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I get my statistics from the UN, where do you get yours?
Yes and lower per capita guns, what has that to do with anything. Their homicide rates are not lower enough to be able to draw a conclusion that the US homicide rate is driven by gun ownership. If it were we'd expect that the US after a disarmament to UK levels we would have a homicide rate of 0.27/100,000, this is patently ridiculous, since 40% of all US homicides are not gun related, and those alone exceed 0.27/100,000. Similarly we'd expect that the UK if it had as many guns as the US would have a homicide rate of around 17/100,000, it does not, nor ever has, even prior to the post WW2 gun control laws, in fact back in 1966 prior to serious gun control initiatives (you needed a license that was more or less the equivalent of a US background check), the homicide rate was 0.66/100,000, with more guns and more gun ownership.
Consider the following, suppose a country has 1 car period. Driving it is a death sentence, and there are 20 million people living there. Every day the car is driven and someone dies, the RTA death rate per capita is 1.8/100,000. Would you like to drive in that country? The US has an RTA rate of 11.6/100,000 for comparison. If not why not.
So the US has a higher per capita gun death rate, because it has more guns (and it also has more cars in my example, it actually has more guns than cars too, and deaths by RTA are higher than deaths by guns). So clearly it's a tautology that if the US has a high number of guns, then guns will be used to commit homicides. However it proves nothing to the effect that reducing the number of guns will reduce the number of homicides. Indeed both Australia and the UK have little evidence that gun control reduced their overall homicide rates (in fact for 10 years or so after the 1997 Firearms Amendment act in the UK homicides increased to double the rate in 1996) or suicide rates. So what benefit has it produced that is not ephemeral?
Did you miss this post?
Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryWho?
I don't have any real opinion on guns. I was just pointing out the slant anecdotal evidence provides. I don't see any real changes being made on either side of the gun issue.
As far as I'm concerned both sides present anecdotal incidents, and suspect statistics. I'm here for the debate. I think the discussion should center on the issue at hand, not traffic accidents, kids drowning, or the fact that a pencil could be a weapon. I agree that the US will never be Japan, or even the UK or Australia, but just what action would be necessary to adjust our culture of violence? I'm thinking it would be much less acceptable than gun control or registration. As an afterthought, the US has never had comprehensive gun control, at least not for a long enough time to see just what the long term effect would be.
As an afterthought, the US has never had comprehensive gun control, at least not for a long enough time to see just what the long term effect would be.
The problem is, when it got tried in certain locales, gun violence went up. How can anyone nationalize so-called "gun control" when it hasn't really worked at the local level?
We need gun control because it will make the squirrel people feel safer. It will not make them safer but only make them feel safer. Feelings are way more important than facts to these people that believe someone else will always protect them from the Big Bad Wolf.
I don't have any real opinion on guns. I was just pointing out the slant anecdotal evidence provides. I don't see any real changes being made on either side of the gun issue.
There you have it. THE GUN ISSUE. Shouldn't the focus and the solutions be centered around the gun CRIME issue. I mean if there were no significant gun crime, then there shouldn't be a gun issue at all.
This proves that many people are anti gun, not anti gun crime.
There are some very effective ways to reduce gun crime stats, but since they don't involve restricting guns, the anti gun folks are not interested.
There you have it. THE GUN ISSUE. Shouldn't the focus and the solutions be centered around the gun CRIME issue. I mean if there were no significant gun crime, then there shouldn't be a gun issue at all.
This proves that many people are anti gun, not anti gun crime.
There are some very effective ways to reduce gun crime stats, but since they don't involve restricting guns, the anti gun folks are not interested.
First, I don't want to reduce gun crime statistics, I want to reduce gun crime.
Second, what are your methods of reducing gun crime without background checks, etc.?
Third, the rest of the civilized world enjoys low gun deaths when they limit gun access. Seems common sense.
There you have it. THE GUN ISSUE. Shouldn't the focus and the solutions be centered around the gun CRIME issue. I mean if there were no significant gun crime, then there shouldn't be a gun issue at all.
This proves that many people are anti gun, not anti gun crime.
There are some very effective ways to reduce gun crime stats, but since they don't involve restricting guns, the anti gun folks are not interested.
The "gun issue" we're talking about is gun control. Gun control concerns keeping guns out of the hands of those who should not have them ,which in turn, should reduce gun crime. No reason for responsible, legal gun owners to fear that. I'm not anti gun, I'm anti people who would perpetrate gun crime and those facilitating them being armed.
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