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Author | Topic: Gun Control Again | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22391 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2
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Theodoric writes: The NRA argument is that there are millions of examples that good guys with guns stop bad guys with a gun. This study shows that there are not millions of examples. Right - that's a good point. The NRA and gun nut response is that such cases usually go unreported, but that's inconsistent with the study's data (indeed, with any study's data). The study said that there were 37 times more criminal homicides than justifiable homicides, and since around 1/3 of Americans own guns, if a successful defense against armed criminals were something that possession of a defensive weapon actually made possible then it would not be 37 times more, but something much less, something more on the order of 3 times more (i.e., invert the value of 1/3 that represents the number of Americans with guns). And if having a defensive weapon provided a significant advantage then it should be even less than 3 times more, proving that possession of a defensive weapon provided people with an advantage over criminals. But it's not and it doesn't. Not only that, it's nowhere close to 3 times. It's 37 times, more than an order of magnitude larger. There's no evidence in that study, or any study, of the advantages of defensive gun possession. Did we already note this study from last year: The epidemiology of self-defense gun use: Evidence from the National Crime Victimization Surveys 2007—2011. It concludes:
So that baseball bat in the closet? Apparently just as effective as a gun, and I'm willing to bet that no 3-year old has ever found a baseball bat and killed himself with it. And this study didn't even consider the increased danger a gun in the home represents. While looking up that study I also came across this article: The Myth of Defensive Gun Use. Interesting excerpts:
quote: --Percy Edited by Percy, : Added missing word.
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Percy Member Posts: 22391 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
Cat Sci writes: Or, we could just drop the whole "safer" thing. Instead of dropping "the whole 'safer' thing" maybe the gun lobby could allow the repeal of legislation that prevents the federal government from funding authoritative studies that could answer such questions once and for all. But that's unlikely, so dropping the "safer" thing is probably more realistic.
About twice as many people defended themselves against violent crime with a firearm than people who died from a firearm. It would be helpful for people who don't recall the figures if you provided hard numbers. There are around 32,000 gun deaths annually from all causes. There are no generally agreed upon figures for the number of defensive firearm uses against violent crime, but even if there were, comparing it to total firearm deaths doesn't seem particularly meaningful. What do you think it indicates? As the study mentioned earlier stated (see The epidemiology of self-defense gun use: Evidence from the National Crime Victimization Surveys 2007—2011), "Self-defense gun use occurs in fewer than 1% of contact crimes." If it takes 33% of Americans owning guns to cause a 1% defensive use rate, than if 100% of Americans owned guns the defensive use rate would rise to only 3%. So much for arming America to thwart crime. Even worse for that claim, defensive gun use doesn't reduce injury risk. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22391 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
‘He started crying like a little baby’: 11-year-old brags about shooting suspected home invader
That's quite the headline. According to 11-year old Chris Gaither the intruder was also armed, so Chris grabbed a 9mm handgun and when the intruder fled with a laundry hamper Chris emptied his 12-round clip, hitting the intruder once in the leg. I just can't tell you how much safer I feel knowing that somewhere in my neighborhood there might be another Chris Gaither just itching for an excuse to let loose with his 9mm. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22391 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
All it takes to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, right?
Or maybe all it takes to make a good guy do something stupid is to grant him delusions of power by giving him a gun. Concealed carry gun-wielder intervenes in domestic dispute and is shot dead. Read it and weep. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22391 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
From The Washington Post: Toddlers have shot at least 23 people this year
The headline says it all. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22391 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2
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In today's news: Detroit girl, 5, shoots herself with gun found under pillow. From the article:
quote: Right. The only safe gun is one that's not there. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22391 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
From NBC News: Louisiana Girl, 5, Fatally Shoots Self While Playing With Gun
quote: Well of course it was unsecured. What good is a gun for home defense if it's secured? The father's .45 caliber gun had been left on a table where anyone could grab it at a second's notice, standard practice for effective home defense.
