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[Micro102]

How does the RAND corporation sound?


https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/essays/1996-national-firearms-agreement.html

None of the studies reviewed in McPhedran (2016) found statistically significant evidence that trends in firearm-related homicide changed after the NFA. Since then, two additional studies failed to find an effect (Baker and McPhedran, 2015; Gilmour, Wattanakamolkul, and Sugai, 2018), but three other studies have produced mixed results. Chapman, Alpers, and Jones (2016) found evidence that the decline in total and nonfirearm homicides after the NFA was steeper than prior to the NFA, but the authors found no evidence of either a step change or a change in slopes for firearm homicides. The greater declines in nonfirearm homicides led the authors to doubt whether any changes can be attributed to the NFA.

Uhhh.... Yes, the exact article I linked and which you didn't bother to check yourself.

And later in that same section, it states that McPhedran(2018) found a significant change.

All you are saying is that "the removal of guns from Australia had nothing to do with decreasing gun deaths in Australia. People would have just stopped using guns and started using other weapons for no observable reason". A scientific article wouldn't make the claim outside of statistics, but it just takes a bit of common sense to say that this is ridiculous. As I said, it's not good enough for me, and certainly not good enough to argue that gun regulation won't lower gun deaths in America

We see a pattern of gun regulation = lower gun deaths. If gun deaths really don't go down, then we can always remove those regulations. "Not wanting to fill out paperwork" isn't a valid excuse to allow people to die.

[Lord Shonus]

Do not put words in my mouth. I said nothing about people using other weapons to kill people. Every country that is held up as a gun control success story had massively lower murder rates than the US did, regardless of if you are looking before or after the ban. This means that the murder rates in the US are the result of other factors.

Also, it is kind of disingenuous to use a metastudy with the conclusion "in total, evidence is weak for an effect of the NFA on firearm homicides," as if it were proof that such an effect is proven. The entire point of a metastudy is that any given study has the potential for issues.

[Micro102]

Do not put words in my mouth. I said nothing about people using other weapons to kill people. Every country that is held up as a gun control success story had massively lower murder rates than the US did, regardless of if you are looking before or after the ban. This means that the murder rates in the US are the result of other factors.

I didn't put words in your mouth. That's what the study said. Gun deaths went down, non-gun deaths went up. Your argument requires that this would have happened regardless of the NFA. Unless you want to argue that the NFA, an agreement on firearms, had no effect on firearms, but had an effect on other weapons?

Your claims for other countries also need to be demonstrated.

Also, it is kind of disingenuous to use a metastudy with the conclusion "in total, evidence is weak for an effect of the NFA on firearm homicides," as if it were proof that such an effect is proven. The entire point of a metastudy is that any given study has the potential for issues.

Not sure what you are trying to say here. But let me try and throw out an example of why I think it's unreasonable to think that the NFA had no effect. A trend starts, and it has to stop. Australia can't keep trending into negative firearm numbers. There is some floor it will even out to. The trend before the NFA has no explanation, so in order for the NFA to not have had an effect (and really now, removing guns from the nation should have an effect. An act of government usually has some expectation of working, they didn't design the agreement without data and experts), it would require that this "no explanation" trend occurred for +40 years without heading towards the end of it's curve, it's "floor". I can't accept that over the much more reasonable "an action by government with intent and thought put behind it resulted in change".

[wierd]

Examining the shared trends and results from multiple studies, performed with differing but aligned metholodlogies, allows for any failures or anomalies in each individual study to be smoothed out, and the generalized trends to be analyzed.

That thre will be outliers in the dataset is not indicative that the results of the metastudy are wrong, it is the other way around. It is indicative that the outlier study had some outstanding anomaly about it, either with methods or some other factor not conserved in all the others.

[Lord Shonus]

The point of a metastudy is to average out a number of studies, in order to counteract any bias, methodological errors, or other factors that might skew the results. The metastudy being linked did so, and concluded that the evidence for the Austrailian law preventing homicides was weak.

You replied to that with

And later in that same section, it states that McPhedran(2018) found a significant change.

Implicitly claiming that this single study, already factored into the results, completely overrides the study's conclusion and proves that the law did what you say. Doing so requires throwing out the entire metastudy. Either use the RAND study to support the conclusions of the RAND study, or come up with an argument that the RAND study is invalid. If you are trying to present the RAND study as evidence for the complete opposite of what the RAND study concluded, that is intellectually dishonest.

The study concluded:

1. There is some evidence that the laws may have prevented mass shootings, but those are so rare that it is difficult to call it conclusive
2. Firearm suicide rates dropped, but so did non-firearms suicides, making the connection dubious
3. There's little evidence to credit the laws with reducing firearm homicide rate, as that was already dropping when the laws were passed

[feelotraveller]

The "death by shooting" statistics in Australia are identical in the 30 years after their ban to those over the decades before.

The study concluded:

1. There is some evidence that the laws may have prevented mass shootings, but those are so rare that it is difficult to call it conclusive
2. Firearm suicide rates dropped, but so did non-firearms suicides, making the connection dubious
3. There's little evidence to credit the laws with reducing firearm homicide rate, as that was already dropping when the laws were passed

Um, so which is it to be - identical statistics, or they were already dropping to less than half of their previous levels?

