Firearms violence in Tennessee?

gregintenn · October 4, 2011

Although I didn't gain a lot of useful information from the article, I found no slam in it toward legal gun owners. The foggy data related in the article meant little to me, but I do believe I can still say Mr. Haas is more objective than most in the media today. The most I gained from the story was that D.C., which has the most restrictive gun laws in the nation, also has the highest crime rate. I do find it quite chilling that Tennessee has such a high crime rate. I sure wish Illinois could have been ranked in the data.

I feel that our general population is getting dumber and less attentive all the time. I expect that in order to sell them a newspaper, you'd need short, color by number articles with a lot of fluff. More people care about who got voted off the island, show, etc., than what's actually going on in reality. If you are going to sell to them, you'd have to get down on their level.

I'll once again say that I do appreciate Mr. Haas' effort to reach out to us and get opinions from law abiding gun owners. How many other journalists give a flip what you think?

October 4, 2011

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.

why not just use the stats from the NIBRS then for your article?

Edited October 4, 2011 by WyattEarp

October 4, 2011

why not just your stats from the NIBRS then for your article?

Good question. Not all states use NIBRS. UCR is still the dominant form of crime stat reporting. Even Tennessee, which has a NIBRS-based system called TIBRS, sends its stats to the FBI for UCR.

So, for now, the only way to get complete nation-wide crime data is to use the FBI's UCR numbers.

Anyone else getting a headache from acronyms?

PolePosition · October 5, 2011

I didn't read every post, so this may have already been addressed... but let's just say that the data WAS collected properly and that really and truly TN has the 2nd highest number/percentage of violent crimes involving firearms. From a legislation and safety standpoint, some things that need to be addressed are 1) Status of the person committing the crime (handgun permit holder? felon? resident with valid driver's license?) 2) How the firearm was acquired (Can the firearm be traced to the perpetrator as the purchaser? What is the status of the owner if the owner is not the perpetrator? Did the firearm originate from a TN store?) and 3) Socioeconomic status of perpetrator and socioeconomic status of the area where the crime was committed

I think answers to those questions will reveal a lot of useful information that gives better insight into the statistics for the public and also for the lawmakers.

dats82 · October 5, 2011

I've just never understood the point of studies and data such as this. What is the point of looking at one implement of violence? A crime is a crime. Why does is matter that it was committed with a gun verses a potato peeler? If you're dead, you're dead; who gives a damn how it was done?

To single out one entity will always be biased. Let's write a story about crime committed by minorities. Then we could debate about living in areas with high minority populations. You think that would fly very well?

Jimbo100 · October 5, 2011

2. Memphis, Tenn. | Forbes: America's Most Dangerous Cities | Comcast.net

TMF · October 5, 2011

I'll once again say that I do appreciate Mr. Haas' effort to reach out to us and get opinions from law abiding gun owners. How many other journalists give a flip what you think?

^ This.

ttocswob · October 5, 2011

Originally Posted by gregintenn
I'll once again say that I do appreciate Mr. Haas' effort to reach out to us and get opinions from law abiding gun owners. How many other journalists give a flip what you think?

^ This.

I do appreciate the heads-up; as this will certainly be used against TN gun owners. Already cited on TV news.

I won't exactly call the article balanced; as Mr. Haas cites the UT LEIC, Harvard's ICRC, and the VPC, all anti-gun; before finally allowing a single rebuttal from the TFA. I doubt the anti-rights folks will even read down that far.

No input from NRA, JPFO, GOA, SAF, or any other national organization to counter the VPC.

October 5, 2011

I do appreciate the heads-up; as this will certainly be used against TN gun owners. Already cited on TV news.
I won't exactly call the article balanced; as Mr. Haas cites the UT LEIC, Harvard's ICRC, and the VPC, all anti-gun; before finally allowing a single rebuttal from the TFA. I doubt the anti-rights folks will even read down that far.

