Post #1995 by bighairymike on the US Policy board

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People generally have terribly inaccurate perceptions of crime. They always think crime is worse now than it used to be. Even during periods when it was utterly inarguable that it wasn't. Crime spiked in the U.S. from 1960 to a peak in the early 1990's, and then it collapsed again from the early 1990's to the present day. Even during the collapse, most people thought that crime was worse than it was ten years ago. We are terrible at estimating the relative level of crime compared to year's past; we are terrible at estimating the actual level of current crime:

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Thanks albaby. I am going to try my best to temper my reaction to current events with that perspective.

Since homicides now are half of what they were in the 1980's, can we conclude that today's gun control advocates are somehow better people than those of the 80's who failed to agitate against private ownership of guns?

Are today's gun control advocates perceptions being distorted by the constant and sensational reporting about gun crime in the same fashion I was misled about the overall crime rate?

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