We've been told emphatically there's no correlation between guns and murder rates. Lengthy, impossible-to-follow analyses have been offered to justify this incredible claim. But my question remains unanswered. How can there NOT be a correlation between gun availability and murder rates given that such a high percentage of overall murders are gun murders?
I figure the only possible answer would be that if no guns were available, the would-be murderers would ALL resort to one of the other weapons, knives, blunt objects, etc. And it's not like we've never heard that one either. But, seriously, does it make sense to you? Do you think that if the most efficient and successful killing tool were not available, the same number of murders would take place?
I don't think so.
Therefore, by diminishing gun availability to the most unfit people by the implementation of strict gun control and by removing guns from those who prove themselves to be irresponsible, fewer people would die - lives would be saved.
Mikeb, there is no correlation between a state's gun laws and its murder rate. We've been through the numbers many times. Some slave states have high murder rates, while other slave states have low murder rates. Some free states have high murder rates, while other free states have low murder rates. If gun control worked, this shouldn't be the case. Your side obsesses about one category of murder, while we've shown you repeatedly that gun laws don't affect the total number of murders. How many get killed is categorically more important than how they do.
ReplyDelete"Slave" and "free" States. Laughable.
DeleteAnd I've shown you repeatedly that Vermont does not have any cities like Camden or Oakland. Your whining complaint would make sense if I'd been saying gun availability is the only factor. But I don't say that, do I?
DeleteIt's the only factor you care about, apparently. It's the only factor you go on and on at length about. It's the only factor that you demand restrictions and bans on.
DeleteWell excuse the hell out of me for not being into education and unemployment.
DeleteOh, Mike. I keep point out how this does not at all dispute the lack of correlation that I showed you so many times. First of all, I mentioned how criminals have guns whether or not the good people around them do, or when “tough gun laws” are in place to try and stop them. This 68% figure is true even in the low gun ownership/tough gun law states. Look at this link (which uses the same source material you posted):
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/jan/10/gun-crime-us-state
The figures show that California had the highest number of gun murders last year - 1,790, which is 68% of all murders that year
California has THE SAME 68% as the rest of the country! That alone should show you how it is completely possible that household gun ownership or strength of guns laws can be uncorrelated to murder. Don’t you see?
Aside from that, even if percent of murders that used guns did go down with household gun ownership or Brady score (which it doesn’t), it still doesn’t dispute the lack of correlation I showed you. This 68% figure does not address that guns can also prevent murder. So even if you did manage to reduce access to guns for criminals, if you also reduce it for good people trying to defend themselves, the murder rate might very well not go down. Plus there are substitution effects. If gun murders were to go down, but if knife murders make up for them, then there still won’t be a correlation to overall murder rates. I know what you’re going to say: knives aren’t as deadly, guns do more harm than good, yada, yada, yada. Then we should see a correlation in the murder rate. That is what we should be looking at. We shouldn’t be looking at an apple and calling it an orange. Let’s just count the freaking oranges if we want to know how many oranges we have.
No, I don't see. What you say about CA would make sense if they had proper gun control laws there. They don't. Also it might make sense if they had fewer guns. They don't.
DeleteSee, sometimes when I have you backed into a corner, you come back as say it’s because no one has “proper gun control”. Are you saying I am right that there is no correlation? That current gun control policies don’t work? That is why there is no correlation? So we have to do gun control harder and everywhere before we see results, right? No, you still probably refuse to agree with me, even though you are are agreeing with me when you use the excuse, “What you say about CA would make sense if they had proper gun control laws there. They don't.”
DeleteMikeB: “Also it might make sense if they had fewer guns. They don't.”
They have the seventh lowest household gun ownership of all the states according to LCAV. And they used that figure to say gun control saves lives because they have fewer “gun deaths”.
If they had what I consider proper gun control, it would work even better than it does now. That's what I say.
DeleteYou always ignore the fact that criminals get their guns from the law abiding. California criminals have to go over to Arizona or Nevada to get them since the availability in their home state is limited. So yes, we need stricter gun control and we need it federally to apply in all states the same way.
MikeB: "If they had what I consider proper gun control, it would work even better than it does now. That's what I say."
DeleteEven better than it does now? Murder rates aren’t any better, and neither is percent of murder using a gun (which you seem to feel is important).
Mikeb, even if California's gun laws aren't strict enough--a bizarre and disgusting point of view, but let's pretend for the moment--the fact that they are some of the strictest in the nation should show some effect. But as TS demonstrates time and again, there is no correlation.
DeleteTS, if CA had the loose laws of AZ, their murder rate would be higher. This is simple math, dare I tell you. Gun availability would go way up, it would be that much easier for criminals to get guns and the results would be more murders.
DeleteSo, yes, the CA gun control laws do work but only up to a point.
