Slashdot Mirror

• It's why we strive to further reduce airliner fatalities when it's already one or two orders of magnitudes safer than any other form of transport. The media gives plane accidents disproportionately more coverage than other transportation accidents, causing the public to demand planes be made safer than they already are.
• Same thing with child abductions. Abduction by a stranger is incredibly rare - only a few dozen cases happen each year. But because the media gives those cases wildly disproportionate coverage, every parent is scared to death to let their child out of their sight for 2 minutes.
• Shark attacks always seem to make the national news, even though on average only about 1 person is killed each year by sharks in the U.S. Meanwhile the approx 100 people killed each year by deer go unreported except maybe as a local news story.
• School shootings are another example - they've actually been decreasing over the last two decades. But because the media automatically splashes any school shooting on the national news, the public incorrectly thinks they're becoming more common. Statistically, more high school students are killed by complications from pregnancy (page 3) than from non-gang, non-suicide school shootings. But I've yet to see a news story take that angle against teen pregnancy.
• Terrorism. If you include all the 9/11 fatalities, you're roughly 4x as likely to die from terrorism than lightning. Exclude 9/11 and you're roughly 6x more likely to be killed by lightning. I think I've seen one news story in 40 years of someone being killed by lightning. Yet every terrorist incident, even the ones which fail and cause no damage or injury, seem to automatically make national news.
• Until the last couple years, the media basically ignored the decade-long rise in drug overdose deaths. It wasn't until it surpassed car accident deaths that they finally began taking it seriously. The day which crystallized this in my mind was the 2016 murder-suicide on the UCLA campus. That story immediately made national news with live coverage on all the major networks. On the very same day 2 people died and over 57 were hospitalized from drug overdoses at a music festival in Florida. But that story barely made it beyond the local papers, and I didn't see any coverage of it on TV. I only happened to see it because I clicked on a different story from a Florida newspaper in Google News.
• After overdoses and traffic accidents, suicide is the #3 cause of non-disease death. But it's extraordinarily rare to see a news story about a suicide unless it's a celebrity. Which is a real shame because this is probably the most preventable cause of death we have. And if more people knew how common it was, they probably wouldn't feel as alone with their problems to commit suicide.

And these are the

Yes, but there is MORE of a difference between the two countries than JUST gun laws.

Using your logic, Japan has no guns, but a much higher suicide rate. Clearly, if they had easier access to guns, suicides would drop, right? England also has a different economy, different culture, and different health care system. I guess that none of that matters, right?

Back when they had easier access to guns, they STILL had a lower homicide rate. Simply stated, if you look at the big picture instead of cherry-picking a few numbers, the data doesn't back you up.

In America, you are as safe as the safest parts of Europe, as long as you avoid the "wrong" neighborhoods. Most areas of the US are very safe, as most of the crime is concentrated into a few, small areas.

If you avoid areas with a high population density and high poverty, you will be OK.

Check out this headline: "Murders in US very concentrated: 54% of US counties in 2014 had zero murders, 2% of counties have 51% of the murders"

https://crimeresearch.org/2017...

If you want to reduce violence, then improving the economy would be a big step in the right direction.

According to this:
https://crimeresearch.org/2016...

You are wrong. Sorry, couldn't quickly find anything more recent than 2016 on the topic. Not sure how the trend went after that, but I doubt Europe has decreased violent crime... if anything it probably got worse... because more refugees. It seems like riding over large crowds of people in vans is a popular trend in EU nowadays, at least in some circles.

How do you want me to quantify that?

Should I start that even on the low end of 500,000 (to as much as 3 million) instances of defensive gun use dramatically outnumber the 30,000 gun deaths.
2/3 of all gun deaths are from suicide. US is average for suicide so reducing guns does not affect suicide rates.
Reducing guns does not reduce violence as seen in many instances of the US and around the world.
Guns ownership has increased or been steady in the US yet violent crime has fallen.
That doesn't even mention the inalienable right of self defense and the philosophy behind the 2nd amendment supported by historical precedent.

You have an uphill battle to say that gun ownership is in any way shape or form, bad. If you get rid of guns that doesn't end the problems of gang violence or suicide. Yes, getting in an airplane makes you many times more likely to die in a plane crash. Are you going to stop flying now?

