Gun Control needs to be instituted

You have provided misinformation. I have not.

You are positing a strawman argument. I have never claimed the statistics on gun deaths per capita are incorrect.

Can you answer my questions? Here they are again. You wanted me to address your link. I’m attempting to do that but you keep introducing strawmen. Again, please answer these specific questions pertaining to your link.

The first category in your link is a list of states labeled “National Leaders”. What makes them national leaders?

Also, what is your understanding of the terms “correlation” and “causation” in relation to statistics? Your link seems to infer causality from the limited data they “examine”. Do you agree with that inference and if so, why? Be specific.

Do you see anything there about gun deaths per 100,000 being incorrect? Focus.

You won’t get much attention from me with your Red/Blue politics strawman. I am a socialist snd loathe both parties. Both parties have contributed greatly to violence in the US.

Now, please answer my specific questions about your link. Don’t build more strawmen.

 

Based on all the responses that I have gotten to my OP and subsequent posts, I feel the need to set something straight.

1) I am not against the 2nd amendment. I do believe we have the right to have a gun in order to defend ourselves
2) I am not for any changes that take that right away from us.

Having said that:

1) I believe all extremes are bad and our gun situation in the U.S. has gotten to an extreme
2) I believe we need to have more gun control on who gets a gun and what kind can be gotten.

It is really that simple (no more and no less).

 

1) My actual desire is for all of us to stick to facts. Also to point out sources that continually lie must not be believed without verification of their claims. I would love to see firearm violence decrease. That’s why we must stick to facts. Addressing the wrong causes of violence won’t achieve positive results.

2) There is definitely a problem. But it’s not what you think it is.

3) Wild. So because I haven’t said I oppose murder you think I’m a murderer or support murder? Let’s try to deal with reality here. In a post I directed you to in our first exchange I pointed out a multitude of PROBLEMS. All dealt directly with the PROBLEM of firearm violence. You didn’t read that post, did you? That’s not my fault. If you had read that post I asked you to read you would know I believe there is a problem.

 

I have already answered your question about National Leaders in an earlier post to you this morning. Look for that post.

Correlation and causation in relation to statistics open a whole new bag that increases the amount of excuses for a problem. For example, it has been said that one of the reasons why we have more mass killings here in the U.S. is because we have more mental health problems. As such, it opens the bag as to "why do we have more mental health problems" and it also opens the bag and how can that be addressed best. Address the problem (which opens the door as to how we do that) or take the tools (guns) away overall so those that are mentally sick cannot get their hands on guns.

I am not interested in addressing the correlation or causation situation at THIS TIME because the FIRST THING that needs to be done is understand that there is a problem and that we need to address it by doing SOMETHING. There is very little that is actually being done about the problem because the people that believe in guns are not willing to even accept that there is a problem.

 

The "other countries" that gun ban advocates chose are nothing like the US in more ways that I can list so I hope the following source explains the differences more thoroughly: (1)

One of the most significant differences between the US and those cherry picked "other countries" is that those developed "other countries" have much more affordable and assessable Mental Health Care than the US.

Finally, there are over 60 countries(2) that have higher homicide rates than America AND have much stricter gun laws than the US with many prohibiting any private gun ownership.

I think that it's safe to conclude that if stricter gun laws worked in reducing homicides, they would work everywhere; not just in a few cherry picked "developed countries".

Thanks,




(1) "The Mistake of Only Comparing US Murder Rates to "Developed" Countries"
https://mises.org/wire/mistake-only-...oped-countries

EXCERPT " Note, however, that these comparisons always employ a carefully selected list of countries, most of which are very unlike the United States. They are countries that were settled long ago by the dominant ethnic group, they are ethnically non-diverse today, they are frequently very small countries (such as Norway, with a population of 5 million) with very locally based democracies (again, unlike the US with an immense population and far fewer representatives in government per voter). Politically, historically, and demographically, the US has little in common with Europe or Japan.

The US has the highest murder rate in the "developed world" — presumably because of its lax guns laws —we are told again and again.

