Measuring Lethality:
Elizabethan duel vs. Assault rifle
During the recent debates, the idea of comparing today's violence with other violent times in history, the wild west and whatnot. Thus begins tonight's question:
What's more deadly: America's gun culture, or the golden age of dueling?
For a base statistic, let's turn to Elizabethan-era France, where the duel is in high fashion. 4000 Frenchmen die on the field of honor between 1590 and 1610, roughly a third of French Nobility(1).
Now, for the Americans. Current population of the U.S.:315,273,132 as of February 4th, 2013.(2)
For shits and giggles, let's consider the "1%" as the American equivalent to French Nobility. (Save your class warfare snark for the end, kids. I have not yet begun to offend people.)
That leaves us with 3,152,731 people as our nobility pool. To match the bloodshed of France's dueling obsession, Assault rifles would have to kill 1,050,910 people in America over a period of 20 years.
With me so far? Good.
Now we turn to the FBI's Unified Crime Report. Looking at the years 1991-2011.
total homicides: 361,018
total homicides using firearms: 227,646
total homicides using handguns: 177,412
total homicides using rifles: 10,535
total homicides using blades*: 44,778
(*FBI statisticians use the phrase "knives or other cutting implements")(3)
Hrm.
If my math is right, you're only about a third as likely to be killed in modern America as you are to die in an Elizabethan-era duel.
You're about a sixth as likely to be killed by someone wielding a handgun as you are to be dispatched on the field of honor.
You're about a hundredth as likely to be killed by someone with a rifle (ANY rifle, not just a scary-looking black one with funky features) as you would be to meet your maker in a duel.
And you've got a 1/24th of a chance to be killed with a blade nowadays than you would be to be killed in a duel.
Now, I'll be the first to admit the math is quick and dirty here, and if I've forgotten to carry a one or something, feel free to correct me. (knowing the internet, some of you will anyway).
I haven't even gotten into the demographics (as dueling excluded everyone but the elites). And for those looking to claim that everyone was carrying a sword in those times as an excuse to restrict further weapons use, I will point out that there’s about 9M concealed carry permit holders in the U.S. today(4), almost 3 times our nobility pool used for this experiment.
I didn't have anything more for this except seeing what the math would see. Goodnight!
(And no dueling!)
~Jay
~Sources~
1.Turner and Soper, Methods and Practice of Elizabethan Swordplay. pg. 6.
2. the U.S. Census Bureau's population clock: http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html
3. FBI unified crime report:
-table 1, crime in the U.S. by volume and rate per 100000 inhabitants 1992-2001
-expanded homicide data table 8
-Additional weapons data gleaned by UCR's from 1995-2006
4. Legallyarmed.com. Since some states do not provide such data, estimates are very raw.
Elizabethan duel vs. Assault rifle
During the recent debates, the idea of comparing today's violence with other violent times in history, the wild west and whatnot. Thus begins tonight's question:
What's more deadly: America's gun culture, or the golden age of dueling?
For a base statistic, let's turn to Elizabethan-era France, where the duel is in high fashion. 4000 Frenchmen die on the field of honor between 1590 and 1610, roughly a third of French Nobility(1).
Now, for the Americans. Current population of the U.S.:315,273,132 as of February 4th, 2013.(2)
For shits and giggles, let's consider the "1%" as the American equivalent to French Nobility. (Save your class warfare snark for the end, kids. I have not yet begun to offend people.)
That leaves us with 3,152,731 people as our nobility pool. To match the bloodshed of France's dueling obsession, Assault rifles would have to kill 1,050,910 people in America over a period of 20 years.
With me so far? Good.
Now we turn to the FBI's Unified Crime Report. Looking at the years 1991-2011.
total homicides: 361,018
total homicides using firearms: 227,646
total homicides using handguns: 177,412
total homicides using rifles: 10,535
total homicides using blades*: 44,778
(*FBI statisticians use the phrase "knives or other cutting implements")(3)
Hrm.
If my math is right, you're only about a third as likely to be killed in modern America as you are to die in an Elizabethan-era duel.
You're about a sixth as likely to be killed by someone wielding a handgun as you are to be dispatched on the field of honor.
You're about a hundredth as likely to be killed by someone with a rifle (ANY rifle, not just a scary-looking black one with funky features) as you would be to meet your maker in a duel.
And you've got a 1/24th of a chance to be killed with a blade nowadays than you would be to be killed in a duel.
Now, I'll be the first to admit the math is quick and dirty here, and if I've forgotten to carry a one or something, feel free to correct me. (knowing the internet, some of you will anyway).
I haven't even gotten into the demographics (as dueling excluded everyone but the elites). And for those looking to claim that everyone was carrying a sword in those times as an excuse to restrict further weapons use, I will point out that there’s about 9M concealed carry permit holders in the U.S. today(4), almost 3 times our nobility pool used for this experiment.
I didn't have anything more for this except seeing what the math would see. Goodnight!
(And no dueling!)
~Jay
~Sources~
1.Turner and Soper, Methods and Practice of Elizabethan Swordplay. pg. 6.
2. the U.S. Census Bureau's population clock: http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html
3. FBI unified crime report:
-table 1, crime in the U.S. by volume and rate per 100000 inhabitants 1992-2001
-expanded homicide data table 8
-Additional weapons data gleaned by UCR's from 1995-2006
4. Legallyarmed.com. Since some states do not provide such data, estimates are very raw.
