Heritage as Hate

Today we are going to take a break from statistics and talk about history.

For those of you who don't know, I am from South Carolina. Unfortunately, my state has once again found itself in the spotlight, and as any Southerner knows, spotlights draw out the bugs. Well, a couple of those bugs have bit me in sensitive areas, so now I gotta scratch:

"The Confederate Battle Flag is about Heritage not Hate!"

Except the heritage IS hate. Absolutely NOTHING about the CSA, the Army of Northern Virginia, or any other aspect of that flag's abominable history is about anything other than hate. I honestly don't know if any of my ancestors died in that war, because I have always been too embarrassed and afraid to ask. I don't know how I would deal with that black mark on my family's name.

Is there anyone today who would say that the descendants of SS troops, concentration camp guards, the "Young Turks" of the 1920's, or any other government group that was actively enslaving and killing human beings based on their race should be "proud" of that part of their heritage? Or should they rightly condemn that heritage, acknowledge it for the evil that it was, admit that their ancestors died defending evil, and work towards ensuring that racist, genocidal evil is never allowed to take root in their homelands again?

The only legitimate place for the symbols of hatred are in museum displays that fully articulate that what the symbol stands for was wrong. Tell why it was wrong, tell why it was allowed to happen, and explain why we can not condone the actions, the symbols of the actors, and the ideology behind the symbols themselves.

"The Civil War was about States Rights, not Slavery!"

Umm..ok...partial credit on this one. The Civil War was indeed about States' Rights. However, the only rights that any of the Southern States cared about were the rights to keep slaves and the right to pursue fugitive slaves into states that did not allow for slavery.

South Carolina Declaration of Causes of Secession 

The link above goes to the entire document that was drafted and approved by the SC Convention on Secession in April, 1860.

Here are some choice quotes for you:

" ...all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. "

 "This sectional combination for the subversion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons, who, by the Supreme Law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its peace and safety."

"The Guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy."

No where in that document does it mention any other "right". It repeatedly decries the efforts of those in the Free States to increase the freedoms held by free blacks to include the rights to vote and own property.


This is the real history of that flag. This is the real reason for the Civil War. Why are so many Southerners struggling to hold onto a past that never was? Scarlet O'Hara was never real. There were no good slave owners. The African-Americans who served the Confederate Army were almost all slave laborers, or camp aides for their masters.

"Way down yonder in the Land of Cotton, Lord how times have changed,
But I wonder if the truth is marching on.

It's hard to be a Southern man and learn your history,
Cause it comes back and hits you close to home."
- Corey Smith "Goodbye Dixie"

It is time, way past time, really, that we admit what happened 150 years ago in America. It's time we admit that symbols have meanings, otherwise they wouldn't be symbols. It's time to go to work and change what the perception of being "Southern" means.

It's time to take that flag down.

Ignorance is No Excuse for a Law

(h/t Tam for the title of this post)


At first I didn't want to make this post. I have railed many times against using atrocities to further agendas and feel like by answering those that would, I give credence to their tactics.

However, there has been much talk of the "rise" in violent crime in this country as well as the tools and means of committing those crimes, so I thought it was a good idea to go back to the facts.

Table 7 - Violent Crime Offense Analysis
(I have edited this table from its original to remove sub-classifications of offense. The break-down of the data was not relevant, as I am focusing on total offenses.)

Contrary to what we are being told, ALL forms of violent crime in this country are on the decline, not the rise.

Table 7
Offense Analysis
United States, 2009–2013
Classification	2009	2010	2011	20121	2013
Murder	15,399	14,722	14,661	14,856	14,196
Rape (revised definition)2					108,612
Rape (legacy definition)3	89,241	85,593	84,175	85,141	79,770
Robbery:	408,742	369,089	354,746	355,051	345,031
Burglary:	2,203,313	2,168,459	2,185,140	2,109,932	1,928,465
Larceny-theft (except motor vehicle theft):	6,338,095	6,204,601	6,151,095	6,168,874	6,004,453
Motor vehicle theft	795,652	739,565	716,508	723,186	699,594

Table 8 - Expanded Homicide Data

No real surprise here. Firearms are the most used weapon during the commission of a homicide. However, it is worth noting that, similar to overall violent crime, the use of firearms to commit homicide is on the decline.

Expanded Homicide Data Table 8
Murder Victims
by Weapon, 2009–2013
Weapons	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013
Total	13,752	13,164	12,795	12,888	12,253
Total firearms:	9,199	8,874	8,653	8,897	8,454
Handguns	6,501	6,115	6,251	6,404	5,782
Rifles	351	367	332	298	285
Shotguns	423	366	362	310	308
Other guns	96	93	97	116	123
Firearms, type not stated	1,828	1,933	1,611	1,769	1,956
Knives or cutting instruments	1,836	1,732	1,716	1,604	1,490
Blunt objects (clubs, hammers, etc.)	623	549	502	522	428
Personal weapons (hands, fists, feet, etc.)1	817	769	751	707	687
Poison	7	11	5	13	11
Explosives	2	4	6	8	2
Fire	98	78	76	87	94
Narcotics	52	45	33	38	53
Drowning	8	10	15	14	4
Strangulation	122	122	88	90	85
Asphyxiation	84	98	92	106	95
Other weapons or weapons not stated	904	872	858	802	850

So, since firearms are the most used weapon in homicide, stricter gun laws must be the answer, right?

