Guns: Newsweek proposes a compromise

Great Debates
361

That is a bullshit argument. All the things that society sanctions that are potentially dangerous are things that provide a positive risk-benefit balance – cars may get involved in accidents that cause injury and death, but they serve a vital transportation function and great effort is expended to make them as safe as possible. It’s kind of hard to make guns “safe” because of those darn bullets that come the front when you pull the trigger; they are designed to kill, and that is their only function.

It’s also kind of hard to portray shooting beer cans off fence posts as a societal benefit so terrific that it justifies some 35,000 gun deaths a year. And even harder to justify having a gun in the home for self-defense in the light of clear evidence that it’s a major hazard to the very people it is supposed to protect. Forgive my slight hyperbole as there are certainly a few legitimate uses for guns, hunting being probably the biggest one, but if the guns in civilian possession in the US were ordinary hunting rifles owned by hunters who need them for that purpose – which is pretty much the only kind of gun ownership that exists in other countries – we wouldn’t be having this discussion. There you have what anyone willing to be truly honest would acknowledge as the risk-benefit tradeoff with guns – namely, that there isn’t one.

You don’t get to dismiss a serious problem as a non-problem just by citing modest declines in gun households amidst a population that is completely awash in guns. The existence of the problem is documented and supported by any legitimate agency that has ever examined the facts. For instance, since we were just talking about the NORC General Social Survey, this is what they say:
Gun violence is a serious problem in the United States. In 2011, 478,400 violent crimes were committed with a firearm (Planty and Truman, 2013). While down dramatically since the 1990s, the rate of non-fatal firearm victimizations rose from 2008 to 2011. Firearms deaths from all causes (homicides, suicides, accidental, and undetermined) averaged over 31,000 annually in 2005-2011 (CDC WISQARS,2013;Hoyert and Xu, 2012). Non-fatal gunshot injuries totaled 81,396 in 2012; a rise in the injury rate per 100,000 from 20.5 in 2002 to 25.9 in 2012 (CDC, 2013).

Given the magnitude and seriousness of gun violence, it is important to have accurate and reliable information on the possession and use of firearms in the United States.
http://publicdata.norc.org:41000/gss/documents//MTRT/MR123%20Gun%20Ownership.pdf
CNN just ran an opinion piece in the wake of the latest shooting – I mean the one in Lafayette, LA, for those not keeping track of the carnage day to day.

The title of the op-ed is “Feel disrespected? Pull a gun” and that I think says it all. For all of the sanctimonious piety about “responsible gun ownership” and all its alleged benefits, it really does come down to the awesome power of a magic talisman that allows its owner to say to anyone, “I can kill you in an instant if I want to”, and the psychology that it engenders between the owner of the talisman and his victim.

Those who think this is exaggeration might well consider that we have interpersonal strife all the time in all the western nations, but only in the US does interpersonal strife so very very often involve a gun.

The article bears this out with clarifying examples of what one might call the zeitgeist of the American gun culture:
Feel disrespected? Pull a gun. Open fire. That’ll teach 'em. It’s become the norm in the United States.“We don’t treat guns like they’re instruments of death in this country.”

… “We like to consider ourselves responsible gun owners,” he told me. “But it wasn’t always like that with me. I’ve had guns. I was raised in Louisiana, Lake Charles. My father had a gun, he carried it around in a glove box. One time somebody cut him off. He jumped out of the car, grabbed his gun, ran up to the window. The guy looked at him, flipped out his badge, and said, ‘Red, if you don’t put that gun away, you’re going to jail. Get back in your car.’ That was it. How cavalier was that?”

… A few weeks ago, in Florida, a road rage incident turned deadly. Both drivers used their cell phones to call 911 to report the other. But, one of those drivers, Robert Doyle, had a gun in his car.

“They’re following me to my house,” Doyle told the 911 dispatcher. “The guns are already out.” And, he added, they are “cocked and locked.”

Doyle made the decision to drive home instead of driving to the nearest police station. After all, he had a gun – and he used it at the end of his driveway. Doyle opened fire and killed Candelerio Gonzalez, the man who he claimed tormented him on the road.

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[QUOTE=wolfpup]
That is a bullshit argument. All the things that society sanctions that are potentially dangerous are things that provide a positive risk-benefit balance – cars may get involved in accidents that cause injury and death, but they serve a vital transportation function and great effort is expended to make them as safe as possible. It’s kind of hard to make guns “safe” because of those darn bullets that come the front when you pull the trigger; they are designed to kill, and that is their only function.
[/QUOTE]

Did I mention cars? Of course, positive ‘risk-benefit’ is in the eyes of the beholder. Still, what’s the risk to benefit reward for tobacco use? Or alcohol? :stuck_out_tongue: There are a lot of things sanctioned by society that don’t make sense from a cold risk to benefit calculation (like, oh, fast food or simply the general American diet, or, getting away from America for a sec, the air quality in China), yet I don’t see you railing against those. That’s because it’s not about the carnage or thinking of the chillins, it’s about what YOU like or don’t like, what YOU approve of or don’t approve of.

