# Gun control working well in Connecticut **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 13, 2015, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-working-well-in-connecticut/722457 "2015-06-13T20:34:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**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:** [June 16, 2015, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-working-well-in-connecticut/722457/41 "2015-06-16T15:24:37Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I have no problem with believing that reducing access to guns reduces gun deaths. Seems like Economics 101 to me. If you reduce access to cars, you’ll save even more lives. The problem with the gun control advocate’s approach to reducing access to guns is that they can most easily reduce a law abiding citizen’s access to guns so rather than try to reduce access to guns for those who are most likely to misuse them. Licensing and registration would do much much more than any sort of ban but they have historically chased weapons bans rather than licensing and registration. In fact this misguided attempts at an assault weapons ban after Sandy hook has damaged their credibility so much that no one really listens to them any more when they propose another “solution” I don’t know enough about the CT laws to comment but I’m skeptical of any claims as dramatic as the one this study claims (25% increases in homicides due to relaxed gun laws and 40% reduction in homicides due to stricter gun laws). The fact that CT has porous borders and that most gun murders are committed by people who are not legally allowed to own guns in the first place makes me wonder how they got such a huge reduction. ---
**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:** [June 16, 2015, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-working-well-in-connecticut/722457/42 "2015-06-16T15:26:41Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > As Doug stanhope once said, put Miley Cyrus in a cage with Chuck Liddell(UFC fighter) and she’s gonna get choked out. Give her a Glock and things are a lot more even. > > Pepper spray, stunners, batons, etc., are very useful, but for the weak a gun is the best insurance. God made men, Colonel Colt made them equal. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-working-well-in-connecticut/722457/43 "2015-06-16T15:30:16Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > a law abiding citizen What is such a person, and how can we tell? > [@](#): > > Licensing and registration would do much much more than any sort of ban You might try supporting those things, then. Or anything else that would save some lives, anything at all. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-working-well-in-connecticut/722457/44 "2015-06-16T15:31:30Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I think you are arguing for the proverbial foolish consistency. Consistency in the law is anything but foolish. Not sure what point you’re trying to make here. > [@](#): > > Age of majority has nothing to do with constitutional rights, I don’t see anything about age of majority in the constitution. A 12 year old enjoys the same constitutional rights as a 22 year old. They have the right to an attorney, they have the right to free speech, they have the right be free from unreasonable search and seizure. Why limit the right to bear arms but not to speech? The notion of majority and competency is separate from the notion of when constitutional rights attach. Minors do not have the same protections against search, nor do they have the franchise. They can’t enter contracts and therefore their ability to obtain necessary permits to assemble in certain protest is also limited. A 12 year old cetainly doesn’t have the same constitutional rights as a 22 year old. I grant the two are separate in some instances, majority and attachment of rights, but there is certainly a relationship between age and certain exercise of rights. If you want to argue the law should not be consistent go right ahead but that is a position so far off the reservation for me I’d leave you to it. > [@](#): > > If I am a homeless 14 year old, why don’t I have the right to self defense? Why can’t I own a gun? If I am a 14 year old in a gang ridden neighborhood where 14 year olds get jumped and killed on a somewhat regular basis, why can’t I have a gun? What if I’m 12? What if I’m 8? Because as a society we recognize that children are not fully capable of making decisions for themselves. Adults are. ---
**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:** [June 16, 2015, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-working-well-in-connecticut/722457/45 "2015-06-16T15:39:17Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > This is a good point. > > There also may be a slippery slope in which nations with weakening gun controls also start legalizing the most dangerous sorts of knives. US state laws against switchblade ownership have been, in recent years, disappearing: > > [http://nashvillepublicmedia.org/blog/2014/11/03/knife-rights-movement-sharpens-switchblades-come-back-tennessee/](http://nashvillepublicmedia.org/blog/2014/11/03/knife-rights-movement-sharpens-switchblades-come-back-tennessee/) > > Mr. Ritter is right. The second amendment does not mention firearms. Nor does it mention small arms. Limits on switchblades, and, for that matter, on artillery, are just as much an infringement of the original second amendment as are limits on pistols. Dangerous sort of knives. WTF??? I have several knives that are every bit as easy and fast to engage as a spring loaded switch blade. What makes switchblades especially dangerous? ---
