This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
Aude, I don't want to intrude unnecessarily on your plan for this article, but since it currently focuses on the United States, and it's going to be publicized on DYK, shouldn't we just move it to Gun violence in the United States now? Melchoir 23:47, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
There is no neutrality as far as I can see here. It deginerated into a a modern liberal anti-gun argument. EOM. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.189.223.12 ( talk) 16:19, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
I've been a Wikipedian for quite some time now, but I've never seen an article that pushes a POV as strongly as this one. It's so far out of bounds, I don't know where to start with a proper critique. For now, I've added the neutrality template. I will try to find some time to bring objectivity to this in the near future, but I wonder if it shouldn't just be scrapped entirely. Gregmg 00:02, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Pretty impressive amount of work here in only 4-5 days of editing...good job. As far as I am concerned, I can't see why we have a neutrality tag on the article...are some saying the article is not adequately addressing the issues of gun violence? Or is the problem that the article is an argument for increased gun legislation because of the facts and figures presented? I won't detail my resume here, but the article is mainly simply a facts and figures page with outstanding neutral references...and even the last major edit by Aude shows little real changes by the other editors since. So, what's the problem with this article? Details would be helpful.-- MONGO 07:01, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
How come most of the references are not from NPOV sources? Knowingly sourcing a biased book or article, and then not providing a counterpoint is clearly not NPOV.
frankly, the title and theme of the article is a loaded gun in and of itself as "gun violence" is a misnomer or weasel term. violence is an act, which can occur in all manner of ways. if "gun violence in america" is a legitimate topic, then "chair violence in americe", "knife violence in america", "coffee cup violence in america", "human waste violence in america", etc are all also legitimate articles as well. the proper thing to do is to delete the article, and have the more valuable parts of the article merged into the "violence" article, or the "gun politics" or another article more adequate for such a topic. citations alone do not make for a good and NPOV article.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.205.253.125 ( talk • contribs)
Most Wikipedia articles begin with a very brief definition of their topic. Could someone please insert a definition of "Gun Violence" so we know what is being discussed? - O^O 22:06, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Violence-related: Injury or poisoning inflicted by deliberate means (i.e., on purpose). This category includes the assault, legal intervention, and self-harm categories. [4]
frankly, the title and theme of the article is a loaded gun in and of itself as "gun violence" is a misnomer or weasel term. violence is an act, which can occur in all manner of ways. if "gun violence in america" is a legitimate topic, then "chair violence in americe", "knife violence in america", "coffee cup violence in america", "human waste violence in america", etc are all also legitimate articles as well. the proper thing to do is to delete the article, and have the more valuable parts of the article merged into the "violence" article, or the "gun politics" or another article more adequate for such a topic. citations alone do not make for a good and NPOV article.
Have removed the tagline from the heading of the article, as with the intense editing done over the last several days the degree of POV-centric terminology is greatly reduced. There may still be some minor issues remaining, but the great majority of them are largely resolved, in my estimation. If anyone disagrees, then they can tag it again, and we can go back and hash out whatever edits still need to be done. Yaf 01:17, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Added the tag back. There is still dispute over whether the article itself (including the title) is pushing a point of view
DesertPhox (
talk)
19:36, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
Another editor added a section on the "Disaster Recovery Personal Protection Act of 2006". [5] I rewrote it and added a source, [6] but wonder if it belongs in the article. It appears to be an inconsequential bit of legislation that most members of the Senate voted for, probably so they could point to it during the November election campaign. It seems to have little bearing on public policy regarding gun violence. Walter Siegmund (talk) 16:13, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
(copied discussion here from peer review page)
Hi - maybe this should be moved to talk? There's no way to know what the "major factor" is - it might be that if there were strict gun control laws the homicide rate would be the same but knives would be used instead. Or maybe it would be lower. But it's an assertion that gun violence per se is the difference - or am I wrong? I often am. Kaisershatner 20:09, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Other bits that I think need more clarification include the offending/victimization rates among youths and Hispanic and African Americans. It's true that these demographic groups are over represented in U.S. homicide statistics; but it's also true that the overwhelming, vast majority of people in these demographics are perfectly law-abiding. Also, painting "urban areas" with the gun violence issue is also not 100% accurate. Gun violence, and crime generally, concentrates in specific sections of cities. I may have to add a map graphic to help illustrate that point. Does anyone else think readers might be confused or get wrong impressions from the way the article is written? -- Aude ( talk) 02:37, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
I know there is a certain advantage to using vector graphics, but they aren't uniformly readable. The charts that appear in the article are too tiny to be legible. Might a higher resolution jpg, or at worst, a pdf be better? Rwwff 23:00, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone else think readers might be confused or get wrong impressions from the way the article is written? -- Aude ( talk) 02:37, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
This article is very POV. For example, the article does not even consider urban vs. rural or restrictive vs. relaxed gun laws. For example, gun ownership is higher per capita in Iowa than in Washington DC yet gun violence rates are much higher in DC and the laws are more restrictive. This type of analysis is sadly lacking and contributes to it's POV. Here's a question (and I don't know the answer) If Iowa were considered a country, would it's gun homicide rate be substantially higher than other developed nations? -- Tbeatty 06:37, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Another example: From the article,
"One important consideration is that only 60-70% of firearms sales in the United States are transacted through federally licensed firearm dealers, with the remainder taking place in the "secondary market".[63][64] Most sales to youths and convicted felons take place in the "secondary market", which involves secondhand firearms transferred by unlicensed individuals."
Without any reference to what percentage of transactions are illegal, it leaves the reader with the impression that 30-40% of firearms transactions are to youths and felons (i.e. an illegal sale whether they have a license or not). Without any context as to the amount of secondary transactions that are illegal, the whole paragraph is distorted. It appears that this article is trying to infer that the secondary market has a substantial criminal component when that hasn't been established. Replace "guns" with "cars" and you'll see what I mean. -- Tbeatty 07:07, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Not sure if this is helpful...I'll look for more.-- MONGO 17:32, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
There seem to be a lot of people desputing the netrality of this article. I fail to find any substance in their claims. It is a very well-sourced article with careful wording. I guess you cannot write an article on a controversial subject without taking some flak. Good Job, Aude (I guess it you who have written most of the article). When I read it I found I wanted to read more about the accidental gunshot wounds mentioned at the beginning of the article. Unfortunately, the link does only seem to display numbers by category. I do understand if you do not adress the subject in this article. I am not well-aquainted with the exact English semantics of the word "violence" (I'm not a native speaker) but I presume accidents do not count as violence. However, it is a closely related subject. For instance, many of the programs mentioned in the text seem more intent on preventing gunshot accidents than on preventing violence. So I think many readers would appreciate a link to an article on this subject. There are such doubtful links as the word "parents". I think a link to gunrelated accidents would definitely be more interesting. -Sensemaker —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 193.183.79.7 ( talk • contribs) 14:10, 4 December 2006 (UTC).
?? This article is a GA nominee, therefore how can it be A class?? i have checked the GA review page, and seen that they commented that this article meets all the criteria for GA but was not made GA as it was already rated A on the talk page. i believe that the A class rating was added without prior discussion, and thus interupted the GA status that this article was already heading for. furthermore, the user who rated as A class is not a member of the wikiproject thus shouldnt really be rating things, espcially not in this manner. therefore, u have re-rated this as GA, as according the the GA review page it did pass GA nom. SGGH 10:52, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Nice article, full of well-referenced facts and a good prose. I granted this article for Good Article status. Some suggestions to improve this article for FA:
Anyway, the article satisfies good article criteria. Congrats. — Indon ( reply) — 14:17, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
The very title of the article tells us exactly where the author comes down on the issue. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.95.74.65 ( talk) 07:46, 13 January 2007 (UTC).
I think studies that are prior than 1997 should not be used, unless they are being used to be compared with a more recent study. I think that sounds reasonable enough. What about you? ~ UBeR 02:07, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
The link to the reference in note 8 is dead. Don't have time to check the rest, just thought I'd throw that out there. I was going to dispute the neutrality of the article until I saw the talk page, and I now see that it's already been done. I can't put my finger on it, but it just doesn't read neutral to me.
