Phatmasser Gun Leanings

[dairygirl4u2c]

very rare is it, or to me i've yet to see it, someone who admits that their embrace of guns rights causes many many more times death than would otherwise occur. the evidence is strong enough to make the case, but they just ignore the evidence. sort of like how there's ninety nine scientists who say global warming is man made significantly, yet there's always the person who insists on that lone person who says otherwise. i dont know about you, but if ninety percent of engineers said a bridge was unsafe, id rather listen to them than the other few who say otherwise. 

to throw it out there real quick.
-australia had massive gun regulation twenty years ago, they havent had a mass shooting since. they had one per year before that. ive never seen anyone debunk this and there is no way around it. 
-states with more gun control have less deaths than states without. same with coutires. the UK is basically like a state and anything that happens there or else where is anecdotal or an outlier. ninety percent of gun reseachers agree with this. again, im going with the consensus on this. 
-more guns means more overall murders. this is when you control for things like poverty etc. really, it's common sense. 

[Papist]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate

 

[dairygirl4u2c]

notice the last poster showed undeveloped countries have it worse than the USA. but among developed countries, the USA is far and away the worst. big surprise, they have half the worlds guns while being only five percent of the population. 

" If by limiting guns we decreased gun violence but increased knife violence, that for me is preferable.  "

also worth mentioning. alternative weopon deaths do go up, but not to the same extent that gun deaths go down. with more guns means more OVERALL murder. and with less means less murder. if it just changed weopons the murder rate would stay the same. 

Edited January 5, 2016 by dairygirl4u2c

[Spinozist]

3 hours ago, KnightofChrist said:

Both the ONS and CR UK have the same 2014 data because both use the ONS data, (CR UK states in the link provided its source is ONS). So rather than giving two different sources, you've basically given two different links with same original source, ONS. Parliament created the anti-gun laws, Parliament created ONS, ONS is funded by the government, ONS apparently produces data that is favorable to the effectiveness to its creators anti-gun laws. I've never known an organization that is not bias in favor of its creator, superior and/or source of money, I therefore question its so-called independence. But I'm sure we'll have to agree to disagree on that point.

There is a interesting Harvard study, while not as recent as you may like (2007), it does cover many of the topics we are discussing in this thread. Violent crime in the UK before and after the passage of anti-gun laws, UK violent crime verses US violent crime, whether or not less guns lead to less murder/suicide/violent crimes, etc. The subsection pertaining to the time of creation the of firearms to modern times is particularly interesting to me. As gun ownership spread, the number of murders decreased in places like Britain. Anyway, it's somewhat long but an interesting read.

http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

 

It appears Citizens Report only uses ONS data. My apologies for the error. In this case, it's the ONS stats, from a government-created group, vs. stats from the CDS, a government agency. Comparing the two rates, from two groups that should presumably have the same sorts of biases, reveals a difference in homicide rates of 256 times. I would argue that whatever biases exist with these two datasets, they are unlikely to explain this difference.

Thanks for providing another source, one that is a bit long and that I will have to take time to read carefully. The relevant citations from Kates & Mauser (2007) which you linked include the International Crime Victims Survey and Joyce Lee Malcolm's book "Guns and Violence: The English Experience" (2002). The International Crime Victims Survey from 2004-2005 states on p. 14 "According to the survey gun ownership is more common in the USA (29% of households) than in Western Europe... Both robberies and threats & assaults are more likely to involve guns in the USA than in Europe." ( http://unicri.it/services/library_documentation/publications/icvs/publications/ICVS2004_05report.pdf ). I don't have access to Malcolm's book, but in the introduction (which can be found for free off Google Books) she states that she uses government statistics for the gun violence in England. So I'd imagine that she's using roughly the same source for statistics that beatitude and I have been.

The conclusion from Kates & Mauser (2007) relevant for this discussion seems to be that there is no correlation in the statistics between the number of firearms and murder rates, and that "Nevertheless, the burden of proof rests on the proponents of the more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death mantra, especially since they argue public policy ought to be based on that mantra" (p. 693). Their conclusion appears to be well defended, as far as it goes, and I would agree that the number of guns, by themselves, doesn't seem to correlate much with murder rates, although their article doesn't seem to say much about how regulations, such as background checks, or restriction on ammunition, would affect things.

