rationalskepticism.org

willhud9 wrote:

Thommo wrote:Don't know if it's accurate, but an alternative version of the whites only murder rate appears here with some context:

http://americablog.com/2013/01/ann-coul ... lgium.html

Had Ann Coulter looked at other (western) European countries, besides Belgium – the countries most like the US – she would have found a much lower overall murder rate per 100,000. For example (and these are rough back-of-the-envelope averages over the same time period):

US ‘whites only’ murder rate: 2.6
Denamark 1.0
Ireland 1.2
Norway 0.8
Sweden 0.9
Greece 1.4
Italy 1.4
Spain 1.2
Austria 0.8
France 1.7
Germany 1.2
Switzerland 1.0

Now you know why Ann Coulter picked Belgium. Even the US’ ‘whites only’ murder rate is two to three times the murder rate in western Europe.

If that's accurate, then it seems that a murder rate 2-3 times higher than for "whites only" in comparable countries is still a serious problem (as I suppose is clear to the families and friends still grieving this avoidable Las Vegas tragedy). I'm not sure the fact it's a much bigger problem for some disadvantaged groups makes much difference. It's a problem for everyone else as well.

It is a problem, but at the same time what is the comparison to assaults? Last time I checked roughly equal. And this is something I really hate about playing with statistics. A person can get beaten to an inch of death, become permanently paralyzed, and count as just an assault statistic. A person can get stabbed and require intensive surgery and lose access to a motor function but still considered just an assault statistic.

The people in Las Vegas who survived many of them have a high chance of having a physical disability after all is done, not to mention the emotional trauma. These people are deemed assault statistic because they were not killed.

So we point to these statistics and say, “well it’s better than being killed” and yes death is final, but I honestly could not cope if I was shot, stabbed, beaten, etc to an inch of life and suffered some hindering long term disability? What kind of life is that? To many victims of serious assault their life loses quality in their eyes. And the “it could be worse they could be dead” comfort is grossly insensitive to the fact that anyone who has gone through painful assaults knows that sometimes you wish you were dead. Suicide numbers increase for assault survivors.

And so again, I raise my point of contention. The US and many other western countries have a comparable assault rate. The US is different because many people can successfully carry out their assault to lethal means. I agree that is a problem. But the bigger problem is the assaults themselves. They need to be addressed, a cure needs to be found for them. You lower assault rates and you lower gun homicide. It’s a simple correlation.