A few years ago - 3 or 4 - I read that the Us and Canada have about the same per capita gun ownership. Our murder rate has more to do with something else than guns - we just don't like each other. 159.105.80.141 19:45, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
"Two-thirds of non-fatal violent injuries" are attributable to gun violence? Common sense does not support that statement. The cited source, footnote # 3, does not support that statement.
This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. The article history has been updated to reflect this review. Regards, Ruslik 07:21, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
I have just had the somewhat unpleasant task of untangling a hedge of unverified statements about the US having the highest murder rate in the developed world. The problem with this statement is that it wasn't verified by a quote from a reliable scholarly source, nor did any of the linked sources make this statement.
The CIA defines South Africa as a 'developed' country - I followed a link from this very page to verify this, this page also states that South Africa has a higher murder rate and a higher proportion committed with firearms than the US.
Now, in fairness, there are other definitions that don't include South Africa as developed, however, making a statement like this without a scholarly reference is original research and the dangers of that have just been exposed (ie making a false inference that the US has a higher gun homicide rate than South Africa).
What adds greater evidence that this original research is selective reasoning to support an agenda is one of the defenders of this article
" In rural areas, the homicide rate is 3.5 per 100,000, which is still higher than overall homicide rates for most other developed countries (1.58 in all of Canada — its rural and urban areas, 1.15 in the Netherlands, 1.16 in Germany, 1.25 in Spain, 1.29 in Italy, 1.57 in Australia, 1.78 in France, 2.01 in South Korea, 2.3 in Malaysia, 2.8 in Finland). Developing countries are another story."
The inclusion of Malaysia inferred here as 'developed', which I have never in before my life heard referred to as developed, and exclusion of South Africa shows that the definition of a "developed country" is any country that has a murder rate lower than the US. So it's no wonder the US has the "highest murder rate in the developed world". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.253.72.109 ( talk) 16:54, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
In the course of a discussion I noted anomalous data on violence rates I changed it after referencing the two sources already given. http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Gun_violence_in_the_United_States&diff=191787697&oldid=191773197 75.17.83.197 ( talk) 03:58, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
The decline in percentage of households owning guns can easily be explained as a statistical artifact of decrease in household size. If the probability of a randomly selected individual owning one or more guns is some number, say P, then the probability of one or more of N randomly selected individuals owning one or more guns is 1-((1-p)^N). For any probability P greater than 0 and less than 1, this number converges on P as N goes to 1 and on 1 as N goes to infinity. So as household size declines, the number of households owning guns will decrease if individual gun ownership remains constant. Assuming that only one in five persons owns a gun, then for a household size of 4.5 people (as in 1915), 63% of households would have one or more gun owners; for a household size of 3.5 (1970), 54% of households would have one or more gun owners; and for a household size of 2.5 (2007), 43% of households would have one or more gun owners. Practically of course this model is somewhat inaccurate because households do not consist of randomly selected individuals, but the effect is undeniable. Essentially, a reduction in the number of households owning guns would be expected as household size decreases and is a trivial observation. I am surprised that this obvious fact is not observed in the article.
I leave aside the issues of non-response bias in any survey that attempts to gauge gun ownership by asking people if they own a gun. Clearly a serious problem.
I think this article could be improved by putting the risk of death from gun homicide in context. For example, in the U.S. about 2,400,000 people die each year. Viewing the 2005 homicide stats from the DOJ, [17], shows 8,478 killed with handguns and 2,868 with guns other than handguns. Given that 42,000 people die in auto accidents each year, 15,000 from falls, and about 4,000 from drowning, I think it is patently facetious to suggest that gun homicides, and in particular homicides with long guns, are some sort of public health crisis -- especially when we have hundreds of thousands of premature deaths from smoking and obesity to deal with.
I would however take this further and propose that gun homicides lower overall crime rates. Given that 75% of gun homicide victims have a prior criminal record, can we state that those homicides have the salutary effect of lowering overall crime rates by removing criminals from the population? It's like executing 9,000 criminals per year. I think this is definitely possible and may explain the rise in non-homicide crime rates experienced in places that enact stringent gun control laws. This is an example of what Garrett Hardin would call ecolate thinking. I am sure Sarah Brady has never considered the likely increase in rape, aggravated assault, burglary, and other crimes that would result from avoiding the extra-legal execution of 9,000 criminals per year.
TwoGunChuck ( talk) 02:16, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Why does every other country have up-to-date stats, yet the US have stats from ( according to the graphs on the page ) one of the worst years in the past several decades? How is this not NPOV? 169.226.69.156 ( talk) 14:21, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I went to go update the graph from the same source as the other stats and ran into a huge problem. The data at NationMaster appears to be screwy to say the least. For counties like South Africa the reported number of gun homicides ( per capita ) is larger, by a large amount, than the reported homicides ( per capita ). This would seriously call into question the validity of the data retrieved from that site. Needless to say I think that whole section needs to be rewritten or removed unless current and accurate data can be sourced for international comparison. 74.70.154.77 ( talk) 01:36, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
Continuing... off the nationmaster page. "UN-crime survey sates: "The statistics cannot take into account the differences that exist between the legal definitions of offences in various countries, of the different methods of tallying, etc.Consequently, the figures used in these statistics must be interpreted with great caution. In particular, to use the figures as a basis for comparison between different countries is highly problematic."". Based on that alone ( that the sourced material does not support the comparison of numbers ) I think the section should be pulled. 74.70.154.77 ( talk) 01:41, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I should have logged in. For accounting both IP addresses above are me. I have gone ahead and remove the section because it's conclusions are unsupported by the primary source. Brontide ( talk) 14:10, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I was eager to see the stats that backed up the claim that "crime rates in the U.S. are similar to those of other developed countries." When I looked at the sources provided i found these statements: "while the United States does not have the highest rate of homicide or firearm-related homicide, it does have the highest rates for these among industrialized democracies. Homicide rates in the United States are two to four times higher than they are in countries that are economically and politically similar to it. Higher rates are found in developing countries and those with political instability. The same is true for firearm-related homicides, but the differences are even greater. The firearm-related homicide rate in the United States is more like that of Argentina, Mexico, and Northern Ireland than England or Canada. While certainly not the highest homicide or firearm-related homicide rate in the world, these rates in the United States are in the upper quartile in each case." http://www.nap.edu/books/0309091241/html/53.html and "The rate of firearm deaths in the United States (14.24 per 100 000) exceeds that of its economic counterparts (1.76) eightfold and that of UMI countries (9.69) by a factor of 1.5." http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/27/2/214 I'm not saying what is right or not, but if you want to put that U.S. crime rates are similar to other developed countries, the ref provided should confirm that. Frankie816 ( talk) 18:06, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
The table comparing the US to other nations is grossly inconsistent. Specifically, one reference (currently #54) is used for the 'Homicide by Gun' row, with data in the early to mid 90s for all nations. Several references are used for the 'Homicide (all)' row, with the years noted below. The issue is that the reference used for most other countries in the 'Homicide (all)' row includes numbers for the US which are substantially lower than the one from the specific source used for that column. This is apparently to rectify what would look like an error, as the US's total homicide rate in that reference (circa 2000) is lower than the listed gun homicide rate (circa 1993).
This table needs to be corrected, preferably pulling both numbers from pages at the current reference 50, which will result in all data being comparable year 2000 UN data, and the year row can be removed in favor of a note that all numbers are from 2000. I'm not familiar enough with the table markup to do this immediately, but I will do it in the next few days if nobody else does.
The specific pages I plan to reference are: Current reference 50, overall homicide rates: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita
New reference, from same source, for gun homicide rates: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir_percap-crime-murders-firearms-per-capita
If there is a more up to date international reference than the 2000 UN data I would love to see it as well.
