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A5scott
Trad climber
Chicago
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Jul 10, 2014 - 01:05pm PT
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graph showing homicide rate, including justifiable homicide. Correlation isn't causation, but the introduction of states allowing citizens to carry firearms in the mid 1980's didn't make the numbers go up.
scott
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Flip Flop
Trad climber
Truckee, CA
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Jul 10, 2014 - 01:13pm PT
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Your guns ( and stupidity) are a violation of my rights to life, Liberty and happiness.
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Braunini
Big Wall climber
cupertino
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Jul 10, 2014 - 01:20pm PT
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There is plenty of stupid to go around on both extremes of this argument. As usual
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jul 10, 2014 - 01:53pm PT
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Tour-de-force, Scott.
Well done!
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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Jul 10, 2014 - 02:04pm PT
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Madbolter I'll agree with you that there is a fixation on "solutions" that are perhaps not effective to problems that pale in comparison to other issues. With a big factor in that being sensationalism.
Look at all we've done to combat terrorism for example. If we put that money into cancer research or perhaps most effectively towards public education about preventing heart disease we would save thousands of times more lives. But this thread is about the gun debate.
I also probably agree with you that gun control regulations are probably less effective than other measures we could take to reduce gun violence (helping inner city youth would probably be the most effective). But it seems many gun proponents (I struggle for the right term as I'm a gun owner but want sensible regulations and don't want to carry a gun around with me at all times to be safe, I'd rather have less guns around in public, but don't have a problem with trained and ) won't accept that any new gun control regulations would help. And I know that logically they would.
Now, please explain to me how such utterly LOCKED DOWN weaponry was so TRIVIALLY available to a guy like me.
You were hanging with the wrong crowd? I have never come across anyone who would sell me illegal weapons. I suppose I could drive around Oakland and start asking people, but I wouldn't do that, too risky. I would go buy a gun at a gun store though. And I'm sure there are plenty of people who feel similar who could have criminal intent or are unstable.
These laws DON'T WORK! Period! And your idea that there is going to be even a statistically significant "reduction" in access is what "defies reason and common sense."
How many thousands of people are turned away because they failed the background check? How many thousands of crimes are committed with guns that were bought without a background check? Or bought from a private seller that could sell them to another person without a background check because they weren't worried about a stiff jail term if they were caught selling it to someone without a background check. I'm not going to take the time to research it and there would be a lot of conjecture about what would have happened if things were different, but I would guess thousands of acts of gun violence are prevented yearly from background checks keeping guns out of the hands of the wrong people who would otherwise easily obtain them. I just took a quick look and the total number of denied background checks conducted in 2010 at 152,850. So even if half of those were a mistake 75,000 people wanted a gun who shouldn't have one. Whey didn't they just buy one illegally in the first place if it was so easy?
If you don't mess with me in deadly fashion, then you already HAVE parity with ME whether or not you are armed! My being armed is IRRELEVANT to you, IF you are a decent human being!
We're not talking about you. We're talking about guys like Zimmerman (regardless if it was self defense he wouldn't have stalked that kid and shot him without a gun) and the guy in the movie theater who shot a guy for talking. Yes they were maybe legal to have guns, but having a culture where so many people want to carry guns leads to more people like that with guns. That's the point. We feel safer with less guns around.
It's pretty selfish in my opinion for people who carry guns to want to prevent regulations that keep guns out of the hands of bad people. Sure they feel safe because they are armed but what about all the people who don't want to or can't carry a gun. That was my point before about wondering how many people who don't carry firearms are opposed to gun regulations. I bet you'd be hard pressed to find someone who didn't own a gun that agrees we shouldn't have sensible gun regulations (like background checks).
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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Jul 10, 2014 - 02:07pm PT
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Funny madbolter I show you the graph of the drop in gun deaths in California and you look for any other reason why it can't be gun control, while someone else shows you a graph indicating what you want to see and it's a tour-de-force.
Do you really not see how skewed your views are on this subject?
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Braunini
Big Wall climber
cupertino
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Jul 10, 2014 - 02:32pm PT
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Yours are totally objective, of course.
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Flip Flop
Trad climber
Truckee, CA
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Jul 10, 2014 - 02:45pm PT
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Enlighten us Braunini, or is your expertise a secret ?
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jul 10, 2014 - 02:51pm PT
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It's pretty selfish in my opinion for people who carry guns to want to prevent regulations that keep guns out of the hands of bad people. Sure they feel safe because they are armed but what about all the people who don't want to or can't carry a gun. That was my point before about wondering how many people who don't carry firearms are opposed to gun regulations. I bet you'd be hard pressed to find someone who didn't own a gun that agrees we shouldn't have sensible gun regulations (like background checks).
I'll completely agree that most non-gun-owners are intuitively inclined to think that "sensible" gun regulations will do some good. Fine. As I've said, I have no problem with "sensible" gun regulations. I continue to disagree that they will have any noticeable effect. But, as I said, they do little harm.
I am always intuitively PRIMED to be worried about handing the feds yet more power, which is why unless somebody can produce some really solid and virtually incontrovertible evidence that THIS "war on..." by the feds is going to do anything but make it tougher on legitimate gun owners, I'm not enthusiastic about, for example, federal background checks.
Regarding my "hanging around with the wrong crowd," you are exactly right!
But you help me make my point. It is not hard to get in with the "wrong crowd," and once you do, the whole underworld opens up to you. Most street thugs, and certainly gang-connected people, DO have this underworld open to them. And that underworld is FILLED with every imaginable sort of weapon you could want to get your hands on.
