Gun Control Laws Don't Work!

[Newbie 0]

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One more piece of evidence that Blair is all about appearances.

It was actually John Major, the predecessor to Blair, who initiated this law after Dunblane.

Edited for typo

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[Newbie 0]

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why do american people kill so many other american people? ...the reason that the murder rate in the US is high compared to other countries.

First of all, there are other modern countries with higher murder rates than the U.S., such as Russia, Brazil and Northern Ireland.

just as your original statement is a sweeping one, and very subjective, so is this.

How on earth can you compare a modern industrialised 1st world nation like the US with Brazil (largely 3rd world, with a huge poverty/drugs problem, more profilic and extreme than even the US); Russia, which since the fall of communism has experienced huge surges in violent crime and murder rates because of the transitional state and power vacuum it has found itself in, and Northern Ireland, where the TOTAL murder figures (for 2002-3) which included all gun related as well as others was 42!! (http://www.psni.police.uk/recorded_crime_tables_for_website.doc)

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[AggieDave 6]

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did you really do that? Why?

Call it a gut feeling. That same gut feeling has saved my ass before (an attempted armed robbery at a drive up ATM about a year ago).

The front door was still locked, but since we have large windows in the back of the house and a sliding glass door on the side of the house, I knew that didn't mean anything.

So, since I had that gut feeling, I sure as fuck did do that. Turned out ok, but I'd rather take the time to do that and have nothing, then ignore my gut feeling and walk in on someone who could be armed.

Well, there was something amiss, my roommate's large fish (an Oscar) was laying in the middle of the hallway. He had jumped out of his tank and flopped that far.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[AdD 1]

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Congratulations on doing some research and coming up with some facts - that's far more than most people do.

You jumped to a conclusion a bit there though, because you didn't bother to find out if the gun ownership rate amongst Canadians was lower than in America. Thus, your "fewer guns" conclusion is premature. For example, gun ownership in the Yukon and Northwest Territories is 67%, the same as America.

Furthermore, you based your conclusion only upon one comparison, which is too simplistic.

I see I'm having some trouble convincing you based on those figures, but I'd like to point out that the Yukon and the NWT have less than 100 000 people combined living in them , so it doesn't really reflect Canada's average gun ownership. Ironically those two places also have the highest rates of gun deaths among people younger than 25 in Canada, at 20 and 53 per 100k for the Yukon and NWT. So it would appear that your own stats are working against you in that case. Ontario which has the lowest gun ownership rate, also experiences the lowest rate of gun deaths among the same age group.

I think you also need to look at what type of guns these are John. There are slightly less than 1 in 30 Canadians who own handguns, and most of these (legals) have to belong to a gun club associated with the police, which implies very rigorous safety training. Although it does happen, especially in cases of domestic violence, that someone is killed with a hunting rifle here, you will find that rifles are rarely a weapon of choice. I would also like to turn my attention away from Canada to quote the 1998 study in the Journal of Trauma which found that guns kept in the home for self-protection are more often used to kill somebody you know than to kill in self-defense; 22 times more likely.
(Kellermann AL. "Injuries and Deaths Due to Firearms in the Home." Journal of Trauma, 1998; 45(2):263-67. )

Furthermore a gun is used for protection in less than 2 % of home invasions. The FBI's uniform crime report found that in 1999 there were only 154 justifiable homocides commited by private citizens, compared to a total of a total of 8,259 firearm murders. Homes with guns are 3 times more likely to have a homocide in them, 5 times more likely to have a suicide, and the "unintentional firearm-related death rate for children 0-14 years old is NINE times higher in the U.S. than in the 25 other countries combined" (CDC - '97). Also, from 1990 to 1998 2 thirds of spouse or ex spouse murders happened with guns. I eagerly await your reply to this post, PM me if you feel like it.

Life is ez
On the dz
Every jumper's dream
3 rigs and an airstream

[Newbie 0]

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did you really do that? Why?

Call it a gut feeling. That same gut feeling has saved my ass before (an attempted armed robbery at a drive up ATM about a year ago).