24.21.59.195 ( talk) 11:35, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
It looks like this is the issue referenced in the 'Changed a Graph' and 'International Comparison' sections above, which I would have seen if I had read this whole talk page instead of just searching for '1993' to see if anyone else was asking about that year. I will remove those sections as well as this one if nobody objects to the change before I make it. 24.21.59.195 ( talk) 11:38, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Just a FYI people, nationmaster does not appear to be a good primary source of data. It's usually a secondary source ( check and use the original source if possible ); in some cases, specifically some of the Gun Violence stats, are specifically sourced from wikipedia itself! Beware.
Example: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_gun_vio_hom_fir_hom_rat_per_100_pop-rate-per-100-000-pop
All stats from that site should be suspect until the primary source can be identified. 74.70.154.77 ( talk) 02:23, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria. I'm specifically going over all of the "Culture and Society" articles. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. I have made several minor corrections throughout the article. Altogether the article is well-written and is still in great shape after its passing in 2006. Continue to improve the article making sure all new information is properly sourced and neutral. If possible see if any related external links can be added, and add an inline citation for "The Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition is a bipartisan coalition of 210 mayors from 40 different United States cities, united in their stated goal of "making the public safer by getting illegal guns off the streets." I would also recommend updating "Many suffer non-fatal gunshot wounds, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimating 52,447 deliberate and 23,237 accidental non-fatal gunshot injuries in the United States during 2000." if there is any new data. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. I have updated the article history to reflect this review. Happy editing! -- Nehrams2020 ( talk) 09:50, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Hi. Thanks for putting this article together. It contains many interesting and relevant statistics. However, the scope of the article in no ways fits the title.
For one thing, you have micro-nized the historical aspects of American gun violence. There's no mention, for instance, of organized crime. Guns violence also played a major role in the labor movement, on both sides of the fence. Your singling out of the Haymarket Riot is, in truth, almost laughable. Ever hear of a "John L. Lewis Convincer"? Additionally, I'd speculate that guns played a role in virtually every lynching. Etc, etc, etc. It's a very broad subject, as you can imagine. Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, Billy the Kid, the Hatfield/McCoy Feud, Wyatt Earp, the arming of the American Indians... the list goes on and on. Also, from both a historical and modern viewpoint, your brief mention of the 2nd amendment trivializes a controversial, complex subject.
Anyway, after a synopsis of recent gun violence statistics, your article moves away from gun violence into a... gun policy debate? I am not sure exactly what it moves towards, but it is not on-topic. "Cop Killer" ammunition is on topic. The evolution of TASER use is on topic; legal versus illegal firearms- that's on topic. Increased police usage of rubber bullets for "riot control"- on topic. That's gun violence. But you cover gun ownership trends and issues. Last, there is no speculation on future trends in gun violence in the US. What are the experts predicting? BalancedScales ( talk) 21:55, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
I have deleted the graphic "Overall homicide and gun homicide rates by country (2000)" from the article. A look at WP:OR explains that this is not appropriate. The graphic is not in the original article. Its selective sequencing and selective choice of countries for comparison requires the reader to examine the chart and draw a conclusion about the level of gun violence in the United States, which amounts to original research and/or WP:SYNTH, which are not appropriate for Wikipedia. The graph for example hides the fact that gun death rates in modern stable democracies such as the UK have gun death rates 20-40 times lower than that in the United States. -- Hauskalainen ( talk) 12:41, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
20 percent of U.S. homicides occur in four cities with just 6% of the population – New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Washington, D.C., and each has a virtual prohibition on private handguns
{{
cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
Considering that suicide is the constitutes the greatest form of gun violence in the US, yet it receives just a scant few sentences of coverage??? While, crime gun violence receives many paragraphs of coverage. This, perhaps unintentionally, reinforces and mirrors the POV push that firearms for self defensive against criminals is a virtuous thing. This, at the least, has appearances of a non-neutral pro-gun POV push and must be fixed. Thanks is advance for helping with this. SaltyBoatr ( talk) 19:44, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
This whole page has POV problems lots of anti and pro buzz words. This whole article should be deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.38.112.14 ( talk) 20:09, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Pardon if my POV spilled over but this article is 90% POV. i tried to remove the worst of it but it still stands in violation. If i knew how to submit it for deletion i would —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.38.112.14 ( talk) 21:24, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
removed some POV still needs work. This needs to be just the facts not POV. the tilt of this article is "guns are bad but some think they are good" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.38.112.14 ( talk) 02:49, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
"Gun violence in the United States" should be changed to "Crimes involving guns in the United States" or "Gun-related crime in America" otherwise it makes it sound like the problem is the gun when in fact it is the criminal. ChesterTheWorm ( talk) 01:33, 7 August 2009 (UTC) ChesterTheWorm
Then perhaps it might be changed to "Violence involving guns in the United States?" A bit wordy, but it would avoid the potentially-loaded phrase "Gun violence." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.109.49.200 ( talk) 02:34, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
I think "gun violence" or "violence involving guns" are equally good. As you point out, "violence involving guns" is a bit wordy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pink fuzzy slippers ( talk • contribs) 21:22, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
The picture of the S&W model 60 is a bad example and the caption contains technically incorrect information.
The model 60 is a .357 magnum, not a .38 special and the 3" barrel is somewhat of a rarity. This picture should be of a ~2" barrel .38 special if it is to be an example of the most common type of gun confiscated by police and traced by the ATF.
I recommend a S&W model 36 or a colt detective special. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.186.237.194 ( talk) 20:22, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Citing Philip J. Cook, the article states "Research and statistics have shown that guns intensify crime situations, and increase the likelihood of a more violent or lethal outcome." My sister was assaulted in her home by a home invader; when she produced a .357 revolver, her assailant fled; she was able to detain his accomplice for arrest by responding officers. Both criminals are currently (June 2010) serving time. The gun defused this crime situation and made a less violent, less potentially lethal outcome possible. (I am sure though that my sister's assailant thought the situation had intensified and that the gun had increased the likelihood of a more violent or lethal outcome for him.) Since there was no dead or wounded criminal, and no shots fired, I suppose this would not count as a defensive gun use to Hemenway, McDowall, Donohue, et al. I suspect that research and statistics on this subject tend to support the apriori political assumptions of the academics studying the issue. The legal gun ban advocated by academics Morris & Hawkins 1970 might have disarmed my sister, but it would have had no effect on her assailant, who relied on brute force. Naaman Brown ( talk) 13:21, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm temporarily keeping some notes here, while working on this article. -- Aude ( talk) 16:49, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Since this is a controversial topic, only the highest-quality sources should be used in this article, with most statements backed up with scholarly peer reviewed sources. This article is an overview of the issue, here are the common views of the issue held by so and so citation needed, here's what the research says citation needed. The article mainly focuses on the U.S., due to the fact that statistics and research indicate that gun violence and relationship to homicides/suicides is by far the greatest in the U.S. International comparisons will be noted here. -- Aude ( talk) 16:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
The vast majority of research and literature on gun violence pertains to the United States. In the future, I may rename this article as "Gun violence in the United States", and keep looking for more general sources on the topic of gun violence. For now, I think the article may need to stay as-is, named "Gun violence". There are many other criminology and criminal justice articles and topics in dire need of attention. I do intend to come back and work on generalizing the topic and splitting the article into two: "Gun violence" and "Gun violence in the United States". -- Aude ( talk) 18:47, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
This article has many facts and figures that would be good for the Main Page, DYK. Need to work on this article some more before submitting these.
