Very good points Rob. And I believe the actual statistic of "assault rifles" used in homicides is around 3%. Meaning for every 100 murders by way of a firearm, 3 are done with a weapon classified as an "assault rifle".
There are so many variables in this debate, it is near impossible to get a clear cut root cause. Media influence, single parent homes, environment, mental illness, poverty, gang activity, and the list could go on. While some of the most heinous killings and mass shootings seem to have a common variable of mental illness, what brought it to that point where committing mass murder was justified in their minds? Bullying? Unemployed and unable to make ends meet (blaming employer or former employer)? Lack of acceptance by peers?
Something has to be done goes without saying but gun control is merely attacking the tail of the snake.
@M3CA.CA, I'd like to see some sources on those charts, I mean no dis-respect but it is extremely easy to manipulate numbers and charts to make them say what the person wants. No sources? I mean thats gotta be a red flag.
To me having a firearm is like having car insurance or carrying a spare tire.
WHy have car insurance?
In case you get in a wreck, right? Now you don't leave home planning on being in a crash but it could happen.
And all of carry spare tires on our trucks right? We don't leave home planning to have a flat but Just in case we do we have that spare tire.
Same goes for guns, now granted im not old enough for a concealed carry permit but, will have mine when I hit 21. You don't leave home planning to use that gun but its peace of mind to protect yourself.
Not to mention do some research on the 2nd amendment. Better yet check out federalist paper #46, in which it is stated that the 2nd amendment gives citizens the right to possess firearms, to protect themselves if the government gets out of hand.
These knee jerk reactions are goign to get everybody in trouble.
Just gonna end my rant quietly now with Ben Franklin's Quote:
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Just gonna end my rant quietly now with Ben Franklin's Quote:
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
”The philosophy of gun control: Teenagers are roaring through town at 90MPH, where the speed limit is 25. Your solution is to lower the speed limit to 20.”
~Sam Cohen (inventor of the neutron bomb)
"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.”
~Plato
"You won’t get gun control by disarming law-abiding citizens. There’s only one way to get real gun control: Disarm the thugs and the criminals, lock them up and if you don’t actually throw away the key, at least lose it for a long time… It’s a nasty truth, but those who seek to inflict harm are not fazed by gun controllers. I happen to know this from personal experience.”
~Ronald Reagan
"If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.”
~The Dalai Lama
".”How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual… as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of.”
~ Dr. Suzanna Gratia Hupp
If I am interpreting that chart correctly, it seems that some of the data points suggest that you CAN have a HIGH gun ownership rate, while maintaining a LOW crime rate.
For instance, Germany, Canada, Sweden, and Switzerland all have a HIGH ownership rate with a LOWER hand gun homicide rate.
Germany, Canada, and Sweden all have about the same ownership rate, but have different crime rates.
Israel is the only country with a higher crime rate than ownership rate. They, despite lower numbers of guns, are still seeing high violence.
This seems to me that there is not a clear and direct relationship between gun ownership and crime rate.
Matter of fact....looking at the last chart:
This doesn't really tell the whole picture either.
For instance, GB and Canada both have low gun homicide rates, but a relatively large homicide rate. This doesn't tell us anything about gun ownership's impact on murders. This just tells us that there are murders here, but they don't use guns.
Switzerland on the other hand...nearly all of their murders are committed with handguns, despite their low crime rate. This relationship is the same as the US. Here we have a high gun ownership, low crime rate country with the same relationship as a high gun rate, high crime. Guns don't appear to have an impact on crime rates, rather crime rates have an impact on how guns are used. This means that in order to have a society with high gun ownership and low crime rate, we must first determine the root cause of violent crime, REGARDLESS of weapon used. It is not sufficient to eliminate guns...and have the same levels of violent criminals using other means.
You can't just look at the charts and see US at the top and say OMG we have to do something! Looking at each country...and the data points...and the difference between the curves...and the ratios compared to other countries...it seems to be no real relationship between them.