Sorry, but it might be hard for YOU to justify it with your strawman, but not so hard for me. I justify it in EXACTLY the same way that I justify tobacco and alcohol and all the rest…society sanctions it, despite knowing the risks and despite the fact that you don’t like the risk-benefit tradeoff, being Canadian and all. While it saddens me that you don’t approve, I’ll try and bear up under your obvious censure.

Well, except I didn’t dismiss it or say it’s a non-problem. I said what’s YOUR problem with it, since it’s already declining and seems to be correcting itself. Of course, the answer is your problem is one of fantasy. You fantasize that the US could (we won’t speak to ‘would’, since it’s all inconvenient to you that the citizens of the US DO sanction the personal ownership of fire arms still) simply wave it’s magic fiat wand, outlaw guns and hey presto! Problem solved! We’d all just hand over our guns, and this would magically make all the carnage go away…and we could go back to killing each other as good civilized Europeans do, with a bottle! Perhaps we could attain their death rates…and in a cultural exchange, they could start eating an American diet and we could all have the air quality of China! Woohoo…it’s magical! Sadly, it’s not realistic, even if we wanted that…which, seems to me, we don’t, despite the censure of our norther brethren and sistren such as yourself.

So, trot out some more stats by all means! Get scary and stuff. Lump everything you can into the scary death rate including stuff that would probably not change (like gun deaths due to suicide…which, we kind of have a lower rate despite nasty guns than most other countries, seeing as we are in the bottom half of the world there) or would simply shift to something else. Get your frustration and anger and disbelief all out…it will certainly be cathartic for you, plus will help increase the smug superiority of at least some posters. In the end, until there is a shift in attitude of voting Americans, which, frankly I don’t see happening any time soon, despite the desires of some that it were so, it’s meaningless. As with other things OUR society sanctions, and which you and other posters don’t seem to want to acknowledge or understand the connection to, we will keep on keeping on, even knowing that by deciding this collectively some non-zero number of us will die. Now…I’m going to enjoy this double cheese burger, mega fries and a coke with my ice cream in peace, happy in knowing that it’s not something someone at my age should eat, and knowing that there are 'dopers who would love to take this choice from me, for my own good of course. :wink:

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If someone close to me is, God-forbid, murdered, that’s just as tragic to me as if they were to take their own life. That’s one reason why I look for total gun death statistics.

The other is that looking at suicides alone, or homicides alone, obscures the relationship between gun ownership rates and violent death.

Cultural factors lead to some places having a lot more suicides than homicides (Alaska) and others having a lot more homicides than suicides (Louisiana). Even if you don’t consider suicide deaths particularly tragic, you still are hiding the effects of guns on violence if you fail to, in some manner, control for cultural factors. Adding together all gun deaths lets us, to a fair degree, control for the suicide/homicide ratio in different jurisdictions, and then detect the real effect of gun ownership rates.

See:

http://www.vpc.org/press/1501gundeath.htm

See:
America’s Top Killing Machine: Gun deaths are poised to surpass automobile deaths in the United States this year

Cars become safer as safety features are improved. Gun safety languishes because the gun culture blocks not only making safer guns a legal requirement for new products but even having safer guns as an option:

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[QUOTE=PhillyGuy]
Cars become safer as safety features are improved. Gun safety languishes because the gun culture blocks not only making safer guns a legal requirement for new products but even having safer guns as an option:
[/QUOTE]

Yeah. It’s like Big Alcohol and Big Tobacco…they are also seemingly impervious to adding new safety features to their products. I’m curious though…what safety features, besides taking them out of the irresponsible hands of deluded Americans do you suppose would be on par with new air bag, crash frames and crumple tech, etc etc for guns…or alcohol…or cigarettes? I think there is a lot more room for improving tech in a high dollar and, frankly, more used machine like a car than in any of these other things. If we are looking at the incidents of accidents in fire arms verse cars (a very small number…unlike the big scary 11k or 35k or whateverbigscarynumberwecanlumptogether™), I think that guns come out well ahead. Of course, if we are lumping in every instance of gun death, including suicide, murder and the kitchen sink, then it looks like a reasonable argument…but then, the whole safety thingy is kind of a silly and stupid argument in those cases, since adding safety features isn’t going to prevent mis-use. Well, unless the ‘safety feature’ is the wise removal of said machine (or those nasty bullet things…certainly taking THOSE away would make the guns safer) from the misguided and foolish people…for their own good, of course.

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Mentioned in the link - so-called “smart guns,” which can only be operated by authorized users, through biometrics or another process. As I understand it, there are legitimate concerns that the technology is not up to snuff, and with something like a gun it is crucial that it work exactly how you expect 99.99% of the time, and not fail to work in an emergency due to stress sweats, blood, etc. I know this was an argument against microstamping of fired rounds when California passed a law based on the questionable technology.

I’ve never been great at analogies, but: say that the government decides that DUI is such a societal ill that all cars will now be sold with mandatory ignition interlocks. But sometimes a person may be legally over the limit but the risk of a DUI accident is much less than them successfully starting the car - think an injury in a rural area. It might be reasonable for the car to warn you that you are above the limit, but it would be a great risk to absolutely refuse to start (people who have been court-ordered to install such a device are another matter entirely, this is for every car). Similarly, a smart gun may be legitimately considered an unnecessary complexity, whereas a safe with biometrics AND a combination or key-based redundancy would solve the same thing but be less risky.