The fact that the two statistics presented above are right out of a Brady Campaign talking points handbook clearly indicates a point of view on the part of their author, as does the article in it's entirety. DesertPhox ( talk) 17:48, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
Uh....how many gun-related homicides are there in an average year? Or in a particular recent year? Amazingly, this article doesn't say! The article says there were an estimated 52,447 deliberate and 23,237 accidental non-fatal gunshot injuries in the United States during 2000. The article also says firearms were used in 16,907 suicides in the United States during 2004. But nothing at all about the annual number of homicides! That's probably the one tidbit of information that most people would be most interested in, and yet it isn't to be found here. I would've thought that a lengthy article on gun violence in the U.S. would contain some information on the number of gun-related homicides per year. Captain Quirk ( talk) 10:35, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: no consensus. There are a number of unresolved POV issues here, up to and including whether the article ought to be deleted. But there does not seem to be consensus for a move. ErikHaugen ( talk | contribs) 17:51, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
Gun violence in the United States → Guns in the United States — The scope of this article has increased to the point that the current title no longer accurately reflects the entirety and direction of its content. In addition, the term 'gun violence' is a politically charged term that implies a pro gun-control point of view. The article and its content would be better served by changing the title to the proposed. WP:POVTITLE DesertPhox ( talk) 17:00, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
(Seen here, I am sure that there is a reasonable source to back this data up without violating WP:SYNTH. I don't have the time to search for one now, but the information is certainly out there. I propose we keep the information there (as it is a legitimate statistic/analysis, but tag it with {{citation needed}} until a proper source is found. The verbiage would need to be changed to make it sound more encyclopedic than opinion of course.
I will wait until either a discussion consensus is reached, or a day or two before editing the article to include some of those points. - Deathsythe ( talk) 12:41, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
See http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2011/01/27/20110127arizona-gun-death-rate-nations-worst.html -- Gary Dee ( talk) 22:59, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
Currently, part of the Homicide section says:
Gun-related homicide rates in the United States are two to four times higher than they are in countries that are economically and politically similar to it. Higher rates are found in developing countries and those with political instability.[21][25][26]
The provided references do not, on inspection, support the claim in the first sentence.
All of these are quite out of date, but taking them for what they are worth:
The rate of firearm deaths in the United States (14.24 per 100 000) exceeds that of its economic counterparts (1.76) eightfold and that of UMI countries (9.69) by a factor of 1.5.
The first reference, "Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review", makes the aforementioned claim but then provides statistics that completely refuted it. Here are the per 100,000 capita values for Firearm Homicides in that document.
Australia 0.44 Canada 0.76 England and Wales 0.07 New Zealand 0.17 Japan 0.02 USA 7.07
The wealthy non-US OECD nations listed range from Japan 0.02 up to Finland 0.86. On the basis of these figures you would say the USA is between 9 and 350 times higher than comparable nations. It averages about 35 times higher.
The next, says,"Firearm deaths in the United states and 35 other countries", says The rate of firearm deaths in the United States (14.24 per 100 000) exceeds that of its economic counterparts (1.76) eightfold and that of UMI countries (9.69) by a factor of 1.5.
The last, "The Seventh United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (1998 - 2000)", gives the following most recent values per 100,000 capita:
Australia 0.31 Canada 0.54 England and Wales 0.12 New Zealand 0.18 (No figure for Japan) USA 2.97
Values for non-US wealthy OECD nations in that report vary from Singapore 0.02 up to Canada 0.54. So on this basis you would say the USA is between 5 and 150 times higher, and it averages about 20 times higher.
These stats are all a bit old (hey, I didn't tag them!). The current List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate gives the USA as having a rate of 7.07, and the average of the wealthy OECD nations on that list comes to 0.38. This would mean the USA is about 19 times higher. The sources are mixed.
These are not very detailed analyses I am making but I hope that it illustrates the point that no statistics anywhere suggest that the USA's firearm related homicide rate is "between two and four times" higher than economically and politically similar countries. Across the full set of data you would say that on an individual nation basis, the USA is between 8 and 350 times higher than particular other comparable nations, or between 20 and 35 times higher than comparable nations overall. We can debate about which range to use. I'll correct the current values to reflect the overall comparison to get the ball rolling. Ordinary Person ( talk) 14:33, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
The following quote appears in Public Policy > Firearms Market:
While this is technically correct, it seems to imply that a license is available for private sellers when in fact it is a fairly expensive and rigorous process to obtain a Federal Firearms License. One of the requirements is that the holder must be in the business of buying and selling firearms for profit, which a private seller is not. As such, while a private seller is technically "unlicensed", they are outside the scope of the licensing system and not eligible to *be* licensed. Lwsimon ( talk) 17:22, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
The article solemnly informs us:
I was puzzled to read this, as I'd thought that these days gun policies were discreetly but effectively left undebated (other than in the direction of permissiveness, or perhaps by easily ignored "extreme liberals" and the like). I looked for the source. The article attributes this to chap. 7 of Mark E. Rushefsky, Public Policy in the United States: At the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century (2002). I'm stunned to learn that Rushefsky described the Aurora shooting a full decade before it occurred. Or just possibly he didn't describe it, and instead some WP editor simply had Rushefsky say whatever he felt like having Rushefsky say. Of course I could remove mention of any shooting that came after 2002, but I wonder what other fictions the article perpetrates about this book. I don't have access to a copy; does anyone here have a copy? -- Hoary ( talk) 07:06, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
Is there any information on the number of shooting deaths by police officers, as well as how many shootings were in self defense? The article would be improved by a breakdow of the deaths into police caused, self defense and actual murders. 198.105.0.4 ( talk) 22:12, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
As the article makes mention of Switzerland's high rate of gun ownership, is it worth mentioning that the country also has relatively strict gun control legislation? Residents carry only their government-issued personal weaponry in their homes with the automatic firing function removed after they leave the service, the government does not distribute ammunition to the former servicemen to store in their homes, and the sale of ammunition in general is subsidized by the government for sale at firing ranges. In order to buy a weapon from a commercial store or a private individual one needs a weapon acquisition permit, which allows the purchase of three firearms. Everyone over the age of 18 who is cleared of having psychiatric problems, posing general security problems, and has a clear criminal record, can get one. Muzzle-loading weapons can be bought without a permit but the vendor must notify the local arms bureau of the sale. Ammunition can also be bought without a permit, but the sale must be recorded by the vendor. The sale of automatic weapons, selective fire weapons, and accessories such as silencers are forbidden with the exception of a permit granted by the police. Carrying permits are generally only issued to those working in security and are only granted if the criteria above are met, as well as a plausible need for the weapon issued, and weapon handling skills proved. Transporting a weapon in public is legal as long as ammunition is separated from the firearm. All this information is available on the Gun politics in Switzerland article on this very website.
The comparison of the Switzerland comparison in the article was certainly factual, but something struck me as amiss in the way it seemed added strictly to serve as a counterpoint to countries with severe gun control legislation, when comparatively Switzerland's restriction still seems pretty severe. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.224.119.25 ( talk) 01:36, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
Listing gun related injuries and deaths, without stating if they were suicides, used in a legal manner of defense, or used for criminal acts, is rather misleading. A list of people injured or killed methods other than guns should be included also, be it knives, hammers, unarmed people, crowbars, whatever. Need to put things into perspective. Dream Focus 05:47, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
I think a comparison to Switzerland is completely appropriate for this article as I've seen it come up numerous times in discussions about gun policy in the US. Here's my Google search and the reliable sources I found on pages 1 and 2:
This seems enough indication to me that a comparison with Switzerland is appropriate enough for this article for some small mention. It is very much a part of the gun control debate. We can confirm or refute whatever perception is out there, but omitting Switzerland entirely would imply that nothing is being said about it, which is obviously not the case. We can argue the details later, but would you at least agree that some mention is worthy? PraetorianFury ( talk) 18:22, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
Gonna write down some information as I read them...
