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United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

nature.com

291–300 of 373 posts

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#291
post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

mass shooters... gravitate to assault rifles Absolutely false. The vast majority of "mass shootings" are with handguns.

We have different definitions of mass shooters. I assume you advocate strongly, with great investments of time, energy, and money, to alleviate the ones I would say you're including erroneously, yes?

Slick reply, but a mocking, obsequious attempt to brush the definitions aside changes nothing: the parent comment is correct.

> We have different definitions of mass shooters.

You're almost certainly talking about high profile shooting incidents with broad media coverage, that drive what is essentially a moral panic.

Parent comment is referring to incidents where 3+ people get shot, which often do not make the national and international media, and are predominately carried out with handguns.

The shootings last August that got a lot of attention are a great example. Couple of back-to-back mass shooting incidents in TX and Ohio got a lot of press... even though just the week before something like 34 people got shot in Chicago over the course of 2 days; hardly a word in the press outside of Chi-town.

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#292
post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luckily for gun control advocates the rate of firearm injuries also sharply increases for households that own guns, too. So while yeah, there may be other issues with mental health, gun training, domestic violence etc, you can significantly reduce deaths and injuries by removing guns - which people often have because they think having a gun will reduce those.

> Luckily for gun control advocates the rate of firearm injuries also sharply increases for households that own guns, too. Uh, ... wow. "Luckily?" > you can significantly reduce deaths and injuries by removing guns - which people often have because they think having a gun will reduce those. There may be better ways to reduce these than trying to remove the guns, though-- ways that mitigate and reduce harm and that do…

Gun ownership decreases liberty via death.

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#293
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about the wars where for example maybe conservatively 100000 Iraqis have died while about 5000 coalition troops have? Is that how you see winning going down for american gun owners, too?

Winning is not about body counts; it's about reaching your strategic objectives.

What strategic objective do you see american gun owners achieving against the american military?

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose it depends on what type of grandma you have :) Maybe with training, your grandma could enjoy plinking targets and also be safer in her home? There are grandmas that love hunting and spending time at the range. It'd be nice to live in a world where nobody ever commits acts of violence. Unfortunately, we banned violence long ago, and it seems that criminals are still doing it anyway. The next best thing we ca…

Then again, comparing New World statistics to Europe ans Asia, it seems pretty clear that personal gun ownership isn't the only option for staying alive.

Which gun ownership stats are you using for Europe? IIRC there's a ton of unregistered literally military guns lying around over there from the various wars.

Guns don't go bad, after all.

(And if you count things like the Holodomor, Holocaust, Cambodian Genocide etc as murder, I think the correlation between 'murder rate' and 'civilian gun ownership rate' takes a decidedly different slope)

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about this everytown, which again proclaims the 3x risk of gun deaths? https://everytownresearch.org/firearm-suicide/

> a major critique of this methodology remains unanswered: that the increased risk of completed suicide is so tightly coupled with military servitude that the role of guns cannot be convincingly established in either the univariate or multivariate analysis. > What do you say to this?

I say this supposedly major critique isn't represented in the data. The everytown article you seem to be mentioning recommends tighter gun controls.

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if you bought a syringe into your house to prevent syringe related deaths.

Imagine if you bought a strawman into your comment. Or maybe we don't have to imagine. How many people do you know who brought a gun into their house solely for protection against someone with a gun?

How many people do you know that would be pleased to learn owning a gun actually makes their family more prone to dying of gunshot wounds? It is not possible to have liberty when you are dead.

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.npr.org/2018/04/13/602143823/how-often-do-people... >In fact, Cook told The Washington Post that the percentage of people who told Kleck they used a gun in self-defense is similar to the percentage of Americans who said they were abducted by aliens. The Post notes that "a more reasonable estimate" of self-defense gun uses equals about 100,000 annually, according to the NCVS data.

Two numbers are similar. Obviously they must both be fictitious. Such a sound argument of the highest caliber. Or maybe it was just money laundering for an ad hominem .

There's a better estimate right there in the second sentence.

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#298
post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.npr.org/2018/04/13/602143823/how-often-do-people... >In fact, Cook told The Washington Post that the percentage of people who told Kleck they used a gun in self-defense is similar to the percentage of Americans who said they were abducted by aliens. The Post notes that "a more reasonable estimate" of self-defense gun uses equals about 100,000 annually, according to the NCVS data.

I don't understand how people believing in alien abductions can be used to criticize gun ownership.

They're both beliefs that are unsupported by evidence:

https://psmag.com/news/keeping-a-gun-at-home-can-mean-a-high...

https://slate.com/technology/2015/01/good-guy-with-a-gun-myt...

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when "police officers are consulted when drafting the legislation" - they could have their own protection interest in mind more than yours. When they choose to carry 'high capacity magazines', SBRs (real pia to get for non-leo) - and other weaponry, it is understood these things help them be safer... If grandma is not allowed to be safer because random bad guy - you have to wonder, or should maybe.

> SBRs (real pia to get for non-leo) It's not that bad. The easy way is to find an SBR you want to buy, file Form 4 for $200, wait for a few months, then take receipt of your NFA item. Or if you want to do a conversion from an existing rifle, file Form 1 (also $200) and get short barrel. The disadvantage is that you've then created an NFA weapon, so you'd have to be more careful how you handle transfer and sale. If y…

> If you have a forward grip but don't have the tax stamp, you'll go to prison.

Incidentally, I'm pretty sure this applies even if the grip isn't attached, or is attached to another gun. All depends on how friendly the ATF is feeling...

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your government is run by dangerous criminals ready to take you and your freedom by brute force. Even more interesting to me is the idea that the American government has such a hold over the patriots in the military that they could be commanded to enforce tyranny. Or, that owning an assault rifle is some antidote against the best funded military in the world, which has been fighting armed insurgencies for years.

Our track record of defeating armed insurgencies is miserable. You’re also overlooking the nature of waging war on your own people. The military will follow a tyrannical dictator, until it doesn’t. In Bangladesh, for example, Pakistan killed hundreds of thousands of disarmed Bangladeshis. Thanks to smuggled arms from India, Bangladesh was able to put up some sort of resistance. Eventually, Bangladeshi members of the…

I'm not only hearing you say "maybe" a lot about the effectiveness of gun ownership, but also that wars against internal foes are wildly unpopular, and that the military may decide to stop supporting the government. Agreed on all counts.

Consider this though, we have repeatedly conducted studies that show bringing a gun into your house increases the chance of gun death.

Maybe, perhaps, given the chance, gun ownership will help stave off tyranny.

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