Gun Control - Now Discussing Tucson Shooting

The main thing to know is that I don't object to gun ownership per se. I object in general to the absurd notion that the more guns we put in the hands of law abiding citizens, the safer we'll all be, and in particular to the questionable notion that bringing a loaded gun into a house with children increases that child's safety. Suicides are relevant here too because when minors commit suicides, their parents are in some sense responsible.

If it's not really about safety, if the purported benefit/utility of guns is something other than safety, and like cars or downhill skiing it's the recreational or economic value for gun hobbyists or hunters, then fine. As I said earlier, let's just total up the public health cost of gun violence and distribute it equally among gun owners, and I won't need to bring up the subject again.

 

I guess I don't have an answer, because there are all sorts of reasons why people buy guns. Some target practice. Some skeet shooting. Some hunting. Others self defense. Still others have a nefarious purpose. I don't think guns automatically increase or decrease any one person's safety, so that's all a wash.

I think this is where we're talking past each other, because if that's all your point is, I'd agree with you. After all, the reverse is true of the "sitting gun" phenomenon. A gun laying on a shelf isn't going to intrinsically impact safety at all. It's not more dangerous, but it also doesn't automatically make one safer. A gun is just a tool. The thing I do disagree with is your idea of taking it farther, in that you suggest that the mere presence of a firearm will make the blood flow like a river within the home, and there's nothing a family can do to stop it. I used the phrase much earlier when I described it as pre-determinism.

Have you seen a recent commercial for the Postal Service, where a clown figurine has caused all the members of a family to flee out of their house? Run! We can't stand up against the clown! I get the idea that's how you view guns, but I seem to remember that you grew up around some at least, so I'm not sure.

As for your last point, isn't that what universal health care is suppose to do? ZING! (yes, I kid, I kid...)

 

No, 80 million gun owners. Estimates indicate that there are approximately 270 million privately-owned guns in the US.

I;m sorry, but that's just lacking in perspective.

To use a non-firearm example, in 2007, according to the CDC, there were 4086 deaths by drowning in the US. That's a staggering number of people, don't you think? My high school only had 3500 students in it (and that was grades 7-12). If you look at the raw numbers like that, then it can appear huge.

However, when you look at it in the context of how many swimming pools there are in the US (approximately 8.8 million, according to the CDC), you are only talking about no more than 0.05% of the swimming pools had a drowning in 2007. By comparison to the scale of opportunities for death by drowning, that previously staggering number is not as large.

A variety of studies, including some by the DoJ, have estimated that there are between 800000 and 2.5 million defensive gun uses each year. (The variation is largely because of different definitions of what constitutes a "defensive gun use".) On the low end, a study in 1993 by the Census Bureau estimated the number of defensive uses each year at 108000.

Kimball Kinnison

 

Not meaning to double post, but I wanted to keep these comments separate.

Not everyone buys guns for the same reason, nor do they own them for only one reason.

My first gun was a Colt 1991A1 (an updated 1911). For the longest time, I had read about the Colt 1911 and appreciated it as a marvel of engineering and functional design. I bought it not for self defense (at the time, I didn't even consider carrying), but more as a collector's item, as well as to enjoy at the range. That same day, I bought my first rifle (a Romanian-built AK-47 variant) because the AK-47 is similarly a marvel of engineering and design. Both are primarily for enjoying at the range and keeping in my collection. (For example, I haven't fired my AK-47 in over a year and a half.)

My next firearm was a Remington 710 .30-06 rifle for me to use in hunting. I chose it because it is inexpensive and accurate, so I wouldn't mind carrying it through the mud or bad weather.

I applied for my CHP not so I could carry, but because in Virginia it can streamline the process when you want to buy a firearm. (For example, it exempts you from the one-handgun-every-30-days limit, which would allow me to acquire collector sets of 1911s.) Sure, I'd carry concealed at times (such as on the way to the range), but it seemed like more of bother to do on a regular basis.

