Well, ExTank, looks like I’ve been drawn into this after all.
- Accidents: Decent point, but I would have to look at the numbers. I know that motor vehicle deaths are huge. In fact, IIRC, they are huge compared with, say, deaths from the Vietnam War. But that hardly serves to trivialize the deaths from that latter conflict for a number of reasons.
And, actually, we have something called the Consumer Product Safety Commission which rather stringently regulates child toys and the like. Which partly explains the lack of media coverage on that. (Another reason is that when a dangerous toy emerges, the problem is quickly “solved” by a mandatory recall.)
[The complexity here is that, in the public eye certain deaths cause more fear and dread than others, a point that Anthracite will be familiar with. People freak out about low level radiation from nukes, pesticides and electrical plant sitings and are relatively blase about the more familiar risks of smoking, driving and eating too many cheeseburgers. And, IMHO, it’s not merely being a case of the scientists being right and the public wrong (all there is a lot of that). Some deaths are simply scarier than others.]
- But let’s get back to the ideology. Suicide: I find it odd that gun control advocates doubt the use of cross-national homicide studies, but think cross-national suicide studies are valid. I’ve looked at the suicide figures by country and they are all over the place. The confounding factors are overwhelming.
OTOH, I have read studies (or reports of studies) suggesting that firearm suicides are more likely to be successful. Hey, I may be wrong. I’m suggesting, though, that you have to switch methodologies.
- Homicides. Most homicides are crimes of passion, IIRC. Of course, what I worry about is getting shot and mugged in my local urban area. This, BTW, is probably close to the political nub of the issue.
(The other part is a wildly varying valuation of the right (or “right”, depending upon your persuasion) to bear arms.)
"Black Males between the ages of 17 and 24 (IIRC) alone commit 3 times the total national rate of all firearms deaths; 6 1/2 times after suicides are removed! " (Typo corrected, I hope) Um, that’s fine but what I want to know is the share of all homicides perpetrated by that group.
Then, I would have to wonder a little about the argument you’re making. That the deaths from firearms are focussed in one demographic group seems irrelevant to me.
-
Undetermined. Jeez it’s not noise. It’s simply, “We don’t know whether it is an accident, suicide or whatever.” This only matters if you (eg) weigh suicides less than homicides. Hey, that may be fair, but giving “undetermined” a moral weight of zero sounds dubious.
-
Legal intervention: This needs an adjustment. Quite possibly though, the number might be lower if the cops needed to defend themselves against fewer guns. Again, it needs to be weighed less than a homicide, but still given some weight, IMO.
…
Look, I don’t want to claim that this issue is clear-cut. I have not seen a definitive gun control study, nor have I looked for one. (Although, I did take note at ExTank’s recommendation some months back of a gun control pro/con book. Thanks, btw.)
One interesting exercise might be to take a hard look at the history of gun control in Switzerland and Israel, two countries with lower levels of non-terrorist violence (AFAIK, IANAE) and looser gun restrictions than most of the rest of the world. For example, I am unaware of the extent of their restrictions on 1) concealable weapons, 2) Automatic weapons or weapons that can be easily transformed into automatic weapons and 3) weapons that are poorly built or flimsy (I’m thinking of the Tek-9, for example).
…
The other open issue for me is the extent to which a firearm would enhance or detract from (say) my personal safety, or the average firearm owner’s personal safety, on balance. (Then I would have to somehow weigh the rights of handgun owners who are enhancing their safety against the estimated carnage associated with the handguns. Furthermore, I would have to make another adjustment for the fact that the former handgun holders would be allowed to switch to rifles). Again, this issue is pretty involved, which is part of the reason why I prefer to stay focused on narrow aspects of it.
Hm. I see that there have been about 4 posts since I started this. Ah well. Nighty-night gang.