Firearms violence in Tennessee?

[Guest brianhaas]

Pardon the interruption. I'm writing a new story for The Tennessean in tomorrow's paper and wanted to get your guys' thoughts on something I've found recently.

I was recently crunching the numbers on the latest 2010 crime stats and came to find that Tennessee was second in the nation in violent gun crime that year, beaten only by Washington, D.C. To determine this, I took murders, aggravated assaults and robberies (only cases involving firearms) and calculated the rate per 100,000 residents.

Tennessee turned out to be the second most likely state in the nation where a resident would be the victim of a gun crime.

Any ideas on why this could be the case? Is there something about Tennessee that would make it more prone to gun violence?

I don't have an preconceived notions on this one, I'm genuinely interested in what you guys think.

I'd love to use some of your comments or thoughts for my story. If you're interested you can email me at bhaas@tennessean.com.

Thanks,

Brian Haas

The Tennessean

Office: 615-726-8968

Fax: 615-259-8093

Twitter: Brian Haas (@brianhaas) on Twitter

Facebook: Brian Haas | The Tennessean - Journalist - Nashville, TN | Facebook

http://www.tennessean.com

[TMF]

Would it make sense to blame the states bordering Tennessee for allowing their residents too much access to firearms... that's what New York does, right?

Just thought I'd make that joke. But seriously, that an interesting study... how "scientific" would you rate the manner in which the data was collected?

[Guest brianhaas]

Well, the data is standard FBI Uniform Crime Reports, the national method of collecting crime statistics for at least the last 40 years or so (likely longer). It's all compiled from local police departments, who submit their crime numbers to the state, which in turn submits it to the FBI for this report.

Basically, just about every crime stat story you read across the nation is based on these numbers. In this case, I was simply playing with the data and found that Tennessee appeared unusually high in firearms crimes.

[Jimbo100]

Do you have the numbers from the FBI data by MSA? Just curious.

[gnmwilliams]

I always like stories involving statistics. I'd be curious to see these numbers as well.

Edited October 3, 2011 by gnmwilliams

[Guest brianhaas]

Do you have the numbers from the FBI data by MSA? Just curious.

I'm trying to obtain this right now. I'm not sure that they break out MSA or municipality level down where they separate out firearms crimes from general crimes. That might only be on a state level. I'll report back if I can somehow pull those numbers out though.

-Brian

[ttocswob]

It's all compiled from local police departments, who submit their crime numbers to the state, which in turn submits it to the FBI for this report.

I've read numerous accounts of various departments cooking the books for political reasons. Without uniformly applied standards, the data are meaningless.

[TMF]

I always like stories involving statistics. I'd be curious to see these numbers as well.

Me too. It's not that I'm immediately suspicious about the numbers, but it sounds like something pretty easy to for knuckle draggers like me to crunch. Simply take stats from 50 states then put them individually against their poplulation to see what the per capita is by state. I'm really curious to see, especially since I'm surprised Tennessee is so high.

[Guest brianhaas]

I've read numerous accounts of various departments cooking the books for political reasons. Without uniformly applied standards, the data are meaningless.

Even the harshest academic critic, however, would not consider the data meaningless in my experience. They'd suggest taking it with a grain of salt, but still useful for measuring crime trends.

Believe me, I'm a skeptic when it comes to crime stats. But when you start to get on a statewide level, those anomalies in reporting are greatly diminished. In other words, unless everyone is cooking the books (which is highly unlikely), the numbers should get more reliable as more agencies are included.

And murders are generally held as a pretty reliable crime stat, even by UCR critics.

[Guest brianhaas]

OK, here are the numbers I've gotten from the FBI. Appears you can't break out firearms crimes on any level lower than a statewide level, from what I'm finding.

You'll notice Illinois' numbers are way out of whack for some reason (their population reported to the FBI is clearly in error), so that can't be considered. You'll also see that Florida's numbers exclude murders, so that has to be discounted as well.

So at best, Tennessee would be ranked fourth, if Illinois and Florida proved higher. At worst, it's second, behind D.C.

For the record, I added murders, robberies, agg assaults, divided that by the population and then multiplied by 100,000 to achieve the rate.

