Another school shooting.

[placebo]

Here's some numbers for you, they are taken from a Harvard review into Firearm Bans and the cooked books that go into statistical evidence supporting such bans. http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

It goes on to say that in Russia where all handguns are banned and long rifles are restricted to use in hunting only they have a homicide rate far higher than that of any other nation in the developed world! The Russian murder rate sits at approximately 3 times that of the USA.

Further to that, the nations of Europe have historically low levels of murder, however this was the case before gun controls were put in place. In England there were no substantive gun control in the early 20th century. Anyone could buy a firearm with no checks, though at the same time...

What does it say about modern England?

How are the authorities handling crime in this Gunless Utopia?

Post 1 of many.

There's a lot of waffle and blather in that pdf. They never actually quantify many of the conclusions they draw from the examples they cherry pick.

Here's a comparison of total murder rates, gun murder rates, and gun ownership amongst OECD countries. The USA is the clear leader, excluding Mexico:
http://www.kai-arzheimer.com/people-died-year-second-amendment-estimate-8000/

Here's some more recent UK experience, 80% of UK police didn't want to be armed in a 2006 survey. Gun crime has fallen almost 30% since without them being armed:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19641398

Here's another look at OECD murder statistics, and the author suggests that gun control alone (though it would help) won't be enough to get the exceptional US murder rate down to the OECD average due to social justice issues:
http://maketheworldworkbetter.wordp...-rates-in-the-us-how-to-understand-the-stats/

 

[Arete]

The "Actual" science you presented? Really? Do you even know what comprises the stats you "presented"?

Yes. As linked for you, stats in post #221 are derived from these peer reviewed scientific journal articles:

Hemenway, David and Deborah Azrael., “The Relative Frequency of Offensive and Defensive Gun Uses: Results From a National Survey,” Violence and Victims, 15(3) (2000): 257-272

Kellermann, Arthur L. MD, MPH, et al., “Gun Ownership as a Risk Factor for Homicide in the Home,” New England Journal of Medicine, 329(15) (1993): 1084-1091

Wiebe, Douglas J. PhD. “Homicide and Suicide Risks Associated With Firearms in the Home: A National Case-Control Study,” Annals of Emergency Medicine 41 (2003): 771-82.

Richardson, Erin G., and David Hemenway, “Homicide, Suicide, and Unintentional Firearm Fatality: Comparing the United States With Other High-Income Countries, 2003,” Journal of Trauma, Injury, Infection, and Critical Care, published online ahead of print, June 2010

Do you understand the difference between the student edited Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and peer reviewed science?

 

[StanTheMan]

while there is internez wars......
http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...3d0b34-4dd2-11e2-835b-02f92c0daa43_story.html

 

[pharmaboy]

Can you explain what you mean by 'increase in legislation"? Do mean that there are more laws being passed? And if so, you realise that very few laws that get passed have anything to do with regulating activity, right? When you say harsher penalties, can you give me an example? In addition to that, harsher penalties does not equal 'liberties being eroded' it means that the cost of disobeying regulation has a greater cost than it used to - the fact that it already had a cost means that the activity had already been proscribed. Which harsher police powers are you referring to? Corruption is not related to taking away liberties, it's that people are disobeying regulation, which would suggest that the laws to regulate behaviour are not strict or widely enforced. How is 'government expanding'? Secondly, you also have to ask whether life and activity is expanding. New technologies such as the internet, 3D printers - or previously expensive technologies becoming cheap and proliferating through society, such as laser, cameras, satellite imagery, etc. also change human and social behaviour, that usually means that new laws have to be created, such as spam laws and child porn laws for the net, laws against shining lasers at aircraft cockpits and down the track, possibly prohibiting code related to 3D printing have to be created as a reaction to new behaviours/technology. So make sure you relate legislation to life to determine 'increasing powers' against 'reactive powers'.

You make reasoned debate impossible. Not that its aimed at me, but you ask 6 questions in a row, then start the next sentence with "Secondly,......" which starts about 3 new topics without a breath.

Making sure someone doesnt bother to reply to your long winded requirements, doest mean you won the point.

back OT, as a Libertarian, I recognise that weapons are designed for removing liberty not granting it, nor protecting it

 

[johnny]

Making sure someone doesnt bother to reply to your long winded requirements, doest mean you won the point.

If you seriously believe that is my aim and that I'm trying to 'win points', you are dead set deluded.

 

[floody]

@ jhonny

Around pg 25 you offended me and most likely many others wheather they are aware of it? but which I doubt. Tis democracy of which you spoke and I call you false. Not your perfected use of linguistics but the way you use it. Your rhetoric is grand and I have applauded such in the past. The problem here is? You know as well as I do that what you speak is to sway opinion even if just a little.

So I ask respectfully that you desist in promulgating a agenda that most are not fully aware of before they aware of it.

Are you talking about the social contract stuff? It seems pretty sound from here, liberty means accepting a certain degree of regulation to be part of a protective society. Some seem to have the idea that restrict my liberty = oppress society, which is really not the case.

Anyway,
Russia keeps coming up, will someone show us the gun homicide rates for Russia?
Not the overall homicide rates, the gun homicide rates.

 

[pharmaboy]

If you seriously believe that is my aim and that I'm trying to 'win points', you are dead set deluded.

Well, I dont really believe its the aim, but the outcome remains the same irrespective of the intent

 

[placebo]

Russia keeps coming up, will someone show us the gun homicide rates for Russia?
Not the overall homicide rates, the gun homicide rates.

