Media Matters
You may have seen the recent claim that gun deaths are declining, thus proving that more guns equals a safer America. Here's an in depth look at all the figures:
"The rate of serious gunshot wounds -- those that require hospitalization -- increased by nearly half between 2001 and 2011. The fact that more gunshot victims are surviving their wounds is hardly evidence for the conservative media's support of weaker gun laws."
And yet, according to the FBI, violent crime rates are declining. Do you think that Media Matters would say that the FBI is lying to help gun rights supporters?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ucrdatatool.gov/Search/Crime/State/RunCrimeStatebyState.cfm
Thanks for the link. It shows clearly why you guys stick so passionatley to the "since 1993" argument.
DeleteCurrent rates of violent crime are at a low over the last two decades, and that's with significant population growth. Something has changed. At the same time, we have more gun owners and more people carrying guns. Those increases have not caused a rise in violence.
DeleteThis is the truth that you won't address and can't answer. We have more people with more guns in more places, but violence is down. That strikes at the heart of your argument.
Hey, more absolute numbers rather than an examination of the rates. And we have some sharp increases and declines over 4 years out of the middle of a 13 year period we've been talking about. There's not enough data to draw a firm conclusion from here, just an emotional one based on deceptive stats.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the same article, 86,000 Americans are shot each year in a gun crime or accident, plus another 18,000 in a suicide attempt. That's a total of 104,000 injuries or deaths. According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, 108,000 Americans defend themselves with a firearm in the same period. The latter is a low-end estimate--the low end of the reasonable estimates, since Mikeb and the Propaganda Professor are certainly not reasonable.
ReplyDeleteNet: Guns are more good than harm.
Greg, your 108,000 DGUs include 95% (or whatever percentage they guessed at for the ESTIMATE) unreported brandishings. In order to be fair, which I know you don't like to be in these arguments, since you're fighting for your rights and all, you'd have to add a similar percentage to the 104,000 which are hard cases of reported crimes.
DeleteYou cannot win the DGU vs. gun crime argument unless you stick with one of the multiple-million ESTIMATES.
Those brandishings are done to save a life, so yes, I'll count them. I'm using the most conservative estimate given by the Federal government--not exactly a strong supporter of gun rights.
DeleteSure sounds like steeply plummeting "gun violence," both fatal and non-fatal, to me.
ReplyDeleteCompared with 1993, the peak of U.S. gun homicides, the firearm homicide rate was 49% lower in 2010, and there were fewer deaths, even though the nation’s population grew. The victimization rate for other violent crimes with a firearm—assaults, robberies and sex crimes—was 75% lower in 2011 than in 1993. Violent non-fatal crime victimization overall (with or without a firearm) also is down markedly (72%) over two decades.
"Compared to 1993" is what your entire false argument depends upon.
DeleteMy "false argument"? What falsehood appears in any statement I've made in this discussion?
DeleteSo tell me Mikeb--if 1993 is such a horrid choice of years to use as a reference point, what year do you think should be used, and what makes that year the vastly more logical choice?
It makes sense to look at peaks and valleys in the big picture- where a trend makes a turn. A good example of a false argument would be to try and highlight a small section of a larger trend just because it is going in your direction- like say... calling 2000-2004 "proof".
DeleteTS, you guys are the ones doing that by always using 1993 as the starting point. To answer Kurt's question, any year before or after that one, gives you a lower percentage of decline. Your argument becomes weaker.
DeleteI wasn't finished. The decline is still there regardless of which year we start with, I admit this. But what you guys keep trying to infer is that it's BECAUSE of the increase in gun ownership. This is just not so. In fact it's exactly the opposite. If it weren't for the increase in gun ownership and availability, the decrease in crime would be much greater. In other words, crime and violence is going down IN SPITE OF the increase in guns not BECAUSE of it.
DeleteI don't infer any such thing. In fact, I've been clear all along in my statements that I don't claim any causation. What you refuse to acknowledge is that the decline in rates of violent crime that is simultaneous with increases in gun ownership and carry strikes at the heart of the gun control argument.
DeleteYour claim is that more guns make us less safe. That claim has been shown to be false. Your attempts to rescue your whole program by saying that the decline in violence would have been much more without guns is just an effort to add one more hypothesis to save your beliefs.
Until you can explain how violence could go down while the presence of guns goes up, your argument is without merit.
Mike, We aren't trying to say that the increase in gun ownership caused the decline. That is your strawman, not our argument. You keep deploying that strawman because you would prefer to try to beat it down rather than deal with the fact that this data, whether we pick '93 or another year, contradicts your statements that more guns and gun accessibility lead to more crime.
DeleteKurt and T., I think you guys are playing dumb and it doesn't suit you any more than it does when Kurt does that.
DeleteYour idea that the decreasing rate of violence strikes at the heart of the gun control contention that more guns means more violence is wrong.
It's simple. If it weren't for the increasing gun availability the rate of violence would be going down much more. The fact that it's as high as it is, even though it represents an improvement, is partly due to the ever increasing gun proliferation.
Indications that this makes sense are that there are over a half-a-million REPORTED gun crimes a year. If you count the ones not reported, we're talking many, many times the number of DGUs. And, most murders and suicides are done with guns.
Indications that this makes sense are that there are over a half-a-million REPORTED gun crimes a year. If you count the ones not reported, we're talking many, many times the number of DGUs. And, most murders and suicides are done with guns.
DeleteAh--NOW I understand! Tennessean and I forgot to count the "unreported" "gun crimes." The ones, you know, that we know nothing about, that we can't confirm, and that we sure as shit can't claim the ability to put a remotely accurate number on.
