is there gun violence in canada

[Lone Primate]

Originally Posted by MarylandNed

Well there's more to it than just a "feeling". I feel safe in DC because of what I see with my own eyes added to my experience of spending a lot of time there over the last 14 years.

Well, no, that's "feeling"... personal anecdote. Frankly it's a direct contradiction to end one sentence with "it's more than just a feeling" by beginning the next with "I feel". This is exactly the reason it was crucial to the point to present actual numbers. These aren't affected by where one person happens to be, or have seen, or the opinions he has formed on that basis, all of which are, to be blunt, purely subjective.

Originally Posted by MarylandNed

Crime is not uniformly distributed over any city - there are always areas of higher and lower crime levels.

That's the point I made with the oven analogy. The numbers I gave compare both cities of similar sizes and national averages as a whole. The former give specific impressions, but the latter saves the point from suggestions that only aberrant or exceptional (good or bad) examples have been cherry-picked; for example, leading to the inescapable conclusion that for every Plano, there are lot more corresponding Minneapolises per capita in the US than in Canada.

Originally Posted by MarylandNed

The overall figures for the city are skewed by very high crime stats in certain areas of south east DC.

I'm not especially bothered by the fact that you want to slice up the Snickers bar and point to the crunchy parts; the peanuts... the point is, there are considerably more such peanuts in the bar of society stateside, and the average person is several times more like to choke on them. Even in places you would qualify as safer, one is still statistically far more likely (in the United States) to encounter firearms, with all that that entails for domestic disputes, suicides, criminal negligence causing death, and so on. It's not all about stick-up men in dark alleys.

Originally Posted by MarylandNed

Canada may be safer than the US but, in terms of gun crime, it's definitely more dangerous than plenty of other countries e.g. Spain, Portugal, Japan, etc.

A point I also made previously; however, some of the initial comments made suggestions that gun violence in Canada resembled that in the US in character and scope; an error I have undertaken to rectify.

Originally Posted by MarylandNed

Canada's "social justice" system may well contribute to a kinder, gentler society with lower levels of violent crime - but it certainly hasn't eliminated violent crime.

That was never my contention, and I've repeatedly said so. The point I've taken issue with is that gun violence in Canada is on par with that in the US, or so much like it as makes no odds, and it demonstrably is not. The bottom line is that per capita a person is far less likely to be a victim of gun violence in Canada than the United States.

[MarylandNed]

Originally Posted by Lone Primate

7 murders in 2010; 1.98 homicides per 100,000.

You challenged someone to come up with something comparable in the US because you thought it couldn't be done. That's actually a higher murder rate than Plano, Texas. Plano had 4 murders in 2009 and another 4 in 2010 for a homicide rate of 1.4 per 100,000 people.

[MarylandNed]

Originally Posted by Lone Primate

Ultimately, I think the real and fair--and demonstrable--answer to the question that prompted this thread in the first place is that where gun violence is concerned, person for person, you are safer in Canada than in the United States, and considerably so.

Again, not taking issue with that. I don't disagree with the stats. Yes, they can be averaged out and everyone in the US can be told quite correctly that they are (on average) in more danger than everyone in Canada (on average). No argument about the math. My point is that stats can be very misleading. There's a huge wealth gap in the US - much bigger than the one that exists in Canada partly because of Canada's social safety net. One of the consequences of that is the creation of US urban blight (of the like not seen in Canada) where most of the crime is actually concentrated. So while statistically speaking there is more violent crime in the US, where I actually live and work and play is, statistically speaking, no more dangerous than where I lived and worked and played in Canada. Some people are considerably more at risk in the US than they would be in Canada but some people are not and never will be. Not everyone in the US is statistically more at risk than everyone in Canada. There are Canadians who are in much more danger of falling victim to violent crime than I am.

Originally Posted by Lone Primate

Again, that's not to denigrate the US, but at the same time, I won't see Canada's achievements in social justice buried under polite equivocation just so no one is in danger of being offended by the facts.

That's relative. Comparing Canada with the US is one thing. No doubt Canada's "social justice" system has had an effect against the type of social problems we see in the US (although the native people of Canada may take issue with that statement). However, compare Canada's violent crime rate with many other countries and its "achievements in social justice" doesn't stack up so well.

