Does the U.S. Have the Third-Highest Rate of Homicides

New Post Public Reply Private Reply Replies (0) Message Board

Mar 12, 2018 at 4:52 PM 103

Quote:

Does the U.S. Have the Third-Highest Rate of Homicides Worldwide?

Meme claims the United States has the third-highest rate of homicides worldwide, but drops dramatically in the rankings if four major cities are excluded from the stats.



CLAIM

The United States has the third-highest rate of homicides worldwide, but drops dramatically in the rankings if four major cities are excluded from the stats.

RATING

Mostly False

ORIGIN

A mass shooting on 1 October 2015 at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, sparked a round of gun-related debates on social media, and the among items circulating in response to the national conversation was the meme reproduced above claiming that the United States has the third highest rate of homicides globally, but that ranking drops dramatically if the cities of Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, and Washington D.C. are excluded from those statistics.

This claim didn’t emerge in response to the Oregon shooting, and the image shown dates to at least 2013:
Subsequent versions included another city, St. Louis, Missouri, among its examples:

united states third murder rate

As for its central claim, the meme’s assertion that “the United States is 3rd in the number of murders throughout the world” is somewhat ambiguous. Does this figure include all intentional homicides, or just ones that are gun-related?

Does it reference the murder rate, or the absolute number of murders committed? What are the standards used for the measurement of intentional homicides? (The legal definition of “intentional homicide” differs from country to country and may or may not include actions such as infanticide, assisted suicide or euthanasia.)

In any case, it’s difficult to find any metric that places the United States as “third in murders” worldwide.

Statistics compiled by the World Bank for the most recent year available (2012) placed the United States well down the list, behind dozens of other countries, in the rate of intentional homicides.

Likewise, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNDOC) study on intentional homicides places the United States as 110th on a list of countries ranked (from highest to lowest) by intentional homicide rate.

If we considered only the absolute number of murders (and not the murder rate), the United States would rank somewhat high among all the countries in the world, but the U.S. would still only be eighth (not third) on that list, and using an absolute number for this form of comparison is a very poor metric.

(The United States is the world’s third-largest country in terms of population, so all other factors being equal, one would expect the U.S. to have the third-highest number of murders for that reason alone.)

Broadly, the ten countries with the highest murder rates in the world are Honduras, Venezuela, Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica, Swaziland, Saint Kitts and Nevis, South Africa, and Colombia, while the United States doesn’t crack the top hundred.

No citations have emerged to clarify from which data the meme in question was purportedly crafted, and as such, tying it to any one country-specific ranking of murder rates was extremely difficult.

In the absence of the first number (from which the subsequent claim about Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, and Washington D.C. purportedly was derived), determining the second definitively was predictably challenging.

Without a steady figure from which to “subtract” homicides in those cities (itself a relatively random set condition), the conclusion of the claim was all but meaningless.

In 2012 (the latest year for which comprehensive statistics were available both globally and in the U.S.) 14,827 Americans were murdered, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Incidentally, 9,528 of those homicides were carried out with a firearm of some description.

During that year FBI statistics counted 500 murders in Chicago, 386 in Detroit, 193 in New Orleans, and 88 in Washington, D.C. The combined total of homicides in those four cities was 1,167 for that year, or approximately 7.8 percent of all murders that occurred in the United States in 2012.

Even if the sum total of all intentional homicides for 2012 occurring in those four cities were ignored, it wouldn’t change the rankings previously described very much: The United States would drop a few notches down from its already fairly low position on the global homicide rate chart (but still not close to “fourth from the bottom”), and the U.S. would drop from 8th to 11th in a list ordered by the absolute number of intentional homicides (still very far away from “fourth from the bottom”).

If we look at gun-related homicides only, we find that statistics compiled and published in 2012 indicate that 60 percent of homicides in the United States involve firearms (a metric markedly high contrasted with other developed nations), but even in a list sorted by raw total of gun homicides (without any adjustment for total population per country) the United States still ranks fifth behind Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela in that metric.

No matter which way the data is tortured, it seems that there is no reasonable interpretation by which the United States could be ranked “third in murders” worldwide, much less “fourth from the bottom” once Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, and Washington D.C. are exempted from those numbers.