The front door was still locked, but since we have large windows in the back of the house and a sliding glass door on the side of the house, I knew that didn't mean anything.

So, since I had that gut feeling, I sure as fuck did do that. Turned out ok, but I'd rather take the time to do that and have nothing, then ignore my gut feeling and walk in on someone who could be armed.

Well, there was something amiss, my roommate's large fish (an Oscar) was laying in the middle of the hallway. He had jumped out of his tank and flopped that far.

ever thought about going into the aquarium business? You seem to be at one with the fishes.

Seriously, ok i get it - what happened at the ATM just out of curiousity?

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[AggieDave 6]

This is the second time someone has tried something at an ATM with me, I posted about that before.

Drive up ATM about 9pm or so, so it was dark, and got a weird vibe. So I drew my weapon, chambered ar round and placed it in my seat.

Doint my transaction, about half-way through somone slamed their hand on my passenger side window. I cracked that window so I could hear them, since I thought this was going to be the usual "my car ran out of gas...blah blah blah), but instead he said "give me your money." I of course said no. He pulls a knife (why a knife on the other side of my truck, I have no idea), I drew my weapon. His eyes got big and he took off, end of story. Put my weapon away, got my money out of the ATM and drove off.

Think he'll try to rob anyone there again?

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[Newbie 0]

dang good old gut instinct eh? I would have liked to have seen his reaction - that reminds me of the scene with Sean Connery and Kevin Costner in the Untouchables

"he brings a knife you bring a gun, he sends one of yours to the hosptial, you send one of his to the morgue"

Dang i need to see that movie again.

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[kallend 2,146]

Did you ever get a reply to this:

"Furthermore a gun is used for protection in less than 2 % of home invasions. The FBI's uniform crime report found that in 1999 there were only 154 justifiable homocides commited by private citizens, compared to a total of a total of 8,259 firearm murders. Homes with guns are 3 times more likely to have a homocide in them, 5 times more likely to have a suicide, and the "unintentional firearm-related death rate for children 0-14 years old is NINE times higher in the U.S. than in the 25 other countries combined" (CDC - '97). Also, from 1990 to 1998 2 thirds of spouse or ex spouse murders happened with guns. I eagerly await your reply to this post, PM me if you feel like it. "

In particular the data about homicides in homes with guns compared to homes without guns.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[slug 1]

John

Your looking at a bell curve. "There aren't bad dogs just bad dog owners". Guns don't kill people, the person pulling the trigger does.

I think if there was a analysis of gun death's like skydiving we would find out that the accidental death's were preventable if the guns were stored in a responsiable manner.

Murder, suicide, guns are convenient but if they weren't available there are lots of other ways to get the job done.

Do I own a gun? yes. Is it loaded? no Have I ever carried it evewn though I have a CWP no. Do I ever point my gun at something I don't want to shoot? no. Do I ever put my finger on the trigger of a "unloaded" gun? no. Do I ever shoot my gun? yes so I can hit what I'm aiming at. I shoot my gun at a gun range and I don't load it until i'm at the fireing line. After I'm done I make sure the gun is unloaded but always assume that the gun is loaded until I verify it.

Once the bullet leaves a gun to bad so sad. Pepper spray is a nice deterent. If I feel that I'm going someplace wher I need a gun to protect myself I don't need to go there.

However if we have a national emergency where peoples children are dying from lack of food and water and you have it. Some of them people (bell curve) will cut your throat for a glass of water. Under those condition's there will not be enough police, national guard etc to protect everyone.

In that case the bad guy's will go after the easy targets. I refuse to be one.

R.I.P.

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Did you ever get a reply to this:

"Furthermore a gun is used for protection in less than 2 % of home invasions. The FBI's uniform crime report found that in 1999 there were only 154 justifiable homocides commited by private citizens, compared to a total of a total of 8,259 firearm murders. Homes with guns are 3 times more likely to have a homocide in them, 5 times more likely to have a suicide, and the "unintentional firearm-related death rate for children 0-14 years old is NINE times higher in the U.S. than in the 25 other countries combined" (CDC - '97). Also, from 1990 to 1998 2 thirds of spouse or ex spouse murders happened with guns. I eagerly await your reply to this post, PM me if you feel like it. "

In particular the data about homicides in homes with guns compared to homes without guns.

