Many more people wanted to ban handguns in the 1950s.
Cool. Let’s do that.
Iowa homicide rate: 1.3. Concealed Carry: shall-issue. Gun ownership rate: 43%
Minnesota: 1.5. Concealed Carry: shall-issue. Gun ownership rate: 42%
New Hampshire: 0.9. Concealed Carry: shall-issue. Gun ownership rate: 30%
Vermont: 1.3. Almost no gun regulations - carry all you want. Gun ownership rate: 42%
So - European-like (or less) rates. High gun ownership rate. Relaxed gun regulations. How do you explain it?
Point conceded; although the gallup poll simply asked as an ideal whether people thought handguns should be banned or not. Were many people actively lobbying for such bans?
Instead of cherry picking, could you at least use some data that seems reasonable?
Like citing all of Europe instead of developed nations. IMHO that’s a pure bullshit call. There is a HUGE disparity between the two. Or do you think its unfair to compared developed nations with developed nations? I think that’s a reasonable comparison but hey I’m open to trying to understand your yardstick. I mean if you include Somalia, the US looks pretty good. 
Last time I checked, we are a country. I think that an average country rate makes a lot more sense than cherry picking states. I mean I could throw out Louisiana at 10.13. But Texas (shall issue concealed carry) might be more fair since that is also a “gun culture” state with 3.93. And why is California 4.82?
And I bet you can very easily and quickly pull up stats showing that gun related homicide (and homicide in general) in the US correlates with population density. And since all of the States you’ve cited are relatively low population densities, then the gun regulation are plausibly a coincidence and not a result.
And Rat Avatar, I am not a zealot nor crusader for firearm regulation. Shit, I’m not trying to ban guns, but I sure as shit think we need more regulations on 'em. Preventing straw purchases seems common sense to me. Doesn’t straw purchase prevention align with being a responsible gun owner? What crucial piece of responsible am I missing here?
Ah. So the Elders of the AMA had a two fold plot: first, to indoctrinate the public, and second, to amass a database of “firearms” (not sure why the scare quotes are there, but moving right along…)
Which kinda begs the question of when the Centers for Disease Control became a wholly owned subsidiary of the AMA. The CDC is featured quite prominently in the article. Unless I missed it, the AMA is not even mentioned. Nor, as best I can tell, is there any mention of a database of “firearms”.
Have we some solid reason to believe that what they say is “research” is actually “indoctrination”? Or that they ever intended to seek data for a database other than the specific focus of their research?
Are you offering the conspiracy theory that had the CDC conducted research and found that gun ownership was totally beneficial, from a public health standpoint, they would have suppressed the results?
Or that they already had a real good idea what they’d find, but wanted to research it anyway so they could indoctrinate the public with facts. Mislead them with science.
Or what, exactly?
My preliminary opinion here is that the “gun lobby” and/or “pro-gun Congressman” (I hardly care which, as they are interchangeable…) stifled the research by a respected research institution. I leap nimbly to the follow up that they did it because they were pretty sure they wouldn’t like the results. Which strongly suggests that they know what those results would be.
My opinion here is somewhat interpretive, yes, but based on what facts we have to hand. If it turns out that JAMA is lying its editorial ass off, I am prepared to revise. On that point, I have the calm confidence of a Methodist with four aces.
You’ve piqued my interest. Not sure if this is accurate, but probably close enough for a random Search. http://texaslesstraveled.com/gunrights.htm
“In fact, there are more gun owners in Texas than other state in the Union. It is estimated that Texans own around 51 million firearms. That’s more firearms than owned by the 300 million people that make up the 15 nations of the European Union. In fact, America is the number one gun-owning nation in the world. But Texans possess nearly 20% of all the guns in America. (The U.S. gun count is estimated around 240 million).”
“State statistics show that 147,819 Texans have permits allowing them to carry concealed weapons. And that number is growing. Texans have been permitted to carry concealed weapons since January 1996, so long as they are licensed by the state Department of Public Safety.”
