13 Dead, 20 Wounded...

[Starlight]

Then why doesn't Indiana have an even worse gun-related violence problem since firearms are even more readily available there? That is where that old canard falls flat on its face.

Because three different things increase total gun deaths:
- Higher rates of gun ownership / ease of obtaining guns
- Urban rather than rural environments
- High gang violence

Indiana has only one of those three. Chicago has all three.

Often there are multiple factors that together explain the prevalence of a phenomena. Gun laws aren't the only factor in gun deaths. But they are a factor. The data shows clearly that in general more stringent gun laws decrease the number of gun deaths.

[Sam]

Which explains why Chicago, with probably the most stringent gun control laws in the nation, has far and away the highest homicide rate with firearms of any of the country's large cities. In fact the decade after Chicago outlawed handguns, murders jumped by 41%, -- compared with an 18% rise in the entire U.S.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]10394[/ATTACH]
And the numbers have got much worse since 2007
3000 people have been murdered there since Obama took office

A similar thing happened in the nation's capital after they banned the possession of handguns (except for the politically well-connected and the ones with phalanxes of armed body guards). During the years in which the Washington D.C. handgun ban was in effect, the murder rate there averaged 73% higher than it was at the outset of the law, while the U.S. murder rate averaged 11% lower.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]10393[/ATTACH]

And please note that the dozen states with the highest "gun-related death" rates are largely rural which makes getting to a hospital in time to save someone’s life difficult and as a result will greatly skew the statistics. Likewise those with the lowest rates are either much less rural or small where the distance to the nearest city isn't very great.

Wait ... what correlation are you drawing here? Your graphs seem intended to argue that gun control laws are ineffective but your text seems like you're arguing that gun control laws made violence and homicides worse. Can you clarify that because the charts aren't showing any sort of correlation between passing gun control regulation and increased violence or murder.

[Sam]

So what exactly is the great cure all Sam?

• Longer waiting periods?

• More stringent background checks?

• Mandatory gun locks?

• Limits on the number of firearms you can purchase?

• Waving a magic wand?

The great cure-all is very strictly regulating guns, banning the possession of most of them for most people. That's been proven to be an effective solution.

Short of that, four out of those five will probably help. Not in every case but in some. Wasn't it Dylan Roof who was recently able to purchase his gun because the background check that would have prevented the sale of his handgun took too long to process?

Any road, the solution is clear and quite possible, though not feasible in the current political climate. But the answer to that is to keep stating the solution and keep moving towards that goal ... not pretend that nothing we can do will fix the problem and mass shootings are just the price we pay for living in the Year of Our Lord 2015.

[rogue06]

Because three different things increase total gun deaths:
- Higher rates of gun ownership / ease of obtaining guns
- Urban rather than rural environments
- High gang violence

Indiana has only one of those three. Chicago has all three.

Often there are multiple factors that together explain the prevalence of a phenomena. Gun laws aren't the only factor in gun deaths. But they are a factor. The data shows clearly that in general more stringent gun laws decrease the number of gun deaths.

Indiana has higher rates of "gun ownership / ease of obtaining guns" which is what liberals claim is responsible for firearm related violence given that is the only factor they ever address. If that really was the problem then Indiana would have the higher rates of firearm-related violence.

And as noted, being in a rural area increases the chance of a gunshot wound being fatal since the victim is much further away from a place where they can obtain life-saving medical care.

As to gang violence, you guys always look away from that unless it is to coddle perpetrators or legitimize them by making gang leaders into "community leaders." When we try to crack down on them liberals tend to wring their hands and complain about it.

[Sam]

Indiana has higher rates of "gun ownership / ease of obtaining guns" which is what liberals claim is responsible for firearm related violence given that is the only factor they ever address. If that really was the problem then Indiana would have the higher rates of firearm-related violence.

And as noted, being in a rural area increases the chance of a gunshot wound being fatal since the victim is much further away from a place where they can obtain life-saving medical care.

As to gang violence, you guys always look away from that unless it is to coddle perpetrators or legitimize them by making gang leaders into "community leaders." When we try to crack down on them liberals tend to wring their hands and complain about it.

Oh, good heavens. Rogue, you've got to stop spending so much time on The Conservative Treehouse or wherever this nonsense is coming from.

