Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Gun Availability is the Problem

Common Gunsense

The gun lobby is trying hard to keep the real facts about the causes and effects of gun violence from going public. Not only do events on the ground interfere with their dangerous mantra that more guns make us safer but there are more groups and individuals doing research and writing about the truth. This article by Mike Weiss takes on the gun lobby yet again:
"According to the FBI, from 2000 to 2012 there were slightly more than 200,000 homicide victims of which slightly more than two-thirds were killed with guns. This is an average of 10,400 gun homicides each year, a remarkably-stable number over the past thirteen years. Of these gun killings, slightly more than 15 percent involved women as victims, or roughly 21,000 over the same span of years. When women are homicide victims, most if not virtually all of these shootings grew out of some sort of IPV. Let's not forget, incidentally, that men were also shot to death by their girlfriends or their wives an average of 700 times per year. Taken together, domestic violence probably claimed more than 2,200 victims annually between 2000 and 2012, or one-fifth of all gun fatalities during those years.
The degree to which homicide grows out of personal disputes is shown by the fact that of the total murders committed in 2012, only slightly more than 20 percent took place during the commission of other crimes. The rest happened because people who knew each other, and in most cases knew each other on a long-term, continuous basis, got into an argument about money, or who dissed who, or who was sleeping with someone else, or some other dumb thing. And many times they were drunk or high on drugs, but no matter what, like Walter Mosley says, "sooner or later" the gun goes off.
Here's the bottom line on gun violence and crime. Every year 20,000+ shoot themselves intentionally, which is suicide. Another thousand, give or take a hundred, kill themselves accidentally with a gun. Then another 10,000 use a gun to kill someone else, but 8,000 of those shootings had nothing to do with other violent crimes. If we define gun violence as using a gun to end a human life, the FBI is telling us that less than 10 percent of those fatalities would be eliminated if we got rid of all violent crime. The NRA can try to convince its members that the reason for gun violence is that there's too much crime, but the data from the FBI clearly indicates that the reason for gun violence is that there are too many guns."



11 comments:

  1. Its very telling that Mike, the liberal "gun guy" reminisces about "the good old days" when the police didn't have to recognize those pesky civil rights citizens seem to think they have coming. The term, the ends justify the means comes to mind.
    As for his throwing out general figures and attempting to suggest that most are intimate partners, I'd invite everyone to go look at the source of the data,

    http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_10_murder_circumstances_by_relationship_2013.xls

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    1. Where did you get the "reminisces about "the good old days"" idea?

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    2. "Where did you get the "reminisces about "the good old days"" idea?"

      From the "gun guy's" article.


      "As tough and brutal as they were, the members of this crew never carried guns. Why not? Because whenever anything went down in the neighborhood, the cops would come around, line them up against the wall, administer the Miranda warning by kicking them in the ass or punching them in the face, and then pat them all down for guns. If the cops found a gun, that guy was slammed into the back of the patrol car and wasn't seen for a long time. Don't think for one second that aggressive, in-your-face street patrols used by Giuliani and Bloomberg to drive down gun crime in New York City is such a new idea."

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    3. I thought you were calling me the liveral gun guy.

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  2. Hi Mike, just for fun, I'm going to comment on a couple of other things on Japete's post. I left a comment for each on her site, though my experience has been that if I'm not so irritating that I can be used as a bad example, or if it doesn't agree with her opinion, then I likely wasted some keystrokes.
    "I spent a day at the Minnesota Capitol this week testifying against a bill that would allow Minnesotans to purchase gun silencers and carry their guns at the Capitol with no notification."
    I was pretty bummed because I wasn't able to attend the hearings. In fact, my elected representative is one of the co-authors of the suppressor bill. The common refrain among those opposing this bill, since there isn't any real indication that they've been a used in crimes in the 39 states that already allow them, is that people don't "need" them.
    Supporters of the bill bring up the health and environmental aspects of using suppressors, which is one of the reasons they are permitted in the UK, and the response is that you can use headphones. In fact, Japete says this,
    "Wearing protective hearing devices, however, may be a cheaper and easier way to do this without changing a law that shouldn't be changed. Check out this ad from Cabelas. The pictured ear muff lowers by 22 decibels the sound of a gun shot while also enhancing the ability to hear your hunting partner or other sounds around you while hunting. The claims made by the gun lobby advocates were that silencers would lower the sound by 30 decibels. The difference is not so much and the cost is much less to buy an ear muff like this."
    Me, being the confrontational sort that I am left a comment mentioning that the decibel measurement system isn't linear, but logarithmic, and that for every three decibels of increased protection, the sound is reduced by half. So the protection is much more effective that she suggests.