I am interested in whether gun violence would be reduced if ammunition and firearms were better regulated. I'd recommend a mandatory psychological examination and criminal check, as well as required firearms training course or proof of proficiency, prior to purchasing any sort of firearm or ammunition. It would be interesting to see if this will have any affect on the US murder rates. Maybe it won't. But it seems like something worth trying. If it doesn't help things, we can go back to the present gun laws, or even less restrictive gun laws.

Edited January 5, 2016 by Spinozist

[dairygirl4u2c]

" The conclusion from Kates & Mauser (2007) relevant for this discussion seems to be that there is no correlation in the statistics between the number of firearms and murder rates, and that "Nevertheless, the burden of proof rests on the proponents of the more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death mantra, especially since they argue public policy ought to be based on that mantra" (p. 693). Their conclusion appears to be well defended, as far as it goes, and I would agree that the number of guns, by themselves, doesn't seem to correlate much with murder rates, although their article doesn't seem to say much about how regulations, such as background checks, or restriction on ammunition, would affect things. "

i found many sources that find this study erroneous. it's an unpeer reviewed article, and not academic, and relies and a ton of misleading information. i can also provide plenty of that evidnece they as ask for, that shows more guns means more gun deaths. the evidence is overwhelming. 

im not sure but there may be a point that guns and deaths may not correlate when looking at them in pure numbers. i'm just not sure. but i do know that when you control for various variables, there is a clear correlation.  

here are some critiques of that 2007 study i mentioned . 

http://www.snopes.com/harvard-flaw-review/

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/9/5/1236614/-Shoddy-gun-paper-excites-right-wing

http://www.ericgarland.co/2013/09/26/academic-support-american-gun-lobby/

to anyone who is truly knowledgeable about the academics of control, to say less restrictions are just fine.... is ridiculous. 

anyone who's listened to me go on about gun control in the past, including primarily the previous posts... and still doesnt think guns are a problem is living in a box, and i question their intelligence, at the very least their ability to be objective and critical. 

Edited January 5, 2016 by dairygirl4u2c

[Spinozist]

17 minutes ago, dairygirl4u2c said:

" The conclusion from Kates & Mauser (2007) relevant for this discussion seems to be that there is no correlation in the statistics between the number of firearms and murder rates, and that "Nevertheless, the burden of proof rests on the proponents of the more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death mantra, especially since they argue public policy ought to be based on that mantra" (p. 693). Their conclusion appears to be well defended, as far as it goes, and I would agree that the number of guns, by themselves, doesn't seem to correlate much with murder rates, although their article doesn't seem to say much about how regulations, such as background checks, or restriction on ammunition, would affect things. "

i found many sources that find this study erroneous. it's an unpeer reviewed article, and not academic, and relies and a ton of misleading information. i can also provide plenty of that evidnece they as ask for, that shows more guns means more gun deaths. the evidence is overwhelming. 

im not sure but there may be a point that guns and deaths may not correlate when looking at them in pure numbers. i'm just not sure. but i do know that when you control for various variables, there is a clear correlation.  

I've not given a very careful search of the literature, but Google Scholar gives a list of a few articles that have cited Kates & Mauser (2007), and the couple I checked didn't find the study erroneous. Kovandzic , Schaffer, & Kleck Journal of quantitative criminology, 29(4), 477-541, as a completely random example, call Kates & Mauser (2007) "a useful recent survey of the evidence [about aberrant individuals]." Kates & Mauser could be very misleading or erroneous, for all I know, but their broad conclusions on the statistics, that they didn't find correlations, seem reasonable, and I can't readily find sources for your claims. Could you suggest three or four papers or books that asserts Kates & Mauser (2007) employ tons of misleading information, or at least are erroneous? It would be interesting to read what the other side thinks.

