Automated traffic enforcement mostly solved the issues a civilian traffic enforcement program would target. But Americans have a bigger issue making substantive police reform impossible.
I enjoyed this article, and I agree. Though I also see a lot of knee-jerk reactions in my circle about “surveillance state,” that resistance has been weakening alongside the frustration over lawless roads.
Oakland recently did approve some of those cameras, so hopefully that’s moving in the right direction.
Funny enough this week Boulder announced it would be adding speed cameras (that track time between two points, not instant speed) to one of our highways and the backlash is incredible. God forbid we stop cars from going more than 10 mph over the speed limit!!
I think I've come to a similar conclusion about common drivers of police and civilian violence. Where we might differ is you seem to be placing most of the blame on guns whereas I would assign some blame to guns but more to culture or behavior, because the correlation between gun ownership and violence is ultimately not as strong as you might think, see for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country
And compare any of those to homicide rates. You might find some relationship, but again, not a very strong one. There are clearly other factors than guns alone. Fwiw the UK is almost unique in Europe in its limitations on gun ownership.
But back to common drivers, I reached that conclusion by simply plotting the two in a scatterplot, by state, county, nation and demographics. I've never seen anyone else make this simple comparison:
The ratio of civilian killings to police killings in the united states is about 20:1, which is not too far out of line with the rest of the world, and might be distorted a little because in recent years we've begun all sorts of deaths related to policing (traffic accidents, heart attacks in custody, etc...) in our police killing numbers but I'm not so sure the rest of the world counts like that.
But the chart shows the U.S. does lead in handgun ownership at double the count the Switzerland does. And when you consider that chart is just ownership and not the hordes of guns illegally in circulation then its even worse. The US does stand out here in a way I dont think culture explains. Our culture is not that dissimilar to Britons.
I think a part of the difference isn't just ownership, but rates of public carrying. Even if a Swiss person owns a gun, they probably don't try to bring it to the grocery store at the same rate Americans do.
I'll pull out a few examples to compare guns per capita and homicide.
USA: 120 guns per 100 people, Homicide: 6.3 per 100k
Puerto Rico: 11.5 gun per 100 people, Homicide: 15.0 per 100k
US Virgin Islands: 16.6 guns per 100 people, Homicide: 45 per 100k
UK Virgin Islands: 0.8 guns per 100 people, Homicide: 8.3 per 100k
The first 3 are all subject to US laws! But despite way lower gun ownership, they have more homicides than the US mainland. I think this strongly suggests gun ownership can't be the only, and probably isn't the biggest factor.
The last two were just an interesting comparison, and I can't pretend to know that much about the cultural differences, but perhaps the vastly lower (but still fairly high) homicide rate in the British Virgin Islands is due to the UK's gun control? I agree gun control and gun laws are factors, my point is they are far from the only ones, and probably move the needles less than you might think.
And there's barely any correlation suggesting cause and effect. Sure you can cherry-pick examples like New York and Louisiana, but at that point you're no longer following the data.
Really good points about the push back in surveillance complicating things. I don’t know how much this plays into things but I think there might also be a correlation between bad driving and ease of getting access to driving. Both India and the US where I’ve lived driving is violent because there is very little needed to get a vehicle and a license other than the ability to pay. Bad driving is just a part of the culture. More so in india. Scandinavian countries on the other have a much higher bar to getting a license for eg. It’s also it treated as a quasi basic right. Since you were in Japan I wonder how it is there? To me Japan is the Scandinavia of Asia so I suspect more of the rule following type?
Welcome back, and look forward to the backlog!
I enjoyed this article, and I agree. Though I also see a lot of knee-jerk reactions in my circle about “surveillance state,” that resistance has been weakening alongside the frustration over lawless roads.
Oakland recently did approve some of those cameras, so hopefully that’s moving in the right direction.
Welcome back!