None of that excuses death threats against shops, of course, but internet/social-based outrage isn’t a rational process.

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[QUOTE=thelurkinghorror]
Mentioned in the link - so-called “smart guns,” which can only be operated by authorized users, through biometrics or another process. As I understand it, there are legitimate concerns that the technology is not up to snuff, and with something like a gun it is crucial that it work exactly how you expect 99.99% of the time, and not fail to work in an emergency due to stress sweats, blood, etc. I know this was an argument against microstamping of fired rounds when California passed a law based on the questionable technology.
[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I only skimmed the article but I kind of figured that’s what he was getting at. And I have to admit, I don’t know that much about this tech. I understand that there are some issues with reliability at this stage, but the biggest thing is the added expense. That said, I’m not opposed to stuff like this, but I don’t think it’s going to really save a lot of lives, to be honest, because most gun deaths aren’t accidents that can be prevented with safety tech…unlike most car deaths.

My guess is that an attempt to mandate such tech in cars would run up against a hell of a lot of opposition from myriad groups. But, most likely, the biggest issue would again be one of cost and reliability. Perhaps self driving cars will one day render this part moot, and will tangentially make alcohol consumption safer in our society as well, sort of converging at least two things that cause a lot of needless deaths each year. Again, I wouldn’t be opposed, in theory at least, to something like this.

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Big alcohol – I agree.

Cigarettes – While there is controversy over this, filtered and low tar cigarettes are probably less harmful:

http://www.tobaccoinaustralia.org.au/fandi/fandi/c03s12.htm

e-Cigarettes are another controversial attempt at safer smoking.

Packaging with warnings – less intrusive in some countries, more so in others, is a safety feature. Much the same could be done with handguns.

The big safety need is for a gun that a criminal can’t grab away from the law-abiding. Police need them as much as anyone:

http://www.policeone.com/close-quarters-combat/articles/100228-Cases-of-Officers-Killed-by-Their-Own-Guns-Likely-Will-Not-Change-R-I-Policies/

Are current smart guns highly effective? No. First generation seat belts weren’t that great either. But experience with lots of people using them generated the data and funding needed for better ones we now use. My parents bought us first generation voluntary seat belts. Responsible US gun owners can’t do the equivalent.

As they improve, smart guns would massively affect misuse. Children shooting people, whether themselves or others, would become a thing of the past. Even bigger: The hundreds of thousands of guns stolen every year would become worthless to thieves.

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[QUOTE=PhillyGuy]
Big alcohol – I agree.

Cigarettes – While there is controversy over this, filtered and low tar cigarettes are probably less harmful:
[/QUOTE]

But to keep the analogy, it doesn’t help with second hand smoke and the like. And I don’t think filters have really improved much in the last few decades and could probably be compared to a safety on a gun…which, actually, have had some improvements in newer models. At least the last time I fired a hand gun, which, admittedly was a while ago, it almost took a manual for me to figure it out. There was a grip safety, a trigger safety and just the plain old flip switch safety. I felt exhausted before I finally got a single round down range. :stuck_out_tongue:

I think this is more a tangential product, though I personally have gone this route, since it is a hell of a lot safer than the (unfiltered) cigars I was smoking previously. I really did need to cut back on some of my less healthy vices due to age, damn the luck.

And if these safety measures aren’t used as a back door to further gun restrictions (making it more difficult for average Americans to afford to buy a gun because of the added expense) AND are reliable I’m not opposed to such things. I concede that if you could somehow render a gun non-functional except to it’s owner or whoever the owner designates as someone who can use the weapons would have a non-zero effect on deaths, since criminals do steal guns and some of those guns do get used in gun crimes. I don’t think this would have a major effect on the stats, but if the cost-benefit, to use wolfpup’s term, is there I’m good with it.

Assuming the tech is there someday, then it would be down the road some time in the future. Unless you are going to require people to have their guns retrofitted with such things, however, it will only affect a small number of new guns purchased, not older guns that would presumably get grandfathered in. That’s the thing. If we are talking about either requiring people to retrofit this tech (if it’s even possible) or have to turn in the old models and buy new, then really what we are talking about IS a backdoor way to ban things without coming right out and banning them, and is kind of the slimy dog tactics that have been used in the past. This is why there is so much distrust on this issue from the gun rights advocates (and also why some of them have become, frankly, unhinged a bit on this subject…and more than a bit with some of them).

It’s a complex issue, and there really aren’t a lot of simple, easy to install solutions for it. Like I said, I’m all for exploring this tech, and I understand it IS being developed by a number of companies. When/if it’s ready for prime time I’m good with taking a real hard look, and if it looks good with requiring new guns to have these new safety features on them…sort of like seat belts and air bags eventually were brought to the American wasteland, kicking and screaming.

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Reality is that cars are thousands of dollars more expensive because of mandates like seat belts, air bags, energy absorbing design, safety cages, and anti-skid tech. Saying you are against extra expense means being against safe guns forever.

As for reliable, there is no perfect reliability. People do die from air bags. But more are saved.

