# Can/should anything be done about US shootings? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 2, 2015, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263 "2015-12-02T23:16:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2015, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/222 "2015-12-08T21:12:01Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Let me clear up your confusion. > [ol] > [li]State gun control is relatively ineffective because there’s almost no control over what flows in and out over state lines.[/li][li]National gun control works.[/li][li]Being right next door to the US is going to make things worse for neighboring countries than they otherwise would be.[/li][/ol] > All those things can be true simultaneously. > > #2 is one of the main reasons (though not the only one) that Canada has just 14% of the gun homicide rate of the US. #3 is one of the reasons that the UK has just 1.4% of US gun homicides. > > Those are not small differences. They should be as shocking as the gun death numbers themselves. Really? So America has ~one gun per capita. Canada has ~.3 guns per capita. Are you saying that if we reduced from 300 million guns to only 100 million guns we would experience an 86% reduction in gun homicides? That doesn’t make sense to me. Especially considering that ~25% of Candaian households have guns while 50% of American households have guns. And why just gun homicides? What does it matter if gun homicides go down by 100 and other types of homicides goes up by an equal amount (I fully recognize that there would not be a perfect substitution effect but just for the sake of argument). Its not like Canada only has 14% of America’s homicide rate and the UK certainly has more than 1.4% of America’s homicide rate. The USA certainly has a much higher homicide rate at 3.8/100,000 versus 1.4 for Canada and 1.0 for the UK but the murder rate is not directly proportional to gun ownership. So those numbers you are talking about (14% and 1.4%) are really not as indicative of overall homicide rates as it is of method of homicide. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2015, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/223 "2015-12-08T21:23:16Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > I’ll assume that I just wasn’t clear rather than you misdirecting the conversation again. I didn’t mean to say that suicide numbers were necessarily hugely out of line, I was referring to the gun homicide (and accident) numbers, where as mentioned the US has 7 times the gun homicide rate of Canada and something like 71 times the rate of the UK. The homicide rate in Canada is just under half and the homicide rate in the UK is just under a quarter. The US clearly has a murder problem but it is not in the same ball park as you are trying to suggest with your 7 time sand 71 times. > [@](#): > > the thing about gun suicide attempts is that they’re almost always lethal, many other attempts are not. Emo teenagers grazing a razor over their wrists have to be taken seriously because some of them end up dead but sometimes a suicide attempt is really a cry for help rather than a sincere desire to end life. There are very effective means of suicide available to everyone. Jumping off of tall buildings, jumping in front of trains, hanging, etc. are all very effective means of suicide. that is how countries like Japan and Korea have such high suicide rates despite just low levels of gun ownership. > [@](#): > > Accurate statistics are hard to get on suicide attempts because of reporting issues, but according to the province of Alberta, for every suicide death there were 1,833 hospital admissions for attempted suicide or intentional self-inflicted injuries. With guns, it’s so easy to do, and you usually don’t get a second chance. > > Indeed the Harvard School of Public Health had this to say, in the US alone: > **Across states, more guns = more suicide** > Using survey data on rates of household gun ownership, we examined the association between gun availability and suicide across states, 1999-2001. States with higher levels of household gun ownership had higher rates of firearm suicide and overall suicide. This relationship held for both genders and all age groups. It remained true after accounting for poverty, urbanization and unemployment. There was no association between gun prevalence and non-firearm suicide. > [Suicide | Harvard Injury Control Research Center | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health](http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-ownership-and-use/) > So that’s all I’m going to say here on that. The statistics on guns and suicide are persuasive but not overwhelming; on the general danger of guns with respect to homicides and general unintentional mayhem caused by gun nuts, though, the statistics are absolutely overwhelming, the numbers just staggering, and that’s already been shown here, in abundance. That’s the subject here, although I don’t know what more there is to say that hasn’t already been said. So you take a bunch of rural western states and you notice a coincidence of high gun ownership and high suicide rates and you attribute the suicide to the guns rather than the fact you are talking almost exclusively about rural western states. The southern states have high rates of gun ownership and yet their suicide rate is not really that high. Maine and Massachusetts have almost identical gun ownership rates and yet Maine’s suicide rate is a lot higher. Isn’t it possible that loneliness, and culture might be a bigger factor in determining suicide rates than the presence of guns? