What did this family not have that it needed?

[Blind groper]

The problem is not that Boston University had to use gun suicide statistics as a proxy. The problem is that America is so gun crazy that you are not even collecting proper statistics on gun homicides. But they are professional researchers, and they say this proxy system is reliable, so I think we can accept it as a good guide. End result is more guns means more killings.

[piscator]

Same for household poisons. You could save 10x the American lives guns take (voluntarily or not) by simply magically banning household and industrial poisons in America like you want to do with various of our other property. Yet you insist on beating the gun drum. Your efforts are simply misguided.

[Seth]

The problem is not that Boston University had to use gun suicide statistics as a proxy.

Of course that's the problem.

The problem is that America is so gun crazy that you are not even collecting proper statistics on gun homicides.

There's a perfectly good reason for that: The collection of information on who owns guns where is an infringement of the 2nd Amendment and the individual's right to privacy. It gives government the necessary information to seize firearms at will, as has happened several times here in the US alone, including California and New Jersey. In New Jersey an "assault weapons" registration scheme that was solemnly promised to never be used for confiscation in order to pass it was, three years later, used by the New Jersey State Police to go around to addresses on the list and confiscate firearms that had been legal when registered but were made illegal by a subsequent administration. The exact same thing occurred in California. And I'm going to ignore for the moment the many instances of confiscations facilitated by gun registration records worldwide.

Therefore, we Americans have largely forbidden our government representatives from compiling such lists, although the gun-haters and hoplophobes keep right on trying every year. The BATFE itself has been caught illegally retaining NICS records in direct and insubordinate violation of a duly-passed law that explicitly forbids them from doing so.

In other words, it's none of your fucking business who owns guns or where they are.

But they are professional researchers, and they say this proxy system is reliable, so I think we can accept it as a good guide. End result is more guns means more killings.

Just because they are "professional researchers" doesn't mean that they aren't perpetrating a fraud for ideological reasons. All we have to do is look at the AGW lies being told day in and day out to see that.

Fact is, that's exactly what they are: ideological frauds.

[piscator]

They're not frauds. Merely selling a product to a willing market.

[Blind groper]

More guns mean more killings. Simple.

I have several times tried to explain to the gun lovers here that there is a clear cut correlation across western countries, showing that more guns means more murders. My efforts to pass on this message have largely been rejected, so I decided to nail it down.

I found a list on the internet showing percentage of various populations that owned guns. Not all western countries were on this list, but I used every one that was. The list is :

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, England and Wales, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the USA.

I also collected for each of those countries, both of :
1. The number of gun murders per 100,000 people per year
2. The total number of murders per 100,000 per year.

I then used a statistics computer calculator to work out the relevant correlation coefficients.

For those who do not understand these correlations, let me explain :
A. A correlation coefficient is somewhere between minus 1.0 and plus 1.0. Minus values mean one factor counters the other. A positive value means one factor reinforces the other.
B. Any value above 5.0 is considered high. That is, the relationship between the two factors is strong.

So the results.

First : Correclation coefficient between percentage gun ownership by country, and the total number of murders in that country is plus 0.6.
Second : The correlation coefficient between percentage gun ownership by country and gun murders in those countries is 0.8.

The clear conclusion is simple. More guns means more killings. Not only that, but the degree to which this applies is very, very strong.

Also it totally and completely destroys Seth's view that more guns reduces murders. This is clear cut, proof positive that the opposite applies.

[JimC]

Same for household poisons. You could save 10x the American lives guns take (voluntarily or not) by simply magically banning household and industrial poisons in America like you want to do with various of our other property. Yet you insist on beating the gun drum. Your efforts are simply misguided.

All those have straightforward, legitimate uses other than poisoning themselves. Perhaps they need more warnings, or better containers,etc...

Same story with the usual lame comparisons to deaths by cars...

[Hermit]

More guns mean more killings. Simple.

I have several times tried to explain to the gun lovers here that there is a clear cut correlation across western countries, showing that more guns means more murders.

You keep ignoring a couple of things.

One is that when a government buys back several hundred thousand semi-automatic and pump action firearms within under a year, one would expect a noticeable dip in the graph representing homicides and suicides. Neither are discernible when Australia did just that in 1966.