Prior to my owning a gun, I had a mentally unstable person make threats of violence against me. In response to that, I started studying Tae Kwon Do and carrying pepper spray. My study of TKD lasted until I injured my shoulder and was advised not to continue. It really wasn't until I had two bounty hunters show up on my doorstep that I started carrying on a regular basis. That incident woke me up to the reality that I was woefully unprepared if someone chose to attack me or my family.

To this day, I still have only purchased one firearm for the purpose of self defense. That was my Officer's model 1911 (similar to the Colt 1991A1, except it has a 3.5 inch barrel instead of a 5 inch barrel). All of my other firearms, including the shotgun I gave my wife as a wedding present (it was my grandmother's, and was sized better for her than for me) are in my collection primarily for their sporting or collector's value.

Kimball Kinnison

 

270 million


Well, good luck with that civility thing, Lowie!

As many guns as people. America is ready for the shrink, man.

Let me pull up some statistics.
[image=http://thekaufmannpost.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Gun-Possession-and-Homicide-Stats.jpg]

Somehow, your country is obsessed with power toys. Big and small. That can't all stem from your struggle for independance, can it?

You know what I think? I think Hollywood plays into this.

EDIT: KK, please don't feel affronted by any of this - I assume you deal with guns more responsibly than some other American gun owners. Which kind of is the problem.

But I suppose the studies don't show how many of those have actually prevented a crime. And how many of those couldn't have been done with my old trusty baseball bat.

 

But Watto, regional differences and attitudes do play a lot into how you interpret those results.

This was mostly dissected in the last Senate gun thread, (or maybe it was in the one before that? Is there anything more reliable than a Senate gun control thread?) but for example, Australia had higher rates of nearly every other crime category than the US except for homicide, including sexual assault, "strong arm" robbery, auto theft, and I believe home invasion, and Australia has a very strict gun control policy. Other comparisons illustrated that Japan had a huge suicide rate, and so on....

If anything betrays Australia's historical founding, it's the out of control crime rates in relation to the population. Now, I'm not suggesting that those crime rates would suddenly go down if Australia had less restrictions on gun ownership, because as we established long ago, crime rate doesn't directly correlate to gun ownership rate. Would someone rather live in a country that has more rapes, or more homicides? Of course, that's not even a proper question, because the answer can't be so easily broken down. Maybe Australia has different attitudes on property ownership, so more people justify the breaking into homes? I don't know what Australia's attitude is on sex and/or gender relations, so I can't account for the sexual assault. But to quote the original Keaton/Nicholson Batman, "this continent needs an enema!"

I do know that the US has more of a rights, based, rugged individualistic streak, so it explains why more people are willing to defend themselves, and so on... But each has its own positives and negatives.

It's just seems like you're being so short sighted. We can see, without examining why, that the US has a high homicide rate. Does that mean that guns are bad....somehow?

 

I'm not saying guns are bad. I'm not saying people are bad. I'm saying I don't trust your average Jack with a gun.

Let me put it this way: it's not allowed to be intoxicated or to have a mobile telephone conversation while you drive - and for good reason. Why then, entrust people with guns and booze (and mobile phones)? We have an expression for taking chances like that: binding the cat to the bacon.

I like individualism. I like liberalism. But I also think it can be taken too far - in the end, people have to live together and they can't really keep to their own plot of land anymore these days... nobody's a pioneer anymore.

If you want to colonize space, however, by all means! Bring the best weapons you can find!

 

And yet, compare the overall homicide rate between the US and other parts of the world, and you will see that the US is below the average for North America, and roughly on par with Europe as a whole. Look closer at the breakdown by state, and you see several patterns emerge. For example, Utah (the state with the laxest gun laws according to the Brady Campaign, scoring 0 out of 100 on their scorecard) has a homicide rate per 100000 (for all homicides, not just firearms) on par with the UK (Utah: 1.3, UK 1.28). Places with the toughest gun laws (such as DC and Puerto Rico) come in at the very top (24.0 and 23, respectively).

You can directly compare neighboring jurisdictions, such as Virginia (4.4), Maryland (7.7) and DC (24.0), and see rather extreme differences.

