211–220 of 266 posts
dmix is right - here in the UK the UK Peace Index [1] (a rather hippie name for respected peer reviewed sociology) shows massive drops across the board for violent crime. [1] http://www.visionofhumanity.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/U...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
100 million modern, collectible guns seems unlikely. (I agree that there are lots of people that like to collect guns, I just don't think they could possibly be driving (that much) manufacturing, making a lot of something makes it less collectible.)
Your point seems reasonable & logical. But in my experience, it's also incorrect: Plenty of gun collecting is predominantly around modern, mass-produced, non-scarce guns. I believe it's because scarcity is not a significant driver of value, in most gun owners' minds. Gun collectors derive a large portion of their guns' value from using (firing) them in a sports setting. Contrast with art or stamps, which don't really…
Absolutely. Plenty of gun-owners are just flat-out "gearheads" in the same sense as guitar players (who often own dozens of guitars and amps) or whatever. If I had money to burn, I personally would own a few dozen guns, and most of my collection would fall into the "modern, mass produced, non-scarce" category. The exceptions would be a few older military rifles, like maybe an M1 .30 carbine, an M1 Garand rifle, or an old British Lee-Enfield 303 rifle.
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…
There's a graph of "non-fatal violent firearm crime" right in the article. It looks flat to me between 2001 and 2011. Are both true somehow? Those facts seem to be in conflict.
> Criminologists say they are cautious about using such medical statistics to draw conclusions because of year-to-year inconsistencies in the number of medical institutions reporting data. The FBI collects annual homicide and aggravated assault statistics but doesn't have reliable numbers for gun and knife attacks.
> Jens Ludwig, a law professor and the director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, said he was leery of any number beyond reported homicides.
> "Homicide is the one thing we're measuring well," he said. "Everything else is subject to much more uncertainty," including varying numbers of emergency departments contributing data, as well as differences in how injuries are classified.
So basically, take your pre-existing political biases and use that as a guide to choose which data you believe, just like everyone else does.
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…
Funny thing about the UK; so many baseball bats, so little baseball.
Perhaps most UK people posting here don't expect Americans to have heard of this game.
You're doubtless right that most are probably purchased for hitting people in the face, perhaps without necessarily even waiting for them to break in to one's house first.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
100 million modern, collectible guns seems unlikely. (I agree that there are lots of people that like to collect guns, I just don't think they could possibly be driving (that much) manufacturing, making a lot of something makes it less collectible.)
Your point seems reasonable & logical. But in my experience, it's also incorrect: Plenty of gun collecting is predominantly around modern, mass-produced, non-scarce guns. I believe it's because scarcity is not a significant driver of value, in most gun owners' minds. Gun collectors derive a large portion of their guns' value from using (firing) them in a sports setting. Contrast with art or stamps, which don't really…
http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2012/12/20/assault_rifle_st...
It makes a credible case for less than 5 million. So you only need 20 or 30 similarly collectible guns to get to 100 million.
We also should not bother to argue too much over what constitutes collecting (that is, we should find middle ground or agree to disagree and abandon the whole discussion). I certainly wouldn't include someone buying 1 or 2 reliable and cost effective guns.
Please keep the politics out of HN. Edit: Referring to some of the comments in this thread, not the article.
I fail to see how review and discussion of statistical information equates to politics. Facts are not political.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
750 were killed by hammers or clubs which includes any blunt force attack (vase, bat, golf club, etc. I am assuming that you're accurately quoting a number, though last I saw that number was more in the 450 range). Secondly every home has numerous objects that qualify as "clubs", many of them serving valid, functional roles (for instance to hammer, or to hit balls, etc). In many households a firearm has one single pu…
It's also worth noting that while blunt objects such as hammers and baseball bats find uses in construction and non-violent sports, guns do not necessarily share such innocent use cases. Sport shooting is the major exemption (I'm quite a fan, myself) but at the end of the day guns are designed to put holes (some messier than others) in objects very far away. When a gun is pointed at a living organism and the trigger…
Compare to the 200 kiddie pool deaths every summer, which have the unfortunate side effect of almost exclusively killing kids despite mostly non lethal purposes, and rifle owners start to seem extraordinarily more responsible than kiddie pool owners.
At some point, I think we might as well cut through the hyperventilation, acknowledge potentially dangerous things are potentially dangerous, and let people choose their own risk profiles.
"Violent non-fatal crime victimization overall (with or without a firearm) also is down markedly (72%) over two decades." So, gun crime's falling significantly slower than crime in general, which may account for the public perception.
I don't really know, but it would be interesting to see some numbers. Is there some kind of minimum murder rate that can't be lowered further just with laws (i.e. some more fundamental cultural change is required)?
If so, then we might be approaching that minimum (for the current US culture/society) and that could explain why they aren't decreasing much any more.
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.
Unless you believe that defending yourself is not a legitimate use case.