A Minnesota URL asks why I do not post the “race” of killers instead of the homicide rate.
Because no one keeps records that way, so I have no official database to cite. Instead of keeping records of the killers they keep records of the victims. The reasons should be obvious from this chart excerpeted from an FBI Uniform Crime Report:
Since only five out of every eight murders are “cleared by arrest,” trying to keep track of killers by skin color would lead to some really wild errors. So I do not do that. And when you consider that the 2019 FBI UCR lists 4,500 victims as “race unknown, and just over 5,000 “paleface” victims, you can see what a mess using the FBI numbers would be.
I do have a source, behind a $50.00 paywall, that suggests the overall breakdown is 58/42 percent, which would lead to the conclusion that of 16,425 murder victims, 9,525 of those victims were Black. But I cannot vouch for the numbers, have no idea how they were gathered or estimated, and do not have a great deal of confidence in the numbers.
It is worth noting that the bulk of Black murders victims live in areas with very restrictive gun laws. If the story I mentioned is 5.0 per 100,000. If the study is correct, the median homicide rate among the estimated 40.5 million Black Americans is 23 over 1100,000 population.
Yet the overall homicide rate of Mississippi, with its one million plus Black residents is 5.7, only slightly above the national average. But a Black resident can generally buy any gun Federal law will allow, without let or hindrance. But cities such as Chicago, Baltimore, and others with Draconian gun laws have homicide rates far above the rates in venues with relaxed gun laws.
Stranger