Gun control/availability of guns

[warpedskydiver 0]

Whatever whoosh means to you, but my post actually had far more relevance than anything you have said.

[billvon 3,109]

>it makes you look like a major dickhead . . .

Your one warning. (On Christmas eve, even.)

[1969912 0]

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>it makes you look like a major dickhead . . .

Your one warning. (On Christmas eve, even.)

Sorry Bill.

Won't do it again (I'll just watch others do it using a slightly thicker veil).

Have a nice holiday!


PS: Where can I get a good deal on NiMH cells? Need ~24AH worth, Imax=~14A to drive 24V motor.

thanks

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

[billvon 3,109]

>Where can I get a good deal on NiMH cells? Need ~24AH worth,
>Imax=~14A to drive 24V motor.

http://www.batteryspace.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=277

>Have a nice holiday!

You too!

[kallend 2,146]

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DC is NOT a state. Just because it's listed for bureaucratic convenience along with states in some databases does not make it a state.

Why are there 50 stars on the national flag?

How many legs does a dog have if you call a tail a leg?

Kallend,

Do you have any idea how God Damned stupid your response was? Why not make a useful, intelligent comment that addresses one or more possible problems with his suggested comparison.

Dear Jim,

It has been pointed out many times to mnnealtx that comparing DC to a state is silly, but still he continues with that canard. All your "logical" arguments have been seen here before.

Lincoln's observation that calling something by a different name doesn't make it different is extremely pertinent to mnealtx's continued efforts to associate DC with a state.

A tail is not a leg. DC is not a state. That's all there is to it.

I'm sorry that you felt the need to make a diatribe about it.

Merry Christmas.

...

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

[mnealtx 0]

Still haven't answered the question, Professor.


If DC's crime is due to Virginia's guns, why isn't Virginia's crime as high as DC's? The two largest crime cities in Virginia are Richmond (1043 violent crimes/100k) and Roanoke (1019 violent crimes/100k). You seem to imply that the guns are to blame, Professor, so why isn't the rest of the state equally violent?

Could it just POSSIBLY be that it's due to something BEYOND the simple availability of guns?

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[mnealtx 0]

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I'll go as far as to make the case that the availability of defenseless VICTIMS, rather than guns, is the main driver of violent crime.

Where's the proof that all of the victims were defenseless?

There's not - there *IS* proof, however, that criminals avoid potiential victims that they know will be armed, which lends credence to my claim. Google "Wright Rossi criminal interview".

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How many of the victims were merely innocent people and not active criminals/gang members themselves?

I've seen suggestions that a large majority of the murders nationwide are gang and or criminal-on-criminal violence. I'll try to find the reference again.

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Considering that the mass majority of murder victims are killed by loved ones or friends (DoJ statistics), would it be best to arm against those you know?

Actually, acquaintance includes "that guy down the street that I see everyday" - hardly a scientific proof.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[kallend 2,146]

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Still haven't answered the question, Professor.


If DC's crime is due to Virginia's guns, why isn't Virginia's crime as high as DC's? The two largest crime cities in Virginia are Richmond (1043 violent crimes/100k) and Roanoke (1019 violent crimes/100k). You seem to imply that the guns are to blame, Professor, so why isn't the rest of the state equally violent?

Could it just POSSIBLY be that it's due to something BEYOND the simple availability of guns?

Well, all those Republican politicians in DC may have something to do with it.

Why is Dallas more violent than Houston?

Answer that and you have answered your own question.

And DC still is NOT a state, it is a city, and a very untypical city at that.

SOme interesting plots attached, data taken from previously cited sources. Comparing gun deaths with % households owning guns in various western nations.

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

[warpedskydiver 0]

Mike you will never get a an answer at all from someone so evasive, and disingenous.

[kallend 2,146]

Here are data from the various states in the USA, grouped by decile according to the % households owning guns The reason for the grouping is to reduce the scatter and to make the trend more obvious.

(The deciles are, from lowest % gun ownership to highest:

Hawaii:
New Jersey:
Massachusetts:
Rhode Island:
Connecticut:

New York:
Illinois:
California:
Maryland:
Florida:

Delaware:
New Hampshire:
Arizona:
Ohio:
Washington:

Nevada:
Colorado:
Pennsylvania:
New Mexico:
Virginia:

Texas:
Michigan:
Nebraska:
Indiana:
Oregon:

Georgia:
Maine:
North Carolina:
Minnesota:
Missouri:

Vermont:
Kansas:
South Carolina:
Iowa:
Oklahoma:

Tennessee:
Utah:
Louisiana:
Wisconsin:
Kentucky:

North Dakota:
Alabama:
Arkansas:
Idaho:
Mississippi:

West Virginia:
South Dakota:
Montana:
Alaska:
Wyoming:

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

[kallend 2,146]

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Mike you will never get a an answer at all from someone so evasive, and disingenous.

