Comparing the USA's crime stats to the rest of the World

Discussion in 'Off Topic' started by ToddStlluvsBacon, Apr 12, 2018.

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  1. Much of the political thinking about violence in the United States comes from unfavorable comparisons between the United States and a series of cherry-picked countries with lower murder rates and with fewer guns per capita. We’ve all seen it many times. The United States, with a murder rate of approximately 5 per 100,000 is compared to a variety of Western and Central European countries (also sometimes Japan) with murder rates often below 1 per 100,000. This is, in turn, supposed to fill Americans with a sense of shame and illustrate that the United States should be regarded as some sort of pariah nation because of its murder rate.
    Note, however, that these comparisons always employ a carefully selected list of countries, most of which are very unlike the United States. They are  countries that were settled long ago by the dominant ethnic group, they are ethnically non-diverse today, they are frequently very small countries (such as Norway, with a population of 5 million) with very locally based democracies (again, unlike the US with an immense population and far fewer representatives in government per voter). Politically, historically, and demographically, the US has little in common with Europe or Japan
     
    But these are the only countries the US shall be compared to, we are told, because the US shall only be compared to “developed” countries when analyzing its murder rate and gun ownership.
    And yet, no reason for this is ever given. What is the criteria for deciding that the United States shall be compared to Luxembourg but not to Mexico, which has far more in common with the US than Luxembourg in terms of size, history, ethnic diversity, and geography?

    Much of this stems from outdated preconceived and evidence-free notions about the "third world." There is this idea of "we" vs. "them." "We" are the special "developed" countries where people are happy healthy, and live long lives. "Them" is the third world where people live in war-torn squalor and lives there are nasty, brutish, and short. In this mode of thinking there is a bright shiny line between the "developed" world and everyone else, who might as well be considered as a different species.

    In truth, there is no dividing line between the alleged "developed" world and everyone else. There is, in fact, only gradual change that takes place as one looks at Belgium, then the US, then Chile, and Turkey, and China, and Mexico. Most countries, are in the middle, and this is freely exhibited by a variety of metrics including the UN's human development index.

    Once we understand these facts, and do not cling to bizarre xenophobic views about how everyone outside the "developed" world is too dysfunctional and/or subhuman (although few gun control advocates would ever admit to the thought) to bear comparison to the US, we immediately see that the mantra "worst in the developed world" offers an immensely skewed, unrealistic, and even bigoted view of the world and how countries compare to each other.

    one doesn't need to be the world's biggest cynic to recognize that the US is only compared to a selective list of countries because doing so offers a biased view of the United States that makes it looks like an especially crime-ridden place.

    But, we are never allowed to compare the US to middle income countries like Uruguay, Russia, or Mexico because that would show that the US is actually a remarkably safe place in global terms on top of having many more legally owned guns than those countries.

    Nevertheless, we've all heard it too many times to count: gun laws in the United States are "insane" because countries like Sweden and Luxembourg have far more restrictive gun laws and are much safer because of it. The US has the highest murder rate in the "developed world" — presumably because of its lax guns laws —we are told again and again.

    Few people who repeat this mantra have any standard in their heads of what exactly is the "developed" world. They just repeat the phrase because they have learned to do so. They never acknowledge that when factors beyond per capita GDP are considered, it makes little sense to claim Sweden should be compared to the US, but not Argentina.  Such assertions ignore immense differences in culture, size, politics, history, demographics, or ethnic diversity. Comparisons with mono-ethnic Asian countries like Japan and Korea make even less sense.

     
  2. Why is there 3 duplicates of the post?
     
  3. Tod mastering copy paste since we all know he only writes with crayons
     

  4. Yer a hatin' cause you done knowen how to read ....instead of being a punk get someone who knows how to read to read it to you.


    ...so yeah youre gonna have to leave scotland to find someone that knows how to read


    lol if youll notice Scotland doesnt even show up on anyones list for anything ...other than one of the highest per capita illiteracy rate in a european nation (no trollong FACT look it up)

    iPhone X
     
  5. Lol don’t bully Todd. He’s only here because the game is 9 . All he does is spend every minute wondering through KaW forums through endless accounts. You have my condolence Todd. And I won’t read back your reply because why not. Bye moron. Hey, remember you tried to farm me? You had that banner ‘Those towers aren’t working’ ...and then you stopped hitting after an awful amount of fails. Your a looser Todd and nothing more.
     
  6. You had 31 percent of total mass shooters, despite the fact that you only have 5 percent of the world's population.
    FACT
     
  7. In before lock. Derailing your own posts again, Todd? *Shaking my head*
     
  8. And ? You are a country of tall blonde hair blue eyed people. Whites are not killing over here it’s mainly black on black. Except the rare isolated incidents of a killing spree
    I said it before, cant compare countries that are no where near the same population of ours....it doesn’t make sense. Compared like population to population is the only way but the left won’t.

    Hawaii is only 1.6 million people with next to nothing gun violence and 45% of the population are recorded to have guns.....so controlling gun violence with gun ownership, and conceal carry laws is working.
     
  9. Hawaii is a country now,not belong to USA,CONGRATS HAWAII WOOOOHOOOO LOL.
    And im comparing with the rest of the world not a country.31% of all mass shooters in the world.and you consider black ppl dosnt count as real americans?and i doubt what ypi say.
    But we all know you are a racist,ty for making that clear to us.
    And "a country with only tall blonde hair ppl".do your homework.
    Blaiming the black population for the mass shooting,you racist idiot.
    Havnt seen them in the school shootings,las vegas and so on you racist.
    Bringing up one state(Hawaii) and make that the example,how about the other 49 states?31% is 31% cant duck for that when less than 5% of world population."we are a big country" so what?31% of all mass shooters in the world.what is it that you dont understand?less than 5% stands for 31% of something.simple math 1/20 1/3 get it?nothing to do with how big you think you are.
    Keep blaiming the black ppl for your problems you racist.
     

  10. ..shaking your head your tiny tiny little microcephalic head
     
  11. Racist because I used the word black.? Inner city crime is mainly gang related black on black crime you dunce. And again we have the big chunk of the population pie so yeah the numbers would be higher than Sweden, where you all hug sheeps. And since the American hating turn the cheek from the human rights violator board members (China Iran) put you on a made up list.....you can stop pointing fingers and act like you belong there. If Sweden had any integrity they would decline from the list until the UN sanctions the countries that violate human rights.
     




  12. The whole point of this thread is to show comparing one countries crime stats to anothers is usually not a fair or accurate comparison between the two. Data collection is usually different, categorization of crimes that are titled or worded the exact same often have completely different legal meainings even between countries that share the same language.


    For example the following is the article that follows the headline in the pic at the top of this post...


    When you read stats collected by Sweden regarding its own rate of "sexual assault"*** (again edited)**** it comes out to little over 60 per 100,000

    When you read stats collected by the USA about its rate of "sexual assault" *** it comes out to about 5 per 100,00

    So if i wanted to be obtuse and unscrupulous in trying to prove a point ....well as you can see its pretty easy to do.

    ...people again dont be slaves to political dogma, take everything at first with a grain of salt, be skeptical at first and dig deeper, ask questions and do your own research just dont spout out someone elses rhetoric just because it fits your narrative and you just want to be right,
     
  13. Point proven

    Requesting LOCK 
     
  14. Locking per OP request.
     
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