Ok, this is scaryFollow

Again, completely irrelevant to the comment being made when I made the post. The post I responded to was a crack at the Canadian Military not having any guns and using sticks and stones. At no point, was gun violence ever discussed.

It's not that your comments aren't clear, it's that your comments are irrelevant. Maybe you should start posting in the correct thread.

So basically, you're agreeing with the point I've made numerous times in the past about the fallacy of trying to simply compare gun ownership rates to violent crime rates without taking into account geography and population makeup. Shocking!

But what if the conclusion is that the US is *not* a homogeneous society and it's a society where gun ownership doesn't contribute to violence? Cause you know, complex statement and all that.



Is it? I'd suggest that the relevant difference between Helena or Presque and Riverside is far more about how homogeneous the population is than the density of the population. Obviously, this is hard to determine simply because higher population density and a less homogeneous population tend to go hand and hand. Let's also not forget geography. Not sure how many undocumented folks wander through Presque, but I'm betting it's not very many. There are a host of factors far more relevant to violence than how many guns are owned.

And we're back to that again. It's difficult to stab someone with a gun too. Do we get to arbitrarily restrict the form of violence to suit the argument we're trying to make? Or can we please speak broadly of "violent crime" instead?



But not all nations. And not when we replace "gun deaths" with "homicides". So basically you have no more correlation than the incredibly simplistic fact that if people physically can't get their hands on a given weapon, they'll switch to a different type of weapon to commit their crimes/homicides. Which doesn't tell us anything at all about the overall effect of said specific type of weapon as it relates to crime as a whole.



Ignoring the massive logical flaw in that is even moreso.

If your purpose is to just toss irrelevant stuff into the conversation, sure. Knock yourself out.

What makes my point relevant (as opposed to the whole "knife crime in China" bit) is that we were talking about whether gun ownership by itself is a determinant of violent crime (or whatever negative effects you might wish to limit them based on), or whether other factors like population density, population makeup, proximity to a porous border with a country with a very high crime rate (geography), etc are more significant. Smash contrasted two small towns, both with low and relatively homogeneous populations and both located over a thousand miles from said porous border to Riverside, pretty much the opposite on all counts. Smash seemed to suggest that high population combined with gun ownership is "bad", and I argued that other factors might be more significant (If we could magically ensure that zero private citizens could own firearms in Riverside, does anyone really think that crime rates would go down?).

Into this, Joph injected the same tired/flawed bit about focusing on "gun deaths" while ignoring overall crime, violent crime, and homicide statistics. I would hope by now that at least some of you can see how using gun death comparisons between the US and other countries is not a valid way to make the argument that guns should be limited more in the US. That argument is circular.

Edited, Mar 7th 2013 3:20pm by gbaji

You failed on the part where you pretend it's really super relevant and then engage in a game of yes vs no until everyone's forgotten what the hell it's about again and starts shouting about goddamn commie liberals and greedy money whoring republicans.

I've already made that argument, and followed it up with "since we don't know what would happen, we shouldn't do it because we have the 2nd amendment, so maybe we shouldn't violate it on the off chance something good will come of it". So yeah. I'm fine with that. We don't know what will happen. No stats from other countries, which are *cough*different*cough*, will tell us what will happen in terms of violence and crime rates in the US if we tighten our gun control laws. Therefore, we should err on the side of *not* violating the 2nd amendment to our constitution.

Good enough? I thought so when I made that argument like a month or so ago.

Or... Wait for it... How about we look at options that don't involve infringement of the 2nd amendment? Where the hell does the whole "we either limit gun ownership or we can do nothing!!!" come from? Can't you see how starting with the assumption that the only way to reduce the number and severity of mass shootings is with more gun control is both stupid and incredibly limiting? You aren't even considering other options.




And yet, at the risk of tossing out statistics myself, the rate and severity of mass shootings has gotten worse as we've passed more restrictive gun control in the US, not better. Specifically, mass/random school shootings have skyrocketed since the passing of the "safe school gun free zone" law. Perhaps the correct solution is to undo bad laws we've already passed rather than lumping more bad laws on top of them?


