healthmyths
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- Sep 19, 2011
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In his book, Frontier Violence: Another Look, author W. Eugene Hollon, provides us with these astonishing facts:
In Abilene, Ellsworth, Wichita, Dodge City, and Caldwell, for the years from 1870 to 1885, there were only 45 total homicides.
This equates to a rate of approximately 1 murder per 100,000 residents per year.
In Abilene, supposedly one of the wildest of the cow towns, not a single person was killed in 1869 or 1870.
Zooming forward over a century to 2007, a quick look at Uniform Crime Report statistics as shown in Table 6,
shows the following regarding the aforementioned gun control paradise cities of the east and our home town:
Chicago - Obama's home town..516 HOMICIDES IN CHICAGO AS OF Dec. 16, 2012 most from guns!
DC 183 Murders (31 per 100,000 residents)
New York 496 Murders (6 per 100,000 residents)
Baltimore 282 Murders (45 per 100,000 residents)
Newark 104 Murders (37 per 100,000 residents)
San Antonio - 122 Murders (9.3 per 100,000 residents)
It doesnt take an advanced degree in statistics to see that a return to wild west levels of violent crime would be a huge improvement for the residents of these cities.
Death Toll in the Old West from firearms vs the unarmed East!
As with Dodge City, the excitement in the Old West in general has been much overstated. All the big cattle towns of Kansas combined saw a total of 45 murders during the period of 1870-1885. Dodge City alone saw 15 people die violently from 18761885an average of 1.5 per year. Deadwood, South Dakota and Tombstone, Arizona (home of the O.K. Corral), during their worst years of violence saw four and five murders respectively. Vigilante violence appears to not have been much worse.
According to Dykstra and Richard M. Brown, while the Kansas code gave mayors the power to call a vigilante group from all the men in the town who ranged in ages from 1850, it seems, at least in Kansas, that it was rarely done. In a span of 38 years, Kansas had only 19 vigilante movements that accounted for 18 deaths. In addition, between 1876 and 1886, no one was lynched or hanged illegally in Dodge City.
The American West: A Heritage of Peace - Ryan McMaken - Mises Daily
That's a bit disingenuous to compare major urban cities of the 21st century with tiny, rural towns on the 19th century. Of COURSE you'll find more murders today and it has nothing to do with gun control.
Let's compare those cities you cited from back then with today:
Wichita, KS---In 1870, when the city was incorporated, the population was 600. Today, it's about 400,000. In 2010, they recorded 16 murders. 25 in '09 and 30 in '08. As you can see, the murder rate has fallen considerably in just 2 years.
Dodge City, Ks--Population 28,000. There were no murders in Abilene in 2010, 3 in 2008 and 2 in 2007. 2009 was unavailable.
Ellsworth, KS--Population 3100. They have not had a murder since 2002.
Abilene, KS--Population 6800. They did not record a murder in '08,'09 or 2010.
Caldwell, KS--Population just over 1000. They have not recorded a murder in at least 10 years.
Now...what was that case you were trying to make?
A) Abilene TX population 117,063 according to the 2010 Murder and Manslaughter 4
B) FYI... Chicago,DC,NY,Baltimore,Newark, ARE NOT considered part of the Wild West..But are cities with the strictest gun control laws today!
C) Not ONE of the murders in Chicago,DC,NY,Baltimore,Newark, were because the GUN went off BY ITSELF... I know that seems to be evident..
But that is a FACT. A person had to break the laws to get a gun, break the laws to fire a gun and break laws in killing someone!
A Person did it... NOT the gun!
D) Another cliche but still IS true... "outlaw guns and only outlaws have the guns"!
It is NOT MORE GUN laws, it is how can mentally ill people potential mass murderers be identified and eliminated!
That's what should happen!