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The gun control that works: no guns

economist.com

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Re: The gun control that works: no guns

#71

Post by jacquesm »

glenra wrote: post #70
jacquesm wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can fantasize situations until the cows come home, but until you get some hard numbers involved it doesn't amount to anything. Are we going to count cases where people were wounded? Where guns were used but no shots were fired? How many dead people is worth how many raped women? And so on. And when you've done all that you're going to have to compare with countries that have gun control in place, look at the rape…

In other words, you didn't even look at the details of your own study and whether it related to the post you were responding to, you just did a keyword match to see that it reached "the right conclusion". Got it. If you never look at anything the other side is saying about your side, you're doomed to talk nonsense. Like Kellerman's "43-to-1" claim. Pro-gun people consider it a win if a gun deters a murder, deters a r…

In a dysfunctional society, one where there is no law and where you have to take matters into your own hands to get a modicum of safety guns have their place. That was America a few centuries ago. If you still feel that unsafe than you have another problem than the one you're trying to solve with your guns.

Try living in a country with gun control laws for a bit and see where you feel safer. And be sure to ask the women there too if they feel safe or not.

Fear is an incredibly powerful motor behind a lot of stupidity, if you're so afraid that you can't walk around for fear of being robbed or raped if you're not 'packing heat' then why don't you do something about that problem, rather than to go around and compound it by escalation?

And yes, I read those studies, and quite few besides. The consensus is very clear (outside the NRA and their stooges, that is): guns in large numbers in society make that society a more dangerous place. Period.

So you can talk until the cows come home, the facts simply don't support your conclusions.

Re: The gun control that works: no guns

#72

Post by glenra »

jacquesm wrote: post #71
glenra wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words, you didn't even look at the details of your own study and whether it related to the post you were responding to, you just did a keyword match to see that it reached "the right conclusion". Got it. If you never look at anything the other side is saying about your side, you're doomed to talk nonsense. Like Kellerman's "43-to-1" claim. Pro-gun people consider it a win if a gun deters a murder, deters a r…

In a dysfunctional society, one where there is no law and where you have to take matters into your own hands to get a modicum of safety guns have their place. That was America a few centuries ago. If you still feel that unsafe than you have another problem than the one you're trying to solve with your guns. Try living in a country with gun control laws for a bit and see where you feel safer. And be sure to ask the wo…

> Try living in a country with gun control laws for a bit and see where you feel safer.

You mean like the UK? The UK has a horrendous violent crime rate - four times that of the US. So if people were "afraid" in proportion to actual risk, they should be more afraid there than in the US, no?

(random news story about that: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-... )

Or do you mean like Sweden? Sweden's reported rape rate is about twice that of the US.

I actually do live in a country with gun control laws. I live in New York City. And I don't own a gun. But that doesn't mean I have to accept unfounded claims about how bad guns are.

The truth is that the statistics are ambiguous. Every time gun laws change in the US, partisans claim it'll have a huge effect but the actual effect is hard to measure. Florida didn't become "the gunshine state" when they liberalized CCWs. (Rape rates did somewhat decrease there, but it's hard to connect that reliably to the change) On the margin, neither tightening NOR loosening gun laws is a panacea.

I'm not sure whose "consensus" you're referring to, but it's not the consensus of criminologists. The gradual loosening of CCW restrictions nationwide came only after very careful study repeatedly determined there's no significant increase in violence when more people are carrying hidden guns. You're free to believe there's some sort of "threshold effect", that if we got gun ownership levels below some magic number X, that suddenly everything would be better then, but at this point that's just an article of faith - there's no math supporting it.

Re: The gun control that works: no guns

#73

Post by summerdown2 »

leephillips wrote: post #63

This article does a fairly convincing impression of being reasonable and balanced. However, a typical sentence is this one: "And my hunch is that the model found in places like Japan or Britain—no guns in homes at all, or almost none—is on balance safer." My hunch is that the author did very little real research or any analysis beyond the attempt to compare statistical enumerations that do not seem properly comparabl…

> My hunch is that the author did very little real research or any analysis beyond the attempt to compare statistical enumerations that do not seem properly comparable.

Assuming it could be carried out, what research would you find convincing?

Re: The gun control that works: no guns

#74

Post by summerdown2 »

wildranter wrote: post #14

Guns kill people. Knives kill people. Rocks kill people. Truth of the matter is if people want to kill people they will use any weapon available, even their bare hands. Sure if governments all around the world ban guns people will kill less people, but they still kill. Now, how do you stop all this killing? Because, that's the point. Right? People kill for different reasons, even with no reason at all.

> Now, how do you stop all this killing? Because, that's the point. Right?