Another is a lack of correlation between the incidence of gun ownership and total homicide and suicide rates in between countries. Have a look at South Africa and Switzerland, then explain their figures in comparison to say, New Zealand, Australia and the US.

[Blind groper]

South Africa and Switzerland versus Australia, NZ and the USA.

For a start, you can cut South Africa out, because I was comparing advanced western nations. South Africa has a horrendous level of violence of all kinds, which probably stems from recent tribalism. Inter-tribal violence is rife in very tribal nations, as any anthropologist could tell ou, and this culture of violence takes a long time to evolve into peacefulness. Not to be compared to advanced nations which are a long, long way from their tribal origins.

I was interested, when I looked at the recent data, to see that Switzerland had high gun ownership (less than the USA though), and both a high murder rate and a high suicide rate. So Switzerland fits the correlation perfectly.

Australia and NZ are quite similar to each other (surprise, surprise!). The USA has the highest gun ownership of any western nation, and the highest murder rate also. So they fit the correlation perfectly.

A correlation coefficient of 0.6 for all murders, related to gun ownership, is a very strong relationship between those two factors. Since the coefficient is even higher at 0.8 for gun ownership and gun murders, there is no wriggle room for those gun apologists who want to say high gun ownership does not lead to lots of murders.

As I have said right along. Lots of guns means lots of killing.

This new data fully supports the Boston University study that showed American states with more gun ownership have more murders.

[Hermit]

For a start, you can cut South Africa out, because I was comparing advanced western nations.

That is commonly known as cherry picking, something of a nono for the purposes of statistical analysis.

I was interested, when I looked at the recent data, to see that Switzerland had high gun ownership (less than the USA though), and both a high murder rate and a high suicide rate. So Switzerland fits the correlation perfectly.

Firearm-related death rate per 100,000 population per year

Switzerland 3.84
South Africa 21.51
New Zealand 1.45
Australia 0.86
USA 10.30

Rate of gun ownership per 100 residents

Switzerland 45.7
South Africa 12.7
New Zealand 22.6
Australia 15.0
USA 90.0

More tellingly, total homicides and suicides by any means per 100,000 per year

Switzerland 14.9
South Africa 46.4
New Zealand 12.1
Australia 8.6
USA 15.2

Not much correlation between firearm ownership and homicide and suicide rates, is there?

Moreover, once again you ignored the lack of a noticeable dip in homicide and suicide rates when Australia went through its gun buyback program. Why might that be? Ah. Of course. The data don't suit your thesis.

[piscator]

Same for household poisons. You could save 10x the American lives guns take (voluntarily or not) by simply magically banning household and industrial poisons in America like you want to do with various of our other property. Yet you insist on beating the gun drum. Your efforts are simply misguided.

All those have straightforward, legitimate uses other than poisoning themselves. Perhaps they need more warnings, or better containers,etc...

Same story with the usual lame comparisons to deaths by cars...

Neither cars or poison or a whole host of useful things are Constitutionally protected in the Bill of Rights. And since we're on that subject, It's not a Bill of Convenient Notions Which Can Be Handwaved Whenever the Monarch Wishes. A lot of blood has been spilt defending this Union and those "Arbitrary" rights, and I'd predict rivers more would be before the Bill of Rights goes on the block. It's the glue that holds 50 States together and makes a dollar.

[AvtomatKalashnikova]

Same for household poisons. You could save 10x the American lives guns take (voluntarily or not) by simply magically banning household and industrial poisons in America like you want to do with various of our other property. Yet you insist on beating the gun drum. Your efforts are simply misguided.

All those have straightforward, legitimate uses other than poisoning themselves. Perhaps they need more warnings, or better containers,etc...

Same story with the usual lame comparisons to deaths by cars...

Gun is have many legitimate uses, comrade! Gun is good for hunt, take many deer or elk or bear for fill freezer and feed family! Gun is good for sport, explode many clays, put much hole in target at range! Of couse, gun also good for protect family from danger. Chechen is try to intrude in house for rape daughter and steal rouble? Is easily solved with 7.62x39!