In fact, the statistics that you provided are rather cherry picked. There are numerous countries with homicide rates well above the US, and many of them are extremely heavy on gun control, if not outright banning private ownership.

Also, consider this: according to your chart in 2002, the US had a firearm homicide rate of approximately 32.5 per million, with an overall homicide rate of 56 per million. Denmark had a firearm homicide rate of 2.6 per million, and an overall homicide rate of 10.8. That means that the firearm to non-firearm homicide ration in the US was about 1:1, while in Denmark it was about 1:3. You have a lower firearm homicide rate, but you have a larger proportion of homicides committed with other means. Removing the firearms doesn't actually address the underlying causes.

You're nitpicking here. A defensive use may not have completely prevented a crime, but it at least gives the victim a better chance at stopping it. Even with the lowest end of the estimates, you are still looking at around 3 defensive uses per firearm-related death. At the higher end of the estimates, you are looking at around 60 defensive uses for every firearm death (and if you exclude suicides, it goes up to 120 or more defensive uses per death). If any significant portion of those defensive uses prevented crimes, there were still well over 30000 crimes prevented by firearms per year.

As for defensive uses of a baseball bat. it's really quite hard to carry a baseball bat with you everywhere you go. Not all crimes or defensive uses happen at home.

Kimball Kinnison

 

Well, legally, I'd have to point out that in most (public) places, it is illegal to have a gun and alcohol. In states that authorize it, there are almost always restrictions about having a gun in a bar, or while actually drinking...for example. I don't think the law can really prevent anyone from getting drunk and going out to shoot cans or what not on their own farm property, if that's what you meant. But that's legal mumbo jumbo.

Otherwise, sure, "dumbness" is certainly a human trait.

 

That is an enlightening map indeed and you make a compelling argument. I need to ponder this, and it's late. That doesn't mean you've seen the last of me!

Hey I'm not from Denmark! Denmark, cartoonist; Holland, filmmaker. I live in a 1/100,000 region, like only New Hampshire's got.

But I don't think I'm saying that the US should all be like New Hampshire...

 

I never said that you are from Denmark. I simply picked that as a random sample off the chart that you gave. It was right in the middle of the chart, after all.

But then, we all know that there's something rotten in Denmark.

Kimball Kinnison

 

You may not be trying to penalize gun owners who legally use and maintain their firearms, but that is still what the end result of your policies would be. You cannot restrict the rights of those who are law abiding because an extreme minority abuses their rights. That is unjust, and it will never fly.

Again, about 45% of all households in the US have at least one firearm in the home (be it rifle, shotgun, or handgun). How do you expect to get your proposal implemented when it would be to the clear detriment of such a large portion of the population? That's not even taking into account that it would require a Constitutional amendment, because it is now well established Supreme Court precedent that a categorical ban on firearms (or even just on handguns) is unconstitutional. Your proposal is simply unrealistic and unfeasible. You might as well be proposing that we build a machine that magically converts all firearms into flowers.

And maybe what you suggest, to do nothing, is much worse.

That the proposal is a detriment to a certain aspect of a certain part of the population is merely how you choose to phrase it. Were I go to the UK and say the same, it would not be viewed as a detriment to that same population -- if for no other reason that they have no weapons to maintain.

If a 'detriment' to the population comes at the saving of human lives, then I don't see the basis for argument -- at the point of mere detriment we are arguing the value of human life versus convenience, which is hard to justify.

As for commenting that a ban on handguns, etc is unconstitutional... well why are you even in this thread, Kimball? What's the point of even talking about any of this all this time about "hey, buddy, what would YOU do?" if you're just going to say at the end of it "well er... a ban is unconstitutional so it wouldn't work in the US anyway." Right, it requires an amendment: tell me something I don't know. I'm sorry, your question was how we could resolve the problem of 270 million guns in America, not how we could lobby votes for a constitutional amendment or how to phrase a legal argument to the Supreme Court. Among the bits about the pretty flowers, the connotations of hippiedom and so on, so on, impractical fantasy-land musing that would never work, the only reason stated is one that says is unworkable NOT because it would not find success logistically, but because internal US politics would resist it. That paragraph is almost like saying "well it will never work because... well, people here wouldn't want it to work."

