Summations Only

Earlier in the thread, a similar decline years after the introduction of strict gun control in the UK was used as evidence that it had a positive, if belated, effect.Can I therefore now use the decline in US murders as evidence that our gun ownership regime has worked?Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

Are you sure you're not just doing what creationists do and refusing to accept evidence that does not fit with what you want to believe?

Are you sure you're not doing what creationists do and simply suspending your skepticism because you trust the source? If you can't review the evidence, how can you trust Harvard's conclusions about it? What if they simply cherry-picked the studies that support their conclusions? At least a couple of those papers don't even appear in a literature search. And all of this flies in the face of the evidence I'm able to access:orIgnoring the putative "trend line" they drew there, can you see correlation? I don't. This data is from the 1980 International Crime Survey. Or:All over the map - no apparent trend in gun ownership vs homicide rate. Or:Again, ignore the calculated "trend line" and it becomes obvious, we're looking at a plot of two completely unrelated variables. This is FBI crime data plotted against a Washington Post survey of gun ownership. Probably not the strongest model for gun ownership but your Harvard review doesn't even specify their proxy. They just claim they used a good one.So I guess I need better evidence to connect gun ownership to the murder rate than "Harvard thinks so."

I don't think so, I believe I'm capable of being objective about this - though of course I may not be.However, any bias I'm likely to have is in the opposite direction - I'd like it not to be true that more guns=more killings because I like guns. I was a member of my university's rifle club.But it seems to be a highly unlikely premise that the availability of more guns would not affect the murder rate. (Just as more cars will affect road traffic accident rates.)The Harvard School of Public Health seems to me to be a reputable source and they publish their sources, so I have no reason to doubt them.

Why? It seems perfectly obvious to me. Nobody looks at a gun and says "oh, you know, I should go murder someone today." If you're going to commit a murder, then you reach for whatever is handy and effective. If that's a gun, you go with the gun. But if there's not a gun there you don't say "oops, forgot I was in a gun control state, no murders for me!" You just reach for the kitchen knife or the tire iron, instead.What's the mechanism by which the availability of guns would affect the overall murder rate? I'm not seeing it. [qs=crash]Are you sure you're not doing what creationists do and simply suspending your skepticism because you trust the source? So you are, actually, suspending your skepticism because you trust the source. I'm always surprised when people flat-out contradict themselves in the space of a single post.

1. Availability of a weapon that is lethal even in untrained hands
2. Potential to do massive damage to a large number of people quickly (do you really think the Colorado and Norwegian killings could have been done with a knife?)
3. Ability to kill at range
4. Ability to kill regardless of defense.
5. Ability to kill impersonally (killing with a knife is a very personal thing and it requires physical strength, luck and determination.)
6. Increased likelyhood of use in crime
7. Development of a gun culture which normalises gun use
And so on. Now you're just trivialising the discussion and being tedious. This is an internet board, not an accademic revue committee - I have no reason to doubt their work and neither have you. It stands unless corrected and I'm happy to consider other evidence from you in the same way.

Nice list. But wouldn't it have been better if you had actually answered crashfrog's question? And it has been corrected. See crashfrog's Message 198.

Guerrilla warfare may start with a few individually-owned weapons - today that would probably be called "terrorism". But to defeat a modern army, you need heavier weapons than a peasant is likely to own. That usually means importing arms in quantity from sympathetic and/or greedy neighbouring countries. Note the Viet Cong who were supplied with AK-47s from North Vietnam.What you need to overthrow your government isn't civilian-owned weapons; it's international sympathy for your cause.

And so on what? I don't see how any of that would affect the overall murder rate. It might affect the overall murder success rate, as well as the accidental death from gunshot injuries rate, but merely the fact that a weapon has the ability to kill at range doesn't make anybody want to kill someone at range.Or if it does, I don't understand why that would be the case. Like I said there needs to be a proposed mechanism, here. You're the one who raised charges of "acting like a creationist", not me. One of the things that creationists do is unreasonably accept, without question, claims made by individuals they trust. I have ample reason to doubt their work - their conclusions are supported only by inaccessible evidence and they contradict the evidence I'm able to access. That should prompt skepticism in a reasonable person, but you've decided to suspend skepticism simply on the basis of the "Harvard" brand name, precisely what you previously asserted you were not doing.

It's good to see your gainsaying skills are as sharp as ever.Should I anticipate you addressing what I said, though?