    To be continued,

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  3. And the other issue was the notification requirement for a permit holder to carry in the Capitol complex. Japete's comment is this,
    "The problem with this line of reasoning is that Capitol security could access this information but only if they have reason to believe someone they see with a gun is not a permit holder. How will they know if someone is or isn't? I don't see how they will. This opens the door to someone who does not have a legal permit to walk around our Capitol where school kids come for tours, people are there for rally days and lobbying and committee hearings on controversial subjects ( like guns, for example) take place during the sessions. If no one needs to notify security, anyone could potentially carry their gun around with them. And waiting for Capitol security to approach a gun carrier to ask may be too late."
    Japete's use of circular logic becomes quite apparent. First let me provide some background. Minnesota's Capitol building and the Senate and House office buildings aren't controlled access facilities. Anyone can walk in and wander at will. There's no sign-in or sign-out counter, no security check points, in fact, when I was there a couple of months ago, I didn't see a single policeman or security officer. And that was on a day with a publically announced lobbying event with several hundred permit holders in attendance.
    Now, when I decided to become more politically active in state level gun rights, I sent my notification in. That was 18 months ago. You aren't asking permission, you're telling them you're going to. That notification is good until I renew my permit, which will be in the summer of 2016. There is no requirement to notify security WHEN I'll be there. And last I heard, there are about 800 names on the notification list.
    So I'm trying to visualize me walking through the Capitol complex, and a security guy seeing me and telling his partner, "there goes SS, he's on the list.". The only way the list will be checked is if the LEO or security guy asks to see my permit, and then calls the office to see if I'm "on the list".
    And to top it off, no seems to be mentioning ANY instances of anyone ever being charged with the offence. So using the term so often used here, "common sense" would suggest that if the law has never been enforced, and no one even seems to be checking the list, what's the point?
    There were actually hearings this last winter discussing increasing security at the Capitol complex and tightening requirements for permit holders, and the State Patrol officer in charge of Capitol security testified that there had been zero problems from permit holders.

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    1. I posted the suppressors today. About the other issue, every time it comes up I think about Georgia. When they passed that "guns everywhere" bill it made an exception for the capital building in which those legislators themselves work. I thought that was a riot.

      I oppose it because, as you know, I don't believe permit holders are any more trustworthy than anyone else.

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    2. "About the other issue, every time it comes up I think about Georgia. When they passed that "guns everywhere" bill it made an exception for the capital building in which those legislators themselves work. I thought that was a riot. "

      I'm always amused by everyone getting the vapors about Georgia's new law that you mention when its pretty much what Minnesota has had on the books for over ten years.
      The same with the Capitol carry notification law. When the head of security testified, he said there had never been any problems from permit holders.

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    3. But, it seems the legislators in Georgia felt guns were too dangerous to allow at their place of work.

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    4. But, it seems the legislators in Georgia felt guns were too dangerous to allow at their place of work.

      I can't argue with that (and as you may have noticed, I often kinda like arguing with you). The blatant hypocrisy is palpable.

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  4. From the "article":

    The degree to which homicide grows out of personal disputes is shown by the fact that of the total murders committed in 2012, only slightly more than 20 percent took place during the commission of other crimes.

    From that, he concludes that " . . . the FBI is telling us that less than 10 percent of those fatalities would be eliminated if we got rid of all violent crime," as if the murder itself isn't a "violent crime," as long as it was the only crime committed at the time.

    That's stupidity on stilts, folks.

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