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2015, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/224 "2015-12-08T21:34:49Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Utah and Idaho are as white as Canada and the UK in terms of demographics, but those two states have significantly higher murder rates than Canada and the UK. Do you think is possible that the amount of guns in those two states might have something to do with that? There is only one state in the country that has lower murder rates than Canada, New Hampshire. Even Hawaii has a higher murder rate than Canada. And Hawaii has very very few guns. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2015, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/225 "2015-12-08T22:16:07Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > There is only one state in the country that has lower murder rates than Canada, New Hampshire. > > Even Hawaii has a higher murder rate than Canada. And Hawaii has very very few guns. It looks like you are looking at the 2014 figures? NH, VT, ME, HI, and IA all have murder rates that are probably not statistically different from Canada. And within Canada, the murder rate ranges to a high of 10.93 in Nunavut, and even BC has a slightly higher rate than the national average (by about 0.5). Highest actual province is Manitoba at 3.43. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2015, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/226 "2015-12-08T22:59:37Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > The USA does have a rather high murder rate; 3.8. That’s far too high, but there are 120 nations with higher rates. Venezuela, South Africa,Colombia,Brazil, Mexico not only have a murder rate around ten times the USA, they even manage to have had more murders. Only Japan (of major nations) has a murder rate so low that the USA is ten times higher. The USA is actually pretty much in the middle.\*\* So, again- wrong. \*\* So that’s your argument? A litany of incorrect information and invalid comparisons? I provided cited data [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18912280&postcount=132). The US has almost seven times the gun homicide rate of Canada, 32 times that of Australia, and 71 times that of the UK. [Here’s the same information in graphic form.](http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2014001/article/11925/c-g/c-g04-eng.gif) The US gun homicide rate isn’t just high, **it’s practically off the chart** compared to _ **all** _ equivalent developed countries. The only way the US gun homicide rate is “in the middle” is if you intentionally include third-world countries or those with a long history of political or criminal violence, which is indeed where the US exists in terms of gun violence, and nowhere near any first-world developed nations. This is where the unrestrained gun culture has dragged the US down to, and that’s precisely the tragedy. Your attempt to argue otherwise is obvious utter nonsense. It’s impossible to have a meaningful discussion with someone who can’t even admit that there’s a serious problem. > [@DrDeth](#): > > The only other major nation which is close to 1/10 our rate is Switzerland, which is also the nation where every able-bodied man _must_ keep a assault rifle at his home. Nice try (not really), but [Switzerland has the kind of gun control](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland#Regulation) that would make an NRA gun nut’s head explode. Even air guns are regulated, and even some knives and stun guns prohibited entirely. And those militia rifles kept at home are kept there without ammunition, in accordance with Swiss gun law: Only 2,000 specialist militia members (who protect airports and other sites of particular sensitivity) are permitted to keep their military-issued ammunition at home. The rest of the militia get their ammunition from their military armory in the event of an emergency > **[Firearms regulation in Switzerland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland#Storage_of_military-issued_ammunition)** > > Firearms regulation in Switzerland allows the acquisition of semi-automatic, and – with a may-issue permit – fully automatic firearms, by Swiss citizens and foreigners with or without permanent residence.\[note 1\] The laws pertaining to the acquisition of firearms in Switzerland are amongst the most liberal in the world. Swiss gun laws are primarily about the acquisition of arms, and not ownership. As such a license is not required to own a gun by itself, but a shall-issue permit is required T... If you exclude those militia weapons, the Swiss gun ownership rate is only about 25%, high for Europe but nothing like the US. That, plus strict gun control, is why their murder rates are low. > [@DrDeth](#): > > Yes, Japan has very few guns and few few murders. The Swiss have lots of guns and very few murders. The Venezuelans have few guns and lots of murders. Hmm, maybe that means that the Japanese and the Swiss and the Venezuelans and the Americans are quite different nations. Oh and Venezuela has very stiff gun control (likely ignored, sure) but extremely high murder rate= 53.7. (Honduras has a 90.4 murder rate!) Again with Switzerland and comparisons with third-world shit-holes. Are you just cutting and pasting from the NRA website? 