Violent crime in the US has significantly decreased (by 50% or more) over the last 25 years, while gun ownership as a % of households with guns has remained fairly stable during the same time.
What do you bet they could get done? Do you think she is going to either get no more prayers and/or no more guns…literally? I’m curious what people actually think could be done at this point, realistically. Because I’m not seeing any realistic actions that could be taken, just some catchy phrases like you are quoting there that are meaningless wrt real change.
As for the ER doctors, I bet some say similar things when some idiot decides he can drink and drive and rams his car into a car full of kids or a family going to the store as well. There are a lot of things that are risky in life that society allows that I bet doctors would prefer weren’t. Cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, cheese burgers, guns, etc etc etc. Not to say doctors shouldn’t have a say wrt their opinion, which I think was asinine of the NRA to lash back at, but in the end it’s not up to the NRA OR the doctors…it’s up to us, as a society. And the majority of our society is good with all of the things in my non-exhaustive list for people to have, use or own. Until that changes, all the mothers wishing for all the prayers and all the guns to be gone is just that…wishful thinking.
Have you never heard of this place called Australia?
While I’m glad you recognize the accomplishments of Clair Cameron Patterson, I don’t know what this has to do with gun ownership.
Well, that just proves that they are ignorant as fuck and have never read a history book, because that is absolutely NOT what happened in either case.
“Nobody wants to take away your guns” to me means “We know we won’t accomplish an outright ban but we will use mass media reports of gun violence as a reason to chip away at 2A rights little by little until a near-complete ban is eventually reached.”
I see, so it’s the fault of the media, not the thousands of people killed by guns.
I’m not saying “we shouldn’t bother to search for better evidence.” I’m saying that people are making too much of this issue of the CDC not being able to conduct a study on gun violence. I get why people bring it up, because it’s an example of the NRA obstructing potential progress and that pisses people off. But I see no reason why the CDC study is the be-all and end-all of gun violence reduction. The CDC is only one of the many organizations that conducts studies. What’s stopping one of the numerous billionaires who support gun control from funding their own study? Is the idea that having an official government study by an official federal government body like the CDC will be the straw that breaks the backs of all the people who continue to hold their positions despite all of the publicly-available statistics and studies that already exist?
This isn’t a trial and no “evidence” is going to be the deciding factor that changes the minds of all the pro-gun voters.
“Using a gun” often means only showing it. Not killing someone.
Could you explain to me what happened with guns in Australia and Japan? Because as I understand it, there is close to a total ban on guns in those countries. If guns are available to civilians there, I’m pretty sure they are limited to hunting weapons. This country (America) has a very strong concept of people owning weapons for defense, not just hunting. Maybe this concept was never part of Australian culture but it is most definitely part of American culture. When people talk about instituting the types of gun laws of Australia and Japan, in America, how exactly do they think this is going to be done?
It’s like if I said, “America needs to have the economy of Monaco and Singapore.” Well, America isn’t Monaco or Singapore and nothing is going to change it into those countries, economically or otherwise. As far as I’m concerned it’s the same situation when people talk about making America’s gun laws like Australia and Japan. It’s a pipe dream.
Not only have I heard of it, I’ve been there so I know it’s a real place. I know something else, too…it’s not America. And, this will probably be even more shocking to you but I noticed that Americans don’t live there either. There are a bunch of folks who aren’t Americans (if you can believe it!) who speak in weird accents and have very different attitudes and culture than America. Hard to believe, I know…
Most guns used in crimes are not purchased in gun stores- they are bought on the black market or stolen.
Why would that motivate you to use a safe?
Already there are records if you buy it from a gun store. You are allowed (except in CA and a few states) to sell it to anyone unless you have good reason to suspect they are out of state, a criminal etc. Except in CA, you can sell your gun to anyone (with that exception) anyway, you dont need registration for that.
To collect taxes.
The CDC can be counted on to create a non-partisan analysis of the impact of guns on our society. A pro gun control billionaire has no such gravitas.
The fact that the NRA is so hell-bent on preventing it suggests that it would be a valuable source of data for gun control proponents.
Even if it isn’t, even if the whole thing is just pissing in the wind, I want that data. What I want is for the pro gun lobby to have to openly ignore the analysis of a respected non-partisan institution. They are going to have to answer those questions and admit that they refuse to acknowledge the facts in front of them.
Cigarettes didn’t go away the year after they put warnings on the packs, it took decades for use to decline, but who knows how many more people would have died if they decided not to bother putting real medical analysis in front of people.
Or it could be attributed to Roe v. Wade. I’m not sure there any conclusive understandings as to the decline in violent crime in the US, but as you say gun ownership apparently is not a contributing factor to violent crime.
They have incorrect info. Assuming you want for some reason to compare "gun murders’ vs ‘murders’, here is the actual breakdown:
Mass ranks #10. New Hampshire, which has very loose gun laws, ranks #4. Oregon, which is about average, ranks #5. The worst “state” is DC which has very tight gun control. There doesn’t seem to be any correlation.