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/a...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
https://crimeresearch.org/2013...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Other countries like Venezuela, and Australia removed guns from the plebes... and mysteriously the mass shootings stopped. Gee whiz.

Strange, it looks like the number of homicides rose steadily after the gun ban in Venezuela.

Oh look, Maduro is giving guns to his supporters

Here's an example of responsible government gun usage

And another

It's a good thing that they have a ban in Venezuela, it keeps candidates in elections from getting shot

The Gun ban is working so well with petty crime too.

There is actually a very strong correlation between gun availability and shootings. Go look it up in some of those peer-reviewed, replicated study results you mention.

Maybe if you count suicides. Otherwise, no, there isn't. In fact, gun ownership is negatively correlated with intentional homocides. Here: https://crimeresearch.org/2014...

Also, note that the US by and large does not have a violent crime problem. It is mainly a problem in a few (2%) problem areas, areas which have the strongest gun control laws in the country e.g. Chicago.

Please share the data indicating "gun availability has shown a weak-to-moderate correlation [to violence]." It doesn't exist. Read this: https://crimeresearch.org/2014...

Bloomberg's Everytown for Gun Safety is fake news

https://crimeresearch.org/2014...

That's very interesting. I followed the link to the Crime Research Prevention Center. They seem to be very picky about the definition of "mass-shooting" and "gun-free zones".

At least they published Everytown's report:

Analysis of Recent Mass Shootings

Here's a response from Everytown:

The Gun Lobby’s False Claims About “Gun-Free Zones”

Of 133 mass shootings identified between January 2009 and July 2015, only 17 (13%) took place in “gun-free zones” (areas where the carrying of concealed guns is prohibited). The remaining incidents took place in private residences, or public places where concealed guns could be lawfully carried.

I got to wondering what the CPRC was and if they were biased. It's founder and president, John Lott, appears to be a fraud:

When the Gun Lobby Tries to Justify Firearms Everywhere, It Turns to This Guy

The organization, headquartered at his home in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, produces and publishes “academic quality” reports that have yet to be published in peer-reviewed journals, but are, according to Lott, informally reviewed by the organization’s academic board.

Researchers pressed Lott, then a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, to release the data behind his claim that 98 percent of defensive gun uses in the United States involved a would-be victim merely brandishing a gun. Lott claimed that it was based on a data from a survey he had conducted—but that the data had been lost in a computer crash.

As criticism of Lott mounted, an online commenter, who identified herself as a former student of Lott’s at Penn named Mary Rosh, lavishly praised her former professor and attacked his critics. “He was the best professor that I ever had,” she wrote. After it came out in 2003 that Rosh and Lott shared an internet address, Lott admitted to the sock puppetry, saying that he had been receiving obnoxious phone calls when using his real name, and some of Rosh’s comments were possibly written by his family members on a shared email account. “In most circles, this goes down as fraud,” wrote Science editor-in-chief Donald Kennedy in the magazine.

well, By that same measure (Per Capita) the US isn't even in the top ten Western Countries for mass shootings. Plenty of places that have strict gun control are.

https://crimeresearch.org/2015...

Not that it matters, only hysteria created by the Politicians, Media (if it bleeds it leads) and useful idiots who think the "AR" in AR-15 means "Assault Rifle".

You mean like London, England?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...

Or Paris, France?
https://crimeresearch.org/2017...

Pretty sure the problem is not the guns. France has a gun ownership rate of about 30 per 100, and England is about 6 per 100.

I'm still safer in Austin, Texas than Glasgow, Scotland.

Are you talking about socialism? Yes that has been a utter disaster every time it's tried.
From about 1990 to about 2005 Somalia had no government and life improved for them:
http://www.peterleeson.com/Bet...

Without government holding them down people can buy guns and defend against bandits and maffia just fine.
Note that the countries with the most crime have the most intrusive and anti-freedom governments.
Yes we had rulers before, like kings, they're no better, just another form of having rulers.
The problem with government is that they have the right to initiate violence against peaceful people, same applies to a king.

Yes some people are very bad, are you saying the political process selects the good people?
The last US election just had the worst two possible options in their history, the political process seduces the worst criminals to seek power.