[Raphael]

Here is a question:

A number of people argue that drug laws are essentially useless as they do nothing to decrease drug usage and in some cases probably make it more dangerous etc.*
The reckon the best way is to remove the drug laws, legalising drug usage as this will promote more responsible drug usage etc.*

Many of the same people argue that we need more gun laws as we need to stop so many people from owning guns and decrease gun violence.
Given their observations on drug laws, why do they think this will have the effect they desire?






*yes I know there is lots more details, I am being very brief

[rogue06]

The great cure-all is very strictly regulating guns, banning the possession of most of them for most people. That's been proven to be an effective solution.

Short of that, four out of those five will probably help. Not in every case but in some. Wasn't it Dylan Roof who was recently able to purchase his gun because the background check that would have prevented the sale of his handgun took too long to process?

Any road, the solution is clear and quite possible, though not feasible in the current political climate. But the answer to that is to keep stating the solution and keep moving towards that goal ... not pretend that nothing we can do will fix the problem and mass shootings are just the price we pay for living in the Year of Our Lord 2015.

And just how would you go about achieving that Sam? I figure that you don't think the wave the magic wand solution will work? So how do you propose we accomplish this? Massive armed raids by the police with the power to detain and search everyone and everything? Since you seem to be willing to scrap the Second Amendment I suppose you don't have many qualms about trashing the rest of the Bill of Rights to do it.

And please keep in mind the studies by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Pew Research Center that show that gun related violence has been steadily dropping (at least until the liberal sponsored war on law enforcement of the last year or two) while simultaneously the number of firearms has vastly increased during the same period.

[rogue06]

Oh, good heavens. Rogue, you've got to stop spending so much time on The Conservative Treehouse or wherever this nonsense is coming from.

Its called reality Sam. Try it some time.

[Sam]

And just how would you go about achieving that Sam? I figure that you don't think the wave the magic wand solution will work? So how do you propose we accomplish this? Massive armed raids by the police with the power to detain and search everyone and everything? Since you seem to be willing to scrap the Second Amendment I suppose you don't have many qualms about trashing the rest of the Bill of Rights to do it.

And please keep in mind the studies by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Pew Research Center that show that gun related violence has been steadily dropping (at least until the liberal sponsored war on law enforcement of the last year or two) while simultaneously the number of firearms has vastly increased during the same period.

I would put the lives of these victims over the quite modern interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, absolutely. It's an entirely anachronistic element, unnecessary and counterproductive to modern advanced democracies — as shown in numerous other countries.

Your huffing aside, I'd wait for the constitutional amendment to be passed and ratified. In the meantime, we can do numerous things without changing the sacred document Constitution that will, at least, mitigate the problem.

Crime has been dropping for decades; that's neither here nor there. Homicides and firearm-related deaths are still much, much higher than in similarly advanced countries. "Yay, our score is a little less awful and embarrassing" isn't much of a rallying cry.

(at least until the liberal sponsored war on law enforcement of the last year or two)

Calling this quote out. You're losing it, man.

[Sam]

Here is a question:

A number of people argue that drug laws are essentially useless as they do nothing to decrease drug usage and in some cases probably make it more dangerous etc.*
The reckon the best way is to remove the drug laws, legalising drug usage as this will promote more responsible drug usage etc.*

Many of the same people argue that we need more gun laws as we need to stop so many people from owning guns and decrease gun violence.
Given their observations on drug laws, why do they think this will have the effect they desire?

*yes I know there is lots more details, I am being very brief

I'd say that drugs and guns, as contraband, are very different things with very different potential delivery methods. We can look at other countries with respect to drug and gun laws, also — it's not a hypothetical so we can gauge what effect a gun ban will likely have here.

[rogue06]

I would put the lives of these victims over the quite modern interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, absolutely. It's an entirely anachronistic element, unnecessary and counterproductive to modern advanced democracies — as shown in numerous other countries.

Your huffing aside, I'd wait for the constitutional amendment to be passed and ratified. In the meantime, we can do numerous things without changing the sacred document Constitution that will, at least, mitigate the problem.

Crime has been dropping for decades; that's neither here nor there. Homicides and firearm-related deaths are still much, much higher than in similarly advanced countries. "Yay, our score is a little less awful and embarrassing" isn't much of a rallying cry.

So despite the fact that violent crime involving firearms has been sharply dropping while the number of firearms in the country has drastically risen you want to rip up the Bill of Rights. Good to know.

The vast majority of criminologists who have studied the firearms-crime issue openly reject attempts at simple comparisons of violent crime rates among different countries in that it is incredibly difficult to draw any valid conclusions due to vast differences in each nation's collection of crime data, not to mention their cultural, economic, racial and political differences. These differences are almost always ignored by those supporting tougher gun control measures.