[Micro102]

Ah I see. I added that because you left it out of your quote of what studies found what. Sorry if it came off as if I was pointing to that one study as evidence that it the NFA was effective.

And since I see some other stuff being left out, I'm just going to post the conclusion here:

Conclusion
The 1996 NFA in Australia was established in response to a mass shooting and included multiple components that banned certain types of firearms (and created a buyback program for households to turn in banned firearms), limited who could have a firearm, and imposed requirements (e.g., licensing, training, storage) for acquiring firearms. Only one study (Leigh and Neill, 2010) examined a single component of the legislation by examining the relationship between the number of guns returned across an Australian state and the rates of suicides and homicides in the state, and the authors found a negative relationship for firearm suicide and a negative, though not statistically significant, relationship with firearm homicide.

Most other studies have examined the NFA in its entirety and have examined changes in the trend of outcomes and whether the NFA caused a change in the trend. From these studies, it is difficult to estimate a causal effect of the law. This is because, from a design perspective, there is no adequate comparison group to serve as a proxy counterfactual; that is, what would have happened had Australia not adopted the NFA? In addition, a decreasing trend in some of the outcomes prior to the NFA requires evaluators to identify inflection points where trends may change in rate and to interpret changes in nonfirearm outcomes that were not intended to be affected by the NFA. These features require strong assumptions about, for example, why and how past trends should influence the future trends, whether the policy has an immediate or delayed effect, and how such outcomes as firearm and nonfirearm suicides are related, all of which could be challenged by critics.

The strongest evidence is consistent with the claim that the NFA caused reductions in mass shootings, because no mass shootings occurred in Australia for 23 years after it was adopted (until the 2019 Darwin shooting). There is also consistent evidence that rates of firearm suicides decreased after the NFA and that suicide reductions were greater in regions where more guns were turned in. However, some researchers have shown that the statistical tests used to examine trends in suicides over time are sensitive to model specifications (e.g., the years observed). Furthermore, many studies observe similar changes in nonfirearm suicides, which the NFA did not intend to affect, leading some to question whether another, ancillary effort (such as a youth suicide prevention campaign) was responsible for the reduction in both firearm and nonfirearm suicides. Although, in total, evidence is weak for an effect of the NFA on firearm homicides, there is new evidence to suggest that female homicide victimizations declined after the NFA was adopted.

EDIT: Whoa whoa whoa, what is this?

Firearm suicide rates dropped, but so did non-firearms suicides, making the connection dubious

Non-firearm suicides increased.


 (sweet I can add images)

[wierd]

Part of the objection, is that the efficacy of gun control regulation "success!" claims, have not been properly vetted against already existing trends.  (such as say, the trend that happened when leaded gasoline was banned in the US, and the MONUMENTAL reduction in violent crime, across the board.)

The evaluation of that pre-existing trend, or trends, is necessary to quantify the actual efficacy of the gun control measure.  Often, the gun control measure is attributed (incorrectly) for the already pre-existing trend's effects.

That is the objection here, as I understand it.


As for that graph-- suicide rate increase is not asymptotic to the trend it is compared with; This suggests that some other significant factor (other than gun availability) is impacting suicide rate.  Did some major world event transpire during the polling period?

[feelotraveller]

the efficacy of gun control regulation "success!" claims, have not been properly vetted against already existing trends
(snip}
That is the objection here, as I understand it.

That is certainly a reasonable thing to check out, but it is a long way from the initial claim of no change in gun deaths.

I realise it's an intepretation and on a single factor of the reported/verified number of gun deaths but run your eye(s) over the graph I posted ealier https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/total_number_of_gun_deaths and note the remarkable increase in the rate of decline during the period 1996-1998, that is, immediately after the introduction of the new gun laws.  While not conclusive it is very suggestive of a large impact.

[Micro102]

As for that graph-- suicide rate increase is not asymptotic to the trend it is compared with; This suggests that some other significant factor (other than gun availability) is impacting suicide rate.  Did some major world event transpire during the polling period?

I wouldn't have bothered posting it if not to correct something that was said, but if the general suicide rates increased, we would also expect to see gun-related suicides increase. Yet they drop. This indicates a relation to the lack of guns.

[Starver]

So I meant to say earlier:  I am puzzled by the fact that guns are the target of so much ire, when the real focus should be on public mental health and eliminating the kind of systemic disparities that foment cultures of violence.

I think it's an element, plus social fragmentation, etc (not simply US problems, of course).

Look, I'm still not happy with this inevitable zombie-discussion. And statistics are hard...

32k were in "metro" areas, only 7k in "non-metro."

What proportions of the population are in metro vs non-metro? And then how do you factor "deliberately aim a shot at the nearest person, it would have to pass through thousands of trees" risks vs "fire randomly into the air, some poor sod probably gets hit" ones? Even before the density-based geometric increase of casual encounters likely to generate equivalent ire and tribalism.


