Active Users:1056 Time:13/11/2024 06:50:02 AM
True but the current arguments have revovled around these mass killings Isaac Send a noteboard - 21/04/2013 03:05:23 PM

View original post
These attacks are horrific, but domestic terrorism is a drop in the bucket when compared to domestic gun violence. If you include suicides, the three terrorist attacks amount to less than a tenth of gun deaths yearly.

Of course, background checks won't eliminate gun violence. But there's a great deal of evidence to suggest that they will decrease it significantly.


Well it is hard to really guess what the net effect of removing all guns, or all non-cop/mil guns would have on homicide rates and also on crime rates in general, I don't like to take as a given we'd see some massive across the board drop, but that's another conversation. We have very sketchy data on crime prevention from guns, just crimes involving them.

In this context though the recent gun control measures relate to mass killings, spree/bomb/etc though not serial killings which usually aren't with guns. Thus we talk about controlling semi-automatic weapons and magazine capacity. When we leave the zone of spree killing magazine size becomes pretty irrelevant, as does rate of fire. Most gun homicides involve only one or a few shots being fired. Ditto, suicides and accidents involving guns seriously outnumber homicides with guns and those really have nothing to do with the weapon's magazine capacity or even its type, except insofar as it is generally easier to have an accident with a pistol.

We can discuss gun legislation in regards to lowering overall gun homicides but the simple reality is that those are very different circumstances overall than those applying to mass murder. It's hard to effectively manage regular homicides via restrictions on weaponry, since the leading cause of murder is personal conflict, and fully a third of homicides don't involve firearms, it is a big jump to assume banning them would eliminate 2/3rds of those, or even most of those 2/3rds. More importantly none of the currently suggested measures would impact those. Take a man's gun away and he might be less likely to kill his best friend and lover when he catches them together, or he might beat them to death with a tire iron, regardless restricting him to a 10 round clip or revolver isn't likely to save them.

Now, background checks... yeah, those might help some. But people forget, a background check will only keep the gun out of the hand - even if it works perfectly - of someone who has not yet been convicted of a felony. I remember one of the more BS gun violence stats which insisted how many criminals had guns which didn't bother to point out that many of them were only convicted of crimes after acquiring the gun, often the crime in question involving that gun. A very important statistic (good luck finding it) for this conversation is "What percentage of gun homicides are committed by people who have previously been convicted of a felony?".

You will be able to find what percentage of violent crimes have been committed by people with previous criminal records but nobody I've seen have that specific data, which is the important one. I can tell you that it won't be very high, not small, but not too high.

I also want to take a moment to raise another of those unpopular but important points, which the left doesn't touch because it dislikes guns and the right because it dislikes felons, which is: Exactly how moral and fair is it to permanently remove the right to own a gun (or vote) from someone because they committed a felony? I'm not the sort to weep for the lost rights of felons but I continue to have problems with the general notion that we release people on the notion they are reformed and then don't treat them that way. If you don't give them an option for full restoration of rights and privileges it seems to me you are in a very bizarre moral area, especially for non-violent felonies.

But point being that the legislation kicked around has two primary components, owner control and gun-type control, the latter at least is only valid in regard to spree killings... to a degree so is the former, we don't usually have ex-cons committing spree murders, to my knowledge most of these mass killings are done by those with no felony convictions. This is why we keep harping on the ineffectiveness aspect of these regs. When we can actually point to how a specific spree killing might not have occurred with a piece of the current suggested law, which is rare, there's still the exclusivity aspect. Which is to say that it is a big jump to assume that a crime committed with an AR-15 would not have occurred if they were outlawed, and homemade bombs stick themselves on the scales weighing against gun control preventing mass murder.

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
- Albert Einstein

King of Cairhien 20-7-2
Chancellor of the Landsraad, Archduke of Is'Mod
This message last edited by Isaac on 21/04/2013 at 03:13:15 PM
Reply to message
Great news, Boston Marathon Terrorist #2 was captured alive..... - 20/04/2013 01:46:52 AM 777 Views
Curious - 20/04/2013 03:03:08 AM 569 Views
No..... - 20/04/2013 03:14:41 AM 487 Views
Re: Curious - 20/04/2013 05:25:02 AM 505 Views
Of course, 9/11, Oklahoma, and Boston combined are less than a third of gun homicides each year. - 20/04/2013 09:31:59 AM 539 Views
True but the current arguments have revovled around these mass killings - 21/04/2013 03:05:23 PM 484 Views
showing how dangerous the world can doesn't argue against guns - 21/04/2013 02:29:52 PM 465 Views
I am in a 100% agreement - 22/04/2013 01:03:30 AM 553 Views
The Dems are afraid to focus on handguns..... - 22/04/2013 04:35:51 PM 539 Views
Agreed, great news - 20/04/2013 03:34:11 AM 523 Views
Good that he's caught, but "Too bad his brother died?" - 20/04/2013 04:16:34 AM 563 Views
He will be tried in federal court and executed.....just like McVeigh. *NM* - 20/04/2013 04:31:12 AM 216 Views
Yeah, maybe in like 10 years. *NM* - 21/04/2013 03:44:54 PM 216 Views
I'm thinking 7-8 years, but that overall timeline is likely accurate. *NM* - 21/04/2013 05:27:25 PM 216 Views
Nope, he will not be executed. Massachusetts does not have a death penalty. - 20/04/2013 05:33:50 AM 517 Views
One of those three was Timothy McVeigh - 21/04/2013 02:22:28 PM 447 Views
They ddin't have much choice - 21/04/2013 05:05:09 PM 535 Views
Nice photo summary of Friday night..... - 21/04/2013 05:25:46 PM 577 Views

Reply to Message