Although this thread does not function under the same strict guidelines as the USPMT, it is still a general practice on TL to provide a source with an explanation on why it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion. Failure to do so will result in a mod action.
On December 20 2012 08:48 SilentchiLL wrote: I didn't, it was an example. The question is, how DO you justify it if you take the price you have to pay for it into account? Because it doesn't matter how many nice guys with guns exists, that price (lifes of innocent people) still exists.
The problem here is that the "price" of gun ownership is a figment of your deluded and paranoid imagination. You are coming to wrong conclusions based on your irrational fear of firearms, and then asking people questions based on a false premise you fabricated.
The real question is: why should innocent victims pay the price of being disarmed, just to relieve your phobia of guns?
Harvard Study: Gun Control Is Counterproductive
The study, which just appeared in Volume 30, Number 2 of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (pp. 649-694), set out to answer the question in its title: "Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and Some Domestic Evidence." Contrary to conventional wisdom, and the sniffs of our more sophisticated and generally anti-gun counterparts across the pond, the answer is "no." And not just no, as in there is no correlation between gun ownership and violent crime, but an emphatic no, showing a negative correlation: as gun ownership increases, murder and suicide decreases.
The findings of two criminologists - Prof. Don Kates and Prof. Gary Mauser - in their exhaustive study of American and European gun laws and violence rates, are telling:
Nations with stringent anti-gun laws generally have substantially higher murder rates than those that do not. The study found that the nine European nations with the lowest rates of gun ownership (5,000 or fewer guns per 100,000 population) have a combined murder rate three times higher than that of the nine nations with the highest rates of gun ownership (at least 15,000 guns per 100,000 population).
For example, Norway has the highest rate of gun ownership in Western Europe, yet possesses the lowest murder rate. In contrast, Holland's murder rate is nearly the worst, despite having the lowest gun ownership rate in Western Europe. Sweden and Denmark are two more examples of nations with high murder rates but few guns.
What a wonderful "Harvard Study", the best type of study: a non-peer-reviewed article in a Law Review edited by right-wing Harvard Law students. This "study" is a joke, 40 pages of trash that wouldn't stand up to any reasonable form of peer-review. As an example consider the figures used for Luxembourg, citing a homicide rate of 9/100k. This figure is referred to a number of times in the "study", unfortunately the actual homicide rate in Luxembourg is actually 0.9/100k.
For some actual peer-reviewed studies from Harvard about gun violence, try http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/ Unfortunately the real peer-reviewed stuff doesn't support the conclusions made by Kates and Mauser, but you can find that out for yourself.
They do seem to have made an error on the Luxembourg number.
You still have to account for countries with high rates of gun ownership that have very low gun-murder rates -- or, conversely, low-income nations like Mexico that have quite stringent gun laws and a comparatively high incidence of gun-related violence. One typo aside, the statistical analyses conducted by Kates-Mauser remain unanswered.
I took the time to have a look at the "Harvard study" you put up, and showed it to be tripe. Any statistical analyses performed by these two in this non-peer-reviewed paper is absolutely moot. The data they started with is bogus. Please have a look at the actual data used in the analyses, the only European country (in the data) with a homicide rate above 2.22 (except the incorrect Luxembourg number) is Russia with 20.54. The fact that they couldn't see for themselves that such a large homicide rate was clearly incorrect, and never felt the need to double-check that statistic, means that there is no need to 'answer' the statistical analyses of Kates-Mauser because they have used bad data. If they were to re-publish this (even without the peer-review) after correcting the Luxembourg figure (and the subsequent analysis), then we can look deeper.
Since I was nice enough to have a look at your article and the original "study", please take the time to check out the actual firearm research that has been conducted by Harvard. They have actual peer-reviewed work there, with real statistical analysis. You're argument may not be wrong, but citing these types of 'studies' does not help your case.
I did take the time to look at the page you linked, and found it to be tripe. It has 24 markup errors! Obviously these errors make it acceptable to ignore everything contained in the website.