Few people who repeat this mantra have any standard in their heads of what exactly is the "developed" world. They just repeat the phrase because they have learned to do so. They never acknowledge that when factors beyond per capita GDP are considered, it makes little sense to claim Sweden should be compared to the US, but not Argentina.

Such assertions ignore immense differences in culture, size, politics, history, demographics, or ethnic diversity. Comparisons with mono-ethnic Asian countries like Japan and Korea make even less sense"CONTINUED


(2) "Intentional homicides (per 100,000 people) - Country Ranking"
https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/indicators/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5/rankings

 

I have read each and every one of your posts but my point of view is that you are keying on things that are small (compared to seeing the overall picture). Case in point is your keying on the being specific about facts. Yes, you can find this supposed fact wrong here or there but the overall problem is that the amount of guns we have in the U.S. is causing more deaths to occur here than in any other country of our category in the world. It is clear as a bell that if we had less guns or more gun control, the problem would be less. As such, the small details that you are keying on are not addressing the overall problem. which is a clear desire and intention to "start addressing the problem".

It has been many years since this gun problem began in the U.S. and up to now, very few (if any) things have been done to even address it.

A strong desire and agreement among the parties that there is a problem and that it needs to be solved is the first step and that first step has not yet been taken by the Republicans. The excuse continues to be "we believe the 2nd amendment cannot be touched". As such, all the Republicans do is come up with excuses and as such, the problem is not addressed at all.

This is why that list given (2 different links) where it shows the gun control being done by the States is so important as it clearly shows which states do not believe in any kind of gun control. Those States are the ones where gun deaths do not seem to be worrisome at all.

 

I agree totally that there are MANY reasons why our problems don't exist anywhere else, or at least to the degree seen here.

Nonetheless, that just goes to prove that we need to have better gun control for the simple reason that MORE PEOPLE ARE DYING here than anywhere else in the category of nations of our size and quality. This is especially true because of the reasons you have stated. It is going to be more difficult for us to solve all the reasons for the problem (such as Mental Health Care, etc).

Bottom line is that we need to stop people being killed and if that takes stronger-than-desired gun control, then we need to do it. Death is forever and we need to stop that from happening.

I put up a study in an earlier post today were it showed that in California (strong gun control State), the rate of gun deaths is 3.2% and in Mississippi (little gun control) the rate of gun deaths is 28.3%. That is almost 9 times more gun related deaths in Mississippi than in California. By the way, those differences are clearly defined based on whether it is a red or blue State. Red showing more gun related deaths than Blue. Here is the link to that data: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm_mortality/firearm.htm

Does California have better mental health care than Mississippi? I don't think so. As such, gun control does help lower the gun death rates.

 

You are definitely misinterpreting information. That’s what I’m try to get you to see.

So it’s just law? It doesn’t matter if that law affects firearm violence in that state or not?

Does the site infer causation or just correlation? What is your position on each?

Since you don’t post links to your sources I have no way to know if each graphic is from a different source or all from the same source. I can’t comment on the accuracy of the graphic on school shootings. There is no link to the data. We don’t know what definition of school shooting was used and whether or not that definition was consistent between reporting countries. I can only comment on things I can verify to be true or untrue. If you want to discuss school shootings you will have to supply more than a picture.

Again, I can’t analyze pictures. You wanted to discuss statistics. If you want to do that we need more than one unidentified source’s pictorial interpretation of those statistics.

Of course I have. It is not true the US has higher firearm murder rate than any other country as you claimed. Our neighbor has a rate 5 times ours.


It’s not true military rifles are a significant portion of firearm violence in the US. They account for 3%.

Did I say that? The OP is a false premise but we can’t address that until you let me know how much you understand about correlation and causation in relation to statistics you say you are interested in.

I can tell you this, any source that intentionally misleads you with false statistics can not be trusted to be telling you the truth on anything else either. Your sources are sources of disinformation.

If I posted sources to back my posts that could be shown to be purveyors of misinformation and disinformation would you accept all claims that source made?

The OP is a false premise based on sources known to be purveyors of disinformation.

