The case against guns

[Hermit]

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazi ... revalence/

The above reference shows the link between suicide rate and gun ownership. More guns means more deaths by suicide. This is the more serious connection, since there are always more suicides than homicides. More lives lost unnecessarily.

My last post showed the clear link between gun ownership and homicide rate in the OECD, with the exception of Switzerland. Again, more guns = more harm. This time in the form of homicides.

http://www.bu.edu/news/2013/09/13/new-r ... homicides/

On guns and homicides.
The link above shows that gun ownershop correlates with homicides. State by state in the USA, every 1% rise in gun ownership causes a 0.9% rise in gun homicide.

Guns kill people. More guns kill more people. The whole bullshit idea that Seth puts across that guns are good is crap. More guns mean more innocent people are killed.

Neither site you provided links to furnishes historical evidence that as gun ownership per capita ownership in, say, Florida falls, so does the incidence of per capita suicide or homicide, or conversely, as gun ownership per capita ownership in, say, Florida rises, so does the incidence of per capita suicide or homicide. I have provided statistics in this thread and in others, that neither trends (in suicide or homicide) were changed by changing trends in Australian gun ownership.

Of course, Seth's posts are equally bereft of statistics that might back up his opinions.

In that regard both of you are talking ex recto.

[Blind groper]

Hermit

It would be impossible to demonstrate a reduction in homicides along with a reduction in gun ownership, since there is a world wide trend to reduction in homicides that is not gun related. One trend interferes with the other statistically.

But it is clear, from the solid data I posted, that those countries and states with more guns have more homicides, and in the USA, those states with more guns have more suicides, as the references I have posted demonstrate.

Bearing in mind that the gun is designed specifically to kill, and the hand gun is designed to kill humans at close range, while being concealable enough to get to within that close range while carrying the gun, it is hardly surprising that more guns means more killings.

[Seth]

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazi ... revalence/

The above reference shows the link between suicide rate and gun ownership. More guns means more deaths by suicide.

Correlation is not causation. Guns don't cause suicide, they are merely an effective tool of suicide...one which will be replaced with another tool by a truly suicidal person.

This is the more serious connection, since there are always more suicides than homicides. More lives lost unnecessarily.

Besides being a correlation/causation fallacy, this fallaciously assumes that suicides are a loss to society, which is not necessarily the case.

My last post showed the clear link between gun ownership and homicide rate in the OECD, with the exception of Switzerland. Again, more guns = more harm. This time in the form of homicides.

Correlation is not causation, as we have demonstrated to you many times.

[Hermit]

...it is clear, from the solid data I posted, that those countries and states with more guns have more homicides, and in the USA, those states with more guns have more suicides, as the references I have posted demonstrate.

Yes, I agree, it is quite clear, although I predict that this old argument is about to be trotted out once again: Some states with greater gun control have a higher rate of homicides than some states in which gun control is so relaxed that it almost isn't there.

I merely voiced the opinion that nobody has furnished convincing evidence that gun control reduces homicides, nor that more guns result in less crime, and previously provided some timeline style statistics in regard to Australia illustrating that gun control had no effect on homicides in particular, violent crimes in general or suicides. Increasingly, I view gun control discussions with bemusement - as akin to opposing scholastic strands disagreeing on whether the Hail Mare or the Our Farter is a more efficacious form of prayer.

[Seth]

Of course, Seth's posts are equally bereft of statistics that might back up his opinions.

In that regard both of you are talking ex recto.

While I appreciate your scholarship, I don't bother with such scholarship anymore in these arguments because BG is intractably bigoted against guns and will not, under any circumstances, admit error even when the evidence is shoved into his pie-hole.

Believe me, I've been there and done that, literally thousands, or perhaps tens of thousands of times, and sometimes one's opponent is so ideologically blindered that it's a waste of time to cite statistics or examples anymore. In BG's case I've cited dozens of examples and he's utterly ignored each and every one and has refused to even engage those debates because he knows he's full of shit, so he just continues his polemic rhetoric while avoiding the truth.

