RAIMIUS wrote:
Bertster7 wrote:
RAIMIUS wrote:
Sadly, you'll be hard pressed to find any good research that proves anything but the "DUH!" type of facts.
If you think Kellerman proved owning a gun is dangerous to your safety, you haven't looked at the facts.
If you think Lott proved CCW reduces crime, you haven't studied it very carefully.
What many of these studies DO show is there are correlations we don't fully understand.
A very sensible post.
You'll notice I didn't ever use the word proves, it's a word I rarely use. You don't want to rely on studies proving anything, but trends are important to look at to get an overall picture. A few things become clear when looking at these trends across a wide range of studies; levels of gun ownership are linked to levels of gun crime, the US is way above the average Western homicide rate (using guns, knives or whatever). These are both pretty clear cut trends. It is obvious the US has a bigger than average problem with violent crime, it is also fairly naive to suggest that levels of gun ownership are not a factor in this. Blaming guns for the entire problem would be equally naive though, because the US is way off the typical trends for gun ownership levels:gun homicide rates (many more gun related homicides per gun owner than any other Western nation, by a massive amount), which means it is very unlikely there are not other significant factors at work here.
The_Sniper_NM wrote:
Lol. The people posting in this thread wanting more gun control act as if there isn't any gun crime in the UK.
Why should I be punished for some idiots rampage? Most massacres would have never reached that level if a competent citizen was carrying (Except schools ofc.) This is why my dad carries. Ouch, 5 years for a hollowpoint? Lol. My dad uses HP+ for his carry 1911.
We don't need more gun control. We need better people control.
There is hardly any gun crime in the UK.
Less than 190 fatalities from gun crime in England and Wales in 2007-2008 (source - the Home Office).
Over 10000 fatalities from gun crime in the US in the same period (source - the FBI).
Considering a population about 6 times larger than that of England and Wales, the rate (gun homicide rate - I've actually been extra lenient and used all gun related fatalities from the Home Office figures, compared to murder only from the FBI figures) in the US is about 9x what it is over here.
Yeah. The US does have a violent crime problem. Personally, I believe the strong factors are cultural and economic. Of course, guns are a factor. However, how they are a factor and how to use that factor to reduce crime is the real debate. Some places have done (IMO stupid) things like requiring households to have guns, and seen their crime rates stay very low. (Lots of other factors at work...) Other places have banned guns in certain locations, with some success (airports). (Also a lot of factors at work...)
Interestingly, the studies on legal concealed carry indicate that there is either a reduction in crime or no significant effect. So, IMO, they are a good thing. It may have an effect on crime, and it gives people a legal option for self-defense in extreme situations.
But they're all bollocks and secondary bodies (like the NAS) have refused to publish them, since they don't have credible evidence. Are there multiple studies conducted over widely ranging areas which have been checked by a third party and found to be credible? I doubt it. If so, please show me them.
You can't go citing studies that no major organisations accept as being credible. That's like me using a study I conducted in my bedroom.
RAIMIUS wrote:
Studies like the one done by Kellerman have found correlations between gun ownership and homicide trends (often fairly weak or incomplete, but we'll consider them). Which came first, the threat or the gun? No study I have seen has been able to isolate which comes first.
Well, considering the fact that a very wide range of studies conducted globally all come to very, very similar conclusions about gun ownership and gun related deaths, it's pretty clear cut. If you can make accurate predictions which are supported by multiple later studies, that's pretty solid evidence - from a scientific standpoint. The fact that it's a lot easier to perform studies on something like this helps (all you need is the gun-related crime rate and the level of gun ownership for a given country - both easily accessible bits of information).
How to use that factor to reduce crime
Where's the precedent for that happening? Every (substantiated) study ever shows that more guns = more gun crime, fewer guns = less gun crime. Obviously there are warped figures when you look intranationally, as some routinely quote silly studies connected to regional gun bans - which are obviously not relevant to this discussion (the only way gun bans work is if they are all encompassing and you have to pass through some sort of controlled checkpoint to get into that region - like border control points).
But, again, I don't think guns are the primary factor here. But they are a contributary factor, no two ways about it. They are not a tool to reduce crime, they are a asset to criminals.
Nice little graph again - which demonstrates quite nicely that guns probably aren't the primary factor in violent crime in the US (note how far off the line the US is) but that gun ownership levels correlate very neatly with gun related homicides.