The one exception that I'm aware of is the political science researcher David Kopel, who in his book The Samurai, The Mountie and The Cowboy: Should America Adopt the Gun Controls of Other Democracies? (named 1992 Book of the Year by the American Society of Criminology) actually has tried to evaluate the different gun control laws and their effects on crime in a number of countries. The conclusion:

Contrary to the claims of the American gun control movement, gun control does not deserve credit for the low crime rates in Britain, Japan, or other nations.

He noted that the facts show that there is simply no correlation between gun control laws and murder or suicide rates across a wide spectrum of nations and cultures. For instance, in Israel and Switzerland, where licenses to own firearms are available on demand to every law-abiding adult and there are widespread rates of gun ownership, they have crime rates comparable to or lower than countries with stringent gun-control laws.

Even one of the most vocal advocates for tougher gun laws, Dr. Arthur Kellermann, acknowledges this fact saying that these two countries "have rates of homicide that are low despite rates of home firearm ownership that are at least as high as those in the United States."

Further, many of the firearms in these countries are full automatic military weapons and while they have fewer firearms per capita than the U.S. IIRC both countries have higher rates of individual ownership since American figures are skewed by persons owning several weapons which is less common in those countries.

[Starlight]

Here is a question:

A number of people argue that drug laws are essentially useless as they do nothing to decrease drug usage and in some cases probably make it more dangerous etc.*
The reckon the best way is to remove the drug laws, legalising drug usage as this will promote more responsible drug usage etc.*

Many of the same people argue that we need more gun laws as we need to stop so many people from owning guns and decrease gun violence.
Given their observations on drug laws, why do they think this will have the effect they desire?

Well to answer the final question: Because the empirical evidence shows that it does. I make a habit of believing empirical evidence.

I'll have a think about what I think might be possible causes of this. On face value it seems like an interesting question...

My first thought is that certain drugs like marijuana are simply inherently not dangerous, and bans on it have no reasonable or justifiable empirical basis.

My second thought is that there's a huge difference between banning something and regulating it. With drugs, there's a huge black market caused by people's demand for an illegal substance that cannot be obtained legally. Whereas with guns, nobody is proposing to ban all guns - which would indeed fail miserably and create a massive black market! Instead they're proposing a few regulations regarding the way guns are sold and handled. So perhaps the difference in general is that: Outright bans tend to backfire and create black markets, whereas regulation of legal markets tends to be quite effective.

[Sam]

So despite the fact that violent crime involving firearms has been sharply dropping while the number of firearms in the country has drastically risen you want to rip up the Bill of Rights. Good to know.

Toles-tyrants-comic.jpg

Let's not fetishize: the argument for current gun ownership and against stricter regulation should be made on the merits, not on appeal to authority. I could just as easily argue, on authority, that no Christian should be putting his potential self-preservation above the lives of others, even his persecutor. I doubt many people would take kindly to being accused of "wanting to rip up the Gospel", though.

The vast majority of criminologists who have studied the firearms-crime issue openly reject attempts at simple comparisons of violent crime rates among different countries in that it is incredibly difficult to draw any valid conclusions due to vast differences in each nation's collection of crime data, not to mention their cultural, economic, racial and political differences. These differences are almost always ignored by those supporting tougher gun control measures.

The one exception that I'm aware of is the political science researcher David Kopel, who in his book The Samurai, The Mountie and The Cowboy: Should America Adopt the Gun Controls of Other Democracies? (named 1992 Book of the Year by the American Society of Criminology) actually has tried to evaluate the different gun control laws and their effects on crime in a number of countries. The conclusion:

Contrary to the claims of the American gun control movement, gun control does not deserve credit for the low crime rates in Britain, Japan, or other nations.

He noted that the facts show that there is simply no correlation between gun control laws and murder or suicide rates across a wide spectrum of nations and cultures. For instance, in Israel and Switzerland, where licenses to own firearms are available on demand to every law-abiding adult and there are widespread rates of gun ownership, they have crime rates comparable to or lower than countries with stringent gun-control laws.

Even one of the most vocal advocates for tougher gun laws, Dr. Arthur Kellermann, acknowledges this fact saying that these two countries "have rates of homicide that are low despite rates of home firearm ownership that are at least as high as those in the United States."

