Hi Samuel and David,
the interpration of the figures is rather difficult.
I did download the pages mentioned.
first thing I was interested in was: death by firearms = 30,708 (1998)
but since it is not possible to know from the statistics how many
casualties are by suicide by a firearm... how much casualties are by
shootings?
Accidents by firearms just 726... far less than I expected.
However the total count for 'death by firearms' is quite high compared
to the motor vehicle accidents = 43,510 or drugs/medicines = 9,838.
Nearly 6 times more inmates per 100,000 population in the US than in EU.
In Holland abt 70% of the inmates is there for drug related crime... and
if we would build more prison capacity that rate would come to 95% I
suppose.
**** Very off topic *****
To paraphrase L.D. this is a lot of money for a crime with relative less
casualties. Not spoken of the immense $$$ for the costs of
investingation and prosecution. And the bad thing of all is that
detention does not help a f**k to solve this problem.
**** I do not want to start a discussion on this... we would become very
off topic.
To Europeans the US is a very violent society. But maybe Hollywood is to
blame for this... our view is formed by at least 50% of all pictures in
cinema or TV originated from the US.
Regards, Bastiaan
On Wed, 15 Jan 2003 17:49:08 +0000 (UTC), Samuel W. Heywood wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Jan 2003, david gunnells wrote:
>> Hello Bastiaan,
>> Here are the statistics for the violent crime rate in
>> the U.S.:
>> http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/viort.htm
>> Remember, there are both high and low violent crime
>> rates in the U.S., it just depends on which geographical
>> locations you choose to focus on. ;)
> The statistics at the above URL could be easily misinterpreted
> because many homicides are not crimes.
> A killing of a human committed in self defense or by accident is a
> homicide, but under those circumstances the homicides are not crimes.
> Whether such homicides would be ruled accidents or self-defense
> cannot be determined until after all the hearings and trials are all
> said and done. The homicide statistic is entered *before* the case
> is adjudicated. After the case is adjudicated, the statistics are not
> modified accordingly to reflect only those homicides which are crimes.
> <snip>
> Sam Heywood
> -- Message sent by Unix Pine, Version 4.33
