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[Erkki]

really, all this talk about protectionism etc needs to be split up in bigger buckets.

there's gun terrorism attack like this one, there's directed gun violence, mostly in the form of passion crimes, then there are the generic turf wars between tugs, then there's the robberies and home invasion etc.

gun control would likely address a minority of these situations, and would only remove the means, but not the causes, which would NOT reduce crime.

--

I cannot for the life of me find proper statistics for the US, but can provide our local ones again.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/154148/Katsauksia_1_2015_Henkirikoskatsaus_2015.pdf?sequence=4 I dont know if google translate does it any good but I can pick the major points.

In 2003-2013 in only 15 % of homicide cases the victim and the convict did not know each other beforehand. There were a lot of passion crimes. Vast majority, 72%, of homicides also happened in either ones homes. In 68% everyone involved was drunk, only victim drunk in 6% and only convict drunk in 9%. Median value for alcohol content in the blood of people involved is rather high, 1,92 promille. No complete statistics for other drugs.

Average age of a homicide convict was 37. 50% were unemployed, 19% retired. 38%, 26% for victims. More food for thought.

Firearms were used in 17% of cases and 44% of firearms used were legal. Half of the firearms used were handguns, despite them being difficult to acquire(ie. illegal, lots of illegal pocket weapons from Russia and former Warsaw Pact). Most of the other half were shotguns. Rifles are in tiny minority.

In 49% of the cases the murder weapon was just something picked up at the location(72% of the homicides were by knives), while firearms were in 61% of cases brought to the scene by the murderer. 50-50% for hunting weapons, 74% for handguns.

In 16% knife cases the victim received first-aid before dying, 7% died in hospital. For firearms, the numbers are 10 and 7%. However in 59% of cases only one shot was fired, while single knife strike was the case in only 27% of cases and in 9% of the cases there were over 30(!) stabs.

Its interesting that there isn't a single homicide(or other crime) where a reservist weapon was used, and the province with the most guns per capita, Åland, had zero gun homicides. In ten years. Maybe inequality, poverty and drugs create violence after all, not guns.

edit: also 71% had been convicted of crime before, and 60% had been in jail too.

[LoSboccacc]

exactly, people wants to ban gun because it will make them feel good about it. much easier than actually pointing the finger on real problem and have them addressed, plus they subconsciously think that they can escape from crazy people if those have a knife or a ied (because less face it knife murders are quite more terrible as you cited but I don't see people wanting to ban knives)

[Insanegame27]

exactly, people wants to ban gun because it will make them feel good about it. much easier than actually pointing the finger on real problem and have them addressed, plus they subconsciously think that they can escape from crazy people if those have a knife or a ied (because less face it knife murders are quite more terrible as you cited but I don't see people wanting to ban knives)

we don't ban knives because knives have a good use that they were designed for (cooking). Guns only have the capability to kill or incapacitate.

[Erkki]

exactly, people wants to ban gun because it will make them feel good about it. much easier than actually pointing the finger on real problem and have them addressed, plus they subconsciously think that they can escape from crazy people if those have a knife or a ied (because less face it knife murders are quite more terrible as you cited but I don't see people wanting to ban knives)

we don't ban knives because knives have a good use that they were designed for (cooking). Guns only have the capability to kill or incapacitate.

But that is a good use, and also what they were designed for. I'm sorry if you are afraid of them.

[Reelya]

It's not fear, we've seen the statistics on places with a ton of easily-obtainable guns and they're not good numbers. Wealthy countries with a lot of guns have more homicides than some much poorer places. It's not just "poverty". USA is a wealthy and highly educated modern nation, yet if you look at a list of nations by homicide, it hovers around the level of Thailand, Iran and Albania, and nowhere near anywhere you'd consider well-developed nations.

And we have stats on when gun restrictions came in: e.g. in Israel when they stopped letting soldiers taken guns home and weekend suicides fell by a shit-ton, enough to reduce the overall national suicide rate by 40%. Having an easy way to cause death - no surprise - it incentivizes causing death.

Raw hard figures.

[Frumple]

really, all this talk about protectionism etc needs to be split up in bigger buckets.

there's gun terrorism attack like this one, there's directed gun violence, mostly in the form of passion crimes, then there are the generic turf wars between tugs, then there's the robberies and home invasion etc.

gun control would likely address a minority of these situations, and would only remove the means, but not the causes, which would NOT reduce crime.

Folks, if we're going to be doing this, please stop doing this.

Stopping or reducing crime is a secondary effect of gun control. It's always been a secondary effect of gun control. Gun control is about reducing fatalities, crime related or not, and reducing opportunity (to easily kill, to commit suicide, to accidentally shoot yourself or others, to have reason to break into peoples'  homes, etc., etc., etc.), no more, no less. Whether or not total crime is reduced is pretty much entirely bloody irrelevant. It also pretty rarely calls for, y'know, actual full out bans. Most proponents would be pretty much entirely comfortable with you having whatever sitting at the nearby shooting range, ferex. Stateside, many are just looking for better (or any) licensing, training (would it help any to get across this is an issue if I relay the fucking joke that was florida's concealed carry program, again?), and maybe tracking.

