Huh? I may be missing something John, and I admire you as a man of truth and conviction on this board, but how do these numbers not support my position: that guns kill people.
That is not your position any more than air keeps people alive.
Your position is that the sole factor for the relatively high homicide rates in the US is the availability of hand guns. And you want to use the US and Canada to test your position. I’m suggesting the data set within the US is much richer and more appropriate to informing US policy than data set between the US and Canada.
Your position does not seem to do a very good job of predicting the widely variable homicide rates throughout the US.
Yes, if no guns existed, there would be no gun deaths. I just can’t see how that is informative towards the problem at hand.
In what ways are the populations similar? Are the more similar than Chicago and NYC?
Well, yeah. And therefore the country with fewer guns has a lower homicide rate. How difficult is that to parse?
It’s not difficult to parse at all. The problem is, it’s not true.
BTW, let’s look at Toronto and Chicago:
% of blacks:
Toronto: 8.4%
Chicago: 32%
Asian:
Toronto: ~ 30%
Chicago: 5%
Not looking too similar to me.
So none of those gun homicides would have been carried out by other methods? Zero?
OK. So we’re back to demographics, as opposed to guns. I’m not convinced, but you’ve wiggled your way into a possible perspective. I don’t support it but have no [del]reason[/del] basis to preclude it. Happy thanksgiving, by the way.
What do you think climate has to do with homicide rates? How are the populations of those two cities similar?
If you can’t explain why you think Lumpy’s post is “preposterous, ridiculous, and flawed,” why should we listen to anything you have to say in this thread? Do you expect us to just take your word for it?
Suggestion: stop acting dismissive; not only does it not help your cause, it is actually counter-productive.
From the web:
Population of Toronto: 2,615,060 (2011)
Population of Chicago: 2,707,120 - Jul 2011
Climate matters because it’s one of the variables, that’s all.
Just to be clear, I’m not saying it just demographics. In fact, I’m not saying it is any one thing. I want to broaden the discussion by looking at as much data as possible. I’m trying to get away from the idea that the only cause of high homicide rates in the availability of guns (handguns in particular). In order to to do that, you need to control for variables as much as possible, and one way to do that is to not use international data to analyze the US when we have an enormous country with a wide range of homicide rates right at our fingertips.
Gobble Gobble. 
ETA: BTW, one more difference between the US and Canada is the median age: 4 years older, north of the border. That alone is going to cause some decrease in violent crimes and murder. Again, it’s not the only cause, but a cause.
I see your point: lots of variables. Surely the availability of hand guns is also a variable though. Anyway, enjoy your weekend.
I never said that. I asked the take away my handgun side to take away the illegal guns first. I made no claim about how they were going to do it. I am trying to point out that taking my weapon from me is a disservice to society rather than a bonus **given the current circumstances **. That said, in a society where handgun violence was rare I would be happy to keep my pistols locked up at the range or even give them up, if that was required to stop the carnage on the streets, so be it.
There is no need for a police state to enact a law regarding handguns, don’t be paranoid
Capt
Isn’t the real question what sort of crime was going on in Canada before major gun control was passed in 1991? This is always what gets ignored in these comparisons. Yes, Canada and the UK have lower murder rates than the US…by exactly the same factor as they did before gun control! And their overall crime and violent crime are higher…again, unchanged since gun control! Given that, it’s essentially impossible to honestly say that the gun laws or gun ownership rates are a dominant factor.
Interestingly, the rate of handgun and gun crime in general among people who are licensed concealed-carry holders is significantly lower than the general population.
Also interestingly, the places where handguns are restricted or banned are also the places where there is the most handgun violence.
Seems to me the right solution (that doesn’t in the least infringe on 2nd Amendment rights) is to require shall-issue registration of guns in general–I propose that you can find a very strong correlation in the data between “There is a piece of paper tying my name to Gun X” and “I don’t want to commit a crime with Gun X”.
We have lots of people being killed.
We have lots of hand guns.
We have lots of people being killed by hand guns.
We don’t know how to solve this.
You still haven’t managed to show even provisionally, let alone conclusively, that handguns are the problem here as opposed to the numerous other factors (primarily, racial tensions, organized crime, drug effects, and poverty) that better account for the differential handgun and overall murder rates between US cities and between the US and other first-world countries.
A number of possible solutions come to mind–drug decriminalization/legalization, to reduce the amount of violence involved in drug turf wars. Comprehensive gun registration, to provide a potent psychological block against committing a gun crime. Poverty reduction measures, to further reduce the prevalence of violent robberies and assaults.
With my understanding of the differential homicide rates, I’d expect decriminalization to be the most effective strategy if we were to enact it.
Of course, what would I know. I’m the card-carrying NRA member arguing that fears of confiscation are currently a farce and registration is something we can and should trade in exchange for relaxing some of the more ridiculous restrictions on “scary” firearms and automatic weapons (of which there are many legally owned which are not used in the commission of crimes (since IIRC 1938, anyway) because they’re rather (nearly prohibitively) expensive and comprehensively registered).
Your memory is at fault, XT - gun control law is federal and uniform across Canada; the provinces don’t have jurisdiction to enact gun control, which is a matter of criminal law and thus federal jurisdiction.
Well, they certainly are THE problem when it comes to handgun deaths
Furthermore, gun OWNERSHIP is very common in Canada (one in four households nationwide and well above a majority among many broad geographic or demographic slices), irrespective of the somewhat more restrictive paths to doing so legally than in the U.S. So it becomes even less clear what the magic difference is supposed to be regarding guns per se, and more obvious that other factors are affecting murder and crime rates.
Canada has Good guns, America has Eviiiiiil guns. :rolleyes: