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Study Finds 3 Laws Could Reduce Firearm Deaths By 90% (meta.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The study, published in The Lancet, used a cross-sectional, state-level dataset relating to a host of topics associated with firearm mortality including gun ownership and even unemployment from across the U.S. to examine the relationship between recorded gun deaths and gun-control legislation. The study found that some laws, such as those that restrict gun access to children through locks and age restrictions, were simply ineffective while others, such as the stand-your-ground law that allows individuals to use deadly force in self-defense, actually increase gun-related deaths significantly. According to the study's model, a federal law expanding background checks for all gun purchases could reduce the national gun death rate by 57%, lowering it from 10.35 to 4.46 per 100,000 people while background checks for all ammunition purchases could lower the rate by 81% to 1.99 per 100,000 and firearm identification could reduce it by 83% to 1.81 per 100,000. If the federal government implemented all three laws, the scholars predict that the overall national rate of firearm deaths would drop by over 90% to 0.16 per 100,000.
Who was it that said we don't need gun control, we need bullet-control. If a bullet cost five thousand dollars there would be no innocent bystanders. Was it Chris Rock?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Regardless of your position on this, if the Second Amendment can be restricted so can all the others. They are necessary controls on government power (sans Prohibition), be careful what you wish for.
"...stand-your-ground law that allows individuals to use deadly force in self-defense, actually increase gun-related deaths significantly."
Really, no shit. Allowing people to defend themselves with guns leads to gun-related deaths. Shooting people dead that are invading your house trying to harm you is a bad thing? I suppose they want the homeowners/renters dead instead. Way to cherry pick facts. I have no problem with stand-your-ground as long as it is a justified shooting. Conversely those that not justified stand-your-ground should be an immediate firing squad (see what I did there).
Bullshit facts such as the above are not going to help those who are trying to convince people that all-guns-are-bad.
"By the way, I hear giving people driving licenses leads to an increase in vehicular deaths. We should ban it immediately." I await the all-guns-are-bad people picking apart that statement (while completely missing the point).
Of 25 firearm laws, nine were associated with reduced firearm mortality, nine were associated with increased firearm mortality, and seven had an inconclusive association....Very few of the existing state-specific firearm laws are associated with reduced firearm mortality
Not enough information in the Lancet summary to draw any conclusions, but expecting a drop of 90% doesn't sound realistic.
Background checks won't reduce gun deaths by a dramatic amount as criminals do not get their guns from legal sources:
https://d3uwh8jpzww49g.cloudfr...
About 60% of the gun deaths in the US are suicides:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10...
Additional background checks are unlikely to put a dent in that number as suicidal people use legally bought and lawfully owned firearms to do the deed.
People were less likely to die from gunshot wounds on the western frontier in the 1800s than they are in modern-day Detroit, Chicago, or Washington DC (all cities with idiotic and unconstitutional victim-disarmament statutes).
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
This "make background checks mandatory for private sales" thing sounds good, but won't work. It won't work for the same reason that no one pays sales tax at a garage sale: you're supposed to do so, but there's no way for the government to enforce the sales tax laws on people who don't hold a business license.
The existing background check system works because it's tied to firearm dealers' licenses: they've got to do it to keep their business license.
Ironically, during the Clinton administration the feds went on a "too many people have FFLs, let's make them much more expensive and hard to get!" spree. Which now means that many fewer people participate in the background check system, as a result of another initiative that sounded good to people who have a tenuous connection to reality.
For what it's worth, if you do go buy a firearm on the internet, odds are really good that you're getting a background check anyway. Why? Because to ship a firearm, it's got to go from FFL to FFL. And the FFL in your town handling your shipment is required to do a background check.
But, it sure does sounds good to propose such a law: to people who have no clue how things actually work. Which, it turns out, is true of most of the "feel good!" solutions non-gun owners concoct to impose on gun owners. Comes of trying to legislate to match what they see in movies and in cop shows rather than what actually happens in reality. So, I wonder how this study came up with their numbers. Did they just say "hmm, X% of people buying their guns person to person commit a crime, a BG check would magically change that number to 0%"? I suppose it might, if 100% of the people followed the new, easily ignorable law. Considering that they're going and ignoring other, stricter laws to commit their crimes (like, "killing people is illegal"), that sounds rather optimistic.
Studies show that tech websites that get taken over by SJWs lose readers and have greatly diminished traffic.
while others, such as the stand-your-ground law that allows individuals to use deadly force in self-defense, actually increase gun-related deaths significantly
I'm pretty sure that part is a designed feature, where a homeowner can kill a rapist or a burglar.
Of course, that even presumes that reducing gun deaths should be a direct policy goal of federal policy at all, something many people disagree with.