You still have to account for countries with high rates of gun ownership that have very low gun-murder rates -- or, conversely, low-income nations like Mexico that have quite stringent gun laws and a comparatively high incidence of gun-related violence. One typo aside, the statistical analyses conducted by Kates-Mauser remain unanswered.
I think everyone is missing the point here and that's if the upcoming AWB and high-mag ban will reduce crime--the whole purpose of the bills.
On December 20 2012 08:48 SilentchiLL wrote: I didn't, it was an example. The question is, how DO you justify it if you take the price you have to pay for it into account? Because it doesn't matter how many nice guys with guns exists, that price (lifes of innocent people) still exists.
The problem here is that the "price" of gun ownership is a figment of your deluded and paranoid imagination. You are coming to wrong conclusions based on your irrational fear of firearms, and then asking people questions based on a false premise you fabricated.
The real question is: why should innocent victims pay the price of being disarmed, just to relieve your phobia of guns?
Harvard Study: Gun Control Is Counterproductive
The study, which just appeared in Volume 30, Number 2 of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (pp. 649-694), set out to answer the question in its title: "Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and Some Domestic Evidence." Contrary to conventional wisdom, and the sniffs of our more sophisticated and generally anti-gun counterparts across the pond, the answer is "no." And not just no, as in there is no correlation between gun ownership and violent crime, but an emphatic no, showing a negative correlation: as gun ownership increases, murder and suicide decreases.
The findings of two criminologists - Prof. Don Kates and Prof. Gary Mauser - in their exhaustive study of American and European gun laws and violence rates, are telling:
Nations with stringent anti-gun laws generally have substantially higher murder rates than those that do not. The study found that the nine European nations with the lowest rates of gun ownership (5,000 or fewer guns per 100,000 population) have a combined murder rate three times higher than that of the nine nations with the highest rates of gun ownership (at least 15,000 guns per 100,000 population).
For example, Norway has the highest rate of gun ownership in Western Europe, yet possesses the lowest murder rate. In contrast, Holland's murder rate is nearly the worst, despite having the lowest gun ownership rate in Western Europe. Sweden and Denmark are two more examples of nations with high murder rates but few guns.
What a wonderful "Harvard Study", the best type of study: a non-peer-reviewed article in a Law Review edited by right-wing Harvard Law students. This "study" is a joke, 40 pages of trash that wouldn't stand up to any reasonable form of peer-review. As an example consider the figures used for Luxembourg, citing a homicide rate of 9/100k. This figure is referred to a number of times in the "study", unfortunately the actual homicide rate in Luxembourg is actually 0.9/100k.
For some actual peer-reviewed studies from Harvard about gun violence, try http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/ Unfortunately the real peer-reviewed stuff doesn't support the conclusions made by Kates and Mauser, but you can find that out for yourself.
They do seem to have made an error on the Luxembourg number.
You still have to account for countries with high rates of gun ownership that have very low gun-murder rates -- or, conversely, low-income nations like Mexico that have quite stringent gun laws and a comparatively high incidence of gun-related violence. One typo aside, the statistical analyses conducted by Kates-Mauser remain unanswered.
I took the time to have a look at the "Harvard study" you put up, and showed it to be tripe. Any statistical analyses performed by these two in this non-peer-reviewed paper is absolutely moot. The data they started with is bogus. Please have a look at the actual data used in the analyses, the only European country (in the data) with a homicide rate above 2.22 (except the incorrect Luxembourg number) is Russia with 20.54. The fact that they couldn't see for themselves that such a large homicide rate was clearly incorrect, and never felt the need to double-check that statistic, means that there is no need to 'answer' the statistical analyses of Kates-Mauser because they have used bad data. If they were to re-publish this (even without the peer-review) after correcting the Luxembourg figure (and the subsequent analysis), then we can look deeper.
Since I was nice enough to have a look at your article and the original "study", please take the time to check out the actual firearm research that has been conducted by Harvard. They have actual peer-reviewed work there, with real statistical analysis. You're argument may not be wrong, but citing these types of 'studies' does not help your case.
I did take the time to look at the page you linked, and found it to be tripe. It has 24 markup errors! Obviously these errors make it acceptable to ignore everything contained in the website.