In other words, he's not worth wasting my time on, except not to allow his insane crap to go unanswered.

[Seth]

...it is clear, from the solid data I posted, that those countries and states with more guns have more homicides, and in the USA, those states with more guns have more suicides, as the references I have posted demonstrate.

Yes, I agree, it is quite clear, although I predict that this old argument is about to be trotted out once again: Some states with greater gun control have a higher rate of homicides than some states in which gun control is so relaxed that it almost isn't there.

I merely voiced the opinion that nobody has furnished convincing evidence that gun control reduces homicides, nor that more guns result in less crime, and previously provided some timeline style statistics in regard to Australia illustrating that gun control had no effect on homicides in particular, violent crimes in general or suicides. Increasingly, I view gun control discussions with bemusement - as akin to opposing scholastic strands disagreeing on whether the Hail Mare or the Our Farter is a more efficacious form of prayer.

Well, here's an idea: If it cannot be proven conclusively that more guns equals MORE crime (which it can't, the opposite being demonstrably true) then more guns is not demonstrably harmful to society and therefore they need not be banned.

[Hermit]

Correlation is not causation.

...except when you say it is, apparently, as in your mantra "more guns, less crime, fewer guns, more crime".

Meanwhile, you have neatly ignored the challenge to explain how there is even a correlation between guns and crime as plotted out in this graph.

[Blind groper]

Seth finds the "more guns, less crime" argument convenient. This was a book written by John Lott. Sadly for Seth, that book and its conclusions have been shown by a number of highly qualified academics to be so much crap. However, as always, those who find the conclusions of crap books convenient will ignore any evidence to the contrary.

Seth quotes 'correlation does not mean causation'. That is a slogan which is used when the correlation is inconvenient. It is a slogan that is occasionally correct, but the correlation needs to be shown to be unrelated to causation. In this case, the correlation is clear, and is rational, and fits any reasonable model of causation.

Guns are tools for killing. More guns means more killing. This logic is sensible. More than that, it is backed up by empirical studies that show where there are more guns, the murder rate goes up. As I have shown with real world and statistically valid evidence.

Seth likes to fall back on anecdotes, which I reject for the simple reason that anecdotes are not scientifically acceptable evidence. My rejection of his anecdotes makes Seth think I am closed to logic and data. Not at all. It is just that Seth has not supplied anything other than cherry picked data, like anecdotes and a discredited book.

To Seth, about suicide.

You keep falling back on the statement that a would-be suicide prevented from access to a gun will use another method. As I have repeatedly told you, researchers into suicide have found that most suicides are done on impulse, and tis is not repeated. So if you can stop a suicide, the impulse passes and the person lives a full life.

The easy way to stop the impulse is to make sure hand guns are not available. This simple measure would save thousands of lives each year. Those people would then have the opportunity to go on and have the same chance we all have of a happy and fulfilled life.

[Hermit]

Guns are tools for killing. More guns means more killing. This logic is sensible.

Makes as much sense as: Guns are tools for killing. More guns means more disincentive to use one. The greater the likelihood that the other person has a gun too, the greater the risk of being killed yourself.

You keep falling back on the statement that a would-be suicide prevented from access to a gun will use another method.

That is precisely what happened in Australia. How many more times must I point that out before you acknowledge it?

[Blind groper]

Hermit

Guns were never a major suicide method in Australia, anyway. Probably because a long gun is very awkward as a suicide tool and hand guns were largely absent. Suicide in Australia is mainly by hanging (though suicide attempts, which fail, are mainly by drug overdose). So the tougher gun laws had little, if any effect on suicide rates. So what?

However, there was a reduction in murder rates.

On your skepticism about my statement that guns are tools for killing. If you doubt that, perhaps you can tell me what it is that guns are used for, if not killing (or practising for killing by shooting at targets).

[Seth]

Correlation is not causation.

...except when you say it is, apparently, as in your mantra "more guns, less crime, fewer guns, more crime".