Your OP seems to address firearm murder specifically—school shootings, homicide rates, cities with many shootings. Is that your concern, people committing murder with firearms? That is what your first paragraph infers. Is that accurate or am I misunderstanding your point?

 

Sigh! you read only what you want to read and ignore the rest. I am tired of repeating myself. I have stated clearly that there are over 100 links on Google tp different studies, evaluations and reports regarding the gun problem in the U.S. but you keep on trying to prove each and every link that I supply to see the fallacy in the data. If you are truly interested, why don't you personally go to Google and click on every link and then make an OP that proves the fallacy in every one of the data sources given. What you are doing here, is trying to prove your debate against me PERSONALLY rather than have true interest in the topic itself. Evidently, your interest in the topic does not go further than your personal interest in making me look bad. What a shame. For all the words you have typed in answering my posts, you would already have found the reality of the problem by just going to Google.

As far as the charts and graphs that I supply, I go to graphs on Google and put in the topic I am looking for and find the graphs with the information. Some of the graphs are ones that I found in the past and I have lost the links to those graphs. I originally (when I first put up the graph in the past), I supplied the links to it but after having done it at least once and proven the date, I do not keep the links (just keep the graphs).

Nonetheless and because you asked, I researched the link to the school mass killing graphs and here it is:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/21/us/school-shooting-us-versus-world-trnd/index.html

and here is another link to it as well

https://twitter.com/AnneClaireCNN/status/998412827911249921

Once again because you choose to ignore this fact on all your posts, I do NOT care if you are able to prove this or that statistic, this or that article, or this or that information right or wrong. It is evident by just reading the newspapers, listening to news, and being aware that here in the U.S. we have more gun and mass killings than anywhere else in the world. In my previous post, I gave you a link to the data that shows we have had 43 mass shootings in the U.S. in just the last 4 weeks. Show me one other nation in the entire world that has had that kind of problem at any time in their history.

In addition, it has been clearly seen established that among nations such as ours, we have the highs rate of gun deaths in the world (key word here is "nations like us" - meaning it does not include nations like Venezuela and others with drug cartels and weak governments).

Here is the link to that data:

https://www.healthdata.org/acting-data/gun-violence-united-states-outlier

We also have the largest ownership of guns in the entire world (twice as much as #2) and on this link you will also find that our mass killings have increased every year (chart shows numbers since 2014). Last year we had almost 3 times more mass shooting that in 2014.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081

Anyhow, I have made the decision that answering your posts accomplishes nothing. Your goal is personal and I am not here for that.

 

How do you know it’s the number of guns that is the problem? How do you know more gun control would solve it?

Remember, when the US implemented gun control in 1968, the firearm homicide rate more than tripled! How can you be sure that more control now will result in some other outcome?

It’s not just the US. The firearm homicide rate in Australia dropped more before their sweeping laws implemented in 1996 than they did after the new laws.

Please answer these questions.

From your link (if you read it) we find 25% of states that are listed as national leaders have firearms violence rates higher than 13 other states from the categories NOT listed as national leaders. Furthermore those 25% (two states) in the national leader category have higher firearm violence rates than two states in the national failure category with the “weakest” firearm laws!

How can this be? If what affects firearm violence is LAW, how can states with the least laws have lower firearm violence rates than states with the most laws? In one case, a state with the fewest laws has firearm violence rate HALF of that of the two states listed as national leaders.

Why?

 

In other words..
You cannot meaningfully respond to what is put to you
Thank you for the continued confirmation.

You cannot demonstrate a factual or rational basis for your claim.
End of story

 

And you are not willing to debate even that.
Proof: You continued failure to address the following question:
~1100 firearms where used to commit a violent crime yesterday
How many were not?

 

False.
There are 100 links that offer information on the extent of gun violence in the US.
Not a single one of them demonstrates there is a gun problem in the US.

 

So you believe whatever comes up with a Google search is the gospel truth? Fascinating. No wonder so much of what you have posted is inaccurate.