That's a statement that cannot be grounded in fact, its only your assumption. To ground it in fact California would have to have Arizona gun laws for a period of time.
DeleteBut it is possible to follow other states that have loosened their laws and were predicted to have blood flowing in the streets. However that didn't happen. What did happen instead was that the crime rated dropped, and in some states it dropped nearly over night and by as much as half. To dispute this fact you have to call not only the state's facts in dispute but the FBI as well. As well as other studies that have followed the results as well as Obama and his exe order to do the study that have found these results, although that's not what he was hoping to find and was quickly hushed and forgotten.
And the states that have loosened their laws didn't make it any more easy for criminals to get gun than before. If anything it has made it easier to track and find straw purchases, track thefts and identify overall bad people trying to get guns. We have only one problem here, lack of prosecution, especially at the federal level. But the bright side is this, criminals may have or get guns, as they always have been able to do despite any gun laws, the common good or law abiding citizen can now defend themselves from the criminal which has done two things. One it makes the criminal give pause to think about who is armed and who isn't. Second, and this is unfortunate, the criminals have moved to targets that are in more poor areas that are not as likely to afford the protection themselves. So the target area has shifted from the well to do to the poor. But the crime rate still went down in the poor areas as well. Why? The poor doesn't have that much to take from to make it worth their while or risk. These results are also cited in many studies like the FBI as well as Obama's fact finding exe order.
I mean, really. Your logic progression is simply baffling. When asked the question, “Are there more murders where there are more guns?” you ignore the data on household gun ownership and FBI statistics on murder. Instead you pull out a statistic on percentage of murder using guns, and deduce the answer based on two faulty assumptions: one, that gun control works at keeping guns out of bad hands, and two, that guns do more bad than good. Mike, your two assumptions are part of what we are trying to find out by asking that question. It is like you won’t even allow your brain to work through the logic because it’s already hardcoded in there that guns are bad and gun control works.
ReplyDeleteMikeB: “Do you think that if the most efficient and successful killing tool were not available, the same number of murders would take place? I don't think so.”
But we can look at the murder rates to find out! We don’t have to deduce it from murder weapon percentages using faulty assumptions- the very assumptions that we are trying to validate/debunk by asking the question. Don’t you see?
I tell ya, you can lead a gun controller to the facts, but you can’t make them think.
You're the one ignoring facts. Guns are as readily available in CA in spite of their slightly stricter gun control laws as they are in AZ. Murder rates don't answer my question, although you pretend they do.
Delete“Do you think that if the most efficient and successful killing tool were not available, the same number of murders would take place? I don't think so.”
MikeB: “Guns are as readily available in CA in spite of their slightly stricter gun control laws as they are in AZ.”
DeleteAs readily available to criminals, yes. That’s what I have been telling you, but you think it is BS when I say it. The general population does not have a lot of guns compared to the other states. They are seventh lowest in household gun ownership, AND number 1 in gun control laws.
How does looking at the murder rate not answer your question on whether or not there will be more murders?
DeleteSo, criminals don't count in the "general population?" That's another mistake you guys love to make when it's convenient, you ignore criminals as if they don't count.
DeleteBy "general population" I mean everyone. But how does that change what I said? If you think about it, the results of a gun ownership survey probably don’t consist of a lot of people admitting to illegally owning guns. But again, what does that have to do with my point? Fewer Californians own guns than most other states, but those who are likely to murder seem to own them just as much, judging by their murder rate and the same 68% committed with guns.
DeleteYou're making a big leap in logic, shame on you. You can't possibly know this: "but those who are likely to murder seem to own them just as much."
DeleteI say if lawful gun ownership was higher in CA, the gun flow from those legal owners into the criminal world would be higher. That would lead to a higher murder rate.
Of course there is a huge correlation between guns and murder rate. This has been shown over and over again. Kellermann's excellent and highly praised work has shown that there is a much higher likelihood of a gun being present in households where a murder is committed. Gawd only knows what TS's ridiculous numbers show.
ReplyDeleteHold on, you just said Kellermann’s study has nothing to do with state correlation of gun ownership to murder. Now when I am talking about these state data, you bring up Kellermann as a rebuttal. You said that is something completely different. Will you make up your mind?
DeleteSo did you run a correlation calc for state household gun ownership rates vs. murder rate? Did you do it?
And they are not “my numbers”. They are the FBI and LCAV’s numbers. Don’t believe my calculation. Do it yourself.
TS, your desperate attempts at the elusive gotcha is a pain in the ass. You turn every comment thread into a drag, man. POed Lib did not make this comment as a rebuttal to what you said earlier. This was a new comment starting a new threat to which you replied.