From a earlier link I posted, I gather that 8.4 percent of police gunshot deaths come from a weapon taken from the officer. So a smart gun that works, say, 98 percent of the time when the officer attempts to shoot, and 2 percent of the time when the perp tries to shoot a wrestled-away gun, would probably* be a big advance. For all we know, the smart gun from the money-losing German company is already this good. But all the gun lobby has to do is show it isn’t 100 percent, and it’s boycott time.

  • Other factors have to be considered such as stopping power, accuracy, etc. The one smart gun now being marketed isn’t geared towards police needs.
370

Well thanks - I know that people like **PhillyGuy **and **wolfpup **will never be persuaded. My purpose is to present the argument for other readers, and hopefully I can persuade at least some that many the positions of gun control are not beneficial, not practical, unconstitutional, ineffective, or unworkable, or some combination.

To the contrary - modern firearms themselves are quite safe. They generally operate exactly as they are intended and as simple machines are quite reliable. A modern Glock or equivalent can have a chambered round, dragged behind a truck for miles, dropped off high places, submerged in water, and generally tortured and still function. They can fire thousands upon thousands of rounds without malfunction. Whether or not they are designed to kill is a bit of a quibble. They are designed to propel a projectile at a high velocity. They do that very well. What is not a quibble is your assertion that they have only one function - to kill. It is clear that they have other functions - target shooting for one. Your statement is false.

You state there is clear evidence that guns in the home are a major hazard to the people they are supposed to protect. What evidence would that be? Like you say, there is a cost benefit analysis to having a gun in the home. Where do you think this analysis falls? You seem to take the position that there are no societal benefits to widespread firearm ownership - and that anyone that doesn’t acknowledge this isn’t being truly honest. Is that a fair interpretation?

It’s kind of silly to use the 35K figure for gun deaths, and at the same time suggest that if the only weapons available were firearms for hunting that suicides would be significantly impacted. A rifle or shotgun would still be quite effective.

So to be clear, it was intentional? I said upthread - suicides are often tragic, but they have no bearing on much of the discussion regarding gun control.

The methods to reduce homicide and suicide are quite different. The only way they overlap for gun control advocates is in a desire to ban guns altogether. So many gun control proposals would have near zero impact on suicides - but you notice that the higher figure is always used in the rhetoric. Things like magazine limits, carry restrictions, ammo restrictions, microstamping, smartguns, assault weapon bans - none of these would have any impact on suicide.

No, adding the total gun deaths together doesn’t control for anything. How do you control for a ratio? Your statement is meaningless. I’ve already demonstrated how naive it is to use state level data in CA at least, since much of the gun laws are by county. There’s a lot less of certain violent crime in areas of CA where there are permissive CCW policies. But from that, I don’t take it to mean that those lower rates are caused by permissive CCW policies - there’s a lot more at play - population density, income, etc. Simply adding up completely different types of deaths to come up with a larger number doesn’t control for anything, doesn’t tell you anything, and is only meant to mislead.

This is the relevant section from the article you posted:

While the officer deaths are tragic, you’re talking about 5 per year in this time period. Talk about risk and reward.

There are two main problems with smartguns. The first is that the technology is used as a lever to ban guns. There are laws on the books in NJ and CA that say that once the technology is in place for any gun, then all guns that are allowed to be sold must have it. If the technology was really viable, there would be no need to force people to use it, they would do so by choice. The other issue is reliability. 98% is not enough. 99% is not enough. One of the great things about firearms is just how reliable they are. Introducing additional electronic components to a design that previously was incredibly reliable will make the firearm less reliable. It’s especially telling that the example you use is police killed by their own weapons. Police don’t want the tech right now either. The NJ law that requires smartgun tech - it exempts police. Why would that be? And many police don’t want smartguns. They just aren’t reliable enough.

There are other issues with smartguns as well. If peole really wanted to push them, then they should repeal the laws that force their use, prove their reliability as evidenced by police adopting the technology, and make an effective self defense round. Anything less is simply a way to ban guns.

A lesser problem is the models available are only in .22 caliber. That’s not effective for self defense.

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That’s not the definition of safety. That’s the opposite of safety. The only “safe” gun is one that is incapable of having bullets coming out of it.

Right, and whether a bomb is designed to blow things up is also a quibble – it is merely fine piece of technology designed to expand in a very rapid exothermic reaction and reduce everything around it to little teeny bits! You need to read what you wrote carefully and then decide who is quibbling here! :wink:

In the risk-benefit analysis target shooting is not a “function”, it’s some people’s idea of a hobby. I’m not saying its value is zero, I’m saying that its value should be weighed accordingly. In that context I suggest you look at the US Consumer Product Safety Commission’s ruling on sharp-pointed lawn darts, also some people’s idea of a hobby. Read at the link, but the summary says it all: Lawn darts are banned and should be destroyed.

An eventual total of three children were killed by this hobby, leading to the total ban. Guns kill over 31,000 every year. The difference is that there isn’t a National Lawn Dart Association fueled by a religious-like zealous cabal of lawn dart nuts. My statement isn’t “false” – what is evident in these arguments is that the disconnect from reality and the political malfeasance in how public safety is assessed is just absolutely stunning.

