Actually, with San Francisco’s penchant for sticking its nose in private behavior and for its innate need to pass feel-good-but accomplish-nothing-laws and “social engineer” peoples private lives, many of us in CA view SF with embarrassment.
Do you have a cite showing that these gangs are swimming in these weapons? Either way, those are still legal to purchase in some areas of the country and smuggling across state lines is much easier than smuggling into the country.
Its exceedingly unlikely that you will be shot in one of these areas. In fact, I would wager more people were shot in gun accidents than in banks,stores or shopping malls.
Buy a shotgun.
Thats a misrepresentation of my argument to the the extreme.
Senator Feinstein seems to agree with you.
*Around 70 officers are killed each year by criminals. And, according to a study by the Violence Policy Center , 1 in 5 law enforcement officers killed between 1998 and 2001 were shot with assault weapons. […snip…]
Gangs have become more sophisticated and more violent criminal enterprises. What were once loosely-organized groups centered around dealing drugs within a particular neighborhood are now complex criminal organizations whose activities include weapons trafficking, gambling, smuggling, robbery, and, of course, homicide.
In 2002, over half of the 1,228 homicides committed in Los Angeles County were gang-related. Similarly, over half of the 499 murders committed in the city of Los Angeles during 2003 were the result of gang violence.
*
Yeah, it’s called the Evening News. Whenever the police raid or bust a gang, they very proudly display all the weapons they captured. Whether these guns came from El Salvador or the Sears in Phoenix makes no difference, they still come here.
Oh really. Right down the street from here, we have the Panorama City Mall. It hadn’t even been open a month and some gang bangers started shooting. Being true to form, they managed to miss each other and hit innocent bystanders. You can’t even walk on the sidewalk in some areas. The favored gang method here is the “drive by” shooting.
I think it’s a fair representation of the “just don’t go there” argument.
And thanks Liberal, for the Gang info from Feinstein.
You’re kidding right? You think that the news reports all the times the police makes a bust and doesn’t find those weapons?
I see. Are you planning on pulling your piece and joining in on these shootouts? Either way, one shooting and one mall proves nothing. The plural of anecdote is not data.
No its not. Its a completely bullshit representation of my argument to paint me as somesort of asshole that blames the victim.
And thanks Liberal, for the Gang info from Feinstein.
[/QUOTE]
In Post 64 you said
By your logic, I should not go to the bank, the shopping mall, the bank, the liquor store, even the sidewalk. Driving on the freeways are out too. We have road rage and freeway shooters here. You SAID don’t go to any place that might be dangerous. It’s potentially dangerous EVERYWHERE. So, by extension, if you go somewhere dangerous, it MUST be your fault. Don’t get mad at me, when you made a bad statement. For what it’s worth, knowing what lousy shots most people are, I’d probably feel safer if they ARE trying to hit me. It’s amazing how many times the “gunfighters” are unhit, and the people who had nothing to do with it get shot.
“how about not going to that place?” I don’t think so, since “that place” can be anywhere and everywhere.
Oh dear you’ve got me on a technicality. I am vanquished.
No, you were just wrong. That’s all. No the earth won’t stop spinning. Now you explain to me how you avoid dangerous situations. Guns (handguns at any rate) are easy to conceal. Shooters don’t announce their intentions. How do you know a place or situation is dangerous, until someone starts shooting? They don’t loudly announce “I’m shooting now, everyone not involved seek cover”. It’s not a technicality. Every place is potentially dangerous.
As for the Evening News etc, let’s disregard all but one “episode” - there was one incident a few years ago. I am sure most Californians at least will remember. There was a bank robbery (I think it was a bank robbery). The criminals had automatic weapons (M16s I think) and body armor. The cops had pistols and shotguns. They had to break into a nearby sporting goods store for better weapons and ammo. Yes, the bad guys are better equipped than most cops, and last time I checked, there were already laws against…
automatic weapons for civiilans
shooting at cops
robbery - which kicked off the “festivities” to begin with.
As for “get a shotgun”… You do realize, walking down the street with a shotgun is “frowned upon” don’t you?
So are cigarette lighters and swimming pools. Unintended use is different from intended use and should not be included in the same discussion.
That doesn’t even make sense. Most people who actually use them for self defense are actually using them for self defense.
All of the people I know with fire extinguishers have never used them. That doesn’t make them useless when they’re needed. We’ve had a number of break-ins in my city that involved intruder(s) who broke into a house KNOWING the owner was home. Location did not matter. Some of the owners were killed, some of the intruders were killed. Which column do you want your name under?
If you consdier a bank, shopping mall etc. etc. dangerous places to go you and I are operating under different levels of dangerous.
Is your local bank filled with danger, is it likely to do harm or is it perilous? Mine sure isn’t.
