AND IF THE NRA WERE RIGHT ?

vetinari

Interesting that you're putting so much faith in back of the envelope statistics in this scenario and show such skepticism when it comes to statistics on gun ownership

My own theory on the gun homicides number would be that there's much wider availability of hand guns in the states for gangs to use. That would increase the likelihood of a gang dispute involving a gun. Also, I'm not sure that you get to take gangs out of the figures? There's plenty of gangs in the EU as well.

Whatever way you want to slice it, as you acknowledged, the gun homicide rate in the States is shocking.

FISMA

vetinari wrote: »

Interesting that you're putting so much faith in back of the envelope statistics in this scenario and show such skepticism when it comes to statistics on gun ownership

The source for your statistics was a survey. The source for mine is the CDC.

I would gladly accept statistics from the: ATF, FBI, NCIS, CDC, or the like.

Sparks

vetinari wrote: »

Interesting that you're putting so much faith in back of the envelope statistics in this scenario and show such skepticism when it comes to statistics on gun ownership

Faith? I'm not putting faith into it, I'm saying it's back-of-an-envelope sketching. It shows -- at best -- order-of-magnitude expectations, not solid reliable data; you'd have to do a lot more work to get reliable data (and am I the only one a bit surprised that the EU doesn't keep this kind of data today?), and it'd be novel enough to be publishable. If I didn't already have a day job...

My own theory on the gun homicides number would be that there's much wider availability of hand guns in the states for gangs to use. That would increase the likelihood of a gang dispute involving a gun. Also, I'm not sure that you get to take gangs out of the figures? There's plenty of gangs in the EU as well.

Not to the extent we see in the US, where two out of every three violent crimes is committed by one. Though Ireland seems to be catching up with this if the media reports are correct (we're the gun murder capital of europe now, don't'cha know).

And I'm not saying you can take the gangs out of the picture - I'm just saying that they appear to be the dominant part of that picture and so the imbalance between the EU (what we think of as normal) and the US appears to be dominantly caused by a social problem that the US has and we don't have and that problem is not guns, it's gangs.

Whatever way you want to slice it, as you acknowledged, the gun homicide rate in the States is shocking.

Except that it's not really. The homicide rate is shocking. The gun homicide rate just looks like the suicide/gun suicide picture - they use one means more than we see it being used in the EU.

This is part of what I've been saying for a while now - everyone says that the gun problem in the US is appalling; but break that down and you get the gun homicide problem, the gun suicide problem and the gun accident problem; and if you look at those problems from the other side (ie. the homicide/suicide/accident problems), then the US and EU figures are fairly close in all but homicide; and there they have a real problem, but it's one that appears to be caused by something other than the ease of legal access to firearms.

cyberhog

In 2011 John Boehner whined about Senate Democrats defying the "will" of the people on "Cut, Cap, and Balance" legislation:

“Senate Democrats have defied the will of the American people who overwhelmingly support real spending cuts, caps on future spending, and a balanced budget to create a better environment for private-sector job growth. Republicans are standing with the American people and, as I’ve said before, will not pass a bill that fails to cut spending by more than it increases the debt limit, restrain future spending, or that raises taxes on families and job creators

http://www.speaker.gov/press-release/senate-democrats-defy-will-people-reject-“cut-cap-balance”;

Well, polls over the past few months indicate that Americans "overwhelmingly support" background checks and yet this time Republicans have given "two fingers" to the American people. So once again the Republicans have proved themselves to be totally devoid of principle and unworthy of trust, and frankly, anyone who votes for those weasels should go see a shrink.

Sparks

cyberhog wrote: »

Well, polls over the past few months indicate that Americans "overwhelmingly support" background checks

(a) So do the NRA, the debate isn't over a yes/no on background checks but on whether or not to extend the existing system;
(b) Those polls seem a little off...

Amerika

Okay, I’ll ask the taboo question that nobody is willing to touch with a 10 foot pole. What is the murder rate by guns in America when you take Blacks and Hispanics out of the equation? I can't quantify it, as there seemingly are no statistics anybody is willing to put out there for fear of being labeled a racist, but I have a suspicion that it would put us at the same level as Belgium. And if that is the case, then is there really a high level gun problem in America... or just a cultural problem?

