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Comment by sportanova | Hacker News Reader

I'm wondering how America went so awry with gun violence. Israel and Switzerland have high rates of firearm possession, but a fraction of the violence. Better training (military)? Less inequality? More homogenous cultures?

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The disparity goes back over 100 years. Even in 1914, a city such as Philadelphia had 10X the homicide rate of London. The best book I have read on the subject is Raymond Fosdick's "Crime in America and the Police" https://archive.org/details/crimeinamericapo00fosd I think the reasons he points out in the 1910's still basically are the same reasons the crime rate are higher today.

Edit: also, the best book I have read on the more modern problem of violence and urban decay in northern American cities is "Devil's Night" by Ze'Ev Chafets http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Night-Other-Detroit-Vintage-ebo...

Interesting, at least the first chapter seems to say that it's due to having a much more diverse population - is that pretty much the tl:dr?

No there is more to it than that.

Israel and Switzerland have dramatically different gun ownership patterns than in the US.

I'm not familiar with the Swiss model, but in Israel:

  - You must have gun license, which are strictly controlled and must be renewed every 3 years[1]

  - You get a one-time supply of 50 bullets, which cannot be replenished[1]

These measures have been effective:

The 2011 attempted assassination of a US representative renewed the national gun control debate. Gun advocates claim mass-casualty events are mitigated and deterred with three policies: (a) permissive gun laws, (b) widespread gun ownership, (c) and encouragement of armed civilians who can intercept shooters. They cite Switzerland and Israel as exemplars. We evaluate these claims with analysis of International Crime Victimization Survey (ICVS) data and translation of laws and original source material. Swiss and Israeli laws limit firearm ownership and require permit renewal one to four times annually. ICVS analysis finds the United States has more firearms per capita and per household than either country. Switzerland and Israel curtail off-duty soldiers' firearm access to prevent firearm deaths. Suicide among soldiers decreased by 40 per cent after the Israeli army's 2006 reforms. Compared with the United States, Switzerland and Israel have lower gun ownership and stricter gun laws, and their policies discourage personal gun ownership.

[1] http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Israeli-gun-control-regul...

[2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22089893

I wonder if most "per capita" assessments in the USA take the "collector effect" into account.

That is, I've never owned a gun. I have a friend who owns something like 15 guns. I don't think it's necessarily accurate to say our gun ownership rate is 7.5. I mean, I think "per capita" almost always means "average (mean)", but I feel like the rate in my example should be 0.5, not 7.5.

There are statistics on % of the population (or households) that own guns, which might be what you're looking for? In your example that would be 50%, as one of the people owns one-or-more guns, and the other owns zero. In the U.S. the ownership rate hovers around 30%, though it varies considerably by state, from a low of 9% (Hawaii) to a high of 60% (Wyoming).

To put it delicately, you'll find that Israelis and Swiss living in the US are not the ones committing the gun violence.

It may have something to do withthe mandatory military service BEFORE getting the gun.

That and most gun issues in the us mostly fall into gang activity or suicide.

It isn't so simple to compare country XYZ to the USA, especially a homogenous society like Switzerland with different military requirements compared to the US with a vastly less analogous population and training.

Very true - I need to find some stats that compare gun violence in countries with gang / suicides excluded or broken out

I have the sneaking suspicion that his comment is not restricted to current or former Israeli and Swiss citizens...

Poverty and lack of access to [mental] healthcare (in the US).

Gun violence is heavily skewed to poor areas; go to a wealthy area and people leave their doors/cars unlocked -- near zero crime.

Now show me a mass shooter that has not had serious, prior mental health problems.

What do other countries do in terms of mental healthcare to prevent these kind of things? Better monitoring and response to early warning signs, and then forcefully committing patients?

America had a movement to "de-institutionalize", that is, to help known mentally ill people adapt and cope with day-to-day life instead of locking them all in asylums. But the funding got cut... so now we have inadequate support and they end up in prisons because there are no asylums. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/12/w...

Interesting - but is that the same tactic that has been successful in other countries, that didn't cut funding?

In case it's useful, I've collected international data on gun ownership, homicide, etc. here

http://lumma.org/econ/Homicide-Guns.xls

I don't know if my anecdote constitutes data, but the first time I went to the US in 1999 I landed at JFK, hired a car, was driving along slowly looking for an entrance to a freeway to Brooklyn. A guy in a convertible pulled out in front of me so close that I had to swerve into the left lane to avoid him, once I passed him I changed back into the right lane so I could use the upcoming freeway entrance, the guy roared past me, swerved back in front of me and jammed his brakes so quickly I barely was able to stop without hitting him. He then sat there in front of me yelling something for about 30 seconds whilst waving a gun in the air. He then took off and I never saw him again.

I'm not sure what that means exactly but I think it indicates a culture of aggression, bullying, anger, self importance, and when coupled with loose gun laws it means lots of guns get fired.

I've lived in the US for over 40 years and never had anything like that happen (and yeah, I've been in NY a few times). 'course, also anecdotal :)

Oh WAIT! It might be because I always have a RPG strapped to my back... ?

Well to be fair the rest of my trip was much less eventful, but there were two other incidents of note.

In Manhattan, whilst watching the cockroaches in my hotel room and perusing the brown paper bag full of porn mags I found behind the bed, I heard someone rattling my door quite loudly so I yelled out 'hey', and he replied 'sorry man, i thought it was my room'.

In Virginia I was driving on a side road that I thought should lead back to the 'blue ridge parkway'. I pulled over to take a piss in the bushes, and whilst pissing I noticed a dead deer with a bullet hole in its neck.

So I've had #1 happen before (the rattling - I have never found a paper bag of p0rn!!!) It was legit - the hotel gave the wrong room number - but in my case, the guys key worked. Startled both of us :)

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