Yes, the recent church shooting is the perfect example of why good people need to have guns.
1. The guy was able to murder 26 people (not 46) because none of them had a gun, it was a gun free zone.
2. Gun free zones only affect good people, the bad people will still have guns when they want to do bad things.
3. According to gun regulations the guy should not have been allowed to buy a gun on three accounts. So your solution has been tried and it failed utterly. The government can't do anything good, that's the fairy tale people like you believe in.
4. Even though government is such an abysmal failure you want to entrust it with your safety. Even though far more people die in mass shootings where they can keep going until the police stop them compared to when a citizen stops them: http://www.freerepublic.com/fo....
More reasons:
5. Kids used to bring their guns to school for shooting practice, no school shootings then.
6. Regular crime also gets worse when people aren't allowed to defend themselves, here are the stats specifically for murder in the UK, where they have almost no guns: https://crimeresearch.org/2013...
7. The lie on the australian gun buyback program is that things first got worse and then after they de-regulated guns a bit, and people got more guns, things got better again https://crimeresearch.org/wp-c...
8. States in the US have a relative high amount of freedom and have a wide variety of gun regulations. This allows different solutions to gun regulation to be tried out. And it hasn't worked, note that you never hear democrats talk about the stats on gun regulation. Even they know such a lie would be too blatant. In the US there is a strong correlation between gun ownership and crime, that's why the Democrats only argument is emotional.
9. Mass shooters shoot themselves when they're being shot at by cops or citizens. If you're going to wait until they're done murdering, you're going to be waiting a very long time.

Are you talking about socialism? Yes that has been a utter disaster every time it's tried.
From about 1990 to about 2005 Somalia had no government and life improved for them:
http://www.peterleeson.com/Bet...

Without government holding them down people can buy guns and defend against bandits and maffia just fine.
Note that the countries with the most crime have the most intrusive and anti-freedom governments.
Yes we had rulers before, like kings, they're no better, just another form of having rulers.
The problem with government is that they have the right to initiate violence against peaceful people, same applies to a king.

Yes some people are very bad, are you saying the political process selects the good people?
The last US election just had the worst two possible options in their history, the political process seduces the worst criminals to seek power.

Yes, the recent church shooting is the perfect example of why good people need to have guns.
1. The guy was able to murder 26 people (not 46) because none of them had a gun, it was a gun free zone.
2. Gun free zones only affect good people, the bad people will still have guns when they want to do bad things.
3. According to gun regulations the guy should not have been allowed to buy a gun on three accounts. So your solution has been tried and it failed utterly. The government can't do anything good, that's the fairy tale people like you believe in.
4. Even though government is such an abysmal failure you want to entrust it with your safety. Even though far more people die in mass shootings where they can keep going until the police stop them compared to when a citizen stops them: http://www.freerepublic.com/fo....
More reasons:
5. Kids used to bring their guns to school for shooting practice, no school shootings then.
6. Regular crime also gets worse when people aren't allowed to defend themselves, here are the stats specifically for murder in the UK, where they have almost no guns: https://crimeresearch.org/2013...
7. The lie on the australian gun buyback program is that things first got worse and then after they de-regulated guns a bit, and people got more guns, things got better again https://crimeresearch.org/wp-c...
8. States in the US have a relative high amount of freedom and have a wide variety of gun regulations. This allows different solutions to gun regulation to be tried out. And it hasn't worked, note that you never hear democrats talk about the stats on gun regulation. Even they know such a lie would be too blatant. In the US there is a strong correlation between gun ownership and crime, that's why the Democrats only argument is emotional.
9. Mass shooters shoot themselves when they're being shot at by cops or citizens. If you're going to wait until they're done murdering, you're going to be waiting a very long time.

Venezuela has done one thing right. Their gun violence has dropped by four orders of magnitude when they instituted their complete civilan gun ownership ban.

Do you have a citation for this? Because this article says the homocide rate has continued to increase. Your claimed 10000 fold drop in gun violence seems wildly implausible, since it is unlikely that most criminals would have surrendered their weapons.

Then you should laugh at gun control people who play the bait and switch, talking about crime and mass murder and then say that the US has 30,000+ gun deaths per year. Ooops 2/3 of that are suicides.

Now, if the US had a higher suicide rate than Japan, or Taiwan, or France or England or Germany then, and only then, it may make sense to include those numbers. But the US doesn't have a higher suicide rate therefore this is an example of gun control advocates LYING.

