United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by joshuamorton » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:34 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #3

Gun violence research is a good example of how science can be skewed to make different political points. For example, one of the new tactics gun control advocates have adopted is lumping homicides and suicides together into “gun deaths” even though the policy implications of the two things are quite different. (Suicides accounting for the large majority of “gun deaths,” but bans on semi-automatic rifles and high capa…

I'm just going to note that in the responses, there are people saying that gun control advocates are abusing statistics when they ignore gang violence ("because it happens in high gun control areas") and when they include it ("because they can't tell the difference between a hand gun and assault rifle"), and of course it's not like you're being totally honest either: actual public health researchers who aren't some dude on medium repeatedly come to the opposite conclusion [0].

[0]: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-an...

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

#42

Post by remarkEon » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:34 AM UTC

surge wrote: post #36

bluedino wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I don't get is Mother Jones excludes shootings that result from domestic violence, drug deals and gang activity.

Probably because those shootings are probably in high gun control areas like Chicago, NJ, CA where laws are strictest, so it shows that gun control doesn't really work to stop those, and those deaths are usually the result overwhelmingly of handguns, not AR-15's or "assault style rifles" which are just semi-automatic rifles that look militaristic and no one would freak out about if they had wooden stocks. In this cas…

>and no one would freak out about if they had wooden stocks.

Yeah, this. It's sort of developed into a moral panic because so many in the media grow up in urban centers on the east coast and don't have much contact with firearms. The reporting becomes pretty tainted, and in some cases hilariously inaccurate.

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

#43

Post by kasey_junk » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:37 AM UTC

remarkEon wrote: post #32

kasey_junk wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of gun violence of all types, suicides, gang murders, mass shootings, domestic violence etc. are committed with hand guns. Hand gun ownership popularity is at a high in the US across many demographics. But assault rifle bans are the most popular form of gun control, probably because of the popularity of hand guns.

>probably because of the popularity of hand guns. I think it's more that most of those advocating for these rifle bans have limited or no experience with any firearm, let a lone rifles. Most of these things just look scary to people who are unfamiliar with them, even though they'd be functionally equivalent to rifles with wooden stocks and wooden foregrips. Edit: clarifying word

It’s a common contention of the gun advocacy community that it’s ignorance that drives awb, but that flies in the face of the evidence that veterans are disproportionately represented in elected officials, police officers are consulted when drafting the legislation & its a subject that is easily researchable.

I think it’s more likely that the people who are politically motivated around this issue represent the extremes and that leads to weird compromises.

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

#44

Post by roenxi » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:37 AM UTC

kasey_junk wrote: post #10

rayiner wrote: post #3

Gun violence research is a good example of how science can be skewed to make different political points. For example, one of the new tactics gun control advocates have adopted is lumping homicides and suicides together into “gun deaths” even though the policy implications of the two things are quite different. (Suicides accounting for the large majority of “gun deaths,” but bans on semi-automatic rifles and high capa…

Banning research funding is a decidedly more political act. One that people don’t have the opportunity to cut through. Also as an aside your point about existing data not correlating with homicide rates is particularly non compelling because it doesn’t normalize for firearm kind (handguns are more likely to be used in homicides than other forms of firearm) nor victim type (firearm ownership is massively correlated wi…

> Banning research funding is a decidedly more political act.

Possibly but not probably. Once a situation becomes politically interesting any action or inaction could potentially be the more political act.

If only highly political actors are asking for more research then doing nothing is simply fiscal prudence and not an especially political act. I expect a lot of research on violence has already been conducted and the answers to any questions are probably already known. I don't normally see people in this debate saying 'we don't know X', they say 'we know X' and someone else says 'that is true but misleading/not important enough to justify Y/think of the children', etc.

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

#45

Post by Ididntdothis » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:41 AM UTC

sigzero wrote: post #16

minikites wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>gun rights derive from the Constitution Many people conveniently leave out the "well regulated militia" part of the second amendment.

Meaning what? The SCOTUS has ruled several times that the individual right to bear arms is separate from the "militia" statement and both are covered in the 2A.

Why is the phrase "well-regulated militia" in there then? Is it just fluff that can be ignored?

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

#46

Post by pnako » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:41 AM UTC

robcohen wrote: post #38

brewdad wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we should be confiscating guns on one's 45th birthday? Probably not all that effective, but it's a start I guess.

Alternatively, you can just repeal the second amendment. I’m unsure why anti-gun advocates don’t just argue this. The constitution can be changed. Justice Stevens argued this in an op-ed: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/opin...

You can certainly try to do that.

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

#47

Post by kasey_junk » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:42 AM UTC

surge wrote: post #36

bluedino wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I don't get is Mother Jones excludes shootings that result from domestic violence, drug deals and gang activity.

Probably because those shootings are probably in high gun control areas like Chicago, NJ, CA where laws are strictest, so it shows that gun control doesn't really work to stop those, and those deaths are usually the result overwhelmingly of handguns, not AR-15's or "assault style rifles" which are just semi-automatic rifles that look militaristic and no one would freak out about if they had wooden stocks. In this cas…

You’ve forgotten the single most important factor. When it comes to intentional deaths by firearm, mass shootings target white children at a much higher per capita number. If white teenagers were getting killed by gun murders at even the rate of black kids killed by cops we’d have a national ban.

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

#48

Post by NotSammyHagar » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:42 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #3

Gun violence research is a good example of how science can be skewed to make different political points. For example, one of the new tactics gun control advocates have adopted is lumping homicides and suicides together into “gun deaths” even though the policy implications of the two things are quite different. (Suicides accounting for the large majority of “gun deaths,” but bans on semi-automatic rifles and high capa…

science or anything else humans do can be skewed. Saying things like 'we should do gun research because it can be skewed', well that's just a way to avoid it.

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

#49

Post by kasey_junk » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:43 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #44

kasey_junk wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banning research funding is a decidedly more political act. One that people don’t have the opportunity to cut through. Also as an aside your point about existing data not correlating with homicide rates is particularly non compelling because it doesn’t normalize for firearm kind (handguns are more likely to be used in homicides than other forms of firearm) nor victim type (firearm ownership is massively correlated wi…

> Banning research funding is a decidedly more political act. Possibly but not probably. Once a situation becomes politically interesting any action or inaction could potentially be the more political act. If only highly political actors are asking for more research then doing nothing is simply fiscal prudence and not an especially political act. I expect a lot of research on violence has already been conducted and t…

We weren’t “doing nothing”. We were actively discouraging research.

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

#50

Post by melling » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:43 AM UTC

robcohen wrote: post #38

brewdad wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we should be confiscating guns on one's 45th birthday? Probably not all that effective, but it's a start I guess.

Alternatively, you can just repeal the second amendment. I’m unsure why anti-gun advocates don’t just argue this. The constitution can be changed. Justice Stevens argued this in an op-ed: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/opin...

“In 1939 the Supreme Court unanimously held that Congress could prohibit the possession of a sawed-off shotgun because that weapon had no reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a “well regulated militia.”

During the years when Warren Burger was our chief justice, from 1969 to 1986, no judge, federal or state, as far as I am aware, expressed any doubt as to the limited coverage of that amendment. When organizations like the National Rifle Association disagreed with that position and began their campaign claiming that federal regulation of firearms curtailed Second Amendment rights, Chief Justice Burger publicly characterized the N.R.A. as perpetrating “one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”