No input from NRA, JPFO, GOA, SAF, or any other national organization to counter the VPC.

exactly right..........

chances R · October 7, 2011

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[TD][h=1]Media Silence Is Deafening About Important Gun News[/h]By John Lott | Published September 30, 2011 | FoxNews.com

Murder and violent crime rates were supposed to soar after the Supreme Court struck down gun control laws in Chicago and Washington, D.C.

Politicians predicted disaster. "More handguns in the District of Columbia will only lead to more handgun violence," Washington's Mayor Adrian Fenty warned the day the court made its decision.

Chicago's Mayor Daley predicted that we would "go back to the Old West, you have a gun and I have a gun and we'll settle it in the streets . . . ."

The New York Times even editorialized this month about the Supreme Court's "unwise" decision that there is a right for people "to keep guns in the home."

But Armageddon never happened. Newly released data for Chicago shows that, as in Washington, murder and gun crime rates didn't rise after the bans were eliminated -- they plummeted. They have fallen much more than the national crime rate.

Not surprisingly, the national media have been completely silent about this news.

One can only imagine the coverage if crime rates had risen. In the first six months of this year, there were 14% fewer murders in Chicago compared to the first six months of last year - back when owning handguns was illegal. It was the largest drop in Chicago's murder rate since the handgun ban went into effect in 1982.

Meanwhile, the other four most populous cities saw a total drop at the same time of only 6 percent.

Similarly, in the year after the 2008 "Heller" decision, the murder rate fell two-and-a-half times faster in Washington than in the rest of the country.

It also fell more than three as fast as in other cities that are close to Washington's size. And murders in Washington have continued to fall.

If you compare the first six months of this year to the first six months of 2008, the same time immediately preceding the Supreme Court's late June "Heller" decision, murders have now fallen by thirty-four percent.

Gun crimes also fell more than non-gun crimes.

Robberies with guns fell by 25%, while robberies without guns have fallen by eight percent. Assaults with guns fell by 37%, while assaults without guns fell by 12%.

Just as with right-to-carry laws, when law-abiding citizens have guns some criminals stop carrying theirs.

The benefit could have been even greater. Getting a handgun permit in Chicago and Washington is an expensive and difficult process, meaning only the relatively wealthy go through it.

Through the end of May only 2,144 people had handguns registered in Chicago. That limits the benefits from the Supreme Court decisions since it is the poor who are the most likely victims of crime and who benefit the most from being able to protect themselves.

The biggest change for Washington was the Supreme Court striking down the law making it illegal to have a loaded gun. Over 70,000 people have permits for long guns that they can now legally used to protect themselves.

Lower crime rates in Chicago and Washington, by themselves, don't prove that gun control increases murders, even when combined with the quite familiar story of how their murder rates soared and stayed high after the gun bans were imposed.

But these aren't isolated examples. Around the world, whenever guns are banned, murder rates rise.

Gun control advocates explained the huge increases in murder and violent crime rates Chicago and Washington by saying that those bans weren't fair tests unless the entire country adopted a ban.

Yet, even island nations, such as Ireland and the U.K. -- with no neighbors to blame -- have seen increases in murder rates. The same horror stories about blood in the streets have surrounded the debate over concealed handguns.

Some said it was necessary to ban guns in public places. The horror stories never came true and the data is now so obvious that as of November, only one state, Illinois, will still completely ban law-abiding from carrying concealed handguns.

Forty-one states will have either permissive right-to-carry laws or no longer even require a permit.

The regulations that still exist in Chicago and Washington primarily disarm the most likely victims of crime.

Hopefully, even the poor in these areas will soon also have more of an opportunity to defend themselves, too.

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ttocswob · October 7, 2011

I doubt we'll see this in the Tennessean, as it would be difficult to fit that much factual information on that narrow paper they use now.

Seriously - for the first time in ages, I read a real paper Tennessean at lunch the other day. Finished reading before I finished eating!

gregintenn · October 7, 2011

Brian, How about diving headlong into The Fast and the Furious scandal. Now THERE'S a story wothy of some real investigative journalism. So far, I've found the coverage lacking considering the size and scope of the scandal.