I happen to agree with you here, lets get rid of laws about shooting at cops and robbery becuase criminals will just break them. This logic is simply ridiculous, one isolated incident is not what you should base laws or public policy on.
Why do you think that is?
Nothing, as long as the handgun doesn’t have grandfathered magazines that hold more than ten rounds. The intolerant state of California outlaws the transfer of them.
Banks tend to attract bank robbers in L.A… Imagine that. Bank robbers are dangerous. Surprise. A shooting which I cited did take place at a shopping mall, right after it opened for business. Two gang members spotted each other in the mall, and it was on, right then and right there. Innocent people (noncombatants) DIED. Is that fitting in your definition of dangerous? YOU said don’t go anywhere that might be dangerous, not me.
This is Los Angeles, where this is NOT an isolated incident. Let’s get rid of all laws. Sure. Making more laws that target the wrong people makes a lot of sense too. If the present laws are not making criminals behave, then what evidence is there that the answer is more laws? Toughen the sentences. Stop plea bargains. Institute “special circumstances” laws. Plenty of cities give tougher punishment if a gun was used in commission of a crime. Disarming the people who are law abiding honest people does squat against organized gangs. They can get whatever they want, no matter how ridiculous and expensive and legal/illegal. You want a machine gun? You can get it. Grenades? Easy. Just don’t try to do it legally. But if your a gangster, anything you want.
Oh, I give up. Why did I even get involved? I can see we’ll go in circles forever. Forget I said anything.
No thats not the definition of dangerous. Guys have had heart attacks beating off but that doesn’t make beating off dangerous. How does this support your argument for allowing handguns? Are you planning on pulling your piece and getting involved in the middle of a gang gun fight? Do you want some guy getting involved and have 3 people possibly hitting bystanders?
Arming people is going to do squat against organized gangs unless you think John Q Public getting into a firefight between the Crypts and the Bloods is a good idea. But you are right, I expect organized cirme to be able to arm themselves. They aren’t the people I am really worried about. I am worried about the guy at the bar I bump into that overreacts and pulls his gun on me.
I don’t understand your argument here. Are you planning on using a piddling handgun against a guy armed with machinee guns and grenades?
You didn’t answer my question in the previous post:
Howdy MrDibble,
I’m only up for renewal in 2008, so there’s no telling yet. I don’t foresee any problems, though. As for new applications, yeah, seems they are having huge delays.
If I were you I’d have a chat with some dealers. They’re closer to the action and will be able to give you a more accurate perspective.
I don’t agree, and neither do the experts. The jury is still very much out on whether a gun is a more effective tool at killing/severely injuring than a knife. This is one of those issues where it’s very hard to get reliable statistics of course but the stats we do have suggest that knives are far more likely to result in far more serious injuries than firearms.
However those stats we do have are highly unreliable for all sorts of reasons. Firstly accidental ‘knife’ injuries are common, and accidental firearm injuries are not, so people can readily claim they fell on a knife or it slipped while they were whittling, but much harder to claim you accidentally shot yourself in the head. Also self-inflicted gunshot wounds are easily detected by burns etc. in most cases, while self-inflicted knofe wounds aren’t. As a result any gunshot attack will be picked up by the system, while minor wounds from a knife attack will get a couple of sticthes and a meaningful goodbye.
Added to that knives are often the weapon of choice for those who are best equipped to use them: strong young men. That doesn’t mean that the stats we have are representative of everybody when it comes to the effectiveness of knives.
Then there is the whole issue that all gunshot wounds are required to be reported to the authorities in most locations. That could be skewing the stats either way. Since a lot of weapon wounds are received as a result of nefarious activities that obligatory reporting means that a lot of criminals will simply not get medical care for minor gunshot wounds, whereas they will show at an emergency room for any knife wound. As a result it will appear that gunshot wounds will be far more severe than for knife wounds, even if knife wounds on average are more serious, because only the most serious gunshot wounds are ever seen. But on the other hand it may be that obligatory reporting may mean that guns are less efficient at causing serious wounds because people may get ‘back alley’ medical care for serious gunshots wounds but hospital care for serious knife wounds.
Then we get to the whole issue of attempts. A person might attempt to use a firearm and miss, doing no damage at all, and thus not make any lists. A person attempting to use a knife is unlikely to do less than draw blood, and will thus be inlcuded in stats.
And so on and so forth. Hopefully you can appreciate how hard it is to get stats on the effectiveness of knives vs firearms. and more importantly you can see that you aren’t justified in claiming that firearms are more effective at killing and maiming. The evidence simply doesn’t exist to support such a claim and it’s hard to see how we could ever gather such evidence.
No, I won’t agree until I see some convincing evidence to support such a claim. It seems to be based on a Hollywood impression of the effects of weapons: everyone who gets shot dies, people get stabbed and spend a few days in bed. Things don’t work like that in the real world.