[newsstand 0]

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Know whats funny? Quite a few liberals are motivated to legalize some drugs (in some cases, all drugs), but think they'd do the same for weapons?

Do you really want a bunch of stoners walking around with guns?

"Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

[JohnRich 4]

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i heard one time that cops in the US would prefer home owners not to have guns...

There may be some cops who feel that way, but fortunately, the freedoms that we citizens are allowed to possess are not determined by what is convenient for some police officers. They would probably prefer not to have to fool with Miranda rights either.

And that statement is false, anyway:

- Annual National Survey of Police Chiefs & Sheriffs

The following survey questions were posed recently by mail to 22,587 Chiefs of Police and Sheriffs. It represents a cross section of professional officers involving every state.

FIREARMS

» Do you believe any law-abiding citizen should be able to purchase a firearm for sport or self-defense?

Yes - 93%

http://www.aphf.org/survey.html

[JohnRich 4]

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How on earth can you compare a modern industrialised 1st world nation like the US with Brazil (largely 3rd world, with a huge poverty/drugs problem, more profilic and extreme than even the US); Russia, which since the fall of communism has experienced huge surges in violent crime and murder rates because of the transitional state and power vacuum it has found itself in, and Northern Ireland...

I was simply dispelling the idea that America's murder rate is worse than all others, as some would imply.

The same kind of differences can be found between the other countries being used to compare America with unfavorably. I didn't hear you complaining about unfair comparisons then.

And look at what you are pointing out as different: cultural differences. That's exactly what I said accounts for the differing crime rates. And "culture" is comprised of a wide variety of sociological factors, such as poverty, drugs, demographics and governments.

The fact is all nations are different, and you can never come up with a true apples vs. apples comparison between any of them..

[JohnRich 4]

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1998 study in the Journal of Trauma which found that guns kept in the home for self-protection are more often used to kill somebody you know than to kill in self-defense; 22 times more likely. (Kellermann AL. "Injuries and Deaths Due to Firearms in the Home." Journal of Trauma, 1998;

Gosh, you packed so many anti-gun distortions into that message, that I don't have time to respond to all of them.

And I'm going to be spending the entire weekend having fun, shooting and skydiving. So I won't be back here probably until Monday, unless the rain drives me home.

So, I'll just address the Kellerman study, since that is the most eggregious. He has been widely discredited for this statistic.

National Review, 1/31/01:

The Fallacy of "43 to 1"
The all-time favorite statistic of the gun-prohibition lobby.

By Dave Kopel, of the Independence Institute

Perhaps the most enduring factoid of the gun prohibition movement is that a person with a gun in the home is 43 times as likely to shoot someone in the family as to shoot a criminal. This "43 times" figure is the all-time favorite factoid of the gun-prohibition lobby. It's not really true, but it does tell us a lot about the gun-prohibition mindset.

The source of the 43-to-1 ratio is a study of firearm deaths in Seattle homes, conducted by doctors Arthur Kellermann and Donald Reay ("Protection or Peril?: An Analysis of Firearm-Related Deaths in the Home," New England Journal of Medicine, 1986). Kellerman and Reay totaled up the numbers of firearms murders, suicides, and fatal accidents, and then compared that number to the number of firearm deaths that were classified as justifiable homicides. The ratio of murder, suicide, and accidental death to the justifiable homicides was 43 to 1.

This is what the anti-gun lobbies call "scientific" proof that people (except government employees and security guards) should not have guns.

Of the gun deaths in the home, the vast majority are suicides. In the 43-to-1 figure, suicides account for nearly all the 43 unjustifiable deaths.

Counting a gun suicide as part of the increased risk of having a gun in the home is appropriate only if the presence of a gun facilitates a "successful" suicide that would not otherwise occur. But most research suggests that guns do not cause suicide.

In the book Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America, Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck analyzed suicide data for every America city with a population more than 100,000, and found no
evidence that any form of gun control (including handgun prohibition) had an effect on the total suicide rate. Gun control did sometimes reduce gun suicide, but not overall suicide.