quote: Doesn't the sheriff's office know anything? That family was not safe until the father brought home a gun, and now this unpreventable tragedy has probably caused the sheriff's office to remove the gun from the home, leaving the family defenseless again. There were three kids in the home at the time. The mother and father of the children are divorced, and the children visit the father every other weekend. The court will probably immediately halt the father's shared custody privileges, but what about those children's safety? Does the mother have an unsecured gun sitting on a table out in the open? I sure hope so, otherwise those kids will be in even more danger. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22391 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
In today's New York Times: A Drumbeat of Multiple Shootings, but America Isn’t Listening
The analysis was of shootings with four or more *casualties* including the shooter, not deaths. Significant findings:
--Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22391 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
From today's New York Times (caps in original): 50 ARE SHOT DEAD AT GAY NIGHTCLUB IN FLORIDA; ATTACK IS WORST MASS SHOOTING IN U.S. HISTORY
Time for common sense gun control. This reminds me of another discussion I'm in now. Those against gun control seem as irrationally in love with guns as antebellum Southerners were in love with slavery. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22391 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
The man was shot, too:
quote: --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22391 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2
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Jimmy Kimmel:
Conan O'Brien:
Trevor Noah (only the first 4 minutes):
--Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22391 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
I don't have an answer for you, but I do have a little information. There's little correlation between number of guns in a country and homicide rates because of the "gun collector" factor. In the US gun collecting is very popular. There are more guns than people in US. The popularity of gun collecting varies across countries without discernible rhyme or reason.
A more meaningful correlation for comparing countries would be between the homicide rate and the gun ownership rate, where the number of guns owned isn't considered. The gun ownership rate could be by household or by individual. BBC had a good article today that contains part of the information you want:
Here's a graph I posted a couple years ago in Message 4502:
Here's a graph I posted a good long time ago showing the levels of gun ownership by country:
Here's a scatterplot I made and posted in Message 3018. It shows that by state there is no apparent relationship between gun prevalence and gun homicides:
Here's a great paper originally posted in Message 3151 that found that each percentage point increase in gun ownership resulted in a .9% increase in gun homicide: The Relationship Between Gun Ownership and Firearm Homicide Rates in the United States, 1981—2010. Oh, darn, it's behind a paywall now. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22391 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2
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Fundamental to the gun debate is an inherent disagreement about the dangers of guns. Gun nuts think guns make you safer, sane people understand that guns are inherently dangerous. Safely acquiring a gun for protection requires training and periodic retraining and practice and figuring out how to store the gun safely and also figuring out how a safely stored gun is going to be available for protection and being vigilant about never leaving the gun out and never leaving the safety off and never having the gun loaded (again leaving open the question of how it provides protection) and knowing that you will never become sad or mentally ill or angry. Once all these issues have been addressed (and probably other issues I've forgotten) only then is the gun safe.
Gun nuts don't find these issues of particular concern but instead continually assert, without evidence, that guns make you safer. That's why that paper (The Relationship Between Gun Ownership and Firearm Homicide Rates in the United States, 1981—2010 that's now behind a paywall) and others like it (don't particularly feel like conducting a research search at the moment, maybe later) are so important. They show unequivocally that increases in gun ownership leads to increases in gun homicide. I won't comment about the rest of your post about rates, other than to say that I agree that there is something different about the way you're looking at rates. I don't believe there are any studies about the outcomes of changes in the gun acquisition rate. It has been said many times that even if Americans stopped buying guns today, there are already so many guns in the population and guns wear out so slowly that it would be literally decades before this reduction in gun buying to zero would have any effect. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22391 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2
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PaulK writes: Notoriety seems a more likely motivation since he would get that just by killing enough people. It may not be his actual motive, but it seems likelier than killing for a cause. My guess for a driving factor for ending his life is that he was running out of money, or that he was seriously in debt. I think the $100,000 he sent his girlfriend was about all that was left, within a $100,000 or two. I understand that this guess doesn't help with divining his motivation for going out in an orgy of murder. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22391 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
26 killed at Baptist church in Texas
The calls for effective gun control will be raised again, and they will fall on the deaf ears of gun nuts again. --Percy
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