Well gee, ok... and the Vikings could have survived in Newfoundland if they had been willing to change too: what exactly does that prove -- that the disposition of a society shall always trump any attempted solution? Without a doubt, I agree. It doesn't mean the solution wouldn't work or even make their own lives better if they were willing.

I'm not here saying that the murder rate is one thing or the other. I'm not here to say a ban would not be difficult, or would not require an amendment. What I'm saying is that IF the statistics lay a certain way, this is what CAN be done which will result in less lives lost, assuming you get it implemented.


Except that not all suicides are impulsive. Many suicides are preceded by prior attempts (which suggests that the individual would keep trying whether the gun was present of not). Your argument might support including some of the suicides, but including all of them is unreasonable. Again, using CDC numbers, in 2007 there were a total of 34598 reported suicides: 6358 of them by poisoning, 8161 by suffocation of one form or another, 17352 using a firearm, and the rest by other means. The mere existence of firearms doesn't make suicide more likely (as Mr44 demonstrated). Banning firearms will do nothing to reduce the impetuous desire to commit suicide in someone so inclined. As in other countries, they will simply seek out another method, whether through household chemicals, hanging, or something else.

Moreover, I would submit that a person who chooses to

 

I'm not sure that conclusion was valid there, or at best is unclear. The last two sentences seem rather unclear, and the issue isn't having a larger proportion of homicides committed with other means, but more a question of how much the overall rate changes.

 

I only have a moment so I'm only going to respond to one part:

How do you define "frequency of use" for firearms? Is it when I am carrying my handgun for defense? Is it only when it is loaded and drawn (either in defense or at the range)?

I wear my handgun pretty much every day, as I said before, but I don't get to the range as often as I'd like. That's the point of carrying a handgun for personal protection, since criminals don't tend to make appointments for when they'll commit crimes against you. I don't drive my car every day, nor do I do it all day. So, does my gun or my car have a higher frequency of use?

Among those who do carry (and there are, IIRC, over 100000 carry permits issued by Virginia alone, with other states like Utah or Florida having many more than that), which is used more frequently? The car or the gun?

I would say that the act of carrying is using the gun, not just the act of firing it.

Kimball Kinnison

 

But then having a car parked in front of the door is also using the car.

 

Not at all.

I am using my gun for self defense when I carry it. That is the purpose for which I bought it. I earnestly hope that I never need to draw it from my holster, let alone shoot it at another person.

I bought my car, on the other hand, for the purpose of transporting me from point A to point B. It fulfills that function when I am actually driving it.

My gun fulfills its function when it is riding along on my hip. My car fulfills its function when I am driving it. Both are only really in use when they are fulfilling the function for which I bought them.

Kimball Kinnison

 

This is the entire reason I find this subject so incredibly frustrating.
It always comes back to "MY peer reviewed factual correlations are more correct than YOUR peer reviewed factual correlations!"

Being on a board like this depresses me because it seems like the "Anti" argument is the majority.

Yet Gallup Now and Gallup then
didn't find it likely that the "anti position" is the majority opinion.
Rassmussen Now also can not prove a majority opinion, although at one point it was close.

I honestly hope we can find a non-intrusive way to prevent shootings like this Tucson tragedy.

 

Seriously? You're walking down the street with the gun in plain sight for all to see?

In that case it seems to me you're promoting a society based on fear.

 

I occasionally will open carry my handgun (depending on what I am doing), but more often I have it concealed.

In Virginia, you do not need a permit to carry a handgun, as long as you are legally allowed to possess it. However, you are required to have a permit to have it "hidden from common observation" (section 18.2-30 of the Virginia Code). As I have both a Virginia permit, as well as a Utah permit (which Virginia recognizes), I am legally allowed to have it "hidden from common observation".

The thing is that even when open carrying, most people don't notice it, or don't react to it at all. In the past several years, I've gotten one negative reaction when I did open carry, a few neutral ones (asking questions about its legality or similar concerns), and a few positive ones (asking what type of gun, or simply saying "that's awesome"). Most people just don't think twice about it when it's there.

