Is gun violence really up?

[Sooner Wing]

Have there been any studies done to suggest that gun violence is up compared to where it was say 50 years ago? If you take into account the increase in population, the increase in gun availability and the 24 hour media cycle it “appears” that gun violence is up but I wonder if it truly is. There have always been crazy people and there always will be. The more people there are the more crazy people there are etc.

 

[Coded-Dude]

It is probably mostly a wash(death by firearm) as we save more lives from bullet wounds these days than we did 50 years ago. But overall violent crime in general is on a downward trend.

FBI and CDC both track these in various ways. There are plenty of numbers to review.

http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/crimestats

http://www.cdc.gov/

 

[willystruck]

50 years ago there were no form 4473's there were no background checks and guns were sold in every small town hardware store. I could and did walk into the local food store and the local hardware store (at a ripe old age of 10) and buy .22 ammo with no questions asked, other than maybe a "what you goin after today, ground hogs or rabbits?" It was a different world then! Gun violence was practically nil except in the large population areas.

 

[Sooner Wing]

50 years ago there were no form 4473's there were no background checks and guns were sold in every small town hardware store. I could and did walk into the local food store and the local hardware store (at a ripe old age of 10) and buy .22 ammo with no questions asked, other than maybe a "what you goin after today, ground hogs or rabbits?" It was a different world then! Gun violence was practically nil except in the large population areas.

Wish I lived in that time. I know that it had it's own issues, and big ones, but at least the moral fabric of the country and it's people were more pure.

 

[Coded-Dude]

50 years ago there were no form 4473's there were no background checks and guns were sold in every small town hardware store. I could and did walk into the local food store and the local hardware store (at a ripe old age of 10) and buy .22 ammo with no questions asked, other than maybe a "what you goin after today, ground hogs or rabbits?" It was a different world then! Gun violence was practically nil except in the large population areas.

Crime numbers(rural vs urban) haven't changed all that much in 50 years. Most of us know that most violent crime takes place in densely populated areas that also generally have lower quality of life standards(i.e. the poor). Most of Americas violent crime can be directly related to gang activity.