It should be remembered that non-crime gun related fatalities are roughly on par in number as the state's entire homicide count, and we're pretty damn sure at this point that reducing firearm saturation or, if nothing else, making it more difficult to get at them (delays on purchasing, regulation on storage, etc.) contributes to reducing that to some degree, and probably a notable one. It doesn't prevent it entirely! Of course not. No one but madmen and slanderers are claiming it would. But as is repeatedly stated, means matter, and there are few means available that are as easy and effective than a gun.

And yes, people. Everyone involved here is aware that there is more to crime, suicide, and everything else involved with this than just firearms. We know that better firearm control would not be a silver bullet for all the ills they're involved in. We know other things have effects, and we know quite a few things have significantly larger ones on those sorts of issues. The reason it gets as much focus on is because it's a much simpler thing to deal with. Regulating (and even enforcing) better storage or various weapon limitations or etc., so forth, so on, is much smaller and much simpler of a task than reducing poverty, combating mental health issues, and managing the drug trade, among whatever other issues are involved. That's why it's not the only thing people wanting to deal with all that mess focus on! Gun control isn't the cure for the problems it's intended to help with, it's an attempt at a bloody seatbelt, put in place to make all the other efforts to keep more people alive that much easier.

[LoSboccacc]

It's not fear, we've seen the statistics on places with a ton of easily-obtainable guns and they're not good numbers. Wealthy countries with a lot of guns have more homicides than some much poorer places.
Raw hard figures.

how Swizerland factors in your 'raw hard figures'? they have more military gun per house than civilian guns. oh but they are without ammo, like if that's a hard problem to solve. anyone robbing a house could get an assault rifle as a bonus. but no, the proper way to handle raw figures must be ignoring the harder to fit into the theory-

[Reelya]

Switzerland don't give out bullets. And they have inspectors to make sure you didn't discharge the gun. This occurred as a result of a number of shooting sprees involving army-issue weapons.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/de-quilling-the-porcupine-swiss-mull-tighter-gun-laws-a-480545.html

With its militia-based approach to national security, Switzerland has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the world -- not to mention one of the highest rates of gun-related deaths. Now gun-control advocates are calling for restrictions on keeping guns and ammunition at home.

That was written in 2007, before the ammo ban. They now have one of the lowest rates of gun deaths in Europe, instead of the highest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland

According to recent (2014) estimations of guns per 100 residents is about 25, which is, for example, lower than Germany, France, or Austria.

i.e.: not actually that high!

Read through the rules of acqusition and carry guns. They're as restrictive as anywhere in Europe. Not the "gun utopia" that America's NRA people like you to believe.

[LoSboccacc]

Stopping or reducing crime is a secondary effect of gun control. It's always been a secondary effect of gun control. Gun control is about reducing fatalities, crime related or not, and reducing opportunity

oh ok then



next argument?

[Sheb]

"Gun control is about reducing the number of fatalities, not reducing crime!"

*Graph of crime rates*

GG LoSboccac. You can into argument.

[LoSboccacc]

"Gun control is about reducing the number of fatalities, not reducing crime!"

*Graph of crime rates*

GG LoSboccac. You can into argument.

you act like they are not related; but see also the green line.

[Reelya]

But handguns are only used in about 30 homicides a year in the UK, or 5%. Whereas in the USA they account for over 8000 murders a year, or 70% of the total murders.

Handgun laws therefore are a very minor impact on crime rates in the UK, because handgun crimes are rare there. So there would be almost no impact on the "red line" of violent crime in the UK due to a reduction in handguns. They didn't account for much to start with. The entire graph is designed to mislead people familiar with the situation in America where handguns are the predominant weapon of criminals.

Also the green "firearm crime" includes all firearm offenses. Including possession. But the 1997 law created new charges for those caught with handguns. Why do you think there's a sudden spike in "firearm crimes" literally as soon as the new law exists: it's because they started charging possession itself as a crime.

Again, the graph is made by assholes trying to mislead you.

Back to Switzerland: notice the 2007 spiegel.de article claiming they had "one of the highest rates of gun-related deaths" in the world? And notice that they don't have that anymore? Only after they pulled all the bullets out of circulation. So I wouldn't use "Switzerland" as your poster-boy for lax gun control. They're more of a case study in how gun control really did "un-fuck" things there.

[Erkki]

If its not about crime and fatalities... Even now after Orlando, absolutely nobody is worried about gun accidents and suicides. Why is, for example, the EU's new firearm directive that is being worked on at the very moment, being reworked on the basis of combating organized crime, homicide rates and terrorism? It's bullshit, people don't care about suicides but are hysteric of what other members of the society might do to them in their imagination unsupported by statistics.

