President Barack Obama made the following statement about “gun violence”: ‘There’s no advanced, developed country on Earth that would put up with this. This is becoming the norm and we take it for granted in ways that, as a parent, are terrifying to me… If public opinion does not demand change in Congress, it will not change.” “Gun violence” is a propaganda term. It emphasizes violence committed with guns as somehow worse than violence committed with bombs, axes, nerve gas or machetes. This is done to push for political outcomes that would otherwise not be defensible or acceptable . . .
Let us put that aside, and assume that Barack Obama really meant that “there is no advanced, developed country on Earth that would put up with this,” meaning the level of unjustified violence in the United States. For the sake of simplification, I will assume that he means unjustified homicides.
What countries does this put outside of Barack Obama’s definition of “advanced, developed countries”? Clearly, it means any that have a higher level of unjustified homicides than the United States, because by his definition, the United States is higher than any other “advanced, developed country”.
These would include Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Brazil, Mexico, Jamaica, South Africa, Venezuela, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Chile, among others. Rather interesting that Russia is not considered “advanced” or “developed” by Barack Obama.
The article from which the chart was taken by the Crime Prevention Research Center has a much more sophisticated analysis of the “advanced and developed” scam. It’s just another way to cherry pick data to arrive at predetermined conclusions.
We could as easily make up another category, such as “New world counties” or “Large, multi-ethnic countries”, both of which would show that the U.S. does rather well in comparison to the others. The United States is much closer to Russia in its scope and diversity than it is to Finland. International comparisons are quite complex; simplistic comparisons mislead more than inform.
It is culture that is the predominant factor in homicide rates, not the availability of a certain weapon type. If the culture trusts the justice system and believes that the rule of law will prevail, homicide rates drop like a rock. In the United States there are significant subgroups that do not trust the rule of law, and that is where most of the homicide occurs.
©2014 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
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