😃 > [@DrDeth](#): > > The USA does have a lot of guns, 270 million of them or so, by a high estimate. And 322,014,853 people. So- again, wrong. But not as wrong, if that makes you feel happy. It’s hard to tell how many guns there are in the US because of incredibly poor regulation, and NRA efforts to quash statistics and record-keeping as much as possible. An ownership rate of 90% is often quoted, but [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country) says the US has 112.6 guns per 100 residents. Hence my comment ''more guns than people, or close to it" – depending on what numbers you use. > [@DrDeth](#): > > Sweden also has a lot of guns per capita, but a murder rate of .07. Serbia has more guns per capita than any other European nation, but a murder rate of 1.2. And both countries have much stronger gun control and far fewer guns than the US. Serbia, due to its history, does have a lot of guns compared to most other countries. They’ve also had [more than their share of mass shootings](http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/serbia-pushes-new-firearms-law-after-mass-slaying) and have been considering tightening gun laws still further. > [@DrDeth](#): > > How many times _can_ you be wrong? What’s interesting here is not just that you’ve managed to be wrong (again) on every single claim you made, but you’ve combined bad data with a unique combination of equally bad thinking to try to back it up. I imagine you’ll probably keep cutting-and-pasting nonsense from wherever you get it, so enjoy yourself. I really don’t have the time to keep correcting every twisted statistic and logical fallacy. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/227 "2015-12-09T00:36:24Z")
wolfpup, You seem to have missed, in spite of quoting it, that DrDeth posted about the “murder rate”, not the “gun homicide” rate (which I’ve never seen anyone but gun grabbers bring up). That’s what I prefer to think of as a leading indicator on the quality of the rest of your post, but I did have one question: > [@wolfpup](#): > > It’s hard to tell how many guns there are in the US because of incredibly poor regulation, and NRA efforts to quash statistics and record-keeping as much as possible. An ownership rate of 90% is often quoted, but [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country) says the US has 112.6 guns per 100 residents. Hence my comment ''more guns than people, or close to it" – depending on what numbers you use. Could I get a cite for the highlighted portion? Or an explanation? Are you trying to say that 90% of Americans own guns? Or did you mean something else by “an ownership rate of 90%”? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/228 "2015-12-09T01:20:56Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > You’re saying two different things and are apparently oblivious to that fact. > > If high crime rates make people buy guns, then those things would be correlated. Do you grasp that? But recntly, both you and Damuri Ajashi have proposed that these two things are entirely uncorrelated. > > Tell me you comprehend that you’re saying two different things here. No, the concern over high crime and gun ownership is related. However, the _crime_ rate is not what we’re talking about- we’re talking about the \*Murder \*rate. _Tell me you comprehend that there are two different things here._ ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/229 "2015-12-09T01:22:22Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > Please cite SCOTUS saying that anti-Muslim hysteria is not drowning out freedom of religion among conservatives. Originally Posted by **Siam Sam** _Yeah, if you’re in a militia._ :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/230 "2015-12-09T01:23:51Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > For advanced countries, there [pretty clearly](http://tewksburylab.org/blog/2012/12/gun-violence-and-gun-ownership-lets-look-at-the-data/) is a correlation between gun ownership and gun violence. Except no international agency tracks “gun violence”. They do track “homicide rate”. "Gun violence’ is largely a made up statistic. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/231 "2015-12-09T01:27:04Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > I think a little over half (not “most”) of gun deaths are suicides, the rest are mostly homicides, plus accidents. Counting suicides in the gun death numbers, BTW, is valid for the same reason as counting them in the homicide numbers: because in both cases, the use of a gun creates a much higher percentage of lethal outcomes than other means. You can’t argue with numbers that are so hugely out of line with any other developed country. wiki: - 61% of all gun-related deaths in the U.S. are suicides.\* And Japan has a suicide rate almost twice that of the USA. France is slightly higher that the USA. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/232 "2015-12-09T01:53:52Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > So that’s your argument? A litany of incorrect information and invalid comparisons? I provided cited data [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18912280&postcount=132). The US has almost seven times the gun homicide rate of Canada, 32 times that of Australia, and 71 times that of the UK. [Here’s the same information in graphic form.](http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2014001/article/11925/c-g/c-g04-eng.gif) The US gun homicide rate isn’t just high, **it’s practically off the chart** compared to _ **all** _ equivalent developed countries. > > The only way the US gun homicide rate is “in the middle” is if you intentionally include third-world countries or those with a long history of political or criminal violence, which is indeed where the US exists in terms of gun violence, and nowhere near any first-world developed nations. This is where the unrestrained gun culture has dragged the US down to, and that’s precisely the tragedy. > Nice try (not really), but [Switzerland has the kind of gun control](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland#Regulation) that would make an NRA gun nut’s head explode. Even air guns are regulated, and even some knives and stun guns prohibited entirely. And those militia rifles kept at home are kept there without ammunition, in accordance with Swiss gun law: > > Only 2,000 specialist militia members (who protect airports and other sites of particular sensitivity) are permitted to keep their military-issued ammunition at home. The rest of the militia get their ammunition from their military armory in the event of an emergency > [Firearms regulation in Switzerland - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland#Storage_of_military-issued_ammunition) > If you exclude those militia weapons, the Swiss gun ownership rate is only about 25%, high for Europe but nothing like the US. That, plus strict gun control, is why their murder rates are low. > > Again with Switzerland and comparisons with third-world shit-holes. Are you just cutting and pasting from the NRA website? 😃 > > It’s hard to tell how many guns there are in the US because of incredibly poor regulation, and NRA efforts to quash statistics and record-keeping as much as possible. An ownership rate of 90% is often quoted, but [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country) says the US has 112.6 guns per 100 residents. Hence my comment ''more guns than people, or close to it" – depending on what numbers you use. > > What’s interesting here is not just that you’ve managed to be wrong (again) on every single claim you made, but you’ve combined bad data with a unique combination of equally bad thinking to try to back it up. I imagine you’ll probably keep cutting-and-pasting nonsense from wherever you get it, so enjoy yourself. I really don’t have the time to keep correcting every twisted statistic and logical fallacy. No International agency tracks “gun homicide rate”, they just track “homicide rate”. This is why “gun homicide rate” is a bogus, made up number, pulled out of someone ass with a bias. Homicide rates are tracked, and unless you can tell me it’s somehow worse to be murdered with a gun instead of a knife or a bomb, that’s the only number worth looking at. > **[List of countries by intentional homicide rate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate)** > > The list of countries by homicide rate is derived from United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) data, and is expressed in number of deaths per 100,000 population per year. For example, a homicide rate of 30 out of 100,000 is presented in the table as "30", and corresponds to 0.03% of the population dying by homicide. The reliability of underlying national murder rate data may vary. Only UNODC-vetted data is used in the main table to maintain consistency. In some cases, Homicide rates ma... They list 218 nations on wiki for Homicides, many larger nations have a higher murder rate that the uSA. Calling every nation that has a higher rate a “third-world shit-hole” is pretty bogus, and uses the outdated idea that nations not aligned with the USSR or USA is somehow inferior. Note that most of the “2nd world nations” in Europe also have a higher murder rate than the USA. Note that South Africa is a “First World” nation by Cold War standards, but your definition seems to be “If it has a higher murder rate than the USA, it’s a third-world shit-holes.” It’s true- in 2007 the Swiss took back the issued ammo. But you can just buy it. In fact, at shooting ranges it’s provided below cost. So, you continue to be wrong, and pull numbers from biased cites that simple make shit up. Note that the Washington post showed that there is no significant correlation between gun control and murder rates in the USA- more gun controls do not mean lower murder rates. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/10/06/zero-correlation-between-state-homicide-rate-and-state-gun-laws/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/10/06/zero-correlation-between-state-homicide-rate-and-state-gun-laws/) \*The correlation between the homicide rate and Brady score in all 51 jurisdictions is +.032 (on a scale of -1 to +1), which means that states with more gun restrictions on average have very slightly higher homicide rates, though the tendency is so small as to be essentially zero. \* ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/233 "2015-12-09T04:39:22Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > wiki: > > - 61% of all gun-related deaths in the U.S. are suicides.\* > > And Japan has a suicide rate almost twice that of the USA. France is slightly higher that the USA. And South Korea and Lithuania, which have very low gun ownership rates, have the #2 and #4 suicide positions (#1 and #2 in the developed world). ---
