ID - 2 year boy accidentally shoots and kills mother in walmart in ths US

[CoolJ]

When we can't refute the message, we attack the messenger.

Love it.

But the message has been refuted. And not by me. Did you read the response from Harvard School of Public Health?

I have shown an abundance of peer reviewed research to substantiate my statement. More guns = More needless death.

Go back to my post where I list 5 or 6 peer reviewed articles from reputable peer reviewed journals. When using science and statistics to prove a thesis, peer reviewed is how it is done. Personally, I prefer common sense. But you wanted to do it this way. So I play along.
If you can do the same, then we can have a discussion. But until then the evidence is very clear.

 

[Brightbird]

You mean like Florida's murder rate going DOWN as concealed carriers go UP?

You mean like England's murder rate going UP as gun ownership goes DOWN?

You mean like Chicago's crime rate going UP as handgun ownership goes DOWN?

Like that? Yeah, we got that covered.

In the first chart, showing the homicide rates and gun ownership in European countries, I was showing that there are countries with high gun ownership and high crime, high gun ownership and low crime, low gun ownership and low crime, and low gun ownership and low crime. Any assertion that more guns = more crime is clearly disproved by the existence of countries with more guns and less crime. Any assertion that less guns = less crime is clearly disproved by the existence of countries with less guns and more crime.

Would you like it better if I group those countries together? Here you go:

Russia, Luxembourg and Hungary are the three countries with the highest murder rate, and all three have very low gun ownership rates. Austria, Norway, Germany and Switzerland are the 4 countries with the lowest murder rates and high gun ownership rates. Therefore, we see the correlation across countries that more guns = less crime and less guns = more crime.

The point is that no one who is willing to consider actual facts can look at those numbers and insist that more guns = more crime -- or more "needless deaths" as CoolJ likes to put it. I'm still not sure what specific deaths CoolJ is referring to, because "more guns" does not consistently correlate with more murder or more suicide.

BBM. I have no idea how you can look at the numbers in that table of European countries and conclude there is any correlation. If you want to pull out the countries with a similar trend and call that a correlation, then go ahead. I call that bad science.

I think you're falling for the correlation = causation error. Your claim that "any assertion that more guns = more crime is clearly disproved by the existence of countries with more guns and less crime" is just not true. To use the dreaded car example, the existence of countries with more cars and less car accident deaths does not disprove that more cars = more car accident deaths. It suggests that there are other variables at play, e.g., speed, car technology, drink driving, road rules, road quality, beliefs and attitudes, and so on. There are also other factors that have less direct effects, like more people working from home, better public transport and taxes on alcohol (no, I am not advocating taxes on guns). From a social policy perspective, governments can choose several options - a) ban cars entirely, b) do nothing, c) regulate, and d) educate. It would be very bad policy to conclude that the existence of places without a correlation between number of cars and number of car deaths means therefore there is no problem. Banning cars entirely is impractical on many levels. It seems that regulation and education is lowering the rate of car accident deaths. Likewise, most gun control advocates agree that banning guns entirely is impractical and goes too far in limiting freedom. Countries can invest in social policy that deters people from crime, and I don't mean building more jails. But I can already hear the cries of "argh socialism". What's left is regulation and education, or do nothing. It is only the most fervent pro gun people who say that if the problem doesn't exist in one place, then it doesn't exist anywhere. That's faulty logic.

The numbers for Luxembourg look pretty dubious don't you think? I can't find any other source to confirm a murder rate that high, or app. zero guns.

 

[TrackerSam]

You really don't get the term "cherry picking" do you? This is a trend I am noticing as I look through control opinion pieces. The pro-gun folks point to these outlier situations to prove their point. The anti-gun folks point to full studies that look at the information as a whole. Yes we know you can find charts (and don't get me started on how easy it is to make a chart look the way you want) to support any view. Let me have a read through the "Harvard" study. But at a quick glance it looks to be an interpretation of previous studies. There were no new studies involved.

But you're doing the exact same thing. Figures lie and liars figure. What gun control would you like to impose that would have prevented this tragedy?

 

[Tricia]

Hi Everyone,

This thread is closed. The topic went off the rails long ago.

We are not discussing gun control.

Here is the problem; If we start up a gun control thread for you all to participate on everything will be fine and everyone will behave, for about 58 seconds.

The mods and I will discuss a possible gun control thread over the next few days. If it happens there will be notices announcing the thread and a link to it from the last post in this thread.

I love your passion. You are at Websleuths because you care about others and their tragedy. I am very grateful to all of you for being a part of Websleuths.

Tricia