[TABLE=width: 714]

[TR]

[TD]State[/TD]

[TD]Total murder w/firearms[/TD]

[TD]Robbery w/ Firearms[/TD]

[TD]Agg Assault w/Firearms[/TD]

[TD]Population[/TD]

[TD]Total[/TD]

[TD]Rate/100,000[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Illinois³[/TD]

[TD]364[/TD]

[TD=align: right]240[/TD]

[TD=align: right]805[/TD]

[TD=align: right]156,180[/TD]

[TD=align: right]1,409[/TD]

[TD=align: right]902.1641695[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]District of Columbia[/TD]

[TD]99[/TD]

[TD=align: right]1,563[/TD]

[TD=align: right]606[/TD]

[TD=align: right]601,723[/TD]

[TD=align: right]2,268[/TD]

[TD=align: right]376.9176182[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Tennessee

[/TD]

[TD]219[/TD]

[TD=align: right]4,682[/TD]

[TD=align: right]8,231[/TD]

[TD=align: right]6,136,858[/TD]

[TD=align: right]13,132[/TD]

[TD=align: right]213.9857236[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Delaware[/TD]

[TD]38[/TD]

[TD=align: right]839[/TD]

[TD=align: right]824[/TD]

[TD=align: right]897,934[/TD]

[TD=align: right]1,701[/TD]

[TD=align: right]189.4348582[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]South Carolina[/TD]

[TD]207[/TD]

[TD=align: right]2,656[/TD]

[TD=align: right]5,274[/TD]

[TD=align: right]4,393,517[/TD]

[TD=align: right]8,137[/TD]

[TD=align: right]185.2047005[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Georgia[/TD]

[TD]376[/TD]

[TD=align: right]6,192[/TD]

[TD=align: right]5,160[/TD]

[TD=align: right]7,659,917[/TD]

[TD=align: right]11,728[/TD]

[TD=align: right]153.1087086[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

[daddyo]

Sounds to me like us Tennesseans have more reason to carry than a lot of other folks....

[Jimbo100]

I believe this is the FBI data by SMSA. Looks like they've done the calculations. Interesting.

FBI — Table 6

[Guest brianhaas]

I believe this is the FBI data by SMSA. Looks like they've done the calculations. Interesting.

FBI — Table 6

Unfortunately, that isn't crimes involving a firearm. That's all crimes combined.

In other news, I calculated out 2009's rates and they were nearly identical: Tennessee 2nd in the nation for overall violent gun crime, 1st in aggravated assaults with a firearm.

Very interesting stuff.

[JReedEsq]

I suspect that Tennessee's relatively high crime rate has to do with pockets of low income combined with high levels of drug addiction. As an attorney, my experience is that addiction to presciption opiates, heroin, and meth drive most of the crime in Tennessee. The restrictive gun laws in Illionois and D.C. certianly indicate that the violence doesn't have a correlation to access to guns. I would say that if you asked the average police officer they will also indicate substance abuse is a driving force behind most violent crime in Tennessee.

[TMF]

Wow, very interesting. Well, as a Tennessean I can't help but be somewhat embarassed by those stats. In my opinion, if we rank so high nationwide maybe we should look at throwing tougher penalties for those who use firearms to commit crimes. I think Florida has the 10-20-Life (3 strikes rule) for crimes committed with firearms.

A common trend I'm seeing with gun crimes in Clarksville is that the violators were ex-cons. Maybe a mandatory sentence of a few years just for illegally being in possession of a firearm could make a few of these guys think twice before strapping themselves. Then again, cocaine is a powerful drug... makes people do stupid stuff regardless of the consequences.

[QuietDan]

Just a couple of quick thoughts here:

First, this is for TOMORROW's newspaper? Not a lot of time to turn a statistics heavy story, is it? Does someone up the editorial chain have a foregone conclusion they expect?

In the statistics you have access to, can you divide out the felons illegally in possession from law abiding citizens possessing firearms?

If the criminal element is committing a lot of crimes with firearms, it might seem to argue for more liberal rules for law-abiding citizens wishing to protect themselves with firearms. Wouldn't that be contrary to your newspaper's editorial position? Are they seriously going to let you print an article that might tend to contradict their editorial position? I imagine that editorial positions are not carved in stone, but really now. . . .

In the statistics you have access to, are the lawful shootings separated out? That is, if a felon robs a bank claiming he has a bomb, and he is shot dead in the parking lot by an armed guard or a police officer, is that a gun crime?