**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:** [June 16, 2015, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-working-well-in-connecticut/722457/46 "2015-06-16T15:40:49Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Also you need to look at certain crimes like home invasions. If those have gone up, it would mean criminals have caught onto the fact that the law abiding are disarmed. > > Of course, modern gun control laws do not and cannot go that far any longer. I have no problem with sensible gun regulations to keep them out of the hands of criminals, at least at the state level. The feds should really not be messing around with guns except as it pertains to imported weapons. I prefer having gun laws formulates ONLY at the federal level. ---
**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:** [June 16, 2015, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-working-well-in-connecticut/722457/47 "2015-06-16T15:42:54Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > If the data in the link is correct, it looks like this is an example of data mining. The Connecticut gun homicide rate relative to the rest of the country went up for three years after the law passed, then went down for seven, then went back up for five years. By choosing to look only at the next 10 years the study got all of the relative decline and none of the relative increase that followed it. In fact the gun homicide rate in Connecticut as of 2010 was higher relative to the rest of the country than it was before the gun control law. > It seems to me that looking at the data the gun control law seemed to have no effect on the gun homicide rate. That is what has been seen in other studies which have shown no impact on homicide rates and only impacts on suicide rates. Do you have a cite to study that shows that gun control impacts suicide rates over the long term? ---
**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:** [June 16, 2015, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-working-well-in-connecticut/722457/48 "2015-06-16T15:45:39Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > That’s because state laws against switchblade ownership were passed in response to panic over [an essentially non-existent threat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchblade#1950s_Gang_Usage_.26_Controversy). They parallel the reefer madness era pretty closely. The antipathy towards switchblades is much like the antipathy towards suppressors. They associate switchblades with rumbles and Jets/Sharks just like they associate suppressors with KGB assassins. ---
**Author:** ![lazybratsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-working-well-in-connecticut/722457/49 "2015-06-16T16:26:13Z")
> [@tim314](#): > > The methodology of the study sounds pretty sensible to me too… the article mentions it’s hard to compare one state to another or separate out those changes that would have happened regardless of gun control (due to declining crime rates in general). What this study did was create a weighted average of other states to approximate Connecticut’s demographics (basically building a control group to approximate what would have happened if Connecticut hadn’t enacted the law), and showed that non-firearm homicides in this synthetic state tracked well with Connecticut both before and after the gun control law was passed (providing a check that it was indeed a suitable control group), whereas Connecticut’s firearm homicide rate declined more than in the synthetic state. It’s not perfect, but you can’t really have a perfect control group in this sort of social science research, and this approach seems pretty reasonable. I’m pretty skeptical about this particular methodology, to be honest. Creating one single synthetic state as the basis for comparison is an invitation for statistical cherry picking. I’m particularly skeptical because the synthetic state is 72% Rhode Island, which has a whopping dozen or two firearm homicides per year (my lazy sampling of a few years’ UCR “murder, by state, by type of weapon” tables). The difference ascribed to Connecticut gun control could be instead due to an isolated cluster of homicides in Rhode Island. By eyeball, it looks like would only take a handful (5-10 per year) of “extra” firearm homicides in Rhode Island to account for the effect. I would be more confident in some sort of empirical distribution of synthetic states, though I admit I don’t know exactly how to do this. In biology we use bootstrapping to create an empirical distribution of control samples, which allows more robust analysis of an experimental subset of the data. Maybe a population of synthetic states could be created by sampling, say, a Connecticut’s worth of counties, and then appropriately weighting the sample counties to match the demographics of Connecticut? Applied to this study, I’d like to see that Connecticut had a reduction in firearm homicides that was clearly outside the distribution of rates in other synthetic states. Otherwise it’s just as reasonable to ascribe the effect identified in the study to a crime wave in a single city in Rhode Island. On Edit: Puddleglum’s link makes a similar point, with a graph comparing [firearm homicide rates in CT vs RI](http://crimepreventionresearchcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/States-used-to-create-Synthetic-Connecticut.jpeg). Does anyone else want to talk stats methodology in a gun control thread? Also, FWIW, my biases match the OP: I’m generally in favor of keeping or modestly increasing gun control. ---
