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#101
09-11-2007, 03:34 PM
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Re: Guns in America
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] Funs facts: From 2001-2005 in the US: An average of 42,000 people die in auto-accidents. An average of 20,000 people die from the common flu. An average of 17,000 people die from gun-related suicide. An average of 11,000 people die from gun-related homicide. When examining violent crime in the US from 2001-2005: 98% of violent crimes committed are non-fatal. Of those, less than 10% are gun-related. [/ QUOTE ] Another fun fact from the DoJ website -- "The FBI's Crime in the United States estimated that 66% of the 16,137 murders in 2004 were committed with firearms." If your numbers are correct, this is pretty startling. Less than ten percent of violent crime involves a gun, yet two-thirds of murders involve a gun. I think that this seriously undermines the argument that would-be murderers would simply use a knife, baseball bat, etc. if guns were unavailable. [/ QUOTE ] No, it doesn't.  [/ QUOTE ] The fact that total homicides track gun related homicides doesn't prove much. That was inevitable given that such a high percentage of homicides are committed with a gun. Secondly, the decrease in homicides in the last 15 years has a lot to do with improved emergency medical care (i.e. less people die). Violent crime as a whole has not decreased at nearly the same clip. [/ QUOTE ] That wasn't the point. The point is that total homicide and gun homicide is not related to the per capita gun supply, which has increased steadily for 4 decades. Since the murder rate appears to be independent of the gun supply, the argument that substitution would not take place appears to be false. 
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#102
09-11-2007, 04:28 PM
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Re: Guns in America
I have a question that could be related and I don't know if anyone knows the answer or knows how one could find the answer. In Saddam Hussein led Iraq, what was the status of firearms there? Were they illegal? Regardless of their legal status about what % of the population had them? Many people have this idea of people in the Arab World going outside and shooting guns in the air to celebrate just about anything. Did that happen in Iraq as well?
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#103
09-11-2007, 05:00 PM
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Re: Guns in America
[ QUOTE ]
Since the murder rate appears to be independent of the gun supply, the argument that substitution would not take place appears to be false. [/ QUOTE ] I wasn't missing the point. I was raising the possibility that the ratio of gun supply to murder rate is affected by other factors, such as the quality of emergency medical care. I couldn't find the statistics, but my recollection is that homicide rates have dropped much more quickly than the rate of overall shootings.
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#104
09-11-2007, 05:11 PM
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Re: Guns in America
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] Or, try this page for info on gun control and genocide. [/ QUOTE ] The problem I have with that page is that the premise doesn't seem to follow from the evidence they present. OK, so governments that commit democide (genocide is not quite accurate here) often have gun control. It doesn't follow from this that democide is impossible, or even less likely, in an armed state. That's especially true when most places have gun control anyway. Iraq, as a counter-example, appears to have had plenty of guns in private hands pre invasion. It didn't prevent the state killing large numbers of its citizens or running a brutally repressive regime. Same in Afghanistan. On the whole I find that the quality of debate surrounding gun control is pretty awful, on both sides. Will gun control increase or reduce murders, violent crimes? Everyone is convinced they know the answer but AFAICT there's really not enough data to say. Do guns prevent tyranny? Well they're not sufficient and they're not necessary. Do they help? Impossible to say with confidence. [/ QUOTE ] Bingo.
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#105
09-11-2007, 05:13 PM
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Re: Guns in America
[ QUOTE ]
my recollection is that homicide rates have dropped much more quickly than the rate of overall shootings. [/ QUOTE ] Obviously the result of a lack of training. If people would attend marksmanship classes, take regular target practice, and maintain their firearms properly, they would not have this problem of sloppy shooting.
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#106
09-11-2007, 06:34 PM
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Re: Guns in America
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] Since the murder rate appears to be independent of the gun supply, the argument that substitution would not take place appears to be false. [/ QUOTE ] I wasn't missing the point. I was raising the possibility that the ratio of gun supply to murder rate is affected by other factors, such as the quality of emergency medical care. I couldn't find the statistics, but my recollection is that homicide rates have dropped much more quickly than the rate of overall shootings. [/ QUOTE ] I found a reference to the article that I was remembering. Once again, I am citing research from professors at good universities, not rhetoric from gun control blogs. Homicide article The gist of the article is that aggravated assaults skyrocketed during the period from 1960-1999, while murder rates remained mostly flat. The explanation -- a lot of shootings, etc., were now aggravated assaults rather than murders because trauma care was much improved.
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#108
09-12-2007, 05:46 PM
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Re: Guns in America
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] The current Supreme Court precedents say that the 2nd Amendment is a "Group" right, not an individual right, meaning that the right is upheld as long as someone is allowed to have weapons. Furthermore, that someone has been ruled to be the National Guard. [/ QUOTE ] Link? [/ QUOTE ] Any link is useless because that is entirely false. One of the extremely few US SC precedents specifically said that the Rights of Individuals to bear Arms pre-dates the Constitution - i.e. it is similar to the rights of Free Speech and Assembly, a natural, god-given right that all men have which pre-dates the existence of our very country. Nowhere does it say the right exclusively lies with the National Guard. The 2nd Amendment is to protect us from the Gov't and tyranny, that is why it comes directly after Freedom of speech and religion in the Bill of Rights. The 'right of the people' specifically mentioned in the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 10th, 9th, etc refer to individuals. They don't magically turn into an organized gov't group because there's a 2 in front of the Amendment. The Embarrassing 2nd Amendment http://www.firearmsandliberty.com/embar.html [long, but worth it] There is strong evidence that "militia" refers to all of the people, or least all of those treated as full citizens of the community. Consider, for example, the question asked by George Mason, one of the Virginians who refused to sign the Constitution because of its lack of a Bill of Rights: "Who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people." Also: T. Cooley, The General Principles of Constitutional Law in The United States of America 298 (3d ed. 1898): "The Right of the People to bear arms in their own defense, and to form and drill military organizations in defense of the State, may not be very important in this country, but it is significant as having been reserved by the people as a possible and necessary resort for the protection of self- government against usurpation, and against any attempt on the part of those who may for the time be in possession of State authority or resources to set aside the constitution and substitute their own rule for that of the people. Should the contingency ever arise when it would be necessary for the people to make use of the arms in their hands for the protection of constitutional liberty, the proceeding, so far from being revolutionary, would be in strict accord with popular right and duty.
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#109
09-12-2007, 05:48 PM
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Re: Guns in America
Also, I believe in the SW US, there are 4 guns for every man, woman, and child last time I did the research. So a raw average is misleading as Zeno suggests.
Regardless, there are over 300mm guns at large in the US. You will never, ever, ever be able to get rid of them.
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#110
09-12-2007, 05:57 PM
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Re: Guns in America
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] the right to bear arms (or defend oneself) is not granted by the constitution or the government. It is the natural right of man to do so. The Bill of Rights only serves to remind us of that. [/ QUOTE ] Why is the right to bear arms a "natural right"? Because Paul Philips says it is? [/ QUOTE ] No, the US SC: 'the Supreme Court in United States v. Cruikshank held that ...the right "of bearing arms for a lawful purpose" is "not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence." Nor, in the view of the Court, was the right to peacefully assemble a right protected by the Fourteenth Amendment: "The right of the people peaceably to assemble for lawful purposes existed long before the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. In fact, it is and has always been one of the attributes of citizenship under a free government. . . .It was not, therefore, a right granted to the people by the Constitution." This is what is meant by a natural right. It existed long before the US or Supreme Court did.
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