Comment by steve_b | Hacker News Reader

Comment by steve_b | Hacker News Reader

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I'm just going to compare murder rates between Canada and US. Murder is harder to fudge. Using data from different years. Maybe that invalidates the conclusion, but I'm guessing it holds in general.

> Here in Canada, we have higher instance of violence with knives, but unsurprisingly almost the same proportion of violence with guns, despite fairly hefty controls.

Firearm homicide in the US per 100k: 3.55 [1] Firearm homicide in Canada per 100k: 0.51 [1] Homicide rate in the US per 100k: 4.7 [2] Homicide rate in Canada per 100k: 1.6 [2]

Proportion of homicides from firearms in the US: 3.55/4.7 = 76% Proportion of homicides from firearms in Canada: 0.51/1.6 = 32%

Not sure what to make of the numbers. But it doesn't seem like Canada has "the same proportion of violence with guns".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

>Murder is harder to fudge.

Actually it is quite easy. For evidence, see

>Firearm homicide in the US per 100k

>Proportion of homicides from firearms

That you can so easily switch between murder and homicide makes the numbers really easy to fudge to most people who don't consider the differences between the two.

I am not following you. Do the differences really matter in this case?

EDIT: Don't read this as snarky disagreement. Rather, Im just confused and genuinely want to understand.

Simply put, homicide can be constructed to include suicides as well as accidental deaths. While these are issues with guns, they aren't the same issue as murder and should be treated differently (consider how often you see "pool related homicides" when discussing accidental drownings of children). Even if one was going to include them, then they should be clear when they are using terminology that is not only often misunderstood by readers but which has been knowingly used by others to mislead.

This is not to say that these other issues should be ignored. Having a gun in the home is more likely to make a suicide attempt result in death and that is an issue that should be discussed and dealt with. But it should be done so openly and recognizing it is a separate, though related, issue.

I should have just wrote "homicide" instead of "murder". The two sources I gave separate suicides from homicides.

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