It’s all about obfuscation for some of these single issue folks. Their tactics aren’t about making sense, but rather carpet bombing distractions.
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Talk about cherry-picking your data. Yes, former Soviet bloc countries have a higher murder rate than the U.S. But the western industrialized nations with which we normally compare ourselves are all much lower. Hell, Sierra Leone is lower.
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Putin has moved to legalize paramilitary organizations. Sort of his way of cutting ties with liberalism, I suppose.
Your analogy is very flawed. The problem is not the specific lack of knowledge, but the absence of knowledge because it is crowded out by fear and rage. When you lack facts, all you have to go on is “your gut,” which is notoriously inaccurate. For reference, see the next link. It is from a disreputable site called “BoingBoing,” so take everything you read there with a grain of salt. 
For reference, some people want to ban evil “assault rifles.” Despite the fact that REAL assault rifles are already pretty much illegal, lets look at homicides from ALL rifles (the FBI only categorizes gun homicides as “handgun,” “rifle,” and “shotgun”).
Rifle homicides (includes “assault rifles”) = 625 (2012 figure)
Choking Deaths = 2,500 (approximate)
Drowning Deaths = 2,000 (approximate)
So, rationally telling somebody that they are three times more likely to drown and four times more likely to choke will not stop them from their holy crusade.
Another point of fact. California effectively banned .50 caliber rifles. Did they rationally do this to stop crime? No. I could fine NO single instance of a .50 caliber BMG round ever being used in a domestic crime. None whatsoever. So, tell me this. Why did California pass a law to stop non-existent crime? Did they have a psychic or a fortune teller tip them off that a big crime was going to happen? Or, were they simply AFRAID of a 50-caliber rifle and wanted to do something (legislative masturbation – feels good but nothing actually accomplished). So, they stopped no crime, but added further burdens on their population. Yes, there are actually sporting uses of a .50. I read an article a few years ago about a couple that goes to one mountain and actually go after deer on the side of the next mountain! 
Not particularly my cup of tea, but if they have a deer permit and obey the laws, why should anybody care?
Some guys got around the law by making a California-legal 0.49-caliber bullet. Pretty much identical, but this one is legal. Crimes involving this gun? Zero.
Similarly, banning a gun based solely on its shape or number of handles is stupid. When somebody is shooting at you, the color or number of handles on the gun does NOT matter. It is the actual bullets that you have to worry about.
Finally, how effective do you think “gun-free zone” signs are. Do you really thing that ANYBODY has ever planned a mass murder, obtained weapons, and then encountered a “gun-free zone” sign and turned around? Gun-free zones are laughable unless you have a metal detector and armed guards to back it up. Here is some homework for you: how many mass shootings have NOT happened in “gun-free” zones? (In this context, I define “mass shooting” as a guy going after random strangers – this does not include a guy shooting his own family in his own house). And I would include the “Giffords” shooting as being in a gun-free zone. While probably not TECHNICALLY gun-free, a meeting of Democrats is, for all practical purposes, gun-free.
Yes, I cherry-picked the data. This was intentional to prove a point, and I thought that was obvious. I am sorry that the point flew straight over your head. I cherry-picked Russia to prove two points:
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Cherry-picking data can prove almost anything
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You cannot JUST look at the gun homicide rate, you have to look at the homicide rate in general. Being beaten to death is not magically somehow better than being shot to death.
Also, thank you for providing that link. This is the first actual unbiased bit of real and unbiased information that anybody besides myself has posted on this thread. The link that you provided actually CAN be used as the starting point for a conversation.
Now, I want to take a little detour here. Let’s look at the Suicide rate for a second. Japan has almost no guns, and a suicide rate of 21.4 per 100,000. The USA has a lot of guns, and a suicide rate of 12.5. What conclusions can we draw? Owning guns = less suicides, right? Wrong. If the countries were identical in all other respects, you might be able to make that conclusion. However, they have different languages, different religions, different economy, different family structure. Those thing make a LOT more difference than the mere presence or absence of firearms.
