How can we regulate guns ... ?

Do you think social policy should be based upon:A) Blind adherence to ideologically derived assumptions.
B) Blind adherence to a document written 200+ years ago
C) Blind adherence to the perceived wishes of some long dead 'founding fathers'
D) Evidence based research It is only a "special case" in the sense that you choose to make it so.

Well if I wanted to walk into a school and massacre a large number of people and I had the following choice of weapons which of the following would I be best served arming myself with in order to achieve my stated aim:A) Some cutting remarks
B) A pea shooter
C) A feather duster
D) A sharp pencil
E) My fists and nothing else
F) A swiss army knife
G) A baseball bat
E) The sort of gun used in recent massacres
F) A machine gunNow throw in the availability factor of the above on top of the 'deadliness' factor and 'voila'........ We seem to have identified why it is that guns are used when people want to go on killing rampages don't we?

If I ever suggested that social policy should be made based on:A) Blind adherence to ideologically derived assumptions.
B) Blind adherence to a document written 200+ years ago
C) Blind adherence to the perceived wishes of some long dead 'founding fathers'then the answers to those question might be relevant.But I haven't and so as usual, you are simply posting irrelevancies.

Really? Do you feel labeling my position as bizarre advances discussion?I am expressing the interpretation of the 2nd amendment that was used by the Supreme Court in every case prior to DC vs. Heller. t's not some bizarre insupportable viewpoint.I might just as well say that you have a motivated gun advocates interpretation of the 2nd amendment.

Do you agree that social policy is best derived from evidence based research?If so - Do you also agree that this applies as much to the USA as anywhere else? They weren't questions. They were suggested answers to a single question. To me the answer to that question is obviously D) Evidence based research. To me this this is obviously applies to the US as much as anywhere else.But according to you the US is a "special case" so I included some other possibilities along other lines. If you have another answer feel free to reveal it.......(rather than going down the tiresome and tedious route of telling us what you didn't say)

But I never said the US is a "special case".And I have presented my ideas of how to deal with the problem of violence in the US and stated that I see no "gun" problem.Look at Message 32 and Message 70 and Message 117.

Gun-control regulation will not stop violence. Part of the problem that Chicago and other regions with tight gun-control regulations have is that there is still a flow of guns into these areas from outside. It would be akin to me complaining that we shouldn't have pollution regulations because pollution does not stop at the borders. It is also the case that there is a correlation between poverty and violence. Those areas you point out as having 'failed' in their gun-control regulation also happen to have lots of poverty.While I know it can be difficult for someone to change their pet ideology, I would expect that you as a 'trained' scientist would take the time to actually do some background research before drawing a conclusion. Here is a study detailing the impact of the Australian 1996 law.
Here is a 2011 Harvard summary of the research.

Do you agree that social policy is best derived from evidence based research? Or not? Yes you did. See - There is you asserting that the US is a "special case".

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1. Where there are more guns there is more homicide (literature review).

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Our review of the academic literature found that a broad array of evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for homicide, both in the United States and across high-income countries. Case-control studies, ecological time-series and cross-sectional studies indicate that in homes, cities, states and regions in the US, where there are more guns, both men and women are at higher risk for homicide, particularly firearm homicide.

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Hepburn, Lisa; Hemenway, David. Firearm availability and homicide: A review of the literature. Aggression and Violent Behavior: A Review Journal. 2004; 9:417-40.

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2. Across high-income nations, more guns = more homicide.

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We analyzed the relationship between homicide and gun availability using data from 26 developed countries from the early 1990s. We found that across developed countries, where guns are more available, there are more homicides. These results often hold even when the United States is excluded.

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Hemenway, David; Miller, Matthew. Firearm availability and homicide rates across 26 high income countries. Journal of Trauma. 2000; 49:985-88.

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3. Across states, more guns = more homicide

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Using a validated proxy for firearm ownership, we analyzed the relationship between firearm availability and homicide across 50 states over a ten year period (1988-1997).

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After controlling for poverty and urbanization, for every age group, people in states with many guns have elevated rates of homicide, particularly firearm homicide.

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Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David. Household firearm ownership levels and homicide rates across U.S. regions and states, 1988-1997. American Journal of Public Health. 2002: 92:1988-1993.

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4. Across states, more guns = more homicide (2)

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Using survey data on rates of household gun ownership, we examined the association between gun availability and homicide across states, 2001-2003. We found that states with higher levels of household gun ownership had higher rates of firearm homicide and overall homicide. This relationship held for both genders and all age groups, after accounting for rates of aggravated assault, robbery, unemployment, urbanization, alcohol consumption, and resource deprivation (e.g., poverty). There was no association between gun prevalence and non-firearm homicide.

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Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David. State-level homicide victimization rates in the U.S. in relation to survey measures of household firearm ownership, 2001-2003. Social Science and Medicine. 2007; 64:656-64.

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LinkDo you dispute these findings? Do you think other nations have taken steps in the directions you outline (e.g. partial decriminilisation of drugs)? What can be learnt from those examples?Why not take both social measures and act on the prevalence of guns if both are factors?

Saying that guns in the US are a special case is not saying that the US is a special case.And I still see no "gun problem".Edited by jar, : appalin spallin

It's awesome that you got a bunch of upvotes for completely avoiding the question, but it's not a "gotcha", it's a serious question I have about the terms you've chosen to use. I wish you'd answer it. Right, but I didn't ask you about what weapons would be likely to be used by people going on killing rampages. I asked you to define your term "kill efficiency.""Efficiency" implies a ratio of some kind; you know, the way "gas efficiency" is about distance traveled per volume of gasoline consumed. I'm just wondering what the terms of your ratio are.

No, you're not. The Supreme Court has never interpreted the Second Amendment as providing for the government's right to arm it's own armies. Not before DC vs. Heller or at any other time. Armies get to have arms simply by definition of being some country's army.

That's not my position, crashfrog. The provision for Congress to arm the militia is provided elsewhere in the constitution. My position, as I have explicitly stated, is that the 2nd amendment prevents the feds from disarming the militia.Here is what I actually said in Message 171.

But that makes no sense at all. Why would the Constitution give Congress the authority to do something in one place and the requirement for them to do it in another?No Supreme Court has ever ruled that way, because it makes no sense. I'm not sure legal rulings have to make sense, per se, but if you want this claim to be accepted than you have to square it both with the fact that armies are armed simply by definition of being armies and that the Second Amendment refers not to the right of the states, or the right of the militia, but the right of the people, specifically. You've not done either, so I'm not convinced. I could be, you just have to be convincing.

Let's compare guns to knives then:
Gunshot wounds result in a higher mortality rate than knife wounds.
Gunshot wounds can be made at a faster rate than knife wounds.
Gunshot wounds can be made at a larger range of distances than knife wounds.Therefore guns are more efficient at killing people than knives.Do you know of a weapon more efficient than guns?
(Obviously weapons like nuclear bombs are more efficient than guns, but I don't see anyone in this thread advocating their use.)Edited by Panda, : No reason given.

I don't follow the "therefore." Guns can only be fired a limited number of times before becoming completely ineffective; a knife can do harm indefinitely. Therefore knives are more efficient than guns?Again, the critical word for me is "efficiency." I'm specifically looking for the ratio of one characteristic or measure to another that would allow me to distinguish two firearms on the basis of their "efficiency." How would I know? I still don't understand what you mean by "efficiency." Maybe a definition would help:

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effective operation as measured by a comparison of production with cost (as in energy, time, and money) (2) : the ratio of the useful energy delivered by a dynamic system to the energy supplied to it

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http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/efficiencyHelp me apply that in such a way that one firearm can be distinguished from another.