That may sound weird but you are spot on. How the hell can these researchers simply lump together all "gun related deaths"? A guy who gets shot while committing a robbery, a woman shooting a guy attempting to rape her, a child finding his dad's gun and shooting his brother by accident, some idiot cleaning a loaded weapon and killing his neighbour, a guy committing suicide by firearm, a cop shooting a fleeing suspect, a wife mistaking her husband for a burglar and shooting him... All of these cases are different and should be counted differently. If a guy gets shot while committing a serious crime, that may not be the sentence that the law prescribes but I call it justice. Screw them, that's the risk of committing violent crimes. That's not a point against gun ownership, but for it, if it means that a violent crime has been prevented. The other examples are points against gun ownership, or at least against letting idiots have guns. But talking about "gun related deaths" is pointless if you fail to distinguish the circumstances under which these events took place.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
The brakes on your car can be used to keep it from slamming into things it shouldn't hit. They can also be used to render your vehicle completely immobile and thus unable to serve as a source of transportation. It all depends on what the guy in charge of the brakes decides they will be used for.
In completely unrelated news, some people don't trust the government to make good decisions.
his job is basically to fund and promote anti-gun research
How is gun control "anti-gun"? More realistically it is anti-allowing-crazies-access-to-guns.
Or political opponents.
Or disenfranchised citizens.
Or colonists rebelling against the crown.
his job is basically to fund and promote anti-gun research
How is gun control "anti-gun"? More realistically it is anti-allowing-crazies-access-to-guns.
Indeed, most of the vocal "pro-gun" folk are the ones who would be most affected by any sane laws that balance gun ownership rights and public health. The ones screaming and frothing at the mouth, claiming "Obama's gonna take yer guns!" are the ones who probably should not have access to crayons and a pencil sharpener let alone a deadly weapon, lest something set them off.
It's simple, we lock every American in their own jail cell 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Gun deaths will plummet.
Alternately, shut down Detroit, New Orleans, Oakland, and Baltimore, and the U.S. drops from #10 out of 44 countries for which there are statistics, to #41.
Which would put it lower than Germany, Sweden, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and Spain, but still higher than Japan or the UK (just like all those other countries are higher than Japan and the UK).
http://www.nationmaster.com/co...
The ones screaming and frothing at the mouth, claiming "Obama's gonna take yer guns!" are the ones who probably should not have access to crayons and a pencil sharpener
Bigoted folks like the author of the above comment making Ad-Hominem attacks against large groups of people because of their lawful expression of well-reasoned fears are the reason gun control must never be allowed in a free society founded on the principle of limited government such as the US.
What gun control really means is "Centralized gun ownership"; in the hands of the government and small number of people approved by the government ---- thus gun control is diametrically opposite to the 2nd amendment which is intended to guarantee the states and people the rights to have militia as a defense against enemies both foreign and domestic, and a check against the power of the federal government and its military.
No -- Webster and Bloomberg are very much into restricting anybody's access to guns. Unless you subscribe to the theory that by making all firearms expensive and difficult to obtain or own (unless you are rich or politically connected) is worthwhile because it also happens to deny access for "crazies", then that is not Daniel Webster's goal.
For example, under Giuliani/Bloomberg very few people obtained handgun carry permits in New York City, primarily the rich and famous. Favored people included Donald Trump and Bill Cosby, but few if any of the "little people" who might actually need to protect themselves. Like his billionaire patron Michael R. Bloomberg, Daniel Webster is a strong proponent of "permit to purchase" and may issue carry laws, both of which have a disparate impact on minorities and serve more to ensure that only the "right people" (the rich, famous, and other political contributors) are able to exercise their rights.
Going back to the original story, Bindu Kalesan herself has stated "the laws would result in fewer guns",the study wasn't designed to distinguish how policy contributions to suicide or homicide deaths. She also says her study does not account for how restricting firearms possession by the law-abiding changes the rate of assault, rape, or other violent crimes by the non-law-abiding, only looks at the impact of changes to state gun laws on overall firearms deaths.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
What do you want to achieve exactly? You want to reduce mass murders? The are spectacular, however they are marginal in the stats. You want to reduce the homicids? Target criminal groups, they are not very likely to respect any legislation about firearms in first place. And to simplify, two thirds of the deaths are suicide and the other is homicids. Accidents and mass murders are marginals.
Achille Talon
Hop!
The CDC isn't allowed to research gun violence because they produced a "scientific" paper that was nothing but a political wish list to ban guns. It was so completely debunked that the fallout was them losing the right to do that research in the future. Basically, they lied so blatantly that they can't be trusted.
-- Will program for bandwidth
such as the stand-your-ground law that allows individuals to use deadly force in self-defense, actually increase gun-related deaths significantly.
Yeah, and who are the dead people? Because if it's a bunch of criminals that are being killed then - and I hate to say this - I don't care. They had a choice, after all.
I really can't imagine why anyone would think that another person has no right to defend himself, up to and including the use of deadly force where necessary. But, as others have pointed out, this "research" is really anti-gun loonery from the usual suspects.
How it's "news for nerds" or "stuff that matters", I don't know.
Do you have ESP?
his job is basically to fund and promote anti-gun research
How is gun control "anti-gun"? More realistically it is anti-allowing-crazies-access-to-guns.
Or political opponents.
Or disenfranchised citizens.
Or colonists rebelling against the crown.