So, the conclusion in this is that it is VERY difficult to directly compare countries. You have to be very careful when you do this. If you look at a map of homicides in Chicago, they tend to cluster. Simply stated, certain neighborhoods have more crime than others. Since guns are portable and easy to move, the mere presence of firearms cannot easily explain this. Now, look at a map of income in Chicago. Hmm, the shapes seems somewhat familiar. It would appear that there is a coorelation between homicide rate and income. If you take a gun away from a criminal, he will use a knife or a club. Yes, it MIGHT make Chicago a LITTLE safer, but how much better would it be to eliminate the crime by working on the economy? This is an example of how you have to look deeper. Chicago has the same gun laws across the entire city, yet radically different outcomes depending upon the zip code.
Another example that I like it Australia. I have shown that it is hard to compare one country to another. However it is fair to compare a country to itself. Australia passed sweeping gun-control legislation a few decades ago. It certainly seems fare to ask “how well has it worked?” Well, homicide in general went down, but it went down MORE in the US. Meanwhile, violent crime over there went UP while it has gone down overe here. So, you tell me: how well has it worked?
I agree completely. People who are against gun ownership only have very tenuous arguments and few facts to back them up. That is why I try to deal with real statistics. Upon request, I will provide links to back up any facts that I list. I have stopped including them because they tend to make the post too long. I also use unbiased facts (Wikipedia, government reports, stuff like that). I do not want anybody to be able to accurately claim that I have been distorting the picture. People who oppose guns routinely use misleading figures, which bothers me to no end. Bad data = bad decisions.
Another thing that irks me is when people directly compare the US to other countries, without even comparing things like the economy. “The gun laws are different, so that must be the reason that they have less murders.” Hmm, how about “They have less poverty, so they have less homicide.” Or even “The family structure is different, with fewer single-parent homes, so that is why they have less murder.” People always focus on the one statistic that they want and ignore the rest.
Okay this is an asinine non-argument argument. It’s impossible to address or refute because it boils down to: “Hey! They’re wrong because they’re scared.” You can be scared and right. You can be mad and right. Hell, you can be right and ill-informed. The Internet has trained us to think that anytime somebody insults us in an argument, that they’ve engaged in an ad hominem fallacy. Actually, this is a mischaracterization of that fallacy. Truth is, it’s often much subtler, and you just engaged in it. It’s the act of saying “Someone is X, therefore they are wrong about Y.” In reality, people can be right entirely by accident, but the only tool humans have for evaluating rightness or wrongness is to analyze the claims. But you haven’t done that with this statement.
Except that rationally, you haven’t compared rifle homicides to handgun homicides to shotgun homicides, which would make a better point about assault weapons bans being useless- wouldn’t you agree? Does it not also make rational sense that any high-capacity semiautomatic weapon is more dangerous than a shotgun in certain ways?
Ultimately, you’re making an apples to oranges comparison. We can’t regulate drowning or choking. And honestly, if making drowning and choking illegal would reduce those numbers, I think we’d get behind the idea pretty fast. I certainly have no intention of breaking such a law.
Which may be a great specific example of a stupid law, but not a great argument for doing away with gun laws or bans altogether.
…and how many of those bullets, and how fast they can reload. The number of handles and the stock of the gun is designed to minimize recoil. I can think of plenty of settings in which I’d rather flee or face someone with a revolver versus a semiautomatic AK-47 with a thirty-round magazine. Never mind the fact that a 9mm in the arm isn’t going to take it off like 7.62 round might. The fact is that guns are constructed around their bullets as much as the other way around. The shape of a gun is very directly related to what it was designed to do. While you certainly can use an AK for hunting it was, in point of fact designed to kill humans pretty efficiently.
But that’s neither here nor there, badly written laws do not obviate the arguments for better gun control. Hell, it might even provide an argument that we’ve never had good gun control.
