Insights backed by data

This is a back-of-the-envelope calculation which lends credence to the argument originally advanced by Scott Adams. Adams said,

On average, Democrats (that’s my team*) use guns for shooting the innocent. We call that crime.

On average, Republicans use guns for sporting purposes and self-defense.

If you don’t believe me, you can check the statistics on the Internet that don’t exist. At least I couldn’t find any that looked credible.

But we do know that race and poverty are correlated. And we know that poverty and crime are correlated. And we know that race and political affiliation are correlated. Therefore, my team (Clinton) is more likely to use guns to shoot innocent people, whereas the other team (Trump) is more likely to use guns for sporting and defense.

That’s a gross generalization. Obviously. Your town might be totally different.

So it seems to me that gun control can’t be solved because Democrats are using guns to kill each other – and want it to stop – whereas Republicans are using guns to defend against Democrats. Psychologically, those are different risk profiles. And you can’t reconcile those interests, except on the margins. For example, both sides might agree that rocket launchers are a step too far. But Democrats are unlikely to talk Republicans out of gun ownership because it comes off as “Put down your gun so I can shoot you.”

Of course, Adams is a humorist, but he is also an extremely observant and insightful commentator. His comment above, I think, does shed light on an aspect of the gun conversation that is rarely discussed.

From the juxtaposition of a couple articles this morning, where the discussion is about rising crime, I wondered to what degree major cities are responsible for most of violent crime.

Again, strictly back-of-the-envelope. I looked at this report that records the number of murders in the 62 largest metropolitan police departments. Since this is a quarterly report, I multiplied the result by 4 for an annual number. The result is that 5,629 of all murders in the US occur in the city limits of our largest cities. There are about 10,000 murders a year, so our largest cities account for 56.3% of all murders.

I then looked at the population size of our 62 largest major cities. That comes to 53,734,289, or about 17% of the total population of the US.

So, very roughly, 60% of murders occur in cities that account for 20% of the population.

Which brings us back to Scott Adams' insight. Virtually all major cities, even in quite conservative states such as Texas, are run by Democrats. The fact is that 60% of murders occur in cities run by Democrats and those cities account for only 20% of the population. That supports the notion that

Democrats are using guns to kill each other – and want it to stop – whereas Republicans are using guns to defend against Democrats.