WaPo: Congressional deal could fund gun violence research for first time since 1990s

They are not lost. Most all of them have been accounted for.

 

The problem is politicians don't fret over an issue like this. A few dead or missing kids does not bring in the money like some dude, with an AR, killing 15 people all at one time in one location

 

Right but that's not how a scientist is going to see it. For results to be considered valid, they need to be reproduced. That's how they are defended. But what would happen if a person said you can't advocate for gun control? Would defending the study done count as a form of gun control? That's the issue and I don't think you can readily answer that problem with this kind of logic.

True. And? Why does illegal ownership of guns matter? What's the relationship between those two? How do you know? Last time I checked a person who illegally owns a gun has no intention of shooting other people unless needed. Same as someone else. What about having access to firearms makes them more likely to shoot someone? You're making empirical claims you have the luxury of making.

Even then, we can still think about access to guns as part of a social disease. Alcohol plus work issues plus access to firearms means a person can go on a violent rampage. Unless you're going to say mass shootings aren't a social disease, then guns are an important part of understanding what is going on.

 

Do they also have recommendations on what to do if the hat you're wearing is actually an alien from outer space trying to hitch hike to the nearest launch pad? Face the facts, they have family policy. Do they go for particular angles? Sure, but so what? Why would that matter?

 

Those who legally own firearms, and who do not engage in illegal or otherwise harmful behavior, are not responsible when those who are tired of existing decide to end their own existence. They are no more responsible than knife companies when one decides to slit their wrists.

 

If the above assessment is indeed factually correct, the matter would ultimately stem from scientists and so-called "researchers" who are clueless about what their employment entails. If they truly cannot tell the difference between researching a matter, and engaging in political lobbying by calling for specific firearm-related restrictions to be implemented, then they are not doing their jobs correctly and truly have no business calling themselves researchers.

If researchers and scientists took on their position, purely to utilize their position to bolster their efforts at political lobbying to make themselves appear as some sort of expert simply to shut down discussion so they do not have to explain their positions, then they are doing it wrong and should be stripped of their funding as a result.

With the exception of the last sentence, the above is factually correct. The illegal ownership of a firearm by itself does not pose a direct threat of harm to anyone. It is only when said firearms are used for illegal purposes against others, that harm is posed.

Why is the presence of a firearm considered so important in understanding why some individuals decide to engage in violence while others do not? Tens of millions of individuals own firearms and manage to refrain from harming anyone, the thought of harming others never even enters their minds.

Ultimately this so-called "societal disease" is rooted entirely in the individuals who make up society, rather than in any outside factor. Individuals who care about absolutely nothing except for themselves, and who see harming others as perfectly acceptable so long as it benefits themselves.

 

Your position is: "Do it, I won't hurt you, but if I think you're committing a crime I will take away your job." What do you think someone is going to accuse them of doing when it's politically convenient? Your argument is the proof of intimidation, the proof of reasonable fear.

No, you really are. I can prove it. Can you tell me where you live? Not specifically where but do you see a lot of gun violence where you live?

"Why should we care about one silly well? People who drink from wells contaminated with cholera are just begging to be sick. We shouldn't help them because they're socially inept and deserve to die. I don't want my tax dollars going to some water treatment plant to help out selfish people who just want to drink from contaminated wells."

Your entire argument is one of not taking responsibility for your actions. Societal diseases force someone who is free riding to confront the fact they are not affected by the disease and they have to help out.

 

Sadly, the very scale of gun suicides and homicides, 30,000 to 40,000 per year is a national emergency.

 

The united states experienced over forty seven thousand suicides in the last year the data was available. Firearms amounted to less than half of the total number of suicides.

Do try to keep things in perspective.

 

Pray tell, why is it so impossible to differentiate between research and political advocacy? Why is it that those tasked with researching a particular matter, are not capable of doing one without the other?

If such a question were indeed answered, would it prove capable of showing the levels of violence were being committed by those who legally possessed firearms and were not engaged in criminal activity, as opposed to those who illegally possessed firearms and were predisposed to engaging in criminal activity?

How exactly does one go about "helping out" in a matter pertaining to the use of firearms? Do they stop opposing efforts at implementing new firearm-related restrictions, when the ones already in place are simply not being utilized as they should? Do they voluntarily give up owning their firearms in the hope that their actions will inspire others to do the same?

Pray tell. Exactly how does one go about "helping out" on this particular subject? What is one, who does not engage in firearm-related violence, and who is not predisposed to engaging in illegal activity that would put them at greater risk of firearm-related violence, supposed to do in this particular matter?

