The unstated premise underlying all "studies" as these is that all violence is bad. An armed robbery is the same as an innocent person using force to defend themselves because both are violent acts. Therefore access to the means to carry out violent acts cannot be tolerated as it increases the risk to public safety. Hence possession of a firearm even by the law-abiding increases the general jeopardy and thus cannot be tolerated. This is straight from the moral-equivalence playbook.
I will not here attempt to dissect and critique the absurdity of this view. The people who subscribe to it are cowards who conceptually blur what should remain distinct. This is the real, unstated issue of the war on guns.
You know, I seem to recall reading that if you remove the crimes committed by blacks and latinos, the U.S. violent crime rate is almost identical to that of Canada. Even though we have more people and a high population density.
And yet we have no studies claiming that blacks and latinos cause violent crime, or calling for black and latino control.
Blacks and latinos are, at the same time, the predominant victims of crime. That, of course, is the result of racism.
There is, BTW, one major difference between US crime rates and those of other places with similar demographics. Our total burglary rate is lower in direct relationship to the fact that we have fewer burglaries when people are at home and might shoot the burglar.
It is unbelievable that there are people like you lot who can defend guns as 'harmless fun' or seriously state that 'guns make you safer'. If you weren't so dangerous the absurdity of it all would be hilarious.
I love how the topic quickly moves from your gun fantasies to your racial genocide fantasies in one swift paragraph.
I particularly like the idiocy of these comments.
"if you're not a young black male living in an inner city, your likelihood of dying by homicide (regardless of weapon) is about equal to that of someone living in Europe."
"if you remove the crimes committed by blacks and latinos, the U.S. violent crime rate is almost identical to that of Canada."
Like duh!! What a surprise eh? So if I remove the most deprived higher crime areas and people from the US figures and then compare it with the average in Europe (that includes all their deprived higher crime areas and population) it is 'roughly similar. Is there no amount of distortion of statistics you lot will go to to justify your idiocy? Let alone your thinly disguised prejudice against black people. Deny black people opportunities so the majority end up in poverty stricken neighbourhoods with little or no prospects and then when they act all dysfunctional, use this to justify your superiority and racial fantasies. I despair for humanity when there are dumb f***s like you walking the planet.
PS Gun deaths have dropped from 368 a year to 163 since we banned handguns in the UK. You might want to follow our example and save 15,000 US lives a year by halving your gun deaths as well.
"Firearms (including air weapons) were reported to have been used in 22,789 recorded crimes in 2004/05. This is five per cent down on the previous year, and the first fall since 1997.
"The number of firearm crimes involving any type of injury has more than doubled in the six years to 2004/05: from 2,378 to 5,358. The largest rise was seen in crimes involving non-air weapons.
"There were 10,964 recorded crimes involving firearms other than air weapons. This is a six per cent increase over 2003/04, and a 60 per cent increase in the five years since 1999/00."
So, explain to me again how banning handguns saved lives?
And the point of commenting on the fact that homicide is an inner-city problem is that, in order to address the homicide problem, you need to address the source, and guns aren't the source. As the statistics above attest.
P.S.: I'm ecstatic that you don't live next door to me.
Wouldn't it be interesting if the homicide rate (homicides adjusted by population) was also adjusted by the number of guns or guns/household. The number of guns in this household have risen dramatically in the last 15 years.
I bet the data would be hard to get, and rightfully so. After all this is America. We have a right to own guns.
Extreme cognitive dissonance is probably incurable, Kevin, but to stop trying to cure it makes it worse by giving credibility to the cognitions that don't square with reality. Unfortunately, continuing to try to effect a cure while expecting it to eventually work, as you have noted, is a form of insanity.
You walk a fine line here, and you do it astoundingly well. Take care it doesn't get to you.
Trackback message
Title: More Harvard Antigun Chicanery
Excerpt: Pay attention to this next time some antigunner starts off with the “more guns, more crime” malarkey. There’s NO such causal relationship, and the study authors admit as much, but that doesn’t stop the study from being reporte...
Blog name: Pro-Gun Progressive
Well, to be honest it hasn't been skyrocketing, it's been edging up slowly. Banning guns coincided with a 1-year drop. Homicide rebounded the following year and has continued its slow increase with intermittent drops.
Meanwhile, here in the states we had ten years of precipitous drops in homicide, but last year that trend reversed.
Either way, "gun control" cannot be credited or blamed.
Note:
All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost;
references to haloscan comments have been partially automatically remapped, but accuracy is not guaranteed and corrections are solicited.
If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>
JS-Kit/Echo comments for article at http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2007/01/ok-i-will-comment-on-this-study.html (14 comments)
Tentative mapping of comments to original article, corrections solicited.
The unstated premise underlying all "studies" as these is that all violence is bad. An armed robbery is the same as an innocent person using force to defend themselves because both are violent acts. Therefore access to the means to carry out violent acts cannot be tolerated as it increases the risk to public safety. Hence possession of a firearm even by the law-abiding increases the general jeopardy and thus cannot be tolerated. This is straight from the moral-equivalence playbook.
