Guns, Guns Guns

Daryl wrote:All the fancy graphs and cherry picked stats don't alter one simple statistic.
Of all the developed countries one has much looser gun laws and many more guns; and this same country has amazingly higher gun homicide rates.
In a simple comparison with a similar culture (Australia- English speaking, similar other laws, a pioneering past, similar individual average wealth, and free press) the US has about 30 times more, not 30% but 3000% more. Other countries have similar comparative rates.

http://www.scccj.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/0124207_homicide_scotland_10-11.pdf

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-state

Why compare us to Australia? Why not Scotland? They had 37 homicides per million in the population in 2010-2011 and a miniscule number of gun homicides. The US had 47 in that period.

If we take away guns assuming that was the principal cause of homicides, why would we end up as peaceful Australia and not as the far less peaceful Scotland?

The answer lies in the data you prefer to ignore in favor for your prejudice. You don't like guns and attribute most of the ills of US society to that regardless of evidence to the contrary. We in the US view our responsibilities differently that you, even those Americans that do not like guns view our responsibilities differently. This has been discussed ad nauseam. Guns are not the root cause of homicides, suicides and accidents in the US as the data shows. At best the data show a lack of conclusive proof one way or another. Either way, there are far more direct correlations to the causes of violent crime than firearms.

This discussion of guns in society has arrived at the point religious conviction. We, all of us in the discussion, are unpersuadable on the issue regardless of the data presented. All that is left is trolling each other. I'll refrain from commenting further.

The answer lies in the data you prefer to ignore in favor for your prejudice. You don't like guns

Seriously?

That may possibly have been THE most epically stupid and narrowminded statement by you so far.

We in the US view our responsibilities differently that you, even those Americans that do not like guns view our responsibilities differently. This has been discussed ad nauseam.

Ad nauseam because you and some others refuse to notice reality yes. But please, why don´t you explain your faerytale convictions again, and ignore the facts of the rest of the world so you don´t get your illusions shattered.

Who said I don't like guns? I'm a gun owner and have been for 50 years. When did I attribute "most of the ills in US society" to them?
My point is simple. I don't actually care if everyone in the US has an assault rifle and uses it in the street every day. I'm simply arguing a point that it is obvious that your slack gun laws lead to an astounding amount of gun homicides, and it is strange that some people can't see that.

We have knife assaults, suicides, and all the rest, but that's nothing to do with what I'm argueing about.

PeterZ wrote:

Daryl wrote:All the fancy graphs and cherry picked stats don't alter one simple statistic.
Of all the developed countries one has much looser gun laws and many more guns; and this same country has amazingly higher gun homicide rates.
In a simple comparison with a similar culture (Australia- English speaking, similar other laws, a pioneering past, similar individual average wealth, and free press) the US has about 30 times more, not 30% but 3000% more. Other countries have similar comparative rates.

http://www.scccj.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/0124207_homicide_scotland_10-11.pdf

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-state

Why compare us to Australia? Why not Scotland? They had 37 homicides per million in the population in 2010-2011 and a miniscule number of gun homicides. The US had 47 in that period.

If we take away guns assuming that was the principal cause of homicides, why would we end up as peaceful Australia and not as the far less peaceful Scotland?

The answer lies in the data you prefer to ignore in favor for your prejudice. You don't like guns and attribute most of the ills of US society to that regardless of evidence to the contrary. We in the US view our responsibilities differently that you, even those Americans that do not like guns view our responsibilities differently. This has been discussed ad nauseam. Guns are not the root cause of homicides, suicides and accidents in the US as the data shows. At best the data show a lack of conclusive proof one way or another. Either way, there are far more direct correlations to the causes of violent crime than firearms.

This discussion of guns in society has arrived at the point religious conviction. We, all of us in the discussion, are unpersuadable on the issue regardless of the data presented. All that is left is trolling each other. I'll refrain from commenting further.

We are probably agreed that anyone who has a gun for honest purposes should also be solidly trained, especially in safety. There is another factor:

From: http://conservativetribune.com/media-fr ... -carriers/

According to The Daily Wire, a study was recently conducted by noted statistician John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center, who discovered that it is “very rare for permit holders to violate the law.”

IIUC, law enforcement officers commit crimes at about 2.7% of the rate of the general population, concealed carry licensed people at about 16% of that; roughly 0.4% of the general population rate. It will be interesting to see what happens with the recent increase of concealed carry permits.

Peter Z wrote:So the stats tell a story that as gun homicides fall, ownership of firearms follow. The stats do not support the idea that the presence of guns cause gun homicides. They show the opposite; the prevalence of gun homicides increased the perceived need to own a gun.