Also, Tennessee having it's three grand divisions and all, will you be able to separate out the statistics by West, Middle and East Tennessee? A lot of folks would think that Memphis is nearly a lost cause and it's statistics would be radically different from the other regions, more so even than urban versus rural across the state.

It's all well and good that you are writing a story, and it's also well and good that you have a pretty good track record, but there is also the perception that the Tennessean, or even Gannett, has a generally anti-gun agenda. Do you have enough stature to report past that perception of a preconceived agenda? When does the legislative session start up again, I might ask?

Nothing personal. Just business. Best of luck with your story. Unless you've been working this story for some time now, your editor hasn't left you enough time to do the issue justice, it seems to me.

Edited October 3, 2011 by QuietDan

[LagerHead]

I suspect that Tennessee's relatively high crime rate has to do with pockets of low income combined with high levels of drug addiction. As an attorney, my experience is that addiction to presciption opiates, heroin, and meth drive most of the crime in Tennessee. The restrictive gun laws in Illionois and D.C. certianly indicate that the violence doesn't have a correlation to access to guns. I would say that if you asked the average police officer they will also indicate substance abuse is a driving force behind most violent crime in Tennessee.

This.

I have seen that Brian has been pretty fair to gun owners in his reporting so I have no beef with the article. But the things to remember are what Jreed pointed out above and the fact that Illinois, which is much stricter, has a higher crime rate. The point being that to correlate gun ownership with crime and try to paint gun ownership as the cause is dangerous. I would also be curious to see the total crime rate numbers, not just those committed with a gun, to see if they paint a different picture. In other words, could you associate a deterrent effect with guns.

[Guest brianhaas]

Just a couple of quick thoughts here:

First, this is for TOMORROW's newspaper? Not a lot of time to turn a statistics heavy story, is it? Does someone up the editorial chain have a foregone conclusion they expect?

You're right, it isn't. That's news. For the record though, I began crunching the numbers last Thursday, so I'm not simply stumbling upon this today. I'm just getting around to writing it.

In the statistics you have access to, can you divide out the felons illegally in possession from law abiding citizens possessing firearms?

Unfortunately, no. The FBI statistics (called UCR) are an arcane system that I wish would simply die out in favor of a better system which already exists, called NIBRS. NIBRS captures a lot more data and offers a much better picture of crime than UCR.

If the criminal element is committing a lot of crimes with firearms, it might seem to argue for more liberal rules for law-abiding citizens wishing to protect themselves with firearms. Wouldn't that be contrary to your newspaper's editorial position? Are they seriously going to let you print an article that might tend to contradict their editorial position? I imagine that editorial positions are not carved in stone, but really now. . . .

I don't speak with the editorial folks unless they ask me a question about a story I've already written, and then it's just to make sure they don't get something wrong that I've already reported. There's a solid wall between news and editorial judgment here and at every paper I've been at.

I don't get paid enough to offer my opinions.

In the statistics you have access to, are the lawful shootings separated out? That is, if a felon robs a bank claiming he has a bomb, and he is shot dead in the parking lot by an armed guard or a police officer, is that a gun crime?

That data does exist, but only in the "murder" data. It's separated out as "justifiable." I'm not certain how possible it is to pull that out of this full data set and I'm not sure it would make much of a statistical difference, since robberies and agg assaults are far higher. I know of no stats within UCR that include non-fatal shootings.

Also, Tennessee having it's three grand divisions and all, will you be able to separate out the statistics by West, Middle and East Tennessee? A lot of folks would think that Memphis is nearly a lost cause and it's statistics would be radically different from the other regions, more so even than urban versus rural across the state.

It doesn't appear so. I don't believe it's possible to get this gun crime rate any lower than the state level with the current data. Your point on Memphis is well taken and I may mention that in my story if I can get enough comment along those lines to justify it.

It's all well and good that you are writing a story, and it's also well and good that you have a pretty good track record, but there is also the perception that the Tennessean, or even Gannett, has a generally anti-gun agenda. Do you have enough stature to report past that perception of a preconceived agenda? When does the legislative session start up again, I might ask?