The Swiss Difference: A Gun Culture That Works
PraetorianFury ( talk) 19:23, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
Mythbusting: Israel and Switzerland are not gun-toting utopias
This lady didn't seem the most objective to me. Her points about Switzerland cutting back on guns really looked silly to me considering all that happened after a mass shooting. But she seems to be correct about the misperception of Israel. They have fewer guns than Canada according to Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country. Anyway, I bring this up because her reliability as a source may be disputed, especially considering she is an "assistant" professor. Maybe better to use her as a launching point into better sources... PraetorianFury ( talk) 19:45, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
Gaijin42 ( talk) 20:17, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
Aude, I don't want to intrude unnecessarily on your plan for this article, but since it currently focuses on the United States, and it's going to be publicized on DYK, shouldn't we just move it to Gun violence in the United States now? Melchoir 23:47, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
There is no neutrality as far as I can see here. It deginerated into a a modern liberal anti-gun argument. EOM. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.189.223.12 ( talk) 16:19, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
I've been a Wikipedian for quite some time now, but I've never seen an article that pushes a POV as strongly as this one. It's so far out of bounds, I don't know where to start with a proper critique. For now, I've added the neutrality template. I will try to find some time to bring objectivity to this in the near future, but I wonder if it shouldn't just be scrapped entirely. Gregmg 00:02, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Pretty impressive amount of work here in only 4-5 days of editing...good job. As far as I am concerned, I can't see why we have a neutrality tag on the article...are some saying the article is not adequately addressing the issues of gun violence? Or is the problem that the article is an argument for increased gun legislation because of the facts and figures presented? I won't detail my resume here, but the article is mainly simply a facts and figures page with outstanding neutral references...and even the last major edit by Aude shows little real changes by the other editors since. So, what's the problem with this article? Details would be helpful.-- MONGO 07:01, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
How come most of the references are not from NPOV sources? Knowingly sourcing a biased book or article, and then not providing a counterpoint is clearly not NPOV.
frankly, the title and theme of the article is a loaded gun in and of itself as "gun violence" is a misnomer or weasel term. violence is an act, which can occur in all manner of ways. if "gun violence in america" is a legitimate topic, then "chair violence in americe", "knife violence in america", "coffee cup violence in america", "human waste violence in america", etc are all also legitimate articles as well. the proper thing to do is to delete the article, and have the more valuable parts of the article merged into the "violence" article, or the "gun politics" or another article more adequate for such a topic. citations alone do not make for a good and NPOV article.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.205.253.125 ( talk • contribs)
Most Wikipedia articles begin with a very brief definition of their topic. Could someone please insert a definition of "Gun Violence" so we know what is being discussed? - O^O 22:06, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Violence-related: Injury or poisoning inflicted by deliberate means (i.e., on purpose). This category includes the assault, legal intervention, and self-harm categories. [4]
frankly, the title and theme of the article is a loaded gun in and of itself as "gun violence" is a misnomer or weasel term. violence is an act, which can occur in all manner of ways. if "gun violence in america" is a legitimate topic, then "chair violence in americe", "knife violence in america", "coffee cup violence in america", "human waste violence in america", etc are all also legitimate articles as well. the proper thing to do is to delete the article, and have the more valuable parts of the article merged into the "violence" article, or the "gun politics" or another article more adequate for such a topic. citations alone do not make for a good and NPOV article.
Have removed the tagline from the heading of the article, as with the intense editing done over the last several days the degree of POV-centric terminology is greatly reduced. There may still be some minor issues remaining, but the great majority of them are largely resolved, in my estimation. If anyone disagrees, then they can tag it again, and we can go back and hash out whatever edits still need to be done. Yaf 01:17, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Added the tag back. There is still dispute over whether the article itself (including the title) is pushing a point of view
DesertPhox (
talk)
19:36, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
Another editor added a section on the "Disaster Recovery Personal Protection Act of 2006". [5] I rewrote it and added a source, [6] but wonder if it belongs in the article. It appears to be an inconsequential bit of legislation that most members of the Senate voted for, probably so they could point to it during the November election campaign. It seems to have little bearing on public policy regarding gun violence. Walter Siegmund (talk) 16:13, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
(copied discussion here from peer review page)
Hi - maybe this should be moved to talk? There's no way to know what the "major factor" is - it might be that if there were strict gun control laws the homicide rate would be the same but knives would be used instead. Or maybe it would be lower. But it's an assertion that gun violence per se is the difference - or am I wrong? I often am. Kaisershatner 20:09, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Other bits that I think need more clarification include the offending/victimization rates among youths and Hispanic and African Americans. It's true that these demographic groups are over represented in U.S. homicide statistics; but it's also true that the overwhelming, vast majority of people in these demographics are perfectly law-abiding. Also, painting "urban areas" with the gun violence issue is also not 100% accurate. Gun violence, and crime generally, concentrates in specific sections of cities. I may have to add a map graphic to help illustrate that point. Does anyone else think readers might be confused or get wrong impressions from the way the article is written? -- Aude ( talk) 02:37, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
I know there is a certain advantage to using vector graphics, but they aren't uniformly readable. The charts that appear in the article are too tiny to be legible. Might a higher resolution jpg, or at worst, a pdf be better? Rwwff 23:00, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone else think readers might be confused or get wrong impressions from the way the article is written? -- Aude ( talk) 02:37, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
This article is very POV. For example, the article does not even consider urban vs. rural or restrictive vs. relaxed gun laws. For example, gun ownership is higher per capita in Iowa than in Washington DC yet gun violence rates are much higher in DC and the laws are more restrictive. This type of analysis is sadly lacking and contributes to it's POV. Here's a question (and I don't know the answer) If Iowa were considered a country, would it's gun homicide rate be substantially higher than other developed nations? -- Tbeatty 06:37, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Another example: From the article,
"One important consideration is that only 60-70% of firearms sales in the United States are transacted through federally licensed firearm dealers, with the remainder taking place in the "secondary market".[63][64] Most sales to youths and convicted felons take place in the "secondary market", which involves secondhand firearms transferred by unlicensed individuals."
Without any reference to what percentage of transactions are illegal, it leaves the reader with the impression that 30-40% of firearms transactions are to youths and felons (i.e. an illegal sale whether they have a license or not). Without any context as to the amount of secondary transactions that are illegal, the whole paragraph is distorted. It appears that this article is trying to infer that the secondary market has a substantial criminal component when that hasn't been established. Replace "guns" with "cars" and you'll see what I mean. -- Tbeatty 07:07, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Not sure if this is helpful...I'll look for more.-- MONGO 17:32, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
There seem to be a lot of people desputing the netrality of this article. I fail to find any substance in their claims. It is a very well-sourced article with careful wording. I guess you cannot write an article on a controversial subject without taking some flak. Good Job, Aude (I guess it you who have written most of the article). When I read it I found I wanted to read more about the accidental gunshot wounds mentioned at the beginning of the article. Unfortunately, the link does only seem to display numbers by category. I do understand if you do not adress the subject in this article. I am not well-aquainted with the exact English semantics of the word "violence" (I'm not a native speaker) but I presume accidents do not count as violence. However, it is a closely related subject. For instance, many of the programs mentioned in the text seem more intent on preventing gunshot accidents than on preventing violence. So I think many readers would appreciate a link to an article on this subject. There are such doubtful links as the word "parents". I think a link to gunrelated accidents would definitely be more interesting. -Sensemaker —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 193.183.79.7 ( talk • contribs) 14:10, 4 December 2006 (UTC).
?? This article is a GA nominee, therefore how can it be A class?? i have checked the GA review page, and seen that they commented that this article meets all the criteria for GA but was not made GA as it was already rated A on the talk page. i believe that the A class rating was added without prior discussion, and thus interupted the GA status that this article was already heading for. furthermore, the user who rated as A class is not a member of the wikiproject thus shouldnt really be rating things, espcially not in this manner. therefore, u have re-rated this as GA, as according the the GA review page it did pass GA nom. SGGH 10:52, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Nice article, full of well-referenced facts and a good prose. I granted this article for Good Article status. Some suggestions to improve this article for FA:
Anyway, the article satisfies good article criteria. Congrats. — Indon ( reply) — 14:17, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
The very title of the article tells us exactly where the author comes down on the issue. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.95.74.65 ( talk) 07:46, 13 January 2007 (UTC).
I think studies that are prior than 1997 should not be used, unless they are being used to be compared with a more recent study. I think that sounds reasonable enough. What about you? ~ UBeR 02:07, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
The link to the reference in note 8 is dead. Don't have time to check the rest, just thought I'd throw that out there. I was going to dispute the neutrality of the article until I saw the talk page, and I now see that it's already been done. I can't put my finger on it, but it just doesn't read neutral to me.