I will not here attempt to dissect and critique the absurdity of this view. The people who subscribe to it are cowards who conceptually blur what should remain distinct. This is the real, unstated issue of the war on guns.
"I will not here attempt to dissect and critique the absurdity of this view."
That's OK, I already have.
Kevin,
Thank you for your response. I was totally unaware you had written this blog entry when I sent my comment.
You know, I seem to recall reading that if you remove the crimes committed by blacks and latinos, the U.S. violent crime rate is almost identical to that of Canada. Even though we have more people and a high population density.
And yet we have no studies claiming that blacks and latinos cause violent crime, or calling for black and latino control.
Blacks and latinos are, at the same time, the predominant victims of crime. That, of course, is the result of racism.
There is, BTW, one major difference between US crime rates and those of other places with similar demographics. Our total burglary rate is lower in direct relationship to the fact that we have fewer burglaries when people are at home and might shoot the burglar.
It is unbelievable that there are people like you lot who can defend guns as 'harmless fun' or seriously state that 'guns make you safer'. If you weren't so dangerous the absurdity of it all would be hilarious.
I love how the topic quickly moves from your gun fantasies to your racial genocide fantasies in one swift paragraph.
I particularly like the idiocy of these comments.
"if you're not a young black male living in an inner city, your likelihood of dying by homicide (regardless of weapon) is about equal to that of someone living in Europe."
"if you remove the crimes committed by blacks and latinos, the U.S. violent crime rate is almost identical to that of Canada."
Like duh!! What a surprise eh? So if I remove the most deprived higher crime areas and people from the US figures and then compare it with the average in Europe (that includes all their deprived higher crime areas and population) it is 'roughly similar. Is there no amount of distortion of statistics you lot will go to to justify your idiocy? Let alone your thinly disguised prejudice against black people. Deny black people opportunities so the majority end up in poverty stricken neighbourhoods with little or no prospects and then when they act all dysfunctional, use this to justify your superiority and racial fantasies. I despair for humanity when there are dumb f***s like you walking the planet.
Boy am I glad I don't live next door to you guys.
PS Gun deaths have dropped from 368 a year to 163 since we banned handguns in the UK. You might want to follow our example and save 15,000 US lives a year by halving your gun deaths as well.
Neil, how many of those "gun deaths" are by handguns? (You know, totally banned handguns?)
And how many total homicides does the UK have now as compared to 1996?
According to this chart, homicide in the UK continued to trend UP, dropping only in the last year recorded.
According to this report:
"Firearms (including air weapons) were reported to have been used in 22,789 recorded crimes in 2004/05. This is five per cent down on the previous year, and the first fall since 1997.
"The number of firearm crimes involving any type of injury has more than doubled in the six years to 2004/05: from 2,378 to 5,358. The largest rise was seen in crimes involving non-air weapons.
"There were 10,964 recorded crimes involving firearms other than air weapons. This is a six per cent increase over 2003/04, and a 60 per cent increase in the five years since 1999/00."
So, explain to me again how banning handguns saved lives?
And the point of commenting on the fact that homicide is an inner-city problem is that, in order to address the homicide problem, you need to address the source, and guns aren't the source. As the statistics above attest.
P.S.: I'm ecstatic that you don't live next door to me.
Wouldn't it be interesting if the homicide rate (homicides adjusted by population) was also adjusted by the number of guns or guns/household. The number of guns in this household have risen dramatically in the last 15 years.
I bet the data would be hard to get, and rightfully so. After all this is America. We have a right to own guns.
Extreme cognitive dissonance is probably incurable, Kevin, but to stop trying to cure it makes it worse by giving credibility to the cognitions that don't square with reality. Unfortunately, continuing to try to effect a cure while expecting it to eventually work, as you have noted, is a form of insanity.
You walk a fine line here, and you do it astoundingly well. Take care it doesn't get to you.
Oh, and you can live next door to me any time.
Trackback message
Title: More Harvard Antigun Chicanery
Excerpt: Pay attention to this next time some antigunner starts off with the “more guns, more crime” malarkey. There’s NO such causal relationship, and the study authors admit as much, but that doesn’t stop the study from being reporte...
Blog name: Pro-Gun Progressive
PS Gun deaths have dropped from 368 a year to 163 since we banned handguns in the UK.
And net effect on your murder rate was?
(pssst...its been skyrocketing, so I won't wait for your answer)
Well, to be honest it hasn't been skyrocketing, it's been edging up slowly. Banning guns coincided with a 1-year drop. Homicide rebounded the following year and has continued its slow increase with intermittent drops.
Meanwhile, here in the states we had ten years of precipitous drops in homicide, but last year that trend reversed.
Either way, "gun control" cannot be credited or blamed.
Note: All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost; references to haloscan comments have been partially automatically remapped, but accuracy is not guaranteed and corrections are solicited.
If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>