No, that doesn’t stand to reason either. People often use firearms for the same reason they study Tae Kwon Do or used polearms and baseball bats: there’s a psychological perception that everything happens a long way away. It’s not because people percieve those things as most effective, it’s because they percieve them as safer. Those are very different things. There are other psychological factors you’ve totally ignored here too. Firearms operate at the pres of a button, that makes them very easy psychologically. Knives require an active use of muscle power, that makes them hard to use psychologically.
So until you provide some evidence to support your claim that people use firearms primarily because they think it’s most effective I won’t buy it.
I think you’d better now that you’ve introduced it. Because every reference I have seen says exactly the opposite: knives are more likely to cause serious injury. But as I’ve said, this is an area where getting meaningful statistics is all but impossible. How did anyone get figures for the number of gunfights and knifefights to begin with? And how did they define a knife fight? Is everyone who is mugged with a knife involved in a knifefight? Or does the weapon have to be used? But if the weapon has to be used how do we account for the different natures of people who would use a knife and those who would use a firearm? After all can’t anyone inflict a minor injury with a knife? Are you suggesting that muggers would be just as happy to shoot someone in the leg as scratch their arm with a knife?
Anyway I look forward to seeing your reference so I can see how they overcame these obvious problems.
This study says (warning pdf):
Thats on pg 9
It cites the following studies for that quote:
Vison, T. 1974 Gun and knife attacks, Aust. J. For. Sci. 7:76-83
Zimring, F.E. 1968 Is gun control likely to reduce violent killings? Univ. Chicago Law Rev. 35:721-37
Zimring, F.E., Zuehkm, J. 1986 Vicm injury and death in urban robbery, a Chicago study, J. Legal Stud. 15:1-40
Says that hand guns are 1.3 to 3 times deadlier than large knives on page 34.
This study agrees with about the 5 times as more likely number if I am reading the table 1.3 on page 35 correctly.
I’ll come back and respond to your points tommorow.
Thanks, Ratel .
MrDibble, 
jy’s welkom.
Blake, FWIW, at close range I’d rather take on a gun wielding opponent than a knife. Personal anecdote, I’ve survived a close range attack by two gun toting SOB’s. 1st SOB was coming for my head at point blank, I managed to grab the gun and get it pointing away from me while I tried to strangle him. 2nd SOB took a shot, also at point blank, but missed.
If they had knives, I wouldn’t have taken the chance. It’s very difficult to grab a knife without getting cut. I would have bled. Badly.
Treis,
Your first reference requires a subscription, which I don’t have. So I really can’t judge how it arrived those figures. However even the bit you quoted seems less than convincing. “Hospital statistics indicate”? Not exactly a resounding endorsement of the idea. And of course there are al the problems I highlighted above concerning the use of hospital statistics. I hope the paper somehow accounts for those, although it is Kellerman, and as other posters have said, he has a reputation of using dodgy figures on this topic. So I hold out little hope.
The second reference (thank you, a hidden PDF that crashed my machine) does say that handguns are 1.3- 3 times deadlier than large knives at killing those wounded.
- No mention at all is made of the relative effectiveness of guns “at killing/severely injuring an attacker”, which is what you are supposed to be supporting with these references. We need to admit that the figures talk solely about the number of people wounded who end up dying of those wounds No mention is made of how many people were fired at an sustained no injuries whatsoever, as opposed to how many people were stabbed at and suffered no injuries.
- Given the types of circumstances and people using large knives as opposed to handguns is a 1.3 fold increase really significant? Does it really justify a belief that handguns are more effective?
Your third reference. (yet another PDF). Obvious problems:
- “We start with the view that homicides (defined as murders + nonnegligent manslaughters) are neither no more, nor no less, than aggravated assaults with the outcome of the victim’s death”.
Do you see no problem with that view when comparing guns and knives WRT to effectiveness at harming an attacker? The study is effectively saying that someone deliberately cutting someone else’s face (an aggravated assault with a knife) is directly comparable to someone shooting someone (an aggravated assault with a firearm). It is also effectively saying that firing at someone and missing is not an attempt to harm that person, whereas throwing a pair of scissors at someone is an attempt to kill them. This view alone makes the statistics worthless for your purposes. Unless you wish to contend that deliberately non-lethal assaults with knives (scarring, slashing arms, throwing scissors or steak knives in domestics etc) are no more common than deliberately non-lethal assaults with firearms, and no more likely to result in accidental lethality.
2) “in a homicide only dataset… an increase in % DOA (with an accompanying decrease in the survival time of all the non-DOAs) …suggests an unobserved but increasing proportion of assault victims saved from death who “reside elsewhere,” that is, in a unobserved aggravated assault dataset.” That is a direct result from the article. The gist of it is that although the lethality of assaults has decreased dramatically, the number of attempted homicide victims who are DOA has increased equally dramatically, and the survival time for homicide victims has gone down. The conclusion being that a large number of people are saved who never register on databases of assaults. Might that be because some assaults don’t get reported to the police because of their cause? That alone makes the statistics pretty much worthless.
