deleted post - duplicate post - (Sqrl)

deleted post - Duplicate post - (Sqrl)

Posting as a mod for a sec: @theprof00,

I tried to preserve what you had posted the best I could but one of the posts was completely messed up and had to go. The duplicate posts were reduced to a single post and they appeared to be identical except for some minor formatting changes so I went with the one that appeared to be the most polished.

@mods can you erase the posts that are invisible?

@gnizmo

Like I said before, this is just a forum and not a science lab. The facts are this, The brady act was passed in 1994 and since then gun crime has been dropping rapidly.

Please don't hassle me with the correlation vs causality. I don't have access to the all the numbers, but across the board, more gun control = less crime (up to a point). This is using every country as a sample.

Furthermore, you are asking for something that cannot be done, because it is ethically reprehensible to change laws to test a theory, especially one that potentially deals with murder rates. Even if such test have been conducted, you can be sure that they are secret government tests. Unfortunately, the best we can do is look at the correlations.

Just a quick note regarding the whole correlation versus causality thing.

In complex systems that can't be reproduced easily or replicated in a lab (and hence difficult to prove causation), the Bradford Hill criteria can be used.

They were initially used in medicine apparently but are more generally applicable. There are about 8-10 criteria which help to describe the minimum conditions required for a causal relation between two things.

It would be interesting to see if it could or has already been applied to the above situation. (Brady Act and the Nonfatal firearm incidents data)

I'm going to have lunch.

i heard of that in abnormal psych and biopysch, I don't know if that could apply here at all. It's very late and my brain hurts.
I didn't even know you could apply it past medecine and biological study. I'll look more into it as well.

 It is definitely strong evidence for gun control laws helping, I won't deny that. But your assertion that there is some kind of proof is absurd. As I understand it, Canada has a higher percentage of people with guns than us, and yet far fewer gun related injuries and deaths. This is an extremely complex situation that makes correlations only so useful (although still very powerful). Of course if you are not willing to defend and explain your view then there is no real point in talking about it at all now is there?

Bradford Hill really isn't applicable to this situation either. The only way you could try is by making a cross country examination of gun laws and effects, but that would require substantial knowledge of potential black markets for guns, and how many are already in the society (it would do a fat lot of good to ban guns in a country where nearly every person has one and then say gun control doesn't help when it fails to lower gun violence significantly).

It's also apparently used in the social sciences, but as you said this is not the primary application. If it can in fact be applied here it's still not going to give you a definitive answer, nothing can when studying society and behavior. Even if it's not strictly applicable here it's generality should allow it to provide a framework within which to look at this problem which has to be better than the blanket, "correlation does not equal causality" line. It was just a thought.

"Percent of violent nonfatal incidents" is the full quote, which means 10% of violent incidents that do not result in a death involve a firearm of some kind.  Let me know if we are on the same page here now.

The first part about felonies VS misdemeanors:

Yes any felony will be a DQ (disqualification) as well as any violent misdemeanors.  This to me is a reasonable standard if not a little on the harsh side regarding the misdemeanors, but I'm still fine with it.

Pawn Shops:

I don't know that I agree it would necessarily be moved to the illegal sources subset actually.  If there is a jurisdication where pawn shops are not required to do background checks then it would not be illegal it would just be a pawn shop sale.  The same is true of places where pawn shops are required to do the checks.  So the situation where it might get moved to the illegal category is when they are required to do the check but the pawn shop for whatever reason did not (in which case the pawn shop is probably in trouble).

The issue of friends and family letting people utilize their guns either by selling, trading, lending, etc.. is probably something we should make illegal if it isn't already.  As i understood it you need a Firearms License from the ATF to sell firearms and outside of that you couldn't.  I'm not honestly sure how Gun Shows circumvent this but as I said I'm fine with checks at gun shows as well.  I don't see why gun shows as planned events cannot have an onsight database or have the appopriate departments of the state provide additional assistance to gun shows (possibly for a reasonable fee) to help facilitate a check before the show is over.

There are sort of two issues here, the first they actually addressed this in the report as to why the numbers didn't fit 100%, that issue exists because sometimes multiple firearms were found on the suspect.

The other issue you're referring to is the origin of the sale being obscured by 2nd hand ownership.  You're contending that this obscures the number of these weapons that were legitimately purchased and I'm not disagreeing that if you trace the owners all the way back that more would have begun as legit purchases.  But that doesn't mean you can claim that by removing guns from stores for law-abiding citizens that you would put an end to the problem.  If anything the fact that an overwhelming number of criminals have already shown a willingness to circumvent the system that prevents them from getting a weapon is proof that it would not deter them at all.  Drugs have already proven that as long as there is a market people are willing to burden substantial risk to make a profit from it.

