Author Archives: Guy Smith

Medicated Murderers

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Psychiatric prescribing of psychotropic medications may be contributory to mass public shootings (MPS). Main Takeaways Increased use of psychotropic medications is associated with increased frequency of MPS. Non-psychiatric prescribing of these drugs is not strongly associated with overall MPS frequency. Psychotropic medications are associated with elevated rates of homicide, hence also associated with MPS. Perps receiving medications and psychiatric counseling are strongly associated, indicating mental health professionals are not catching warning signs. Over a quarter of a million at-risk and unmanaged adults are statistically likely to have “hostile” reactions from their drugs. A note about data and correlations Before going into a summary, much less the detailed data, know that this is not a one-problem-fits-all conclusion. There is no singular driver of MPS. What is herein is an exploration of trends in how America is (mis)medicating the population and how it may well contribute to some/many MPS. The data is … Continue reading →

Ranking Redux

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Everytown for Gun Safety is rank. And by that, we mean their state gun control law ranking system is rank(ed at the top of the silliness scale). Takeaways Everytown’s state law ranking system: Is arbitrary, lacking any criminological basis. Shows very little gun violence variability between states based on their gun laws. Omits the most violent district, which has stringent gun laws. Includes suicides, which are inappropriate in such an analysis. Echoing the Brady Campaign The moribund Brady Campaign (or whatever they are calling themselves this week) used to produce a state gun law scorecard every year. It was, in a word, a gun control wish list and nothing more. We keep their last scorecard criteria to reference their arbitrary scoring system for reference and a few laughs (whichever laws they were promoting that year tended get a higher score).

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Culture, Homicides and Violence

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Who is more likely to shoot you, an NRA member or a member of the Crips? The primary difference between these two groups is culture. NRA members tend to be law-and-order types, whereas Crips (or members of any garden variety American street gang) are rather indifferent or openly hostile to laws. It is the adherence to a social norm – in this case, obeying or not obeying the law – that influences one’s probability to act violently, which in tern means using a gun to commit unilateral violence (e.g., not self-defense). We saw this in one study that details the propensity of people in poor and crime-ridden neighborhoods to get and use guns for criminal activities. But what cultural norms influence such behavior? We found a cross-national survey of culture and wanted to see if we could map similarities between nations concerning culture, violence and guns. The Main Take-Aways Gun … Continue reading →

California Con

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There must be an election coming. The current California governor is making presidential maneuvers and the New York Times appears to be propping up his (inaccurate) statements about guns. I lived in that politician’s home turf for 22 years, during his political rise, so I have a deeper than average interest – and knowledge – of what the reality is, and in which alternate reality the politician resides. Main Take-aways California’s gun homicide rate is exactly the national average. Their overall suicide rate is rising, but is 29% lower that national averages, which bends the curve on gun suicide rates. For mass public shootings, California has 17% more incidents and 60% more deaths than the national average. The New York Times agitprop In a rather choice bit of partisan hackery, the New York Times (NYT) makes the following assertions about California and guns.

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Single Parent Gun Violence

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Does not having a father in the home increase the odds of committing a homicide? It appears so, though there are a few factors that complicate things. But leave it to say that fatherless homes might be manufacturing more murders. Major Take-aways Both homicide and firearm homicide rates are well associated with fatherless homes. This matches with nonmarital birth rates by some demographics. A Bit-o-Background Any number of studies have focused on race, urbanization, and poverty as contributing factors to young men murdering. For decades criminologists have noted that the odds of being a murder victim or perpetrator is vastly higher if you are poor, live in a metropolitan area, and are black. Many people openly speculate that part of the puzzle might be the disruption of traditional family structures within the inner cities.

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Permitless Murders

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In August of 2022, half of the states in America will (or did, depending on when you read this) switch to “permitless carry,” which means residents (and, depending on the state, occasionally non-residents) can carry firearms concealed in public and not have to obtain a permit first. Naturally, this scares some people. So, with seven states currently having been permitless long enough for analysis, it’s worth seeing if the fear is warranted. Main Take-Aways Compared to states that made no changes in concealed carry laws, there was no change in homicide rates. When we remove one outlier state, there is a drop in homicides in the permitless states compared to states that made no change. When we eliminate a sparsely populated frontier state, most trends are flat or downward. Comparing Apples and Pineapples Our objective is to see if states switching to permitless carry have a noticeable change in the … Continue reading →

Gang Triangulation

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When it comes to gun violence, it’s tough to beat street gangs. They have made a sport of it. But the spooky question has been, “How much gun violence is gang violence?” Thanks to a little triangulation on our part, we think it is amplissimum. Major Take-aways Gangs likely constitute 85% of firearm homicides in the US. There is a close correlation between metropolitan gang-age homicides and estimates of gang populations by degrees of urbanization. The Data Dearth For all the great scorekeeping the FBI does, when it comes to murder, they have understandable gaps. Every year the FBI reports on the circumstances that led to a homicide, in their Expanded Homicide Tables. There are two rows of data that list what police were absolutely certain were gang related murders.

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Crime Leads Gun Buying

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Which came first, the crime or the guns? Statistically, crime rates appear to precede gun sales … and for some obvious reasons. Main take-aways In 29% of states, there is a significant correlation between firearm homicides and gun sales. In the top half of states, per raw correlations, 85% have firearm homicides preceding gun sales. Lead/lag times of one to three years shows 22–28% of states having crime leading gun sales, and between 6-11% of states having gun sales leading crime. The Basic Debate The basic debate surrounding whether gun sales lead to gun crimes is kinda stupid.

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Mental Breakdown

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“You gotta be crazy to shoot a bunch of strangers dead!” Yes. Crazy and untreated. A deeper dig into the mass public shooting (MPS) database with the most detailed mental health insights reveals that the American mental health system is ailing. High Level Takeaways 68% of MPS perpetrators have mental illness. Of those, 65% of them never received treatment. Of perpetrators who were previously suicidal, only half received treatment. Mood disorder medications have an outsized influence. The Violence Project Database A product of government funding and greater access to medical records, the Violence Project database of MPS has the most complete accounting of the mental health status of MPS perpetrators. Their database starts in 1966 with the legendary University of Texas tower shooting and goes on through early 2020. They also have nearly complete records of the perp’s mental health history, including rarified data such as the perp’s suicidality, their … Continue reading →

Ghost Gun Gong Show

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“Criminals are taking advantage of this loophole to obtain guns that are later used in crimes.” In California, perhaps. Elsewhere “ghost guns” are the “assault weapon” for the new millennium… rarely used, marginally worrisome, and perhaps a byproduct of strict gun control laws. The Summary Data Worst case, 1.7% of crime guns are DIY (e.g., “ghost guns”). But when the top six outlier cities (all in California) are excluded, the rate drops to 1.1%. 34% of agencies recovered no ghost guns. This compares to 8% of crime guns that have no visible serial numbers (obliterated + DIY). California is the primary state having DIY guns in circulation, averaging 8% of crime guns. What We Did to Tally DIY Guns used in crime We sent public records requests to the top 100 police agencies in the United States and asked them to tell us for 2019: How many crime guns were … Continue reading →