Kimball Kinnison

 

But when you carry a concealed gun, I can't call it "using it for self-defense" any more than I can call having a parked car "using the car". A concealed gun is not something you're using, it's something you're hiding. Maybe someday in order to use it. Just like you park a car in order to use it later.

... At least, they don't say it in your face. Maybe because you're carrying a gun?

 

But when you carry a concealed gun, I can't call it "using it for self-defense" any more than I can call having a parked car "using the car". A concealed gun is not something you're using, it's something you're hiding. Maybe someday in order to use it. Just like you park a car in order to use it later.

I don't know Watto, what would be the point of even defining something like this in that manner though?

For example, what if the parked car is intentionally left there to block something, or to reserve a parking space? That's certainly "use" even if it is only parked. I think it would be similar to saying "if you're not racing a car on a Le Mans track, you're not really driving it because routine trips to the grocery don't reach its potential..." Maybe that's not an effective analogy either, but my point is that they're all kind of meaningless. (of course trips to the store count as driving, unless one wants to artificially limit it to racing)

As much as I am against open carry, and I mean really, really, really, really Against open carry. (did I mention really against), I think for purposes of this debate if someone is walking around with a pistol-concealed or otherwise- for its potential, and no one is being harmed by it, or children grabbing it, and the like, it still counts as "using" it, because that's a more realistic interpretation of the term. I'm pretty sure that everyone would agree that having an old shotgun sit in the back of a farm utility closet isn't "using it" unless you're taking it out to go shoot at some food, (or maybe even bubbling crude..) I'm just not sure about limiting the idea of "use" to actually only drawing and shooting someone.

Otherwise, why else would it matter? If someone carried a gun for 20 years, having to load/unload it, clean it, having to put it in a holster, etc.. every day without incident for the entire time, should it only count the one time it was drawn to prevent being attacked by mugger? "ie hey! your pistol has a 100% "danger factor." You only used it once and someone was harmed, despite the fact that it was carried for 20 years because that's not use." That would be a rather skewed interpretation.

But I'd say the overall debate is larger than being concerned about what "use" means, as I think it's too open to interpretation.

 

How do you define "frequency of use" for firearms? Is it when I am carrying my handgun for defense? Is it only when it is loaded and drawn (either in defense or at the range)?

I wear my handgun pretty much every day, as I said before, but I don't get to the range as often as I'd like. That's the point of carrying a handgun for personal protection, since criminals don't tend to make appointments for when they'll commit crimes against you. I don't drive my car every day, nor do I do it all day. So, does my gun or my car have a higher frequency of use?

Among those who do carry (and there are, IIRC, over 100000 carry permits issued by Virginia alone, with other states like Utah or Florida having many more than that), which is used more frequently? The car or the gun?

I would say that the act of carrying is using the gun, not just the act of firing it.

I'm afraid none of this qualifies in fact even when you get to the RANGE, we are not properly comparing this to a car.

1. "I am wearing my weapon, and so I am using it"

- By your own definition, firstly at the superficial level, you're not using it. You're not holding your tool in your hand for one thing... but secondly you're certainly not "facilitating mechanical operations" with it.

- As to possible secondary uses in terms of adding to a formidable appearance (i.e: this is not what the gun is particularly designed for). If you're not wearing it openly, the gun is not actually protecting you. Nobody can see it to be warded off.

- If you are wearing it openly there are a whole lot of things you could do to utilize this secondary function... like perhaps carry a fake gun. At this point, now that we're not talking about the primary function of the device -- well why can't I now say that I'm using my car if it's parked outside my home as Wattoo described, because I want to impress my neighbors with it?

Once we start saying "oh yeah, I'm still using this tool by people seeing the tool in my possession" then yeah, we can lay claim to all sorts of uses, a lot of which you don't even need the tool in question to do, or not a working version (and if you want to argue the freedom of buying a FAKE gun for display purposes only Kimball, I do not propose banning any of those). The primary function is where the danger of lethality sets in.

