The Second Amendment

[Vis]

This is the problem, this is how you nut jobs actually view it. You actually truly believe that with fewer guns, criminals will commit fewer crimes. YOU ACTUALLY BUY THIS.

That's the scariest part of this all. It's been said a billion times - criminals rarely get their guns legally. They don't follow laws. In the case that the laws work, they STILL don't prevent people like our Orlando shooter or the Newtown shooter from getting guns.

Which brings us right back, front and center to the problem. It's not the guns. It's never been the guns. It's never going to be the guns. It's the people. You fix the people. It's the ONLY way to fix the problem.

So you're not "fixing anything" when you try to get rid of guns. You're not curing polio. You're putting a band aid on polio and acting as if it's disappeared.

fewer guns means fewer kids getting shot because any idiot can get a gun. I won't even get into the Australian experience. To much associative thought in that for you.

 

[Tim Steelersfan]

fewer guns means fewer kids getting shot because any idiot can get a gun. I won't even get into the Australian experience. To much associative thought in that for you.

Compare, contrast Australia, Chicago, Washington DC, California. Fewer guns don't mean fewer kids getting shot. But it does mean more innocent victims not being able to defend themselves.

 

[Tim Steelersfan]

fewer guns means fewer kids getting shot because any idiot can get a gun. I won't even get into the Australian experience. To much associative thought in that for you.

I know how much you Libs are allergic to facts, but have a look inside. Lots of pretty, factual graphs to chew on.

http://crimeresearch.org/2013/12/murder-and-homicide-rates-before-and-after-gun-bans/

MURDER AND HOMICIDE RATES BEFORE AND AFTER GUN BANS

Every place that has been banned guns (either all guns or all handguns) has seen murder rates go up. You cannot point to one place where murder rates have fallen, whether it’s Chicago or D.C. or even island nations such as England, Jamaica, or Ireland.

For an example of homicide rates before and after a ban, take the case of the handgun ban in England and Wales in January 1997 (source here see Table 1.01 and the column marked “Offences currently recorded as homicide per million population,” UPDATED numbers available here). After the ban, clearly homicide rates bounce around over time, but there is only one year (2010) where the homicide rate is lower than it was in 1996. The immediate effect was about a 50 percent increase in homicide rates. Firearm homicide rate had almost doubled between 1996 and 2002 (see here p. 11). The homicide and firearm homicide rates only began falling when there was a large increase in the number of police officers during 2003 and 2004. Despite the huge increase in the number of police, the murder rate still remained slightly higher than the immediate pre-ban rate.

There are a lot of issues about how different countries measure homicide or murders differently, but that isn’t really relevant for the discussion here as we are talking about changes over time within a country.

Other information for Ireland and Jamaica.

Jamaica’s crime data were obtained from a variety of sources. Its murder data from 1960 to 1967 were obtained from Terry Lacey, Violence and Politics in Jamaica, 1960–70 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1977). Professor Gary Mauser obtained the data from 1970 to 2000 from a Professor A. Francis in Jamaica and the data from 2001 to 2006 from the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (http://www.statinja.com/stats.html). Jamaica’s population estimates were obtained from NationMaster.com (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ peo_pop-people-population&date=1975).

See also information on Venezuela available here. It is also true for the Solomon Islands, which even appear to have only had mass public shootings after the 1999 gun ban.

How about for DC and Chicago (Figures taken from More Guns, Less Crime)?

The raw data for DC over a long period of time is available here (the crime rates are available on the bottom half of the screen).

Now Australia didn’t have a complete ban on guns, they didn’t even ban all semi-automatic guns, but a discussion on the changes in their crime rates from their gun buyback is available here (see also here).

Much of the debate over gun control focuses on what is called “cross-sectional” data. That is crime rates are examined at one particular point of time across different places. Here are two paragraphs from John Lott’s The Bias Against Guns that explain the basic problem with cross-sectional analysis.

First, the cross-sectional studies: Suppose for the sake of argument that high-crime countries are the ones that most frequently adopt the most stringent gun control laws. Suppose further, for the sake of argument, that gun control indeed lowers crime, but not by enough to reduce rates to the same low levels prevailing in the majority of countries that did not adopt the laws. Looking across countries, it would then falsely appear that stricter gun control resulted in higher crime. Economists refer to this as an “endogeniety” problem. The adoption of the policy is a reaction to other events (that is, “endogenous”), in this case crime. To resolve this, one must examine how the high-crime areas that chose to adopt the controls changed over time —not only relative to their own past levels but also relative to areas that did not institute such controls.

Unfortunately, many contemporary discussions rely on misinterpretations of cross-sectional data. The New York Times recently conducted a cross-sectional study of murder rates in states with and without the death penalty, and found that “Indeed, 10 of the 12 states without capital punishment have homicide rates below the national average, Federal Bureau of Investigation data shows, while half the states with the death penalty have homicide rates above the national average.” However, they erroneously concluded that the death penalty did not deter murder. The problem is that the states without the death penalty (Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Rhode Island, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Vermont) have long enjoyed relatively low murder rates, something that might well have more to do with other factors than the death penalty. Instead one must compare, over time, how murder rates change in the two groups – those adopting the death penalty and those that did not.
More information is available in chapters 2 and 10 of More Guns, Less Crime (University of Chicago Press, 2010, third edition).

