Another US school shooting

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by TarJak

Japan? Culture has more to do with it than numbers IMHO.

http://www.nationmaster.com/compare/...d-States/Crime

Or more telling

http://www.nationmaster.com/compare/...ia/Japan/Crime
Note the assault ans firearm murder stats.

The problem i see with those links is the simple logic. If you cram more people in a given area, your going to see more of just about everything. In other words an area with 10,000 people, is going to see more crime then an area with 1000 people. More people, equates to more problems because as you increase people your probability increases as well.

Looking up the 2010 demographics really quickly:
Japan has a total population of 128,057,352
United States has a total population of 308,745,531
In other words as of 2010, there are 180,688,179 more people living in the US then in Japan. So of course the first link is going to say, whatever is X percent more then japan.

Comparatively, grabbing the latest statistics for Japan and Australia (no 2010 stats to match):

Australia's total population is estimated at 23,248,742. (I find this hard to believe)
Japans total population is estimated at 126,659,683.
Going by these statistics, Japan has 103,410,941 more people crammed within its borders then Australia. So of course some stats on japan will be higher.

I think statistics like these are only telling if you have a smaller population with a greater incidence of whatever it is being looked at.
edit 1: or vice versa

edit 2: As for firearm murder stats, I have to wonder, is being murdered when your assaliant used a gun somehow more horrible then being murdered by any other means? Stabbing, strangulation, baseball bat to the head? I'd say regardless of weapon used, murder is murder.