(Though I absolutely think there are way too many guns in the US, for spurious historical reasons, the main problem with gun control is that there are too many guns - in circulation and/or stashes - for it to properly work. You can't simply get to the relative no-gun utopias of the UK/Au/whatever without something approaching the power of an appropriately refocused Infinity Glove snap.)

[wierd]

So I meant to say earlier:  I am puzzled by the fact that guns are the target of so much ire, when the real focus should be on public mental health and eliminating the kind of systemic disparities that foment cultures of violence.

I think it's an element, plus social fragmentation, etc (not simply US problems, of course).

Look, I'm still not happy with this inevitable zombie-discussion. And statistics are hard...

32k were in "metro" areas, only 7k in "non-metro."

What proportions of the population are in metro vs non-metro? And then how do you factor "deliberately aim a shot at the nearest person, it would have to pass through thousands of trees" risks vs "fire randomly into the air, some poor sod probably gets hit" ones? Even before the density-based geometric increase of casual encounters likely to generate equivalent ire and tribalism.


(Though I absolutely think there are way too many guns in the US, for spurious historical reasons, the main problem with gun control is that there are too many guns - in circulation and/or stashes - for it to properly work. You can't simply get to the relative no-gun utopias of the UK/Au/whatever without something approaching the power of an appropriately refocused Infinity Glove snap.)

Or a straight up pogrom.  That reality is one of the reasons the NRA propaganda (and the GOP fear mongering) is so compelling to those so easily controlled.

The reality is that most of the problem is that you have people who mean well, but dont invest the energy to know the details-- which ends up in benign hunting rifles getting banned because "We gotta remove the sniper rifles!!".  The banning of the hunting rifle is not intended.  The removal of the sniper rifle is.  It just so happens that the detail is that they are the same gun. 

The people who want the gun control do not want to take away the hunting rifle, they are just unaware that the genuine consequence of banning the "Sniper rifle", is the banning of the hunting rifle. (because they are the same gun.)

The people who want the gun control do not want to do the pogrom path, for obvious reasons.


the great lie, as told by the NRA and the GOP, is that the people who want the gun control want the pogrom, and want to ban the hunting rifle.  It is a half truth, and thus the worst kind of lie.


I am of the opinion that further gun control measures are not really compatible with the US, its constitutional provisions (short of an amendment to strike the 2nd), and the incumbent armaments.


Instead, I am of the opinion that what needs to happen, is that the calculus needs to be reversed a little-- Rather than the Fed dictating DOWN, by creating legislation that simply CANNOT meet the needs of everyone, due to mutually exclusive needs based on region--- The Fed agencies (like ATF), are instead ordered that they must comply to requests from state and city governments for local enforcement of local laws concerning those substances or items.

That solves the "City lacks resources to enforce" problem.  If Chicago passes legislation saying "You cannot own, operate, or store the following weapons inside the city limits of Chicago, police and other enforcement agents are authorized upon reasonable suspicion of such possession or ownership to search and confiscate such weapons", they can then tap the ATF to facilitate enforcement.

That would clean up the problem in a much more targetted fashion, and would not fuck the people outside Chicago, that need those weapons.

[Starver]

I'm not going to argue at all with that set of interpretations. I think they are a good/reasonable/understandable ones.

But, before I finally hold good on my resolution to stop fuelling this particular fire, I shall also (seperately) pointedly not comment about Chicago's particular history with "Though shalt not possess or use <foo>, something that is easily available (and not banned at all!) not far from the city limits", just to highlight and mirror the possibly unintended irony of that example.

[None]

I'm not really sure how effective or how much we'd want to be relying on law enforcement to stop and search people for illegal firearms (particularly warrantlessly) given the cops' lopsided enforcement of law upon the poor or minorities, or their general unwillingness to carry out law if it's politically unfavorable to them, as we saw by county and even by cities when mask mandates went up at the start of the pandemic and sheriffs literally and publicly posted that they would not enforce that.

[Bumber]

Bumber this is childish and sadly extremely Republican - "things are bad and trying to make them better probably won't work so don't do anything."

You say that like someone's unwillingness to enforce the laws we already have is some how an indication of the rightness of their position.

Let's call it what it actually is: sabotaging enforcement of established laws because of their own political beliefs.

Claiming otherwise is like saying an elected official's unwillingness to drive the posted speed limit is evidence that we don't need speed limits.

The public's elected officials voted this law into being. Ergo, not enforcing it is subverting the will of the electorate. You know, that thing that Conservative Republicans are always claiming happens. Like so many things, they only disapprove of laws when it's not in their benefit to have them. Voting restrictions? 100% Enforcing the meager gun laws we already have? TYRANNY.

You've misunderstood my point completely. You can create all the laws on guns or speed limits you want, but if nobody's ever charged on them, then those laws de facto don't exist. Surely the focus should be on enforcing the existing gun laws where the issues are, rather than creating new laws that everyone else is expected to enforce?

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that the states with restrictive gun laws have filled the ranks of their prosecutors with Conservative Republicans, for some reason. It's not Republicans. It's liberal Democrats who don't want to charge people with crimes because the laws are Racist™ and disproportionately affect minorities (who happen to be four times as likely to be in a gang, etc.)