[laklak]

Da, tovarisch. 7.62x39, 7.62x51, 5.56x45, 8x56R, 30-06, 30-30, .308, .338, .375H&H, 45-70, 458 WinMag, we're spoiled for choices. There's always .700 Nitro Express if attacked by rampaging, rabid elephants, though for home defense it might over-penetrate.

[AvtomatKalashnikova]

Da, tovarisch. 7.62x39, 7.62x51, 5.56x45, 8x56R, 30-06, 30-30, .308, .338, .375H&H, 45-70, 458 WinMag, we're spoiled for choices. There's always .700 Nitro Express if attacked by rampaging, rabid elephants, though for home defense it might over-penetrate.

Rabid elephants?

Always Avtomat is like to believe is prepared for all contingency... but not for rabid elephants attack! Maybe is time for saving to buy DsHK been thinking of.

[Blind groper]

To Hermit

My correlations were not the result of cherry picking, but of a clearly made and honestly spoken condition. I looked at the list of nations by percentage firearms ownership, and chose all those nations listed which were developed western nations. South Africa is not part of the classification, and so was not chosen. Nor was China, Russia, Swaziland, Mexico or Zimbabwe.

There is a good reason to limit the comparison to advanced western nations. That reason is that there are other factors driving violence in more primitive societies. I have identified four.

1. Political turmoil, such as civil wars.
2. A big drug manufacturing industry, such as we see in central America.
3. Tribalism. Any nation which has a large percentage of its people recently removed from a primitive tribal situation will be violent. eg. South Africa.
4. Islamic jihad.

None of those four factors apply in advanced western nations, and so I have used a simple tool to eliminate them from the equation. I was left with those 20 nations I listed, and those 20 can be compared without the old apples and oranges fallacy.

On the issue you raised about Australia.

That gun ownership limitation was never designed to lower the overall murder rate. It would have little effect anyway, since the percentage of murders carried out in Australia with guns is very small. Most people who murder, use another means.

No, the limitation was designed to reduce the number of mass killings, after the Port Arthur affair. In that, it has succeeded incredibly well. No such mass murder has happened. Compare this to the USA which, on average, sees 20 mass killings each year, with an average of 5 dead per incident. Australia passed an enlightened new law to reduce mass killings and it worked wonderfully well.

Back to the correlation, and in conclusion.

Within that list of 20 advanced western nations, there is a clear cut and unambiguous correlation which shows that, for advanced western nations, more guns means more murders.

[AvtomatKalashnikova]

To Hermit

My correlations were not the result of cherry picking, but of a clearly made and honestly spoken condition. I looked at the list of nations by percentage firearms ownership, and chose all those nations listed which were developed western nations. South Africa is not part of the classification, and so was not chosen. Nor was China, Russia, Swaziland, Mexico or Zimbabwe.

There is a good reason to limit the comparison to advanced western nations. That reason is that there are other factors driving violence in more primitive societies. I have identified four.

1. Political turmoil, such as civil wars.
2. A big drug manufacturing industry, such as we see in central America.
3. Tribalism. Any nation which has a large percentage of its people recently removed from a primitive tribal situation will be violent. eg. South Africa.
4. Islamic jihad.

None of those four factors apply in advanced western nations, and so I have used a simple tool to eliminate them from the equation. I was left with those 20 nations I listed, and those 20 can be compared without the old apples and oranges fallacy.

On the issue you raised about Australia.

That gun ownership limitation was never designed to lower the overall murder rate. It would have little effect anyway, since the percentage of murders carried out in Australia with guns is very small. Most people who murder, use another means.

No, the limitation was designed to reduce the number of mass killings, after the Port Arthur affair. In that, it has succeeded incredibly well. No such mass murder has happened. Compare this to the USA which, on average, sees 20 mass killings each year, with an average of 5 dead per incident. Australia passed an enlightened new law to reduce mass killings and it worked wonderfully well.

Back to the correlation, and in conclusion.

Within that list of 20 advanced western nations, there is a clear cut and unambiguous correlation which shows that, for advanced western nations, more guns means more murders.

Of course after eliminate all other nations with more violent than US, US is magical become most violent nation! Is just necessary to carefully select reason for remove nation from list which make inconvenience data points.