Now that's funny!
And I still wanna know, Mikeb--are 1992 or 1994 acceptable years for us to use as the starting point? Your rule is "any year but 1993," right?
As I've said before, your statement that violence would have gone down more is unprovable. You made a prediction, it didn't come true, and now you're making an unprovable explanation for why it didn't happen.
DeleteThis is as shoddy an argument as whatever blather the "Judgment Day" guy came up with for moving the date after his prediction didn't come true a couple years back.
Yawn...
Your claims that it's unprovable are based on a convenient fantasy. It says that if guns were removed the exact same number of crimes would be committed with other weapons. Only the biased and, dare I say, dishonest, believe that.
DeleteAnother entry for the Mikeb-to-English Dictionary.
DeleteProof: Mikeb says so.
No, Mike. That argument would be an argument that you are WRONG in your assertion. It would also be unprovable.
DeleteMy statement is that ANY statement of what WOULD have happened is unprovable and, therefore, Moot.
What is germane is that you have said that more guns will lead to more crime, and we have said that more guns will have no effect, or even reduce crime.
Your argument has not been borne out over the past decade, but ours has.
T., you're not hearing me. More guns ARE leading to more crime, not compared to 20 years ago but compared to the crime we would have with less guns. It's not a moot point just because it's unprovable. It only takes a bit of common sense and honesty to see it.
Delete"Ah--NOW I understand! Tennessean and I forgot to count the "unreported" "gun crimes." "
DeleteYes, you did. And you know why? You were too busy tallying up the DGU estimates by adding 95% to the actual number for all the unreported brandishing types.
Do you think only DGUs come in the unreported variety?
You were too busy tallying up the DGU estimates by adding 95% to the actual number for all the unreported brandishing types.
DeleteYou appear to be more than a little confused, Mikeb. When did I talk about DGU stats? I know I haven't in this discussion. I generally don't bother even tracking such stats, since I believe them to be irrelevant. As Jeff Snyder explains in his brilliant "Nation of Cowards":
For the sake of discussion, let's assume that keeping and bearing arms suitable for self-defense is a bona fide individual right. If so, the fact that 100,000 people a year murder others with firearms, while one man alone uses a firearm to save a life, provides no basis for curbing the individual liberty to own and bear arms. Each individual must, because of his inherent, autonomous ethical freedom, be respected as an end in himself; no prior restraint may be imposed upon his right to own and bear firearms.
Actually we can go further. Under an individual right view, the fact that 100,000 people a year murder innocents with firearms, and no one uses a firearm to protect himself or others provides no basis for a prior restraint. Individuals must still be possessed of a right to own firearms because their ethical freedom contains the potentiality of using firearms for good. That is, people can use this tool for good, if they turn to it with a good will.
I could make a common sense argument that we are having less crime than we would have had without guns. You would reject the argument because you are predisposed against it, but it would have just as much logic behind it. The problem lies not in our logic, but in our presuppositions.
DeleteIt would appear that we are at an impasse and that it isn't worth digging back to this old thread just to keep hearing you say "Do SO!" over and over again.
Kurt, you're definitely on the 3 o'clock mark with that extremist fanatical nonsense.
DeleteKurt, you're definitely on the 3 o'clock mark with that extremist fanatical nonsense.
DeleteThe clear fact that my rights are my rights, no matter what anyone else does with their rights, is "fanatical nonsense"? Only to a senseless fanatic.
I think I've finally figured out your hilarious claim to be at "11" on your silly clock. You mean at least 12 hours before (more like 24 or 36--probably 48) the general time frame of everyone else.
That much better fits the fact that you advocate restrictions that the Brady Campaign, the Violence Policy Center, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Illegal Mayors Against Guns, etc., would not dare advocate publicly, because (unlike you, apparently) they hope to be taken seriously by the public.
"Kurt, you're definitely on the 3 o'clock mark with that extremist fanatical nonsense."--MikeB
DeleteIf what Kurt stated was such offensive extremism, then I guess the same applies to the insistence upon due process so that we would rather see 100 guilty men go free than hang 1 innocent man.
What horrible extremism! The only rational thing is to trust the police when they say that someone is guilty, just like in a may issue permit system, and just kill em all and let God sort em out!
Great news, guys! Mikeb seems to have finally seen reason, and now seems no longer to believe that there's anything misleading, much less borderline dishonest, in using 1993 as the basis year in charting the steady, long decline in violent crime.
DeleteTo answer Kurt's question, any year before or after that one, gives you a lower percentage of decline. Your argument becomes weaker.
ReplyDeleteSo if we use the year that most strongly supports our position, we're being disingenuous, if not outright dishonest, but if we pick the second most advantageous year, we're golden? Is that the rule?
But what you guys keep trying to infer is that it's BECAUSE of the increase in gun ownership.
I hadn't known that you were a mind reader, and knew what we're "trying to infer," but in my case, you seem to be a bit off. I'm actually somewhat skeptical of Lott's assertion of a causal relationship between rising gun ownership and falling violent crime. Good luck in your efforts to kick that straw man's ass, though.
I do think that those two trends taken together--over a time period in which there has been considerable economic turmoil--cast serious doubt on the "more guns, more crime" hypothesis.
And the fact that you yourself admit that any year we choose still supports our position, if not as dramatically, doesn't bother you, even a little?
In fact it's exactly the opposite. If it weren't for the increase in gun ownership and availability, the decrease in crime would be much greater. In other words, crime and violence is going down IN SPITE OF the increase in guns not BECAUSE of it.
OK--you've made an assertion. Now defend it. "Because I said so!" ain't gonna cut it.