Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

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> In the end, a society gets what they deserve, and those revengeful reap what they sow. Like those clinging to guns for "protection", and dying from gun crime (or from their own gun-owning family members).

Which way does the causation run, for both?

https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2013/03/homicide-rates-in...

During the 20th century the US homicide rate fluctuated from 5-10 per 100,000. In Germany, France, Sweden, and England, it was below 2.5 the entire century.

Focus on France and the UK (since Germany and Italy were unstable states during part of that time). In France, the first gun laws date to 1938. By that time, France’s homicide rate was about 1 per 100k, about what it is today. The first UK gun laws started in 1920. The UK murder rate has gone up since that time. (Handguns, which are responsible for most US gun homicides, weren’t banned in England until 1997.)

How did gun control cause low homicide rates in those countries when homicide rates were already very low (at current levels or even lower) before gun control? That’s an “umbrellas cause rain” argument.

Likewise, the death penalty wasn’t eliminated in the UK until the 1950s. Criminal justice reform in Europe generally happened in the 1960s and 1970s.

How did criminal justice reform cause European homicide rates to be lower when they were already very low?

The idea that gun control and lenient criminal laws caused lower homicide rates in Europe contradicts all the available data. The only supportable conclusion is the opposite: that Americans remain resistant to lenient criminal justice laws or disarmament because America is a much more violent society.

>The idea that gun control and lenient criminal laws caused lower homicide rates in Europe contradicts all the available data

Does it? Check this graph of historical rates in Europe going back to 1300 and covering the whole 20th century:

https://ourworldindata.org/homicides

It was much worse in the past -- and even before the abolishment of the death penalty the drop are related to a more lenient system (e.g. check France during Les Miserables times, or England and Dickensian conditions), plus increased prosperity of course.

Now go to the "Global long run perspective" and click to add United States. Historically worse than Europe (measurements start from 1900 but not so complete then).

I don’t see how that helps your argument. Gun control and leniency on criminal issues are a 20th century reform in Europe. England imposed the death penalty for pickpocketing until 1808. And prior to 1920, you could buy guns at the store with cash in the UK. Gun control didn’t exist in France until 1938. Yet the homicide rate of the UK was lower than it is today, and 1/7 of what it was in the US at the time. By 1800, it was basically at modern levels, at a time when 220 different crimes carried the death penalty, including theft or forgery. How can leniency on criminal issues be responsible for low homicide rates that were low before they were implemented?

>And prior to 1920, you could buy guns at the store with cash in the UK. Gun control didn’t exist in France until 1938. Yet the homicide rate of the UK was lower than it is today

According to the graph it wasn't. It was 0.8 and higher between 1900 and 1960, 0.7 in 1962, had a rise in the 70s and 80s, and is historically smaller than 1900-1960 today at 0.5 (since 2012 or so) while still not having the death penalty.

Which chart are you looking at? The fifth chart in the page shows the homicide rate of England at under 1 per 100k in 1900, and over that from 1990-2010. World Bank data says 1 per 100k in 2017, and there has been a spike in the UK last couple of years. 0.5 in this decade is almost certainly incorrect.

If your point now is that the murder rate didn’t go up after getting rid of the death penalty, that’s probably true, but a different argument than you made previously. (We should keep the death penalty because some people deserve to be executed for their crimes. But death penalty versus life in prison probably doesn’t serve as a deterrent effect that would lower the homicide rate. It’s a moral rather than utilitarian policy.)

Europe had quite a serious gun violence problem betweens 1939 and 1945. I wonder if that helped create a more reticant culture around firearms.

1914-1918 was worse.

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