Ok, Dr Melinek appears to be mostly a consulting Pathologist. She likely sees quite a few murder victims- and sure maybe one a week. She consults outside SF but works mostly there. However, as a consulting pathologist she NEVER pulls bullets out of her patients- by the time she is asked to consult, the bullets are in a plastic bag in Evidence. Her work in SF may allow her to occasionally pull a bullet out, but there simply are not enough gun murders in SF for her to do so weekly. It’s mathematically impossible.
Australia banned semi-automatic and other military-style weapons across the country. The federal government of Australia prohibited their import, and lawmakers introduced a generous nationwide gun buyback program, funded with a Medicare tax, to encourage Australians to freely give up their assault-style weapons. They did not just send the Janet Reno stormtroopers door to door collecting every single gun they could get their hands on, as the NRA would like you to believe.
And FWIW, Australia WAS a rugged frontier country with strong cultural tendencies towards anti-authoritarianism, self reliance, and gun ownership. They changed this because (a) they cared about preventing gun violence and (b) they are not a bunch of fucking children.
And last I checked, Australia still has **three million **non-semiautomatic guns, which are much less suitable for spree killing, and this has no resulted in tyranny or unchecked criminal bedlam. Amazing, huh?
Using Japan as an example is just plain stupid because, as you observed, they never had a tradition of gun ownership to begin with. Japan’s gun control extends back to their late feudal period.
Anyway…
I am well aware that America has a strong cultural tradition of gun ownership for hunting and defense, because I am an American. I was in the Army for 20 years, shot every gun you can name, and won marksmanship awards. I’ve even participated in civilian shooting competitions because - GASP - I’m not some kind of mouth breathing libtard moron cuck, but neither am I a mindless NRA dickhead who insults children and grieving parents. I know it’s really astonishing for the NRA retard brigade to think that there are such things as gun-owning liberals, but there you have it. So please, continue to educate me about the values and cultural mores of my own country and see if you can tell me something I don’t already know.
Because here’s the thing: America’s cultural values mean fuck-all to me. Guns are stupid and boring. And if you want a shotgun, or a revolver, or a hunting rifle, I don’t even care. Go nuts. Just don’t tell me that you need an AR-15 (or whatever other semiautomatic metal phallus) for “hunting” and “defense” because you don’t. You really, really, really don’t. You want to hunt? Take Papa Josef’s Mosul Nagant our there and shoot a deer. Because I would LOVE to see some dickhead try to use one to perpetrate a mass shooting. Or try killing as many people as possible with a single-action army. (Trust me, you’re stopping at six.)
Anyone who tells you this can’t be done is an uneducated fuckwit who loves his idiot macho self image more than he cares about human lives.
Great! Then you should already be aware of the fact that Australia practically eliminated mass shootings and drastically reduced their suicide rate.
Because Australians are not Americans. You’re right about that. Let me spell it out for you:
Americans are fucking morons.
Australians are actual adult human beings.
Turns out, that’s a pretty big difference, and it turns out that’s why Australia can solve their gun violence and Americans cannot.
I freely admit that a consistent level of gun ownership over the last few decades has not prevented other factors from reducing violent crime.
Yay, guns?
The CDC can indeed conduct a study. They just can’t “promote gun control” .
wiki : “In United States politics, the Dickey Amendment is a provision first inserted as a rider into the 1996 federal government omnibus spending bill which mandated that “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”[1]”
The CDC has actually done studies since then.
But this is why they can’t “promote gun control” :Why The Centers For Disease Control Should Not Receive Gun Research Funding
"*There was a very good reason for the gun violence research funding ban. Virtually all of the scores of CDC-funded firearms studies conducted since 1985 had reached conclusions favoring stricter gun control. This should have come as no surprise, given that ever since 1979, the official goal of the CDC’s parent agency, the U.S. Public Health Service, had been “…to reduce the number of handguns in private ownership”, starting with a 25% reduction by the turn of the century.”…Ten senators who strongly supported the CDC gun research funding ban put their reasons in writing: “This research is designed to, and is used to, promote a campaign to reduce lawful firearms ownership in America…Funding redundant research initiatives, particularly those which are driven by a social-policy agenda, simply does not make sense.”
Sociologist David Bordura and epidemiologist David Cowan characterized the public health literature on guns at that time as “advocacy based upon political beliefs rather than scientific fact”"*
As far as the CDC not being allowed to study gun violence, they did so in 2003:*In fact, the CDC conducted a major two-year independent study of various regulatory laws in 2003. The investigation considered bans on specified firearms or ammunition; gun registration; concealed-weapon carry; and zero-tolerance for firearms in schools. The study concluded there was “insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any firearms laws or combinations of laws reviewed for preventing violence.”
*
Let me make that clear: The CDC itself determined that was " insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any firearms laws or combinations of laws reviewed for preventing violence.”
So there is a scientific study that shows that **Gun Laws in the USA can not be shown to reduce violence. **
And when they did, they found that there was "insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any firearms laws or combinations of laws reviewed for preventing violence.”
The prior studies were flawed by obvious bias.