-
“the authors aggregate homicides and aggravated assaults over the period 1980 to 1985to form the dependent variable, Doerner and Speir’s ‘percent lethality.’” Gee, do you think someone suffering an aggravated assault as a result of a drug deal might not report it to the police? Might that have some affect on “percent lethality”?
-
“an overall age-adjusted CFR (case fatality rate) for this population of 31.7% (95% CI 27.7% to 35.6%), but a CFR of only 11.3% for the subset reaching the emergency department alive” Do you think that mandatory reporting of gunshot wounds might make people reticent to come into the emergency room early enough to be saved?
-
The first dataset used contains annual UCR national-level rates of homicides and
aggravated assaults known to the police from 1960 to 1999. The second UCR dataset used contains annual national-level counts of homicides and aggravated assaults known to the police from 1964 to 1999 broken down into 4 weapons types…. The third dataset contains annual UCR police-agency based counts of aggravated assaults
and homicides aggregated to the county-level for the years 1960 to 1997” IOW these figures rely exclusively on data known to the police. Now how is mandatory reporting of gunshot wounds by hospitals going to affect these figures? And how is using police records going to reflect on people lying about the source of their injuries? Are people injured in the course of nefarious activities more or les likely to die than people injured by an angered spouse? Are they more or less likely to report to the police? -
“…broken down into 4 weapons types: firearm, knife/cutting implement…”Hmm, bowie knife, steak knife, scissors, boxcutter, broken glass. All these are lumped together as ‘knives’. Do you think this is a fair aggregation given what you are using these figures to support? Do you really think that people using broken bottles in barroom brawls are justifiably comparable to someone puling a gun in a barroom brawl? Do you think that a wife throwing a pair of scissors at her husband is directly comparable to a husband shooting at his wife with a shotgun? Because these are precisely the comparisons this categorisation will make.
-
“the shortcomings inherent in UCR aggravated assault data are well known …
These shortcomings basically concern variation in citizens’ perceptions and reporting of violent acts – especially among acquaintances, friends, and intimates – as criminal assaults rather than as civil problems, as well as substantial long term and jurisdictional de facto discretion in the police use of the aggravated assault category to record known assaults ranging from criminal threats of injury with weapons, to assaults producing very minor injuries, to assaults producing potentially lethal trauma. … it has been argued that over the years of the present study period general public
tolerance for violence as a routine part of civil life has decreased thus leading to the citizen reporting and/or police recording of (a) an evermore complete UCR census of actual criminal assaults with or without injury and (b), an evermore “diluted” level of truly serious injury in that census…. The one alternative we know of, reaching back to only 1973 – and then experiencing years of development and change – involves the use of National Crime Survey (NCS/NCVS) data based on victims self-reports of crime, including aggravated assaults. Since lethality based on NCS/NCVS aggravated assaults during the first dozen or so years of the victim survey’s development (1973-1985) correlate negatively (r = -.15) with lethality based on UCR aggravated assaults known to the police, using such estimates would clearly produce different lethality
results than those observed using UCR estimates.”
That says it all really. The data is the best available, but it’s highly suspect. When citizens themselves are asked the surveys show that most non-lethal aggravated assaults are going unreported and that in fact lethality of assaults is the opposite of what the paper shows.
Consider me underwhelmed by this reference. If this is the basis for your claim that firearms are more dangerous then the claim is pretty damn weak. At best it says that firearms are more likely to result in fatal injuries in those people whose injuries are reported to the police. Given that people with firearm injuries are forced to report to the police in most places that statement is very close to tautological.
And this sort of thing is preciely why those figures are worthless at suporting the notion that guns are more dangerous than knives. In both those cases you would not have been recorded in the statistics because you suffered no injuries. But that is the nature of firearms. They often cause no injury at all, frequently cause serious injuries and rarely cause superficial injuries. In contrast knives rarely cause no injury at all: if you’re stabbed at you will be injured, even if you are Bruce Lee. But they are likely to result in superficial injuries requiring little more than stitches.
The important question is whether they are more likely to result in fatal or serious injuries. And that’s imposible to answer until we find some way of accounting for every assualt with a firearm where every shot missed. I have no idea how many firearm attacks cause no injuries, but I’m guessing it’s most. Yet I have never seen any attempt to calculate this. I’m sure police figures exist of gunshot reports. If we can assume that a thrown pair of scissors is equatable to a shotgun to the face then we can assuem that every gunshot report is an assault with a firearm. Then we simply divide that by the number of firearm homicides or serious injuries. No less dodgy than dividing the numberof fatalities from knives by the number of assaults with nail files by .