... I don't think so. I think this is the point:

> if governments all around the world ban guns people will kill less people

Re: The gun control that works: no guns

#75

Post by jacquesm »

glenra wrote: post #72
jacquesm wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a dysfunctional society, one where there is no law and where you have to take matters into your own hands to get a modicum of safety guns have their place. That was America a few centuries ago. If you still feel that unsafe than you have another problem than the one you're trying to solve with your guns. Try living in a country with gun control laws for a bit and see where you feel safer. And be sure to ask the wo…

> Try living in a country with gun control laws for a bit and see where you feel safer. You mean like the UK? The UK has a horrendous violent crime rate - four times that of the US. So if people were "afraid" in proportion to actual risk, they should be more afraid there than in the US, no? (random news story about that: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-... ) Or do you mean like Sweden? Swe…

You pick the worst from a huge region and then use that to argue the case for the whole region (EU).

Just homicides:

http://chartsbin.com/view/1454

Intentional homicides:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...

Using Sweden as an example to argue high rape incidence is ridiculous because Sweden classes things as rape that are not counted as rape in any other country in the world. See also: Julian Assange, aka the trouble of travelling unprotected in Sweden.

Check out the statistics on Australia pre and post the gun laws.

And if you have nothing better to do, a nice bit of reading on the trouble with flatly comparing the crime figures from various countries:

http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/Compiling-an...

Re: The gun control that works: no guns

#76

Post by abrown28 »

jacquesm wrote: post #69
glenra wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The anti-gun studies tend to be pretty terrible as a rule. Including that one. Have you looked into any of the studies on the other side? Suppose a woman in an isolated place avoids a rape via one of these methods: - credibly yelling "go away - I've got a gun!" - brandishing a gun - aiming a gun at the attacker - firing a "warning shot" - firing at the attacker, but missing ...and the attacker runs away. She's not li…

You can fantasize situations until the cows come home, but until you get some hard numbers involved it doesn't amount to anything. Are we going to count cases where people were wounded? Where guns were used but no shots were fired? How many dead people is worth how many raped women? And so on. And when you've done all that you're going to have to compare with countries that have gun control in place, look at the rape…

Here is a non fantasy... You want to want to make the vulnerable defenseless. You are a despicable person.

Re: The gun control that works: no guns

#78

Post by EugeneOZ »

rjknight wrote: post #62
EugeneOZ wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And despite of so many words, I don't care about political problems of USA.

Ah yes, but in a world where the USA is so important, its political problems care about you.

Do you know something about political problems of China? China currently is the most important country (i'm not from China, be sure).

Re: The gun control that works: no guns

#79

Post by jacquesm »

abrown28 wrote: post #76
jacquesm wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can fantasize situations until the cows come home, but until you get some hard numbers involved it doesn't amount to anything. Are we going to count cases where people were wounded? Where guns were used but no shots were fired? How many dead people is worth how many raped women? And so on. And when you've done all that you're going to have to compare with countries that have gun control in place, look at the rape…

Here is a non fantasy... You want to want to make the vulnerable defenseless. You are a despicable person.

What a ridiculous thing to say. Let's arm all the kids, they're defenceless. Let's arm all the old people too, they're defenceless. In fact, let's arm everybody because after all, when kids and old people have arms everybody else is defenceless.

And then we'll both sit back and watch the world burn while the defenceless people try to come to terms with their new-found power and slaughter each other.

What's despicable is that there is a country full of people that are so insecure and that have such little faith in their law enforcement that they feel the need to stockpile ammo and weapons as if there is going to be a shoot-out any moment. And guess what, they're all surprised when there is going to be the occasional shoot-out and when people that shouldn't have access to guns find it all too easy to get their hands on them.

The power to kill is bad enough when we pass it on to the state but that's a necessary evil. It isn't called the state monopoly on force for nothing.

If you're so insecure that you can't live without a chunk of iron under your pillow then you should look at how you can improve your society to the point where it is safe enough to live a normal life without having metal detectors at grade schools and armed shopkeepers.

Keep the poor as poor as they are, keep the insane living on the streets, give everybody access to as much hardware as they want and you will reap exactly what you sow.

Re: The gun control that works: no guns

#80

Post by glenra »

jacquesm wrote: post #75
glenra wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Try living in a country with gun control laws for a bit and see where you feel safer. You mean like the UK? The UK has a horrendous violent crime rate - four times that of the US. So if people were "afraid" in proportion to actual risk, they should be more afraid there than in the US, no? (random news story about that: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-... ) Or do you mean like Sweden? Swe…

You pick the worst from a huge region and then use that to argue the case for the whole region (EU). Just homicides: http://chartsbin.com/view/1454 Intentional homicides: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona... Using Sweden as an example to argue high rape incidence is ridiculous because Sweden classes things as rape that are not counted as rape in any other country in the world. See also: Jul…

> You pick the worst from a huge region and then use that to argue the case for the whole region (EU).

It only takes one counterexample to disprove a rule. If you meant to say "try living somewhere in the EU...but not the UK", you should have said that.

> Check out the statistics on Australia pre and post the gun laws.

Yeah, not so much. This is a fine example of seeing what you want to see in the data, rather than what's actually there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Australia#Conte...

> the trouble with flatly comparing the crime figures from various countries

Hey, I'm with you on that one - I only mentioned a couple specific countries in response to you bringing the subject up as if it meant something important.

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