**Author:** ![ChickenLegs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@ChickenLegs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChickenLegs)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/234 "2015-12-09T05:08:06Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > There is only one state in the country that has lower murder rates than Canada, New Hampshire. > > Even Hawaii has a higher murder rate than Canada. And Hawaii has very very few guns. Interesting to me: Five Canadian provinces have both a higher homicide rate and a lower homicide rate that my own state of Wyoming; Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Yukon, NW Territories, Nunavut. Wyoming has the highest gun ownership in the US (last I read) and perhaps the most relaxed gun control (no permit required for concealed carry or open carry, full-auto legal, no licensing, no registration, nothing in addition to federal laws.) ---
**Author:** ![ChickenLegs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@ChickenLegs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChickenLegs)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/235 "2015-12-09T05:10:01Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > No International agency tracks “gun homicide rate”, they just track “homicide rate”. This is why “gun homicide rate” is a bogus, made up number, pulled out of someone ass with a bias. > > Homicide rates are tracked, and unless you can tell me it’s somehow worse to be murdered with a gun instead of a knife or a bomb, that’s the only number worth looking at. I keep telling them this. But they won’t give up their “gun deaths”. It’s just too good of a “statistic” for their desired end. Dishonest bunch, these gun controllers. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/236 "2015-12-09T11:40:31Z")
> [@ChickenLegs](#): > > I keep telling them this. But they won’t give up their “gun deaths”. It’s just too good of a “statistic” for their desired end. > > Dishonest bunch, these gun controllers. This is one of the dumbest arguments you folks have tried. First, gun deaths and deaths caused by guns. That’s the meaning, and it shouldn’t be hard to grasp. Secondly, of course there’s a difference between gun deaths and other deaths. Guns make it easier to kill people. That’s why gun types want them so desperately. That fantasy bogeyman haunting your mind - the one you practice your quick draw in your bedroom for - requires a gun. If guns were the same as other weapons, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You could arm yourself with a rope or a knife and be able to go trembling out into the world just like you do with a gun. ---
**Author:** ![ChickenLegs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@ChickenLegs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChickenLegs)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/237 "2015-12-09T12:36:38Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > This is one of the dumbest arguments you folks have tried. First, gun deaths and deaths caused by guns. That’s the meaning, and it shouldn’t be hard to grasp. The definition of “gun deaths” is easy to grasp. The reason why you continue to use it, instead of homicide rates, is equally easy for me to grasp. For those of you that can’t see what Hentor and others are up to, it works like this: If a society has X amount of guns deaths, and guns are somehow eliminated, the intended conclusion of the gun controllers’ audience is that deaths in that society will decrease by X. It’s completely false of course. There’s no simple answer as to what the change will be in deaths, as some deaths will still occur by other methods. More significantly, some additional deaths by other means will surely occur, as the defensive uses and the societal deterrent effect of guns will be eliminated. As I said, it’s a dishonest ploy to sell a flawed idea. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/238 "2015-12-09T13:26:58Z")
> [@ChickenLegs](#): > > The definition of “gun deaths” is easy to grasp. The reason why you continue to use it, instead of homicide rates, is equally easy for me to grasp. > > For those of you that can’t see what Hentor and others are up to, it works like this: > > If a society has X amount of guns deaths, and guns are somehow eliminated, the intended conclusion of the gun controllers’ audience is that deaths in that society will decrease by X. > > It’s completely false of course. There’s no simple answer as to what the change will be in deaths, as some deaths will still occur by other methods. More significantly, some additional deaths by other means will surely occur, as the defensive uses and the societal deterrent effect of guns will be eliminated. > > As I said, it’s a dishonest ploy to sell a flawed idea. See, the thing is that you can either shut your eyes and pretend, or you can actually define and measure something. You shouldn’t run in fear from data, or from science, although it may be something else that seems scary. Firearms are used in 67% of US homicides: [Redirect Notice](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiR_NHF7s7JAhVBNSYKHQqhBb4QFggvMAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fbi.gov%2Fabout-us%2Fcjis%2Fucr%2Fcrime-in-the-u.s%2F2012%2Fcrime-in-the-u.s.