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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.
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).
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.
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.
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