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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[mainiac]

And those higher estimates are just blindingly obviously horrible.  A biased source (advocacy group) used a biased sample (gun owners who carry who volunteered to participate in the survey) and assumed zero false positives and perfect extrapolation.  I struggle to think how you could arrive at a less accurate result without outright fabricating data.

[Graknorke]

And those higher estimates are just blindingly obviously horrible.  A biased source (advocacy group) used a biased sample (gun owners who carry who volunteered to participate in the survey) and assumed zero false positives and perfect extrapolation.  I struggle to think how you could arrive at a less accurate result without outright fabricating data.

Dude, there are like... 60 gorrillion uses of guns for self defence every day.

[Sergarr]

And those higher estimates are just blindingly obviously horrible.  A biased source (advocacy group) used a biased sample (gun owners who carry who volunteered to participate in the survey) and assumed zero false positives and perfect extrapolation.  I struggle to think how you could arrive at a less accurate result without outright fabricating data.

Dude, there are like... 60 gorrillion uses of guns for self defence every day.

If you live in a society where you have to use guns 60 gorrillion times for self defence every day, then you're living in a crazy society.

[Mr. Strange]

And those higher estimates are just blindingly obviously horrible.  A biased source (advocacy group) used a biased sample (gun owners who carry who volunteered to participate in the survey) and assumed zero false positives and perfect extrapolation.  I struggle to think how you could arrive at a less accurate result without outright fabricating data.

Dude, there are like... 60 gorrillion uses of guns for self defence every day.

If you live in a society where you have to use guns 60 gorrillion times for self defence every day, then you're living in a crazy society.

No, just in America. Oh wait, same thing...

[Morrigi]

And those higher estimates are just blindingly obviously horrible.  A biased source (advocacy group) used a biased sample (gun owners who carry who volunteered to participate in the survey) and assumed zero false positives and perfect extrapolation.  I struggle to think how you could arrive at a less accurate result without outright fabricating data.

Dude, there are like... 60 gorrillion uses of guns for self defence every day.

If you live in a society where you have to use guns 60 gorrillion times for self defence every day, then you're living in a crazy society.

No, just in America. Oh wait, same thing...

It should be noted that our rates of burglary, rape, and robbery are, generally speaking, significantly lower than the UK's, and often comparable to other European countries. If you remove the slums of major cities (where almost nobody would willingly live or spend time in anyway), the U.S. turns into an incredibly safe country, homicides included.

In addition, only about 7% of burglaries in the U.S. happen when the victim is at home, compared to over 40% in the U.K. Like it or not, criminals are scared of people being able to defend themselves.

[lordcooper]

It should be noted that our rates of burglary, rape, and robbery are, generally speaking, significantly lower than the UK's, and often comparable to other European countries. If you remove the slums of major cities (where almost nobody would willingly live or spend time in anyway), the U.S. turns into an incredibly safe country, homicides included.

Nope.

[Morrigi]

It should be noted that our rates of burglary, rape, and robbery are, generally speaking, significantly lower than the UK's, and often comparable to other European countries. If you remove the slums of major cities (where almost nobody would willingly live or spend time in anyway), the U.S. turns into an incredibly safe country, homicides included.

Nope.

Those stats for the U.S. are noticeably higher than the FBI's own, and my point still stands regarding burglary, with either set of statistics.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/tables/16tabledatadecpdf

Edit: Interestingly enough, the suicide rate in the U.K. and U.S. is also comparable, though the U.S. is slightly higher. (11.8 per 100,000 to 12.3 for the U.S.)