Second point - 2% of the US counties are responsible for over 1/2 of the gun violence in the US
https://crimeresearch.org/2017...

And, if you break this down further, you'll find that it's only parts of those counties accounts for the violence Third point - there is no correlation between more guns in a state and more gun violence.
- US counties with high guns per capita have violence rates equal to bucolic countryside European towns.
- As guns became easier to get in Florida (and other states) gun violence went down (contrary to the predictions of gun control people).

- As guns became more numerous in the US gun violence has gone down (contrary to the predictions of gun control people).

Fourth point - Gun control people are not focusing on people who use guns while committing a crime. They are focusing on gun ownership. Rifles are always their target and yet they used in 5% of the gun crimes.

More deaths are done with knives than rifles. (See below - from US Statistical Abstract)
More deaths are caused by hammers and other blunt objects than by rifles.(See below)
More deaths are caused by fists and feet than by rifles. (See below)

Characteristic 2000 2005 2008 2009
Total firearms. . . . . . 8,661 10,158 9,484 9,203
Handguns. . . . . . . 6,778 7,565 6,755 6,503
Rifles. . . . . . . . . . .411 445 375 352
Shotguns. . . . . . ..485 522 444 424
Other not specified or type unknown. . . . . . 53 138 79 96 Firearms,
type not stated. . . 934 1,488 1,831 1,828
Knives or cutting instruments. . . . . ..1,782 1,920 1,897 1,836
Blunt objects 1. . . . . . 617 608 614 623
Personal weapons 2. . 927 905 861 815
Poison. . . . . . . . . . . . 8 9 10 7
Explosives. . . . . . .9 2 10 2
Fire. . . . . . . . . . . .134 125 86 98

These are not "alt-facts"
https://www.bjs.gov/content/pu...
https://www.census.gov/prod/20...

If you make a profit off your innovation, France will be happy to take most of it in taxes. So yeah, France welcomes innovative people, just don't expect to be rewarded.

And then there's the risk of mass shootings in France.

The stated purpose of gun control laws today is to reduce homicide. (The actual purpose is to take power away from the citizens and give the guns and the power to the state). The facts indicate that strict gun laws or confiscation dramatically increase crime rates. Homicide (all homicide, not just looking at gun homicide) jumps up dramatically when guns are banned (the UK saw an increase in homicides and a 100% increase in violent crime after they banned guns). This is also borne out in Australia after their gun ban and other countries. Gun homicide drops, because they are not as readily available, but if you are a citizen, you don't really care if you get murdered by a gun or a machete, either way you are having a really shitty day that you probably could have prevented with a concealed carry weapon (which happens dozens of times per day by the way).

http://crimeresearch.org/2013/...

Now look at the liberal progressive paradise of Chicago with 4367 shootings last year and one of the strictest gun bans in the country. The simple concept that liberals intentionally to fail to grasp is that CRIMINALS DON'T OBEY THE LAW. If they are going to murder someone, they are going to chose the best tool that is available, and the laws be damned...

http://crime.chicagotribune.co...

Sorry, I suggest simply to check some statistics, or wikipedia

What a good idea! Here's some people citing solid data ... looks like the US rate is below average and median - weird.

Well, maybe they're biased. I'll check the wiki's List of countries by intentional homicide rate, sort by rate, and ... 108 of 218, and still 21 away from Somalia, which isn't even counting civil war deaths.

I was addressing the specific claim: that gun violence cannot justify gun control laws which may affect current gun owners because it's largely committed with illegal guns

I've never claimed that - I was just trying to keep my claim about sources more conservative.

But let's address YOUR claims then:

Followed by two paragraphs that in no way address any of the arguments I'm trying to defend (which aren't mine, by the way - I was just pointing out the nonsense in quantaman's post).

So in fact homocide rates as a whole DO go down - a LOT. ... Well good thing there is absolutely ZERO evidence that this happens, and no sane reason to think it MIGHT.

30 seconds of Googling (none completely unbiased, but they have actual numbers and citations, unlike some people):
Washington Post: Zero correlation between state homicide rate and state gun laws
Washington Examiner: No, states with higher gun ownership don't have more gun murders
Crime Research: COMPARING MURDER RATES AND GUN OWNERSHIP ACROSS COUNTRIES

It's because a gun is the worst thing in the world to for self defense. A tool that can only be reliably used...