**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:** [June 16, 2015, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-working-well-in-connecticut/722457/50 "2015-06-16T17:58:08Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > Consistency in the law is anything but foolish. Not sure what point you’re trying to make here. Why demand consistency where consistency is not called for? What constitutional principle would require us to have a single age at which voting and gun ownership be permitted? Why insist on this consistency when rational arguments can be made for having one age for the right to vote and another age for the right to bear arms in a state? > [@](#): > > Minors do not have the same protections against search, nor do they have the franchise. Any state is free to give 15 year olds the right to vote, its just that none of them ever do. There is a constitutional amendment (the 26th) that prohibits denying the right to vote to people over 18 based on age but nothing says that their state cannot give them that right. The 26th amendment was a reaction to the conscription of 18 year olds (for the Vietnam War) when the right to vote in most states did not attach until you were 21 years old. Is there a constitutional amendment guaranteeing 18 year olds the right to bear arms? If not then does that mean that everyone has the right to bear arms including 15 year olds? or does it mean that a state can reasonably regulate the right to bear arms and that this right can be an age other than the right to vote. > [@](#): > > They can’t enter contracts and therefore their ability to obtain necessary permits to assemble in certain protest is also limited. A 12 year old cetainly doesn’t have the same constitutional rights as a 22 year old. I grant the two are separate in some instances, majority and attachment of rights, but there is certainly a relationship between age and certain exercise of rights. Sure and in some states the ability to purchase a handgun is limited to people over the age of 21. Is the argument that handguns are so important to self defense that we have to permit 18 year olds to purchase them? Then why doesn’t the homeless 16 year old have the same right? > [@](#): > > If you want to argue the law should not be consistent go right ahead but that is a position so far off the reservation for me I’d leave you to it. When people talk about consistency in the law, they usually mean that the law should be equally applied to all citizens not that they laws all use the same age. In what way doer the constitution require that 18 year olds (but not 17 year olds) be able to purchase handguns? There is nothing inconsistent about permitting 14 year olds to get married, 16 year olds to drive, 18 year olds to vote, 21 year olds to drink, 25 year olds to run for congress, etc. > [@](#): > > Because as a society we recognize that children are not fully capable of making decisions for themselves. Adults are. Where is that in the constitution? The notion of competency is almost exclusively handled by the states. ---
**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:** [June 16, 2015, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-working-well-in-connecticut/722457/51 "2015-06-16T18:01:51Z")
> [@lazybratsche](#): > > I’m pretty skeptical about this particular methodology, to be honest. Creating one single synthetic state as the basis for comparison is an invitation for statistical cherry picking. I’m particularly skeptical because the synthetic state is 72% Rhode Island, which has a whopping dozen or two firearm homicides per year (my lazy sampling of a few years’ UCR “murder, by state, by type of weapon” tables). The difference ascribed to Connecticut gun control could be instead due to an isolated cluster of homicides in Rhode Island. By eyeball, it looks like would only take a handful (5-10 per year) of “extra” firearm homicides in Rhode Island to account for the effect. > > I would be more confident in some sort of empirical distribution of synthetic states, though I admit I don’t know exactly how to do this. In biology we use bootstrapping to create an empirical distribution of control samples, which allows more robust analysis of an experimental subset of the data. Maybe a population of synthetic states could be created by sampling, say, a Connecticut’s worth of counties, and then appropriately weighting the sample counties to match the demographics of Connecticut? > > Applied to this study, I’d like to see that Connecticut had a reduction in firearm homicides that was clearly outside the distribution of rates in other synthetic states. Otherwise it’s just as reasonable to ascribe the effect identified in the study to a crime wave in a single city in Rhode Island. > > On Edit: Puddleglum’s link makes a similar point, with a graph comparing [firearm homicide rates in CT vs RI](http://crimepreventionresearchcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/States-used-to-create-Synthetic-Connecticut.jpeg). > > Does anyone else want to talk stats methodology in a gun control thread? > > Also, FWIW, my biases match the OP: I’m generally in favor of keeping or modestly increasing gun control. Yeah. A 40% drop seemed unrealistic to me too. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-working-well-in-connecticut/722457/52 "2015-06-16T18:11:53Z")
Like I said, if you want to argue inconsistency in treatment based on graduated age scales of adulthood that’s great. I’m not really interested. ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-working-well-in-connecticut/722457/53 "2015-06-16T18:17:52Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I prefer having gun laws formulates ONLY at the federal level. Me too. (Except “formulated” instead of “formulates”.) _2nd Amendment A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed._ Shall not be infringed seems pretty straight forward and easy to understand. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-working-well-in-connecticut/722457/54 "2015-06-16T18:35:24Z")