All I have is my own work to stand by. I can't and won't speak to former reporters or past stories written here or elsewhere. I'm not always going to write stories you guys like (this may be one of them), but I'm going to do my best to get a wide variety of perspectives. I've already spoken with John Harris at TFA. He's always been very accessible and helpful and I appreciate it.

Nothing personal. Just business. Best of luck with your story. Unless you've been working this story for some time now, your editor hasn't left you enough time to do the issue justice, it seems to me.

No comment on this one

[9teeneleven]

I too think that seeing firearms related crime as a percentage of total crime would be a better metric.

I would also think that comparing firearm crime to drug crime and addiction statistics would be helpful.

Mostly, however, I'd like to see how this all breaks down on a regional level. Tennessee is a wide state that encompasses a variety of social and economic demographics.

As one last consideration, I think it would then be of interest to compare those regional numbers with number of legal gun sales and HCP holders.

[JReedEsq]

Wow, very interesting. Well, as a Tennessean I can't help but be somewhat embarassed by those stats. In my opinion, if we rank so high nationwide maybe we should look at throwing tougher penalties for those who use firearms to commit crimes. I think Florida has the 10-20-Life (3 strikes rule) for crimes committed with firearms.

A common trend I'm seeing with gun crimes in Clarksville is that the violators were ex-cons. Maybe a mandatory sentence of a few years just for illegally being in possession of a firearm could make a few of these guys think twice before strapping themselves. Then again, cocaine is a powerful drug... makes people do stupid stuff regardless of the consequences.

The federal criminal code already addresses this. The federal statue for "felon in possession" is already pretty harsh. I don't really know the answer here, but new legislation probably isn't it. More laws to outlaw already illegal activities are usually good-intentioned but ineffective.

[Guest brianhaas]

This.

I have seen that Brian has been pretty fair to gun owners in his reporting so I have no beef with the article. But the things to remember are what Jreed pointed out above and the fact that Illinois, which is much stricter, has a higher crime rate. The point being that to correlate gun ownership with crime and try to paint gun ownership as the cause is dangerous. I would also be curious to see the total crime rate numbers, not just those committed with a gun, to see if they paint a different picture. In other words, could you associate a deterrent effect with guns.

Good point. I will say that there will be a discussion in this story about gun ownership v. gun crime. That's one of the reason I wanted to make sure I got John Harris to weigh in. There appears in academic studies to be somewhat of a correlation, even if there is no proven causation.

From what I've seen in academia, there are far too many variables to say high gun ownership = high crime, even if there are some interesting numbers. I'm not about to settle that debate, unfortunately, but I'll do my best to present both sides.

[Guest brianhaas]

The federal criminal code already addresses this. The federal statue for "felon in possession" is already pretty harsh. I don't really know the answer here, but new legislation probably isn't it. More laws to outlaw already illegal activities are usually good-intentioned but ineffective.

Very good point. If prosecutors go federal on you in a gun case, you're in serious trouble.

However, they don't do it particularly often. You're talking maybe 100 cases a year in all of the Middle Tennessee District federal court. There are A LOT more cases like that out there that never get taken federal though. I imagine it's a matter of resources and funding.

[timcalhoun]

How many of these "murders" were committed by people with records?? How many were drug and gang related??? How many turned out to be justifiable?? How many were accidents? What part of the state did they occur, and if most were in a certain area......why???

The idea of doing a story about gun murder rates by itself is agenda driven. You are only linking guns to murder and ignoring the bigger picture. Unless you dig deeper and investigate the societal ills that are at the cause, the article is just old fashioned toilet paper. The gun in every case was just a tool, and what we really need to talk about is the why/what made these folks kill.

[mikegideon]

The aggravated assault number is real high in Tennessee. What is included in that besides waving your gun at someone that pisses you off? Are these convicions?

[TMF]

Monday's crime log | The Tennessean | tennessean.com

This is someone topical in regards to the OP and the fact this is in the news right now. Cliff Notes: 21 year old convicted felon shoots two people, killing one.

I respect what you're doing, but keep in mind that so many Americans are idiots and don't absorb information in context. I think this is why so many people are uncomfortable with people owning firearms... stories about shootings and statistics that show they are in danger of being assaulted with a firearm. I don't think it's taken into account that the vast majority of these crimes are probably carried out by people that weren't legally in possession of the firearms in the first place. Good luck with the story, I look forward to reading it.