There's No Such Thing as an "American" Homicide Rate

[Keith and stuff]

There's No Such Thing as an "American" Homicide Rate
11/09/2017
Ryan McMaken
https://mises.org/wire/theres-no-such-thing-american-homicide-rate

In September, the FBI released new homicide data, and the overall US homicide rate rose for the second year to an eight-year high.

According to the report, the nationwide homicide rate in the US in 2016 was 5.3 per 100,000, up from 2015's rate of 4.9.

The homicide rate in 2014 — 4.4 per 100,000 — had been a 51-year low, and comparable to rates not seen since the 1950s.

Homicide rates still remain well below where they were in the 1980s and 1990s, when homicide rates sometimes exceeded 9 per 100,000.

When it comes to making any serious analysis, however, nationwide homicide rates for a place as large as the United States are next to useless. When we look at numbers on a state-by-state basis, we find that homicide rates vary from 1.3 per 100,000 in New Hampshire to 11.8 per 100,000 in Louisiana.

To offer some additional context, I've included rates from Canadian provinces (using Canada's 2015 stats) side by side with US states:

New Hampshire has the lowest rate in the United States, as usual. New Hampshire also has the most pro-liberty weapons laws in the Americas. The states that are near NH have the lowest rates in the nation. The same is true for the Canadian provinces that are near NH. So while it is true that NH has the best weapons laws in the developed world, there is more at play than freedom when it comes to homicide rate.

There are clear regional differences in many cases. States in the far north and far northeast of the United States report very low homicide rates while certain homicide "hotspots" apparently in Missouri, Maryland, Illinois, and the deep South are driving up US rates.

These details emphasize the mistake of speaking of the nationwide US homicide rate as if it were in anyway descriptive of any single trend or legislative reality in the US.

We often hear about homicides are rampant in "America" — presumably caused by high levels of private gun ownership — but any serious look at the numbers forces us to refine our question and instead ask why some parts of the US have some of the lowest homicide rates on earth, while the situation in other areas is considerably different.
What Are the Important Factors in Homicides?

Some places largely free of gun restrictions — like the Dakotas, Utah, Idaho, Minnesota, Vermont, and New Hampshire — have very low homicide rates. But other places with similar or more restrictive laws — such as Missouri, California, and most of Latin America — have much higher rates. Obviously, homicide rates are not simply a function of gun laws.

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https://mises.org/wire/theres-no-such-thing-american-homicide-rate