The Washington Examiner reports that a Economist/YouGov poll says that the number of households with guns rose from 34% in 2012 to 39% in 2013.
The rebound comes as many are rushing to buy guns before states put more limits on ownership. It also reveals a gun-buying trend that started last year when President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Senate Democrats and Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor, pushed for widespread gun control, new background checks and the elimination of sales of semi-automatic rifles, the most popular style of rifle sold.
The Economist/YouGov survey revealed a partisan split among gun owners. Some 30 percent of households with guns are Democrat and 49 percent are Republican.
I’m guessing that it’s a little low, because if someone calls me on the telephone and asks if I own firearms, my immediate answer would be ‘nope, not a one, wouldn’t have one in my house, thank you, goodbye’. You’ll notice in the article that they track gun ownership over the last 40 years and the number of people who admit gun ownership drops off when the government started cracking down with gun control legislation from 50% in the 70s to 34% in 2012. I think they’re reading their polling wrong.
Yeah, it’s very low, considering, like you said, people aren’t going to readily give up that information, especially over the phone, because you don’t know if it’s a bad guy attempting to find their next victim or a government busybody trying to poke their nose in your business. That’s why whenever someone would call to sell me an alarm system, I always say I already have one. When they ask what kind I have, I say Great Dane. They usually hang up immediately.
I read something about guns that I do not know to be true. It said that America is 3rd in the world for murders. But if you take, New York, Detroit, Chicago and New Orleans out of the equation, America drops to 4th from the bottom. I know this is a little off topic but if anyone can tell me the truth of this “statistic” please let me know. If it is true it is surprising considering those cities have the some of the strongest anti-gun laws.
On topic, I am glad Americans are waking up to the fact that if they don’t buy a weapon now, it may be too late later. I wish every legal citizen of right mind and clean record owned a weapon.
It is insane for law-abiding American families NOT to own firearm these days; at the same time, it is insane for law-abiding American families to actually admit in a public poll that they do…
Old Trooper, I’m the same way except my reply is Rottweiler.
Sparks – there is a very strong correlation between strong anti-gun laws and gun crime. Apparently criminals fail to observe the law… go figure.
Actually, David, “strong correlation” is overstating the case. In fact, there’s practically no correlation between state firearm murder rate and the restrictiveness of state firearms laws (as measured by Brady Score). But as you note, restrictive firearms laws do appear to be associated, albeit weakly, with increased firearm murder rates.
https://www.azuse.cloud/?p=30444
https://www.azuse.cloud/?p=37822
Even Harvard has published info recently showing little if any connection between the prevalence of firearms and a nation’s murder rate.
https://www.azuse.cloud/?p=37307
I do not own a single firearm. That statement is 100% true and I will not say it any other way. However, for Christmas, I got my wife a cute pink glock and she got me a set of pearl grips for a 1911 and a customization kit to turn a Mauser C96 into a Han Solo blaster without sacrificing the functionality of the pistol.
But, I will say again. I do not own a single firearm nor is there a single firearm in my house.
@4 – we have two vicious mini dachshunds. Our male dog WILL rip out your Achilles tendon.
@8: Mine will take the tendon and everything it’s attached to 🙂
As I have stated many times before; if a bad guy isn’t fazed by the barking and decides getting in is worth them having to deal with the dog; dispatch them immediately upon entry, because they are there to do you harm.
Old Trooper,
I loved my old Dane (RIP) Nicest dog but VERY protective! He wouldn’t take out an Achilles tendon but he would probably remove someone’s head!
@8,9; I usually add anti-social before I say Rottweiler. I’d post a pic of him but I can’t on here.
@10: Yep, mine is a Harlequin (sp?), also. He’s the same way; big dumb puppy, until someone uninvited shows up, then it’s 170 lbs. of teeth and attitude.
lol VA primary care doctors asks if you own firearms, because that’s a healthcare question now.
What scumbags.