Scaring people off is self defense, even if you never draw your weapon.

Factcheck.org are currently a bunch of progressive shills and liars. Their name is currently an oxymoron. They should be called conflate_and_confuse.shill. You fell into their trap of conflating gun homicides with homicides (GUN HOMICIDES != ALL HOMICIDES). If you get murdered, you don't care what killed you, you are just unhappy because you were murdered. I will say it slowly for all the libtards in the audience. In all of the concealed carry states, when gun ownership/legal carry was made more/available, the TOTAL HOMICIDE RATE AND TOTAL VIOLENT CRIME RATES WENT DOWN, A LOT (25-35% OR MORE). CONCEALED CARRY BY LAW ABIDING CITIZENS DETERS CRIME EFFECTIVELY, USUALLY WITHOUT THE DISCHARGE OF THE FIREARM...

http://www.washingtontimes.com...
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015...

Conversely, when the UK/Ireland/Jamaica/Washington DC/Chicago banned firearms, their murder and/or violent crime rates all spiked up markedly... Progressives, put down your reality distortion field. No one is buying your bullshit anymore. Citizens should be able to concealed carry as spelled out in the constitution for the same reason that police officers carry: firearms are very good at projecting superior force over a distance.

http://crimeresearch.org/2013/...

Well, don't move to Europe! It seems that there were 55% more casualties per capita from mass public shootings in EU than US from 2009-15. Mass killings are the real "random violence" acts. Most shootings in the US are from suicide (number one cause, actually), and from gang warfare (where both sides - victim and killer, either know each other or know about each other). Actual random shootings in the US? Per capita are a lower than in the EU.

http://crimeresearch.org/2015/...

And yet strangely enough we don't hear the same rhetoric about Canada, Norway, or the dozens of other countries who allow private ownership of firearms. I honestly thing Europeans who say what you say are just full of themselves. Especially the ones who say "the rest of the world does x", or saying that "the US right of the rest of the world" when they're just talking about Europe as if just fucking Europe is the entire rest of the world. (I especially find it odd that they consider the US to be more authoritarian than nearly every Asian country, who far outnumber Europe, in addition to flat out ignoring politics in the Middle East, Africa, and South America...because, you know, all that matters is fucking Europe.)

Which one? How about both points I made:

http://www.pewresearch.org/fac...

http://crimeresearch.org/2015/...

Somehow the gun control crowd thinks that it's worse now than ever, but the available evidence just doesn't support that claim.

United Kingdom: The UK enacted its handgun ban in 1996. From 1990 until the ban was enacted, the homicide rate fluctuated between 10.9 and 13 homicides per million. After the ban was enacted, homicides trended up until they reached a peak of 18.0 in 2003. Since 2003, which incidentally was about the time the British government flooded the country with 20,000 more cops, the homicide rate has fallen to 11.1 in 2010. In other words, the 15-year experiment in a handgun ban has achieved absolutely nothing.

Ireland: Ireland banned firearms in 1972. Ireland’s homicide rate was fairly static going all the way back to 1945. In that period, it fluctuated between 0.1 and 0.6 per 100,000 people. Immediately after the ban, the murder rate shot up to 1.6 per 100,000 people in 1975. It then dropped back down to 0.4. It has trended up, reaching 1.4 in 2007.

Australia: Australia enacted its gun ban in 1996. Murders have basically run flat, seeing only a small spike after the ban and then returning almost immediately to preban numbers. It is currently trending down, but is within the fluctuations exhibited in other nations.

. Maybe banning guns like Chicago will do the trick? Last year 2,988 shooting victims, 1,827 this year. Care to guess the demographics, and more importantly gang affiliations of the parties involved? Maybe it's time to have a national discussion about how black lives don't matter to other blacks.

United Kingdom: The UK enacted its handgun ban in 1996. From 1990 until the ban was enacted, the homicide rate fluctuated between 10.9 and 13 homicides per million. After the ban was enacted, homicides trended up until they reached a peak of 18.0 in 2003. Since 2003, which incidentally was about the time the British government flooded the country with 20,000 more cops, the homicide rate has fallen to 11.1 in 2010. In other words, the 15-year experiment in a handgun ban has achieved absolutely nothing.