Could the increase in CC permits produce a decrease in the percentage of them that are 1) law-abiding, AND 2) trained

PeterZ, your comment about guns and the ills of US society, got me thinking.
I still maintain that the easy availability of assault rifles and handguns is a major factor, but I wonder if there isn't another.
While the US is different from other developed countries in gun control, it is also unique in that company by not having a national comprehensive welfare and health net.
As Bob Dylan once sang "If you ain't got nothin you got nothin to lose". So if you are a disadvanted person in a big city ghetto, then getting a readily available gun to mug people may seem a reasonable option. The worst that can happen is that you get killed, and the second worst is that you get food and medical care for years.
In other developed countries similar people would have a council house, the dole, and free medical care. Not much of a life if you are ambitious, but safe and adequate, so you wouldn't want to risk it.

Another major factor in US attitudes is that we grew up immersed in the "cowboy" mythos. Cultural heroes in other countries mostly had swords or bows and arrows, ours had six-shooters.

Daryl wrote:PeterZ, your comment about guns and the ills of US society, got me thinking.
I still maintain that the easy availability of assault rifles and handguns is a major factor, but I wonder if there isn't another.
While the US is different from other developed countries in gun control, it is also unique in that company by not having a national comprehensive welfare and health net.
As Bob Dylan once sang "If you ain't got nothin you got nothin to lose". So if you are a disadvanted person in a big city ghetto, then getting a readily available gun to mug people may seem a reasonable option. The worst that can happen is that you get killed, and the second worst is that you get food and medical care for years.
In other developed countries similar people would have a council house, the dole, and free medical care. Not much of a life if you are ambitious, but safe and adequate, so you wouldn't want to risk it.

Daryl, you are still thinking about how government can fix things. Those people need jobs. They need an education. They need a future beyond risking their lives to help a street gang peddle drugs.

Over 50 years of the Great Society trying to make things better for the inner cities through government programs has resulted in conditions that are far worse than they were when LBJ launched his programs. There must be something very corrupt about the American political system that can spend approximately the entire Australian GDP each year over that 50 year span on a welfare program that has made conditions worse for the very people the program was trying to help.

Until our representatives in government can prove they won't turn government programs into their personal slush funds or voter plantations, America should try something that does not depend on politicians taking money from tax payers and distributing those funds as they see fit. Better to focus on having the private sector invest in those areas. Better to incent the private sector through tax breaks for such investment than to trust a political system that has proved its corruption and complete disregard for those it is tasked to help. Let government oversee the private sector's ministering their investment. But Heaven forbid we get another government program from the establishment bozos like Clinton to burry the inner cities in a deeper hole.

As I have maintained consistently, guns are not the problem. Helping the inner cities out of the hole that US policy of the last 50 years has buried them in is the solution to fix the problem.

"Gun control" works just as well as any other form of prohibition.

Look at the history. Alcohol, drugs, gambling, prostitution - any time a bunch of do-gooders get the government to 'ban the bad things' it turns a manageable problem into an ongoing catastrophe. Control moves from society to the criminal underground.

Johnson's welfare state is only part of the problem in those inner cities; the 'war on drugs' and the undeclared war on prostitution make it so much easier to get money by crime than by honest work. With crime goes violence, guns or no guns.
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It takes two to make peace. It only takes one to make war.

Imaginos1892 wrote:"Gun control" works just as well as any other form of prohibition.

Look at the history. Alcohol, drugs, gambling, prostitution - any time a bunch of do-gooders get the government to 'ban the bad things' it turns a manageable problem into an ongoing catastrophe. Control moves from society to the criminal underground.

Johnson's welfare state is only part of the problem in those inner cities; the 'war on drugs' and the undeclared war on prostitution make it so much easier to get money by crime than by honest work. With crime goes violence, guns or no guns.
--------------------
It takes two to make peace. It only takes one to make war.

Why don´t you tell the British or Japanese that? 2 nations where guns are highly restricted, and working quite well, even though UK has had some issues with smuggling from the continent in later years.

Tenshinai wrote:Why don´t you tell the British or Japanese that? 2 nations where guns are highly restricted, and working quite well, even though UK has had some issues with smuggling from the continent in later years.

In both cases, it is predominantly cultural. In Japan, guns never really caught on outside the military. In fact, it was the introduction of guns which led to the end of the Samurai-dominated societal setup (muskets could be used with far less training than bows and arrows) while in the UK, the police don't usually carry weapons and an entire generation grew up in a legal environment where if one member of a criminal group used a gun, the entire group got far heavier sentences. Even the IRA (murdering gits) tended to avoid using guns for anything other than executions, although admittedly that was because they preferred to kill children with bombs.

Also, as previously noted, American heroes were lawmen or cowboys who were armed with guns. Japan had the Samurai (mounted archers, re-written as swordsmen) or ninja (daggers and throwing stars) while we in the UK had the sword-and-lance-using King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (although Camelot was a very silly place) or Robin Hood and his Merry Men (archers/staff fighters).