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/subnational-health4/suicides-in-the-united-kingdom/2011/stb-suicide-bulletin.html

The U.S. source is apparently from a CDC report that I couldn't find online ('Deaths: Preliminary Data for 2011 - Selected Causes.'National Vital Statistics Reports (NVSS); Vol 61, No. 6, pp.40-42. Hyattsville, MD: US Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control Prevention, Division of Vital Statistics. 10 October.), but the following PDF gives an almost identical rate for 2010:

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_04.pdf

[Baffler]

Even if they weren't, the US has significantly lower rates of robbery, burglary, and assault compared to England & Wales according to the OECD report, though. The cases of rape are very close in the US and England & Wales (28.6 per 100,000 and 27.7 per 100,000, respectively.) The only major differences are in homicide (5 and 1.1, respectively) and vehicle theft (258 and 215 per 100,000, respectively.) If you include Scotland and Northern Ireland in there, the UK in it's entirety does, in fact, have higher crime rates than the US with a fraction of the population.

[Graknorke]

You understand that the fact it's a rate means that population size isn't really relevant?

[smjjames]

It should be noted that our rates of burglary, rape, and robbery are, generally speaking, significantly lower than the UK's, and often comparable to other European countries. If you remove the slums of major cities (where almost nobody would willingly live or spend time in anyway), the U.S. turns into an incredibly safe country, homicides included.

Nope.

The punitivity is partially bloated by the whole 'war on drugs' thing. Not saying it's false, just that it's one reason why it's so high.

Vehicle thefts are similar, though offset by the fact that we have a larger population and also, more cars.

Reported burglaries are higher than in the US, but not going to speculate.

Cases of assault, I guess because people actually survive more? Scotland though.......

Robbery is similar.

Rape cases are similar too.

Intentional homicides... Yeah :/ only ones worse are Mexico and Estonia. Didn't expect Estonia to have it worse though.

[Lord Shonus]

That ignores the fact that a smaller population is much easier to skew. If, for example, both a population of 10,000 and one of 100,000 had a .1% murder rate in a given year (This would be 10 and 100 murders in that year), and both populations experienced the same crime (let's say someone cut the brakes on a car and killed a family of 4), the smaller population would go from 10 murders to 14, an increase of .4%, while the larger one would go from 100 to 104, an increase of only .04%. For this reason, statistical comparisons between groups that vary greatly in numbers are of little use, and any analysis should be purely internal, taking data before and after the introduction of whatever measure you're trying to compare.

[Morrigi]

My post on the last page has been edited with more info regarding suicide rates.

[GavJ]

That ignores the fact that a smaller population is much easier to skew. If, for example, both a population of 10,000 and one of 100,000 had a .1% murder rate in a given year (This would be 10 and 100 murders in that year), and both populations experienced the same crime (let's say someone cut the brakes on a car and killed a family of 4), the smaller population would go from 10 murders to 14, an increase of .4%, while the larger one would go from 100 to 104, an increase of only .04%. For this reason, statistical comparisons between groups that vary greatly in numbers are of little use, and any analysis should be purely internal, taking data before and after the introduction of whatever measure you're trying to compare.

Uh, except that only one murder of a family of 4 in a population of 100,000 instead of 10 families murdered means that it would be a SAFER PLACE.
That's not "uselessly skewed data" lol? That's exactly what you want to be measuring, and it is accurately telling you the relative safety! The 0.04 vs. 0.4 is useful and meaningful in that example.
Also, none of these countries are anywhere remotely close to 10,000 or 100,000 people, so individual events aren't even at all approaching the swing on overall rates as these.


The stats are perfectly fine and useful for these comparisons, and are in fact much better and stronger statistically than, for instance, the FDA clinical drug trials you trust your life to whenever you take prescription medication... By several orders of magnitude.

[Bauglir]

For this reason, statistical comparisons between groups that vary greatly in numbers are of little use, and any analysis should be purely internal, taking data before and after the introduction of whatever measure you're trying to compare.

This would seem to imply that statistics are entirely worthless, since sample sizes are typically much smaller than population sizes. I think you've got a flaw in your reasoning somewhere.

[GavJ]

It's not even statistics at all unless you're predicting the next year. The data itself is simply reporting all the information there is in the entire group, since presumably they keep all crime records. 100% accurate, outside of a few random people who don't report their house being burgled, because... reasons.