More Guns Do Not Stop More Crimes, Evidence Shows

[Yarddog]

More firearms do not keep people safe, hard numbers show. Why do so many Americans believe the opposite?

• The claim that gun ownership stops crime is common in the U.S., and that belief drives laws that make it easy to own and keep firearms.
• But about 30 careful studies show more guns are linked to more crimes: murders, rapes, and others. Far less research shows that guns help.
• Interviews with people in heavily gun-owning towns show they are not as wedded to the crime defense idea as the gun lobby claims.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/...utm_content&utm_term=health_feature_text_free

The moment that a fire arm comes into a home that place becomes a much more dangerous place to live in, in almost all cases. That fire arm is more likely to be used to shoot a family member than stop a crime.

 

[majj27]

The ten most deadly bombings in the US killed a total of 311 people since 1886. That's 131 years.

On average, we top that every four days in terms of gun fatalities.

Just saying that bombs aren't anywhere NEAR guns in terms of how many Americans they kill.

 

[majj27]

The moment that a fire arm comes into a home that place becomes a much more dangerous place to live in, in almost all cases. That fireman is more likely to be used to shoot a family member than stop a crime.

There are times I love autocorrect.

 

[hedrick]

I think one of the strongest pieces of evidence is the fact that the CDC is prohibited from doing studies. If Congress didn't have a pretty good idea of what they'd find, this wouldn't be in place.

 

[Yonny Costopoulis]

More firearms do not keep people safe, hard numbers show. Why do so many Americans believe the opposite?

• The claim that gun ownership stops crime is common in the U.S., and that belief drives laws that make it easy to own and keep firearms.
• But about 30 careful studies show more guns are linked to more crimes: murders, rapes, and others. Far less research shows that guns help.
• Interviews with people in heavily gun-owning towns show they are not as wedded to the crime defense idea as the gun lobby claims.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/...utm_content&utm_term=health_feature_text_free

Monster that live under bed can be scary to some peoples.

 

[Yonny Costopoulis]

Better interpretation of the statistics is that presence or absence of guns makes no statistically significant difference in a given circumstance.

Neighborhoods that are already safe stay safe when gun laws are relaxed.

Neighborhoods that are already dangerous stay dangerous when gun laws are tightened.

This is shown to be true internationally as well.

Either people are inclined to be violent in an area or they are not.

I am not knowing these studies but would not more strict gun control laws lessen gun violence and gun accidents? Maybe still violence but not gun violence?

 

[RDKirk]

I am not knowing these studies but would not more strict gun control laws lessen gun violence and gun accidents? Maybe still violence but not gun violence?

Has the War on Drugs reduced drugs? No, it's just put a generation into prison and drugs are even more prevalent. Old really scary drugs like LSD have returned, even scarier drugs like crystal meth and bath salts have appeared, and the problem is worse than ever.

It would be no different with a War on Guns. Guns are even easier to make in a basement shop than growing marijuana or mixing meth.

Gun laws work in places that people don't particularly want to hurt each other anyway--by any means.

Would I be happy if guns just vanished magically overnight? No, because I'm an old man and I can't take a punch from some young punk who decides old men are ripe for plucking. Removing guns hasn't solved my problem if I'm still in a violence-prone society.

 

[Phil 1:21]

The ten most deadly bombings in the US killed a total of 311 people since 1886. That's 131 years.

On average, we top that every four days in terms of gun fatalities.

Just saying that bombs aren't anywhere NEAR guns in terms of how many Americans they kill.

Meanwhile, the number two of people killed in this massacre is about the same as killed in an average month on m Chicago, a city with some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. So...how's that working out?

 

[majj27]

Meanwhile, the number two of people killed in this massacre is about the same as killed in an average month on m Chicago, a city with some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. So...how's that working out?

By golly, you're right! The solution, I suppose is to encourage the neighboring cities to flood Chicago with even MORE guns than they already do! With silencers!

I suppose we ought to just forget about it and accept that we will gladly sacrifice the lives of 15,000 Americans a year on the altar of Guns.

Yes, this is hyperbole. But if we're not going to have a real conversation, this is what we're left with: screaming at each other.

 

[Phil 1:21]

By golly, you're right! The solution, I suppose is to encourage the neighboring cities to flood Chicago with even MORE guns than they already do! With silencers!

I suppose we ought to just forget about it and accept that we will gladly sacrifice the lives of 15,000 Americans a year on the altar of Guns.

Yes, this is hyperbole. But if we're not going to have a real conversation, this is what we're left with: screaming at each other.

Who's screaming?

 

[Fireinfolding]

Meanwhile, the number two of people killed in this massacre is about the same as killed in an average month on m Chicago, a city with some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. So...how's that working out?

By golly, you are right! The ideal solution would be to flood them with MORE laws against guns, that ought to fix it.

 

[Audacious]

By golly, you are right! The ideal solution would be to flood them with MORE laws against guns, that ought to fix it.

Or we could do something like Australia's gun buyback program...

 

[Fireinfolding]

Or we could do something like Australia's gun buyback program...

Is Australia's buy back program different from Chicago's 13 years ago?

EDITORIAL: Chicago Police's 'missing' buyback gun points to inside job

 

[miamited]

Hi jay,

You wrote:

Meanwhile, the number two of people killed in this massacre is about the same as killed in an average month on m Chicago, a city with some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. So...how's that working out?

In case you're interested, that claim doesn't hold water. Chicago is by no means a city with stricter gun controls than many other cities. It used to be, but that was before it became the murder capital of the country. Not is isn't, and it is the murder capital of the country.