I cited a paper in #279. That should be good for starters – there’s lots more, but there seems to be little point in digging it up right now.

My thesis is that the “honesty” part – or, perhaps more accurately, dispensing with the religious-emotional and power-psychology connection with guns, the irrational associations with vague concepts of “freedom” somehow delusionally connected with a 21st century reincarnation of the revolutionary war – and embracing a more rational evidence-based assessment would lead to the same conclusion that most other nations have reached: that the civilian usefulness of guns begins and ends with hunting and the related matter of occasional wildlife control, and not much else. It’s not that things like target shooting are prohibited. It’s more that every aspect is very tightly regulated in a reasonable risk-benefit balance with the interest of public safety taking a high priority. The truly determined gun nut, duly obeying all the restrictions including strict laws governing licensing, storage, and transportation, can still shoot at things if it rocks his boat.

Yes, it would. But if the only guns around were those needed for hunting, and securely locked up instead of paraded around and worshipped, and so numerous that there’s almost one gun for every man, woman and child in the nation, then there would be fewer available for people to kill themselves with – or each other.

First of all, no one wants to “ban” guns. They’re not banned in any western nation that I know of, and none of those places are ravaged by US-style gun violence.

But the subject of suicides relates to the danger of having a gun in the home and the lethality thereof to all members of the household, as noted above. Here is the significant point about gun suicides – and again, I’m not going to bother to track down the cites that I’ve seen, but will state these essential facts from memory:

A very large proportion of suicides attempted by methods other than a gun are not successful. The person gets a second chance: s/he is hospitalized, recovers, may undergo counseling, and very often goes on to live a normal, happy and fulfilling life. Most suicides attempted with a gun, however, are fatal. There is no second chance. It has something to do with what you were saying earlier about guns “They are designed to propel a projectile at a high velocity. They do that very well.” They do indeed. :rolleyes:

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And yet you say you don’t want to ban guns. If you believe that the only safe gun is one that is inoperable, then I doubt your sincerity about not wanting to ban guns. A tool is safe if it performs as it is intended and as you would expect. Modern firearms fit this criteria. A firearm would be unsafe if it did not do these things, if it periodically exploded, or malfunctioned from some kind of design flaw. There is a saying about knives - that dull knives are more dangerous than sharp ones for a cook. This is because the knife will have unpredictable performance and require more force to use. Similarly, a gun would be inherently dangerous if it did not function as it is intended.

Actually, you stated that guns have only one function - to kill. I identified another function which you don’t value, apparently. In any event, your statement was false. If you said, ‘guns have only one function that I think is important when performing a risk-benefit analysis while discounting all other functions - to kill’ then sure. The way you stated it, is false.

This is the study you cited.
I didn’t bother responding to that one since you didn’t include a link, and I had already responded in post #205.

I do accept that suicide attempts with firearms are more successful than suicide attempts by other means. So if you attempt suicide, and you use a firearm, the chance of success is greater. This isn’t a huge revelation. This doesn’t support the conclusion that a gun in the home is major hazard to the people they are supposed to protect, unless you are asserting that somehow having the gun causes the person to attempt suicide.

(I removed the apposite portion for clarity)

Are you asserting that anyone who doesn’t reach the conclusion as you state is not embracing a rational evidence based assessment? That would be the contrary to your statement. I’m trying to flesh out what you’re accusing me of. First I thought it was dishonesty but now you’re saying that’s not it, it’s a lack of rational, evidence based assessment? Is that right?

This is just silly. Prior to 2010, handguns were banned in Chicago. Prior to 2008, handguns were banned in Washington DC. Both bans took SCOTUS rulings to overturn. It’s absurd to say that *“no one wants to “ban” guns.” *

But here’s the thing about conducting a risk-benefit balance:

(my bold)

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You are correct about New Jersey. But I can’t find any such law on the books in California. Do you have a link?

I don’t have a big problem with the New Jersey law (especially if the penalties for violation are no more than fines or short jail terms). If there ever is a smart gun that meets the requirement, it will be a good experiment to see how subsequent trends in gun deaths will compare to other states will more permission firearms regulations.

You really think most people would pay for air bags? And that’s a technology with few opponents. Millions of gun owners are telling each other that smart guns need to be perfect to be worthwhile. They have their minds made up, and made up minds are unlikely to change. Sometimes it takes a new generation to break out of fixed conceptions. (Yes I am a Kuhnian.)

It all depends on what percent of the time, today, gun victims are killed by their own firearms grabbed by the killer. I don’t have statistics for civilians. But police, who I think are better trained to resist literal gun grabbers, are getting killed with their own gun, as I previously linked, 8.4 percent of the time. I’d think the percent is at least that for our less well trained civilians. If you can show a different percentage, great. Whatever it is, it should be balanced against the weaknesses of the smart gun.

It’s an interpretation I disagree with.

Saying other people are being dishonest is IMHO internet blather. We can’t read each other’s minds, and I’m glad for that.