A cross country comparison and the problems with such a comparison is available here.

 

[Vis]

Compare, contrast Australia, Chicago, Washington DC, California. Fewer guns don't mean fewer kids getting shot. But it does mean more innocent victims not being able to defend themselves.

fewer kids (toddlers) getting shot in their homes because stupid people have guns.

 

[diver]

fewer kids (toddlers) getting shot in their homes because stupid people have guns.

I try to be patient, but man are you obtuse. The people murdering toddlers in Chicago are not getting their guns legally. They don't follow laws. Why don't they take more of those stupid people and put them where they belong, in jail, for the myriad of crimes they have probably already committed.

What did George Costanza say? 'It's not a lie if you believe it." Guess this applies to you.

 

[Vis]

I try to be patient, but man are you obtuse. The people murdering toddlers in Chicago are not getting their guns legally. They don't follow laws. Why don't they take more of those stupid people and put them where they belong, in jail, for the myriad of crimes they have probably already committed.

What did George Costanza say? 'It's not a lie if you believe it." Guess this applies to you.

Are you that dense? I'm not talking about intentional shootings. How many kids die by accidental shootings in a home each year? How did those idiots who left the gun where the kid could get it qualify to own a gun? Why don't you get the NRA to support mandatory trigger locks or smart triggers?

 

[diver]

Are you that dense? I'm not talking about intentional shootings. How many kids die by accidental shootings in a home each year? How did those idiots who left the gun where the kid could get it qualify to own a gun? Why don't you get the NRA to support mandatory trigger locks or smart triggers?

When did you switch to this? You never specified. Anyway, a whole bunch of kids get shot by stray bullets from illegal guns while in their homes in big cities. Move the goalposts, huh?

I don't know. How many kids to get shot that way? Probably not even remotely the same number that get shot by people who get their guns illegally. You are worrying about the little leak while the dam just burst over there.

A couple of times you have said to me "If you want to worry about something, worry about _______________." Well, if you want to worry about something, worry about the deaths with illegal guns, let's prosecute them to the fullest. After all, laws should be a deterrent, right?

 

[Tim Steelersfan]

Are you that dense? I'm not talking about intentional shootings. How many kids die by accidental shootings in a home each year? How did those idiots who left the gun where the kid could get it qualify to own a gun? Why don't you get the NRA to support mandatory trigger locks or smart triggers?

An astronomical number we can't even begin to fathom.

According to CDC estimates, 538 children under 15 were injured as a result of gun accidents in 2013 alone, and 9,818 were injured between 2001 and 2013.

Thousands dying in Chicago isn't the problem. Criminals not being prosecuted isn't the problem. No. Accidental shootings by guns in homes is the problem.

 

[stillerfaninfl]

fewer kids (toddlers) getting shot in their homes because stupid people have guns.

Those stupid people are stupid parents who should either have guns and no kids, or have kids but no guns (preferably no guns). Actually, every time a kid gets a hold of a gun that should've been locked, etc., and shoots himself or someone else, the parents need to be fined and spend time in jail. Parents need to be held responsible for their kids actions. If some parents got hammered, maybe other ones would get a clue.

 

[warriors42]

fewer guns means fewer kids getting shot because any idiot can get a gun. I won't even get into the Australian experience. To much associative thought in that for you.

By this logic fewer cars mean fewer people die in drunk driving accidents,( we should get rid of all cars that go over 20mph). fewer fast food places mean fewer fat people.( close all fast food joints) fewer lakes mean fewer people drown,(make swimming illegal). and fewer liberals mean fewer stupid decisions.(everyone should be a republican). see what I did there.

 

[Steelr4evr]

By this logic fewer cars mean fewer people die in drunk driving accidents,( we should get rid of all cars that go over 20mph). fewer fast food places mean fewer fat people.( close all fast food joints) fewer lakes mean fewer people drown,(make swimming illegal). and fewer liberals mean fewer stupid decisions.(everyone should be a republican). see what I did there.

Our society is the problem. The demoncrats are running it right now the drain. Nothing going to fix that until decent men&women of character,morals and integrity are running the country again.

 

[steel shinin]

Our society is the problem. The demoncrats are running it right now the drain. Nothing going to fix that until decent men&women of character,morals and integrity are running the country again.

You're right that the society is the problem. The rest of this bullshit though.......yeah. Please give me an example of what the country has looked like with "decent men and women of character, morals and integrity". Who are these people? Are they automatically never Democrats? Please elaborate.

 

[Ron Burgundy]

The problem isn't polio or cancer, or guns or trucks. The problem is Muslims. That's what needs to be solved.

We don't need more gun control, we need more Muslim control.