[gopguy]

Hi Gang,

The news media both print and electronic is claiming violent crime is up....way up. But is it? I think it is more hype especially when I look at the numbers. Just another way to attack gun owners and gun ownership. Here is the latest article I did for Buckeye Firearms Association on this very subject.;) I hope you will enjoy it. Tim

http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/article-3284--0-0.html

[Knucklehead2]

I looked up the 2005 crime statistics for PA. The breakdown for homicide/murder went like this:
Metropolitan...715
Smaller cities....23
Rest of PA........18
Total..............756

The other states are the same. The news media does not point out these telling facts.

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm

[Prince Yamato]

I looked up the 2005 crime statistics for PA. The breakdown for homicide/murder went like this:
Metropolitan...715
Smaller cities....23
Rest of PA........18
Total..............756


Higher crimes in the metropolitan areas makes sense, all the major cities have assault weapons ordinances...:cuss:

[Art Eatman]

Lotsa data in the DOJ website; same for CDC. I guess it's time once again to try to separate reality from news reports.

Art

[Clean97GTI]

Jeez, NV sure doesn't look too good on those reports.

I hate how crime stats are reported for this state. We get hosed for high crime rate, but we have a tourist population greater than the permanent population of California.
Thats a lot of visitors every year, and thats Las Vegas alone. :eek:

[baz]

Lotsa data in the DOJ website; same for CDC. I guess it's time once again to try to separate reality from news reports.The DOJ is survey data. The CDC data has not been updated beyond 2003 (well, at least not the WISQARS data). The FBI's UCR is one of the worst statistical publications I've ever worked with (and I've done a lot of statistical work over the years); it almost seems intentionally designed to make it hard to make certain kinds of analyses. The FBI likes to put this disavowal out there:To assess criminality and law enforcement's response from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, one must consider many variables, some of which, while having significant impact on crime, are not readily measurable or applicable pervasively among all locales. Geographic and demographic factors specific to each jurisdiction must be considered and applied if one is going to make an accurate and complete assessment of crime in that jurisdiction.But they either do not collect, or choose not to report, the data in a way that allows looking carefully at the "factors specific to each jursidiction." Until violent crime is presented with meaningful demographic (including racial and socio-economic) variables, the aggregate numbers are meaningless. For all we know, the numbers for "violent crime" are up because drug crazed zombies and gang bangers are killing each other off. If that's the case, a rising violent crime rate isn't necessarily a bad thing. :scrutiny:

[slzy]

with hordes of illegal aliens unaccounted for,the stats will be skewed.

[Librarian]

And while we're on the subject of this year's UCR, can anyone find a downloadable version?

The website writers are thrilled with their new presentation, but it's utterly un-searchable and with a flakey DSL connection it's unreliable, too. (Not their fault, of course, but they seem to be preventing the work-around.)

I have the PDFs and most of the associated files from 1995 - 2005; over the years I've sent snail-mail to the FBI about good vs bad presentations, I've used their feedback form - the turkeys seem unable to hold a good, simple product.

[22-rimfire]

The reported data can be downloaded on excel spread sheets. Not much demographic data other than overall for the country. 14,860 homicides with 10,100 of them being related to firearm use (7,543 handgun).

[gopguy]

I had gotten some messages asking about the numbers used in the story and I want you to know they came from the National Crime Victimization Survey via Dr. John Lott, who I think very highly of. Here are some links to answer any further questions. Tim

http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/NACJD/NCVS/

http://johnrlott.tripod.com/2006/09/is-violent-crime-rising.html

[geekWithA.45]

And meanwhile, the MSM seeks to further distort the facts by claiming that crime is down in cities, and that NYC is safest with 1 crime for each 37 people.

This is probably true, but misleading.

As they say, stats can be tortured to confess to any crime.

[Manedwolf]

Boston's is up astronomically. They passed a shooting a day not long ago.

And allllll with illegal guns, since it's nearly impossible to get a CCW in the city. Imagine that!

Lowell, a city near the NH border, has turned into a hellhole, too. Meanwhile, NH's crime is low except for mostly people coming up from MA to commit crimes. The last few assault arrests in Manchester were all people from Boston and other areas in MA.