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-6110_fi.htm

"The Commission is hereby supporting Member States in their efforts to protect Europe's citizens and prevent criminals and terrorists from accessing weapons."

And EU is attempting that defined goal by taking away guns from people who have had to prove they are sane and healthy, who already statistically commit murder or suicide about a quarter of an average citizen. Nobody is worried about suicides(which didnt stop Ford from lying to the parliament by adding gun suicides in 10 years to homicides and claiming that figure to resemble annual gun homicides in EU).

They(the Commission, Vicky Ford & CO) are so unbelievably disconnected from reality that they want to ban guns that look like military weapons because people are afraid. Entirely regardless of actual potential to do harm. Its not about safety or fighting crime but naive ideology being forced down peoples throats with money and in the form of a law.

It's not fear, we've seen the statistics on places with a ton of easily-obtainable guns and they're not good numbers. Wealthy countries with a lot of guns have more homicides than some much poorer places. It's not just "poverty". USA is a wealthy and highly educated modern nation, yet if you look at a list of nations by homicide, it hovers around the level of Thailand, Iran and Albania, and nowhere near anywhere you'd consider well-developed nations.

And we have stats on when gun restrictions came in: e.g. in Israel when they stopped letting soldiers taken guns home and weekend suicides fell by a shit-ton, enough to reduce the overall national suicide rate by 40%. Having an easy way to cause death - no surprise - it incentivizes causing death.

Raw hard figures.

Yes, thats what happens when anyone can and does get a gun. Obviously. But do look at Japan, South Korea, China, Mexico. All places with easy gun availability oh wait. There just isn't causality between firearms numbers and suicides or homicides, globally.

Wealthy countries do not have higher homicide rates than poor ones either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate Ignoring USA where anyone and their dog can get a gun within the hour, the first European nation on the list is fracking Russia, the next one Lithuania with half the homicide rate of Russia.

EDIT: Reelya, I provided very detailed statistics from an official source for England and Wales' homicides and violent crime on page 4 or 5 or something. There is NO CHANGE in gun use % in homicides since the law change, and the total homicide rate is on a rise still.

[Reelya]

The law only affected handguns, which were used in a small number of crimes however. Why would that law be expected to change the pattern of use of other firearms? Handgun only ever accounted for a small proportion of homicides in the UK: about 5% You'd expect that at most banning it would maybe have an impact on homicide rates of 2% or so. If crimes that have nothing to do with handguns increased, then there's no good argument that the 1997 law "failed" because those things happened: that law had no causal connection to what people do with e.g. shotguns.

[Starver]

oh ok then

[ img ]

next argument?

For fans of graphs, that has a number of awful features.  Two different measures both 'based' at a non-zero value, makes it look like a halving of one figure makes for a doubling of the other, when it's actually a small drop and a small rise.  It is worrying that the left-label is explicitly Violent Crime, hinting (together with the Firearm line being above the Violent one, against most logic) that the two crime-rates are not on the same scales, thus less than rigorously matched up. It also makes a convenient 'crossing point', indicating a direct switch, when the limited data doesn't show beyond a certain range of years that, even so, hints at the possibiljty of crimes rising during a period of licenced guns rising.  Or not, because there are fluctuations. One even wonders if firearm crime was perfectly consistently rising in 1998, between '97 and '99, or is really a dipped value (to match the 'dipped rise' in the Violent line) that has been conveniently omitted for the sake of the graph.


Not that I argue against the values (those we can be sure of). Crime (of all kinds) tends to rise, and of course licences were drastically cut at that time (those that remain being now proportionately far less handguns, and thus mainly the cadre of licencable non-handguns). Across that window, both trends could be expected.

But how many currently licenced guns were ever used in crime, traditionally? There will, likely be a leak of previously registered weapons into illegal ownership, immediately past such a crackdown (including by being retained past their owners' licence expiring, which would be a firearms offence without any actual active criminality) and approximately 125 fewer licenced weapons (the scale values/lines on the right also being troubling to read) across the whole country seems not to be sufficient explanation for perhaps (if we trust the given scale and rather vague line-ends) 15 more 'gun crimes' per 1/640th or so of the same population.

There's other factors in there. A pre-existing collection of unlicenced firearms is a probability, neither practically suppressed by licencing nor significantly bolstered by "oops I misplaced it" incidents, post-crackdown (which would probably have been recorded as a firearm crime of negligence, BTW, if checked upon and not just assumed to have been handed in during any of the anonymous amnesties, circumventing all the administrative checks that could otherwise have been made).

There have been far better statistical 'proofs' already given than this graph which are still argued over as inconclusive, debatable or even apparently showing both contradictory viewpoints.

Still, it looks pretty.  Probably took up to two minutes to decide the colours.