You still have to account for countries with high rates of gun ownership that have very low gun-murder rates -- or, conversely, low-income nations like Mexico that have quite stringent gun laws and a comparatively high incidence of gun-related violence. One typo aside, the statistical analyses conducted by Kates-Mauser remain unanswered.
I think everyone is missing the point here and that's if the upcoming AWB and high-mag ban will reduce crime--the whole purpose of the bills.
Honestly, wtf. Ban on pistol grips? Folding stocks? Flash hiders? Really, does anyone think that those features are required for mass shootings? Get real. We need to address the root causes for these terrorist attacks, not this bandaid bullshit that will do nothing.
The statistical analyses of Kates-Mauser does not remain unanswered, they are based on bad data. You have admitted that there is an error in the data they used for the analysis, although you dismiss this as one typo. If I provided you with a study in which the basic data was clearly false would you then accept the conclusions I drew from said data? What if the study wasn't peer-reviewed?
I don't have to account for low income countries with high murder rates. Nor do I have to explain why people in other countries feel the need to kill each other less often despite having guns (although not nearly as many). Whether or not you are correct (or Kates-Mauser are correct), citing bad studies as evidence isn't going to win people to your side.
Why do you think American people are so much more likely to kill each other than their counterparts in other developed first world countries? Ignoring the fact that guns are used so often, why is the homicide rate in the US so much higher (pratically double) than in Europe or Australia? Are people naturally more violent?
On December 20 2012 13:21 binkman wrote: The statistical analyses of Kates-Mauser does not remain unanswered, they are based on bad data. You have admitted that there is an error in the data they used for the analysis, although you dismiss this as one typo. If I provided you with a study in which the basic data was clearly false would you then accept the conclusions I drew from said data? What if the study wasn't peer-reviewed?
I don't have to account for low income countries with high murder rates. Nor do I have to explain why people in other countries feel the need to kill each other less often despite having guns (although not nearly as many). Whether or not you are correct (or Kates-Mauser are correct), citing bad studies as evidence isn't going to win people to your side.
Why do you think American people are so much more likely to kill each other than their counterparts in other developed first world countries? Ignoring the fact that guns are used so often, why is the homicide rate in the US so much higher (pratically double) than in Europe or Australia? Are people naturally more violent?
People are not naturally more violent. The cultural, economic, and philosophical environment shape people's proclivity towards violence.
On December 20 2012 13:21 binkman wrote: The statistical analyses of Kates-Mauser does not remain unanswered, they are based on bad data. You have admitted that there is an error in the data they used for the analysis, although you dismiss this as one typo. If I provided you with a study in which the basic data was clearly false would you then accept the conclusions I drew from said data? What if the study wasn't peer-reviewed?
I don't have to account for low income countries with high murder rates. Nor do I have to explain why people in other countries feel the need to kill each other less often despite having guns (although not nearly as many). Whether or not you are correct (or Kates-Mauser are correct), citing bad studies as evidence isn't going to win people to your side.
Why do you think American people are so much more likely to kill each other than their counterparts in other developed first world countries? Ignoring the fact that guns are used so often, why is the homicide rate in the US so much higher (pratically double) than in Europe or Australia? Are people naturally more violent?
There is not an error in the data I am bringing to your attention, and which you are desperately struggling to find a reason to ignore.
Some people are indeed naturally more violent. For example males are more violent than females.
America has demographic issues which account for many of their disparities with European countries when it comes to things like crime and education.
If americans no longer had guns, I wonder if swat teams would stop kicking people's doors in a 3 am with "search warrants"? I wonder if all the $500,000 police drone grants from homeland security would stop being given out? Would the departments still be getting armored vehicles and assault weapons? I wonder if weapons were gone, if drug gangs that go back and forth across the boarder would finally be dealt with? I wonder if the TSA would stop expanding to amtrak, bus stations, all other public transportation? Do you think the war on terrorism would diminish? Would Obama's kill list be discarded? Would the "double tapdouble tap" drone tactics be abolished? I wonder the department of homeland security's use of powers granted by the patriot act would be used more, or less?