Yet Texas has 3.93 gun related homicides per 100k population. What conclusion are we supposed to draw from this compared with say Vermont?
That they get a lot of leakage from 10.13 Louisiana, and need their guns for defense? 
We are a collection of states, My state has a similar land area, population, larger GDP than Finland.
But if guns are the root of the poblem as you claim why ignore the diffrence between the states. The only reason I see is they don’t fit your claim that the number of guns in the hands of law abiding citizens is related at all to the homicide rate.
Note that Alaska has a large homocide rate and has very low population density, Louisiana has the highest murder rate but is in the middle of the country in population rate.
I am not claiming there is no relation to population density and violent crime but unless you have evidence to show it is linked I think that is just a WAG.
BTW the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metro area is more dense than New Orleans metropolitan area but has a tiny amount of homocides and much more liberal gun laws.
But you are the one who want to pass laws…are you just unable to find any information that shows that it does anything positive.
That Maybe they are a border state with a country that supplies a large amount of the rest of the countries drugs thus ther is a large underground economy which no lawful dispute mitigation methods?
Seeing as the murder rate for the South is 5.5 per 100,000 they are actually safer than their neighbors.
OK, the current rate of massacres is “insignificant”. Does your refusal to name a number that you would start to care about mean you haven’t actually thought this thing through?
[quote}I suppose that deserves a “dear lord” if you think that it’s sensible to burn massive amounts of political capital and institute sweeping and expensive policy changes to address every single theoretically preventable death. [/quote]
That’s what’s called a “straw man” here. The assertion that if you can’t do everything, you should do nothing is one common example.
If you refuse to act, and in your case even refuse to consider the problem “significant”, then you’re part of what makes it hard.
If you have an actual, useful proposal to make here, rather than simply declare regular massacres “insignificant” (Dear Lord!) then let’s have it, please. But if all you want to do is show how obstructive and blinkered about *life itself *the gun-fetishist faction can be, how insane their arguments are, well, you’re doing fine.
You have been repeatedly asked about what *you *might consider “reasonable regulations” to be. Your answer seems to be “None, and it’s *your *fault I won’t consider it.” Is that about right?
Bullshit.
A straw man? Hardly. All you’re doing is trying to put me on the defensive by pressing a completely irrelevant line of questioning. You’re also using emotional posturing to try to demonize my recalcitrance on that particular point. “Insignificant? Dear lord! These are massacres we’re talking about!” Etc., etc. Look, when mass shootings with assault weapons start killing more people than deer and honeybees do, we’ll talk. Until then, I hope you’ll understand that my argument is based on the statistics of risk, and emotional appeals won’t convince me.
My entire position is “the problem is not significant enough to justify much action.” You are upbraiding me for not agreeing with you. That’s not really a legitimate debating tactic.
Now, if you come around and say “let’s ban all handguns,” I’ll have no reason to criticize the honesty of your argument. I won’t agree with you that handguns should be flat-out banned, but at least we’ll be talking about something that’s a real problem, namely the eight or nine thousand handgun murders every year.
I am not saying that the deaths from mass shootings should be ignored. I simply do not think we need any further restrictions on “assault weapons” when they do so little damage. I don’t think we should restrict the rights or confiscate the property of millions in order to maybe save a couple dozen lives a year. If you think that’s “fetishism” or “insane,” well, I can’t help you there. We as a society make statistical tradeoffs that manifest in actual, real fatalities all the time – I don’t think it’s any more insane with guns than with all the rest.
Stealth Potato - this thread has been eye opening for me to say the least. I know plenty of gun owners and my father was one when I grew up (he’s probably also used a gun more than just about anyone on these boards, both hunting for food in the depression and as a decorated WW2 and Korean theater combat vet).
I agree with you. The debate on assault rifles is probably just what the pro gun lobby wants as a diversion from real reform. It’s a total rat hole from a meaningful debate on a) gun controls and b) other societal ills that need to be tackled to bring down the level of violence (people kill people) which is also far higher in the US than in the rest of the developed world.