All of whom have access to other methods to address their concerns besides buying and using a gun.
Jimminy Cricket, this is the 21st century. Do you see no other political solution to your grievance than buying a gun?
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Indeed. Certainly if someone trusts the government to make good decisions on who does/does not "need" guns, they should trust the government to have a backdoor to every encryption scheme. If you need a gun to defend yourself and you don't have one, you may end up dead. It's rare for someone to wrongfully die because the government had access to more information during the course of either preventing terrorist acts or apprehending terrorists.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Basically there's a significant number of people who believe that gun ownership is a vital part of their culture. They equate restrictions on gun ownership akin to government regulations about what sorts of apples can go into Mom's apple pie. It doesn't help that the NRA has moved from being a safety and enthusiast organization into a political one that encourages paranoia that the government is trying to ban guns outright. Because a guns are a part of culture this is all a part of what they think is the larger culture war.
Lemme help you understand how "gun control" is "anti-gun". Fact is, the stricter the gun laws get, then more bad people manage to get guns. Whether by theft, forgery of documents, strawman purchases, or perhaps even coercion of weaker people to make those purchases.
Meanwhile - good people are convicted for carelessly breaking stupid laws.
Chicago is the best example in the nation. Every day, there are multiple murders committed by people who the law says shouldn't have had guns. The laws are wasteful and meaningless, in that they utterly fail to achieve their intended purpose.
The gang member who has never held a job, and makes his living through welfare and criminal enterprise doesn't care one whit about violating a gun law. Hard working, tax paying citizens, on the other hand, can run afoul of the law through simple acts of momentary carelessness. Got a gun on you when you drive through a school zone? A cop happened to notice? Maybe the cop didn't even notice the weapon, he just knows that you have a concealed carry permit, and he wonders if you have your gun on you. YOU'RE BUSTED!!
Stupid laws have unintended consequences, and gun laws are no different than any other stupid law.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Do you see no other political solution to your grievance than buying a gun?
Sure there are lots of other solutions... until the day those break down. Hopefully that will never happen. Hopefully.
By that standard pretty much everything the US has ever done is racist, because almost everything the US has ever done was specifically designed in such a way as to make slavery possible. So voting (blacks couldn't), the existence of state governments (which regulated slavery), state's rights (which meant Lincoln could not have freed the slaves until after a dozen or so slave states had left), etc.
Moreover, by that standard gun rights are also racist. You remember that time the black Majorities of South Carolina and Mississippi somehow managed to lose elections with universal suffrage to pro-Jim Crow white minorities? Could not have happened if the Feds had seized all privately owned firearms in those states after the Civil War.
One VERY important thing to keep in mind: Not all firearms related deaths are wrongful. If you shoot the serial killer on your porch, it's a firearms related death.
Well the government is very clearly regulating what kind of apples are going in mom's apple pie, ...
To sell apples you need to make sure the variety is "registered", etc,
So instead of having 1000s of varieties 100 years ago, we have now about 20, 5 of which represent 75% of the market.
The sad thing is that most people do not give a S*t
And incidentally the population of australia almost doubled in the same time frame
so the numbers should be re normalized as % of death by massacre to really compare.
It doesn't help that the NRA has moved from being a safety and enthusiast organization into a political one that encourages paranoia that the government is trying to ban guns outright.
Don't forget that the NRA has historically been in favour of gun control if it meant taking guns from unpopular people. If the NRA launched a campaign encouraging Muslim-Americans to own guns for personal defence (given that this group is disproportionately the target of hate crime these days), I'd believe they were actually in favour of protecting the second amendment.
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You have noticed that those other methods are currently not at all effective, right?
Soap box, Ballot Box, Jury Box, Ammo Box.
The soap box has failed and if you think the ballot box has any hope in hell of being useful you haven't noticed this years election cycle, and the SCOTUS has been fucking us more and more recently with bullshit like Citizens United.
Jimmy Cricket, this is the 21st century with massive amounts of global communication and you're not able to see how important this is to preventing tyranny? Did you study American history at all in school?
Fighting is a last resort, but stop being retarded and pretending people are acting like its the only choice. Some people understand history and don't like the idea of it repeating itself. I suggest a good high school course on what drove the colonization of america. Which unfortunately includes all the evil shit we did in the process which was a lot of horrible stuff don't get me wrong, but theres a DAMN GOOD REASON why American's love their guns and all you have to do is look at a history book long enough to understand it and how we're rapidly moving in that direction again.
Not there yet, but it won't be too much longer unless something changes. People are tired of the bullshit politicians.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
You really don't need the NRA to whip up fear and paranoia. When you have the current president and the leading Democratic contender mentioning Australia's "gun control" as a model to follow and many other politicians from a specific political party holding up Japan as a model for America when it comes to "gun control" then you can see the "paranoia" is quite justified without the need to invoke the NRA boogyman.
How is gun control "anti-gun"? More realistically it is anti-allowing-crazies-access-to-guns.
Nope. It's all about disarming victims. All that noise about keeping guns away from crazies and bad people is just the sales pitch.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."