I think Russia keeps coming up because the total homicide rate is high, yet gun ownership is banned, so it's used by opponents of gun control in the USA, even if they don't have that gun homicide data. If you look at comparisons with developed OECD countries, it's easy to find comparisons of total murder rate, murder using guns, and gun ownership.

The USA is so far out there on all counts the inclusion of it in comparisons leads to problems: "If we put all the countries together, there is a relatively strong correlation between gun ownership and total murder rate, concordant with Blow and Zakaria’s argument and suggesting but not proving a relationship. But if we take the US out, there is absolutely no relationship whatsoever." That's from the second analysis of US gun homicide I linked above. The author draws the conclusion that gun control won't make a huge difference to the overall murder rate in the US, much like the NRA/republican position, but suggests given comparison with OECD countries, health care, education, and anti-poverty initiatives in the USA would lead to it having gun homicide and overall homicide rates closer to the OECD average.

Even though that's a firearm position republicans/libertarians in the US could favour, they just can't support a position with Americans having access to health care, education, and welfare as in the rest of the OECD countries, so they seem to use comparison of gun crime in the US with total crime or violent crime in other countries to argue that the US doesn't have a problem or is out of the ordinary.

 

[Slowman]

Gun law in america is a strange topic, some people take it very personally.
My logic tells me that the accurate range of a gun rifle in most peoples hands is 50-75 meters because of adrenaline, fear and excitement ect.
With a knife you have to be within 1 meter and even then its harder to kill stab people.
So if you take the guns out of the equation you realise its much harder to kill 28 people with a knife tan an assault grade weapon.

And this is the crux of the matter. There are 2 factors here; psychology and logistics. Psychologically it's easier to kill from a distance than up close and personal where it becomes more difficult to block empathic responses...there is a reason SAS anti-terror training uses very non-emotive language, for example "suspect neutralised" - we all know that is pretty much a euphemism for "killed". The point is, it takes some pretty advanced training to be able to kill up close and personally in an efficient manner and cope psychologically with what you are doing and keep doing it. Even psychopaths have their own internal justification. So basically ordinary people having a bad day will be shocked by their own actions and at some point will not be able to continue. The other aspect, logistically a person with a knife can be stopped more easily. Someone with some basic training can do it, and with more than one good Samaritan it's pretty easy to impede the assailant if not completely overpower them and halt further attacks.

 

[StanTheMan]

It just seems to me that that Americans are incapable of actually in forcing the lax laws they do have for gun control.

Oops sorry pressed the save button too early.


Stan's bus rant's since 2011. Now on 4S

 

[StanTheMan]

Anyway the passion or extreme views they have in the USA about gun ownership goes way beyond what the Average Aussie can comprehend without possibly having lived there.

For example the latest incident where some loner set a house on fire & then proceeded to shoot the firefighters trying to put it out.
I read that In the USA it is illegal for a convicted felon to own a gun. To me this a sensible thing law. So he obviously stole them from someone or bought them without the background check.
It's also another example of ill mental health. And easy access to guns.


God Help America.


Stan's bus rant's since 2011. Now on 4S

 

[Bermshot]

If you haven't done the Background thought yet? The 50 million horse has bolted.

 

[StanTheMan]

Watching the dust settle....yes perhaps I'm a litle slow on the uptake.

 

[Bermshot]

Lol! The school Obamas daughters go to has armed guards, no that doesn't include secret service. Lol!

 

[johnny]

You don't think that may be due to the very obvious heightened threat to the school because of Obama's daughters?

 

[Bermshot]

Perhaps (only if they came after), so you concede that the NRA is correct? If not then it is complete and utter hypocrisy.

 

[Mattydv]

Perhaps (only if they came after), so you concede that the NRA is correct? If not then it is complete and utter hypocrisy.

Sidwell Friends school has been the school of dignitaries' children for decades, I'd expect it to have been armed for a similar length of time.

 

[johnny]

Perhaps (only if they came after), so you concede that the NRA is correct? If not then it is complete and utter hypocrisy.

Can you not tell the difference between the threat of random crazy person with a gun attacking a random school and then committing suicide and the possible assassination or kidnap of the president's and dignitary's children?

Really, can you not see the glaring difference in threat scenarios here? Or does it not suit your bias to do so?

 

[StanTheMan]

Perhaps the NRA is right but in the most deluded & contported way.
I Think I agree now. Gun laws will not help. Because they refuse to enforce them or are totally unable to enforce them. Everyone agrees a buy back isnt going to happen or very unlikely & the medical side well....not much is going to happen there. Its America. I don't know how mental health is dealt with either.


Like someone said. The horse has botled or is that 300 million of them? Let the NRA rule the Wild West, with Guns.

 

[Arete]

Lol! The school Obamas daughters go to has armed guards, no that doesn't include secret service. Lol!

There's a couple of issues with the whole armed guards/armed civilians can stop these kind of incidents argument:

1. There's a trend of these shooters wearing tactical body armor: Aurora, Newtown, Virginia Tech, etc. So what exactly would an armed guard/armed teacher do to stop them?

2. When trained, armed police took down a would-be shooter outside the Empire State building, they were commended for "only" hitting nine bystanders http://news.yahoo.com/nypd-empire-state-victims-hit-police-gunfire-180844387.html http://observer.com/2012/08/breaking-shooting-at-empire-state-building/ So what's the collateral damage from a teacher, or good Samaritan in a classroom/cinema going to be?