Better to live in red than blue county!!

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-05-2003
Better to live in red than blue county!!
23
Tue, 08-24-2004 - 11:46pm
It Matters Where You Live

Many people are familiar with the work of Dr. John Lott. His massive research of our country's crime data encompassed all 3,000 plus counties for an 18 year period.

Lott presented his work in a book entitled More Guns, Less Crime. His work has subsequently corroborated by researchers in nearly four dozen of our country's institutions of higher learning.

Well, Lott's work has been corroborated by Al Gore. Actually, George Bush also helped.

Most people have probably seen the map of the country's voting by counties. The one most of us saw showed the Bush counties in red and the Gore counties in blue.

The Gore vote was primarily along both coasts as well as other urban pockets in the rest of the country. The Bush vote was the great expanse of the rest of the country.

Well, thanks to Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, we now know something else about those counties.

In the Gore counties, the murder rate is 13.2 per 100,000.

In the Bush counties, the murder rate is 2.1 per 100,000.

What do urban centers have in common around the country? Try to get a concealed carry permit and you will find out. In fact, in Washington, DC, New York City, Chicago and a few others, just owning a handgun will be impossible.

What had Lott found was the reason for the lowering of violent crime in various jurisdictions? Passage of concealed carry laws.

Indeed, the longer such laws have been on the books, the lower the violent crime rates go, including murder.

Where you live matters a lot. Thanks to Bush and Gore making this decision has been made much easier.



Who is John Lott?

A former chief economist for the United States Sentencing Commission and a fellow at the University of Chicago, Lott conducted the first comprehensive study of concealed handgun laws.

Far from relying on mere correlation, he used a sophisticated multiple regression analysis to control for variables such as demographics, arrest and conviction rates, and changes in gun laws. While previous researchers relied on data from cherry-picked areas and time periods, Lott studied 18 years of data from all 3,054 counties in the United States.

Being politically naive, however, he failed to anticipate the firestorm he ignited when he announced that not only do concealed handgun laws deter murder, rape, and aggravated assault, but that allowing licensed concealed handguns in all states could prevent 1,570 murders, 4,177 rapes and more than 60,000 aggravated assaults each year.

The Liberal Establishment attacked Lott's study as biased, flawed and as slander, but were never able to name a specific problem with his methodology or his findings… they just weren't PC, so they were wrong.

While concealed handgun opponents are loath to mention it, John Lott is now a senior research scholar at prestigious Yale Law School... gun industry slander, "flawed" methodology, and all.



iVillage Member
Registered: 07-05-2003
Wed, 08-25-2004 - 10:38am
Homicide is down in Detroit 2 years after liberal concealed carry was made law :-)

Be happy, fewer are dead :-o

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-1999
Wed, 08-25-2004 - 10:45am
“In Detroit, a city once plagued by runaway murder rates, the number of homicides has reportedly dropped to its lowest level since 1968,” Gottlieb said. “Two years ago, Michigan reformed its concealed carry law, and today, thousands of law-abiding citizens in Michigan are legally armed. Gosh, do you suppose there is any correlation?”

This is totaly, completely, flat out wrong. Murder has exploded in Detroit this year, as have shootings, actually over the last 2 years.

Your propoganda has been invalidated by reality. Unless you want to ignore 2004 because it makes your data non-PC that is.

dablacksox


Cynic: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.---Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-05-2003
Wed, 08-25-2004 - 10:49am
I did go to FBI.gov and took a look at homicide rates in Detroit. There is an asterisk which indicates that due to changes in methodology the current rates are not comparable to prior years rates. I am unsure if the changes are done by Detroit or the FBI, but it appears for other parts of Michigan there was no asterisk (this from the fbi violent crime spreadsheet). We'd need someone with understanding of the methodology changes who could normalize for us, raw data according to the fbi for the current year is meaningless when compared to prior years.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-1999
Wed, 08-25-2004 - 10:52am
"Well Detroit does have some problems... the concept of law enforcement appears a bit vague there... for example on review I easily find the following... "

You've got to be kidding me. A Detroit policeman is areested and this proves.... what?