Except that research has been done and the statement has been conclusively proven right here in the US. I just don't bother to cite it anymore because BG just dismisses it.

Meanwhile, you have neatly ignored the challenge to explain how there is even a correlation between guns and crime as plotted out in this graph.

I'm not claiming there is correlation, BG is. I'm just pointing out that even if he finds a correlation (which he hasn't) that doesn't prove causation.

[Hermit]

Guns were never a major suicide method in Australia, anyway.

Oh, perleeeeeeeease. Gun control supporters were crowing about the "almost 80 per cent drop in firearm suicides since former prime minister John Howard's gun buyback was introduced in 1997", while ignoring the fact that the suicide rate declined at the same rate since 1997 as it did in the decade leading up to the buyback scheme, and the fact that in percentage terms the reduction in suicide by firearm was accompanied by an increase in suicide by other means, particularly hanging and overdosing. I've provided links to the relevant statistics before.

On your skepticism about my statement that guns are tools for killing. If you doubt that, perhaps you can tell me what it is that guns are used for, if not killing (or practising for killing by shooting at targets).

What on earth gave you the impression that I think that guns are not for killing? I merely provided an alternate conclusion on the undeniable true premiss that guns are for killing. Given the lack of evidence for both conclusions, the "sensible logic" behind them is equally hollow. A comparison of homicide rates between different geographical areas does not cut the mustard. If it did, you'd have quite some difficulty in explaining why deaths by firearms are higher in percentage terms in some states of the US with relatively stringent gun controls than in some others where such controls are almost non-existent.

[Seth]

Seth finds the "more guns, less crime" argument convenient. This was a book written by John Lott. Sadly for Seth, that book and its conclusions have been shown by a number of highly qualified academics to be so much crap. However, as always, those who find the conclusions of crap books convenient will ignore any evidence to the contrary.

Wrong. It's been challenged by a number of highly-biased anti-gun academic shills (particularly a bunch at Harvard) who have yet to provide any credible refutation of Lott's work, much less the work of many other researchers, and legislative bodies, who have examined the evidence and concluded that Lott is indeed correct, which is why there are now 50 states which provide some avenue for law-abiding citizens to obtain permits to carry concealed weapons in public...although Illinois had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the bar to make it happen. Only 40 or so of the 50 states have "shall issue" regulations that make granting such permits non-discretionary, but that's changing every day too.

Seth quotes 'correlation does not mean causation'. That is a slogan which is used when the correlation is inconvenient. It is a slogan that is occasionally correct, but the correlation needs to be shown to be unrelated to causation. In this case, the correlation is clear, and is rational, and fits any reasonable model of causation.

No it doesn't.

Guns are tools for killing. More guns means more killing. This logic is sensible.

Let's suppose arguendo that you're right. So what? Creatures need to be killed from time to time, and that happens to include human beings. That being the case it's only prudent to have the proper tool for the job. After all, it's difficult to drive nails with a herring.

More than that, it is backed up by empirical studies that show where there are more guns, the murder rate goes up. As I have shown with real world and statistically valid evidence.

Except you haven't. The number of guns in the US has soared in the last 30 years and yet the murder rate has been steadily dropping all that time.

Checkmate.

Seth likes to fall back on anecdotes, which I reject for the simple reason that anecdotes are not scientifically acceptable evidence.

What's not scientifically acceptable is refusing to accept validated observations in support of one theory because they happen to conflict with your theory.

My rejection of his anecdotes makes Seth think I am closed to logic and data.

No, it proves that you are closed to logic and data.

Not at all. It is just that Seth has not supplied anything other than cherry picked data, like anecdotes and a discredited book.

And yet you have been entirely unable, not to mention unwilling to try to rebut even a single one of those "cherries," much less provide any evidence whatsoever in support of your thesis other than the simplistic observation that murder rates are higher in the US than they are elsewhere.

To Seth, about suicide.

You keep falling back on the statement that a would-be suicide prevented from access to a gun will use another method. As I have repeatedly told you, researchers into suicide have found that most suicides are done on impulse, and tis is not repeated. So if you can stop a suicide, the impulse passes and the person lives a full life.

