The [Austin] City Council passed Resolution 20130228-035 based on concerns about gun violence. The resolution language includes direction to the City Manager to explore methods for collecting data about the use of firearms in the commission of a crime.
In response, the Austin Police Department has compiled data into a report about trends in gun violence. That report is attached for your review. Based on nationwide statistics collected by the FBI, Austin remains one of the safest U.S. cities of our size. This fact is reflected in the comparatively small number of crimes that involve a firearm.
H. A. ACEVEDO
Chief of Police
Austin’s Mayor and City Council are notoriously anti-gun. It doesn’t matter what reason and facts show, they just hate guns (made evident by their past actions both in and out of the council chambers). So they passed a Resolution about “gun violence”, tax dollars were spent, and the findings have been posted.
Basically, it shows that gun violence isn’t much of a problem in Austin.
Let’s see if their own findings will affect their future actions, or if they’ll ignore it and keep riding that horse.
That said, let’s look at some things:
The report disclaims and caveats the data. How different reports run at different times can get different results. That there are numerous cases in APD’s records system that include no weapon data at all. The way various guns are labeled causes a problem (to call a gun “automatic” is problematic, because a lot of older folks refer to semi-automatic guns as “automatics” or “auto-loaders”, but a lot of other people see the term “automatic” and think “fully-automatic”… this is both a statistics and a perception/reporting problem). So, it’s really hard to be certain of the integrity of this data. I’m sure bother sides of the debate will use this fact as a way to discount the study’s data and press on with their agenda.
Regardless, let’s look at the data provided.
The study looked at part 1 violent offenses (murder, attempted murder (aggravated assault), robbery, rape) and disorderly conduct.
Less than 1/4 of these offenses used guns.
Right there’s the money: guns are used in less than 25% of the offenses. That means 75% of the offenses used something else. I know news media and politicians like to make it out like it’s some major catastrophe, but the data isn’t there to back up the hysterics. Oh sure, it would be nice if the number of part 1 violent offenses was 0 (gun or no gun). But the point is, they want to see if “gun violence” is a problem, and it seems the far greater problem is “not-gun violence”.
Handguns are the most commonly used firearm type. Yet, “they” want to ban rifles. I’m not saying they should ban handguns (or rifles or much of anything). But if thinking a ban on X would reduce or eliminate a problem (perceived to be caused by X), shouldn’t you actually ban X instead of Y? and leave Y alone?
There’s a lot of aggravated assault in Austin. You have to remember, that used to be called “attempted murder”. All this means is someone tried to kill you, but didn’t succeed. But you may be injured, maimed, crippled for life. Don’t think it’s something “more friendly” or “more desirable” as far as crimes go. So I don’t know what that says about Austin… that there’s a lot of attempts to kill people, but they don’t succeed. Maybe it’s because the overwhelming majority of them don’t involve a gun? They involve something else… so why don’t we address why assaults are occurring, instead of looking at an object used in the commission of them? Maybe… just maybe… it’s not about guns.
Another fun take-home are the maps showing where most crimes happen. East of I-35; along the I-35 corridor between 71 and the river (esp. the Riverside area), and again around the 183 intersection (esp. the “northwest” quadrant). Read: avoid these places.
All in all, the report is pretty straightforward. It’s mostly a presentation of data, and opinion doesn’t really come until the end conclusions.
First, Austin remains one of the safest cities, if you measure “safe” by “number of violent crimes”. Not an unreasonable measure, but 1. there’s still more than many people would consider acceptable, 2. what about all the other crimes? property crime, burglary, etc. are pretty high.
Crime incidents involving the use of a firearm remain relatively low for the City. As a result, the limited data makes it challenging to formulate effective preventative measures.
Indeeed there’s not a lot of data. They looked at 3 years of data and with “so few murders”, it certainly is hard to formulate a plan.
But maybe that’s just it: maybe there doesn’t need to be a plan.
First, the summary statement above is loaded, because the wording shows they want to formulate effective preventative measures against crimes involving guns. They don’t want to formulate effective preventative measures against crime… no, it’s against guns. But the data shows that there’s just not as much involvement of guns in crimes as the City Council was hoping for, so there’s not much for them to do and go on. Darn the luck, but we’ll keep selectively researching until we get data that backs up our agenda!
Here’s a tip. What the data does show is there’s still a lot of violent crime in Austin. Focus less on the tools used in the crime, and focus more on the crime itself. I don’t see why it matters so much if someone tried to kill me with a knife vs. a gun vs. a car vs. poison vs. their bare hands. Isn’t it enough they tried to kill me? Why don’t we focus on the whole “not killing me” part? Why are we so hung up on HOW people were killed? This isn’t a game of Clue. Instead of being so discriminatory towards certain traits about people, let’s focus on the root issues to really solve the problems.
Stuff From Hsoi 
Good analysis…
The anti gun crowd REFUSE to really look at the data..
They simply don’t “like” guns and are “afraid” of them.
Therefore, they must be banned!
Despite overwhelming data that their stated reasoning for wanting them banned is inherently flawed.
I know I am beating a dead horse so to speak but let’s look at the facts:
Where guns are severely restricted crime is dramatically higher than where guns are readily available to the law abiding citizen.
FACT
“Gun crime” is at a 40 year low according to the US DOJ as reported recently, DESPITE the fact that gun SALES and thus the number of them in the US is at an all time record high! And the dreaded AR15 has seen astronomical sales increases in the last few years.
FACT
It is blatantly obvious that those that don’t like guns don’t think people should have them. Purely an emotional phobia.
And that includes Obama and Holder.
I get why, they came from Chicago, a place where violence and gun (handguns, not rifles) are used to commit murders.
Hmm, I wonder if there is any correlation ?
It’s interesting that the US cities with the strictest anti-gun laws are also the ones with the highest (violent) crime rates. I’m not saying correlation equals causation, but it sure gives you something worth thinking about. For all those that say “see? gun bans work! look at country”, we really should look at our own. What it ultimately says to me tho is that what stops “gun violence” isn’t banning guns — the problem is far more complex, and will require far more complex solutions. And solutions that strike at the heart of the problem, not merely some supposed symptom.
In this case, here’s Austin’s own data, compiled by Austin’s own police department that has a chief that’s got a rather mixed record when it comes to guns and crime, and a city council and mayor that have pretty clearly put their stake in the ground. And you know they were fishing for a particular outcome, and I just don’t think their own compilation of data got them what they wanted… because there is no problem (well, it’s not perfect, but it’s not some catastrophic issue that we must full-stop everything else and focus on). There’s no task force to form, no tax dollars to spend, really… it seems what’s going on is working alright so… just stay the course, Austin.
But we’ll see what they do with their own data….