Now look at this:
Well, why not?
Update: The drop is unexplained, but the graph above suggests that humans will kill a certain percentage of their fellows at a rate that doesn't get below a certain level.If guns are not available, other means will be found. We are clever monkeys. Go here for a more complete report.
2 comments:
The drop after 1995 is obviously due to the "assault weapons ban" going into effect.
The drop after 2000 is thanks to Colorado closing the "gun show loophole", so no more crime guns from Colorado were able to get into prisons.
In 1980, President Reagan took over from President Carter.
Obviously, the peanuts drove the murder rate up, and it came back down with the change to, uh, character.
I would be curious to see if this graph correlates to when women guards started reporting for work, and when women started participating on parole and other substantive corrections positions.
I would also like to see how this chart balances against the war on drugs -- putting 20 times as many people in prison for dope in their car (without anyone ever getting hurt, injured, nor property damaged) will change the *rate* of killings, without changing, much, the *number* of those killed.
War on drugs, war on crime, campaigns against drunk driving, "Three Strikes" laws, etc., a lot of people have been imprisoned for victimless crimes, because their activity *could* have been related to someone getting hurt.
Just look at the number of people jailed because they gathered a bunch of guns, and the neighbors got the dude arrested and imprisoned. Without a shot being fired, until the SWAT team instigated a live-fire exercise.
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