The answer has already been given. You and Mike just don't like it.

You can't compare cities with states, any more than you can compare apples with oranges.

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

[mnealtx 0]

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Still haven't answered the question, Professor.


If DC's crime is due to Virginia's guns, why isn't Virginia's crime as high as DC's? The two largest crime cities in Virginia are Richmond (1043 violent crimes/100k) and Roanoke (1019 violent crimes/100k). You seem to imply that the guns are to blame, Professor, so why isn't the rest of the state equally violent?

Could it just POSSIBLY be that it's due to something BEYOND the simple availability of guns?

Well, all those Republican politicians in DC may have something to do with it.

Why is Dallas more violent than Houston?

Answer that and you have answered your own question.

And DC still is NOT a state, it is a city, and a very untypical city at that.

SOme interesting plots attached, data taken from previously cited sources. Comparing gun deaths with % households owning guns in various western nations.

I've already answered it, above - cultural issues and availability of victims. Of course, you'd actually have to LOOK at the breakdown of crime - overwhelmingly by younger men in metropolitan areas.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[billvon 3,109]

> Mike you will never get a an answer at all from someone so evasive, and disingenous.

Your one warning.

[Andy9o8 2]

A few random thoughts.

It's no secret that urban areas with a high concentration of poor residents in a relatively small area see more violent crime than outlying areas. That's been the case world-wide throughout thousands of years of history, wherever urbanization has occurred. That remains the case world-wide.

So Richmond sees more violent crime than non-urban counties in VA for the very same reason that that's the case in every state in the US. So comparing violent crime rates in D.C. to Richmond or Roanoke (or Chicago or LA or Detroit or NY or Miami, etc.) may be valid; but comparing DC's rate to the rate in Virginia as a whole is not.

"Cultural issues and availability of victims" really only explains violent crimes, but not so much gun crimes per se. A gun is merely a tool. 50 or 60 years ago, inner-city neighborhoods were already plenty dangerous, and plenty violent, but fewer people got shot because fewer guns, especially handguns, were as easily and cheaply available to poor, young people. (To illustrate, that's why crude, home-made, single-shot "zip guns" used to exist, but are virtually unheard of now: because real, affordable handguns are much more available now than they used to be.)
Vary the availability of the tool, and you will vary the rate of use of that tool.


D.C.'s strict gun-control law is an excellent example of a social experiment that failed. The lesson is that strict gun control laws that apply only to a particular city, and not to a much greater land area surrounding the city, will not work because (among several reasons) guns will still flow in from outside the city. Lots of other cities all over the US are engaged in the same debate: the city gov't wants to restrict guns in the city, due to the high crime rate, but (a) it won't work because guns will still flow in from outside the city borders, and (b) the surrounding suburban and rural counties, and most of the state legislators from those counties, are unwilling to restrict guns state-wide for what they view as a decidedly inner-city problem.

Also, for what it's worth, D.C.'s highest crime area is the SouthEast quadrant, which abuts (and is essentially one continuous "neighborhood" with) Prince George's County, Maryland. P.G. County also has a very high crime rate, comparable to Baltimore; and just as guns flow into D.C. from Virginia, they also flow in from P.G. County, Maryland.

D.C.'s failed experiment doesn't show that all strict gun laws don't work; it only shows that they won't work when restricted only to the city level.

Would strict gun laws at either a state-wide level or a national level work in the US? Personally, I doubt it; but let's just say that that's a social experiment that's not yet been attempted, so we're left to speculate. Our Brit and other European friends tend to say yes, pointing to their own countries as examples. The flaw in that comparison is that those other countries generally have not had the sheer quantity of firearms, especially pistols, owned by so many ordinary citizens in their countries for hundreds of years as has been the case in the US.

Even in theory, I can't see the kind of gun control the Europeans have working in the US without a full-scale, nation-wide disarming of the population of most of its guns - highly unlikely, because people are extremely unlikey to surrender most of their guns voluntarily, and a wise-spread inviluntary confiscation by the government would almost certainly fail too, unless extended over a period of several decades at the minimum.

[mnealtx 0]

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A few random thoughts.

It's no secret that urban areas with a high concentration of poor residents in a relatively small area see more violent crime than outlying areas. That's been the case world-wide throughout thousands of years of history, wherever urbanization has occurred. That remains the case world-wide.

So Richmond sees more violent crime than non-urban counties in VA for the very same reason that that's the case in every state in the US. So comparing violent crime rates in D.C. to Richmond or Roanoke (or Chicago or LA or Detroit or NY or Miami, etc.) may be valid; but comparing DC's rate to the rate in Virginia as a whole is not.