G27 · October 8, 2011

It's important to note that Mr. Haas has been very fair and honest with us before. I doubt this story has any agenda other than to report the statistics.

Agree 100%.

G27 · October 8, 2011

I dunno, I read the article and didn't think Brian did anything other than what he always does - present the facts (often including some info he gathers here) and lets the reader decide. I didn't read it as 'anti-gun' at all.

And while Memphis has it's issues, no doubt (why we moved out out of it), Nashville ranked #21 in violent crime the last I looked and was in the top10 just a few years ago - the reality is large metro areas = increased crime, and Memphis and Nashville combine account for over 44% of the state's population. Add in Chattanooga and Knoxville and the four cities account for over 2/3 of the state's population...

BigK · October 8, 2011

Brian, How about diving headlong into The Fast and the Furious scandal. Now THERE'S a story wothy of some real investigative journalism. So far, I've found the coverage lacking considering the size and scope of the scandal.

^^^THIS EXACTLY^^^

jgradyc · October 9, 2011

I'm a bit late coming to this discussion, but as a writer and researcher myself, I'd point out a couple of ideas. First, correlation does not imply causation. Unfortunately, the reverse is often used (correlation PROVES causation) to make a biased point. When the search for correlations expand beyond the initial viewpoint, it can often lead to some interesting changes in perspective. Please note: I'm not accusing Brian of bias. I'm merely pointing out that correlation is often used incorrectly to support an agenda on way or the other.

I decided to check for other possible correlations. It took me about 20 minutes to find a website listing types of crimes by state (Table 69 - Crime in the United States 2009) and download the data as a spreadsheet and search for a high-crime correlation other than firearms.

My initial premise was the same as an earlier post on this thread -- the cause of increased firearm crimes was increased illegal drug activity. To test that hypothesis, I then searched the referenced states (DC, TN, IL, MD, SC) and and found a high correlation for drug abuse arrests. Only GA was an outlier and it was more average than low.

To test this correlation further, it would require looking at more states... LA, MS, FL, and KY would also have to have above average firearm crimes per capita for this hypothesis to have possible merit. Conversely, VT, WA, OH, SD, MT, MA, and IA would have to fewer firearm crimes per capita. I don't have the database used by Brian, so I can't quickly compare these states, but illegal drug activity would seem to be a more valid correlation to violent crime than firearm ownership, especially considering that IL and DC seem to invalidate the firearm ownership/violent crime correlation.

One has to be careful in drawing conclusions from correlations, especially on a state-wide basis. Certain areas are hotspots for crime and those data can skew the correlations. Brian, if you like, I can email you the spreadsheet I created.

Edited October 9, 2011 by jgradyc

DMark · October 11, 2011

I'm a bit late coming to this discussion, but as a writer and researcher myself, I'd point out a couple of ideas......

jgradyc,

Outstanding work. Well Done!

October 11, 2011

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.

IMHO what you say here is true, but not a good reason for using this data to make these types of conclusions.

The FBI UCR is the best overall information that's pre-compiled but that doesn't make it good. Example of my point, Table 22 (Aggravated Assault) notes "Limited data were received" from Illinois because they only received information from 1 LE agency. I'd say limited data is a bit of an understatement.

This is the FBI's data declaration for table 20 (murders). The 1st and 3rd bullet points have similar wording in the data declarations for table 21 (robberies) and table 22 (agravated assault) as well.

This table provides the types of weapons used in murder offenses. The data are based on the aggregated data from agencies within each state for which supplemental homicide data (i.e., weapon information) were reported to the FBI. The table also includes a breakdown of the types of firearms used in murders (i.e., handguns, rifles, shotguns, or firearms [type unknown]).
The supplemental homicide data submitted by Florida did not meet UCR guidelines and were not included in this table.
The FBI received limited supplemental homicide data from Illinois.

That made me question other locales.

Agency count (number of agencies reporting data) for TN is 457 with a population of just over 6 million. Here's the agency count for other states with similar populations.