How many cops are shot and killed? Cops operate in a “I-have-a-gun-all-the-time” zone. You’re mischaracterizing the purpose of these zones. They’re increased penalty and deterrence zones. They’re not supposed to stop shootings directly. It’s like saying “Why have a law against manslaughter? It doesn’t keep people from being wreckless.” But a lot of anti-gun people think the whole country should be gun-free, which is frankly a pretty realistic way to cut down on shooting deaths.
Honestly though, I’m not especially anti-gun, so you’ll have to take up a lot of this with them. Fact is, I’m not pro-gun either. This argument has really gone to the dogs for me, and for every tired-old idea pulled out by the pro-gun crowd there are as many weird or fallacious arguments from the other side. The reasons I’m more on the anti-gun side of things are as follows:
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Guns have yet to really keep the government from abusing its citizens, or to preserve our other non-gun rights. These open-carry people don’t seem to care all that much about Eric Garner or other very regular and systematic manifestations of tyranny. All other gun uses are superfluous in my eyes. The amendment wasn’t written with duck hunting or personal protection in mind.
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The pro-gun lobby has proven to be irresponsibly intransigent and paranoid. Obama has done almost nothing about guns in this country except for crack down a little on practices that are already illegal. Yet anytime some gun store starts dipping a little too far into the red, all they have to do is post some idiotic YouTube video about Obama coming for the guns and all the rubes show up to buy ammo. I know. I’ve watched the videos. (Because I’m interested in guns- shocking, I know!) Meanwhile, instead of reaching out to educate or assist in maybe coming up with some reasonable safeguards, the NRA just stonewalls anything related to gun-control. I agree, some crap is unreasonable. Trigger-guards seem more like a hazard than a help, for example. Yet it’s really hard for sensible gun policy to emerge when the NRA’s default response is simply to obstruct anything and everything, and thereby let the people who often know least about guns to be the only people discussing policy. A lot of the problems you describe are because the pro-gun crowd doesn’t believe in education and compromise.
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An unhealthy attachment to the Republican party. Hell, any party these days. Your remark about democrats is a sly little hint. At the end of the day, I can’t respect anyone who worries about their second amendment rights, and support a party that seems happy to get rid of all the others. It makes it very hard to take it seriously. In the end, I’m not seeing how eliminating the 2nd amendment leaves this country any worse off. But the other amendments keep getting worn away by the same people who are happy to talk about having their gun ripped away from their cold dead fingers. The second amendment is not a quality-of-life right. It’s a protective right that hasn’t served its purpose and isn’t likely to in the future.
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Indeed, I apologize. I misread your original post because I was reading in haste. Please forgive me.
Now, as to your original question, about which countries have decended into dictatorships, that depends upon what you define as “developed country” to begin with. However, in 1938, Germany effectively disarmed the Jews. This did not end well for them.
Again, accept my apologies.