R - Care to address why all of Europe should be compared instead of just the traditional developed Western Europe? Other than the fact that all of Europe brings up the firearm murder rate or you really think Eastern Europe is reasonably comparable to the US? And if you’re going off of a country basis, then why does Norway, with a household gun ownershiprate of 32% (vs US at 39%) have a firearm murder rate of 0.04 per 100k (vs Vermont at 0.48)? That’s a huge discrepancy if you want to compare apples to Norway.
If guns are the root of the problem that explains the discrepencies between States, then how do you explain Nevada at 4.72 per 100k? These are all anecdotal factoids with nits being picked down until either side gets confirmation bias. It’s complicated and difficult to draw direct correlations between even neighboring States. That said, the US *average *still is the *worst *of any country in the developed world by more than 2x. We have a problem, whatever the root cause might be.
JXJohns, Care to address straw purchases in your Gun A Gun B scenario? And how those “legally” purchased / straw purchased Gun A’s don’t bleed over into the Gun B owners?
It might mean that he’s unwilling to provide a completely irrelevant soundbyte for you to latch on to. It’s like expecting you to put a number on how many deaths it would take for you to support banning same-sex marriage - it’s a stupid question, and you wouldn’t answer if you knew I planned going to take the quote out of context to make you look like a terrible person.
BTW, I’m using Wiki if they have data as I hope it’s reasonably unbiased. I’m also doing random searches and avoiding the ones with obvious biases. You have better unbiased data, I’m happy to look at it.
Becuse you are stuck on the firearm homicide rate and not the total homicide rate. Why obsess about the tool used to commit the homocide vs. the fact that a human beings life was taken? The rate national homicide rate of 0.6 per 100,000 in Norway.
Note that the per capita GDP of Norway is $97,254 vs $48,112 for the US. They are a very rich country and rich people tend to be less likely to commit homicide.
They also don’t have a huge orginized crime issues we have.
But really the question is for you, it is not hard to buy semi auto rifles or pistoles in Norway In fact they are Number 11 for the number of firearms per capita.
So the fact they have such a low murder rate goes with my claim, that there is no real correlation between the number of firearms owned by law abiding citizens and the rate of homicides.
But you keep handing me information that fits my claim…can you provide any that fits yours?
He might indeed think that, but if we’re trying to get down to discussing what “reasonable” regulation of gun ownership would constitute, the point cannot be set aside; it’s central. Your observation would only be valid if this were simply a screaming exercise. But maybe, for him, it is.
SP, you have already informed us that our current rate of massacres is not “significant” - *your *word. How is it irrelevant not to ask you for clarification of your definition of significance? Are you in fact open to discussing the topic? You are clearly trying to limit it to only assault weapons, and apparently for the reason China Guy states, that it’s a diversion intended to kill any real action on the broader problem of gun killings. Is that your intent or isn’t it?
Rat Avatar: Norway versus Vermont isn’t point set match. It’s Calvinball. howsabout tackling
Western Europe versus Eastern Europe?
Western Europe versus the US?
Nevada (non border and shall issue concealed carry State) versus Vermont?
You are the one that is claiming there is a correlation, it is your responsiblity to show there is a pattern.
Show that those diffrences are due to gun ownership.
Heck show that there is ANY correlation between lawful civilian gun ownership rate and the homicide rate.
So far no one has produced a SINGLE cite to show that there is any relation.
Nore has anyone provided cites that show that banning guns significantly reduces the homicide rate.
Really is it so hard to provide that with all times it has been done in the world?
But you are not looking at the stats and the evidence. You are arguing based on emotion so I may as well be fighting with a Christian about the existance of god.
Until you provide a real cite I’m calling your bluff. You can’t show that lawful civilian ownership effects homicide rates or that banning firearms from those citizens reduces homicide rates.
Here is a link to a Harvard Study that comes to the same conclusions I did.
Warning PDF: http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf
So there is your cite…can you come back with a cite or just more mythology?