Evidence of a ‘Ferguson Effect’ Costing Thousands of American Lives

Tonic for an Inflexible Media: 7 Scientific Papers + 1 Analysis by Astral Codex Ten (Scott Alexander) + Bonus Data & Resources

The Washington Post argued that it’s the 2020 rise in gun sales that led to a spike in homicides. Inconveniently, their own graph shows no uptick in suicides by firearm over the same period. Also, no murder spike after enormous gun sale surges post-Obama’s election (2008) or in aftermath of Sandy Hook mass shooting (2013). SOURCE: The Washington Post
Imagine if we stayed at 2014 levels of homicides. If we did, we’d have at least 26,500 more people alive today, half of them black lives. SOURCE (2nd tab): https://tinyurl.com/jails-police-save-lives
July 2022 article that frames my own argument and post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2022/gun-deaths-per-year-usa/

It’s the Guns, Stupid

Defunding Police & “Mostly Peaceful” Protests

Buried in the study itself was the fact violence erupted in approximately 570 of those protests. SOURCE: CNN

What Is The Ferguson Effect & Why Write About It?

What the WaPo Missed

SOURCE: https://scholarworks.uark.edu/edrepub/136/
SOURCE: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w27324/w27324.pdf
SOURCE: Zach Goldberg in a Tablet Magazine article titled “How the Media Led the Great Racial Awakening
SOURCE: FBI and CNN

The Focus: 0.3% of Total Gun Murders

SOURCE: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/GUIC.PDF
SOURCE: https://heyjackass.com/2022-police-involved-shootings/

What Do Republicans Offer?

SOURCE: CDC and Manhattan Institute

Good Points in Washington Post Article

SOURCE: The Washington Post

Why Fear the (Cancellation) Reaper?

That YouTube moment in 2022 when Roland Fryer rightfully calls his fellow academics cowards for not publishing the same data he had.

Now the Main Course

7 Studies Indicating a Ferguson Effect of Greater Violence & Crime

“Guns [are] almost entirely responsible for an overall rise in homicides across the country from 2018 to 2021, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

SOURCE: New York Times
Large spike on the left didn’t cause a murder spike. Did the one on the right? SOURCE: The Washington Post

But Is It Guns?

Is It The Pandemic?

Could Rise in Murder Come from Month After Month of Anti-Police Protest, Civic Disruption, and Attacks on Policing? (Bingo.)

One More Thing On the Washington Post Article

My Data on How Policing Saves Lives

53% of “very liberal” people in the United States believe 1,000 more more unarmed blacks are killed by police each year. The real number is closer to 10–20. How are we supposed to trust “that side” of the issue when they inflate reality by a multiplier of 100? SOURCE: https://www.skeptic.com/research-center/reports/Research-Report-CUPES-007.pdf)

What I Want Every Black Lives Matter Protester to Understand

SOURCE: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

SOURCES:

Still Think Police Use Too Much Force? Consider This One Chart:

Use of force does not occur in 96% of white arrests and 96.7% of black arrests in Chicago according the same data used in the Obama-era U.S. Department of Justice Report to condemn CPD for using “excessive force.”

Don’t Believe Policing Saves Lives?

In Conclusion

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Writer. Researcher. Designer. Human seeking better outcomes for all. Empiricism, relevant facts, and logical arguments > simple narratives.

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David Shuey

Writer. Researcher. Designer. Human seeking better outcomes for all. Empiricism, relevant facts, and logical arguments > simple narratives.