So, with the feds ALREADY in "firm" control of military-grade weaponry, it remains TRIVIAL to get it with the sorts of connections that many/most criminal elements have access to. I don't see the feds even BEGINNING to lock this down, so I have supreme doubts that throwing yet more bureaucracy at the "gun problem" is going to have any noticeable positive effect.
Funny madbolter I show you the graph of the drop in gun deaths in California and you look for any other reason why it can't be gun control, while someone else shows you a graph indicating what you want to see and it's a tour-de-force.
Do you really not see how skewed your views are on this subject?
I think that the quoted statistics are displayed in very different ways and ranged very differently. For example, notice on YOUR graph that the spread between 2 and 8 is the same distance as the spreads (the ones that really matters for what the chart is trying to demonstrate!) between 14 and 16, and between 16 and 18. This has the effect of making VERY small fluctuations APPEAR much more dramatic than they really are.
The Scott-quoted statistics are not so flagrantly skewed.
The chart you showed is skewed, not my views. I just look for at least on-the-face-of-it accuracy. Your chart did not demonstrate that.
"Objectivity?" Well, none of us HAVE it! We can only keep trying. And having one's viewed challenged on a thread like this is always healthy... for ALL of us!
Count me in!
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Jul 10, 2014 - 02:52pm PT
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Someone explain that IF Gun Laws just plain "don't work", then why is this?
Alaska: loosest gun laws and highest firearm deaths in the nation per capita
Massachusetts: toughest gun laws in the nation and fewest firearm deaths, per capita
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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Jul 10, 2014 - 02:54pm PT
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As a gun owner but not a gun nut, whose posts should indicate I see both sides of the issue, I'd venture they are more objective than many posters on this thread.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jul 10, 2014 - 02:55pm PT
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Alaska: loosest gun laws and highest firearm deaths in the nation per capita
Massachusetts: toughest gun laws in the nation and fewest firearm deaths, per capita
You've claimed this before, and I asked you for citations of your sources. My own research just does not sustain this.
But you ignored my request before. Will you continue to ignore it?
If so, then you are just pulling those claims out of your....
Uhhh...
Imagination.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jul 10, 2014 - 02:56pm PT
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I'd venture they are more objective than many posters on this thread.
I would agree. And I would count myself in your camp. I try to be careful and not make claims (or decisions, for that matter) on the basis of pre-theoretical intuitions or "feelings."
Of course, being human, we all stumble now and then. :-)
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skcreidc
Social climber
SD, CA
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Jul 10, 2014 - 02:57pm PT
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Just take a deep breath to clear your head and relax. THen look up the before and after in Austraila and their efforts on gun control. And btw, they still have guns in the hands of pivate owners...
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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Jul 10, 2014 - 03:10pm PT
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Hmm, madbolter I didn't notice the graphs axis was skewed. So probably CA's rate is now very close to the US rate, not significantly below it.
But Scott's graph isn't so innocent either. Notice how it lumps all states together (including ones that have enacted gun control laws) with states that have allowed open carry. It would be interesting to see that data split out between those two types of states and see where the greater reductions happened.
"Objectivity?" Well, none of us HAVE it! We can only keep trying. And having one's viewed challenged on a thread like this is always healthy... for ALL of us!
Count me in!
Agreed. And you have done a good job at keeping me challenged and focused on the real issues in this debate. I guess these threads really can be good for something!
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A5scott
Trad climber
Chicago
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Jul 10, 2014 - 03:15pm PT
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thanks MB!
The vast majority of conceal/open carry advocates are like mad bolter, that is to say benign... therefore the discussion is about his type. they are the ones we don't need to think about, as Texas shows us out of 65,000 convictions, 120 are CCW holders. 1 of those convictions was murder. one.
there were 395 murders by non CCW holders though in 2012, texas
George Z, who was found not guilty, is the statistical outlier case of somebody that should have let the police figure things out and he should have bugged out. I wasn't there. none of us were
that movie theater cell phone argument guy that killed someone was a retired police officer.
where are the other incidents involving CCW holders?
according to the violence policy center, a very anti gun group, so we know they are trying to count every death they can, just about 60 CCW holders a year commit murder. They call them conceal carry killers. That's out of more than 11 million CCW holders. 60 out of 11 million.
scott
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Jul 10, 2014 - 03:24pm PT
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I'm glad to hear they've eliminated suicide. We won't have to worry about that ever again.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Jul 10, 2014 - 03:25pm PT
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Hello MadBolter,
I was wrong, it USED to be Alaska but the latest statistics show that Louisiana tops the list of per capita firearm deaths while having some of the, if not the, loosest gun laws.
And yes, it does appear that the opposite is also true: The states with the toughest gun laws have the least firearm deaths per capita
you asked me to provide a link, here you go
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/06/gun_violence_louisiana_deaths.html
by the way, you can confirm these very clear causal correlations from other sources should you find a couple of minutes time to do so yourself
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A5scott
Trad climber
Chicago
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Jul 10, 2014 - 03:30pm PT
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in 2010 alaska had 19 murders with a gun, and 31 total murders.... fewer than 1 million pop.
in 2010 Mass had 118 gun murders and 209 total murders.... pop. about 6.5 million
Alaska is kind of the drunk and suicide capital of the US. I may be wrong about alaska being the capital, but they do drink a bunch and tend towards depression.
scott
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SuperTopo on the Web
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Laws banning suicide do nothing. If someone is going to kill themselves are they worried about breaking a law?
Let us know!