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Mass killings such as the one in Aurora, Colorado, are rare but horrible. They take place against a background of a declining U.S. overall murder rate and a declining U.S. violent crime rate. And the frequency of mass killings in the United States appears to have passed its peak.
Now I agree that statistics are no consolation if you or someone you love is a murder victim, and I know there are neighborhoods and communities in the United States where violence is a clear and ever-present danger. But average middle-class Americans are less in danger of violent crime than they’ve ever been.
Click on The Declining Culture of Guns and Violence in the United States on the Monkey Cage web site for the statistics on the declining murder and violent crime rate.
Click on Horrifying But Rare for an article on rampage killings by Grant Duwe, director of research for the Minnesota Department of Corrections and author of Mass Murder in the United States: a History.
Tags: Declining Murder Rate, Declining Violent Crime Rate, Fear of Violent Crime, Murder, Trend in Murder Rate, Trend in Violent Crime Rate, Violent crime
July 23, 2012 at 9:05 am |
I wonder if the 2030’s will be like the 1950’s? They say time and culture is cyclical. It will be interesting to see.
December 19, 2012 at 11:12 pm |
[…] have ever touched a video game. In fact, as video games get more violent and more realistic, the violent crime and homicide rates continue to decline. Video games and movies fail to explain tragedies like this because they simply are not a part of […]
December 21, 2012 at 7:48 am |
[…] Mass murders are declining in frequency. Overall violent crime is on the decline. Our culture sucks no doubt, but that does not appear to be directly attributing to our current situation. I dislike this argument because I think that blaming video games and movies is as idiotic as blaming guns. It takes a deranged and disturbed person to take what he sees in video games and movies and apply that to life. People have been murdering since the dawn of time. We aren't so hideous a culture that we can credit ourselves for the evils of men. It takes evil men to do evil things. You can't manufacture that. This kind of argument distracts from the immediate issue which is one of rights. Please, everyone stop trying to make it more than that. We have all the facts we need to win on that battleground. Let's win this one, then we can worry about the rest. […]