Let us take a look at the same data from M3, but set up as an X/Y axis scatter plot. We are testing the relationship between variables...does the X variable determine the Y variable? For this data, we are looking at whether the number of guns causes a high homicide rate, a high gun homicide rate, etc. Looking strictly at numbers, and not separating by country, we can see the relationships:
I plotted the data to check the relationship of Guns vs. Gun Deaths, Guns vs Homicide Rate, and lastly, Homicide Rate vs. Gun Deaths. I added a polynomial trend line, and displayed the R squared value...R squared value is a number in statistics that shows how well the data is correlated. An R squared value of 1.00 = the x value reliably predicts the y value.
It should be noted that we are considering the US in relation to OTHER countries...thus the US data point should not be included in the trend line. however, I left it in which also weights the trend line upwards...incorrectly weighting in favor of the "Guns Causing" violence theory. However, I will leave it in there just to see what it does...
So:
Question 1: Does high gun ownership lead to gun deaths?
Data suggests not really. R squared of 0.46. It can be seen that without the US data point, the trend line would nearly be horizontal. One would think that more guns would lead to more gun deaths, but that doesn't appear to be a universally applicable assertion. Removing the US from the trend line shows an R squared value of 0.001...statistically NO correlation for the US to be compared to.
Question 2: Does high gun ownership lead to a higher overall homicide rate?
Data suggests no. R squared of 0.25. No statistically significant relationship between this data. This really appears to suggest that the rate of gun ownership has little to no impact on overall homicide rates. Removing the US from the data, the R squared value becomes 0.09. ALSO, the trend line becomes negative! Other than the US, in the rest of the world, there is a LOWER overall HOMICIDE rate as GUN INCREASE.
Question 3: Does a high overall homicide rate lead to more hand gun deaths?
Data suggests yes. R squared value of 0.85. This would suggest that countries with high gun homicide rates are NOT caused by the number of guns, but as a result of a larger overall trend of homicide rates. Removing the US from the data, the R squared becomes 0.57...not highly correlated, but when compared to 0.09 and 0.001....0.57 is a much larger influence.
Once again, this is the SAME data used in an ANTI GUN opinion blog. This is just simple statistical technique to analyze the actual RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FACTORS. These statistically agree with my previous conclusions...but now I gave you UNBIASED statistics
Added the chart of Gun Deaths vs. Homicide Rate with the US removed
Removing the US from the data for the trend line allows US to be compared to the TRENDS of the rest of the world.
I think the charts with the US removed without a doubt confirms what I thought...Since it is the same data and everything, I wonder if blogger would mind posting these charts up for his fans to see?
Holy 3 posts in a row batman LOL sorry for carrying on a thread by myself....I get curious with stats
Also, let this be a heads up...there are statistics and polls ANYONE can cite to SUPPORT ANYTHING. The same data presented in the original form emotionally looked bad...gun rates high, murder rates high, crime rates high. But the data does not show the relationships between the factors it shows. The casual observer won't take such an analytical approach to a chart...they see it and make a judgement based on how it looks to them.
ALSO...note that my original assumption was that eliminating guns may eliminate gun violence, but criminals will find another way...this data contradicts that initial thought. I was wrong...eliminating guns, has no impact on gun violence. Counter intuitive, but this data suggests that...
I helped my girlfriend write an anti-gun control paper for her comp class. It was suppose to be an arguementive essay. So in it I included "myths?proganda used by the Brady Campaign" and then presented points that dis-spelled their arguements. The professor hated it, she chewed out and told her she didnt know what she was talking about, told her she needed to learn what the Brady campaign is, and wanted her to submit a clean copy where the NRA was put in the paper and the Brady Campaign removed. Well just for good measure I helped put even more dirt on the Brady Campaign in the paper and she re-submitted it. The professor refused to give the paper back afterwords, knocked points off for tone (no place on the ruberic for tone though), and wrote a lenghty note basically chewing her out again. She messed up and wrote the paper was well organized and grammatical correct in the note. My gf then took the the note and stuff to the department chair. and within like a hour or so the professor called and personal apologized for grading the paper on a very biasis basis and bumped her up to an A.