Edited January 5, 2016 by Spinozist

[dairygirl4u2c]

i dont have papers or books off hand that critique the paper. but i did give those links in the last post which give legitimate points. including that it's just an unpeer reviewed law review article. from students? maybe. but they give plenty of examples of shoddy researchship. 

i personally find the idea of more guns means more murder as common sense. we must disagree. but here are some studies for you to look into that are contrary to your ideas....

http://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343%2813%2900444-0/abstract
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2015/12/8/9870240/gun-ownership-deaths-homicides
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/06/barack-obama/obama-more-gun-laws-means-fewer-gun-deaths/
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/160/10/929.full
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/09/13/2617131/largest-gun-study-guns-murder/
http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals%2Fstlpl12&div=18&id&page
http://www.motherjones.com/files/ownership-death630.png

i can also find more articles that compare states with gun control v not. i wouldn't get hung up on the specifics of a certain state, city, or country. that's anecdotal in the end anyway, outliers. look for broader conclusions. 

2 hours ago, dairygirl4u2c said:

 

Edited January 5, 2016 by dairygirl4u2c

[Anomaly]

Dairy girl cannot address or rebut the plain fact that although the number of guns and gun owners on the US has only increased, the rate of murders has decreased.  Simple fact. 

Not to say that background and training are not good requirements and goals, but when they are supported by idiots with only emotional reasoning that also would prefer outlawing all guns, of course you get the same emotional reaction from gun supporters who now won't concede an inch.   Stupidity begets stupid stubbornness.  

[Spinozist]

4 minutes ago, dairygirl4u2c said:

i dont have papers or books off hand that critique the paper. but i did give those links which give legitimate points. including that it's just an unpeer reviewed law review article. from students? maybe. but they give plenty of examples of shoddy researchship. 

i personally find the idea of more guns means more murder as common sense. we must disagree. but here are some studies for you to look into that are contrary to your ideas....

http://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343%2813%2900444-0/abstract
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2015/12/8/9870240/gun-ownership-deaths-homicides
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/06/barack-obama/obama-more-gun-laws-means-fewer-gun-deaths/
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/160/10/929.full
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/09/13/2617131/largest-gun-study-guns-murder/
http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals%2Fstlpl12&div=18&id&page
http://www.motherjones.com/files/ownership-death630.png

i can also find more articles that compare states with gun control v not. i wouldn't get hung up on the specifics of a certain state, city, or country. that's anecdotal in the end anyway, outliers. look for broader conclusions. 

The data presented in Kates & Mauser (2007) seems to be well respected by the articles (including peer-reviewed articles) that cite it. The most critical article I was able to readily find, "Firearms, Youth Homicide, and Public Health" by Levine et al (2012, J Health Care Poor Underserved. Feb; 23(1): 7) had this to say:

 

In contrast to public health officials and those receiving funds from CDC, academicians from criminology, law, and other disciplines have not been constrained from publishing in support of firearms. Several facets of these discussions were summarized in a 2007 review published by the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy and written by Donald B. Kates, Jr. and Gary Mauser. Kates is a prominent scholar who is also recognized as a tireless and effective advocate for the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which establishes the right to keep and bear arms. Kates has been an outspoken CDC critic. Gary Mauser is Professor Emeritus at the Faculty of Business Administration and the Institute for Urban Canadian Research Studies at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, is an internationally A-ranked law journal, in an A*, A, B, C system where A* is the highest rank. The high academic standing, not only of the authors but also of the Journal, makes the content of this review particularly disturbing.

In their article, Kates and Mauser argue that murderers are not ordinary citizens: “There is no reason for laws prohibiting gun possession by ordinary, law-abiding responsible adults because such people virtually never murder.”[p.670] They also review existing data showing negative correlations between gun ownership and violence: “That is ‘where firearms are most dense violent crime rates are lowest, and where guns are least dense, violent crime rates are highest.’”[p.676] Concerning African Americans, Kates and Mauser state, “Per capita, African-American murder rates are much higher than the murder rate for Whites. If more guns equal more death, and fewer guns equal less, one might assume gun ownership is higher among African-Americans than among Whites, but in fact African-American gun ownership is markedly lower than White gun ownership.”[p.676] Difficulties in measuring gun ownership aside, Kates and Mauser go on to say (including their italics—p. 677) that murderers are, “A small minority of extreme antisocial aberrants who manage to obtain guns whatever the level of gun ownership in the African American community.” “Small minority” notwithstanding, the reader is left to understand that since normal people don’t commit murder and since murder cannot be explained by gun ownership, murder is more common among African Americans for one of two reasons: either “extreme antisocial aberrants” are more common among African Americans or “social aberrants” in the African American community, while not more common, are particularly lethal. Either way, the Kates-Mauser-Harvard logic appears to be built on negative racial stereotyping.

