Gun control, homicide rates not linked: study
Criminal record checks, 28-day waiting periods, the long-gun registry: none has done anything to stem Canadian firearm homicide rates, according to a new study by an emergency-medicine academic.
“No significant beneficial associations between firearms legislation and homicide or spousal homicide rates were found,” reads the abstract on the study, written by Caillin Langmann, a resident in the division of emergency medicine at McMaster University, and himself a vocal foe of gun-control measures who has argued instead for enhanced social programs to combat the causes of gun violence.
To be published in an upcoming issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Interpersonal Violence, the study took Statistics Canada data on Canadian firearm homicides and compared them to three key pieces of Canadian firearms legislation.
The three pieces of legislation were the 1995 long-gun registry, a 1977 bill that imposed a requirement for criminal records checks and a 1991 bill that imposed mandatory safety training and a 28-day waiting period on firearms purchases.
Canada’s firearm homicide rate has been in free fall since the 1970s. In 1974, 273 Canadians were murdered with a gun. In 2008, despite having a higher population, guns killed 200 Canadians. Even in the past 15 years, homicides-by-rifle have dropped by 50% and firearm homicides against women have dropped 30% — as opposed to a 16% decline in general female murders.
But Dr. Langmann’s study attributes Canada’s drop in gun crimes to a richer, older population — rather than any particular piece of gun control. “If people are poorer and there’s less income equality, those are more likely to be associated with an increase in homicides by firearm,” said Dr. Langmann.
His analysis factored in other variables “associated with criminality,” such as unemployment, incarceration rates, income equality and the population attributed to immigration. The study also factored in the rate of non-firearms homicide rates and allowed multi-year delays for firearms legislation to take effect.
The team then ran the data through three methods of statistical analysis including Joinpoint, a software program often used to probe the success of cancer interventions.
All three methods of analysis, wrote Dr. Langmann, “failed to definitively demonstrate an association between firearms legislation and homicide between 1974 and 2008.”
“We have the same numbers … and we’ve found the opposite,” said Amelie Baillargeon, communications coordinator for the Coalition for Gun Control.
A Université de Montrèal study published January in the Canadian Journal of Criminology and Justice similarly examined Canadian firearms homicide rates since 1974. The study also factored in external influences such as immigrant populations, the proportion of young men between the ages of 15 and 24 and the per-capita consumption of beer. That study, however, found that Canadian gun legislation was responsible for 5% to 10% drops in firearms homicides.
Notably, Mr. Langmann’s study also does not cover suicide, which accounts for nearly three-quarters of all firearms-related deaths in Canada. Last year, a Quebec Institute of Health study also using Joinpoint analysis found that male suicide rates declined notably following the introduction of firearms legislation.
Ms. Baillargeon also noted Dr. Langmann’s history of advocating against gun legislation. In 2010, he took a stand against a Canadian Association of Emergency Room Physicians resolution in support of the registry. “The gun registry has hurt and killed people,” wrote Dr. Langmann in a widely circulated May 2010 letter.
Dr. Langmann’s Facebook page also notes his membership in the online groups for the National Rifle Association and “Against the Gun Registry.”
The precise effects of firearms legislation can be difficult to quantify. For instance, studies to examine whether Bill C-51, requiring a criminal records check, had any effect on suicides have produced wildly different results. Early studies showed no effect. A 1993 study from the New Jersey-based Centre for the Study of Suicide found that “restricting easy access to lethal methods of suicide may assist in reducing suicide.” A study from Toronto, meanwhile, found that in the wake of C-51 suicidal individuals had found other, non-firearm ways of killing themselves.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/10/05/gun-control-homicide-rates-not-linked-study/
This is a big deal for a lot of reasons, but is just a notch in our demise
Census: Housing bust worst since Great Depression
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The American dream of homeownership has felt its biggest drop since the Great Depression, according to new 2010 census figures released Thursday.
The analysis by the Census Bureau found the homeownership rate fell to 65.1 percent last year. While that level remains the second highest decennial rate, analysts say the U.S. may never return to its mid-decade housing boom peak in which nearly 70 percent of occupied households were owned by their residents.
The reason: a longer-term economic reality of tighter credit, prolonged job losses and reduced government involvement.
Unemployed young adults are least likely to own, delaying first-time home purchases to live with Mom and Dad. Middle-aged adults 35-64, mostly homeowners who were hit with mortgage foreclosures or bankruptcy after the housing bust in 2006, are at their lowest levels of ownership in decades.
Measured by race, the homeownership gap between whites and blacks is now at its widest since 1960, wiping out more than 40 years of gains.
"The changes now taking place are mind-boggling: the housing market has completely crashed and attitudes toward housing are shifting from owning to renting," said Patrick Newport, economist with IHS Global Insight. "While 10 years ago owning a home was the American Dream, I'm not sure a lot of people still think that way."