Ireland: Ireland banned firearms in 1972. Ireland’s homicide rate was fairly static going all the way back to 1945. In that period, it fluctuated between 0.1 and 0.6 per 100,000 people. Immediately after the ban, the murder rate shot up to 1.6 per 100,000 people in 1975. It then dropped back down to 0.4. It has trended up, reaching 1.4 in 2007.

Australia: Australia enacted its gun ban in 1996. Murders have basically run flat, seeing only a small spike after the ban and then returning almost immediately to preban numbers. It is currently trending down, but is within the fluctuations exhibited in other nations.

. Maybe banning guns like Chicago will do the trick? Last year 2,988 shooting victims, 1,827 this year. Care to guess the demographics, and more importantly gang affiliations of the parties involved? Maybe it's time to have a national discussion about how black lives don't matter to other blacks.

No immigrant is actually trying to install it in an EU country. Why would they? They are much better off with our laws.

That doesn't mean they like European laws.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute....

shoot up malls This is the EU, not the US. You can not buy a firearm in the next shop.

http://crimeresearch.org/2015/...

30 shooting fatalities per day, and 230 non fatal shootings. That seems pretty "routine."

The implication of the original commenter, and your implication, is that guns are causing violence and because so many guns are around violence is routine.

However, according to the FBI Uniform Crime Report, a significant fraction of murders were criminals murdering other criminals, and a nontrivial fraction of homicides were justifiable homicides by police officers or citzens (i.e. self-defense).

So if you want to persuade me that guns are causing violence, please find some data that leave out the criminals, and see if you can figure out somehow why a guy who would be willing to shoot someone to death wouldn't also knife someone or beat someone to death. (The US not only leads the world in gun homicides but also in homicide by "Fists, Feet, Etc.; see this table.)

So if guns were more expensive and harder to get, there'd be more shootings?

Boy, if you think I actually said anything like this your reading comprehension sucks; and if you think this is a clever reframing of my argument your reasoning skills suck.

Violent criminals, mass murderers, and jihadis all have an unusually high desire to get and use a gun. If you think you can pass any laws that would guarantee these people could never get a gun, then please explain why guns that are not legal in Paris were used in the Paris massacres. For that matter, please explain why crack cocaine can still be found on the streets despite it being completely banned in every state. The people who really want to get guns are going to get them, even if you manage to make it impossible for law-abiding people to get them.

Also: if guns actually caused crime, then places that enacted gun control should have less crime. However, I am by far more likely to be shot in Chicago or Washington, D.C. than in the largest cities in my own state, and that's true even after adjusting for population size.

If you want to convince me that gun control laws can prevent crime, show me a place that was violent, enacted gun control laws, and became peaceful. No such place exists, just as no city with a large population of crack addicts has managed to enact any laws that got rid of the crack.

most shootings don't happen in gun free zones

Here is a report with data that strongly suggests that mass murderers prefer gun-free zones. It's a report that was issued to counter another report that erroneously claimed that most mass murders don't occur in gun-free zones.

leaded gasoline and Reagan's war on impoverished people (what all "wars on poverty" end up as, just Reagan didn't even hide it) lead to peak numbers in the '80s, and so a falling after will happen

Oh, I see. Leaded gasoline, Reagan, and guns cause crime; and the impact of leaded gasoline and Reagan was so profound that the rate of violent crime is falling, even though it is actually increasing as the number of guns increase. It's just that the increase from guns is hidden inside the decrease from leaded gasoline and Reagan.

Well, how could anyone argue with an analysis like that!

t's difficult to get a gun in France so there are dramatically fewer mass-shootings per capita in France compared to the USA.

Really?

UPDATE: February 4, 2016. If only by excellent police work and some luck, last November Paris was literally just three days away from several more mass public shootings planned for a nursery school, a shopping mall, and a police station.

I think you're wrong.

France takes 3rd place in per-capita gun deaths, at 0.347 per million, while the US takes 11th at 0.089 per million. Francs takes 11th place in frequency of mass shootings at 0.092 per million people, while the US takes 12th at 0.078 per million.

Care to re-roll?

t's difficult to get a gun in France so there are dramatically fewer mass-shootings per capita in France compared to the USA.

Really?

UPDATE: February 4, 2016. If only by excellent police work and some luck, last November Paris was literally just three days away from several more mass public shootings planned for a nursery school, a shopping mall, and a police station.