Notably, Japan, which prohibits handguns and rifles entirely, and regulates long guns very severely, has a suicide rate of more than twice the U.S. level. Many of the northern and central European nations also have very high suicide rates to accompany their strict gun laws. (Of course, if you have any suspicion that anybody in your home might be suicidal, it would hardly be a mistake for you to ensure that they do not have ready access to guns, tranquilizers, or other potentially lethal items.)

Putting aside the suicides, the Kellermann/Reay figures show 2.39 accidental or criminal deaths by firearm (in the home) for every justifiable fatal shooting. Now, 2 to 1 is a lot less dramatic than 43 to 1, but we still have more unjustifiable gun deaths than justifiable gun deaths in the home.

But just as many other people who would commit suicide with a gun would use an equally lethal method if guns are unavailable. Many of the people who kill themselves in firearm accidents may also be bent on destruction, regardless of the means. One study of gun-accident victims found that they were "disproportionately involved in other accidents, violent crime, and heavy drinking." (Philip Cook, "The Role of Firearms in Violent Crime: An Interpretative Review of the Literature," in Criminal Violence).

Or, as another researcher put it, "The psychological profile of the accident-prone suggests the same kind of aggressiveness shown by most murderers." (Roger Lane, "On the Social Meaning of Homicide Trends in America," in Violence in America, Vol. I, 1989.)

Without guns, many accident victims might well find some other way to kill themselves "accidentally," such as by reckless driving.

So by counting accidents and suicides, the 43-to-1 factoid ends up including a very large number of fatalities that would have occurred anyway, even if there were no gun in the home.

Now, how about the self-defense homicides, which Kellermann and Reay found to be so rare? Well, the reason that they found such a low total was that they excluded many cases of lawful self-defense. Kellermann and Reay did not count in the self-defense total of any of the cases where a person who had shot an attacker was acquitted on grounds of self-defense, or cases where a conviction was reversed on appeal on grounds related to self-defense. Yet 40% of women who appeal their murder convictions have the conviction reversed on appeal. ("Fighting Back," Time, Jan. 18, 1993.)

In short, the 43-to-1 figure is based on the totally implausible assumption that all the people who die in gun suicides and gun accidents would not kill themselves with something else if guns were unavailable. The figure is also based on a drastic undercount of the number of lawful self-defense homicides.

Moreover, counting dead criminals to measure the efficacy of civilian handgun ownership is ridiculous. Do we measure the efficacy of our police forces by counting how many people the police lawfully kill every year? The benefits of the police - and of home handgun ownership - are not measured by the number of dead criminals, but by the number of crimes prevented. Simplistic counting of corpses tells us nothing about the real safety value of gun ownership for protection.

Finally, Kellermann and Reay ignore the most important factor of all in assessing the risks of gun ownership: whose home the gun is in. You don't need a medical researcher to tell you that guns can be misused when in the homes of persons with mental illness related to violence; or in the homes of persons prone to self-destructive, reckless behavior; or in the homes of persons with arrest records for violent felonies; or in the homes where the police have had to intervene to deal with domestic violence. These are the homes from which the vast majority of handgun
fatalities come.

To study these high-risk homes and to jump to conclusions about the general population is illogical. We know that possession of an automobile by an alcoholic who is prone to drunk driving may pose a
serious health risk. But proof that automobiles in the hands of alcoholics may be risky doesn't prove that autos in the hands of non-alcoholics are risky. Yet the famous Seattle 43-to-1 figure is based on lumping the homes of violent felons, alcoholics, and other disturbed people in with the population as a whole. The study fails to distinguish between the large risks of guns in the hands of dangerous people, with the tiny risks (and large benefits) of guns in the hands of ordinary people.

But then again, treating ordinary people according to standards that would be appropriate for criminals and the violently insane is what the gun control movement is all about.

- End of Dave Kopel response -

The fact that the anti-gun organizations keep clinging to and spreading this discredited statistic, does nothing but reveal their ethical bankruptcy.

[sdgregory 0]

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did you really do that? Why?

