Endymon32

Again you ignore my points. No were did I say that the US murder rates were lower then anyother of those listed nations. But you ignore that point. I Said moore EXAGGERATES his postion by unfairly compaing our HOMICIDE rates to other nations MURDER rates. He does this to make his claim look MORE than it actually is. And as I explained this three times you fail to understand the subtly of Moore's manipulation of the facts.

Here is a link I only posted it three times so it really shows me how committed you are too actually doing the research instead of just blindly following the lying likes of Micheal Moore.
http://www.bowlingfortruth.com/bowli.../countries.htm


Here is more back up to my claims From www.Mooreexposed.com
To pound home its point, Bowling flashes a dramatic count of gun homicides in various countries: Canada 165, Germany 381, Australia 65, Japan 39, US 11,127. Now that's raw numbers, not rates -- Here's why he doesn't talk rates.

Verifying the figures was difficult, since Moore does not give a year for them. A lot of Moore's numbers didn't check out for any period I could find. As a last effort at checking, I did a Google search for each number and the word "gun" or words "gun homicides" Many traced -- only back to webpages repeating Bowling's figures. Moore is the only one using these numbers.

Germany: Bowling says 381: 1995 figures put homicides at 1,476, about four times what Bowling claims, and gun homicides at 168, about half what it claims: it's either far too high or far too low. ( Jörg Altmeppen has emailed me a link to a German site putting the figure at Moore's 381, in 1998 -- I have to depend upon his translation here, as German is one of the languages in which I can only curse.).

Australia: Bowling says 65. This is very close, albeit picking the year to get the data desired. Between 1980-1995, firearm homicides varied from 64-123, although never exactly 65. In 2000, it was 64, which was proudly proclaimed as the lowest number in the country's history.

US: Bowling says 11,127. FBI figures put it a lot lower. They report gun homicides were 8,719 in 2001, 8,661 in 2000, 8,480 in 1999. (2001 UCR, p. 23). Here's the table:



[You can download the entire report, in .pdf format, by clicking here; look for pt. 2 at p.23.] To be utterly fair, this is a count of the 13,752 homicides for which police submitted supplemental data (including weapon used): the total homicide count was 15,980. But what weapon, if any, was used in the other homicide is unknown to us, and was unknown to Moore.
After an email tip, I finally found a way to compute precisely 11,127. Ignore the FBI, use Nat'l Center for Health Statistics figures. These are based on doctors' death certificates rather than police investigation.

Then -- to their gun homicide figures, add the figure for legally-justified homicides: self-defense and police use against criminals. Presto, you have exactly Moore's 11,127. I can see no other way for him to get it.

Since Moore appears to use police figures for the other countries, it's hardly a valid comparison. More to the point, it's misleading since it includes self-defense and police: when we talk of a gun homicide problem we hardly have in mind a woman defending against a rapist, or a cop taking out an armed robber.

Canada: Moore's number is correct for 1999, a low point, but he ignores some obvious differences.

Bias. I wanted to talk about fabrication, not about bias, but I've gotten emails asking why I didn't mention that Switzerland requires almost all adult males to have guns, but has a lower homicide rate than Great Britain, or that Japanese-Americans, with the same proximity to guns as other Americans, have homicide rates half that of Japan itself. (And, after posting this, got an email saying that Switzerland doesn't require all adult males to own guns -- not everyone is in the national militia. Here's an encyclopedia reference to their system. 36% of entire population is enrolled in the militia -- which must mean a very great part of the adult male population, " All of Swiss society celebrates shooting, and skill with the rifle. For example, each year Zurich shuts down a whole day for its "Boys' Shooting Festival."" Sounds like a plan to me.)

And, oh, yes, there is an extremely interesting paper by Canadian criminologist Gary Mauser, presented at a colloquium in, appropriately enough, the Tower of London, and addressing international comparisons of firearms laws and firearm crime rates. I highly recommend reading, if you're interested in serious research rather than Moore's flashing numbers. Okay, they're mentioned, now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Actually, international comparisons lead to some interesting points. Here's a webpage which gives worldwide homicide rates. The U.S. comes in at 23rd place. It only made the list by edging out Armenia and Bulgaria. Its former rival as a superpower, the states of the former Soviet Union, absolutely flatten it in this competition. Russia has four times the US rate. Ukraine and Estonia have twice its rate. Even Poland ranks higher. South Africa's showing is ten times the US rate! Hmm-- another point from a different section of that site. In rape rates per 1000 population, the US ranks ninth, at .32, just ahead of Iceland and Papua New Guinea. Canada is fifth, at .75, over double the US rate, and Australia is third with .80.