A few years ago - 3 or 4 - I read that the Us and Canada have about the same per capita gun ownership. Our murder rate has more to do with something else than guns - we just don't like each other. 159.105.80.141 19:45, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
"Two-thirds of non-fatal violent injuries" are attributable to gun violence? Common sense does not support that statement. The cited source, footnote # 3, does not support that statement.
This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. The article history has been updated to reflect this review. Regards, Ruslik 07:21, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
I have just had the somewhat unpleasant task of untangling a hedge of unverified statements about the US having the highest murder rate in the developed world. The problem with this statement is that it wasn't verified by a quote from a reliable scholarly source, nor did any of the linked sources make this statement.
The CIA defines South Africa as a 'developed' country - I followed a link from this very page to verify this, this page also states that South Africa has a higher murder rate and a higher proportion committed with firearms than the US.
Now, in fairness, there are other definitions that don't include South Africa as developed, however, making a statement like this without a scholarly reference is original research and the dangers of that have just been exposed (ie making a false inference that the US has a higher gun homicide rate than South Africa).
What adds greater evidence that this original research is selective reasoning to support an agenda is one of the defenders of this article
" In rural areas, the homicide rate is 3.5 per 100,000, which is still higher than overall homicide rates for most other developed countries (1.58 in all of Canada — its rural and urban areas, 1.15 in the Netherlands, 1.16 in Germany, 1.25 in Spain, 1.29 in Italy, 1.57 in Australia, 1.78 in France, 2.01 in South Korea, 2.3 in Malaysia, 2.8 in Finland). Developing countries are another story."
The inclusion of Malaysia inferred here as 'developed', which I have never in before my life heard referred to as developed, and exclusion of South Africa shows that the definition of a "developed country" is any country that has a murder rate lower than the US. So it's no wonder the US has the "highest murder rate in the developed world". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.253.72.109 ( talk) 16:54, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
In the course of a discussion I noted anomalous data on violence rates I changed it after referencing the two sources already given. http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Gun_violence_in_the_United_States&diff=191787697&oldid=191773197 75.17.83.197 ( talk) 03:58, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
The decline in percentage of households owning guns can easily be explained as a statistical artifact of decrease in household size. If the probability of a randomly selected individual owning one or more guns is some number, say P, then the probability of one or more of N randomly selected individuals owning one or more guns is 1-((1-p)^N). For any probability P greater than 0 and less than 1, this number converges on P as N goes to 1 and on 1 as N goes to infinity. So as household size declines, the number of households owning guns will decrease if individual gun ownership remains constant. Assuming that only one in five persons owns a gun, then for a household size of 4.5 people (as in 1915), 63% of households would have one or more gun owners; for a household size of 3.5 (1970), 54% of households would have one or more gun owners; and for a household size of 2.5 (2007), 43% of households would have one or more gun owners. Practically of course this model is somewhat inaccurate because households do not consist of randomly selected individuals, but the effect is undeniable. Essentially, a reduction in the number of households owning guns would be expected as household size decreases and is a trivial observation. I am surprised that this obvious fact is not observed in the article.
I leave aside the issues of non-response bias in any survey that attempts to gauge gun ownership by asking people if they own a gun. Clearly a serious problem.
I think this article could be improved by putting the risk of death from gun homicide in context. For example, in the U.S. about 2,400,000 people die each year. Viewing the 2005 homicide stats from the DOJ, [17], shows 8,478 killed with handguns and 2,868 with guns other than handguns. Given that 42,000 people die in auto accidents each year, 15,000 from falls, and about 4,000 from drowning, I think it is patently facetious to suggest that gun homicides, and in particular homicides with long guns, are some sort of public health crisis -- especially when we have hundreds of thousands of premature deaths from smoking and obesity to deal with.
I would however take this further and propose that gun homicides lower overall crime rates. Given that 75% of gun homicide victims have a prior criminal record, can we state that those homicides have the salutary effect of lowering overall crime rates by removing criminals from the population? It's like executing 9,000 criminals per year. I think this is definitely possible and may explain the rise in non-homicide crime rates experienced in places that enact stringent gun control laws. This is an example of what Garrett Hardin would call ecolate thinking. I am sure Sarah Brady has never considered the likely increase in rape, aggravated assault, burglary, and other crimes that would result from avoiding the extra-legal execution of 9,000 criminals per year.
TwoGunChuck ( talk) 02:16, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Why does every other country have up-to-date stats, yet the US have stats from ( according to the graphs on the page ) one of the worst years in the past several decades? How is this not NPOV? 169.226.69.156 ( talk) 14:21, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I went to go update the graph from the same source as the other stats and ran into a huge problem. The data at NationMaster appears to be screwy to say the least. For counties like South Africa the reported number of gun homicides ( per capita ) is larger, by a large amount, than the reported homicides ( per capita ). This would seriously call into question the validity of the data retrieved from that site. Needless to say I think that whole section needs to be rewritten or removed unless current and accurate data can be sourced for international comparison. 74.70.154.77 ( talk) 01:36, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
Continuing... off the nationmaster page. "UN-crime survey sates: "The statistics cannot take into account the differences that exist between the legal definitions of offences in various countries, of the different methods of tallying, etc.Consequently, the figures used in these statistics must be interpreted with great caution. In particular, to use the figures as a basis for comparison between different countries is highly problematic."". Based on that alone ( that the sourced material does not support the comparison of numbers ) I think the section should be pulled. 74.70.154.77 ( talk) 01:41, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I should have logged in. For accounting both IP addresses above are me. I have gone ahead and remove the section because it's conclusions are unsupported by the primary source. Brontide ( talk) 14:10, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I was eager to see the stats that backed up the claim that "crime rates in the U.S. are similar to those of other developed countries." When I looked at the sources provided i found these statements: "while the United States does not have the highest rate of homicide or firearm-related homicide, it does have the highest rates for these among industrialized democracies. Homicide rates in the United States are two to four times higher than they are in countries that are economically and politically similar to it. Higher rates are found in developing countries and those with political instability. The same is true for firearm-related homicides, but the differences are even greater. The firearm-related homicide rate in the United States is more like that of Argentina, Mexico, and Northern Ireland than England or Canada. While certainly not the highest homicide or firearm-related homicide rate in the world, these rates in the United States are in the upper quartile in each case." http://www.nap.edu/books/0309091241/html/53.html and "The rate of firearm deaths in the United States (14.24 per 100 000) exceeds that of its economic counterparts (1.76) eightfold and that of UMI countries (9.69) by a factor of 1.5." http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/27/2/214 I'm not saying what is right or not, but if you want to put that U.S. crime rates are similar to other developed countries, the ref provided should confirm that. Frankie816 ( talk) 18:06, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
The table comparing the US to other nations is grossly inconsistent. Specifically, one reference (currently #54) is used for the 'Homicide by Gun' row, with data in the early to mid 90s for all nations. Several references are used for the 'Homicide (all)' row, with the years noted below. The issue is that the reference used for most other countries in the 'Homicide (all)' row includes numbers for the US which are substantially lower than the one from the specific source used for that column. This is apparently to rectify what would look like an error, as the US's total homicide rate in that reference (circa 2000) is lower than the listed gun homicide rate (circa 1993).
This table needs to be corrected, preferably pulling both numbers from pages at the current reference 50, which will result in all data being comparable year 2000 UN data, and the year row can be removed in favor of a note that all numbers are from 2000. I'm not familiar enough with the table markup to do this immediately, but I will do it in the next few days if nobody else does.
The specific pages I plan to reference are: Current reference 50, overall homicide rates: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita
New reference, from same source, for gun homicide rates: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir_percap-crime-murders-firearms-per-capita
If there is a more up to date international reference than the 2000 UN data I would love to see it as well.