Additionally, attempting to draw any inferences from the relationship of murder rate (or number of murders) to the strictness of a given city’s gun control laws is highly problematic, because guns can be easily and legally purchased and transported to those cities from other areas or states which have much less stringent regulations.

Newer

Older

Scroll down for more posts ▼

Top 10 Most Recent News Articles

Galleon Forge Two Puts Europe on the AI Map

Dublin Hosts Europe's AI Sovereignty Leap If they ever told you Europe was playing catch-up in the high-tech race, someone missed the boat. Armada and Johnson Controls just put Europe right on the AI map. They're cranking up production at Galleon Forge Two in Dublin. Now we're talking about a sovereign AI infrastructure, not that rent-a-cloud deal that's been dangling...

Gilat's Revenue Dip Spurs Legal Scrutiny for Investors

Gilat Satellite's Surprise Revenue Shortfall If anybody thought the satellite business was all about science fiction-esque technology, here's a reality check: when earnings don't meet expectations, shareholders get jittery. This seems to be exactly what's happening with Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. (NASDAQ: GILT). After twice reaffirming their fiscal 2026 revenue...

PMET's High-Stakes Call on Shaakichiuwaanaan Update

Inside PMET Resources' Critical Investor Briefing Now, this is the kind of investor chatter that cuts to the core of PMET's game plan. We're talking the big guns coming out with PMET Resources (TSX: PMET) as they gear up for what's poised to be a tell-all investor teleconference about their Shaakichiuwaanaan Project. Yep, mark your calendars because on Tuesday, November...

Brent Crude's Tumult: Oil Giants Weather Market Shifts

Oil Market Faces Uncertain Waves The energy sector's a rough sea these days, with Brent crude prices yo-yoing close to that $100 mark. If you're looking for clarity, don't hold your breath—the EIA's latest report suggests we’re sticking near this price for the foreseeable future before easing into more palatable waters come late 2027. But we ain't there yet, as U.S....

Day Out Snacks Brings Back Sold-Out Peppermint Bark

Spicing Up the Holidays with a Best-Seller Return You've got to love when a brand nails it in the holiday treat department, and Day Out Snacks is playing a winning hand by bringing back their Peppermint Bark protein balls. Here we are again, one year after they flew off the shelves like Santa spotted on Christmas Eve. And let me tell you, this re-release has the potential...

Ares Management Faces Fintech with $691B Assets

Anticipation Builds: Ares Awaits TD Cowen Spotlight Ah, Ares Management, the Wall Street heavyweight clocking a colossal $691 billion in assets. Now, they’re angling to dish out some strategic insights. With the TD Cowen 2026 Financials & Fintech Conference set to roll on November 18, what’s better than watching these investment titans take the stage with their CFO...

Third Lake Parts Ways with WaterView Retail Center

Third Lake Partners Exits WaterView Retail in Florida Alright, you don't stumble across deals like this every day. Third Lake Partners just tossed the keys to their WaterView Retail Center in St. Petersburg, wrapping up the retail and residential parts under one roof with Walton Street Capital. It only took a cool five years since its completion in 2021, but hey, better...

Alyssa Bunch: Big Moves in Tennessee Real Estate

Navigating the Tennessee Real Estate Maze If you're talking about where the real estate action happens in Tennessee, you'd better mention Alyssa Bunch, the Vanderbilt-educated dynamo who turns the unforsale into the must-buy. Most of the deals she orchestrates are invisible to the public eye until they're all but written in ink and ready to reshape landscapes—or, more...

WZC Networking Celebrates Two Decades of Growth

From Humble Beginnings to Industry Authority No one ever started a business thinking it would last two decades without at least a bit of grit and determination. Back in 2006, John Wierzgac decided to leap into the unknown with WZC Networking. It all began with three stalwart customers and a single engineering brain powered by resolve. John's motivation stemmed from...

Southfield Capital Exits TFS to AEA Investors

By Lucas Young Updated Nov 10, 2026 Category News Views 123

A Breakthrough Carve-Out Success Story A story that starts with a carve-out and winds up with a strategic sale reeks of experience, and that's precisely what Southfield Capital did with TFS. Back in 2024, they snagged TFS through a carve-out and didn't just sit on it like a lazy trader watching stock tickers race by. Instead, they pushed the envelope with smart...