Originally Posted By: haertig
Originally Posted By: Brangdon
You are 4.03x more likely to be murdered than in the UK. And more staggeringly (though not surprising) you are 35.2x more likely to be shot dead in the Unites States than in the UK.

If you're only 4x more likely to be murdered in the US, but 35x more likely to be shot dead (which certainly would be considered "murder"), you must have a much higher likelyhood of being murdered with something other than a gun in the UK (to make up the difference between 4x and 35x). So there has to be some equally shocking statistic that doesn't look favorable for the UK, like "you're 26x more likely to be murdered with a knife in the UK than in the US", or something like that to balance that area between 4x and 35x.
Agreed. It's the total figures, regardless of means, that are significant here, not the figures broken down by weapon. That said, I did manage to find a break-down by means here. Briefly, "sharp instruments" is the biggest single means, at about 35% of all murders. According to that, there isn't a worse peak of something else. That does include broken bottles, etc, and they are also from a different year, but on the face of it, the figures don't reconcile. That's why my conclusion was, "Don't take the initial post's figures at face value" rather than, "The initial post's figures are wrong."

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One has to be very careful when cherry picking statistics, else someone will call you on it and ask what other statistic you're hiding.
I'm not hiding anything. I linked to my source, and the source contained more links to government statistics. I'm genuinely curious as to the state of play.

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And while that 35x number may seem "staggering" as you say, it could be that a large chunk of that is because people in the US can DEFEND themselves against criminals by using a gun.
First, do you realise blue part were not my words? I was quoting the conclusion from the linked page. (Maybe I should have left out the "staggering" part, because it seems like a distraction from the overall rates for violent crime and murder, but I didn't want to quote too selectively.)

Second, the figures already exclude justifiable homicide. It says that in the part I quoted. So, no, these aren't the "good" shootings.
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