehow” apparently see a gun and "take turns as victim and perpetrator” (?). You asserted that the US is loaded w/ these "sub-cultural groups” that seemingly don’t exist in some unnamed "cherry-picked group of northern European societies” (??) You issued a vague complaint about unnamed “people who don't understand the perils of superficial cross-cultural comparisons on any topic, particularly crime” (???). Finally, "Culture is what matters” - suggesting that guns don’t kill people, “cultures” do?
I responded with sources for my statements that 1) US has lots of guns/Europe not so much, and 2) most US murder are committed w/ a gun/not true in Europe, adding a link showing gun laws/nation.
You then did a quick switch from “virtually all untrue” to, "The first two are indeed facts”, but that my link on gun law strength is a “value judgment” despite the link's lengthy description of the criteria for the conclusions reached. Then you abruptly segued to Mexico (?). Mexico does have a high murder rates. Those are due to cartel turf wars over illicit drugs shipped mainly to the US, according to many sources, including: https://www.thelanguagehouse.org/post/drug-trafficking-routes-the-role-of-mexico-in-global-drug-trade. You said Mexico’s gun laws are “incredibly stringent”, showing that you didn’t read the link I provided on gun law strength. Actually, Mexico’s gun laws are similar to what the majority of Americans want here. Then you again changed the topic back to WHO is doing the gun killing w/ implications about WHY they do so - neither of which have anything to do w/ my initial points, to wit, "1) US has lots of guns/peer nations not so much, and 2) most US murder are committed w/ a gun/less so in peer nations" adding 3) our gun laws are empirically weaker overall than those in peer nations.
You ended w/ incorrect claims that there is no correlation between # of guns, gun murders and weak gun laws. There are many analyses from reputable orgs that establish exactly that - see 1st link, below:
* https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/fullarticle/2804113 - Most TOTAL murders occur in cities. That’s Papachristos' point, with which I and the data agree. HOWEVER, gun murder RATES are consistently higher in rural areas than in urban. IOW, country folk are more likely to kill each other w/ guns than are city folks, ON A PER RATE BASIS. Under any circumstances it is GUNS that are doing the KILLING and rural areas have more guns/capita than do urban.
* https://giffords.org/resources/scorecard2024/ - This link to the widely-respected Giffords group shows much data including graphic representations between # of guns and # of gun killings. Much info here.
Seems more likely the other countries rates will rise to meet us, than the other way around.
Not with the how quickly they are aging, imho.
The populations likely to drive the murder rate are not aging.
"The chance of it sustaining that pace for the next 15 years is more unlikely than me winning a Nobel Prize in crime data analysis newsletter writing."
If it does, you should win that prize, though!
Pretty insane to write this article and not mention race. More interesting is when homicide rate for U.S. whites and Asians would reach European levels, which is much, much sooner.
(insane, but not surprising for a hard-left criminologist like Jeff).
lol subhuman retard
The US has the highest gun rate on the planet @ 120.5/100 people. The Falklands are #2 @ 62.1/100 and Germany, for example, has 19.6/100. In addition, US gun control laws are lax compared to our European peers - for example, 29 US states allow concealed carry w/o any form of permit
Per Pew Research, 76% of US murders are committed with a gun. Wikipedia shows that gun murder rates in our peer European nations are very low.
Just for giggles, it would be interesting for you, Jeff, to calculate the avg gun murder rate in those peer nations, then back gun murders out of the overall murder rates in both the US and our peer nations and see how the US compares in "gun-free" murder rates.
I suspect that we'd compare favorably. I did a quick and dirty, back of the napkin calculation and came up with .85 as the "gun-free" US murder rate (based on 24% "gun-free" out of roughly 12,000 murders in 2025), but I would not bet the tractor on that - as I said, it was a quickie calculation.
The point is that GUNS are what make the US the murder outlier. All it would take to dramatically reduce the US gun murder rate is for Republican elected officials to support the sane, reasonable gun control laws that exist in Europe and that most Americans support. Of course, it would take a while since we're so loaded w/ weapons, but over time our gun murder rate would drop.
Want fewer gun murders? Vote (D)
Literally none of that is true. You do realize there is a very active extant body of researchers and research on the relationship of firearms and crime, right?
The US murder rate is driven by small, incredibly localized, sub-cultures of violent people and their associates who take turns as victim and perpetrator. They are not "normal people" who somehow turn murderous due to access to, nor the presence of, firearms.
The US, for a variety of historical reasons, seems to have a disproportionate number of these sub-cultural groups when compared to the typical cherry-picked group of northern European societies, with very different histories than ours, that are usually trotted out by people who don't understand the perils of superficial cross-cultural comparisons on any topic, particularly crime. Culture is what matters.
Opinions, Matthew, are like, um, noses. Most folks have 'em and most of 'em smell. Miss Anne prefers data and facts over opinions. The facts are 1) The US has more guns/capita than any other nation, 2) The US suffers far more gun deaths that do our peer nations all of which have much lower gun ownership, 3) US gun control laws are overall very weak compared to our safer Euro peers.
One fact I didn't include in my first post is that Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) data shows that 64% of victims were killed by friends/acquaintances, 16% by family members and 20% by strangers.
Here's the sources for the specific points I made in my first post that you deemed to be untrue:
* Gun ownership rate/nation - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country
* % of murders committed with a gun - Per Pew Research report, 4/28/26 - "In 2024, 76% of all U.S. homicides (15,364 of 20,162) involved a firearm…"
* gun murder rates in our peer European nations are very low. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_homicide_rates
Plus, here's a comparison of gun laws/nation - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_of_gun_laws_by_nation
For anybody who wants to see a more careful analysis of these variables, see BJ Campbell, “Everybody’s Lying About the Link Between Gun Ownership and Homicide” (https://hwfo.substack.com/p/everybodys-lying-about-the-link-between).