I think you're wrong.

France takes 3rd place in per-capita gun deaths, at 0.347 per million, while the US takes 11th at 0.089 per million. Francs takes 11th place in frequency of mass shootings at 0.092 per million people, while the US takes 12th at 0.078 per million.

Care to re-roll?

Or, you know, sensible gun legislation could be in place like in Canada, the UK, Japan, Scandanavian countries, France, etc. and mass shootings would be aberrations instead of weekly occurrences.

Mass shootings are frequent occurrences in the US because the US is big. Amazing, huh? Norway has about 1/60th the population of the US, so mass shootings should happen at 1/60th the rate.

If you look at death rates from mass shootings, the US is at number 11 behind countries like Norway, France, Switzerland, Finland, and Belgium.

http://crimeresearch.org/2015/...

Gun control has never been shown to have any significant effect on either homicide rates or mass shootings.

Canada, most parts of the UK, Japan, and most Scandanavian countries are much more respectful cultures than most of the US. As for France, well, I think you're wrong about France.

You're probably wrong about the UK, as well.

A gay Muslim Democrat shoots up a Gun Free Zone.

It was obviously the fault of the straight kafirs who are pro-second amendment!

OK: http://crimeresearch.org/wp-co...

First, let's look at the reason why car insurance happens:

http://asirt.org/initiatives/i...

"Over 37,000 people die in road crashes each year"

http://crimeresearch.org/2015/...

"annual rates of 69.2 for bathtubs for those under 5 to 58.2 for accidental firearm deaths for those under 15."

Should we get bathtub insurance as well?

Insurance only works when there is a large enough pool to justify the overhead - neither bathtub accidents or firearm accidents are common enough to justify it.

full article: http://crimeresearch.org/2015/...

full article: http://crimeresearch.org/2015/...

I stand corrected. Mass shootings are not more common in the US than in Europe. Living in Europe, my perception is different. The difference would have to lie in the media coverage I see.

You are also incorrect, by the way. Of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in the US, only 2 were by Islamists. I maintain that 'going berserk' is a more common cause of mass shootings than terrorism.

Only if that is the only variable. Meanwhile in the U.K. muggings are more common than the U.S.

It wouldn't surprise me if the social safety net figures in to the higher homicide rate in the U.S. as well. The lack makes it harder to leave a violent home situation and in general makes people feel more desperate.

Since handgun bans are recent enough to have good figures, I can say it's a fairly consistent response. Immediately after, homicide goes up and then settles down to about where it was before the ban.

So evidence suggests we need to forget about the whole gun thing and figure out what other variable is actually making the difference.

Banning gun worked for all country that tried it.

There's a slight negative correlation at the level of countries between gun ownership and homicide. The correlation is a little more pronounced when you take out the US. I wouldn't call it a smoking gun.

That's the source that you stand on? Some "Pro-Gun" american website that make some biased statement? News flash for you, try that statistic again but remove all organised crime murder this time and tell me how that statistic goes for you. You can point the finger at Brazil all you want, but in my book there's a strong difference between drug lord shooting at each others and some crazy young man killing 20 children in a elementary school.

If you want to have some fact about the efficiency of banning gun, how about looking at the opinion of the journalist (with a minimum of integrity) of those country?

Banning gun worked for all country that tried it.

There's a slight negative correlation at the level of countries between gun ownership and homicide. The correlation is a little more pronounced when you take out the US. I wouldn't call it a smoking gun.

France has really stringent gun control laws. That did not prevented Charlie Hebdo. That also did not prevented 11/13/2015 events in Paris.

What's your point? Do you want to go over the number of mass shootings in the US that also were not prevented by armed citizens?

Absolutely.

Death rate from mass shootings per million people:

Norway 2.04
Macedonia 0.377
Serbia 0.283
Slovakia 0.201
Finland 0.142
Belgium 0.138
Czech Republic 0.133
US 0.095

Yep, the highest death rate from mass shootings by population is Norway.

If you want to spout anti-US bullshit, it'd be best if it were fact-based and not pulled out of your ass.

Less guns means less gun violence.

There are places in the world where there is very little gun violence.

Those places all have one thing in common: Less guns.

I love my country, but if you don't think it's insane that small children are shooting people on a regular basis with weapons, legally purchased or not, you are part of the problem.