The question I'm trying to get people to think about is whether the actions they're proposing (or supporting) are aimed at restricting gun ownership or aimed at preventing mass shootings? I would hope the latter would be true, but it really seems like for many people, they just start with the assumption that doing the first is the same as doing the second and they never stop and think that said assumption might just be wrong. I'm asking people to challenge that assumption.

Oh boy, he's going to suggest NICS again.

But what if the conclusion is that the US is *not* a homogeneous society and it's a society where gun ownership doesn't contribute to violence?

That'd be great. Unfortunately no data, at all, indicates that in any way.

Only when you ignore geography. Exactly how many of those nations "most like the US" share a long and porous border with a nation with a 22/100k homicide rate? None you say? Those nations are not exactly like the US then.



And every single time you trot this out, I point out that geography has a massive effect on homicide rates within a country. I'll once again point out the lists of countries by homicide rate and guns per-capita. There is close to zero correlation between the two. What is quite obvious? Homicide rates tend to group together by geographical proximity. Obviously, factors like ease of movement between nations modify this, but as a general rule, if your country borders another country with a high homicide rate, you'll have a higher homicide rate than another neighbor which doesn't.

But hey! Ignore data in favor of rhetoric if you want.



Which is strange given that you're the one cherry picking data. You're intentionally restricting your data set to just those that support your point, while ignoring all the other data out there that doesn't. So in your world, there's some magical thing that happens in just advanced/developed nations which makes their citizens kill each other based on whether they have access to guns, but in the entire rest of the world, there's not only no correlation at all, but most have a reverse correlation (lower gun ownership often results in high homicide rates).

That's a strange assumption to make, let alone use to justify such a cherry picking of the data. It makes far more sense to assume that developed European nations have lower homicide rates because they are relatively distant (and isolated) from nations with high homicide rates and it's sheer coincidence that they almost all happen to have adopted relatively strict gun control laws. There's no evidence to tell us what would happen if tomorrow every European nation adopted less stringent gun control like in the US. Do you honestly think they'd all just lose their minds and go on killing sprees because they could more easily buy guns? That's pretty silly.

Similarly, there is more or less zero reason to think that making gun laws more strict in the US would have any positive effect on violent crime or homicide. I mean, there's lots of arguments by people who assume it would, but not actual solid evidence to support those arguments. People don't kill because they have a gun. They kill (or commit other crimes) for a host of different reasons. Having a gun may make some crimes easier to commit, or may be a weapon of choice, but the idea that someone is going to choose to kill or not kill based on access to a gun is also incredibly silly. Why would you think that? Yet, that's essentially what your argument rests on.



And you also ignored the geographical factors, despite me pointing it out to you repeatedly. I'm not sure how many times I can do the equivalent of pointing to the answer right there in the book before it'll sink in here Joph. I also pointed out that when you index gun ownership rates and homicide rates, the US actually comes out quite well compared to many European nations. Certainly, it's not off the charts in any real way. Folks in the UK actually commit homicides at a higher rate relative to the rate of guns they have access to than folks in the US (I think that's the nation I used in my comparison, don't feel like re-doing the math right atm). Point being that this is strong evidence that there's no correlation at all between gun ownership rates and homicide rates. If there was (as I pointed out about the graph you linked earlier), we'd see all the nations fall more or less in a line. We don't. They're all along widely divergent slopes, indicating no correlation.

But I guess data analysis is not your strong suite.

Edited, Mar 7th 2013 7:26pm by gbaji

No one made that claim. In fact, I said exactly how they were comparable to the US. I guess it's easier for you to argue when you just make up things no one said and argue against them instead.


You scramble to start trying to compare the US to Zimbabwe and Columbia because comparisons to developed democratic nations make your argument look weak and foolish. I know.


No, "cherry picking" would be selecting only nations that work for me by no basis except "these work best for me". Instead, I'm using a neutral standard and showing the results while you wave your arms around and say "What about Cuba! Nigeria!?!?!"


Ah, yes... the magic geographic factors. The ones that apparently matter far, far FAR more than anything else because... HEY! No other country is geographically identical to the US so we can ignore every single bit of data while we stomp our feet and pout and say "Geography!!" over and over again.