But wait, there's more:

2. "I am using my gun's primary function when I go to the range"

- You're in a controlled environment on the shooting range. You are given more protection and more direction in this environment than if you were using your tool in the real world, as a person would practicing their driving skills on a test track marked with pylons. Not only are your weapons built-in safety features in full effect just as a car's would be (the safety of a gun versus a seat-belt), but you've also got administrators, glasses, ear protection and all sorts of things you wouldn't have if you were to actually use your gun outside the range.

Meanwhile, all "controlled environment" amounts to on the road is that it's paved and you've got a curb. Controlled chaos is closer to the term. Cars on the road or on the highway are already in as much inherent likely danger as they're going to get, and they're performing that function 99.99% of the time they're used.

As far as your weapon is concerned, the circumstances in which you would presumedly regularly use it is in an environment where many more precautions are taken than someone going out on the highway, and so an accident is that much more unlikely to occur. So in other words, even saying your are going to "use" the weapon on the range is saying you want to include all these instances where, for lack of a better term, the training wheels are still on (not to suggest you aren't fully trained).

If you're going out by yourself into the backyard to squeeze off your rounds at some can on a fence, without all these odds and ends to help protect you from injury, then that's something else.

You're wanting to change the context of this comparison by including uses of the gun that don't meet your

 

In the Austrian news, Glock has been getting some attention lately.

This article, and apologies for any translation errors:

"World of Gun Nuts: "In Glock We Trust."

Gaston Glock is one of the 25 richest Austrians. Once he manufactured grenade casings and curtain rings. Then he developed the world's most successful pistols. Now he doesn't want to talk about it.

...

Today, Glock is believed to earn 2/3 of its revenue in the U.S., more than 100 million Euros annually.

...

In the movie "Die Hard 2", Bruce Willis says "He pointed a Glock 7 at me. Do you know it? It's a German gun made entirely of ceramic and invisible to X ray machines."* "Germany" was false, "Ceramic" was false, undetectable was false, and there was no such thing as a Glock7. Still, it amounted to the best publicity imaginable. "Suddenly, everyone was talking about the Glock," says gun lobbyist Robert Ricker.

...

This is the part I like:

"[Since the Tucson shooting] We're now selling about twice the usual number of Glocks," says Greg Wolff, owner of two gun stores near Phoenix, Arizona, per the Bloomberg news agency. Especially the Glock19, priced at $499. The reason for the upsurge, "when something like this happens, people worry that the gun will be banned."

*Ah, the joys of translating English into German, and then back into English again. Here's the actual quote from Die Hard 2:

"That punk pulled a Glock 7 on me. You know what that is? It's a porcelain gun made in Germany. Doesn't show up on your airport X-ray machines, here, and it cost more than you make in a month."

 

Gonk's #1 says what I tried to say, but better: "If you're not wearing it openly, the gun is not actually protecting you. Nobody can see it to be warded off".

Not sure about #2... I think, at the shooting range, the primary function of a gun can be recreational. I personally wouldn't mind having a go, if only for the thrill. But then I don't see why anyone should allow me to bring the gun back home with me.

 

Gonk's #1 says what I tried to say, but better: "If you're not wearing it openly, the gun is not actually protecting you. Nobody can see it to be warded off".

Well then, that just cements my idea that it's almost pointless to define the concept in such a manner. How many businesses have burglar alarms? The point is that it's there if it needs to be. Again, if a business pays its alarm bill every month for 20 years, it is still "using" the alarm no matter if it only goes off because of a single burglar in that period. Gonk's post would suggest that even though the alarm is ready, it's not actually protecting the establishment if no one knows it's there. Meh. I don't see the logic in categorizing anything in that manner.

I just think for the purpose of this discussion, every day KK, for example, fixes his pistol upon his belt, even if no one knows its there, and he doesn't shoot himself in the foot, or doesn't negligently end up killing his family, it's a successful use of his pistol. That's because the recent focus of this thread has been on safety of the firearm, and people have suggested that the mere presence of a firearm causes harm, not matter how it's used. (or not used, as the case may be.)