Funny enough this week Boulder announced it would be adding speed cameras (that track time between two points, not instant speed) to one of our highways and the backlash is incredible. God forbid we stop cars from going more than 10 mph over the speed limit!!
I think I've come to a similar conclusion about common drivers of police and civilian violence. Where we might differ is you seem to be placing most of the blame on guns whereas I would assign some blame to guns but more to culture or behavior, because the correlation between gun ownership and violence is ultimately not as strong as you might think, see for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent_of_households_with_guns_by_country
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_ownership#/media/File:Map._Percent_of_households_with_guns_by_US_state_in_2016._RAND_Corporation.svg
And compare any of those to homicide rates. You might find some relationship, but again, not a very strong one. There are clearly other factors than guns alone. Fwiw the UK is almost unique in Europe in its limitations on gun ownership.
But back to common drivers, I reached that conclusion by simply plotting the two in a scatterplot, by state, county, nation and demographics. I've never seen anyone else make this simple comparison:
https://theusaindata.pythonanywhere.com/police_killings
The ratio of civilian killings to police killings in the united states is about 20:1, which is not too far out of line with the rest of the world, and might be distorted a little because in recent years we've begun all sorts of deaths related to policing (traffic accidents, heart attacks in custody, etc...) in our police killing numbers but I'm not so sure the rest of the world counts like that.
But the chart shows the U.S. does lead in handgun ownership at double the count the Switzerland does. And when you consider that chart is just ownership and not the hordes of guns illegally in circulation then its even worse. The US does stand out here in a way I dont think culture explains. Our culture is not that dissimilar to Britons.
I think a part of the difference isn't just ownership, but rates of public carrying. Even if a Swiss person owns a gun, they probably don't try to bring it to the grocery store at the same rate Americans do.
Sounds like a cultural difference!
also here's the guns per capita numbers you referenced:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country
I'll pull out a few examples to compare guns per capita and homicide.
USA: 120 guns per 100 people, Homicide: 6.3 per 100k
Puerto Rico: 11.5 gun per 100 people, Homicide: 15.0 per 100k
US Virgin Islands: 16.6 guns per 100 people, Homicide: 45 per 100k
UK Virgin Islands: 0.8 guns per 100 people, Homicide: 8.3 per 100k
The first 3 are all subject to US laws! But despite way lower gun ownership, they have more homicides than the US mainland. I think this strongly suggests gun ownership can't be the only, and probably isn't the biggest factor.
The last two were just an interesting comparison, and I can't pretend to know that much about the cultural differences, but perhaps the vastly lower (but still fairly high) homicide rate in the British Virgin Islands is due to the UK's gun control? I agree gun control and gun laws are factors, my point is they are far from the only ones, and probably move the needles less than you might think.
Double the handgun ownership but 10x the homicide rate.
"Our culture is not that dissimilar to Britons."
If that's true then surely the various US states have cultures that are not particularly dissimilar.
So again, we have this data on gun ownership by state:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_ownership#/media/File:Map._Percent_of_households_with_guns_by_US_state_in_2016._RAND_Corporation.svg
(or a map on gun-friendly laws, if you'd like :https://www.zippia.com/advice/least-gun-friendly-states/ )
and then this chart on homicide rates:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_intentional_homicide_rate#/media/File:Homicide_rates_per_100,000_by_state._FBI._US_map.svg
And there's barely any correlation suggesting cause and effect. Sure you can cherry-pick examples like New York and Louisiana, but at that point you're no longer following the data.
Really good points about the push back in surveillance complicating things. I don’t know how much this plays into things but I think there might also be a correlation between bad driving and ease of getting access to driving. Both India and the US where I’ve lived driving is violent because there is very little needed to get a vehicle and a license other than the ability to pay. Bad driving is just a part of the culture. More so in india. Scandinavian countries on the other have a much higher bar to getting a license for eg. It’s also it treated as a quasi basic right. Since you were in Japan I wonder how it is there? To me Japan is the Scandinavia of Asia so I suspect more of the rule following type?