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My mistake - I was thinking microstamping when I wrote that. Police in CA are exempt from that by way of being exempt from the roster at all, Penal Code 32000(b)(4)

You made the argument in favor of smartguns in part because of police incidents. But the NJ law exempts police. Why do you think that is? If the law were really about safety, or the technology was ready, then police would not be exempt. If there was a value that was added, then there would be no need to ban all other handguns that do not have the tech. I’m not generally opposed to the tech itself, just the method by which it’s used as a lever to ban guns. Eliminate the mandate, give people a choice, and let the market decide. Here is a thread we did on it a couple years ago. The consensus I saw from most pro-gun rights folks was that they’d be supportive once it meets a certain threshhold of reliability. A great measure of that would be when police adopt it - but police are exempt.

People haven’t made up their minds about the tech - look at the previous thread. What people have made up their minds about, are backdoor ways to ban guns, exempting police, etc. Even still this isn’t a good example. First, cars are not part of an enumerated constitutional right. Second, if the airbag fails, the car still works. 3rd, the regular use of cars for transportation generally isn’t a life or death situation. Fourth - a more relevant tech in cars would be an ignition interlock when seatbelts aren’t worn.

And yes, I would and I do pay for airbags, by virtue of buying a car at all.

I thought I commented on this part earlier but I missed it. This is a misleading way to present this information. The 8.4% figure is as a percent of times they are killed overall. This is entirely the wrong way to interpret this data. The comparison should be 5 times per year as compared to the number of times their firearms are fired, multiplied by the failure rate - I think. And even still - police are exempt so the entire comparison is not on point.

Then you’d need to take that up with wolfpup. He’s the one that said:

I think he modified this proclamation, but I’m not sure. He did not repudiate or withdraw the statement when he extended the criticism to a lack of rational, evidence based assessment.

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Forgot to add, smartgun laws have been proposed multiple times to be added as a requirement for the roster (for which police would be exempt) but has been defeated in the legislature each time. In 2007-2008 it was AB 2235, Mr DeSaulnier’s “owner-authorized handguns” bill. In the 2009-2010 session, Mr DeSaulnier (now in the Senate), showing remarkable persistence in a bad cause, introduced similar legislation regarding owner-authorized handguns - SB 697. And the latest attempt is SB 678 in the current session.

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I was wondering what citation was referring to Kellerman’s research as “laughable” but I see you were quoting yourself. I don’t know where you got that information but Kellerman is a respected authority on gun policy and is a natural target for vilification by the pro-gun faction seeking to suppress the facts, an endeavor in which the NRA is especially active. But as I said, there is lots of independent research. This article cites three different papers in support of the contention that “owning a gun has been linked to higher risks of homicide, suicide, and accidental death by gun.” The whole article actually does a good job of debunking all the common pro-gun myths.

It is also false to say that Kellerman doesn’t weigh comparative risk factors – this paper supports the contention that “for every time a gun is used in self-defense in the home, there are 7 assaults or murders, 11 suicide attempts, and 4 accidents involving guns in or around a home.”

Not just greater, much greater. It’s perplexing how you can reach such a conclusion. The more homes have a ready-made sure-fire suicide machine, the more suicide fatalities you’re going to have for any given suicide attempt rate.

Please stop trying to make this personal by imagining things that I’m supposedly accusing you of. I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m simply saying that the pro-gun argument is not supported by objective facts. It is a fact that the US has by far the most guns and by far the highest gun fatality rate of any civilized country in the world, by any measure. By most useful measures the risk factors and fatality rates are many multiples of what they are elsewhere, far greater than can be accounted for by any sociological factors other than those that promulgate and venerate guns. Countless scientific studies describe it as a huge problem and a major public safety risk. Other than obvious lunatics like Wayne Lapierre, I think many gun supporters are sincere but misguided, like those who believe that pro-gun policies make them safer. I used the word “honest” in the meaning that it carries when one speaks of an “honest assessment”, meaning an assessment that is untainted by the (possibly unconscious) bias of already knowing the answer one wants. The NRA is responsible for a lot of good people believing a lot of bad things.

Banning handguns is not “banning guns”, just like banning machine guns is not “banning guns”. Nor do I support a universal handgun ban, and local bans are pretty much useless anyway. A strict national licensing requirement would be far more effective at stemming handgun violence.

You’re quoting the idiot Scalia, one of the most ignorant and extremist justices to have ever disgraced the Supreme Court, in DC v. Heller, one of the worst, most regressive 5-4 split decisions this right-wing SCOTUS has made in many years of regressive 5-4 split decisions. You don’t have to take my word for it about Scalia – read, for instance, his bitter, ranting, scathing dissents in the last two cases upholding the ACA and upholding gay marriage. Scalia is rich fodder for late-night comedy.

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Yes, Kellerman’s research is laughable. I laugh at it. It’s absurd. These are some of the things that were part of the study you cited:
[ul]
[li]having a control group dissimilar to the test group[/li][li]not controling for guns brought into the home from another source[/li][li]finding that many other factors presented greater risk factors than firearm existence.[/li][/ul]

Here’s a criticism of Kellerman inReason Magazine: (my bold)

There’s more at the link. Suffice to say, Kellerman appears to be agenda driven in his findings. I’m sure you’ll have unkind things to say about Reason. No matter - just pretend I feel the same way about Kellerman.