He noted the now-diminished roles of mortgage buyers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which for decades at the urging of government helped enable loans to borrowers with poor credit, many of them minorities. In a shift, the Obama administration earlier this year said it would move from a longtime government focus on promoting homeownership for all and instead steer people with low incomes toward renting where appropriate.
Congress has been considering whether to eliminate the federal tax deduction for home-mortgage interest, a popular incentive to home-buying that's been in place since the early 20th century.
Given depressed housing values that could continue for at least another four to five years, it now makes more sense in most cases to rent than own, Newport said.
Nationwide, the homeownership rate fell to 65.1 percent - or 76 million occupied housing units that were owned by their residents - from 66.2 percent in 2000. That drop-off of 1.1 percentage points is the largest since 1940, when homeownership plummeted 4.2 percentage points during the Great Depression to a low of 43.6 percent.
Since 1940, the number of Americans owning homes had steadily increased in each decennial census due to a mostly booming economy, favorable tax laws and easier financing. The one exception had been 1980-1990, when ownership remained unchanged at 64.2 percent.
Broken down by state, 41 states saw declines in home ownership since 2000, many of them in the South and West where foreclosures were more common. They were led by South Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi and North Carolina. On the other end of the scale, states with higher shares of vacation homes owned by affluent baby boomers saw small increases in ownership, including New Hampshire, Hawaii, Alaska and Vermont.
The U.S. housing crisis is far worse than the experience in most Western industrialized nations, which, unlike the U.S., did not foster markets of subprime lending to promote homeownership. The U.S. continues to maintain a relatively high rate of homeownership, surpassed only by countries such as Spain, Ireland, Australia and England.
"In the U.S., there's still a strong cultural pull toward homeownership, because in normal times it's always been seen as a way to build net worth and equity," said Dan McCue, research manager at Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies. But with many former homeowners now renting, he said, clearly that dynamic has changed: "It puts a renewed focus on rentals, and on ways to create new opportunities for low-income households to build their wealth."
Blacks, who as a whole have lower income and higher unemployment than other groups, were particularly set back by the housing bust. Their homeownership rate fell from 46.3 percent in 2000 to 44.3 percent; among whites, the rate dipped slightly from 72.4 percent to 72.2 percent. Whites are now on average 1.63 times more likely than blacks to own a home, the widest gap since 1960.
Among all minorities, homeownership in the U.S. rose slightly over the past decade to 48 percent from 47.4 percent, boosted by more home buying among the younger and larger Hispanic population. Hispanic homeownership increased from 45.7 percent to 47.3 percent.
In all, nearly 44 percent of all renters in the U.S. are minorities, compared with only 22 percent of homeowners. Broken down by state, minorities make up more than half of all renters in 10 states and the District of Columbia, up from 6 in 2000 - with the new states being New York, New Jersey, Mississippi, Louisiana and New Mexico.
"There is no doubt that a large part of the white-minority economic divide is reflected in the disproportionate minority representation among the nation's renters," said William H. Frey, a demographer at Brookings Institution, who analyzed the race data. "The recent financial crises, including large numbers of subprime loans to African Americans, has dramatically widened the white-black homeownership disparity."
Other census findings:
-Homeownership rates decreased in each region of the country over the last decade. Midwesterners were most likely to own a house, at 69.2 percent, followed by Southerners at 66.7 percent, Northeasterners at 62.2 percent and Westerners at 60.5 percent.
-For the fourth census in a row, West Virginia had the highest homeownership rate, at 73.4 percent. The District of Columbia, with its high share of single twenty- and thirty-somethings who rent, had the lowest at 42 percent.
-While homeowners were the majority in most of the nation's metropolitan areas, they were outnumbered by renters in many of the nation's largest cities. They included New York City, where renters made up 69 percent of households, Los Angeles at 61.8 percent, Chicago at 55.1 percent and Houston at 54.6 percent.
By age, the highest ownership rate nationwide is for those 65 and older, about 77.5 percent. Older Americans are more likely to own their homes debt-free and thus be less exposed to the foreclosure crisis. Still, their homeownership rate is down slightly from a 2000 peak of 78.1 percent.
Among adults 34 and younger, homeownership was nearly 40 percent, the highest since the mid-1990s. For adults in the 35-44, 45-54 and 55-64 age groups, homeownership rates fell to their lowest since at least 1980.
Peter Francese, founder of American Demographics magazine who is now analyst for the MetLife Mature Market Institute, believes Americans aren't completely giving up on homeownership. He noted millions of young adults are delaying home-buying while they temporarily double-up with their parents, representing pent-up demand for houses that will surface once the job market begins to recover.
---
Online:
http://www.census.gov
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CENSUS_HOUSING?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-10-06-18-07-33
No comments:
Post a Comment