Oh, so I'm the Sociologist now? :)
The US leads the world in plenty of other kinds of crime -- say, "corporate crime" or maybe even "international war crimes" -- and no one goes looking into the briefcases of 150+ Million people for the "obvious" answers.
So maybe I'll start with what I don't attribute it to:
- Fantastically large numbers of gun owners
5-or-6-sigmas worth who will never commit a violent crime - Fantastically large numbers of guns
6-or-7-sigmas worth which will never be used in a violent crime
The question people should be asking is: if everything I think about guns and violence is true, why isn't the US _totally fucking awash_ in murder, like on the order of 1:100/yr rather than 1:100,000/year?
> Mind you, I'm not speaking from an anti-gun agenda
I wish you were speaking from an "I'm an attorney who has seen what violent criminals are, and they aren't like you and me or the vast majority of the nearly 300 MILLION people in the US; and incidentally, the average gun owner with the average gun IS like you and me" ... because none of this is "about" guns, or "about" an "anti-gun agenda" -- it's about violent crime. And yes, the US is awash in violent crime: the headline of this thread even says it's up (though quite a bit lower than it was 40 years ago)! And a very small part of it is homicide, and about half of that is murder, and about 2/3 of that very small number is gun murder.
But it's the thing that everyone points to, and they sometimes even pronounce it to be Sociology. Well, fooey.
> Nonetheless it is an interesting sociological question
> why the per capita gun homicide rate in this country
> is so high.
I don't think it's an interesting question of any sort; it seems to me that it's merely a footnote in the question about violent crime. Which is where this thread started but (as usual) couldn't stay.
> On the other hand, probably most murders involve domestic
> conflicts and the household revolver or automatic
> pistol, in which case it might as well be a Colt .45
> Peacemaker circa 1880.
Why do you say 'probably' ...? Most murder in the US happens during the comission of a violent crime. By violent criminals. People make the mistake of hearing that many murderers know their victim and think it must be two drunk idiots -- one of which would be alive today, the other of which wouldn't be in prison today -- if there just wasn't a gun in the house.
Well, I don't know a lot about 'interesting sociological questions' but I know that there are a lot of drunk idiot relationships in the US tonight that have guns nearby that will result in two hangovers and another round tomorrow night and zero gun play.
It's absurd to believe that access to a gun makes you a criminal or induces criminality any more than having access to a TV makes you a pornographer.