The fact is, guns have been legal in America since forever. But we are only recently seeing a very disturbing trend of this type of inexcusable behavior on the government's part. That seems like a pretty good reason not to ban high-cap mags and assault rifles. I didn't make up the stuff in the above paragraph...this is a real trend and it will continue.
We should look at the meds these shooters are on. It's a common theme. Can you really have suicidal thoughts without homicidal thoughts? How come pharmaceutical companies never put that on the label? Why do so many people require these medications nowadays? That's a good measure of how sick our society is, literally. We have sick individuals who need medication. We have a government which is showing some kind of psychological sickness, or maybe they're causing it.
Before even talking gun control (even having a debate), I'd like to first see the government behave reasonably, responsibly, and in american citizens' best interest. These people gave illegal weapons to drug dealers (fast and furious), leave the border open, kill americans with drones, it goes on and on. And they want us to give up assault weapons and high-cap mags? Give up guns? Seriously?? They need to get their fricken act together. They have no credibility. They make the whole situation much worse.
On December 20 2012 13:35 fight_or_flight wrote: If americans no longer had guns, I wonder if swat teams would stop kicking people's doors in a 3 am with "search warrants"? I wonder if all the $500,000 police drone grants from homeland security would stop being given out? Would the departments still be getting armored vehicles and assault weapons? I wonder if weapons were gone, if drug gangs that go back and forth across the boarder would finally be dealt with? I wonder if the TSA would stop expanding to amtrak, bus stations, all other public transportation? Do you think the war on terrorism would diminish? Would Obama's kill list be discarded? Would the "double tapdouble tap" drone tactics be abolished? I wonder the department of homeland security's use of powers granted by the patriot act would be used more, or less?
The fact is, guns have been legal in America since forever. But we are only recently seeing a very disturbing trend of this type of inexcusable behavior on the government's part. That seems like a pretty good reason not to ban high-cap mags and assault rifles. I didn't make up the stuff in the above paragraph...this is a real trend and it will continue.
We should look at the meds these shooters are on. It's a common theme. Can you really have suicidal thoughts without homicidal thoughts? How come pharmaceutical companies never put that on the label? Why do so many people require these medications nowadays? That's a good measure of how sick our society is, literally. We have sick individuals who need medication. We have a government which is showing some kind of psychological sickness, or maybe they're causing it.
Before even talking gun control (even having a debate), I'd like to first see the government behave reasonably, responsibly, and in american citizens' best interest. These people gave illegal weapons to drug dealers (fast and furious), leave the border open, kill americans with drones, it goes on and on. And they want us to give up assault weapons and high-cap mags? Give up guns? Seriously?? They need to get their fricken act together. They have no credibility. They make the whole situation much worse.
Great post!
I keep saying this is not about shooting deer or paper targets. The stakes are much higher.
On December 20 2012 13:21 binkman wrote: The statistical analyses of Kates-Mauser does not remain unanswered, they are based on bad data. You have admitted that there is an error in the data they used for the analysis, although you dismiss this as one typo. If I provided you with a study in which the basic data was clearly false would you then accept the conclusions I drew from said data? What if the study wasn't peer-reviewed?
I don't have to account for low income countries with high murder rates. Nor do I have to explain why people in other countries feel the need to kill each other less often despite having guns (although not nearly as many). Whether or not you are correct (or Kates-Mauser are correct), citing bad studies as evidence isn't going to win people to your side.
Why do you think American people are so much more likely to kill each other than their counterparts in other developed first world countries? Ignoring the fact that guns are used so often, why is the homicide rate in the US so much higher (pratically double) than in Europe or Australia? Are people naturally more violent?
There is not an error in the data I am bringing to your attention, and which you are desperately struggling to find a reason to ignore.
Some people are indeed naturally more violent. For example males are more violent than females.
America has demographic issues which account for many of their disparities with European countries when it comes to things like crime and education.