Agreed - it certainly is amazing to see DC's rate so much higher, though. I also find it telling that the bordering cities in VA do *not* seem to exhibit the same crime problem - again, cultural / victim availability and not prevalence of firearms, I believe.

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"Cultural issues and availability of victims" really only explains violent crimes, but not so much gun crimes per se. A gun is merely a tool. 50 or 60 years ago, inner-city neighborhoods were already plenty dangerous, and plenty violent, but fewer people got shot because fewer guns, especially handguns, were as easily and cheaply available to poor, young people. (To illustrate, that's why crude, home-made, single-shot "zip guns" used to exist, but are virtually unheard of now: because real, affordable handguns are much more available now than they used to be.)

This, I'll disagree with - prior to GCA '68, anyone could walk into a hardware store and buy a gun, or get them mail order. While there are more guns in circulation now than there was then, there was certainly no shortage.

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Vary the availability of the tool, and you will vary the rate of use of that tool.

I"ll agree with that as well, but only in a broad sense. I believe the cultural issues still trump availabililty, however, or you'd be seeing much more crime in the rural areas where guns are generally more prevalent.

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D.C.'s strict gun-control law is an excellent example of a social experiment that failed. The lesson is that strict gun control laws that apply only to a particular city, and not to a much greater land area surrounding the city, will not work because (among several reasons) guns will still flow in from outside the city. Lots of other cities all over the US are engaged in the same debate: the city gov't wants to restrict guns in the city, due to the high crime rate, but (a) it won't work because guns will still flow in from outside the city borders, and (b) the surrounding suburban and rural counties, and most of the state legislators from those counties, are unwilling to restrict guns state-wide for what they view as a decidedly inner-city problem.

Exactly - but don't let the Professor see that - he'll tell you that "they will always get guns" is bunk. I don't believe that the gun bans work at all, for exactly those reasons - the criminals don't care, won't obey it and will still get weapons, all you are doing is creating more unarmed victims for them.

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Also, for what it's worth, D.C.'s highest crime area is the SouthEast quadrant, which abuts (and is essentially one continuous "neighborhood" with) Prince George's County, Maryland. P.G. County also has a very high crime rate, comparable to Baltimore; and just as guns flow into D.C. from Virginia, they also flow in from P.G. County, Maryland.

I'd have to look at MD stats... isn't MD still a "no issue" state in regards to CCW, or did they finally go "may issue"?

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D.C.'s failed experiment doesn't show that all strict gun laws don't work; it only shows that they won't work when restricted only to the city level.

I disagree, for the exact reasons you stated above - we can't keep gangs from shipping in TONS of drugs...what makes you think we can somehow miraculously prevent them from shipping guns?

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Would strict gun laws at either a state-wide level or a national level work in the US? Personally, I doubt it; but let's just say that that's a social experiment that's not yet been attempted, so we're left to speculate. Our Brit and other European friends tend to say yes, pointing to their own countries as examples. The flaw in that comparison is that those other countries generally have not had the sheer quantity of firearms, especially pistols, owned by so many ordinary citizens in their countries for hundreds of years as has been the case in the US.

Agreed

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Even in theory, I can't see the kind of gun control the Europeans have working in the US without a full-scale, nation-wide disarming of the population of most of its guns - highly unlikely, because people are extremely unlikey to surrender most of their guns voluntarily, and a wise-spread inviluntary confiscation by the government would almost certainly fail too, unless extended over a period of several decades at the minimum.

Also agreed.

Thanks for the well-reasoned and polite post!

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[Lindsey 0]

Now John, you know that correlational data doesn't mean much. Who is to say that people in the states with high rates of homicide don't buy guns because of the high rates of homicide??

--
A conservative is just a liberal who's been mugged. A liberal is just a conservative who's been to jail

[kallend 2,146]

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Now John, you know that correlational data doesn't mean much. Who is to say that people in the states with high rates of homicide don't buy guns because of the high rates of homicide??

It does mean that "more guns less crime" is hogwash.

And there is that inconvenient little bit of data making comparisons between nations.

And the study showing purchase of a handgun correlates with subsequent risk of death by gunshot. Hard to argue that being shot dead ever caused anyone to buy a gun.

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

[rushmc 23]

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Now John, you know that correlational data doesn't mean much. Who is to say that people in the states with high rates of homicide don't buy guns because of the high rates of homicide??

It does mean that "more guns less crime" is hogwash.

And there is that inconvenient little bit of data making comparisons between nations.

And the study showing purchase of a handgun correlates with subsequent risk of death by gunshot. Hard to argue that being shot dead ever caused anyone to buy a gun.

Nor can you say "less guns less crime" hogwash and back it up, can you!

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[mnealtx 0]

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Now John, you know that correlational data doesn't mean much. Who is to say that people in the states with high rates of homicide don't buy guns because of the high rates of homicide??

It does mean that "more guns less crime" is hogwash.