From BradyCampaign.org, the states with the strictest gun laws are (From most strict, to most loose):

1.     CALIFORNIA
2.     CONNECTICUT
3.     NEW JERSEY
4.     MARYLAND
5.     NEW YORK
6.     MASSACHUSETTS
7.     HAWAII
8.     ILLINOIS
9.     RHODE ISLAND
10.     DELAWARE

The states with the loosest gun laws are (from most loose to most strict):

1.     ARIZONA
2.     ALASKA
3.     WYOMING
4.     SOUTH DAKOTA
5.     VERMONT
6.     MISSISSIPPI
7.     KANSAS
8.     KENTUCKY
9.     MONTANA
10.     UTAH

Now, let's take a look at Homicide data by state:

Table 20 - Murder by State, Types of Weapons, 2013
(I have edited the following tables to show only the states that I am focusing on and to add simple calculations on the data. The link above is to the original table for verification.)


Most Strict 10

Total homicides: 3906, Total with Firearm as the weapon: 2704, Percentage of homicide with weapon: 69.23%

Table 20
Murder
by State, Types of Weapons, 2013
State	Total murders1	Total firearms	Handguns	Rifles	Shotguns	Firearms (type unknown)	Knives or cutting instruments	Other weapons	Hands, fists, feet, etc.2
California	1,745	1,224	805	29	48	342	238	191	92
Connecticut	86	60	34	0	0	26	12	5	9
Delaware	39	33	22	1	0	10	4	2	0
Hawaii	9	6	1	2	2	1	2	1	0
Illinois3	433	364	352	3	2	7	41	19	9
Maryland	379	268	263	0	4	1	57	29	25
Massachusetts	135	78	35	2	0	41	25	25	7
New Jersey	401	291	229	0	2	60	53	37	20
New York	648	362	290	4	19	49	136	113	37
Rhode Island	31	18	3	0	1	14	5	6	2
Totals	3906	2704	69.23%

Least Strict 10

Total homicides: 857, Total with Firearm as the weapon: 552, Percentage of homicide with weapon: 64.41%

Table 20
Murder
by State, Types of Weapons, 2013
State	Total murders1	Total firearms	Handguns	Rifles	Shotguns	Firearms (type unknown)	Knives or cutting instruments	Other weapons	Hands, fists, feet, etc.2
Alaska	34	12	5	3	1	3	5	13	4
Arizona	304	184	133	11	11	29	56	55	9
Kansas	112	78	39	9	5	25	8	16	10
Kentucky	165	111	82	10	6	13	23	22	9
Mississippi	142	110	80	3	8	19	9	14	9
Montana	15	9	5	0	1	3	3	2	1
South Dakota	12	3	0	0	1	2	1	4	4
Utah	49	31	25	2	1	3	6	7	5
Vermont	9	5	1	2	1	1	0	1	3
Wyoming	15	9	6	3	0	0	2	4	0
	857	552	64.41%

Now the first thing I noticed was the fact that the overall number of homicides in the less strict states is much, much lower that the number of homicides in the more strict states.

AHA!! Less strict gun laws = Less murder!!!

Umm...no. That's not the way this works. The states with the most strict gun laws also happen to be the most dense in population. More people = more criminals = more murder. No big surprise there.

The surprise, for me, was the percentage of murders that were committed with firearms. The states with the more strict gun laws was ~5%  higher for murders committed with firearms than the states with the less strict gun laws. The conclusion I draw from that is that gun laws have either no bearing or a negative bearing on the amount of murders committed with firearms.

Again, the "narrative" is that violent gun crime is on the rise in this country and the only thing that will fix it is stricter gun laws. The numbers do NOT support this. If anything, they show the exact opposite. Crime is down, and "stricter gun laws", as defined by the most anti-gun group in our country, appear to have no effect on the percentage of murders committed with guns.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

First of all, let me say this:

It took a lot to get me back to blogging. I normally keep my opinions to myself and a select few friends who I can have intelligent conversations with, and who can debate with me without it going to personal attacks and / or name calling. I don't know how long I will keep posting, what my content will be, or even what I am trying to accomplish (if anything). 

Now, on to the show.


In the last few months we, as a nation, have been bombarded with commentaries, editorials, and news stories about the relationship between law, violence, and race in this country. We have been presented with graphics, statistics, and think tank outputs that were designed to further one agenda or another.

Here is the raw data from the FBI Uniform Crime reports in 2013 (Last year that data is available for)



Table 43 - Arrests by Race 2013

From this table it is clear that those criminals identified as white lead the number of arrests in all categories except for two: Robbery and Murder/Non-negligent Homicide. Whites lead the number of total arrests with 68.9% of total arrests for all violations, with Black or African American at 28.2% of total arrests.

