Looking at the numbers

Sean D Sorrentino at NC Gun Blog has a good post looking at the FBI's crime statistics and Joan Peterson's difficulty interpreting them.

I decided to look at the number and Japetes' presentation of them starting with the number she presented in this comment.

Looking at the National Violent Death Reporting System (which seems to have data on 18 states) I wasn’t able to find 2000 number for location of death but I did find 2008 numbers. In 2008 72.96% of women were murdered in their “House, apartment, including driveway, porch, yard” vs 46.35 % of men. Interestingly both men and women have a lesser percentage of murders occurring in the home with firearms 42.74% and 70.35% and an increased percentage of non-firearm murders 55.71% and 76.78%. Not sure what any of that means but it is interesting. I did find 2000 data for WISQARS Injury Mortality Reports in 2000 there were 16,765 homicides and 10,801 firearm homicides so firearms where used in 64.4% homicides. I am not sure which Violence Policy Center number she used but the FBI number cover this issue.

As for her comment on FBI statistics 9,146 murders with firearms out of 13,636 total 2009 murders is 67.0723% not 71.8%. She needs 644.648 additional firearm murders within the 13,636 total or she needs to add 2,285.99 firearm murder to the total to get her numbers. Her percentage of firearm murder committed with handgun is correct. 

For murder by family members (141+ 609+ 131+ 116+ 247+ 201+ 94+ 35+ 281)/13636 I get 13.6% not 24.2% as does the FBI. For murder by person known to the victim (141+ 609+ 131+ 116+ 247+ 201+ 94+ 35+ 281+ 2941+ 404+ 138+ 472+ 132+ 12+ 20)/13636 I get 43.81% not 53.8% and by known persons other than family is (2941+ 404+ 138+ 472+ 132+ 12+ 20)/13636 = 30.20% the same as the FBI. She seems to be ignoring the murder where the murders relationship to the victim is not know while presenting those number as representative of all murders. Her next statistic 34.6% should be presented as percentage of all women murdered (not those where the offender is known) in 2009 know to have been killed by their husbands or boyfriends. Her murders related to argument statistic looks correct though including romantic triangles is odd to me without that (3334+203)/(13636-4832) = 40.17492%. Murders related to other Felonies 2020/13636 = 14.81% of total murders but 22.9% of murders with known circumstances. She is correct about the percentage of murders reported with unknown circumstances

It is interesting that there is Circumstance data for murders of unknown relationship to the victim. The rate for people murdered by people they know excluding Acquaintances related to other felonies is (2020-503-489-804)/3033 = 7.39% for Acquaintances it is 503/2941 = 17.10% and Strangers 489/1676 = 29.18%. For murders of unknown relationship but known circumstances 804/(5986-3488) = 32.19% were related to another felony. This leads me the think (but does not prove) that many of the murders with unknown relationships to their victim are likely to be strangers. This is consistent logic that it is harder to identify murder who lack a relationship with their victims.

It is also clear from the data that there is a large problem with Black males committing murder and being murdered. WISQARS places the 2000-2007 puts the murder rate at 38.86 per 100000 for black males vs 9.86 for all males, 5.61 for white males, 3.81 for all whites, 2.68 for white females, 6.69 for black females, and 6.21 for the whole population. If you exclude black males that rate for the whole population drops to ((72248+ 1877+ 3255+ 5132+ 10725)/(1895436257+ 25347849+ 106480875+ 131828724+ 160307042))x 10000 = 4.02. The FBI statistics have 5890/(5890+ 5286+ 245) = 51.57% for homicides where the offender’s race is known were committed by black offenders and 6556/(6568+ 6556+ 360) = 48.62% of murder victims where the victims race was know were black. US Census Bureau puts the 2009 population at 307,006,556 and the total black alone or in combination is 40,903,772 and so comprise 13.32% (12.41% if you count only single race respondents) of thew population. For such a relatively small fraction of the population to account for close to half of those who murder and those who are murdered is very serious problem.

I think that the solution to that problem isn't arms control. There are many places in the world such as Nigeria where the lack of firearms has not provided safety for the people. I think that we need to change our laws and society so criminal isn't the highest paying job in poor communities in this country.