Americans unaware gun crime is down, survey finds

[lessthan0]

Let the LIBOTARDS dispute this:


Gun violence survey: Hand guns that were turned in by their owners are seen in a trash bin at a gun buyback held by the Los Angeles Police Department.

Reuters. Gun violence survey: While gun violence had fallen sharply, a study shows that many Americans are unaware of the decline.

A majority of Americans believe gun violence has increased, according to a recent survey, but data shows the exact opposite is true.



Gun crime in the United States has been cut nearly in half during the past two decades data shows, but new studies reveal that Americans are largely unaware of the precipitous drop.

Only 12 percent of those polled in a recent Pew Survey thought gun crime had declined. Fifty-six percent believed it had actually increased.

It's unclear what is driving the misconception. The mass shootings in Aurora, Colo., and Newtown, Conn., were among the most-watched news stories on television last year, but data on the relation between media coverage and perceptions of gun violence is not yet available.

The number of U.S. gun homicides peaked in 1993, and has fallen almost 49 percent since, according to Pew. Researchers point to a decline in crack cocaine demand and rising incarceration rates as reasons for the descent.



According to the Congressional Research Service, 310 million firearms were available for sale or possessed by U.S. citizens in 2009. The United States has more guns per capita than any other country in the world, Small Arms Survey reports.

——

 

[Hamilton Felix]

Most Americans are unaware, PERIOD. They are pretty much only "aware" of what the media feeds them. And right now there's an all out effort under way to scare us into giving up the rest of our rights.

To those few who actually look around and make their own observations (you have time to do that if you don't watch TV), it's pretty obvious. I live where all "normal" people have guns. We don't really have much in the way of violent crime. Oh, we have some meth-heads who will steal things if nobody is around, but they know the only way they'll survive getting caught in the act is if the Deputies show up in time to save them. So, nope, not much violent crime.

 

[CRConway]

One of the factors that is driving the impression of increased crime/violent crime is the increasing prevalence of media coverage augmented by surveillance cameras, cell phones, etc... Its not that the crime has increased, its the constant barrage the average citizen is being confronted with. If you think about it, the internet, twitter, facebook, people posting online news reports within minutes or even seconds of an event taking place, cellphone cameras, etc... result in not only a near real-time stream of updates but the news is no longer primarily local, it's state and national and even international in nature... for example, consider the meteor strike in Russia a few weeks ago. People were seeing videos of it entering the atmosphere and passing over towns almost as it happened. Videos of the impact/explosion were on YouTube before emergency personnel in the area of the strike even knew where it had impacted.

Think on this... just 30 years ago most news at the national and international level was only really accessible to the average citizen via television. The same applied to state level news. For local news it was newspapers. In ALL of those cases there was a significant delay and you were only likely to get whatever news the news agency deemed "of interest" and state and local events very rarely made it to that level. Now people have various news feeds that are customized for what events are of interest to the individual as the individual citizen has a multitude of news sources to choose from. Smart phones and other devices which are constantly connected bring that info to you with little or no lag between the event occurring and you finding out about it. On top of all that news agencies were limited to however many journalists they could have on staff plus a few "free agent" stringers that might contribute from time to time. Now there are a multitude of "amateur journalists" armed with cellphone cameras, a smartphone, and the ability to contribute for the sole reward of notoriety. How many times have you seen coverage of an event such as a crime scene where a local is "posting" what is going on while holding up a cellphone while narrating?

Last but not least... the people who are being bombarded with all this information AND who are in a position to do something about it are the people who are generally LEAST able to adjust to that level of information overload. I'm talking about the 30-somethings and older who didn't grow up dealing with that kind of information deluge. The people in their low twenties and younger are generally accustomed to running around with smartphones and "living" online with twitter, Facebook, interactive social media, constant text updates from friends and acquaintances at all hours on a continual basis, etc...

 

[ezkl2230]

Here's how this argument is being used against pro-Second Amendment: if gun violence is down, then you have no need to carry a firearm. The threat no longer exists, and it is obviously our gun control laws that led to the decrease in gun related crime. Watch for the Brady crowd to try to capitalize on this.

The fact that increased carry is what led to the downturn is conveniently ignored. It is the same line of reasoning that leads us to decrease military spending after a war is successfully concluded. We won the war, the threat has been contained or destroyed, therefore, we can downsize our military. And then we get caught with our pants down and have to play catch-up ball.

 

[webbch]

It's frustrating to read through statistics that don't cite their sources or state their underlying assumptions in the study. Doesn't matter what side of the argument it's on. The study done Link Removed is much more convincing. The conclusion is basically the same; it's just a more credible assessment IMO.

The gist of it is that in all liklihood, more guns equals less gun violence. At worst, more guns has NO impact on gun violence. The point of the study was to identify where to spend money on public health and safety. The conclusion was that gun control was not a wise use of resources, and that resources should be allocated elsewhere.

 

[Rhino]

You could fill oceans with all of the things Americans are unaware of.