Table 43A
Arrests
by Race, 2013
[11,951 agencies; 2013 estimated population 245,741,701]
Offense charged	Total arrests
	Race
	Total	White	Black or African American	American Indian or Alaska Native	Asian	Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
TOTAL	9,014,635	6,214,197	2,549,655	140,290	105,109	5,384
Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter	8,383	3,799	4,379	98	101	6
Rape3	13,515	8,946	4,229	160	173	7
Robbery	78,538	32,945	44,271	579	649	94
Aggravated assault	291,031	183,092	98,748	4,356	4,423	412
Burglary	203,089	136,990	61,709	1,966	2,196	228
Larceny-theft	990,936	677,173	284,358	16,402	12,605	398
Motor vehicle theft	52,307	34,864	15,960	685	725	73
Arson	8,364	6,198	1,925	130	107	4
Violent crime4	391,467	228,782	151,627	5,193	5,346	519
Property crime4	1,254,696	855,225	363,952	19,183	15,633	703
Other assaults	881,086	573,546	283,357	14,041	9,717	425
Forgery and counterfeiting	48,581	31,208	16,375	288	677	33
Fraud	112,920	74,682	35,958	1,145	1,094	41
Embezzlement	12,574	7,882	4,386	87	207	12
Stolen property; buying, receiving, possessing	74,541	50,237	22,687	684	862	71
Vandalism	161,078	113,842	42,566	2,951	1,638	81
Weapons; carrying, possessing, etc.	112,228	65,317	44,671	888	1,251	101
Prostitution and commercialized vice	41,946	22,666	17,378	386	1,492	24
Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution)	46,553	33,695	11,462	622	744	30
Drug abuse violations	1,204,162	815,181	365,785	9,408	12,930	858
Gambling	5,055	1,433	3,362	27	226	7
Offenses against the family and children	78,465	51,017	25,519	1,414	511	4
Driving under the influence	910,470	766,440	113,928	12,575	16,831	696
Liquor laws	277,444	222,201	40,665	10,861	3,672	45
Drunkenness	356,427	288,146	56,885	7,399	3,550	447
Disorderly conduct	372,202	231,604	129,782	7,982	2,775	59
Vagrancy	21,354	13,732	6,802	581	222	17
All other offenses (except traffic)	2,602,939	1,741,855	790,854	43,953	25,090	1,187
Suspicion	825	499	303	12	11	0
Curfew and loitering law violations	47,622	25,007	21,351	610	630	24

Table 6 - Expanded Homicide Data Murder

This table shows that murder is largely divided along racial and gender lines. 83.4% of Whites murdered were murdered by Whites, 90.1% of Blacks or African Americans were murdered by Blacks or African Americans.

When a White Offender killed a White victim, 94.2% of the time, the offender was male. When a Black Offender killed a Black Victim, 98.7% of the time the offender was male.

Expanded Homicide Data Table 6
Murder
Race, Ethnicity, and Sex of Victim by Race, Ethnicity, and Sex of Offender, 2013
[Single victim/single offender]
Race of victim	Total	Race of offender				Sex of offender
		White	Black or African American	Other1	Unknown	Male	Female	Unknown
White	3,005	2,509	409	49	38	2,661	306	38
Black or African American	2,491	189	2,245	20	37	2,217	237	37
Other race2	159	32	27	96	4	142	13	4
Unknown race	68	25	17	3	23	38	7	23

Whew. That was a lot of data. So, what does this mean?

Well...to me it shows that at least two of the narratives being pushed on News Media are flawed.

At the Law ENFORCEMENT level, there are far more arrests of White criminals than there are of Black/African American criminals. An analysis of the Judicial level (arrest to conviction, severity of sentence upon conviction, etc.) is outside the scope of this post, and bears looking into at a later date. We have been told that officers are more likely to arrest minorities, but the data does not bear this out.

We have also been told White on Black homicide (and from some sources, vice versa) is a larger issue than inter-racial homicide. This is also glaringly false. In an overwhelming number of cases, we have males of the same race killing each other.

I am not posting this to further any agenda other than the interpretation of raw data vs. force fed statistics. I have not done any reformatting, additions, or subtractions to the actual tables from the FBI, and have only done simple math to arrive at my percentages. The links above each table go to the full tables on FBI.gov, and you are welcome to check my math.

I truly believe that we can not move ahead in this country until we get back to an informed public. The person responsible for the quote in the title of this post also famously said:

“If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed.”

 I am of the opinion that this holds double weight in an age of 24-hr news channels, social media, and echo chamber think tanks. Check the facts for yourself. When presented with a chopped-up, over-processed graphic, find out where it came from. Find out WHY they made that graphic or offered a percentage without giving the numbers they started with. Find out who is funding them. Do your own research before you jump into an argument that has implications you don't fully understand.

Before you like, share, retweet, +1, thumbs up, or give gold, make sure you understand what agenda you are furthering.