Sorry, but a LOT of people have an agenda, even guys publishing papers. I am not saying that such publications are worthless, but you need to look below the surface. For example, the Center for Disease Control ALSO published a paper with the following finding (link to paper and the end). Here is a summary from another web site with some of the good bits of the CDC study:
[quote]1. Armed citizens are less likely to be injured by an attacker:
“Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”
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Defensive uses of guns are common:
“Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year…in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.” -
Mass shootings and accidental firearm deaths account for a small fraction of gun-related deaths, and both are declining:
“The number of public mass shootings of the type that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School accounted for a very small fraction of all firearm-related deaths. Since 1983 there have been 78 events in which 4 or more individuals were killed by a single perpetrator in 1 day in the United States, resulting in 547 victims and 476 injured persons.” The report also notes, “Unintentional firearm-related deaths have steadily declined during the past century. The number of unintentional deaths due to firearm-related incidents accounted for less than 1 percent of all unintentional fatalities in 2010.” -
“Interventions” (i.e, gun control) such as background checks, so-called assault rifle bans and gun-free zones produce “mixed” results:
“Whether gun restrictions reduce firearm-related violence is an unresolved issue.” The report could not conclude whether “passage of right-to-carry laws decrease or increase violence crime.” -
Gun buyback/turn-in programs are “ineffective” in reducing crime:
“There is empirical evidence that gun turn in programs are ineffective, as noted in the 2005 NRC study Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review. For example, in 2009, an estimated 310 million guns were available to civilians in the United States (Krouse, 2012), but gun buy-back programs typically recover less than 1,000 guns (NRC, 2005). On the local level, buy-backs may increase awareness of firearm violence. However, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for example, guns recovered in the buy-back were not the same guns as those most often used in homicides and suicides (Kuhn et al., 2002).” -
Stolen guns and retail/gun show purchases account for very little crime:
“More recent prisoner surveys suggest that stolen guns account for only a small percentage of guns used by convicted criminals. … According to a 1997 survey of inmates, approximately 70 percent of the guns used or possess by criminals at the time of their arrest came from family or friends, drug dealers, street purchases, or the underground market.” -
The vast majority of gun-related deaths are not homicides, but suicides:
“Between the years 2000-2010 firearm-related suicides significantly outnumbered homicides for all age groups, annually accounting for 61 percent of the more than 335,600 people who died from firearms related violence in the United States.”[/quote]
As far as homicide, I showed you above how you can get data for gun ownership and murder rate by state, and do a quick graph that shows that more guns tends to indicate less crime. My method is quick and dirty, and completely free of any possible bias. You can take somebody else’s word for it, or you can run the numbers yourself.
As far as suicide goes, guns are certainly effective suicide tools, but far from the only tool available. Robin Williams did not use a gun.
OK. Let’s look at this one. Oh, wait, we CAN’T because you have to pay to take a look at it? What methodology did they use? You DON’T KNOW! OK. Others have looked at it. Let’s see what they have to say (borrowed from John Lott):
[quote]1) Using state level data the study claims a positive relationship between the percentage of suicides committed with guns (they call this the gun ownership rate rather than what it actually is) and the firearm homicide rate. The big problem with their measure of gun ownership is that it picks up a lot of demographic information that may itself be related to homicide and to crime.
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Do we care about total murders or murders involving guns?
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“None of the existing panel studies examined data more recent than 1999.” Presumably this is what is causing some left wing outlets to claim “Largest Gun Study Ever” (at last glance the link to that article was retweeted 1,077 times). The authors seem completely unaware of the third edition of More Guns, Less Crime that looked at data up through 2005 – six years longer than they claim. Of course, my research also started with 1977, not 1981 as they did. Of course, I have also used county and city level data and have many more observations than they have. My research has run regressions with up to 96 times more observations that the 1,000 that they point to in this paper. While I account for hundreds of factors, these guys account for almost none (6 in their final reported model (23 unreported in bivariate estimates – meaning just running one of these variables at a time in explaining firearm murder rates). It would be nice if Mr. Zack Beauchamp was notified that these authors are apparently unaware of any of my research since “1988” [sic] (they couldn’t even get the year right for my first edition of MGLC).
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No explanation is offered for why they leave Washington, DC out of their regressions. I can offer one: it weakens their results.
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Only a very small percentage of the prison population are there for murder. Possibly a percent or two in any given year. Do changes in the share of the prison population for larceny or burglary really help explain a lot of the variation in murder rates? A more direct measure would be the arrest rate for murder and/or the number of people in prison for murder and/or the death penalty execution rate.
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“To develop a final, more parsimonious model, we first entered all variables found to be significant in bivariate analyses (we used a Wald test at a significance level of .10) into 1 model. We then deleted variables found not to be significant in the presence of the other variables, assessing the significance of each variable with a Wald test at a significance level of .05.” – The problem here is that the resulting statistical significance levels don’t mean what these authors seem to think that that do. The levels of significance for a regression assume a random draw. If you 23 specifications and then pick the variables that are significant, the variables that you are picking were picked in a biased manner.