Forgot to add: the reason I’m not interested in the age discussion is because we’ve had the exact same discussion before in which I made the case very clearly. > **[SCOTUS turns down 2 2nd Amendment appeals from NRA](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=716621)** > > The Supreme Court turned down 2 appeals brought by the NRA concerning gun rights for those under 21 years of age. Should underage citizens have the same 2nd Amendment rights as the rest of us? ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-working-well-in-connecticut/722457/55 "2015-06-16T18:40:57Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > This is a good point. > > There also may be a slippery slope in which nations with weakening gun controls also start legalizing the most dangerous sorts of knives. How do you figure switchblades to be the most dangerous sort of knives? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-working-well-in-connecticut/722457/56 "2015-06-16T22:57:15Z")
The anti-switchblade laws were targeted at people who are likely to carry switchblades rather than the knives themselves. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-working-well-in-connecticut/722457/57 "2015-06-16T23:18:12Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The anti-switchblade laws were targeted at people who are likely to carry switchblades rather than the knives themselves. Everybody? Wisconsin law doesn’t even exempt peace officers. And it covers “spring assisted” knives that companies like to advertise as legal, but our Attorney Generals office has stated that they are not. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-working-well-in-connecticut/722457/58 "2015-06-16T23:45:14Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > God made men, Colonel Colt made them equal. Lieutenant Colonel. The higher rank was what we now call stolen valor: > **[Samuel Colt](https://books.google.com/books?id=T9e37mYzuNIC&pg=PA79&lpg=PA79&dq=%22samuel%2Bcolt%22%2Blieutenant%2Bcolonel&source=bl&ots=FuwGeDpEH_&sig=JthbQ-Z2wmURCg4BjSHgEOi1Jvo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAmoVChMI_LKXmKyVxgIVwTesCh1H5QAG#v=onepage&q=%22samuel%20colt%22%20lieutenant%20colonel&f=true)** > > The fascinating story of the American inventor and manufacturer who perfected the revolver Samuel Colt (1814-1862) first patented his "Colt" revolver in 1835 and thereby redefined the architecture of handguns. This stunning book is the... > [@](#): > > Colt’s ability to secure audiences with important government official was apparently hampered by his status as a private citizen. As a result, on his return to Connecticut, he sought a militia commission from Governor Thomas H. Seymour. On 2 May 1850, Seymour appointed Colt a lieutenant colonel . . . the inventor had new barrel inscription dies cut that read ADDRESS COL. SAML COLT NEW-YORK U.S. AMERICA. This prince among merchants of death also claimed to be [the Celebrated Dr. Coult of New-York, London and Calcutta](http://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-samuel-colt). And here’s what kind of patriot this paragon of equality was: [He had been known to sell weapons to warring parties on both sides of other conflicts in Europe and saw no difference with respect to the war in America.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Colt#Later_years_and_death) ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-working-well-in-connecticut/722457/59 "2015-06-17T00:04:51Z")
Yeah…and Tom Edison, Henry Ford, And Henry Clay Frick were assholes,too. Did you have some overarching point or were you just operating under the mistaken assumption that we thought Colt was a nice guy? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-working-well-in-connecticut/722457/60 "2015-06-17T06:14:38Z")
Here are the murder rates (per 10000) for Connecticut and the states surrounding it, from 1996 to 2013: [![](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/kebbnml2919aid1/murdersbystate.png?dl=0) ](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/kebbnml2919aid1/murdersbystate.png?dl=0) Based on data from: > **[Murder Rates](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/murder-rates)** > > The Death Penalty Information Center is a non-profit organization serving the media and the public with analysis and information about capital punishment. Founded in 1990, the Center promotes informed discussion of the death penalty by preparing... The “Average” line is the average of Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island. Assuming that, by virtue of being in the middle of those states, Connecticut would generally follow the average of them, this line predicts where Connecticut’s homicide rate should be. Now, if Connecticut’s laws make it noticeably different from the states surrounding it, the Average line should not be a useful predictor. Specifically, Connecticut should trend downwards relative to the Average and the states around it. According to the article in the OP, to be more specific, it should follow the average at the start of the time period and then dive harder and harder towards the end. If Connecticut’s homicide rate seems on-par for where we would expect it to lie, solely based on geography, then Connecticut’s laws have not made any difference and have not spared any lives. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-working-well-in-connecticut/722457.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-working-well-in-connecticut/722457.md?page=4)