You are more likely to die in a mass shooting in:

Norway
Macedonia
Serbia
Slovakia
Finland
Belgium
Czech Republic

than you are in the US.

See http://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/comparing-death-rates-from-mass-public-shootings-in-the-us-and-europe

More:

The CPRC has also collected data on the worst mass public shootings, those cases where at least 15 people were killed in the attack.

There were 13 cases where at least 15 people were killed. Out of those cases, four were in the United States, two in Germany and two in the United Kingdom.

But the U.S. has a population four times greater than Germany’s and five times the U.K.’s, so on a per-capita basis the U.S. ranks low in comparison — actually, those two countries would have had a frequency of attacks 1.96 (Germany) and 2.46 (UK) times higher.

You or your kid is MORE LIKELY to be shot in the UK or Germany than in the US. Your kid is TWICE as likely to be killed in a mass shooting in Germany than he is in the US. And UK children are TWO AND A HALF TIMES more likely to be killed in a mass shooting than kids in the US.

Unlike YOU, I base my beliefs on FACTS.

I am not a gun owner. I think gun ownership in general should be heavily restricted in this country, and most types of firearms should be banned outright. The only way to reduce gun violence in this country is to get rid of most guns.

Darn that pesky Constitution.

Less guns means less gun violence.

Yep, because when Chicago was forced to start issuing concealed carry permits, this happened:

On Tuesday, the Chicago Police Department announced that the city experienced its lowest murder rate since 1958 in the first quarter of 2014. There were 6 fewer murders than the same timeframe in 2013 — a 9 percent drop — and 55 fewer murders than 2012, police said.

Further, there were reportedly 90 fewer shootings and 119 fewer shooting victims compared to last year. There have also been 222 fewer shootings and 292 fewer shooting victims compared to the first quarter in 2012.

All crime is down 25 percent from 2013 and police say they have confiscated over 1,300 illegal guns in the last three months.

And here's what happened when England banned handguns:

For an example of homicide rates before and after a ban, take the case of the handgun ban in England and Wales in January 1997 (source here see Table 1.01 and the column marked “Offences currently recorded as homicide per million population”). After the ban, clearly homicide rates bounce around over time, but there is only one year (2010) where the homicide rate is lower than it was in 1996. The immediate effect was about a 50 percent increase in homicide rates. The homicide rate only began falling when there was a large increase in the number of police officers during 2003 and 2004. Despite the huge increase in the number of police, the murder rate still remained slightly higher than the immediate pre-ban rate.

Chicago -> more guns, less crime
England -> less guns, more crime

How does it feel to have your beliefs crushed by facts?

Considering the regularity with which school shootings occur in the US, it would seem that no time is a good time to discuss gun control.

Actually the number of school shootings has been declining. The media just likes to hype it up every time one happens because think of the children! Statistically your kids are more likely to be shot by someone else outside of school than at school. (And they're more likely to kill themselves than be killed by someone else. Table 11 - 1.0 suicides per 100,000, 0.7 homicides per 100,000 for ages 5-14; and 11.1 suicides vs 9.8 homicides per 100,000 for ages 15-24.) But "Your child may be thinking of killing himself!" doesn't elicit as much nail-biting among parents as "Someone is trying to kill your child!", so the media hypes up the latter.

The number of mass shootings OTOH has been increasing. Curiously, that hasn't gotten much press until this incident.

As for gun control, it isn't the pro-gun side which has a problem with discussing it. I'm somewhat pro-gun. I don't use them myself, but I don't have a problem with other people owning or using them. The right to own a gun is explicitly mentioned in our Constitution. If we want gun control, then it's obvious what needs to happen - amend the Constitution to remove that right. I'd probably even support that just because I'm curious what would happen to the statistics if we did it.

But instead we have all these gun control advocates trying to do a run-around of the Constitution just because it's really, really hard to pass a new Constitutional amendment. That's why the gun control debate always goes nowhere: the gun control advocates refuse to tackle the 800 pound gorilla in the room - the Second Amendment. Instead they resort to laws which restrict some types of gun ownership, or makes gun buyers jump through more hoops. It's possible their attempts are even counterproductive - gun ownership is at an all-time high, and gun and ammo sales spike every time politicians start talking about making it harder to get guns.