The infuriating harassment of women who favor gun sanity

[Jewels_Vern]

People give lip service to freedom until somebody does something actually free. Then they start saying “UH oh, we gotta put a stop to that!”

[Kevin_Harrelson]

@redesigned

That is exactly what you are doing. Instead of looking at the swath of countries and and that it worked for every single one of them you cherry pick a 3 year period in which other violent crime increased in Australia (without looking at why) and decreased in the USA (without looking at why). As someone with a Masters in Engineering, you might want to look at the whole data set and the influencing factors. Does gun regulations reduce murders, undeniably, that is a fact. Arguing if the tradeoff is worth it is a very different discussion and one that I could respectfully disagree with, denying reality is not.

Let me explain WHY I chose Australia. You mentioned Japan. Looking at the data, you could conclude that we could reduce crime by forcing the whole country to speak Japanese! OK, exaggeration, but I am making a point.

In science, you also need a control. Two experiments, and you only change one thing between the two, and measure the difference. Not easily possible in this case, since a spare USA is not readily available, so we have to make do. Here is why I chose Australia:

1. Similar language
2. Somewhat similar background
3. Somewhat similar culture and values
4. Somewhat similar economy (maybe)
5. They RECENTLY ENACTED LAWS SIMILAR TO WHAT SOME WANT TO PASS OVER HERE!

Yes, re-read #4. I look at Australia as an experiment. We do not have two Australias, but we do have a before/after! They are NOT the same as the US. They have a completely different starting point. They even have different media. Sorry, but US culture glorifies violence. I can even admit to being part of this problem, since I have paid to see all of the Avengers/X-men movies, and all of the Die-Hard movies. I do not know what the media look like in Oz, and I suspect that they do import some USA movies and TV shows, they probably have a lot of local or UK content that does not have a crime show on every channel.

Directly comparing USA to Australia would be completely unfair. However, I reasoned that it would be valid to look at the TRENDS that happened since Australia implemented these new laws? What effect did the laws have on crime?

So, the years. The first of the gun-ban laws was passed around 1996-1997. I chose 1995 as being the latest year before the laws were passed. As to 2007, that was the last year that I could find complete data. I would LIKE to have more current data, but, for some reason, I could not find the overall assault rate for anything past 2007. If you can find it, please let me know. Somebody earlier DID post more recent statistics that showed a somewhat downward trend in more recent years, but it almost appeared if the Aus government was trying to hide the overall assault rate, so I reserve the right to hold out for better data.

Now, if I did not have a day job and a family, I would actually plot the trends for the last few decades and see what conclusions I can draw. One day, but not today.

So, do you see any fault in my reasoning?

I might also look at Canada in the future, but I am not aware of any recent changes in their gun laws so that I can get a “before/after” type picture. And, as I said, you cannot directly compare two countries, since the culture, history, values, and even economy differ. It is my belief (mostly common sense, but I will try to gather data some other day) that economics makes far more difference to the crime rate than gun laws.

@redesigned

Good. They aren’t trying to take away your freedom, they are just trying to make sure that your children get to grow up.

That is a matter of opinion. There are many politicans who DO want to take away their freedom. Honestly, for my grandchildren, I fear the government more than the criminals. Plus, I plan to have my kids able to defend themselves from criminals.

@redesigned

I know the proposed national laws have absolutely nothing to do with specific state regulations. Sure I agree that specific state law sounds off, but that isn’t what is being discussed here at all. You throw out some absurd highly specific scenario about a Colorado only law as argument against what is actually much more sane national regulations. It doesn’t follow. Setting a reasonable national standard that is less then the laws currently implemented in Colorado is a no brainier, for me at least.

My point is simply that laws can have a very bad impact on real, honest citizens, without having much of an impact on crime. There are new laws that I could live with. For example, mandatory safety training before 1st purchase. I could even be persuaded that universal background checks might be a good idea – IF they can be done reasonably. If you could get a background check for free, and in less than 5 minutes, over the internet, then I could be persuaded to agree to it. The background check would be recorded with the name of the requester and the receiver, but no indications on whether it was a sale or a loan, no serial numbers, nothing. Just two names. And it should be guaranteed to have a failure result in 5 minutes or you could assume that it passed. That type of system I could maybe see going for. Sorry, but the BATF is eager to yank dealer licenses for paperwork errors, so dealers are, as a whole, not willing to do transfers without a sale.

@redesigned

(also i still wait on two citations, i provided the one you requested.)

Ummm, when? The only thing that I remember seeing from YOU is a link that says less guns = less gun deaths. This is about a useful as less red cars = less red car deaths, but ignoring the fact that people can still die from blue cars and white cars.

As to the fires, yes we had fires here. Over 200 homes destroyed. The incidents that I relayed really DID happen, but there were no citations because there were no prosecutions. No DA would be enough of a jerk to actually prosecute somebody for something like this. However, read the law yourself. You cannot transfer firearms to another person without a hard-to-get background check. Your house burns down, what do you do? If it were me, I would actually just leave them with a friend that I trust, and who has guns, so getting mine would be no big deal. However, I would then technically be a criminal. Do you really want a law that make criminals of honest men? Is that the purpose of the law?

As to the soldier and his girlfriend, read the law yourself. We have three military bases in my town. This actually happened, because the Sheriff of my county is friends with this soldier, and I heard the story from him. Sorry, no reference, but all it takes to imagine this story being true is to read the law, and then assume that out of the thousands of soldiers here, one has a live-in fiance, owns guns, and gets deployed. Not much of a stretch of the imagination.