24.21.59.195 ( talk) 11:35, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
It looks like this is the issue referenced in the 'Changed a Graph' and 'International Comparison' sections above, which I would have seen if I had read this whole talk page instead of just searching for '1993' to see if anyone else was asking about that year. I will remove those sections as well as this one if nobody objects to the change before I make it. 24.21.59.195 ( talk) 11:38, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Just a FYI people, nationmaster does not appear to be a good primary source of data. It's usually a secondary source ( check and use the original source if possible ); in some cases, specifically some of the Gun Violence stats, are specifically sourced from wikipedia itself! Beware.
Example: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_gun_vio_hom_fir_hom_rat_per_100_pop-rate-per-100-000-pop
All stats from that site should be suspect until the primary source can be identified. 74.70.154.77 ( talk) 02:23, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria. I'm specifically going over all of the "Culture and Society" articles. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. I have made several minor corrections throughout the article. Altogether the article is well-written and is still in great shape after its passing in 2006. Continue to improve the article making sure all new information is properly sourced and neutral. If possible see if any related external links can be added, and add an inline citation for "The Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition is a bipartisan coalition of 210 mayors from 40 different United States cities, united in their stated goal of "making the public safer by getting illegal guns off the streets." I would also recommend updating "Many suffer non-fatal gunshot wounds, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimating 52,447 deliberate and 23,237 accidental non-fatal gunshot injuries in the United States during 2000." if there is any new data. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. I have updated the article history to reflect this review. Happy editing! -- Nehrams2020 ( talk) 09:50, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Hi. Thanks for putting this article together. It contains many interesting and relevant statistics. However, the scope of the article in no ways fits the title.
For one thing, you have micro-nized the historical aspects of American gun violence. There's no mention, for instance, of organized crime. Guns violence also played a major role in the labor movement, on both sides of the fence. Your singling out of the Haymarket Riot is, in truth, almost laughable. Ever hear of a "John L. Lewis Convincer"? Additionally, I'd speculate that guns played a role in virtually every lynching. Etc, etc, etc. It's a very broad subject, as you can imagine. Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, Billy the Kid, the Hatfield/McCoy Feud, Wyatt Earp, the arming of the American Indians... the list goes on and on. Also, from both a historical and modern viewpoint, your brief mention of the 2nd amendment trivializes a controversial, complex subject.
Anyway, after a synopsis of recent gun violence statistics, your article moves away from gun violence into a... gun policy debate? I am not sure exactly what it moves towards, but it is not on-topic. "Cop Killer" ammunition is on topic. The evolution of TASER use is on topic; legal versus illegal firearms- that's on topic. Increased police usage of rubber bullets for "riot control"- on topic. That's gun violence. But you cover gun ownership trends and issues. Last, there is no speculation on future trends in gun violence in the US. What are the experts predicting? BalancedScales ( talk) 21:55, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
I have deleted the graphic "Overall homicide and gun homicide rates by country (2000)" from the article. A look at WP:OR explains that this is not appropriate. The graphic is not in the original article. Its selective sequencing and selective choice of countries for comparison requires the reader to examine the chart and draw a conclusion about the level of gun violence in the United States, which amounts to original research and/or WP:SYNTH, which are not appropriate for Wikipedia. The graph for example hides the fact that gun death rates in modern stable democracies such as the UK have gun death rates 20-40 times lower than that in the United States. -- Hauskalainen ( talk) 12:41, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
20 percent of U.S. homicides occur in four cities with just 6% of the population – New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Washington, D.C., and each has a virtual prohibition on private handguns
{{
cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
Considering that suicide is the constitutes the greatest form of gun violence in the US, yet it receives just a scant few sentences of coverage??? While, crime gun violence receives many paragraphs of coverage. This, perhaps unintentionally, reinforces and mirrors the POV push that firearms for self defensive against criminals is a virtuous thing. This, at the least, has appearances of a non-neutral pro-gun POV push and must be fixed. Thanks is advance for helping with this. SaltyBoatr ( talk) 19:44, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
This whole page has POV problems lots of anti and pro buzz words. This whole article should be deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.38.112.14 ( talk) 20:09, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Pardon if my POV spilled over but this article is 90% POV. i tried to remove the worst of it but it still stands in violation. If i knew how to submit it for deletion i would —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.38.112.14 ( talk) 21:24, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
removed some POV still needs work. This needs to be just the facts not POV. the tilt of this article is "guns are bad but some think they are good" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.38.112.14 ( talk) 02:49, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
"Gun violence in the United States" should be changed to "Crimes involving guns in the United States" or "Gun-related crime in America" otherwise it makes it sound like the problem is the gun when in fact it is the criminal. ChesterTheWorm ( talk) 01:33, 7 August 2009 (UTC) ChesterTheWorm
Then perhaps it might be changed to "Violence involving guns in the United States?" A bit wordy, but it would avoid the potentially-loaded phrase "Gun violence." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.109.49.200 ( talk) 02:34, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
I think "gun violence" or "violence involving guns" are equally good. As you point out, "violence involving guns" is a bit wordy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pink fuzzy slippers ( talk • contribs) 21:22, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
The picture of the S&W model 60 is a bad example and the caption contains technically incorrect information.
The model 60 is a .357 magnum, not a .38 special and the 3" barrel is somewhat of a rarity. This picture should be of a ~2" barrel .38 special if it is to be an example of the most common type of gun confiscated by police and traced by the ATF.
I recommend a S&W model 36 or a colt detective special. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.186.237.194 ( talk) 20:22, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Citing Philip J. Cook, the article states "Research and statistics have shown that guns intensify crime situations, and increase the likelihood of a more violent or lethal outcome." My sister was assaulted in her home by a home invader; when she produced a .357 revolver, her assailant fled; she was able to detain his accomplice for arrest by responding officers. Both criminals are currently (June 2010) serving time. The gun defused this crime situation and made a less violent, less potentially lethal outcome possible. (I am sure though that my sister's assailant thought the situation had intensified and that the gun had increased the likelihood of a more violent or lethal outcome for him.) Since there was no dead or wounded criminal, and no shots fired, I suppose this would not count as a defensive gun use to Hemenway, McDowall, Donohue, et al. I suspect that research and statistics on this subject tend to support the apriori political assumptions of the academics studying the issue. The legal gun ban advocated by academics Morris & Hawkins 1970 might have disarmed my sister, but it would have had no effect on her assailant, who relied on brute force. Naaman Brown ( talk) 13:21, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm temporarily keeping some notes here, while working on this article. -- Aude ( talk) 16:49, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Since this is a controversial topic, only the highest-quality sources should be used in this article, with most statements backed up with scholarly peer reviewed sources. This article is an overview of the issue, here are the common views of the issue held by so and so citation needed, here's what the research says citation needed. The article mainly focuses on the U.S., due to the fact that statistics and research indicate that gun violence and relationship to homicides/suicides is by far the greatest in the U.S. International comparisons will be noted here. -- Aude ( talk) 16:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
The vast majority of research and literature on gun violence pertains to the United States. In the future, I may rename this article as "Gun violence in the United States", and keep looking for more general sources on the topic of gun violence. For now, I think the article may need to stay as-is, named "Gun violence". There are many other criminology and criminal justice articles and topics in dire need of attention. I do intend to come back and work on generalizing the topic and splitting the article into two: "Gun violence" and "Gun violence in the United States". -- Aude ( talk) 18:47, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
This article has many facts and figures that would be good for the Main Page, DYK. Need to work on this article some more before submitting these.
