Summations Only

Looking at gun crime from the state level doesn't tell the whole story.In Illinois, most of the gun crime is focused in one spot in the state while the rest of the state looks really good. 2/3 of the murders occur in 1/4 of the population. There were 145 kills per million within Chicago, but only 27 kills per million in the rest of the state. So when you look at it from the state level, with the average kills per million being 54, you're getting a false sense of the problem.Someone might go: "Oh look, they've got strict gun laws and they have a low amount of gun deaths" but that doesn't realize that the gun laws completely failed to solve the problem. People are still shooting each other left and right in Chicago, its just that the rest of the state is so good that it brings the average down to a level that doesn't seem so bad. The truth of the matter is that the gun deaths in Chicago are outrageous despite all the gun control laws we have. Percy used Illinois as one of the examples of a state with strong gun control laws having a lower firearm death rate. He's glossed over the fact that the gun laws in Illinois completely failed and the gun crime is outrageous, its just that its all concentrated in one area of the state so when you look at the state as a whole you get a different picture than if you look at what they actual problem is.

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marc9000 writes:

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Though the NRA and other pro-gun advocates might disagree with me, I wouldn't mind seeing a few states, like New York, or California, or Illinois take the lead on satisfying every anti-gun advocates desires, up to and including a complete ban of privately owned firearms. Then everyone in the entire country can watch how it works.

I'm all in favor of this experiment, but I think there's already enough evidence. If you look at this table of firearm death rates by state, it looks like the states with stronger gun control laws tend to have lower firearm death rates. New York, California and Illinois have rates of 5.1, 7.7 and 8.2 respectively, while your own state of Kentucky is 12.4. Tennessee right next door is 14.4. Alaska, Sarah Palin's home state, is 20.4. Alabama, home of the redneck, is 16.2.

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I mentioned Illinois, New York, California, Alaska, Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama, each of those states also have cities, and I didn't say anything about single one. I didn't say anything about Chicago, or about New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Louisville, Nashville, Memphis, Fairbanks or Birmingham. But urban areas, especially low income urban areas, almost always have higher homicide rates than less densely settled regions. Chicago isn't particularly unusual. The point is that looking at the state level indicates that stronger gun control laws correlate with lower gun death rates. You do raise a good issue: Yes, it would be good to have this data. Meanwhile, if you don't like Illinois as an example because of Chicago then substitute New Jersey. New York, New Jersey and California have significantly lower gun death rates and stronger gun control laws than Kentucky, Tennessee, Alaska and Alabama. Stronger penalties for gun crimes is fine by me, but I was hoping for something that might address gun deaths like those at Newtown, CT.--Percy

Here's your correlation: I don't think that's impressive at all. Is that what you thought it would look like? Considering that Connecticut already had very strict gun control laws (they got an A), and a low amount of gun deaths across the state (6th place at 5.9), can you see that those things don't affect the gun deaths like those at Newtown?Edited by Catholic Scientist, : Fixed image link

I don't think strict versus non-strict is the kind of analysis we are looking for. CT's gun laws had at least one gaping hole in it that even the majority of American gun owners agree ought to be closed.So no, I don't agree that gun laws can have no affect on gun deaths like those in Newtown.

What's that?

My guess is he is referring to the lack of adequate background checks? Which in the case of Newtown would not have helped since the firearms were purchased legally by Adam Lanza's mother.

Ok. Where do you think the guns used in Chicago, and other urban areas, come from?

That is absolutely true and you are also correct about what my point was. But I also think you are being a bit too literal. Background checks that keep people with mental problems from getting guns would would be successful in many cases. But no, they don't keep you from taking your mom's guns.But mom knew her son had problems and did nothing to keep guns out of her own sons hands. And she paid the ultimate price for her error. My guess is that most parents in that situation would do a bit better.

All over the place.The one the guy bought at a licensed dealer probably came straight from the manufacturer.The one the guy bartered from his gang brother has probably been around a bit more.I'd bet there's some vatos that got theirs right out of mexico.

So are you for or against more consistent national gun laws?

And the one common factor? They all had access to guns.

Yes I should have - I stand corrected. I hereby apologize to Theodoric, since he asked nice.

I don't want an apology. I want people to actually research what they post. Anyone can parrot crap. How about you show you are a little above the typical right winger and actually do some research? Just because something feels right in your gut does not mean it is and since you are a rightwinger it probably isn't. Facts tend to have liberal bias.

No, not really.I don't think consistency is a worthy endeavor, though. You don't have to travel far to see that the U.s. is inconsistent. What doesn't work in some places might work in another. Our diversity is one of the beauties of America.And I certainly won't like letting those buffoons at the federal level decide. The shit they put out that I actually pay attention to makes them look like they don't know what they're talking about. Its not just guns, that SOPA crap made me think that they didn't even have a basic understanding of how the internet works, let alone the capability of governing it well.Well shit, I guess that makes me against it.Don't get me wrong, the Feds have their place. And we're doing pretty well so far. They don't do well with the particulars (which is understandable if you're gonna go with a partisanship ), but you gotta admit that from their view its a jumbled mess down here. Sometimes things are better left with the localities that probably have a better understanding of what particulars should work.One last thing, I think the founding fathers were genius to look at the situation of governing a body of people and realize that you don't give the governing body the control of the guns. Thank God they put that shit in our Constitution.

Agreed. And I wasn't implying I disagree with the notion of background checks. I am merely stating that in this circumstance, it would not have mattered as the onus was on the mother to keep these firearms away from her mentally ill son.Incidentally, I am speaking as someone who is for gun control and is a gun owner themselves. But I guess I am falling back on my background as being someone who works in the software industry, whereby we have a concept called 'root cause analysis'. What that essentially states is that you attempt to discover the low level underlying problem with a piece of software rather than attempting continuous patches and Band-Aid fixes.In a similar vein, I can acknowledge that background checks are beneficial, but ultimately, I would like to see greater efforts in the fields of mental illness. We often take a very archaic notion of how to deal with folks that are mentally disturbed, probably due to our old world ways of thinking about people being 'evil' or 'possessed'. But ultimately, these people are sick. Rather than focusing on the instrument of these people's actions, I would like to focus on the cause and see better treatment options and a better support network for parents who have to deal with children with mental illness.Guess this is my long-winded view that we need universal health care that is accessible by all. And a society that recognizes mental illness as being a legitimate medical condition as opposed to putting a stigma around it.