BJ might be the most numerate, thorough semipro gun policy analyst around; he's a hydrological engineer by trade, so he crunches (flood) statistics for a living, and he was one of the 23 panelists in public health researcher Michael Siegel’s recent Bridging The Divide On Firearm Policy initiative.
The first two are indeed facts. The third is a value judgment in terms of defining "weak". I mean, Mexico has incredibly stringent gun laws, yet they have a very high murder rate.
When you look at most countries in the world the US is on the low end for homicides per capita, and many of those with higher rates have absolutely draconian firearms restrictions, yet you, and others, continue to cherry-pick a small group of primarily northern European countries that have different cultures than the US to try to make your point.
For instance, would you happen to know when England first put in place their truly restrictive laws? Would it surprise you to know doing so had effectively zero effect on their prior homicide rate trends? That that is the case for basically all the European countries commonly cited?
What you are making is a common "post hoc" error.
You do realize I was summarizing the BJS data when I noted how concentrated homicide is, right? "Friends and acquaintances" are primarily criminal associates. Family are primarily domestic violence cases. The "stranger" category can include persons killed as "collateral damage" in cases of interpersonal violence in public, as when a perpetrator shoots at a rival and the people nearby become unintended innocent victims.
Andrew Papachristos has done some fantastic work in the field.
https://www.hfg.org/conversations/violence-is-contagious-a-conversation-with-andrew-papachristos/
In any event, the correlation between the locales of the majority of lawful gun ownership and where firearm homicides are actually committed, and by whom, as noted above, is almost inverse in the US. It certainly disproves causality.
https://opensourcedefense.com/blog/geographic-evidence-that-gun-deaths-are-cultural
If the problem in the US was simply access to firearms, then we would expect to see homicide and violent crime involving firearms be more evenly distributed and/or concentrated in the areas with the weakest laws and higher per capita possession rates. But we don't.
A recap: Jeff’s column speculated on if/when the high-but-dropping US murder rate might meet Europe’s much lower rates. Since 76% of America’s murder are committed w/ a gun and fewer of Europe’s are, I opined that backing out gun murders would show similar non-gun murder rates. I also said that if the US would implement stronger gun laws ala peer nations, our murder rate would drop, but (R) Congress Critters refuse to support such laws.
You came in hot, incorrectly charging, "Literally none of that is true.” You then CHANGED MY TOPIC to something about “not normal”… “murderous”… “localized" people who “somehow” apparently see a gun and "take turns as victim and perpetrator” (?). You asserted that the US is loaded w/ these "sub-cultural groups” that seemingly don’t exist in some unnamed "cherry-picked group of northern European societies” (??) You issued a vague complaint about unnamed “people who don't understand the perils of superficial cross-cultural comparisons on any topic, particularly crime” (???). Finally, "Culture is what matters” - suggesting that guns don’t kill people, “cultures” do?
I responded with sources for my statements that 1) US has lots of guns/Europe not so much, and 2) most US murder are committed w/ a gun/not true in Europe, adding a link showing gun laws/nation.
You then did a quick switch from “virtually all untrue” to, "The first two are indeed facts”, but that my link on gun law strength is a “value judgment” despite the link's lengthy description of the criteria for the conclusions reached. Then you abruptly segued to Mexico (?). Mexico does have a high murder rates. Those are due to cartel turf wars over illicit drugs shipped mainly to the US, according to many sources, including: https://www.thelanguagehouse.org/post/drug-trafficking-routes-the-role-of-mexico-in-global-drug-trade. You said Mexico’s gun laws are “incredibly stringent”, showing that you didn’t read the link I provided on gun law strength. Actually, Mexico’s gun laws are similar to what the majority of Americans want here. Then you again changed the topic back to WHO is doing the gun killing w/ implications about WHY they do so - neither of which have anything to do w/ my initial points, to wit, "1) US has lots of guns/peer nations not so much, and 2) most US murder are committed w/ a gun/less so in peer nations" adding 3) our gun laws are empirically weaker overall than those in peer nations.
You ended w/ incorrect claims that there is no correlation between # of guns, gun murders and weak gun laws. There are many analyses from reputable orgs that establish exactly that - see 1st link, below:
Here’s more links for your reading enjoyment:
* https://rockinst.org/blog/more-guns-more-death-the-fundamental-fact-that-supports-a-comprehensive-approach-to-reducing-gun-violence-in-america/ - there are many like this that establish direct linkage that # of guns = # of gun deaths. Google "correlation between number of guns and gun violence”.
* https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/fullarticle/2804113 - Most TOTAL murders occur in cities. That’s Papachristos' point, with which I and the data agree. HOWEVER, gun murder RATES are consistently higher in rural areas than in urban. IOW, country folk are more likely to kill each other w/ guns than are city folks, ON A PER RATE BASIS. Under any circumstances it is GUNS that are doing the KILLING and rural areas have more guns/capita than do urban.
* https://objectivelists.com/which-countries-are-most-similar-to-the-united-states/ - These are the countries that I meant but unintentionally limited them to “European” in my comment.
* https://giffords.org/resources/scorecard2024/ - This link to the widely-respected Giffords group shows much data including graphic representations between # of guns and # of gun killings. Much info here.
Have fun, I’m done.