Tag Archives: homicide rates

A Collective Psychosis

There are now nearly 300 million guns in the United States. Forty-seven percent of all murders in the U.S. are committed with handguns. According to the Washington Post, the U.S. ranks number one in the world in guns/per capita with 88 guns/100 people–far exceeding the second country on the list, Yemen, at 54/100.

Eighty percent of all gun deaths in the 23 wealthiest countries in the world occur in America and 87 percent of all kids killed by guns are American kids. This is over 42 times greater than the rate for all the other nations combined. When viewed from any other civilized society on earth, gun violence in American life seems to be a symptom of collective psychosis.

Drill down a little further in the statistics and you find that 46 percent of American men own guns compared to 23 percent of women. Men commit 91 percent of domestic murders, and 88 percent of these murders involve guns. Thirty percent of urban households have at least one firearm. Despite much lower crime rates, this figure increases to 42 percent in the suburbs and 60 percent in the countryside.

So why are Americans––and men in particular––so prone to gun violence?

One could argue that it’s a result of the sheer number of handguns available and the easy access to them. Others might argue, particularly after what occurred in Florida between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin, that the proliferation of “Permit to Carry” and “Stand Your Ground” laws have contributed to increasing gun violence.

Those in favor of permits claim that carrying a gun actually lowers the crime rate––though there have been no studies that I’m aware of correlating “Permit to Carry” legislation” with lower homicide and crime rates. In fact, states with more liberal gun policies such as those in the Deep South, have much higher homicide and crime rates that states with tougher laws regarding guns––though again, correlation is difficult to prove.

In June of 2003, prior to the “Permit to Carry” legislation in Minnesota, 73 people in the state were granted permission to carry. By June of 2013, that number had exploded to 147, 957. In the suburban county where I live, 7354 permits to carry have been issued. So why is it that so many men feel the need to carry a handgun in public, particularly in a place where gun violence occurs about as often as a 90-degree day in January? “Because they can” is too simplistic an answer. Something is driving this apparent need.

What about other countries with high gun ownership rates, such as Switzerland and Finland, which rank number three and four in number of guns per capita, and in Canada, France and Norway, which also have high gun ownership rankings? Homicide rates and gun violence rates are much lower in these countries than in the U.S.

Something about the American male psyche appears to be much different than the psyches of men in other western societies that have high gun ownership rates.

The first step is to admit we have a problem. The second is to begin talking about it. Restricting handgun access is certainly worth discussing. But until we start talking seriously about the male psyche in our society, we’re going to continue to experience high levels of gun violence.

Another Week, Another Mass Shooting

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Hardly a week goes by before we experience another mass shooting in the U.S.

Today, a gunman killed six people and critically wounded three at a Sikh temple in suburban Milwaukee during Sunday services––before police shot him dead.

It’s difficult to believe that the United States is a less violent country than it was two decades ago. Yet, the homicide rate peaked in the early 1990s at about 10 per 100,000 people. It is now half that, a level not seen since the early 1960s.

But there has been no corresponding decline in mass murder, which doesn’t track with other types of violent crime.

According to the FBI, mass murder is defined as four or more murders occurring during a particular event with no cooling-off period between the murders. A mass murder typically occurs in a single location in which an individual kills a number of victims, though mass murder may be committed by an organization, or as the intentional and indiscriminate murder of a large number of people by government agents.

Mass murderers are not the same as spree killers, who kill at two or more locations with almost no time break between murders. Spree killers are not defined by the number of victims like serial killers, who may kill large numbers of people, but, unlike mass murderers and spree killers, they kill over long periods of time.

Contrary to popular stereotype, mass murderers don’t just suddenly snap and go berserk, killing indiscriminately, according to Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox. Typically, the path to mass murder involves years of disappointment and failure, which creates a profound sense of hopelessness and deep-seated resentment. Mass murderers are often socially or psychologically isolated, and lack emotional support and encouragement from friends and family. Usually, they have no one around to help provide a reality check and to counter their twisted sense of victimization. They tend to externalize blame and seek to punish those whom they hold responsible for their miserable life.

Their rage is directed at specific targets such as family members or co-workers, though sometimes it is directed at an entire class of people like feminists, minorities, or immigrants. Occasionally, the entire society is deemed responsible. In those cases, a mass murderer may randomly target strangers in a public place.

The United States experienced 645 mass-murder events — killings with at least four victims — from 1976 to 2010, according to Fox. The total body count: 2,949. The number of mass murders in the U.S. has averaged about two-dozen cases a year since the mid-1970s.

Given the number of recent incidents and the shortened time period between them, one wonders if the “average” is on the upswing.

Good News and Bad News in 2009

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2009 was both a good year and a bad year for law enforcement.

Nationwide, law enforcement deaths dropped to a 50-year low, with 124 officers killed in 2009. The homicide rate also dropped in cities across the U.S. Here in the Twin Cities, the rate in Minneapolis fell 50% from 38 homicides in 2008 to 19 this past year. That was the lowest number of homicides in a quarter century. Minneapolis was known as “Murderapolis” back in 1995 when the city reported a record 97 homicides. Homicides in St. Paul also fell from 18 in 2008 to 12 in 2009.

The decline in homicides bucks the conventional wisdom that murders and crime in general both increase in times of recession and economic hardship. No one is exactly sure why homicides are declining here and across the country, but some in Minneapolis attribute the decline to better police work, improved security technology, clearing alleys of garbage and graffiti, and working with rather than locking up juvenile offenders who show an interest in getting out of gangs and crime. St. Paul attributes the decline in part to targeting domestic disputes and helping gang members get driver’s licenses and find jobs if they pledged to go crime free.

Despite the nationwide drop in homicides, last week’s arrest of Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab demonstrates that our national security system has improved little since the 9/11 attacks. Part of that failure could be the result of our continued focus on “war” rather than on police work. I’ve always questioned the use of the term “war on terror”. Though we are certainly engaged in a battle with terrorists in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and now Yemen, the best way to prevent terrorists from striking the country again is through improved police work and intelligence gathering and sharing. The right question many are asking is why someone who is listed on the Terrorist Watch List was allowed to purchase an airline ticket?

No matter how many scanners we place in airports, terrorists will find a way around them. And how is preventing passengers from using the restroom the last hour of the flight, and restricting the use of blankets and carry on luggage going to stop a similar incident? Obviously, a terrorist could set off an explosive device well before the last hour of the flight. Instead of focusing our money and efforts on improving intelligence and communication between government agencies, it appears that we’re going to spend a fortune on scanners and new rules that will only inconvenience passengers and provide the illusion of safety.

In other words, pretty much what we have in airports now.

Happy New Year!