Further, many of the firearms in these countries are full automatic military weapons and while they have fewer firearms per capita than the U.S. IIRC both countries have higher rates of individual ownership since American figures are skewed by persons owning several weapons which is less common in those countries.

I believe we went over this territory with Rational Gaze earlier in the thread. I cited a study and ran comparison numbers showing a correlation between gun ownership and homicides.

I don't recall low crime being an argument made by gun control advocates, certainly not on this thread. Firearm-related homicides, homicides in general, and firearm-related suicides are the objects of discussion, not crime in general. If you're arguing against the argument that gun control reduces crime rather than firearm-related deaths, you're not picking the strong argument.

And I believe that Starlight posted a graph showing a correlation between gun regulation and firearm-related deaths; going back to the Washington DC gun-ban, we have this study:

Source: Effects of Restrictive Licensing of Handguns on Homicide and Suicide in the District of ColumbiaColin Loftin, Ph.D., David McDowall, Ph.D., Brian Wiersema, and Talbert J. Cottey, M.S.
N Engl J Med 1991; 325:1615-1620

Abstract
BACKGROUND
Whether restricting access to handguns will reduce firearm-related homicides and suicides is currently a matter of intense debate. In 1976 the District of Columbia adopted a law that banned the purchase, sale, transfer, or possession of handguns by civilians. We evaluated the effect of implementing this law on the frequency of homicides and suicides.


METHODS
Homicides and suicides committed from 1968 through 1987 were classified according to place of occurrence (within the District of Columbia or in adjacent metropolitan areas where the law did not apply), cause (homicide or suicide), mechanism of death (firearms or other means), and time of occurrence (before or after the implementation of the law). The number of suicides and homicides was calculated for each month during the study period, and differences between the mean monthly totals before and after the law went into effect were estimated.


RESULTS
In Washington, D.C., the adoption of the gun-licensing law coincided with an abrupt decline in homicides by firearms (a reduction of 3.3 per month, or 25 percent) and suicides by firearms (reduction, 0.6 per month, or 23 percent). No similar reductions were observed in the number of homicides or suicides committed by other means, nor were there similar reductions in the adjacent metropolitan areas in Maryland and Virginia. There were also no increases in homicides or suicides by other methods, as would be expected if equally lethal means were substituted for handguns.


CONCLUSIONS
Restrictive licensing of handguns was associated with a prompt decline in homicides and suicides by firearms in the District of Columbia. No such decline was observed for homicides or suicides in which guns were not used, and no decline was seen in adjacent metropolitan areas where restrictive licensing did not apply. Our data suggest that restrictions on access to guns in the District of Columbia prevented an average of 47 deaths each year after the law was implemented. (N Engl J Med 1991;325:1615–20.)

© Copyright Original Source

And I'm sure we can keep on going but this really is pretty basic: the USA being inundated with guns definitely and clearly contributes to its highly-abnormal number of firearm-related deaths every year, including mass shootings on a frequent schedule. The argument that the high availability of guns in the USA doesn't significantly contribute to that is a non-starter for any serious debater.

[Raphael]

Well to answer the final question: Because the empirical evidence shows that it does. I make a habit of believing empirical evidence.

I'll have a think about what I think might be possible causes of this. On face value it seems like an interesting question...

My first thought is that certain drugs like marijuana are simply inherently not dangerous, and bans on it have no reasonable or justifiable empirical basis.

My second thought is that there's a huge difference between banning something and regulating it. With drugs, there's a huge black market caused by people's demand for an illegal substance that cannot be obtained legally. Whereas with guns, nobody is proposing to ban all guns - which would indeed fail miserably and create a massive black market! Instead they're proposing a few regulations regarding the way guns are sold and handled. So perhaps the difference in general is that: Outright bans tend to backfire and create black markets, whereas regulation of legal markets tends to be quite effective.

I'd say that drugs and guns, as contraband, are very different things with very different potential delivery methods. We can look at other countries with respect to drug and gun laws, also — it's not a hypothetical so we can gauge what effect a gun ban will likely have here.

will reply to both of you later.

[Roy]

He's a classic fundy atheist since the CIA factbook doesn't seem to show a 1% drop in numbers every year.

The online version is still reporting data from 2007:

Protestant 51.3%, Roman Catholic 23.9%, Mormon 1.7%, other Christian 1.6%, Jewish 1.7%, Buddhist 0.7%, Muslim 0.6%, other or unspecified 2.5%, unaffiliated 12.1%, none 4% (2007 est.)