So, sorry for the lack of references, because no DA has been enough of a dick – yet. However, PLEASE read the law yourself. It is not hard to see how this can cause problems. I really do not have a problem with background checks! I would want one before I sold a gun to a stranger. However, they need to be as easy as possible to get, and exceptions made for family members, friends that you have known over a few years, and possibly people who already have guns.

[anon67050589]

@redesigned

also i still wait on two citations, i provided the one you requested.

Heck, I’m still waiting on the proof that when guns are regulated and thus gun deaths go down, the death rate from knives and clubs goes up an equal amount to make up the difference.

That claim is STILL being made, over and over again. I was at most a minor speed bump, half a thread ago.

[logicusprime]

That was in reply to Kevin H. Apologies for any confusion. I replied to both of you in the same message.

Thank you. Commented edited.

[Kevin_Harrelson]

@anon67050589

Heck, I’m still waiting on the proof that when guns are regulated and thus gun deaths go down, the death rate from knives and clubs goes up an equal amount to make up the difference.

That claim is STILL being made, over and over again. I was at most a minor speed bump, half a thread ago.

I cranked the numbers in Australia between 1995 (before they changed the law on guns) and 2007 (last year I can find complete data). Gun deaths dropped to almost nothing, but the overall murder rate was only down by 25% (Note that US homicide went down by 32% during the same period, beating Australia).

Raw statistics here: http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/violent%20crime/victims.html

From this page: http://www.aic.gov.au/crime_types/violence/weapons.html
you get this quote:

In Australia, knives are the most commonly used weapons in serious offences such as robbery, murder and attempted murder followed by firearms. Although the overall use of firearms in violent crime has declined over the past 10-15 years, gangs and those in the drug market often use handguns for protection.

Wow, serious criminals (gangs and drug market) don’t obey the firearms laws. Whodathunk?
There are other interesting links from that 2nd page. Have fun.

EDIT
http://www.aic.gov.au/documents/8/9/D/{89DEDC2D-3349-457C-9B3A-9AD9DAFA7256}mr13_004.pdf

Stab wounds: 114 victims
Beatings: 64 victims
Gunshot wounds: 30 victims. (yes, more people are beaten than shot)
Strangulation: 18 victims
Other (eg hit by car): 13
The rest are single-digit numbers: neglect, push from heights, poisoning, drowning, shaking (presumably a baby), etc.

So, if a person decides to kill, lack of a gun will generally not stop them. Lots of other statistics in that document. Charts on whether the criminal/victim were friends or strangers, charts on where the incident happened (home, street, etc.), whether alcohol was involved. Lots of pretty graphs!

EDIT 2

Table 17. Almost half of all murders were unemployed (48%)! More evidence that if you want to stop crime, don’t focus on guns, focus on JOBS!

EDIT 3

One simple graph showing knife and gun use in murders…

http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide/weapon.html

[MikeTheBard]

@redesigned

While I might not agree … I understand your points.

That’s all I’m asking for. I do think it’s still possible to find a reasonable compromise that maintains the individual right to own firearms with the goal of increasing the public safety- I personally believe that this lies in a national training/licensing program focused on the general citizenry, rather than the guns themselves.

@redesigned

I just think that America has a bit of a gun problem, and perhaps we could do something responsible and reasonable to offset that.

I don’t think we have a gun problem: I think we have an anger management problem, an always wanting the easy way out problem, and a personal responsibility problem, all stacked on top of a whole lot of corruption, inequality, broken promises, and poor education.

I honestly think that if we focused on fixing those, the gun thing would sort itself out.

[Kevin_Harrelson]

@MikeTheBard

I don’t think we have a gun problem: I think we have an anger management problem, an always wanting the easy way out problem, and a personal responsibility problem, all stacked on top of a whole lot of corruption, inequality, broken promises, and poor education.

I honestly think that if we focused on fixing those, the gun thing would sort itself out.

Truer words were never spoken (or typed).

[logicusprime]

While it did drop significantly, mexico has the problem of a lot of illegal weapons leaking across their northern border INTO mexico. The several large cartel seizures were all weapons from the USA. Hurray. So yes they still have a problem, a problem that is largely fueled by the USA. Most criminal gun confiscations in Canada similarly are from the USA.

All weapons from the cartel seizures came from the USA? Cite please. The widely publicized 90% of Mexico’s guns come from the USA stat is because Mexico only submitted those guns that they suspected came from the USA for a check. It turns out they were mostly, but not entirely, right. That’s not nearly all the guns they had.

Many of the weapons taken from the cartels that came from the USA were of military origin and not available to citizens in the USA. The US Government sent those weapons to the Mexican Government. They mysteriously slipped from the Mexican Military inventory into the hands of the drug cartels. I’m talking about full-on machine guns and light ordnance, not the usual handguns and semi-auto rifles available to the public here in the USA.

Then there’s the several thousand guns provided directly to the drug cartels by our government as a result of the incredibly stupid Fast & Furious operation.

Most criminal gun confiscations in Canada similarly are from the USA.

Cite please? I’m not contesting your claim. I’d just like to see the actual data.

BTW, I’d say that the apparent ease of getting guns across a border illegally actually tends to reinforce my point that it will be extremely difficult to keep criminals from getting guns.