[MarylandNed]

Originally Posted by Lone Primate

This is exactly the reason it was crucial to the point to present actual numbers. These aren't affected by where one person happens to be

Actually they are. Just averaging out the overall crime numbers and applying them to everywhere in a city completely ignores the fact that those numbers don't apply to everywhere in the city. Just because you can take horrific crime stats in south east DC and average them out over the entire city does not mean your numbers even relate to what's going on in most of the city. If you knew DC as well as I do you would know it's complete nonsense to think the way you do.

Let's say south east DC separates and becomes a separate city. Does that suddenly make the rest of the city safer? Of course it doesn't - but by your logic it would.

The same argument applies to the country as a whole. Where you actually are does affect your risk of becoming a victim of crime. You can't state that the average applies everywhere. There are areas of the US that are much safer than many areas of Canada.

[MarylandNed]

Originally Posted by Lone Primate

Canada currently has 1/9 the population of the United States. In 2010, Canada had 554 homicides, in a nation of 35,000,000. In 2010, the US, with a population of 309,000,000 (8.8 times Canada's) had 14,748. That's not 8.8 times more homicides, it's 26.6 times more.

That's a very misleading way to represent the numbers! Anyone reading that might think that the homicide rate was 26.6 times higher in the US! That's nowhere near the truth. Here's the truth:

- The homicide rate in 2010 in the US was 4.77 per 100,000 people.

- The homicide rate in 2010 in Canada was 1.58 per 100,000 people.

That's not the spectacular difference you're trying to make it out to be with your use of numbers.

[JohnSoCal]

Originally Posted by Lone Primate

I defy anyone here to list any city in the United States of similar size that has registered only its 6th homicide by the beginning of December. For example, Minneapolis, a northern city of almost exactly the same size and one that I don't think springs to anyone's mind as a crime magnet, registered its 31st homicide in the first week of November..

I live in a metro area with a population of 350,000+ and there has been only 1 homicide in the last 3 years and that was a family dispute.
Oh by the way, my metro area is located in Southern California 60 miles from San Diego. Speaking of San Diego, it is a lot safer than Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and is much larger. Same goes for San Jose CA.

My point is that you cannot make generalizations. The numbers are skewed in the US because of some very high crime areas in certain cities but there are also many very safe areas. I feel a lot safer walking around downtown New York City ( Manhattan ) at night than downtown Vancouver.

[Lone Primate]

Originally Posted by MarylandNed

That's not the spectacular difference you're trying to make it out to be with your use of numbers.

If I presented you with two passages through the jungle and told you that choosing one of them would result in you and your family facing a threefold greater risk of violent death than choosing the other, are you seriously telling me that that information would not represent a "spectacular difference" to you, and moreover, that the answer as to which passage was which would not be worth parting with a great deal of money to learn?

On the contrary. An almost 300% greater likelihood of being murdered, person for person, is not mere statistically significant, it's on its way to representing an order of magnitude.

[JohnSoCal]

This whole discussion is really pointless because it all depends on where you live in Canada or the US. Sure, there are parts of Detroit, St. Louis, etc. that are very dangerous but the vast majority of the residents in those metro areas don't go near the high crime areas. There are also many very safe areas in the US. My sister, nephews, etc. live in a small city ( 45,000 ) in the Okanagan in BC. They have far more crime than where I live in Southern California and our population is 8 times larger.

[Lone Primate]

Originally Posted by JohnSoCal

I live in a metro area with a population of 350,000+ and there has been only 1 homicide in the last 3 years and that was a family dispute.

You also live in a country where, person for person, you're three times more likely to be murder than I am, and considerably more likely to face an assault by firearm, inflicted or threatened, than I am. People are not trees. They are not rooted in the soil of one American community or another, and they can and do move freely about, taking their grudges, their compulsions and needs, their firearms, and the constitutional fiat to own, amass, and wield said firearms with them.

I've already addressed the "Snickers" argument. It's fine to point out the peanuts, as long as you're willing to honestly acknowledge there are a whole lot more of them.

[JohnSoCal]

Originally Posted by MarylandNed

That's a very misleading way to represent the numbers! Anyone reading that might think that the homicide rate was 26.6 times higher in the US! That's nowhere near the truth. Here's the truth:

- The homicide rate in 2010 in the US was 4.77 per 100,000 people.

- The homicide rate in 2010 in Canada was 1.58 per 100,000 people.

That's not the spectacular difference you're trying to make it out to be with your use of numbers.

There is another factor that skews the rates. Canada often calls it "manslaughter" what would be called "murder" in the US.