In their review, Kates and Mauser also summarize a negative gun control report from the Task Force on Community Preventive Services, stating that, “The CDC is vehemently anti-gun and interpreted its results to show not that the more guns equal more death equation is erroneous, but only that the scores of studies it reviewed were inconclusively done.”[p.654,n.16] Nonetheless, the assessment of “insufficient evidence” is correct. Studies of prison inmates, for example, may be biased by such factors as declining clearance percentages for homicides on the part of law enforcement agencies. This percentage was about 64% nationally in 2002 (down from 79% in 1976), and it is negatively influenced by factors prevalent in African American communites. Moreover, as noted in a later Task Force review much available evidence about firearm control law uses ecological data. In particular, both county-level, cross-sectional time series analyses and geographic correlational studies are ecological. While ecological data may be used to generate hypotheses, serious errors can occur when ecological evidence is treated as though it were acceptable for testing hypotheses. Specifically, knowing whether or not there is a correlation between rates of gun ownership and rates of homicide in a population does not tell the investigator whether individuals with or without guns in a particular community have different risks for homicide. The latter would require individual data rather than grouped (community level) data. This is one reason ecological research is not only considered insufficient by the CDC but also by the U.S. Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Oxford Centre for Evidence-based Medicine (OCEBM), and others. In summary, when Kates and Mauser promote the importance of low correlations between community rates of gun ownership and community mortality rates from firearms, they are relying weak evidence which is rated unacceptable for evidence-based decision making by major health-related review groups worldwide.

In other words, Levine et al (2012) agree with the Kates & Mauser that there's insufficient evidence to establish a correlation between murder rates and numbers of guns, but draw unwarranted conclusions from community level data rather than individual data. 

My reasons for suspecting that the number of guns wouldn't correlate to number of murders comes from anecdotal experience (I live in the UK but was born and grew up in the USA) visiting friends in Finland and Canada. Everyone had guns, and yet it seemed as though they had far less problems with gun violence and homicides. Ammunition is regulated differently, and the cultures are different.

Finally, thanks for the compiled list of articles. I'll look into the correlations. I'm always interested in learning more about these sorts of issues, and strongly believe that any future decisions should be evidence based (and should principally be lead by those with far greater expertise in this area than myself).

I don't know why my words are crossed out. I can't edit out the line. Oh well.

[dairygirl4u2c]

" Dairy girl cannot address or rebut the plain fact that although the number of guns and gun owners on the US has only increased, the rate of murders has decreased.  Simple fact.  "

a simple single fact, which i've addressed many times.  you have to look at the broader picture, across many jurisdictions. you can't just expect a correlation on a fact like that, there's too many variables. it's an outlier. look at everything taken together, then make a decision. 

i definitely dont think it's common sense to say more guns make us more safe. criminals dont look around and say "gee this is a high gun per capita area i better not be a criminal". they at best defense those who use the guns which isn't all that common. 

i dont support confiscating guns. but i think the evidence is plenty there to be open to the idea. if we could reduce guns by eighty percent and murders went down by as much, who wouldn't be open to the idea? but i have too many quarrels with making too many conclusions like that, which i can describe in more detail if anyone cared. 

[Spinozist]

20 minutes ago, dairygirl4u2c said:

I dont support confiscating guns. but i think the evidence is plenty there to be open to the idea. if we could reduce guns by eighty percent and murders went down by as much, who wouldn't be open to the idea? but i have too many quarrels with making too many conclusions like that, which i can describe in more detail if anyone cared. 