What's to address that's relevant to the topic?

You have no reason to doubt it - yet you do; odd that. Do you have reason to also doubt:1. The American Journal of Epidemiology Guns in the Home and Risk of a Violent Death in the Home: Findings from a National Study | American Journal of Epidemiology | Oxford Academic2. The Center for Injury Control, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA. Injuries due to firearms in three cities - PubMed3. Center for Injury Control, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA. Injuries and deaths due to firearms in the home - PubMedAnd that's just 10 minutes googling.So maybe it's cherry picking but I'm not seeing a similar hit count for research showing that the ownership of guns does not contribute to death rates and it would be a counter-intuitive result if it did.But this thread is about the Colorado murders and it could be about many other similar mass murders - I don't see how it's possible to argue that these kinds of murders could be accomplished without access to guns (and you haven't attempted to defend this, despite being asked a couple of times.)

You must have misunderstood: "Ample" means "much", not "none."And again, you keep presenting studies that conflate "homicide" with "gun homicide." As I stated it makes perfect sense that the availability of guns will increase the use of guns in homicides, because guns are clearly better tools for killing people.But, for the third time, there's no reason at all why we should expect that the availability of guns will make more people want to kill. That's the mechanism that I don't understand. It makes zero sense, so I need something more than "some important organizations believe it." What's the mechanism by which proximity to a gun causes depression or makes you want to kill yourself? Not especially probative to the issue; "major cause" and "incidence varies greatly city to city" are weasel words that connote no significant knowledge. Not sure what you think this cite supports, could you explain? This is true for kitchen knives, golf clubs, and household bleach as well - or indeed, any household item. The need to use anything to defend yourself in your home is, thankfully, quite rare. But that's not what you're being asked to defend. There's no dispute that people use guns to kill each other. None at all. The question is whether guns make people want to kill each other, or themselves. I don't see any reason why that could be the case, and you've not provided any evidence for that view. I'm sorry but you're wrong; I've never been asked to defend the position that a mass shooting couldn't occur without access to guns, and since I've never held that position there would be no reason why I should defend it. But if you don't believe that it's possible to commit mass murder without access to firearms, then I can quite easily point to an instance in the US where more than 3000 people were killed by people armed with nothing more dangerous than razor blades. It happened a couple of years back and, to my knowledge, made the news even over there in the UK.

As far as I can tell it isn't that guns make more people want to kill. It's that guns, making killing easier, mean that people who want to kill someone can do so with less effort.If we make something easier to do, we tend to find more people do it, if there is a group of people that would have killed had it not been for whatever impediment there was.The principle probably rests on the notion that it is easier to get a gun and pull the trigger several times in the heat of the moment than it is to get a knife and plunge it into someone several times (or beat someone brutally several times). Plus, gunshot wounds may in fact be more lethal than knife wounds (I've seen mixed evidence on this, probably based on varying degrees of experience in different locations (I'd rather go to an American hospital with a gunshot wound than a British one)).Add to that, that guns can kill people in circumstances where knives or clubs cannot.There may well be an effect in respect of 'he might have a gun, therefore I should shoot at the first hint of a weapon' which might result in more deaths and injury too.But I'm not arguing those are in play, but I believe those are some of the general ideas people are talking about. It's not necessarily an increased motive (though that might be there), it's about increased opportunity. Its a lot easier, quicker and more guaranteed way of killing yourself than many others. I've felt suicidal, and if I could have pushed a button to end it all, I would. But I wasn't motivated enough to risk cutting myself, or poison myself or even hanging (the risk being ending up alive but scarred, or chronically ill with social penalties on top).Again, I'm not saying its generally true, but it's likely to be true for more people than just me.

But that's just the thing: Does that 'tendency' even exist for gun access and homicide rates?The data crash presented seem to indicate that such a 'tendency' does not, in fact, existthat there is no correlation between making it easier to kill someone by providing people with guns and an increase in killings. Whatever you may have heard about regarding ease-of-access to guns in the U.S., let me assure you that there is more to getting a firearm than just being in the 'heat of the moment'. It is, contrary to what you've said, actually easier to get a knife than a gun.As for the second part of it allpulling a trigger vs. plunging a knife into someone's chestI have experience doing neither, so I cannot really tell you which is easier. Back to the 'cans' and 'may well bes' again?