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Six variables is what they finally include in their “Final Model.” Leaving out variables that affect the murder rate will cause the other variables to act as a proxy for these left out variables. This gets back to my point (1).
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Even if all these issues were dealt with, they have completely ignored the issue of causation. Is it increased crime that results in more guns or the reverse?[/quote]
Wow, what a home run. Do you believe the American Journal of Public Health and TheAnnals of Internal Medicine, OR do you believe the CDC and your own eyes with a graph that you can make yourself? Tough call, but I can say that it is hardly a slam-dunk for your side.
First of all, I would like to thank you. We may disagree, but you can state your case articulately and without name-calling. I really appreciate that. Now, if you are ever in the Colorado Springs area, I would be happy to buy you a beer. We have some great micro-brews here.
You claim I do it, but I claim that our politicians to it. Sorry, but I would like to hold our elected officials to a higher standard. A couple of years ago, Congress voted on an “assault weapon” ban. Fortunately, it failed. However, let’s look at it in detail. As I showed above (and expand on below), homicides from ALL rifles are a mere drop in the bucket when it comes to total homicides. We also had the Clinton-era 10-year “assault weapons” ban that also included all larger magazines. Did it do much? Absolutely not. No detectable difference in the homicide rate (see note 1 below). Wow, that worked so poorly, let’s do it again! Please explain to me why such proven-useless legislation would be seriously considered by otherwise well-informed people?
If our elected officials are going to vote to take away somebody’s rights, don’t you think it make sense for them to actually know the statistics involved – I mean unbiased statistics? Have they informed themselves about how many time guns are used to prevent crime? When they want to ban any gun with an “upper gas tube” do they even know what that means or why they are doing it? I have personally seen way too many politicians vote to restrict gun rights without even knowing what the heck they are voting for! Should we accept this in our public leadership? Should Obama appoint a guy to be the new Attorney General just because he has seen every episode of “Law and Order,” or do we want somebody who actually knows what he is doing?
Perhaps I should have included more statistics. My apologies. I just did a quick search, and found 2011 statistics (first ones I found, feel free to look for more recent data if you want):
Total firearms homicides: 8583.
Rifle homicides: 323 == 3.7%.
Homicies from knives: 1,694.
Homicides from clubs: 496.
Yes, more people were BEATEN to death in 2011 than killed with rifles. Did you know that the statistics were this low? If not, WHY not. You apparently have an opinion on this subject, so you should have some idea about the facts. I already knew the ballpark figure, because I believe in being informed.
Well, we are trying to regulate homicide by banning guns as much as possible. We could ban pools and recreational swimming. We could save thousands of lives by making a nationwide speed limit of 45 miles per hour. However, those restrict personal freedoms too much, so we don’t do it. However, people who do not own guns and don’t care for them are happy to restrict the freedoms of others, as long as it does not affect them.
Did I ever say that all gun laws are stupid or that we should get rid of all of them? No, I don’t recall saying that. Sadly, the though process that led to this law leads to others, and far to often.
And yet I have shown that homicides with ANY type of rifle are exceedingly rare. Statistically speaking, the vast majority of shootings are over in only two or three shots. Mass shootings are actually quite rare. Cases in which having more than 10 rounds means much to the bad guy are very uncommon. The number of people killed in real mass shootings is comparable to the number of people struck by lighning each year. Yes, it is tragic, but does it make sense to restrict the rights of over 300,000,000 Americans to slow down a mass murder who only has to carry a 2nd gun or practice changing a magazine in 2 seconds or less?
By the way, at the Aurora theater shooting, the guy has a very large drum magazine – which jammed making his rifle useless. If he had just carried a bunch of smaller magazines, he could have done more damage.
Perhaps true, perhaps not. The word “good” is full of semantic land-mines.
First, it is the job of police to go into trouble. This is like saying that a deep-sea diver drowned, so what chance do I have in my local swimming pool. Most sensible people flee from trouble, and use a gun (if they can) when they have little choice. It is the job of the police to go into those situations that others try to avoid.