Your quote:

"What do urban centers have in common around the country? Try to get a concealed carry permit and you will find out. In fact, in Washington, DC, New York City, Chicago and a few others, just owning a handgun will be impossible.

What had Lott found was the reason for the lowering of violent crime in various jurisdictions? Passage of concealed carry laws. "


You CAN carry a concealed weapon in Detroit. Michigan has had a concealed carry law for 3 years. Gun violence has exploded this year in Detroit.

Thems the facts, jack. Your data is being invalidated daily in Michigan.

dablacksox


Cynic: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.---Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-1999
Wed, 08-25-2004 - 10:59am


"We'd need someone with understanding of the methodology changes who could normalize for us, raw data according to the fbi for the current year is meaningless when compared to prior years."

From my link.....

More than 800 people were shot in Detroit in the first six months of this year, a 70 percent jump in gun violence that experts and police blame on a variety of factors, from upheaval and scarce resources in the police department to high unemployment rates among young males and a hip-hop culture that condones gunfire to solve disputes.

Although there’s no simple explanation for the dramatic increase in gun violence from one year to the next, the impact is clearly ravaging families and eroding any suggestion that Detroit’s violent history is behind it.

A July 18 monthly police analysis of all Detroit murder crime scenes showed 81 percent were caused by gunshots. The analysis showed 26 percent of murders were drug related.


My point is, I would be very careful about advocating arming the entire population of a major metropolitan area as a "solution" to crime. Detroit in 2004 shows reality to be a lot more complicated than many would like to believe.

dablacksox


Cynic: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.---Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-1999
Wed, 08-25-2004 - 11:05am
BTW-

I own a gun, I have for over 15 years.

dablacksox


Cynic: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.---Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Wed, 08-25-2004 - 12:03pm
-- That doesn't matter, introdcuing caveats is unimportant.

That is where you are 100% off base.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-1999
Wed, 08-25-2004 - 1:59pm
"-- That doesn't matter, introdcuing caveats is unimportant.

That is where you are 100% off base."


Uhh-I don't think so. For years the Politically Correct Wisdom has been that concealed weapons laws always result in permanantly lowered crime rates. Period. Caveats such as "crime is dropping in other locations, too" Or "Other factors drive crime" have been ridiculed by the "an Armed Society is a Polite Society" Politically Correct Crowd, as this, from the original link, illustrates.

"What do urban centers have in common around the country? Try to get a concealed carry permit and you will find out. In fact, in Washington, DC, New York City, Chicago and a few others, just owning a handgun will be impossible.

What had Lott found was the reason for the lowering of violent crime in various jurisdictions? Passage of concealed carry laws.

Indeed, the longer such laws have been on the books, the lower the violent crime rates go, including murder. "

Well, guess what. Michigan's law has been on the books for 3 years and murder and shootings are skyrocketing in Detroit, shootings have been for 2 years now. So it would seem that those who claim that "indeed, the longer such laws have been on the books, the lower the violent crime rates go, including murder." are flat out wrong.

It will be interesting, at the end of the calendar year, when Detroit's final numbers are tallied, if it will result in a revision in the claims of the Politically Correct gun crowd. My guess is that they will work furiously to spin the numbers away since they don't support a pre-existing ideology.


dablacksox


Cynic: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.---Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Wed, 08-25-2004 - 2:10pm
Again, I am willing to venture that the crime rate and gun death rate is attributed to guns bought ILLEGALLY.

Again your argument is off base on the gun control issue.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-05-2003
Wed, 08-25-2004 - 2:11pm
Homicide in Detroit dropped for 2 years after concealed carry went into effect, the 3rd year according to the fbi stats on their spreadsheet contains a methodology change which precludes comparison with prior years but doesn't elaborate the change... thus only someone who understands the change can try to normalize. At best we can say homicide went down for the first 2 years, and it's unknown what happened the 3rd year after concealed carry went into effect.