Regarding the other links - if you’d like to discuss any specific aspect, feel free to quote it. Each are quite long and I’m unclear what point you’re trying to make with each. For example, gun research was barred by the CDC not because there was an effort to suppress the facts, but instead because the studies they were producing, like Kellerman above, were junk. The congress must decide what is worthwhile to focus limited resources on, and they determined junk studies by the CDC did not meet this threshold. But don’t fret, if anyone wants to fund their own studies, they are free to do so.

Am I imagining it? You said:

I personally do not acknowledge that there is not a positive risk/benefit with tradoff with guns. I personally do not come to the conclusion that the limit of civilian usefulness of guns begins and ends with hunting and wildlife control. These are the things you stated that those who take contrary positions are not being truly honest, and were not embracing a rational evidence based assessment. I asked you directly about each of these statements but you seem opposed to answering directly. It seems evasive. Now you say that those that disagree with you must be tainted by their own bias and not able to objectively assess the facts. If only everyone else in the world thought like you!

Yes, banning handguns is banning guns. Banning handguns is not banning all guns, sure. You could say that banning handguns is banning the overwhelming choice of self defense tool by Americans, the quintessential self defense weapon. That would also be accurate. Your claim that no one wants to ban guns is absurd and ridiculous. At least one poster in this thread has stated he wants to ban all guns. Several posters on this board have stated the same. Why feel the need to deny reality that there are people that want to ban guns? Is it so you can cling to the trope, ‘no one wants to ban guns’? Yes, people do. It does your argument no favors to deny this obvious truth.

Yes, I’m quoting the opinion of the Supreme Court, in an opinion that was signed onto by 4 other justices. One of those was Roberts, who wrote one of the opinions upholding the subsidies of the ACA. Who wrote the opinion is irrelevant though - it’s the law of the land. The risk/benefit analysis you focus on has been addressed. Your side lost. Sucks, but yay Canada!

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Fine, and you’re entitled to your opinion. My position is that Arthur Kellermann is not only the author of more than 200 well-regarded research papers on emergency medicine, injury prevention, and gun violence, but he’s also had an outstanding career of such high distinction in some of the nation’s foremost institutions – including Emory University, the RAND Corporation, the US Congress, and the National Academy of Sciences – that he’s one of America’s truly distinguished research scientists, and holds numerous awards including career achievement awards for Excellence in Science from the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine and from the American Public Health Association.

On the other side, the libertarian nutjobs at Reason magazine – the ones whose libertarian mission, AFAICT, is to dismantle every possible aspect of government and privatize the rest – apparently think Kellermann’s work is worthless!

I leave the reader to make his own judgment. The funny part is that there isn’t even an argument here, because if Kellermann wasn’t correct, then the very clear numbers on gun fatalities wouldn’t be what they are in the US, and they wouldn’t be what they are in the rest of the world.

I already did. The papers were cited in support of the following two statements:
[ul]
[li]Owning a gun has been linked to higher risks of homicide, suicide, and accidental death by gun.[/li][/ul]

[ul]
[li]For every time a gun is used in self-defense in the home, there are 7 assaults or murders, 11 suicide attempts, and 4 accidents involving guns in or around a home.[/li][/ul]
There’s also a variant of that second statement, from research by Kellermann et al. published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1986: for every self-defense homicide via firearm, there were 43 criminal homicides, suicides, or accidental gunshot deaths. Hence my earlier statement: the only safe gun is one that doesn’t freaking work. If someone made a cordless drill that was 43 times more likely to put a hole in the owner’s head than into a carpentry project, it might be considered an unsafe product.

Yes, I said those things. I didn’t say them about you personally.

I’m not personally invested in either side. Could you say the same about the NRA or Wayne Lapierre? Or the gun manufacturers that fund them? Or all the gun fanatics who have been whipped up into a frenzy of fear by these people about the supposedly disintegrating apocalyptic society that they need guns to “protect” themselves from?

First of all there are many facts that belie any supposition that this was a clear-cut and obviously correct decision, or that it will stand the test of time, which I personally believe it will not, like other bad SCOTUS decisions that were eventually reversed. Three facts that come immediately to mind:

[ul]
[li]SCOTUS had been trying to avoid this issue for decades, because the problem of putting a definitive individual vs. collective-rights interpretation on the Second Amendment has no solution that is 100% supportable, and it’s a political minefield.[/li][/ul]

[ul]
[li]The ruling, when it came down, was the usual 5-4 ideological split, with strong dissent.[/li][/ul]

[ul]
[li]There is a strong body of opinion among constitutional scholars, supported by the wording of earlier drafts of the Bill of Rights, that the Second Amendment granted a collective right to arms for the protection of the early nation, and not an individual right for citizens to shoot each other. In a saner world the Second Amendment would simply have become as obsolete as the third, the one about quartering troops. Instead, this piece of obsolescence was re-animated and sanctified as a constitutional carte blanche for national gun violence.[/li][/ul]
Here’s my explanation for Roberts ruling sanely on the latest ACA decision but not on DC v Heller. In the present makeup of the Supreme Court, four justices are right-wing ideologues and one tends to be libertarian. Of the four right-wing ideologues, three are idiots and one – Roberts – is smart enough to be concerned about his legitimacy and legacy, and to play the long game. Sure he voted against the idiots in the ruling on the ACA subsidies – if the idiots had prevailed, then the ACA would have lost one of its essential provisions and would effectively have been abolished in toto, in direct opposition to the clear wishes of Congress which enacted it. And this hugely major legislative accomplishment would have been overturned on the basis of a ridiculously frivolous claim – just stunning in its frivolity – brought in bad faith, and based on a trivial technicality.

