Children Are Dying Because Of Americans' Denial About Guns

[spin]

63. Ill just stick with FBI and Bureau of Justice Statistics. ...

Last edited Mon Feb 19, 2018, 11:05 PM - Edit history (1)

The GOP and donors may have blocked government research on firearms but the FBI and the Bureau of Justice gather information on crime rates. If you wish to discuss marginal effects please do so. Name some. It is and most likely will remain my opinion that while it doesn’t seem logical more guns does NOT equal more crime.

I’m not talking about what the GOP or the NRA believe. I have far more faith in the FBI and Bureau of Justice.

In passing I am not saying that our current gun laws do not need any improvement. Far from it.

However I don’t believe the solution to violent crime or even mass murder is as simple as banning certain weapons, confiscating them or limiting magazine capacity. Passing such laws are merely “feel good” measures. The people we elect to represent us are more interested in playing political games with the gun violence issue rather than actually trying to do something about it. Of course that includes both Republicans and Democrats. Gun control has turned in a wedge issue to garner votes.

JANUARY 30, 2018
5 facts about crime in the U.S.
BY JOHN GRAMLICH

Donald Trump made crime fighting an important focus of his campaign for president, and he cited it again during his January 2017 inaugural address. As the administration takes steps to address violence in American communities, here are five facts about crime in the United States.

1) Violent crime in the U.S. has fallen sharply over the past quarter century. The two most commonly cited sources of crime statistics in the U.S. both show a substantial decline in the violent crime rate since it peaked in the early 1990s. One is an annual report by the FBI of serious crimes reported to police in approximately 18,000 jurisdictions around the country. The other is an annual survey of more than 90,000 households conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which asks Americans ages 12 and older whether they were victims of crime, regardless of whether they reported those crimes to the police.



Using the FBI numbers, the violent crime rate fell 48% between 1993 and 2016. Using the BJS data, the rate fell 74% during that span. (For both studies, 2016 is the most recent full year of data.) It’s important to note that the FBI reported a 7% increase in the violent crime rate between 2014 and 2016, including a 20% rise in the murder rate —from 4.4 to 5.3 murders per 100,000 residents. The BJS figures do not show an increase in the violent crime rate between 2014 and 2016, but they do not count murders. The BJS figures for 2016 also reflect a survey redesign, making it difficult to compare directly to prior years.

2) Property crime has declined significantly over the long term. Like the violent crime rate, the U.S. property crime rate today is far below its peak level. FBI data show that the rate fell 48% between 1993 and 2016, while BJS reports a decline of 66% during that span. Property crime includes offenses such as burglary, theft and motor vehicle theft, and it is generally far more common than violent crime. There was no documented increase in the property crime rate between 2014 and 2016.

3) Public perceptions about crime in the U.S. often don’t align with the data. Opinion surveys regularly find that Americans believe crime is up nationally, even when the data show it is down. In 17 Gallup surveys conducted since 1993, at least six-in-ten Americans said there was more crime in the U.S. compared with the year before, despite the generally downward trend in national violent and property crime rates during much of that period.



http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/30/5-facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/

Of course firearms sales have absolutely skyrocketed in recent years. The chart below shows background checks but more than one firearm can be bought with one background check.