John Lott op-ed in the New York Daily News
But Obama overlooks Norway, where Anders Behring Breivik used a gun to
kill 67 people and wound 110 others. Still others were killed by bombs
that Breivik detonated. Three of the six worst K-12 school shootings
ever have occurred in Europe. Germany saw two of these — one in 2002 at
Erfurt and another in 2009 at Winnenden. The combined death toll was 34.
France and Belgium have both faced multiple terrorist attacks over the
past year.
This John Lott really is a monster. I am beginning to understand who he is.
ReplyDeleteA couple of days after the Charleston massacre, I surfed over to the FOX News website just to see what the enemy was saying. Most of the commentary was relatively civil. John Lott already had an op-ed out about shootings in gun-free zones. Before the bodies were even buried.
I take some objections with what Lott did here.
ReplyDeleteNorway had the highest annual death rate, with two mass public shooting fatalities per million people. Macedonia had a rate of 0.38, Serbia 0.28, Slovakia 0.20, Finland 0.14, Belgium 0.14, and the Czech Republic 0.13. The U.S. comes in eighth with 0.095 mass public shooting fatalities per million people, with Austria close behind.
My big problem is that there is nothing statistically significant in these numbers. What bubbles to the top is Norway based on a single incident in a low population country. If you broke down rampage shootings in the US by state, you’d have a similar effect. There would be a bunch of states with zero fatalities, and the top of the list would be filled with low population states that had one or two shootings over the last few years. These events are just too rare to use like this (even in the US).
Here is piece I read from a pro-gun blogger who is honest like me, and willing to voice objections:
http://chrishernandezauthor.com/2015/06/21/sorry-gun-guys-but-president-obama-didnt-say-that/
Now, there are some valid takeaways we can get from these numbers. Chris Hernandez noticed that the populations of all the European countries shown is about the same as the US, and they had just under half the number of incidents (though I noticed that the Charlie Hebdo shooting is missing from France). It happens more often in the US, but it’s on the same playing field, and it is not in line with the “gun death” comparisons gun control supporters often tout to say that we have ten or twenty times the “gun deaths” as whatever European country they feel like comparing us to that day. I will note that this list is not inclusive of all European countries, and is sorted by “shooting rampage fatalities per million people” which means the countries we are not seeing on the list are going to be lower (and possibly zero). If we were to compile all the data we may find it is more like four times more incidents in the US, or something.
Another notable that doesn’t work out so well for the gun control crowd is that the body count per incident is significantly higher in Europe than in the US (10 to 6). One of the drums that they keep beating is that we must ban “assault weapons” and “large capacity magazines” to reduce the casualties, but these numbers don’t support that hypothesis. Of course, Norway is such an outlier that it has a huge impact. If we remove it entirely from the equation, the body count in Europe drops down to 6 per incident (equal to the US). Still, we are not seeing any support for the wild-ass hypothesis that banning the shape of grips, burn protection devices, or stocks that can be adjusted for different arm lengths, as well as making a shooter take a handful more seconds worth of reloading has any effect on fatalities.
Great job, TS, using stats to discount entirely the common sense and obviously honest conclusions in these arguments. Keep supporting death and abuse in order to protect your own personal convenience. You're a prince.
DeleteThere's no pleasing some people. Here I am giving honest criticism of Lott's work, and I still get the same snarky response from you because I used logic instead of what you call "common sense". I finished with two conclusions: we do have more mass shootings, but theirs have been more deadly. I thought you might find some hay to make out of that.
DeleteMikeB: "Keep supporting death and abuse in order to protect your own personal convenience."
I know, it is awfully convenient to not be in prison.
Yeah, any new gun restriction would land you in the slammer. Right.
Delete"John Lott already had an op-ed out about shootings in gun-free zones. Before the bodies were even buried."
ReplyDeleteFJ, how is Lott any better or worse than those who started pushing for more gun control laws including background check legislation even more quickly than Lott? In fact, some were pushing background check legislation before it was discovered that the gun used was bought at a gun store with the required background check.
A better question is who hasn't been as quick on the trigger as Lott.
I see your point. In a certain sense, you are completely correct.
DeleteThe difference is that our side has the righteous power. We wish to prevent violence.
John Lott adopts the reactionary stance. He reacts defensively to any notion of stronger gun control. He refuses to listen to reason. He espouses, supports and even works toward furthering the goals of the NRA and the gun lobby.
The difference is that our side has the righteous power.
DeleteEveryone believes he/she is on "the side that has the righteous power.
We wish to prevent violence.
And we wish to prevent forcible citizen disarmament. And our wish will come true.
Yes, you oppose "forcible citizen disarmament" regardless of the cost in preventable deaths.
DeleteYes, you oppose "forcible citizen disarmament" regardless of the cost in preventable deaths.
DeleteLiberty ain't cheap. It's worth as many millions of lives--billions of lives--as it takes.
That's why you're a monster, Kurt, a self-centered monster.
DeleteThat's why you're a monster, Kurt, a self-centered monster.
DeleteI have infinitely more humanity than you.
Can you disprove his numbers in this specific instance? None of this, "He lied before," stuff. Is he lying now, or are his stats correct?
ReplyDeleteThe stats may be correct, I wouldn't wast the time to check, but the inference and conclusion is WRONG.
Delete