You are still stuck on a strawman. I have not once contested the fact we have higher firearm violence rates than many other countries. I did point out we are not anywhere near number one as you FALSELY claimed.

We agree there is a problem. Now we need to make sure we have some understanding of what causes that problem. You have claimed it’s the presence of guns and lack of gun laws that cause firearm violence. But you don’t even have consistent correlation in your statistics. And no evidence of causation.

Have you ever looked at the correlation of percentage of racial demographics by state to firearm violence rates? It’s just as strong as the correlation you have presented on firearm numbers and firearms laws. Would you accept the premise firearm violence is caused by the color of one’s skin? I certainly hope not. Even though that strong linear correlation exists I would never make such a claim of causality because there is no evidence to support it. In fact there is evidence to the contrary.

You are making two errors. First you are taking whatever Google gives you and basing your beliefs on that alone. Because of this you are unaware of the inverse correlations that exist in relation to firearms and violence. For example, firearms are much more prevalent in rural areas. And firearm laws are much less restrictive on average in rural areas. Yet firearm homicides rates are much higher in cities, even though they have less guns more restrictions than rural areas.

If you listen to random Google search results you will never learn that military rifles are used in only 3% of firearms violence. You will never hear the fact the largest body of restrictive firearm law ever implemented in the US was followed by a tripling of the firearm homicide rate.

If you listen to Google exclusively and don’t analyze data yourself you will never hear the fact 25% of states with the strictest gun laws have higher rates of firearm violence than several other states with less to FAR less restrictive laws.

My goal is not at all personal. I want to reduce firearm violence. I want to do that by helping people learn some facts so beliefs aren’t based solely on misinformation and disinformation.

 

Oh look. Another post hoc fallacy

NH has -no- gun control laws hand has almost the same rate of gun-related deaths (inc. suicide) as CA.
How can this be?

NH has the same gun control laws as WV, and yet has half the gun death rate
How can this be?

NH has the same gun control laws as MS, and yet has less than 1/3 the gun death rate.
How can this be?

 

You links don't prove a problem EXISTS, much less needs addressed.

 

You cannot demonstrate there is a problem in the US
You cannot demonstrate the number of gun is the cause of that supposed problem.
You are cherry picking and not looking at the overall picture.

 

Repeating your claim, ad nauseam, does not make it true.

 

Unnecessary and ineffective restrictions on the exercise on the right to keep and bear arms - that is, "more gun control" - will do nothing to reduce the "problem" you see.

 

Thanks. That’s a bit on methodology but still no data. Do you know what data is? In this context data would be lists of actual shooting incidents and the source (this CNN thing is based on media reports, not actual crime data).

Do you see the problem here? We can’t see the data. And the data is just media reports. So if journalists in one country have less or more interest in reporting on school shootings the data isn’t reliable.

Anyway I appreciate you revealing the source being news story counting by a media outlet. But still no data. You said you wanted to look at statistics but still all we have is the source of picture with no supporting data. I still can’t address the data/statistics because I don’t have access to them.

 

Attempting to compare California to Mississippi is exactly the same type of dissimilar comparison that the article I cited (1) showed was flawed science.

This source shows that California is the richest state in GDP in the US while Mississippi ranks as the poorest State in the US using the same GDP for the sake of comparison. (2)

I hope that you will agree that there are many other factors to consider than gun control laws when you're comparing the richest State to the poorest one.

The reasons that I oppose additional gun laws is simple. If we have learned nothing else from Prohibition and the failed "War on Drugs", it is that governments cannot change human behavior by attempting to manipulate inanimate objects.

Another reason is that even if gun banners make firearms harder to get, determined killers will just turn to crude but deadlier home made WMDs that indiscriminately kill even more people than any firearm.

For example, a determined killer in NYC wanted to kill his ex-girlfriend but couldn't get a gun to kill just her. So, this determined killer made a crude WMD out of only one dollar's worth of gasoline and managed to kill the ex-girlfriend and 86 other innocent people.(3) I believe it is noteworthy that that crude WMD managed to kill more people than any other incident with ANY type of firearm.

