more sandy hook questions.

[mar1t1me]

yet much more common than the even more "ballyhooed" school shootings

Depends solely on how one defines the term "home invasion". To me, if a crook makes an attempt to make sure the house is empty before he breaks in, I do not consider that a home invasion but instead, breaking and entering. If only all would-be burglars were so polite to ring the doorbell a number of times before walking back out to their car to get their crowbar!

However, many sites that are selling something to make your home safer include b&e and even someone non-violently trespassing on your property as worthy of being called a "home invasion". If a crook wants to come in my house and have a look around for valuables while everyone's gone (I keep none in the house, and what I consider to be of value in my home, I'm pretty sure a crook would ignore) then he is welcome to. But if he and and several of his buddies decide they're coming in, and they don't care if anyone is at home because they're quite content to shoot anyone they encounter, then yes, it is an invasion!

My bro-in-law, with 25 years of urban police experience says if you don't buy or sell drugs and don't flaunt wealth, your chances of being messed with in your home are nearly zero. Add a dog that barks at strangers and it decreases further....

In either case, I think we can agree a locked up/unloaded gun is useless if the bad guys show up unannounced.

z31, I am not arguing for or against gun control, per se, but rather against the notion that owning a gun automatically proffers a superior level of safety in the home. But, as I've said before, humans are miserable failures when it comes to effectively evaluating risk. Pro-gun advocates who maintain their firearms make them safer ignore the fact they are far more likely to die from a heart attack or car accident, but seem disinclined to better prepare themselves to help stave off those risks.

[z31maniac]

z31, I am not arguing for or against gun control, per se, but rather against the notion that owning a gun automatically proffers a superior level of safety in the home. But, as I've said before, humans are miserable failures when it comes to effectively evaluating risk. Pro-gun advocates who maintain their firearms make them safer ignore the fact they are far more likely to die from a heart attack or car accident, but seem disinclined to better prepare themselves to help stave off those risks.

This may be true, but it is completely unrelated to the topic we are discussing. Being overweight, diabetes, etc. Has absolutely nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment.

I'll ask again. Show me an instance where restricting guns for law abiding citizens has reduced the rate of gun homicides? I refer you again to Chicago, D.C. and England. You are 5x more likely to be violently assaulted in England than in the US.

I've noticed the left is ignoring the murder rate in the US as a whole over the last two decades. If I remember correctly, violent crime rates are down for the 5th year in a row.

Of course there are outliers like the Aurora and Sandy Hook shootings. But on a whole, crime is trending down, and the AWB (again which represents 0.5% of gun crimes) will do nothing to keep those weapons out of the hands of criminals.


Please explain to me how tightening restrictions for the responsible US gun owners will reduce crime. This is not meant to be condescending, I want to have a legitimate discussion. Yet no one on the side of gun control can explain to me how any of this legislation will keep guns out of the hands of criminals?


Or do we think that a "War on Guns" will somehow be dramatically more successful than Prohibition, the War on Poverty, the War of Drugs, or the War on Terrorism.

[mar1t1me]

I'll ask again. Show me an instance where restricting guns for law abiding citizens has reduced the rate of gun homicides?

OK: Singapore. Incredibly dense, diverse population, but crime, especially gun crime is extremely low. Only cops and the military, for the most part are allowed to possess guns.

I've noticed the left is ignoring the murder rate in the US as a whole over the last two decades. If I remember correctly, violent crime rates are down for the 5th year in a row.

Ignore? No. Unwilling to tacitly ascribe the decrease to more guns in society? Yes. It's terribly hard to prove a gun prevented a crime, as it would to claim an airbag in a car prevented an accident.

Please explain to me how tightening restrictions for the responsible US gun owners will reduce crime. This is not meant to be condescending, I want to have a legitimate discussion. Yet no one on the side of gun control can explain to me how any of this legislation will keep guns out of the hands of criminals?

How about we just make it so the BATF can actually do its job? Fund them and empower them to uphold the law so we can see if it actually works. How about closing the gun dealer loopholes that allow crooked dealers to profit from supplying guns to crooks? Why hamstring law enforcement efforts by denying cooperative gun data arrangements between states and agencies?

One of the reasons Singapore has been so successful is that their laws are written to punish-very harshly-those who commit crimes with guns. Robbing someone with a knife will get jail time. Doing so with a gun can earn a death penalty, even if no one died because having the gun shows intent to use it.

I have been to Dubai. There's another place where guns are incredibly rare. It's also one of the safest places I have ever visited. Another very diverse place, too.

I am not advocating a "War on Guns" or anything of the sort, but there is no evidence that adding guns to a populace creates more safety, but in cultures where few guns are present, there is a definite correlation with lower gun death rates.

If people (not guns) kill people, given the same number of people, why are gun death rates in places like the ones I mentioned with few guns so low? Even the murder rates in general are lower. I can't prove it, but I would imagine the thought of stabbing someone to death is somewhat less palatable than firing, from a greater distance, a near-supersonic projectile.

[myinfernalbmw]

Ignore? No. Unwilling to tacitly ascribe the decrease to more guns in society? Yes. It's terribly hard to prove a gun prevented a crime, as it would to claim an airbag in a car prevented an accident.

Other than criminals admitting that was one of the things that scares them about potential victims. Also an airbag in no way has the ability to prevent an accident, whereas it can at least be argued that a gun has the potential to stop or even prevent a crime.