-2012%2Foffenses-known-to-law-enforcement%2Fexpanded-homicide%2Fexpanded_homicide_data_table_8_murder_victims_by_weapon_2008-2012.xls&usg=AFQjCNHr5n1fzyrvXExYCiZE3DtmqT5OBQ&sig2=MgKGpsZukeiyr1wuXuLDMw&bvm=bv.109332125,d.eWE) Among non-fatal assault injuries, firearm injuries are only 4% of the total. [http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/nonfatal.html](http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/nonfatal.html) Note: This statistic includes all assaults, rather than attempted homicides, so it is in that sense a biased comparison. However, estimates of the lethality of firearms relative to other weapon types used against other people suggest that firearms are three to five times more lethal. [https://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/fireviol.txt](https://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/fireviol.txt) The lethality of firearms in suicides is also marked – firearms are 45 times more lethal than overdose attempts and two to three times more lethal than jumping or suffocation: [http://www.bradycampaign.org/the-link-between-suicide-and-guns-lethality](http://www.bradycampaign.org/the-link-between-suicide-and-guns-lethality) It is simply incredible to believe that guns are equivalent in lethality, and that the homicide rate would be equal with or without them. That’s just your fear altering your logical thinking. Instead of running away or fantasizing about having special powers, the best thing to do is to arm yourself with knowledge. Thus, rather than handwaving away data or squeezing your eyes shut to knowledge, you would do well to embrace them. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/239 "2015-12-09T13:30:21Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Except no international agency tracks “gun violence”. They do track “homicide rate”. "Gun violence’ is largely a made up statistic. That’s crazy wrong. I mean, absolutely nonsensical in the face of reality. The FBI has data on homicides by weapon type. The CDC has data on injury and mortality by weapon type and by intent. Come on! I mean, you must have access to Google. Rather than asking others how often they are wrong, the question is whether or not **DrDeth** is ever right. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/240 "2015-12-09T15:07:44Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > The numbers I saw had Utah’s murder rate just a little bit higher (around 2 or 2.4, IIRC). Your “youth hypothesis” might be reasonable, though I’m not sure it would explain Idaho or other high-percentage-white states’ higher murder rates than Canada and the UK – I think it’s foolish to dismiss the possibility that the ease of acquiring guns might have an effect on the murder rate. If chemical weapons were as easy to get as guns, there might be at least a slight increase in the chemical weapons use rate; same with nukes or biological weapons – I don’t see why it’s not reasonable to think this might be so with guns. > > I have no interest in banning guns, but I think it’s unreasonable to dismiss the possibility that the ease of getting guns might have something to do with the statistics for murder. It is without question that there are at least SOME deaths that would not occur but for the prevalence of guns. Accidental deaths would certainly not occur but for the presence of guns. There are certainly some arguments that would have resulted in someone getting a beating rather than someone (not necessarily the same person) getting shot dead. It is certainly worth investigating whether our abnormally high murder rate among wealthy industrialized nations is caused primarily by the legal private ownership of guns. It would be useful to know how many murders are committed by people who legally own guns. It would be useful to get a better handle on how many times guns are used defensively every year. There are a lot of things that would be useful to know but one thing we do know is that gun control does not seem to stop the sort of mass murders that everyone is worked up about. Most of the guns that are used in the mass murders of white people were not obtained illegally. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/241 "2015-12-09T15:27:11Z")
This discussion sure doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Nor is it clear what proposals folk advocate to address this situation - or even whether it is an issue that needs to be addressed. Really frustrating when both sides end up contesting statistics. Hard to tell what stats are reliable, or even that they are counting the same things - or the RIGHT thing. Unclear whether “pro-gun” folk think there is/are gun-related issues that ought to be addressed, or what steps could be attainable and effective. The anti-gun folk similarly fail to impress me with meaningful proposals. There are already quite a few guns out there, and I’d imagine a determined shooter could cause considerable havoc with 30-rd mags… My impression is that we have more violence than I would hope for in a wealthy economy, but I’m not able to locate and present the stats to support that. A part of me hopes that as a society we would move beyond that. Similar to our recent ability to elect a black president, approve gay marriage, and move towards more sensible drug policy. Never thought I’d see any of those in my lifetime. But I end up just thinking I this is yet another issue that I’m not going to try to get my head around, and instead put my efforts into avoiding situations where gun violence might be more likely, and hoping “lightning” doesn’t strike. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263.md?page=13)