The other concern I have with the charts is how the X axis is "manipulated" to make it look more dramatic (anyone who's taken statics knows there's many ways to manipulate the data intentionally or accidentally).
Plotting both graphs, but using a Per million for the Handgun deaths, and using per 100 for handgun ownership.. if you were to plot them on the *same scale*, the number of hand gun deaths would appear as a very small bump. Same with the second chart.. using homicide rate per 100,000 vs handgun deaths per million, the plot for handguns would be 1/10 the height they are now (making them the same height adds more of a "omg!" to it).
It's the same reason starting a chart at 0 on the X axis or picking a number right below your data range can drastically change the appearance of the chart with using the *same data*, giving two different impacts. If you want to enhance the difference between two different data sets that are fairly close, using an x axis that starts just below your data and a ends right above will make it look more spread out and "severe" than something that starts at 0 and makes the two plot lines fairly close together.
1) I am not afraid of being attacked, even though I currently own zero firewarms. However, it does happen. There is a potential need for more than 7 bullets (though extremely rare). However, the biggest part that I disagree with is that there is no way to enforce this limit on people that want to commit crimes. These type of limits are reactionary, and don't address the root cause. What is the difference between the millions of people with 30 round magazines that NEVER commit a crime, and the very FEW that do? Focus needs to be on an organized and factual root cause analysis/design of experiments to identify risk factors, and how to determine who should pass a background check and who shouldn't. I am more for consistent restrictions on WHO can get things...not as much on WHAT.
I, as a non 'clinging to guns and religion' type of person, would gladly give up the right to a 30 round magazine if I, honest to God, thought it would actually have a measurable effect on gun violence.
2) I don't see how that makes bullying seem nice. Many people are bullied and don't shoot people. Many people take bullying or negative aspects of their life and use it for motivation to do positive things. Everyone is still responsible for their own actions, regardless of external factors.
I don't see myself being a problem, or anything that I have said. It all seems logical to me. If you have a logical dissenting opinion, I am always more than willing to listen/read...however stating that I have a problem for having a (presumably) different opinion is not appreciated.
You are correct, it was a bit of a blanket statement that didn't do much. Maybe you specifically aren't afraid, but in general, the American population is full of fear. From what the media and your government pump out, there is always a new threat from somewhere. Terrorists, gangs, the guy next door etc.
Reading through some of the replies here and seeing this discussion pop up all over the place, there are plenty of people who feel the need to protect themselves from threats with fire arms. They can all claim that they aren't afraid, but if they weren't afraid of something, would they need to carry a gun?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti gun, and I think it's far too late for any type of gun control in the USA. There are way too many guns out there now to have any hope of restricting a certain type or a size of magazine etc.
I don't have any solutions to offer, and I haven't really seen any suggestions that might make a difference. But just to toss it out there, and since I know it might get a rise out of a fair amount of you who seem to view things on the republican side of the debate, The whole suggestion of mental health screening. It makes perfect sense that you should have to go through a screening process for mental illness before getting a gun. But what is needed for this to work? Better access to mental health professionals throughout one's lifetime, which probably requires some sort of universal healthcare...
As far as the bullying thing goes, you are correct that some people use it as motivation. I use it as motivation. But that does not mean it wasn't harmful. After years of being the victim of bullying through elementary school, I have suffered depression, suicidal thoughts, and even now, many years removed from it, I do not trust very many people, I am awkward or uncomfortable in most social situations. And many other things that are difficult to get over.
I understand that you likely do not know what it feels like to be the victim of constant bullying, or you would not have made such a glossed over comment about it. But try and remember that it is a very serious thing and glossing over it only ignores what is one of the most common threads linking most mass shootings together, which has sparked this latest gun control debate.
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