I am not advocating a "War on Guns" or anything of the sort, but there is no evidence that adding guns to a populace creates more safety, but in cultures where few guns are present, there is a definite correlation with lower gun death rates.

DC and Chicago are perfect examples of the contrary. If less guns means a safer society, why are the places with the strictest gun control in America also the most crime ridden? If it's a societal issue, will taking guns make a difference in the violence rate? If you want to actually compare a society similar to ours, look at the UK as already mentioned. Very few guns yet still a very high violent crime rate.

[Kershaw]

dude.

first: do you know how easy it is to cross the anacostia river into pg county, md and buy all the guns you want? you can do it by metro. it is so far from the perfect example, you should facepalm yourself right now. terrible example.

second, and it makes your example even worse: pg county used to have a shit ton of homicides. 400-500/year in the 90s. 2012 we had 63! very big improvement. keeping guns out of teens hands works. btw, glad you mentioned DC. they had 86 homicides in 2012, the lowest since 1963. maybe gun control is working?

[vert_this]

I think we all know guns will get into these areas that they do not allow. The problem is the only people doing the smuggling is a crook. They do this specifically in those areas because they know the public living there is helpless, law abiding citizens, citizens that are unarmed.

This is the whole point, if they take the guns the area is easily controlled by the crooks, well until the cops are able to show up. If I was a crook and was able to target an area or neighborhood I know I would choose one w/o the guns.

[mar1t1me]

DC and Chicago are perfect examples of the contrary. If less guns means a safer society, why are the places with the strictest gun control in America also the most crime ridden? If it's a societal issue, will taking guns make a difference in the violence rate? If you want to actually compare a society similar to ours, look at the UK as already mentioned. Very few guns yet still a very high violent crime rate.

Those are actually better examples of what happens when you make laws, but do not allocate resources with which to enforce them. (See this link for good coverage of Chicago's impotent gun laws.) My examples show what is possible when gun laws are truly enforced. And having gun crimes carry a far greater penalty means crooks are more afraid of being caught with a gun than being shot by one while robbing someone. It's a bit like speeding. Most of us speed because there is no powerful incentive against doing so. But if there was a device constantly recording speed that issued a ticket whenever the driver exceeded the limit, driver behavior would change. That's how laws work- not because people automatically do the right thing, but that they are properly incentivized to do it.

The crime stats for the UK are hopelessly skewed since they have a very liberal idea of what constitutes a "violent crime".

Nearly half (48%) of all "Violent Crime" recorded in the UK results in no injury to anyone and includes threats, verbal assaults and extremely minor disturbances. Whilst the other 50% is mainly made up of violent incidents resulting in extremely minor injuries (simple assaults) with less than 2% of violent offenses requiring hospital treatment and only a small percentage of this 2% being of a very serious nature.


According to the British Crime Survey:

• Around half of all violent crimes result in no injury whatsoever (according to both police figures and BCS).
• 71% of mugging (robbery and snatch theft) incidents result in no injury.
• The number of violent incidents has fallen by 36% since 1995.
• Property crime (burglary, theft, etc) has fallen 46% since 1995.
• The average household is burgled only once every 50 years.


In one case, a man reversing his car ran afoul of a cyclist, who was knocked off his bike. In the US, we would call it an accident, but they record it as a violent crime. The actual homicide rate (no data re method of death) is 1.6 per 100,000. It's 4 times higher here in the US.

So much for the British crime wave......

[myinfernalbmw]

So why, for the sake of argument, would any new laws be necessary if we were properly enforcing those already in existence if it's simply an enforcement issue?

[vert_this]

well at least a parent at sandyhook gets it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dhXPlCjr0Vw

[mar1t1me]

So why, for the sake of argument, would any new laws be necessary if we were properly enforcing those already in existence if it's simply an enforcement issue?

My cynical side says it's because to admit existing laws are not being enforced to the detriment of the constituency is an admission of failure in the present. Politicians refuse to admit failure, so they feel it's far better to accuse the existing laws of being insufficient, because they were written by someone else, and stridently demand new ones.

[smooth]

I've noticed the left is ignoring the murder rate in the US as a whole over the last two decades. If I remember correctly, violent crime rates are down for the 5th year in a row.

Common misperception (or actually misuse of statistics) that US citizens are less likely to be violently assaulted in the US than England. Comparing national rates you are correct in that our violent assaults and homicides have been falling for the past few years.

But the national rates mask local rates. If we look in highly concentrated areas of impoverishment than we see skyrocketing violence. Rather than using FBI index crime national rates look into the murder rates of Chicago, Compton, or violence in really impoverished communities in the deep south and let us know what you find.

[z31maniac]

Common misperception (or actually misuse of statistics) that US citizens are less likely to be violently assaulted in the US than England. Comparing national rates you are correct in that our violent assaults and homicides have been falling for the past few years.

But the national rates mask local rates. If we look in highly concentrated areas of impoverishment than we see skyrocketing violence. Rather than using FBI index crime national rates look into the murder rates of Chicago, Compton, or violence in really impoverished communities in the deep south and let us know what you find.

But Chicago has very restrictive gun laws.

Why are crime rates so high? ;)

[BraveUlysses]

But Chicago has very restrictive gun laws.

Why are crime rates so high? ;)

How bad would they be if the laws were less restrictive? ;)

[Dozyproductions]

you don't know ;)

[myinfernalbmw]

How long will it take people to realize that criminals don't follow laws?;)