The editorial comments, aka use of adjectives, is always curious. 5% is an astronomical increase when it is something they are against (typical margin of error being plus or minus 3%, but often more), but they manipulate the unemployment rate to NEVER be an alarming increase no matter what.
What a bunch of hypocritical fools.
It’s a funny coincidence; I was out in a canoe with three of my buddies in Saguaro Lake with our firearms in the boat when it tipped. All of our weapons went to the bottom. It’s like 60 feet deep there, with terrible visibility at the bottom. Sad, but no theft was involved, so no police reports were filed. Just a cry in shame, all those firearms rusting away down there in the muck.
Hondo – I think you over-read what I said, since in your succeeding statements you essentially agreed with it. Typically most of the jurisdictions with the highest murder rates have more restrictive gun laws – that is not saying ALL do, it is not saying there is a cause and effect linkage (although many claim that) nor is there a solid correlation between loosening the laws and lowering the gun crime rate. But it is notable that for years the “murder capitals” of the country also had extremely strongly anti-gun laws.
@2 Sparks — nope, but a very interesting question. Some of you may be bored by all of this junk, others may find it “data-rich”. I am showing my work in order to avoid the accusation of “lying with statistics”. I am trying to bold stuff so it is easier to skip the junk.
Original question from Sparks
“I read something about guns that I do not know to be true. It said that America is 3rd in the world for murders. But if you take, New York, Detroit, Chicago and New Orleans out of the equation, America drops to 4th from the bottom. I know this is a little off topic but if anyone can tell me the truth of this “statistic” please let me know. If it is true it is surprising considering those cities have the some of the strongest anti-gun laws.”
Procedure
Open this table on the FBI UCR site.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/tables/1tabledatadecoverviewpdf/table_1_crime_in_the_united_states_by_volume_and_rate_per_100000_inhabitants_1993-2012.xls
It shows crime in the United States since 1993. In 2012, the total number of murders and non-negligent manslaughter events is 14,827. The total population was 313,914,040.
Please note, these are “murders” and NOT “murders by firearm”. The gun-death number normally tossed around by the anti-gun crowd is around 30,000. That includes suicides.
I may do that as well but it is a different project.
Open this table.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/tables/2tabledatadecoverviewpdf
It shows the number of murders and non-negligent manslaughter events in Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), cities outside MSAs, and Non-Metropolitan Counties.
Please note that the MSA population account for 85% of the country.
Cities outside MSAs account for 6.0% of the population
Non-metro counties account for 8.9% of the population.
In MSAs, the murder rates is 4.9 per 100,000, the count is 13,157 (total actually reporting)
In cities outside MSAs, the murder rate is 3.8 per 100,000, the count is 668 (total actually reporting)
In non-metro counties, the murder rate is 3.3 per 100,000, the count is 881 (total actually reporting)
Open this table.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/tables/6tabledatadecpdf
This is every MSA city. For 2012, here are the stats for murder and non-negligent manslaughter for the cities that Sparks noted.
New York MSA 748 (number give is for “total area reporting”, includes cities of New York, Newark, Jersey City, White Plains, New Brunswick, city of Lakewood Township NJ)
Detroit MSA 469 (number given is for “total area actually reporting”, includes cities of Detroit, Warren, Dearborn, Livonia, Troy, Farmington Hills, Southfield, Taylor, and Novi)
Chicago MSA 675 (number given is for “total area actually reporting”, includes cities of Chicago, Naperville, Elgin, Gary, Arlington Heights, Evanston, Schaumburg, Skokie, Des Plaines, and Hoffman Estates)
New Orleans 249 (number given is for “total area actually reporting”, includes cities of New Orleans and Metairie)
The total for those four cities is 2,141 or 16.2% of the MSA murders (2,141 divided by 13,157 times 100) and 14.4% of the total murders (2,141 divided by 14,827 times 100).