Here's some info you might like to refresh your claim with: Chicago toughest on gun control? A claim shot full of holes

And here's some information from your own city's newspaper. Of course, I'm sure it's labeled as 'fake news' by those who don't believe it. The truth — and lies — about Chicago's gun laws

Here's another small piece of a report on the changes over the last 10 years or so to Chicago's 'strict' gun law claims: Here's a timeline of recent changes to Chicago's laws:

• June 2010: Chicago's ban on handguns was ended by the Supreme Court in the McDonald v. Chicago case

• December 2012: Illinois' concealed carry ban — the last of its kind in the United States — ended in a court decision, though the state still restricts where people can carry concealed guns

• July 2013: The Firearm Concealed Carry Act went into effect, providing regulations for concealed carry

• September 2013: Chicago ends its gun registry

• January 2014: A judge rejected Chicago's ban on gun shops

• June 2017: Gov. Bruce Rauner signed a law that's meant to lead to harsher punishments for people repeatedly convicted of gun crimes

Gosh, go figure.

Finally, you can't show gun restrictions as being worthy in reducing murders unless you have a 'closed system'. Just because a city within a nation enacts strict gun laws, unless those laws are carried out across the country, then the restrictions don't do what they're intended to do. If you live in a city with strict gun laws, all anyone has to do in our country of free and unrestricted travel, is drive 30 miles to the next city to buy their guns. For gun laws to work, they must apply across a much larger area than just a city. Even in Japan, if the entire nation allowed free access to firearms, but just one city held on to tighter controls, you wouldn't see the real effect of that singular city having less mortality by guns. You would have to have border control into the city to restrict the movement of firearms into the city.

When an entire nation lives by the same strict gun regulations, then the only thing you have to be concerned with is people driving in across the border, which is usually highly regulated or flying in to airports which are also highly regulated. You can't drive 30 miles to a Big Bob's Guns and Burgers in the next city. You have to leave the country to purchase weapons.

Finally, when you say that Chicago has the strictest gun regulations, your comparing that to the general regulations of the United States. Chicago could make a law that you can only buy 10 rounds of ammunition at a time and they'd have the strictest gun laws in the United States. It doesn't really take much to boast that you have the strictest gun laws in the United States.

This is why I prefer to base my evidence on the laws regulations of firearms by nation when determining whether or not stricter gun regulations does seem to have any bearing on firearms deaths.

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

 

[RDKirk]

When an entire nation lives by the same strict gun regulations, then the only thing you have to be concerned with is people driving in across the border, which is usually highly regulated or flying in to airports which are also highly regulated. You can't drive 30 miles to a Big Bob's Guns and Burgers in the next city. You have to leave the country to purchase weapons.

Yes, and that is how the US successfully eradicated the existence and threat of dangerous drugs in the country.

 

[miamited]

Yes, and that is how the US successfully eradicated the existence and threat of dangerous drugs in the country.

Hi RD,

I understand that my position isn't shared by a lot of people in this country. However, I've never been one to propose the position that since our attempt at enforcing laws in one area means we should just give up on enforcing laws throughout our society. Perhaps, since we haven't been successful at reducing drug use we should just disband the legislature altogether. Why even have laws? We so obviously can't accomplish anything by having them.

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

 

[RDKirk]

Hi RD,

I understand that my position isn't shared by a lot of people in this country. However, I've never been one to propose the position that since our attempt at enforcing laws in one area means we should just give up on enforcing laws throughout our society. Perhaps, since we haven't been successful at reducing drug use we should just disband the legislature altogether. Why even have laws? We so obviously can't accomplish anything by having them.

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, getting the same result each time, but always saying, 'Next time, for sure!'"

Actually eliminating--even substantially reducing--the number of guns in the US would require significantly changing the nature of the concept of freedom and policing in the nation.

It's a lot easier to make a gun in a garage than grow marijuana or make meth. The Draconian tactics used in the War on Drugs in the inner cities would have to be used across the nation on everybody all the time.

Here is an interesting opinion from an anti-gun researcher that I think is true:

Opinion | I used to think gun control was the answer. My research told me otherwise.

Before I started researching gun deaths, gun-control policy used to frustrate me. I wished the National Rifle Association would stop blocking common-sense gun-control reforms such as banning assault weapons, restricting silencers, shrinking magazine sizes and all the other measures that could make guns less deadly.

Then, my colleagues and I at FiveThirtyEight spent three months analyzing all 33,000 lives ended by guns each year in the United States, and I wound up frustrated in a whole new way. We looked at what interventions might have saved those people, and the case for the policies I’d lobbied for crumbled when I examined the evidence. The best ideas left standing were narrowly tailored interventions to protect subtypes of potential victims, not broad attempts to limit the lethality of guns.

 

[miamited]

Hi RD,

Well, I guess the answer is that Americans are just a murderous lot of people. God bless America!!! I wonder if our lot is God's blessing for our faithfulness? Perhaps, since gun restrictions aren't the reason all these other nations have such lower per capita gun deaths, it's God's judgment on America.

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

 

[RDKirk]

Hi RD,

Well, I guess the answer is that Americans are just a murderous lot of people. God bless America!!! I wonder if our lot is God's blessing for our faithfulness? Perhaps, since gun restrictions aren't the reason all these other nations have such lower per capita gun deaths, it's God's judgment on America.

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

Americans appear to be a murderous bunch of people in all ways compared to other industrial nations. Some of it is traceable to factors such as income inequity and cultural heterogeneity.

A lot of it goes down to very American cultural factors such as a preference to violence rather than to accept whatever "injustice" to which any given individual feels subjected. That particular factor has certainly increased across the board in the US in just the last couple of decades.

 

[Armoured]

Is Australia's buy back program different from Chicago's 13 years ago?

EDITORIAL: Chicago Police's 'missing' buyback gun points to inside job

Yes.