What precisely am I ignoring? There is an error in the data - Luxembourg's homicide rate being inflated from 0.9/100k to 9/100k. Why should I not ignore their results when they are based on bad data, did not have the results peer-reviewed, and they have not bothered to fix their error and redo their analysis (as you would expect from two professionals). This study is trash, and does not support any conclusions except that it needs to be re-done, properly.
I don't deny mexico has a high homicide rate, nor that some other countries have "high" rates of gun ownership but have less gun violence. Indeed, I am not saying your point is wrong, but quoting Kates-Mauser is bad form.
Demographic issues are one thing, but to think the situation of the USA unique in this regard is a little close minded. There is still a large disparity between the homicide rate between other countries and the USA. If the suggestion is that all of the current gun homicides would have been replaced with other types of homicide (knife, car, poison, whatever), what in particular is it that makes Americans so unique in their fervour to kill other people?
Guys, we don't need the guns anymore. Let the cops handle everything. Afterall, they are far more "competent" at repelling crime than us, the good citizens.
On December 20 2012 13:53 Esk23 wrote: Guys, we don't need the guns anymore. Let the cops handle everything. Afterall, they are far more "competent" at repelling crime than us, the good citizens.
Yes, let's make policy decision on anecdotal stories. Bazinga I proclaim!
Assuming people agree that America seems to be a more violent country than almost every other Western country, I just don't see how restricting access to guns can be a bad thing.
At this point I'm sure the US go full blown moral panic on it due to the fact this time it was a particularly terrible incident involving young children.
But in the grand scheme of things, mass killings by random nut cases is NOT that big of a problem here in the US and I predict a massive over-reaction.
It's a lot like after 9/11 how insane everyone got with combatting "terrorism" or whatever, despite the fact you or your family dying of terrorism is almost non-existant. But instead we spent trillions of dollars, threw a way a bunch of civil liberties, destroyed a few dozen cities, killed a few hundred thousand people, ruined the lives of millions, all to combat a minor nuisance that the media and politicians had turned into a gigantic scary boogie man.
When you just do cold analysis in terms of problems facing society, in terms of cost of dollars and lives, these type of incidents are not particularly high on the list and I don't think stripping away more civil liberties and giving the government a monopoly on weapons is a particular smart play to combat something so small.
I'm aware that to the families of the dead (either 9/11 or the Conn. shooting) that this sounds like the tragedies are being marginalized but that's really not the case, it's just very important to keep everything in proper perspective in the grand scheme of things. As poker players we should all be familiar with the importance of not over-reacting to a single particularly terrible outcome.
It's also not to say that we should do nothing, clearly if there are legit things that can be done to reduce the number of these shootings in some way that should be explored, but those efforts must be proportional to the actual problem.
On December 20 2012 13:21 binkman wrote: The statistical analyses of Kates-Mauser does not remain unanswered, they are based on bad data. You have admitted that there is an error in the data they used for the analysis, although you dismiss this as one typo. If I provided you with a study in which the basic data was clearly false would you then accept the conclusions I drew from said data? What if the study wasn't peer-reviewed?
I don't have to account for low income countries with high murder rates. Nor do I have to explain why people in other countries feel the need to kill each other less often despite having guns (although not nearly as many). Whether or not you are correct (or Kates-Mauser are correct), citing bad studies as evidence isn't going to win people to your side.
Why do you think American people are so much more likely to kill each other than their counterparts in other developed first world countries? Ignoring the fact that guns are used so often, why is the homicide rate in the US so much higher (pratically double) than in Europe or Australia? Are people naturally more violent?
There is not an error in the data I am bringing to your attention, and which you are desperately struggling to find a reason to ignore.
Some people are indeed naturally more violent. For example males are more violent than females.
America has demographic issues which account for many of their disparities with European countries when it comes to things like crime and education.
What precisely am I ignoring? There is an error in the data - Luxembourg's homicide rate being inflated from 0.9/100k to 9/100k. Why should I not ignore their results when they are based on bad data, did not have the results peer-reviewed, and they have not bothered to fix their error and redo their analysis (as you would expect from two professionals). This study is trash, and does not support any conclusions except that it needs to be re-done, properly.