 

Depends on how they're going to go about doing it. Are they looking for causes of violence? Or something to push a gun control agenda? That they use the term "gun violence" tells me that they're looking to push a gun control agenda. Why? Because there is no such thing as "gun violence". That is a propaganda term. Guns do not commit violence. People do. And you have to figure out why people are committing violence in order to solve violence.

Of course most people know the various factors that are linked to violence. Mental health problems, poverty, and lack of proper education are the big ones. But most gun control activists don't want to hear about that. Don't won't to work on that. They just want guns controlled and only in the hands of government.

 

Once again:

"Residents of homes where a gun is present are 5 times more likely to experience a suicide than residents of homes without guns....

"The overall fatality rate in gun robberies is an estimated 4 per 1,000--about 3 times the rate for knife robberies, 10 times the rate for robberies with other weapons, and 20 times the rate for robberies by unarmed offenders."
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~zj5j-gttl/guns.htm#The problem with

Guns are part of the problem.

 

Mental health is linked to self-inflicted violence. Do you have any evidence to support your claims that poverty and lack of education cause violence?

Guns make violence worse. A victim of a crime is more likely to die if the perpetrator is armed with a gun. Guns are part of the problem. There is too much gun availability and not enough gun control in the US. Those are the factors that gun apologists don't want to hear about.

 

If guns make violence worse, sending in armed law enforcement would make it even worse, right? If guns are the problem, should we disarm law enforcement?

 

Fortunately I have only Moderate Depression. I have never thought about violence or intentional self-harm.

I do inflict harm on myself by overeating deeply fried food. I eat tons of chicken.

 

Thank you. Terrible statistics. Sadly many people in this culture care little about human life.

 

The above claim cites the work of Arthur Kellermann. Meaning it is presenting the same findings presented by Arthur Kellermann, detailing how factors contributing to suicide include lack of education, poverty, criminal activity, unemployment, and abuse of alcoholic beverages and/or illicit narcotic substances.

What percentage of the problem? One percent? Five percent? Ten percent? Simply because something may be considered as "a part of the problem" does not mean it is the main, contributing factor, or even a relevant part of the matter. Considering all of the other factors associated with the act of suicide, the availability of firearms remains a minute aspect independent of all other factors.

 

The findings of Arthur Kellermann himself stated that poverty and lack of education are contributing factors to violence.

Those who have already been convicted of felonies are already legally prohibited from acquiring or otherwise possessing a firearm under any circumstances, regardless of what venue they might utilize for attempting to acquire a firearm. Exactly what more can be done, when the individuals who are responsible for committing the violence are left free in society, and able to offend at their leisure? Implementing more restrictions on the legal acquisition of firearms, which they cannot be compelled to abide by? For what purpose? So they can be convicted of possession of an unregistered firearm because being a felon in possession of a firearm is not good enough?

 

Education and Crime
Poverty and Crime

And Mental health is linked to far more than self-inflicted violence. For example the Sandy Hook shooter was diagnosed with mental health problems long before he shot up the school.

Any tool can make violence worse. And while a victim is more likely to die if the perp is armed with a gun a victim is also more likely to live against even a perp armed with a gun if the victim had a gun. Even the CDC admitted that there are between 500,000 and 3 million gun defensive uses in the US yearly. Guns save far more lives than they take. That is something that gun control advocates refuse to accept. Guns are not a part of the problem. They are just a tool.

 

And no product provides more benefits to the law abiding that a firearm.

 

Hardly, but keep on repeating that and you might feel better.

 

Tim Lambert estimates that 200 lives are saved per 80,000 defensive gun uses:

"In fact, only 0.35% of assaults result in death (Kleck table 5.. 0.35%*80,000=300 lives saved with guns each year. This is an overestimate since it assumes that guns are 100% effective and that all of the 80,000 crimes that guns were used to defend against were assaults when in fact some were robberies and burglaries (which have lower fatality rates than assaults). Correcting for these would give an estimate of more like 200."
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/1994/10/19/dgu-00007/

So even if there were 1 million bona fide defensive gun uses only 2500 lives would be saved which is far less than the total number of annual gun deaths.

But how many defensive gun uses are there really?

"Brand new data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive, a non-partisan organization devoted to collecting gun violence data, further confirms Hemenway’s suspicion that Kleck and Getz’s findings are absurd. The archive found that for all of 2014 there were fewer than 1,600 verified defensive guns uses, meaning a police report was filed. This total includes all outcomes and types of defensive uses with a police report—a far cry from the millions that Kleck and Getz estimated."
https://www.armedwithreason.com/debunking-the-defensive-gun-use-myth/

 

Not in today's world.

 

Sad but true. Unfortunately, for many American voters, lives of others matter very little.

 

Social Darwinism is a Great Evil.

Every life lost by a severely depressed person having access to guns is a tragedy.