I'd be interested.

[dairygirl4u2c]

first here is an article that pushes for confiscation. it pushes the idea that more guns means more deaths and points to australia that had massive gun regulation twenty years ago and saw their rate drop up to fifty percent. you dont see articles like this very much. there's not a snowball's chance in hell any of that would ever happen in this lifetime in the USA. but just sayin...

http://www.vox.com/2015/10/5/9454161/gun-violence-solution

id want other counties to bite the bullet and see what they can acheive with confiscation. one example isn't much to base conclusions on. 

im suspecious of how much we can achieve from confiscation. 

im critical of the australia example. they confiscated twenty percent of guns. to me if murder rate went beyond twenty percent, im suspicious. id expect murder rate to be less than confiscation rate, because you are taking guns away mostly from law abidding citizens. then again, i think they banned handguns for self defense so it might be greater than the confiscation rate if hand gun bans are helpful. i tend to be suspicious of that. 

i've changed my views here some, but i say we might have more gun problems cause of our culture more than ive said before. i used to say culture was a cop out. i said said we dont have a monopoly on mental illness or violent video games compared to other countries. then i started to consider poverty, drugs, and maybe our shoot em up movies culture that hollywood puts out.  we have more poverty and a bigger drug problems than other counties. is it any wonder that half of gun murders are black people when they make up a fraction of the population? and that's not racist, it's just recognizing violence poverty and drugs all go together. i know mexicans are a disproportionate mix with the murders too. 

i also consider it next to a fact that more guns means more death, but i have questions needing answered here too. there's no question that when you measure suicides that there's a correlation. what studies included suicides and which didn't? i've heard mixed reviews on wehther there is a correlation on raw data of guns and murders across jurisdictions. but i dont seem to have that review when you control for things like poverty etc. basically, i just want more quetsions clarified on these studies before i relied on them to confiscate guns. 

i have more reservations but i'd need to sit and brainstorm a little more

Edited January 5, 2016 by dairygirl4u2c

[Anomaly]

Dairy, 

its not an "outlier".  Outlier is one aberration out of a group.   It is a consistent trend for decades.  

You look for emotionally appealing anecdotes that support your bias.   Reasonably objective people would be courious as to the "why".   Is it better screening and licensing laws?   Is it better training and practice by gun users because of more available shooting ranges?  Is it harsher legal penalties for crimes committed with a fire arm? 

The US has over 350,000,000 (350 Million) guns as a conservative estimate.  Over 8,000,000 legal fire arms are purchased every year.

Lets discuss responsible gun ownership instead of attempting to pursue reducing the hundreds of millions of guns.   That is what facts indicate.  

Outlier...  Srsly?

 

[dairygirl4u2c]

it's an outlier because when you compare jursidicitions you see a trend. just look at all the links i provided that show that link between guns and murders. if the USA doesn't follow the correlation itself, it's an outlier to everyone else and to the bigger picture. 

" Lets discuss responsible gun ownership instead of attempting to pursue reducing the hundreds of millions of guns.   That is what facts indicate.   "

what do the facts indicate? that we should focus on responsible gun ownership which i assume means restrictions on guns instead of confiscation? the facts support both restrictions and confiscation. there's no reason both can't be discussed 

here is an example of your lack of reason. "i say people eat fruit. you say bob doesnt eat fruit and hasn't for decades. therefore people don't eat fruit because bob doesn't, and bob isn't an outlier to everyone else because he hasnt been eating fruit for decades?"

that's how you sound. 

[Spinozist]

DairyGirl,

Thanks for presenting your thoughts. The correlation is very interesting, although like you, I'm suspicious about how fortuitous it is. It will be great to see if similar correlations hold up elsewhere, or have already held up elsewhere.

It looks like there will be some sort of potential future correlations to study within the USA: http://mic.com/articles/131809/a-tearful-obama-announces-new-executive-action-on-gun-control

I think this is a great thing. We should experiment with different levels of regulation and find out what works. If this amount of regulation helps, increase it. Keep increasing the regulations until it stops making things better.