Roberts is an ideologue but, unlike Scalia, he isn’t an idiot. But on the gun issue, it plays right into conservatives’ love for personal empowerment and independence and the diminishment of government, and a generally simplistic attitude towards crime. Every man his own protector and his own police force, and as a bonus, bad guys get their heads blown off without the need for costly trials to determine messy liberal-leftist things like actual guilt and appropriate justice – guns are conservative nirvana!

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THIS again!? Show me credible cites that the NRA is a front for gun manufacturers; otherwise it’s like when Prohibition advocates claimed that their only opposition were the saloon owners and distilleries.

You say that as if it were a negative thing…

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I didn’t say they were a “front for gun manufacturers”. Gun manufacturers are part of their funding, and the point is that neither gun manufacturers nor ideological zealots are ever willing to listen to reason, just like tobacco companies and cigarette addicts never were until forced by the weight of evidence and the force of law.

The Atlantic does a good job of summing up the sources of NRA support in this article that asks “Whom does the NRA really speak for?” The answer, they conclude, is (1) it speaks for Joe Six-Shooter, the traditional grassroots base of the historical organization, (2) it speaks for gun makers, a significant source of its funding, and (3) it speaks for right-wing ideologues. All of them have a vested interest in ignoring the facts or spinning them into a pro-gun diatribe, but #2 and #3 are the implacable zealots, the “from my cold dead hands” variety for whom facts and the voice of reason are not something to be listened to but enemies to be ruthlessly suppressed.

The real issue with the NRA is that this intractable ideology is coupled with an immensely powerful network of lobbying organizations.

On the specific subject of funding from gun manufacturers, which is just part of the problem, cites are not hard to find:
The Violence Policy Center has estimated that since 2005, gun manufacturers have contributed up to $38.9 million to the NRA. Those numbers, however, are based on publicly listed “sponsorship” levels on NRA fundraising pamphlets. The real figures could be much bigger. Like Crossroads GPS or Americans for Prosperity, or the Sierra Club for that matter, the NRA does not disclose any donor information even though it spends millions on federal elections.
http://www.thenation.com/article/does-nra-represent-gun-manufacturers-or-gun-owners/

Or this:
How The Gun Industry Funnels Tens Of Millions Of Dollars To The NRA
In its early days, the National Rifle Association was a grassroots social club that prided itself on independence from corporate influence. While that is still part of the organization’s core function, today less than half of the NRA’s revenues come from program fees and membership dues. The bulk of the group’s money now comes in the form of contributions, grants, royalty income, and advertising, much of it originating from gun industry sources.

Since 2005, the gun industry and its corporate allies have given between $20 million and $52.6 million to it through the NRA Ring of Freedom sponsor program. Donors include firearm companies like Midway USA, Springfield Armory Inc, Pierce Bullet Seal Target Systems, and Beretta USA Corporation. Other supporters from the gun industry include Cabala’s, Sturm Rugar & Co, and Smith & Wesson.

The NRA also made $20.9 million – about 10 percent of its revenue – from selling advertising to industry companies marketing products in its many publications in 2010, according to the IRS Form 990. Additionally, some companies donate portions of sales directly to the NRA. Crimson Trace, which makes laser sights, donates 10 percent of each sale to the NRA. Taurus buys an NRA membership for everyone who buys one of their guns. Sturm Rugar gives $1 to the NRA for each gun sold, which amounts to millions. The NRA’s revenues are intrinsically linked to the success of the gun business.

And an outline of the lobbying organizations:
The National Rifle Association portrays itself as an organization that represents “4 million members” who simply love the Second Amendment. The truth is much more murky.

In reality, the NRA is composed of half a dozen legal entities; some designed to run undisclosed attack ads in political campaigns, others to lobby and collect tens of millions in undisclosed, tax-deductible sums. This power has only been enhanced in the era of Citizens United, with large GOP donors in the last election reportedly funneling money to the NRA simply to use the group as a brand to pummel Democrats with nasty ads. (As The Huffington Post’s Peter Stone reported, even the Koch network now provides an undisclosed amount to the NRA.)

Despite the grassroots facade, there is much evidence to suggest that corporations that profit from unregulated gun use are propping up the NRA’s activities, much like how the tobacco lobby secretly funded “Smokers Rights” fronts and libertarian anti-tax groups, or how polluters currently finance much of the climate change skepticism movement.
http://www.thenation.com/article/does-nra-represent-gun-manufacturers-or-gun-owners/

It’s a negative thing only when it becomes a single-minded objective pursued with intractable fanaticism to the exclusion of facts and a balanced consideration of consequences. That’s the nature of any extremist ideology, the nature of fanaticism.