Call it a gut feeling. That same gut feeling has saved my ass before (an attempted armed robbery at a drive up ATM about a year ago).

The front door was still locked, but since we have large windows in the back of the house and a sliding glass door on the side of the house, I knew that didn't mean anything.

So, since I had that gut feeling, I sure as fuck did do that. Turned out ok, but I'd rather take the time to do that and have nothing, then ignore my gut feeling and walk in on someone who could be armed.

Well, there was something amiss, my roommate's large fish (an Oscar) was laying in the middle of the hallway. He had jumped out of his tank and flopped that far.

Been there done that. Came home from a night out with the wife and kids in Florida. Had my gun because Florida has conealed carry permits. Pulled up and noticed that the light was on in my Bedroom. I knew I had turned it off and was the last one in the house. Got out of the car told my wife to go down the street with the kids and that if I did not call her cell in five minutes to call the cops. Walked up to the door found it had been kicked in. As I walked in the house heard back door slam. Ran toward it and saw a pickup tear off down the back alley with my stuff.

Swept the house, found everything tossed, electronics and jewelry stolen and called the cops then my wife who had already called them.

I had gotten the license plate. Cops said the car was stolen and when others caught the guys they ran and wrecked the truck including my stuff.

I still believe that they saw me pull up and saw me pull out my gun and that is why they ran. Otherwise they may not have run. Then what?

Glad I had a gun that day.

[kallend 2,146]

Seems like you're saying that provided you exclude nutty or violent people's homes, gun owners are only about twice as likely as others to have a firearms related death in their homes, so that's OK. You were just long-winded about it.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[FallRate 0]

Did you know that individuals with bathtubs in their homes are at least 93 times more likely to die from a fall in a bathtub than those who do not live in homes where a bathtub is installed. To my mind, this is unacceptable! The BFA (Bathroom Fixture Association) has for years blocked legislation which would put an end to this scourge. Are we going to let these purveyors of porcelain peril control our government through their seedy lobbyists!? I say NO!!!

FallRate

[FallRate 0]

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Seems like you're saying that provided you exclude nutty or violent people's homes, gun owners are only about twice as likely as others to have a firearms related death in their homes, so that's OK. You were just long-winded about it.

Don't like the odds, Kallend? Then don't keep a firearm in your home. You do have that right, don't you?

Again...want to know how to save about 30 lives a year? Anyone?

FallRate

[kallend 2,146]

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Seems like you're saying that provided you exclude nutty or violent people's homes, gun owners are only about twice as likely as others to have a firearms related death in their homes, so that's OK. You were just long-winded about it.

Don't like the odds, Kallend? Then don't keep a firearm in your home. You do have that right, don't you?

Again...want to know how to save about 30 lives a year? Anyone?

FallRate

I don't have any problem with the odds. I just wish to have ACCURATE information, rather than information that has been filtered and massaged and spun by one lobby or the other.

Should I wish to defend my home, it will be with a shotgun, not a handgun.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[AdD 1]

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The Fallacy of "43 to 1"

Funny, the figure I quoted was 22 to 1, not 43 to 1. I really didn't want to focus the discussion on the suicide aspect of firearms though, I agree that guns to not cause suicide, but they certainly facilitate it. Why then is there 5 times more suicides in homes with guns? And you completely ignored my point about the FBI's uniform crime report, along with most of my other points following the Kellerman study, which I think you misrepresented, I never said they didn't include suicides in it, my arguement on home invasions is based more on the FBI stats.

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Finally, Kellermann and Reay ignore the most important factor of all in assessing the risks of gun ownership: whose home the gun is in. You don't need a medical researcher to tell you that guns can be misused when in the homes of persons with mental illness related to violence; or in the homes of persons prone to self-destructive, reckless behavior; or in the homes of persons with arrest records for violent felonies; or in the homes where the police have had to intervene to deal with domestic violence. These are the homes from which the vast majority of handgun
fatalities come.

