"Wes" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" wrote:


"Wes" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" wrote:


Meanwhile, we've discussed the supposed connection between CCW laws and
homicides here in the past, and I maintain that there's nothing like a
causative relationship in either direction. I hate to re-hash these things
too many times but we can look at some of that data if you want.


You won't find any meaningful correlations in that data, in other words.
What you may be looking for is psychological and demographic profiles of
murderers. Good luck correlating anything. What Tawwwwwwwwwm claimed is
nonsense. He has no data to support it. What you'd probably find, given
the
age and demographics of most murderers, is that they aren't political at
all. They're self-focused and have little social sense, let alone the
discipline to register and vote.

I think most murders are drug related. IOW, cesspools will have the most
murders. Cities
with liberal policies tend to be the biggest cesspools.

But what is the relationship? Do you suppose some causation? FWIW, here's
the most likely relationship, IMO: Cities have lots of poor people and
they
tend to elect liberal government officials, who try to get government
programs to support their constituents. Poor people generally don't
maintain
healthy communities. Unhealthy communities tend to have high rates of drug
use, unemployment, and crime in general, plus a shortage of functional
families to raise responsible kids. Those kids commit most of the murders.

Family values makes for a healthy society. I'm not sure how you correlate
being poor with
having poor values.

Easy. You get a bunch of poor people who have never known anything else,
crowd them into a ghetto in which the possibilities of leaving vanish within
a generation or two, and then watch the pathologies unfold.

There's enough documentation and literature about this to keep you busy for
several lifetimes, Wes.

America is a story of people that have little or nothing coming here
and suceeding. Maybe it is a stereotype but Asians tend to thrive here.
They make their
kids study to get a head.

You're trying to conflate two incomparable situations.


I can't provide cites but illegal blacks that come here seem to do better
than our native
born citizens. Well, here is something. I need to dig a bit further.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...0121614AANZ921

No doubt. And that's the proof that the situations are incomparable. You're
talking about recent immigrants on one hand, and people who were raised in a
pathological, completely dysfunctional environment on the other.

But they're both the same color. So, obviously, it's the background that
distinguishes the two, not their race. What conclusion do you draw from
that?


I used to work for an engineer that was a strange bird. Loved firearms,
listened to NPR,
rode a bicycle and wore a bunch of those I care arm bands. He and his
wife home schooled
their kids that were accepted at decent colleges. He pulled out of the
market a few
months before SHTF. He was dropped as last hired, first fired. I have a
feeling his kids
are going to turn out okay. Last I knew, he moved accross the country to
work at Sig
Arms.

I don't get the comparison here. It sounds like you're talking about kids
who were raised in a healthy, middle-class environment. Right?




In _Freakonomics_ you'll find the story about the correlation between the
Roe v. Wade decision and the decline in murders, starting roughly 17 years
later. It is *much* stronger, statistically, than the simple correlation
with birthrates in the US. The correlation between the percentage of young
men in the population (age 17 - 24) is slightly correlated with the
decline
in murders but the decline in unwanted children raised in poverty by
single
mothers is the stronger correlation.

Oh goody, a book I listened to. I wish I hadn't bought it as an audio
book since I didn't
get any charts and graphs. He did make a case for abortion and lower
murder rates.

I'm not trying to pull your chain but does that mean my peer group that
tends to dislike
abortion and also supports gun rights is overall a lesser threat to
society than those
that are willing to kill their offspring? If you are willing to kill your
baby, what are
your limits and what are the values you teach to your children that
survive?

I've never known anyone who would kill a baby. That's murder, and will get
you life in prison or something almost as heavy. For thousands of years,
people have known the difference. Since roughly 1820 - 1840, some people
have forgotten, having been persuaded by an ersatz evangelical religious
argument.

I've never found religious arguments convincing about anything -- especially
casuistry that's cooked up nearly 2,000 years after the fact.


I'm not blowing off your point of parents that let them live and didn't
take an interest
as long as what Tawm calls the Cheese Check showed up. (ADC) (WIC)

But whom are you blaming? The _Freakonomics_ argument isn't a case of laying
blame. It's just a factual observation. Make of it what you will.



There's a name for this in statistics, but forget the lingo. The
connection
is that you have two results occurring in parallel and thus correlating at
a
high rate: political leaning of a region and its homicide rate -- both of
which are independent of each other, but both of which have the same
proximate cause: inner-city poverty and all of the social pathologies that
it breeds.

Make of that what you want, but that's the most promising track to relate
homicide ups and downs in the US over the last 40 years or so.


But you don't have to dig that out to shoot down Tawwwwwwwwwwwm's
claims.
He
pulled it right out of his ass, and he's just demonstrated, as usual,
that
he doesn't know what he's talking about on social and political matters.

Ed, sometimes we just have a gut feeling on things. I've heard things
like 50-70 counties
in the USA represent almost all our gun crime. I wish I had taken time
to
take note on
the reference so I could provide you a cite.

I don't doubt it, but I don't remember the specifics. As I've told you
before, I spent a LOT of time with UCR and other crime statistics from
roughly 1986 to 1994, when I was writing about gun rights. I've seen the
general trends, Wes.

I'll try to keep my ears open and document
it the the next time I hear it on the various podcasts I listen to.

You'll do a lot better to go to the original source, which, in this case,
is
three or four sets of data maintained by the Justice Department. The UCR
is
one The victimization studies are another. There is separate data on guns
and crime maintained by the FBI. It's weak in some areas but it's very
strong in homicides, which are the best-reported and most-cleared crimes,
with relatively few misses. That's the best data around and it's what
advocates on both sides of the issue use -- often in twisted and selective
ways. g

The next time I hear something, I'll contact the person that originated
the podcast to
have that person provide cites. I don't listen to loons.

Look for yourself. Don't accept others' conclusions.


If you really want some answers, when we both have time, I'll try to
gather
up some links for you. It's not easy to start off raw and expect complete
answers in an hour or two. I can't count how many hours I've spend with
that
data, mostly before it was available online. Research librarians used to
know me by name. g

Come winter when you are bored, I'd welcome taking another stab at this.
Right now it is
summer, a short season in Michigan, so I'm trying to make the best out of
it. I've been
working 6 days a week with requests for the seventh day. Come winter,
things will slow
down again.

Ok. If I'm still around then, we can discuss it.

--
Ed Huntress