Sparks

Amerika wrote: »

What is the murder rate by guns in America when you take Blacks and Hispanics out of the equation?

The CDC collect that data, their 2010 numbers (source, table 12 & 13) say:

white|black|american indian or alaska native|asian or pacific islander|hispanic*|total
4,647|6,151|113|167|1,919|11,078

*hispanic was rolled into the "white" category in table 12, so you could reduce that number to 2,728.

The majority of homicides are male (9,340 to 1,738). And the largest demographic are black males (5,553). But that's been well studied and widely known for quite some time - the demographic if broken down by age is even more specific, in that it's young black males between the ages of 12 and 30.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/337929/war-against-black-men-lee-habeeb

Even more horribly, there are correllations between the murder rates and whether or not it's a school day:
https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/Abstract.aspx?id=248092

FISMA

cyberhog wrote: »

Well, polls over the past few months indicate that Americans "overwhelmingly support" background checks

Source?

cyberhog wrote: »

Republicans have given "two fingers" to the American people.

It's one over here, affectionately known as the bird.

cyberhog wrote: »

So once again the Republicans have proved themselves to be totally devoid of principle and unworthy of trust

Stop blaming Republicans. Obama failed to convince his party to go along with him. They are the majority.

Manic Moran

cyberhog wrote: »

In 2011 John Boehner whined about Senate Democrats defying the "will" of the people on "Cut, Cap, and Balance" legislation:

http://www.speaker.gov/press-release/senate-democrats-defy-will-people-reject-“cut-cap-balance”

Well, polls over the past few months indicate that Americans "overwhelmingly support" background checks and yet this time Republicans have given "two fingers" to the American people. So once again the Republicans have proved themselves to be totally devoid of principle and unworthy of trust, and frankly, anyone who votes for those weasels should go see a shrink.

Two points of concern.

One is whether or not the cap/cut/balance legislation would enact what it said in the CNN poll, or whether it did more than that. The firearms background check law did not just mandate a background check, which was a significant part of the issue.

The other is that budgeting restrictions are not limited by the Constitution. Mucking around with Constitutional rights, however, is something specifically in the Constitution to prevent the majority from just legislating away on something.

cyberhog

FISMA wrote: »

Source?

CNN

...just about every national poll conducted the past couple of months indicated that the vast majority of Americans supported tougher background checks.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/04/17/public-opinion-gets-trumped-in-gun-control-defeat/

Madd Finn

Sparks wrote: »

shoot someone in genuine self-defence in the US and it still goes into the statistics as homicide but it wouldn't in most EU states,

Have you ANY evidence at all to back that up? I would have thought that homicide is a universal term which means the killing of a person irrespective of any justification or lack of justification for doing so. So a shooting resulting in death in most EU states WOULD be classified as a homicide.

Surely?

Sparks wrote: »

The US homicide rate is five times the EU rate.

Well thank you for illustrating that fairly starkly.

Sparks wrote: »

The US DoJ says two thirds of violent crime in the US is down to gangs; take out that source and we're far more comparable (the US still has more homicides than the EU but now it's by 40% more rather than 400% more).

So, judging by the numbers at least, the US's real problem isn't guns; it's gangs. If that problem went away, EU and US mortality rates would be quite close.

I'm sorry but that's a bonkers argument. Unless you assume that NONE of Ireland's (or Europe's) homicides were caused by criminal gangs.

In fact I would suggest that the majority ( I have no idea what exact percentage) of Ireland's gun homicides are inflicted by drugs/tobacco/diesel laundering gangs, usually on other gang members.

Manic Moran

Madd Finn wrote: »

Have you ANY evidence at all to back that up? I would have thought that homicide is a universal term which means the killing of a person irrespective of any justification or lack of justification for doing so. So a shooting resulting in death in most EU states WOULD be classified as a homicide.

Surely?

No, he's quite right. Most EU states only report murders. After all, justifiable homicides (by either private citizens or the government) by definition aren't illegal, so why would the police report them in crime statistics? The US system is a bit of an outlier. Most 'firearm deaths' figures tend to come from the CDC, which doesn't care about legal or illegal, moral or immoral, and is only concerned with life, health and death.

However, I will wager there are far fewer justifiable homicides as a proportion of the overall in the EU.