The very way you attempt refute my arguement here seems to be a good arguement for stricter gun control. Why do these homes full of crazies have handguns? Because people with "arrest records for violent felonies" are allowed to have them ! I think your logic works against you there. It would follow that stricter gun controls would keep weapons from these homes and keep people safer from domestic violence. I do concede that you may be right about the Kellerman study not taking the appeals into account, but again the FBI stats back up the point. I must say this has been an interesting thread man, have fun jumping.

There was some confusion regarding my sources for the 9x figure on child deaths. The CDC is the Center for Disease Control, not a an anti-gun organization.

Life is ez
On the dz
Every jumper's dream
3 rigs and an airstream

[JohnRich 4]

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The Fallacy of "43 to 1"

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Funny, the figure I quoted was 22 to 1, not 43 to 1.

Yes, that is funny, because you quoted it incorrectly.

Even more humorous, is that Kellerman started out with "43 to 1", but when his errors were pointed out to him, he revised his own number downward to "2.7 to 1". So much for Kellerman's credibility.

And for a real riot of a laugh, just notice how the anti-gun organizations keep quoting it as "43 to 1", even though the author of the study no longer supports that number.

The anti-gun organizations do that because they will say *anything* to achieve their goal, and they don't care if it's a lie or not. They just want the "best" possible statement against guns that they can find. Truth be damned.

Personally, I think public policy determinations for 260 million free people deserve better than to be determined or affected by lies.

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And you completely ignored my point about the FBI's uniform crime report, along with most of my other points following the Kellerman study...

I haven't ignored them - I told you I would be away from the computer all weekend, and Monday was spent doing hospital stuff for a very ill friend, which is far more important than this thread. I'll respond when I get the time.

[JohnRich 4]

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I agree that guns do not cause suicide, but they certainly facilitate it. Why then is there 5 times more suicides in homes with guns?

Where do you get the "5 times" number?

Other things that "facilitate" suicide are tall objects, sharp knives, pills, rope, automobile exhaust, and probably several other things. Are you suggesting that we should try and regulate all these objects in order to deter suicidal people from killing themselves?

Item #1:

"Making guns less available does not reduce suicide but merely causes the person seeking death to use another means. While gun-related suicides were reduced by Canada's gun control legislation of 1978, the overall suicide rate did not go down at all: the gun-related suicides were replaced 100% by an increase in other types of suicide - mostly jumping off bridges."

Source: "Guns and suicide: possible effects of some specific legislation," Rich, Young, Fowler, Wagner, and Black, The American Journal of Psychiatry March, 1990.

Item #2:

Japan, with a total ban on private ownership of guns, has a suicide rate almost twice as high as the U.S.! And in Britain, where gun laws are very strict and gun ownership rate is less than one-tenth of the U.S., suicide rose by more than 70% in the 1980s. Indeed, before guns were even invented, the preferred method was to drink poison hemlock tea.

Source: "Point Blank", by Gary Kleck.

Kleck analyzes suicide rates in his book "Point Blank", corelating suicide rates in every city with a population over 100,000, and taking into account factors that affect suicide, such as race, religion, economic circumstances and 19 gun control laws ranging from waiting periods to handgun bans.

Kleck finds no evidence that any gun control laws had an effect on suicide rates. While some gun control laws had an effect on _gun_ suicides, the total suicide rate remained the same. People who decide to kill themselves, will use whatever means is available. If a gun is not available, they substitute another equally lethal method.

Therefore, it is not the availability of suicide tools or methods that determines the prevalance of suicides. It is the culture. The presence of guns does not cause otherwise sane people to commit suicide.

[JohnRich 4]

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Why do these homes full of crazies have handguns? Because people with "arrest records for violent felonies" are allowed to have them !

No, convicted felons are not allowed to own guns, for the remainder of their lives. It's against the law for them to even touch a gun, even if it is someone else's gun. If such people own guns anyway, it's because of the theme of this thread - gun laws don't work! They acquire them illegally, despite the law. Passing laws doesn't make criminals obey the law.

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It would follow that stricter gun controls would keep weapons from these homes and keep people safer from domestic violence.

Show me how. What gun control law will prevent convicted felons from acquiring guns illegally?

Even an island nation like England, with a complete ban on handguns for everyone, can't keep criminals from getting handguns. Their gun crime has *increased* since their gun ban!