I don't deny mexico has a high homicide rate, nor that some other countries have "high" rates of gun ownership but have less gun violence. Indeed, I am not saying your point is wrong, but quoting Kates-Mauser is bad form.
Demographic issues are one thing, but to think the situation of the USA unique in this regard is a little close minded. There is still a large disparity between the homicide rate between other countries and the USA. If the suggestion is that all of the current gun homicides would have been replaced with other types of homicide (knife, car, poison, whatever), what in particular is it that makes Americans so unique in their fervour to kill other people?
You're ignoring all the data other than the Luxembourg one, and the entire paper. Indeed, you haven't even read it, you just googled and found someone criticize the Luxembourg error and are regurgitating that as your only defense.
Grasping at straws, I think is the term for it.
There is nothing wrong with quoting a paper that has a single error in it but otherwise is accurate and still has valid conclusions. Nothing is perfect.
So I am going to repeat this yet again:
You still have to account for countries with high rates of gun ownership that have very low gun-murder rates -- or, conversely, low-income nations like Mexico that have quite stringent gun laws and a comparatively high incidence of gun-related violence. One typo aside, the statistical analyses conducted by Kates-Mauser remain unanswered.
Feel free to try and actually address that. Or mention the Luxembourg again, I don't care. You're only embarrassing yourself.
On December 20 2012 14:07 sam!zdat wrote: lol jeez I wonder why Mexico, a low-income nation with stringent gun laws, has a high incidence of gun related violence? quelle surprise
what a foolish point
Because the law abiding citizens aren't allowed to be armed.
On December 20 2012 14:07 sam!zdat wrote: lol jeez I wonder why Mexico, a low-income nation with stringent gun laws, has a high incidence of gun related violence? quelle surprise
what a foolish point
Because the law abiding citizens aren't allowed to be armed.
Yes, that must be the answer. Thank you for opening my eyes to this clear, and somewhat SIMPLISTIC solution to generations of violence and murder.
And WHOA Zaqwe and Zaqwert are two different posters - mind=blown
On December 20 2012 14:07 sam!zdat wrote: lol jeez I wonder why Mexico, a low-income nation with stringent gun laws, has a high incidence of gun related violence? quelle surprise
what a foolish point
Because the law abiding citizens aren't allowed to be armed.
On December 20 2012 14:07 sam!zdat wrote: lol jeez I wonder why Mexico, a low-income nation with stringent gun laws, has a high incidence of gun related violence? quelle surprise
what a foolish point
Because the law abiding citizens aren't allowed to be armed.
Yes, that must be the answer. Thank you for opening my eyes to this clear, and somewhat SIMPLISTIC solution to generations of violence and murder.
And WHOA Zaqwe and Zaqwert are two different posters - mind=blown
Why search for a more complicated reason when a simple one has such explanatory power?
Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and Some Domestic Evidence.
The same pattern appears when comparisons of violence to gun ownership are made within nations. Indeed, “data on firearms ownership by constabulary area in England,” like data from the United States, show “a negative correlation,”10 that is, “where firearms are most dense violent crime rates are lowest, and where guns are least dense violent crime rates are highest.”11
Yeah seriously I just noticed that, I didn't even know there was a user like that much less posting in the same thread right around the time I did, freaky.
On December 20 2012 14:07 sam!zdat wrote: lol jeez I wonder why Mexico, a low-income nation with stringent gun laws, has a high incidence of gun related violence? quelle surprise
what a foolish point
Because the law abiding citizens aren't allowed to be armed.
Yes, that must be the answer. Thank you for opening my eyes to this clear, and somewhat SIMPLISTIC solution to generations of violence and murder.
And WHOA Zaqwe and Zaqwert are two different posters - mind=blown
Why search for a more complicated reason when a simple one has such explanatory power?
On December 20 2012 14:07 sam!zdat wrote: lol jeez I wonder why Mexico, a low-income nation with stringent gun laws, has a high incidence of gun related violence? quelle surprise
what a foolish point
Because the law abiding citizens aren't allowed to be armed.
EPT