Feel free to stop all the suicides you like, but don't try to use suicide by gun as an excuse to deprive the enormous majority of non-suicidal gun owners of their property. It's a ridiculous and fallacious notion, as I've pointed out many times with the very simple example of the automobile. Ten times the number deaths caused by all forms of firearms are killed each and every year in automobiles, and yet you do not call for banning them, or bathtubs, or five-gallon buckets, or swimming pools or any of a very long list of things that kill people much more often than guns do...guns being down below the 100 most common causes of death according to the CDC.

You ignore this fact and attempt to argue that because cars are "necessary" and because they have utility, it's an inappropriate comparison, but this depends on your own fallacious assumption that guns are not necessary and have no legitimate utility, a narrow-minded utopianistic view of humanity that has no connection whatever to reality.

The easy way to stop the impulse is to make sure hand guns are not available. This simple measure would save thousands of lives each year. Those people would then have the opportunity to go on and have the same chance we all have of a happy and fulfilled life.

Except you completely ignore the much greater number of people who would die, be injured and be victimized because they did not have a gun when they needed it.

Given the choice between making it easier for suicides to achieve their desire for death and making it harder for criminals to victimize innocent people who don't want to be victimized, I'll take the rights of the innocent to be armed to secure to the maximum extent possible their right to be free of criminal attack over interfering with a suicide's sovereign and absolute individual right to end his or her life whenever it occurs to them to do so.

For you to tell me that I have to sacrifice my personal safety, and the safety of my loved ones in order to hypothetically make it more difficult for a suicide to exercise his right to commit suicide effectively and painlessly is beneath contempt.

[Hermit]

Correlation is not causation.

...except when you say it is, apparently, as in your mantra "more guns, less crime, fewer guns, more crime".

Except that research has been done and the statement has been conclusively proven right here in the US. I just don't bother to cite it anymore because BG just dismisses it.

Meanwhile, you have neatly ignored the challenge to explain how there is even a correlation between guns and crime as plotted out in this graph.

I'm not claiming there is correlation, BG is. I'm just pointing out that even if he finds a correlation (which he hasn't) that doesn't prove causation.

Didn't you say "more guns, less crime, fewer guns, more crime"? Not claiming causation there? Not even correlation?

It seems to me that I am exactly right: Correlation is not causation, except when you say it is. And you say it is when it suits you.

Now, for that graph again:



Can you see even a correlation, let alone a causal link, between firearms ownership and the incidence of violent crime? If there was one or the other, surely one would expect one data series go down as the other goes up instead of those conspicuous peaks in crime that are out of step with the trend in gun ownership.

[Blind groper]

Hermit

My claim is not 'more guns, more violent crime'. I doubt there is any connection whatever, since violent crime includes everything from hitting your wife, to rape, to a bar-room brawl, to stabbings etc. My claim is that more guns (well, hand guns anyway) means more murders and more suicides conducted successfully. In other words, more hand guns means more unnecessary deaths.

This simple conclusion is so obvious, it is hard to see how anyone could be so obtuse as to deny it. Seth thinks self defense with guns outweighs murders. But only 200 criminals per year are killed in self defense actions in the USA, while 8,000 murders with hand guns happens over the same time period. I would say that the murders outweigh the self defense cases very handily.

And then there is the clear connection, when you compare OECD nations for gun ownership and murder rate. A very clear cut correlation. Also states in the USA. The states with higher gun ownership have higher murder rates. More guns means more murders.

Seth will argue that it is not the 200 deaths that matter, but te times guns are used to threaten criminals. But in every other nation in the OECD, hand guns are not permitted, and there is absolutely no increase in citizens being harmed. Quite the contrary, since every other nation in the OECD has a murder rate that is one half to one fifth that of the USA. Hand guns are not needed for self defense. That is just the NRA rationalisation for their support of the American gun making industry, which bribes them so thoroughly.