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Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware

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Re: Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware

#151

Post by evan_ »

corresation wrote: post #128
runjake wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In many households a firearm has one single purpose, which is to kill or maim (given that hunting is rare). Kill or maim criminal intruders (given that murderers are rare). I'm not sure where in Canada you are, but hunting is far from rare in Canada and most areas of the US.

but hunting is far from rare in Canada 5% of Canadians hunt. That qualifies as pretty rare to me. I don't know what the percentage is in the US, but just gut feeling is that there's a wide gap between gun ownership and hunting.

That's still 1,724,138 people.

Re: Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware

#152

Post by nsmartt »

corresation wrote: post #144
learc83 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, per baseball bat. If you are looking at banning something because it causes deaths. You want to look at how many deaths are caused per item. Reducing the number of items by X will result in Y fewer deaths. Baseball bats kill more people per baseball bat than do "assault weapons". What other reason could you have for banning something other than reducing harm. Looking strictly at the numbers banning baseball bats…

Baseball bats kill more people per baseball bat than do "assault weapons". What font of imaginary statistics are you pulling this ludicrous claim from? Do you know how many hundreds of millions of baseball bats there are in the United States? If we're discussing the confused, exaggerated stats that originally kicked this off, add in the billions of other "club-like" objects in circulation. You are making absolutely r…

Do keep in mind that the parent was specifically referring to assault weapons, which are presumably much more rare than other firearms, and also very rarely used in crime.

I have no statistics, and I have no clue how many baseball bat deaths occur annually. I just thought maybe this would be a useful reminder.

Re: Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware

#153

Post by evan_ »

bluedino wrote: post #134
rgraham wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a citation for that? AK47s became popular with many hunters and target shooters because they're rugged, cheap, and have really cheap ammunition for target practice with a rifle.

Popular with gangs for the same reason. They're also pretty intimidating. Citation? Go to a search engine and type something like "AK47 chicago gang" or search the news websites for any large city with a high murder rate for 'ak47' > The AK-47 is a select fire fully automatic rifle. It has been illegal to import or manufacture fully automatic rifles for civilian use for decades. Don't do this. You know I meant 'AK pa…

You'll get a lot of hits on that because the media calls every long gun an AK47. No criminal in his right mind would use one, it's expensive and objectively terrible.

Re: Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware

#154

Post by ctdonath »

corresation wrote: post #98
jordan0day wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source for that 30,000+ figure? The FBI statistics link in this thread mentions around 8600 firearm-related murders for 2011 (but not suicide or accidents). That's the only hard data I've seen in this thread so far though. In these sorts of threads, anecdotes and hyperbole can quickly overrule data and thoughtfulness, so I'm just hoping that numbers like "30,000+" aren't being pulled out of thin air. I'…

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-19/american-gun-deaths... As others have mentioned, a hefty percentage of those deaths are suicides. Would those suicides have happened if the option of a firearm wasn't available? Perhaps.

Japan has a very high suicide rate despite near non-existence of guns.

Re: Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware

#155

Post by jsonne »

tokenadult wrote: post #112

The article "In Medical Triumph, Homicides Fall Despite Soaring Gun Violence" http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732471250457813... from December 8, 2012 provides some perspective on falling absolute numbers (and thus a falling rate) of gunshot deaths. "Crime experts who attribute the drop in killings to better policing or an aging population fail to square the image of a more tranquil nation with this stat…

Is it possible that the rise from 2001 to 2011 has to do with the recession rather than a general upward trend? Would it be possible to see statistics from 2001 to say 2007 instead? Or even better the last 20 years.

Re: Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware

#156

Post by ctdonath »

tome wrote: post #105
ownagefool wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a baseball bat in my house and it's not there to hit balls but to hit anyone who attempts to come into my home without my permission. I doubt I'll ever need to use it, but there you go, it's one single purpose is to "maim or kill", which in reality is actually protection and I'd be happy with fear itself being the deciding factor. I don't come down on either side on gun control, they're mostly banned here in t…

You are correct, but it's a matter of degree. It's much, much easier to maim or kill with a gun than with a baseball bat and that's why I'm glad no one has guns in the UK. If someone comes at me with a baseball bat I can run away. If someone comes at me with a gun, I'm dead.

Most shootings are survived, something like 80% for handguns.

Re: Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware

#157

Post by tome »

mikegotroot wrote: post #149
tome wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct, but it's a matter of degree. It's much, much easier to maim or kill with a gun than with a baseball bat and that's why I'm glad no one has guns in the UK. If someone comes at me with a baseball bat I can run away. If someone comes at me with a gun, I'm dead.

Not to belittle your point, but you're not necessarily dead if someone comes at you with a gun. Many factors dictate if the shooting will be fatal. For example, in far too many cases police officers and others defending themselves have had to fire multiple shots to disable or kill an attacker. And in some cases have failed. So you might not be dead. With that said, people do have guns in the UK, just not law abiding…

> 1) you may survive an attack with a firearm

Agreed, my initial claim was hyperbole. I don't think weaking my claim to "serious injury" weakens my point.

> 2) there are guns in the UK, and more gun crime since the ban went into effect. Infer from that what you will.

Twice a tiny amount is still a tiny amount.

Re: Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware

#159

Post by jsonne »

learc83 wrote: post #127
nemof wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes there is http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/03/suicides-vs-handgun-... Introduce background checks and you will reduce the number of suicides, more likely than not.

The conclusions motherjones got from that study were absolutely ridiculous. The big graph they display is meaningless. Here is a quote from the article. "...gun suicides, where the majority of victims don't have a documented serious mental illness." In many states background checks don't require a waiting period. So a background check wouldn't have stopped them from buying a gun. Their entire premise is based on suic…

Motherjones also fails to recognize that MANY states already have mandatory "cooling off periods" where if you buy a gun on say Monday you can't pick it up until later in the week.

http://www.ehow.com/list_6745387_illinois-gun-license-requir...

"As with many states, Illinois has a mandatory 72-hour wait period between the time a person purchases a handgun and the time he can take the gun home from a licensed dealer."

Re: Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware

#160

Post by dmix »

voidlogic wrote: post #123
learc83 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The second is that few argue for "rifle control", but instead want "gun control". Except that's not what was actually happening. Most of what was hotly debated over the last few months has been over an "Assault Weapons Ban", that is a ban on certain semi-automatic rifles, very rarely involved in crime. It was only after that was defeated that people started talking about universal background checks. >Those guns that…

>>How is gun control going to help our suicide rate What if I think people have a right to kill themselves?

"They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice; that only a madman could be guilty of it; and other insipidities of the same kind; or else they make the nonsensical remark that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person."

- Arthur Schopenhauer

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/pessimis...

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