[AdD 1]

Here is a link and except from the CDC report of firearms deaths in 26 industrialized countries:

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A firearm was reported to have been involved in the deaths of 1107 children; 957 (86%) of those occurred in the United States. Of all firearm-related deaths, 55% were reported as homicides; 20%, as suicides; 22%, as unintentional; and 3%, as intention undetermined. The overall firearm-related death rate among U.S. children aged less than 15 years was nearly 12 times higher than among children in the other 25 countries combined (1.66 compared with 0.14) (Table_1). The firearm-related homicide rate in the United States was nearly 16 times higher than that in all of the other countries combined (0.94 compared with 0.06); the firearm-related suicide rate was nearly 11 times higher (0.32 compared with 0.03); and the unintentional firearm-related death rate was nine times higher (0.36 compared with 0.04). For all countries, males accounted for most of the firearm-related homicides (67%), firearm-related suicides (77%), and unintentional firearm-related deaths (89%). The nonfirearm-related homicide rate in the United States was nearly four times the rate in all of the other countries (1.63 compared with 0.45), and nonfirearm-related suicide rates were similar in the United States and in all of the other countries combined (0.23 compared with 0.24).
The rate for firearm-related deaths among children in the United States (1.66) was 2.7-fold greater than that in the country with the next highest rate (Finland, 0.62) (Figure_1)

The full report is here:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00046149.htm

Now, this is my position. Many gun control laws do not work. This is evidenced in my own country, and I will readily admit it. I do however believe that the principal of stricter gun control is sound. You were quite successful in blowing up the Kellerman study, whose background I didn't know when I quoted it, which was my mistake. If you are able to do the same to the FBI's uniform crime report and the CDC study I would be willing to listen.

In response to your comments on suicide, I found them unconvincing when you use Japan as an example. Ever hear the saying hard cases make bad law? Well Japan is a hard case because of their cultural predisposition to offing themselves.

Life is ez
On the dz
Every jumper's dream
3 rigs and an airstream

[Amazon 7]

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The rate for firearm-related deaths among children in the United States (1.66) was 2.7-fold greater than that in the country with the next highest rate

This screams to me one thing. Children WILL find their parents firearms.

Responsible gun ownership entails a few things. Gun safes and trigger locks are a must. If a parent owns firearms they had better train their children the proper care and use of firearms at a very early age.If they don't know what this entails there are local clubs all over the country that can help. The NRA has wonderful youth programs.
I was raised in a family that spent a great deal of time in outdoor sports, including hunting and going to the firing range to shoot for fun. All of us were trained from an early age in the proper handling of firearms. Like most things good parenting plays an integral role here. Whether you are pro or anti-gun.. the guns are here. Teach your children well from an early age instead of sticking your head in the sand and wishing they were non-existent. Ignorance such as this gets children killed by their own youthful curiosity.

[JohnRich 4]

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The nonfirearm-related homicide rate in the United States was nearly four times the rate in all of the other countries

This is why I've been talking about our *culture* as the cause of violence in America, and not the mere presence of guns. As you can see, according to these blokes, even *without* guns, we still murder each other far more often than many other nations. And you can't blame *non-gun* murders on the presence of guns. So it's not about guns - it's about our culture that breeds violence.

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In response to your comments on suicide, I found them unconvincing when you use Japan as an example. Ever hear the saying hard cases make bad law? Well Japan is a hard case because of their cultural predisposition to offing themselves.

And this is yet more evidence of the influence of culture as the cause of violent behavior. Japan, with almost no legal gun ownership, has a much higher suicide rate than the U.S. Their suicide rate is high, not because of guns, but because of their culture. They have strong aversions to failure and shame, and often choose suicide as an honorable way out. Once again, the cause is *culture*. And the predisposition of many Americans towards violence is similar in nature to the ingrained Japanese beliefs about suicide.

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Many gun control laws do not work. This is evidenced in my own country, and I will readily admit it. I do however believe that the principal of stricter gun control is sound.

Can you name some gun control laws that you believe to be effective at reducing gun crime?