And there is that inconvenient little bit of data making comparisons between nations.

And the study showing purchase of a handgun correlates with subsequent risk of death by gunshot. Hard to argue that being shot dead ever caused anyone to buy a gun.

Really? You need to look at Wyoming's UCR stats again. #1 on your "gun=murder" availability list, with a 2/100k murder rate.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[kallend 2,146]

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Now John, you know that correlational data doesn't mean much. Who is to say that people in the states with high rates of homicide don't buy guns because of the high rates of homicide??

It does mean that "more guns less crime" is hogwash.

And there is that inconvenient little bit of data making comparisons between nations.

And the study showing purchase of a handgun correlates with subsequent risk of death by gunshot. Hard to argue that being shot dead ever caused anyone to buy a gun.

Really? You need to look at Wyoming's UCR stats again. #1 on your "gun=murder" availability list, with a 2/100k murder rate.

Yup - lots of big cities there in WY.

You REALLY need to take that course in statistics.

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

[mnealtx 0]

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Now John, you know that correlational data doesn't mean much. Who is to say that people in the states with high rates of homicide don't buy guns because of the high rates of homicide??

It does mean that "more guns less crime" is hogwash.

And there is that inconvenient little bit of data making comparisons between nations.

And the study showing purchase of a handgun correlates with subsequent risk of death by gunshot. Hard to argue that being shot dead ever caused anyone to buy a gun.

Really? You need to look at Wyoming's UCR stats again. #1 on your "gun=murder" availability list, with a 2/100k murder rate.

Yup - lots of big cities there in WY.

You REALLY need to take that course in statistics.

"Lies, damn lies and statistics."

You show a scatter graph and make the loose claim that more guns = more murders. I showed UCR data that proves your state with the highest gun ownership, WY, has a very low murder rate.

Funny how the UCR is good when it proves YOUR point, but bad when it doesn't.

And, FYI? The "D.C." is for the federal district (analogous to a state for the purposes here), not Washington city - although the terms have become synonymous over time.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[kallend 2,146]

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Now John, you know that correlational data doesn't mean much. Who is to say that people in the states with high rates of homicide don't buy guns because of the high rates of homicide??

It does mean that "more guns less crime" is hogwash.

And there is that inconvenient little bit of data making comparisons between nations.

And the study showing purchase of a handgun correlates with subsequent risk of death by gunshot. Hard to argue that being shot dead ever caused anyone to buy a gun.

Really? You need to look at Wyoming's UCR stats again. #1 on your "gun=murder" availability list, with a 2/100k murder rate.

Yup - lots of big cities there in WY.

You REALLY need to take that course in statistics.

"Lies, damn lies and statistics."

You show a scatter graph and make the loose claim that more guns = more murders. I showed UCR data that proves your state with the highest gun ownership, WY, has a very low murder rate.

Funny how the UCR is good when it proves YOUR point, but bad when it doesn't.

And, FYI? The "D.C." is for the federal district (analogous to a state for the purposes here), not Washington city - although the terms have become synonymous over time.

One data point is not going to prove anything. That's why we look at all 50 (yes, 50, not 51) states, not just at Wyoming. Not at entitities that aren't states.

There is absolutely no doubt that both looking at states within the US, and comparing nations, that more gun ownership correlates very well with more homicides. There is a measurable, statistically significant correlation between buying a handgun and subsequently being killed by a gun.

Are there exceptions? Yes, but the general trend is undeniable. As for cause and effect, you can have guns without gun homicides, but you can't have gun homicides without guns. You can't be shot dead after buying a handgun without first buying a handgun.

You can't have a gun enter the criminal fraternity by theft or straw purchase without first having a gun.

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

[mnealtx 0]

And when the good fairy grants your wish and all the guns are gone... do you REALLY think that crime is going to stop? More wishful thinking on your part, Professor.

BTW: Correlation STILL != causation... unless you can show how guns are able to satisfy Koch's postulates...to wit:

1.The microorganism must be found in abundance in all organisms suffering from the disease, but not in healthy organisms.

This means that you would ONLY be able to find guns in the hands of criminals - obviously, this postulate fails the test of fact.

2. The microorganism must be isolated from a diseased organism and grown in pure culture.

3. The cultured microorganism should cause disease when introduced into a healthy organism.

That means that guns must cause crime everywhere they are introduced. Since there are at least several hundred thousand instances each year where guns are used to STOP crime, these postulates also fail the test.

4. The microorganism must be reisolated from the inoculated, diseased experimental host and identified as being identical to the original specific causative agent.

This one, you could prove.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[kallend 2,146]

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This one, you could prove.

You logic is as faulty as your statistical knowledge.

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

[ExAFO 0]

Pardon the cross-post, but...

I just bought a gun today. Deal with that.

Illinois needs a CCW Law. NOW.