So which other cities account for a large number of murders? Let’s review that list looking for “total actually reporting” greater than 100 in descending order by count:
City Murders
San Juan, PR 742
Los Angeles, CA 651
Philadelphia, PA 517
Miami, FL 364
Houston, TX 349
Atlanta, GA 333
San Francisco, CA 288
Dallas-Ft Worth, TX 277
Phoenix, AZ 228
Baltimore, MD 218
Washington, DC 210
St. Louis, MO 202
Riverside, CA 178
Kansas City, MO/KS 156
Memphis, TN 153
Virginia Beach 116
San Antonio, TX 114
Tampa, FL 111
Jacksonville, FL 110
Orlando, FL 109
Indianapolis, IN 108
Milwaukee, WI 107
San Diego, CA 107
Birmingham, AL 105
Seattle, WA 104
Denver, CO 103
Oklahoma City, OK 103
Please note that San Juan Puerto Rico is at the top of the list. I would not ordinarily include Puerto Rico in US statistics but the FBI does include them.
This link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
shows the “Intentional Homicide” rate for a lot of countries. In this study, the US rate is 4.7 murders per 100,000, Canada’s rate is 1.6 and Mexico’s rate is 23.7. This page says that the US had 14,612 murders in 2012, the UCR data said 14,827, so the data on this page is comparable to the UCR data in the rest of this note.
On the intentional Homicide page, there are 207 countries listed. The rates range from 0 homicides for Palau and Monaco to 91.6 per 100,000 for Honduras and India with a rate of 3.5 (count of 42,923) and Brazil with a rate of 21.8 (count of 42,785).
Conclusion
Our rate of 4.7 per 100,000 puts the US in position 103 of 207 on the list – roughly in the middle.
Taking out Sparks four cities would reduce our rate to 4.04 per 100,000 (14,827 – 2,141 = 12,686; 12,686 / 313,914,000 *100,000 = 4.04%) — that is about position 111 on the list — not much motion.
In order to get 4th from the bottom (position 205 in my Excel spreadsheet), our murder rate would have to be 0.3 per 100,000 or a total of 941 murders across the entire country for an entire year. In order to get there, we would have to eliminate all the murders in all of the MSAs plus another 600 in the non-MSA cities and rural areas.
Another way to get 4th from the bottom — create different lists: leave out Central America or Africa or South Asia. Leave out all of the countries where firearms are outlawed. I don’t have time right now to do that.
CDC and Firearms
CDC publishes data about homicides and suicides. The latest data I can find quickly is 2010. In that data, the CDC says that there were 31,672 firearm deaths in 2010;
606 Unintentional
19,392 Suicide
11,078 Homicide
252 Undetermined
344 Legal intervention (I take this to mean shot by a cop)
Richard. My eyes didn’t completely glaze over, so that’s something. I’m thinking, however, that if you and Hondo ever get together in one of these threads, there may be a spike in one of those CDC categories.
@18 2/17 – fair enough 🙂 But just like junior high algebra, I did show my work so y’all can look at the same pages and draw your own conclusions.
An author named Michael Siegel wrote a paper titled, “The Relationship Between Gun Ownership and Firearm
Homicide Rates in the United States, 1981–2010”. He created a computer model to predict the number of households where there are guns. His study says that as the rate of gun-owning households increases, the murder rate increases. I am reviewing it and trying to understand his math.
@19: If his computer model is as accurate as the global warming computer models, we will never know the true math. As for his conclusion of more guns = more murders, simple historical numbers can probably show it better than his computer model, since we have seen gun ownership go up and murders go down, which goes against his hypothesis.
As for “legal intervention”; that could include those turning their lives around in the home or business of someone else.
Excellent research, Richard! Very well documented and explained! That’d be an A+ in any of my books. Hooah.
😉
Didn’t see your comment before making mine, Old Trooper. Correct- Legal intervention as defined by CDC, does include those turning their lives around in homes and/or businesses of someone else.