The deadliest school mass killing in America, too, was not done with any type of firearm but with a home made bomb that killed 44 people.(4) Again, no school shooting has been as deadly as this mass killing with a crude WMD.

I believe that additional gun control laws have an appeal to some because they are cheap and easy compared to spending the money and doing the work to upgrade America's Mental Health system.
Regrettably, things that are cheap and easy rarely work so fewer guns may mean more deaths as determined killers turn to much deadlier WMDs.

Thanks,


(1) "The Mistake of Only Comparing US Murder Rates to "Developed" Countries"
https://mises.org/wire/mistake-only-...oped-countries


(2) "Richest States 2023"
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/richest-states-in-usa


(3) "Happy Land fire"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Land_fire

EXCERPT "González went to an Amoco gas station, then returned to the establishment with a plastic container with $1 worth of gasoline.[2][4] He spread the fuel at the base of a staircase, the only access into the club, and then ignited the gasoline.[5]

Eighty-seven people died in the resulting fire."CONTINUED


(4). "The 1927 Bombing That Remains America’s Deadliest School Massacre"

"Ninety years ago, a school in Bath, Michigan was rigged with explosives in a brutal act that stunned the town"

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/hist...chool-massacre-180963355/#KSipwm4IUrIbB9uc.99

EXCERPTS "In the end 44 people died, 38 of them students. It wasn’t the first bombing in the country’s history—at least eight were killed during the Haymarket Square rally in Chicago in 1886, and 30 when a bomb exploded in Manhattan in 1920. But none had been so deadly as this, or affected so many children."CONTINUED

 

And yet, you have an substance free rebuttal. Crime surged since ‘96 gun ban? Just the opposite.


A right-wing racist’s statement 60 years ago had little validity back then and it has none now. African Americans, as I’ve explained before, are full members of the Democratic party, congressmen, mayors, police chiefs….not the chumps you think they are.

 

Like I said earlier in this thread, and as I've been saying for at least a couple of years already -- the problem (PROBLEM) with 'guns' in this country are the 'criminals and crazies'! Remove them from society and we would have next to no 'gun' problems at all....

First step I'm sure we all agree with is rigid, no-nonsense screening for all those who apply to purchase firearms AND ammunition. Next step -- perhaps the most important one -- throw anyone who commits crimes with firearms into confinement and KEEP THEM THERE, for a very, very long time! Oh, and that includes those who provide false or fraudulent information on applications to purchase firearms AND ammunition. Can we at least agree on THAT much?!

 

California vs Mississippi was the extreme (on both sides) examples. Nonetheless, if you looked at the map on the link I gave you, it is very clear that most (if not all) red States have higher gun related deaths than blue States. As such, it is the mentality on gun control that is shown. Gun control works.

As far as killers turning to other forms of killing, that is ALWAYS going to be the case. Nonetheless, the number of gun killings will drop if for no other reason than making a gun is more difficult that buying a gun. As such, there will be LESS people that have the ability to build them.

As far as your Mental Health issue. We do have bigger problems in the U.S. than in other countries but not the degree/comparison to the difference in gun killings. This means that Mental Health issues do not support or explain why we have so much more gun killing issues than in other countries:



This is not about the money, though spending money is certainly an issue and more so for the Republicans than the Democrats, but it is about doing something tangible, doable and with immediate results. Trying to come up with a program that addresses mental issues is going to be difficult and will not give results in a short period of time. Gun control will.

 

Once again and for the 100th time. We have a problem (NO DOUBT ABOUT IT) and defining the problem is the least we have to worry about. We need to address the problem now so that next week, next month, and next year there will be less deaths than are being seen now. It has been proven that gun control means less deaths and that means that gun control will start to reduce the numbers. After that, we can start to look deeper into defining the "exact" reasons why it is happening and address them. One preventable death is worth doing this. We can worry later on about what Rights are being stepped on and what damage that may cause. We can worry later on about exactly what works best and what does not work.

We have to start NOW preventing deaths. Death is forever. Taking your gun rights away is only temporary.