AZ 96, MA 320, WA 254. The population of States showing similar agency counts is - GA 7.6 million and OH 9.6 million. Gee, it looks like TN is really loaded with LE agencies per capita - or - the data is skewed by severe under reporting in other States.

As far as I'm concerned, this data is useless for deciding anything other than the fact that States that appear to report crimes more fully have higher per capita crime rates than States that don't fully report. Writing an article that needs crime stats to make a point is a joke IMO, unless you're writing about how crime stats are manipulated. Articles like this are only helpful to the gun control lobby as more fodder, they give the general public no beneficial information.

Edited October 11, 2011 by PapaB

mikegideon · October 11, 2011

IMHO what you say here is true, but not a good reason for using this data to make these types of conclusions.
The FBI UCR is the best overall information that's pre-compiled but that doesn't make it good. Example of my point, Table 22 (Aggravated Assault) notes "Limited data were received" from Illinois because they only received information from 1 LE agency. I'd say limited data is a bit of an understatement.

This is the FBI's data declaration for table 20 (murders). The 1st and 3rd bullet points are in the data declarations for table 21 (robberies) and table 22 (agravated assault) as well.

This table provides the types of weapons used in murder offenses. The data are based on the aggregated data from agencies within each state for which supplemental homicide data (i.e., weapon information) were reported to the FBI. The table also includes a breakdown of the types of firearms used in murders (i.e., handguns, rifles, shotguns, or firearms [type unknown]).

The supplemental homicide data submitted by Florida did not meet UCR guidelines and were not included in this table.

The FBI received limited supplemental homicide data from Illinois.

That made me question other locales.

Agency count (number of agencies reporting data) for TN is 457 with a population of just over 6 million. Here's the agency count for other states with similar populations.

AZ 96, MA 320, WA 254. The population of States showing similar agency counts is - GA 7.6 million and OH 9.6 million. Gee, it looks like TN is really loaded with LE agencies per capita - or - the data is skewed by severe under reporting in other States.

As far as I'm concerned, this data is useless for deciding anything other than the fact that States that appear to report crimes more fully have higher per capita crime rates than States that don't fully report. Writing an article that needs crime stats to make a point is a joke IMO, unless you're writing about how crime stats are manipulated. Articles like this are only helpful to the gun control lobby as more fodder, they give the general public no beneficial information.

Right! This is a lot more about reporting than reality. The state ranks down where it should in two categories, and is way over the top in the third. Any time a number is that far out of whack, you gotta question it. The frustrating thing to me is that Brian wouldn't respond to any of my posts about it.

Now, before we pile on with more "Brian is great" posts, remember that I was the first guy to trust him enough to go on record in one of his articles. I also made the first "Brian is great" post. I'm still OK with Brian, but this one cost him some points in my book. The data was crap. And, if you make a pie out of turds, it's a turd pie.

TM01 · October 11, 2011

I actually realized that. My point was more to the rabid anti-gunners who make blanket statements like lower gun ownership = less crime. I also can't tell you how many times I have read that the U.S. has the highest murder and suicide rates in the world, neither of which are true. The article does however make a very valid point, directly refuting the antis' blanket statements. That study, along with others by the like of John Lott show the folly of gun control in this country. Because of the different socioeconomic factors that are present in this country as opposed to say, England or Switzerland, gun control just does not work.

Yes but you will never see a journalist with the cajones to write a story like this. It does not nor ever will fit the political agenda of the anti-gun folks. If a TGO member can come up with verifiable statistics and wirte them in a coherent manner then why can't those who actually write the stories that get published?

October 11, 2011

mikegideon wrote:

The data was crap. And, if you make a pie out of turds, it's a turd pie.

Well said sir.

mikegideon · October 11, 2011

Yes but you will never see a journalist with the cajones to write a story like this. It does not nor ever will fit the political agenda of the anti-gun folks. If a TGO member can come up with verifiable statistics and wirte them in a coherent manner then why can't those who actually write the stories that get published?

Politics is about hiding the truth, not bringing it to light.