DeleteThe issue here is the difference between the "no guns" houses and "one gun or more" houses. It is not the case that the relationship between # guns and murder is linear through 0. Nope, I doubt it's linear anywhere. Rather, at 0 guns, murders are much less likely than at one gun. if that is the case, you cannot look at the rate of murder for 1 gun, 2 gun, 3 gun, 4, and extend it to 0. This is not what is going on out there. There will not be a gun murder in my house, because we have no guns.
ReplyDeleteMake sure you post a sign out front so that any criminal deciding to come in uninvited knows not to bring their gun in to shoot you - otherwise there may still be a gun murder in your house.
DeleteI already corrected you on this. Those figures I showed you are household gun ownership. The data are not total guns per 100 people. The published estimate we see for that figure is 88 guns per 100 people for the whole USA. If you look at the data I showed, Wyoming has the highest household gun ownership at 62.8% percent of homes with a gun. Obviously this is not Wyoming’s total guns per 100 people. That would probably be closer to 200.
DeleteWhat is baffling logic, is denying that the increase of anything will increase the abuse of that thing.
ReplyDeleteDuh. Just like an increase in prescription pain meds leads to an increase in abuse of prescription pain meds. Or an increase in having babies leads to an increase in child abuse. That is why it is faulty to use “gun deaths” as your measure, and why murder rates tell the real story. You are only looking at the presence of a thing compared to the bad use of that thing, while ignoring the good.
DeleteGun abuse is not only gun shot deaths, but the tens of thousands of injuries and even more dangerous stupid mistakes. To say more guns does not produce more gun abuses doesn't pass the logic test. There is good and bad in the use of anything, but not everything used badly, or abused causes death, or crippling injury. Guns are in a deadly class of their own.
DeleteLike a pit bull, TS keeps repeating this non sequitur.
Delete"You are only looking at the presence of a thing compared to the bad use of that thing, while ignoring the good."
Murder rates or gun deaths have nothing to do with DGUs. "Ignoring the good" might be unacceptable in a discussion of gun misuse vs. DGUs, but that's not what we're discussing here, is it?
“To say more guns does not produce more gun abuses doesn't pass the logic test.”
DeleteI didn’t say that. In fact I specifically said it is expected to find more abuses of a thing where there is more of that thing. What I said is that there are no more murders where there are more guns, and there are no more violent crimes where there are more guns.
MikeB: “Murder rates or gun deaths have nothing to do with DGUs. "Ignoring the good" might be unacceptable in a discussion of gun misuse vs. DGUs, but that's not what we're discussing here, is it?”
Murder rates DO take into account the good, because someone cab prevent themselves from being murdered with a gun.
That's no only a bit of a stretch, but it's not provable. Are you going to start making guesses now? Are you going to guess how many supposed DGUs would have resulted in a death?
DeleteNo, I'm just going to look at the murder rates and compare it to gun ownership. No guessing involved. You claim ignorance when I show you the numbers, but POed Lib professes knowledge in statistics, but you noticed I wasn't able to get him/her to say these numbers are correlated. Instead I get a complete dodge.
DeleteWell then why did you bring up DGUs?
DeleteAnd, can you answer my question in plain English? It's in the title of the post in case you forgot.
I didn't bring up DGUs, you did. I said guns do good and bad, and looking at the murder rates would tell us if more people are getting murdered where there are more guns. That takes into account if guns are used to prevent murder, rather than just tallying up all the bad things that happen with guns.
DeleteAs far the the answer to you title, I already showed you. The number 1 rated gun control state also has 68% of it murders having used guns. Percent of murders with a gun is not correlated to gun control, or gun ownership, so that explains why those are also not correlated to murder.
"Guns doing good" and "preventing murder" is not talking about DGUs? Is that what you're saying? You didn't bring up DGUs, I did?
DeleteThat was a pretty feeble attempt to answer my question. No wonder you usually go into those long super-math explanations that no one can follow.
If 70% of murders are committed with guns, then gun control would have a direct and positive effect on murder rates. Nothing could be simpler. As I said the only way it would not, is if you believe in the wild theory that we've often heard from you guys that every would-be murderer who doesn't have access to a gun would grab a knife or baseball bat and commit just as many murders only with a different tool. I don't think even you believe that.
Mike: "If 70% of murders are committed with guns, then gun control would have a direct and positive effect on murder rates. Nothing could be simpler."
DeleteWhat if gun control doesn't work? Again, I just showed you that the best state in the country did nothing to reduce that 68%. We don't even have to get into self-defense and substitution when the basic "nothing could be simpler" element is shown to not be working. We are trying to answer the question "does gun control work?" Why isn't looking at murder rates better than some convoluted approach where 'gun control works' is built into your assumptions?
My point about DGUs is that I am not trying to come up with a count and speculate on how many might have saved a life. We're just looking at murder rates here. Nothing could be simpler.
I am baffled at how un-logical mikeB is.. its like hes not thinking..
ReplyDelete