I had more respect for you up until this point. I hope that you are joking.
Two things here. First, if a guy wants to kill somebody in a “gun-free zone,” do you think that one extra year or so of prison is going to make much of a difference? He is already looking at a minimum of 20 years, and probably much, much more. One extra year is not much of a deterrent.
The second thing is, if YOU wanted to commit as much murder as you could, were would you go:
- Gun-free zone
- A restaurant where patrons openly carry guns (places like this DO exist, one in a town not too far from me).
One of the GREAT things about a gun-free zone (from the perspective of a criminal) is that, if there is no armed guards, you can shoot away until the police show up. That could be many minutes, if you are lucky. Lots of dead bodies, and nobody to shoot back. Name ONE thing good about this situation.
Well, it does put a check on what the government can get away with. This country has NOT abused its own citizens (yet). There have been problems here and there, I admit. There are some miscarriages of justice. If I were president, I would abolish the NSA and the TSA, to start with. But armed revolt is an absolute last resort, and this country is not anywhere near that bad. Also, just knowing that the population is amred will make any sane man pause before he does anything oppressive. If you did happen to want to start an oppressive government, the first step is to disarm the poulation and own the military. Do you think that it is an accident that oppressive regimes try to crack down on the private ownership of guns?
Ummmm. You might want to re-check your facts. He wanted to outlaw anything resembling an assault rifle, he wanted to outlaw all magazines that hold over 10 round. He wanted a background check for ALL gun transfers (sorry, but my friend that I have known for 10 years and who already has guns is not going to go crazy with the hunting rifle that I loaned him).
You are not paranoid if they really ARE out to get you.
[quote]Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of all Americans to feel safe.
– Dianne Feinstein, US Senator[/quote]
[quote]If I had my way, sporting guns would be strictly regulated, the rest would be confiscated.
– Nany Pelosi, US Speaker of the House[/quote]
So, it is paranoid when powerful politician openly threaten to take away your rights?
Once again, you use the word “sensible” as if everybody can agree on what it means. What is sensible to you is not sensible to me! With around 8,000 or so gun homicides in the US, but around 270,000,000 guns, that means that only one gun in over THIRTY THOUSAND is used in a homicide. Also, gun laws really affect the people who follow the law, but not so much those who intend to break the law. Sorry, if I am against laws that inconvenience me, but that a real criminal can break without even trying hard.
Let me put this in perspective; There are around 80,000 forcible rapes in the USA each year (83,425 in 2011). With a population of over 316 million (and assuming exactly 50% male), that means one out of approximately one out of 1,900 men commits rape. Yes, the average male “member” is 15 times more likely to commit rape than the average gun is to commit murder. Maybe we need a law banning concealed carry of your “manhood?” Maybe require a permit to carry it around?
Did I ever say that I have an attachment to the Republican party? Nope. They are horrible! The only thing worse is the Democrats! I actually tend to be more libretarian, but I wish that the actual Libretarian party were less of a joke. I just happen to believe in freedom and the constitution, and that the best way for a successful country is to not bankrupt ourselves in debt. Democrats hate the 2nd Amendment. Republicans hate the 4th Amendment. Some Democrats are against the 4th Amendment too (cough Obama cough). Obama does love the 5th Amendment since so many people under him use it. I am also very much in favor of net neutrality, which goes against the GOP. I happen to believe that freedom OF religion does not mean freedom FROM religion. I think that our borders ought to be closed. I am not opposed to immigration, but I think that immigrants need to be welcomed in the front door, we do not need them sneaking in though the window.
I am my own person. I do, however, consider the GOP to be the lesser of two evils – not by much, and if a viable 3rd party emerged that actually loved the ENTIRE Constitution it would not take much to woo me over to their side.
Note 1
The homicide rate DID decline during the Clinton-era ban. It was declining before, and it continued to decline after the ban ended.
HaHa! No thanks!
Looking below the surface, you just copy-pasta’d this from Guns and Ammo magazine.