The fact that the two statistics presented above are right out of a Brady Campaign talking points handbook clearly indicates a point of view on the part of their author, as does the article in it's entirety. DesertPhox ( talk) 17:48, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
Uh....how many gun-related homicides are there in an average year? Or in a particular recent year? Amazingly, this article doesn't say! The article says there were an estimated 52,447 deliberate and 23,237 accidental non-fatal gunshot injuries in the United States during 2000. The article also says firearms were used in 16,907 suicides in the United States during 2004. But nothing at all about the annual number of homicides! That's probably the one tidbit of information that most people would be most interested in, and yet it isn't to be found here. I would've thought that a lengthy article on gun violence in the U.S. would contain some information on the number of gun-related homicides per year. Captain Quirk ( talk) 10:35, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: no consensus. There are a number of unresolved POV issues here, up to and including whether the article ought to be deleted. But there does not seem to be consensus for a move. ErikHaugen ( talk | contribs) 17:51, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
Gun violence in the United States → Guns in the United States — The scope of this article has increased to the point that the current title no longer accurately reflects the entirety and direction of its content. In addition, the term 'gun violence' is a politically charged term that implies a pro gun-control point of view. The article and its content would be better served by changing the title to the proposed. WP:POVTITLE DesertPhox ( talk) 17:00, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
(Seen here, I am sure that there is a reasonable source to back this data up without violating WP:SYNTH. I don't have the time to search for one now, but the information is certainly out there. I propose we keep the information there (as it is a legitimate statistic/analysis, but tag it with {{citation needed}} until a proper source is found. The verbiage would need to be changed to make it sound more encyclopedic than opinion of course.
I will wait until either a discussion consensus is reached, or a day or two before editing the article to include some of those points. - Deathsythe ( talk) 12:41, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
See http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2011/01/27/20110127arizona-gun-death-rate-nations-worst.html -- Gary Dee ( talk) 22:59, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
Currently, part of the Homicide section says:
Gun-related homicide rates in the United States are two to four times higher than they are in countries that are economically and politically similar to it. Higher rates are found in developing countries and those with political instability.[21][25][26]
The provided references do not, on inspection, support the claim in the first sentence.
All of these are quite out of date, but taking them for what they are worth:
The rate of firearm deaths in the United States (14.24 per 100 000) exceeds that of its economic counterparts (1.76) eightfold and that of UMI countries (9.69) by a factor of 1.5.
The first reference, "Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review", makes the aforementioned claim but then provides statistics that completely refuted it. Here are the per 100,000 capita values for Firearm Homicides in that document.
Australia 0.44 Canada 0.76 England and Wales 0.07 New Zealand 0.17 Japan 0.02 USA 7.07
The wealthy non-US OECD nations listed range from Japan 0.02 up to Finland 0.86. On the basis of these figures you would say the USA is between 9 and 350 times higher than comparable nations. It averages about 35 times higher.
The next, says,"Firearm deaths in the United states and 35 other countries", says The rate of firearm deaths in the United States (14.24 per 100 000) exceeds that of its economic counterparts (1.76) eightfold and that of UMI countries (9.69) by a factor of 1.5.
The last, "The Seventh United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (1998 - 2000)", gives the following most recent values per 100,000 capita:
Australia 0.31 Canada 0.54 England and Wales 0.12 New Zealand 0.18 (No figure for Japan) USA 2.97
Values for non-US wealthy OECD nations in that report vary from Singapore 0.02 up to Canada 0.54. So on this basis you would say the USA is between 5 and 150 times higher, and it averages about 20 times higher.
These stats are all a bit old (hey, I didn't tag them!). The current List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate gives the USA as having a rate of 7.07, and the average of the wealthy OECD nations on that list comes to 0.38. This would mean the USA is about 19 times higher. The sources are mixed.
These are not very detailed analyses I am making but I hope that it illustrates the point that no statistics anywhere suggest that the USA's firearm related homicide rate is "between two and four times" higher than economically and politically similar countries. Across the full set of data you would say that on an individual nation basis, the USA is between 8 and 350 times higher than particular other comparable nations, or between 20 and 35 times higher than comparable nations overall. We can debate about which range to use. I'll correct the current values to reflect the overall comparison to get the ball rolling. Ordinary Person ( talk) 14:33, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
The following quote appears in Public Policy > Firearms Market:
While this is technically correct, it seems to imply that a license is available for private sellers when in fact it is a fairly expensive and rigorous process to obtain a Federal Firearms License. One of the requirements is that the holder must be in the business of buying and selling firearms for profit, which a private seller is not. As such, while a private seller is technically "unlicensed", they are outside the scope of the licensing system and not eligible to *be* licensed. Lwsimon ( talk) 17:22, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
The article solemnly informs us:
I was puzzled to read this, as I'd thought that these days gun policies were discreetly but effectively left undebated (other than in the direction of permissiveness, or perhaps by easily ignored "extreme liberals" and the like). I looked for the source. The article attributes this to chap. 7 of Mark E. Rushefsky, Public Policy in the United States: At the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century (2002). I'm stunned to learn that Rushefsky described the Aurora shooting a full decade before it occurred. Or just possibly he didn't describe it, and instead some WP editor simply had Rushefsky say whatever he felt like having Rushefsky say. Of course I could remove mention of any shooting that came after 2002, but I wonder what other fictions the article perpetrates about this book. I don't have access to a copy; does anyone here have a copy? -- Hoary ( talk) 07:06, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
Is there any information on the number of shooting deaths by police officers, as well as how many shootings were in self defense? The article would be improved by a breakdow of the deaths into police caused, self defense and actual murders. 198.105.0.4 ( talk) 22:12, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
As the article makes mention of Switzerland's high rate of gun ownership, is it worth mentioning that the country also has relatively strict gun control legislation? Residents carry only their government-issued personal weaponry in their homes with the automatic firing function removed after they leave the service, the government does not distribute ammunition to the former servicemen to store in their homes, and the sale of ammunition in general is subsidized by the government for sale at firing ranges. In order to buy a weapon from a commercial store or a private individual one needs a weapon acquisition permit, which allows the purchase of three firearms. Everyone over the age of 18 who is cleared of having psychiatric problems, posing general security problems, and has a clear criminal record, can get one. Muzzle-loading weapons can be bought without a permit but the vendor must notify the local arms bureau of the sale. Ammunition can also be bought without a permit, but the sale must be recorded by the vendor. The sale of automatic weapons, selective fire weapons, and accessories such as silencers are forbidden with the exception of a permit granted by the police. Carrying permits are generally only issued to those working in security and are only granted if the criteria above are met, as well as a plausible need for the weapon issued, and weapon handling skills proved. Transporting a weapon in public is legal as long as ammunition is separated from the firearm. All this information is available on the Gun politics in Switzerland article on this very website.
The comparison of the Switzerland comparison in the article was certainly factual, but something struck me as amiss in the way it seemed added strictly to serve as a counterpoint to countries with severe gun control legislation, when comparatively Switzerland's restriction still seems pretty severe. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.224.119.25 ( talk) 01:36, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
Listing gun related injuries and deaths, without stating if they were suicides, used in a legal manner of defense, or used for criminal acts, is rather misleading. A list of people injured or killed methods other than guns should be included also, be it knives, hammers, unarmed people, crowbars, whatever. Need to put things into perspective. Dream Focus 05:47, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
I think a comparison to Switzerland is completely appropriate for this article as I've seen it come up numerous times in discussions about gun policy in the US. Here's my Google search and the reliable sources I found on pages 1 and 2:
This seems enough indication to me that a comparison with Switzerland is appropriate enough for this article for some small mention. It is very much a part of the gun control debate. We can confirm or refute whatever perception is out there, but omitting Switzerland entirely would imply that nothing is being said about it, which is obviously not the case. We can argue the details later, but would you at least agree that some mention is worthy? PraetorianFury ( talk) 18:22, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
Gonna write down some information as I read them...
The Swiss Difference: A Gun Culture That Works
PraetorianFury ( talk) 19:23, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
Mythbusting: Israel and Switzerland are not gun-toting utopias
This lady didn't seem the most objective to me. Her points about Switzerland cutting back on guns really looked silly to me considering all that happened after a mass shooting. But she seems to be correct about the misperception of Israel. They have fewer guns than Canada according to Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country. Anyway, I bring this up because her reliability as a source may be disputed, especially considering she is an "assistant" professor. Maybe better to use her as a launching point into better sources... PraetorianFury ( talk) 19:45, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
Gaijin42 ( talk) 20:17, 14 January 2013 (UTC)