But, yeah, peer-reviewed medical journals are the ones with an agenda.
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[quote=“funruly, post:55, topic:49142”]
Looking below the surface, you just copy-pasta’d this from [Guns and Ammo magazine][/quote]
So, are you suggesting that “Guns and Ammo” somehow paid for or influenced the study by the US Center for Disease Control? Are you suggesting that they might have deliberately misquoted the study to provide their own agenda? Lots of people provide links from people with an agenda around here. I guess it is only bad if they disagree with you, right?
The CDC published a study that says that guns are not so bad, and a gun magazine summarized the findings – SURPRISE SURPRISE! Give me a break here.
Sure. The CDC has a pro-gun agenda. Riiiiiight. Tell me another lie, please!
Tell you what. I posted the link to the ENTIRE study – all 120 pages of it. I skimmed this when it came out. If you do not like the summary I provided, you are welcome to find your own, or even read the damn thing and come to your own conclusion. – I skimmed it when it came out two years ago.
Attacking the source of the summary of the study is pretty damn weak.
Much as you might disagree with the direction of either the UK or Australian governments’ policies, neither have become a dictatorship in the absence of firearms.
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That CDC link is not a study, Kevin. It’s a proposed research agenda.
Although I do find it ironic that it says
While upthread you quoted John Lott, a noted and discredited pro-gun advocate, who doesn’t believe those numbers.
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The “Priorities” document was a cynical attempt to seem balanced in an attempt to secure research funding. Thus, they presented the results of several conflicting, and non comprehensive studies, in an effort to show that the field was hopelessly muddled without expensive, comprehensive studies,
But it didn’t really work. Now places like Guns and Ammo can disengenuously claim that the National Academy of Science endorses their position, and that no further research is required.
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Of course firearms deaths are higher hear. In other countries, they use knives and clubs like “civilized” people. Being bludgeoned to death is so much more personal and civilized. By the way, banning guns leads to this:
Wow! By getting rid of guns, they sure solved their violence problems!
"Discredited?’ Based on whose standards. And, if you use those SAME standards in a fair and impartial manner, how many politician would not be “discredited?”
Does that make any of his criticisms of the paper not valid? If so, what, SPECIFICALLY, do you disagree with on his criticisms? I know of a LOT of anti-gun people that have said and published a LOT of downright stupid things. I bet that you would still quote them.
And once again, you focus on GUN DEATHS!
Try telling the family of a young man stabbed to death and telling the family that their son was murdered in the wrong way, so his death does not even count in statistics. Try telling them that they should be glad that their son was not shot to death! Did you hold a sign that says “Black lives matter – but only if they are shot?”
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As much as you might disagree with people who don’t wear seatbelts, I know several people that do not wear them and they are still alive even after driving hundreds of thousands of miles in the absence of seatbelts.
Same logic.
Here is a challenge. How many oppressive governments allow their subjects easy access to firearms – all subject, not just select parts?
Proof? Any at all?
[quote=“Kevin_Harrelson, post:61, topic:49142”]
Here is a challenge. How many oppressive governments allow their subjects easy access to firearms – all subject, not just select parts?[/quote]
Pakistan is one of the least restrictive countries in the world regarding private gun ownership; In some parts of the country private citizens can even own RPGs and anti-aircraft guns. Pakistan is also ranked as one of the most oppressive countries in the world for things like religious freedom.
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Seatbelts aren’t there to stop you having accidents - they’re there to dramatically increase your chance of surviving them; so your point (insofar as there is one) is stupid as well as irrelevant to the comment I made. How many people do you know that have had RTAs and survived, despite their relaxed attitude to seatbelts?
Your attempt to link government oppression to restriction of firearms is specious - one may as well argue that all oppressive regimes force motorists to drive on the right. That is, oppressive governments regulate guns not because they are oppressive but because they are governments. Further, Yemen has some of the most relaxed access to guns in the world - almost as relaxed as the attitude to human rights amongst the government, police, and army.