What we risk if we were to take up a gun prohibition is the same problem that drugs have now in that there is absolutely no control over it.  We can currently do weapon traces and look up past owners and histories, etc.., but these things are not possible if the guns enter from black market sources who are not keen on documentation.

Actually I do think there should be a repercussion for the owner if they negligently allow their gun to be utilized in a crime ...but only if negligence can be proven on their part.  Giving the weapon up freely, leaving it in plain sight, etc...would to me classify as negligence.  But not having it in a locked case would not by itself be negligence to me.  Showing your friends or children where you keep your gun for no other reason than to show them would be negligence to me because you're inviting a problem and it serves no purpose to show them where it is at unless you intend them to use it.

So in the cases where negligence exists and a problem arises I would say absolutely the gun owner deserves some responsibility for what occurs.  Especially in cases where the owner gives the gun to an unstable individual or has reason to suspect they might intend to harm someone. I don't think a murder would make the gun owner a murderer simply for leaving his gun out in plain sight  but it does make him extremely negligible and in my view culpable.

I want to be clear that I have no problem with saying that people who own guns should 100% shoulder that responsibility, and given the stakes it should go without saying that making a mistake with a gun is a very serious issue.  That is the responsibility you take on when you purchase a gun.  But as long as people take that responsibility it doesn't bother me in the slightest for people to want or to have guns.

The italic part was omitted from your response, not sure what funky stuff was going on there with the quotes but I'm pretty sure that I didn't edit that in (honestly can't remember atm since I made several small edits).

The contradiction is as I said above so I'll leave it as the response for now.  But in regards to the 20 minutes issue I would say that if a person has no record of violent behavior or mental health issues it is not my place or your place to tell them they have to wait to purchase something they have a constitutional right to purchase.  That is where responsibility has to take over.

It's wrong because you're achieving it at the expense of the freedoms of the vast majority of people who do not have a problem with abusing their 2nd amendment right.  I'm not saying you're the bad guy but the concept of stripping rights in the name of security is a bad idea (terrible idea really).

'Those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither'

- Benjamin Franklin

edit: rereading this the context is a little off for the intent of my comment.  I read your "higher costs, less pervasive" bit to mean gun bans.  Anyways, to clarify I'm fine with a timely background check, but I don't think it will really make much difference to the criminal's ability to obtain a gun.  So in that regard I have to question the overall purpose other than to move towards ever tighter controls.

You're missing the point here in your first paragraph.  Yes it would be nice if everyone had perfect gun safety skills and followed it to a T.  But the simple fact is that people are not perfect and that is not now, nor has it ever been, or will it ever be - a reason to strip them of their rights. It is however a reason to punish them for their negligence (with fines/required classes/revocation of permit/and in extreme cases jail time)  when it results in a crime.

OK addressing this paragraph by paragraph (1 for paragraph 1, 2 for paragraph 2, etc..)

1) Guns are a right and not a privileged.  The bill of rights says so, that is not even debatable.  You can debate whether it should be, but the facts as they stand are such that it is, as a matter of pure fact, a right.

With that in mind, American citizens are entitled to own a firearm, but for that right they should bear the responsibility for the utilization of that firearm to a reasonable extent (ie if someone breaks in to your home and steals your lock box, later killing someone with the gun they find inside...you should not be held responsible).

2) The argument about the country being a very different place may well have some justification, but the fact is that it is still the law and as a nation of laws we have to respect that.  If you want it changed then by all means have it changed as prescribed byt he constitution (first have it officially proposed which requries 2/3rds vote in both houses of congress  or 2/3rds of states have conventions agreeing to propose it and then you need 3/4ths of state legislatures or state conventions to ratify it).

Outside of that process the point about how different a place the country was is irrelevant because the amendment process is expressly to allow the document to evolve.  The fact that most people favor the amendment still indicate that it probably isn't going anywhere and the difficulty in changing or abolishing amendments is very deliberate.

3) The key for me about legislation regarding guns is that I'm fine with saying gun owners (including gun shops, pawn shops, etc.. who own the gun before selling it) have to be careful who they allow access to a gun.  And I'm fine with them saying any lapse in judgement that results in a gun crime is going to be an extremely serious problem for you if you didn't meet your responsibilities dutifully.   A gun is a serious responsibility and serious responsibilities need to be taken and handled very seriously.

4) Not really enough to respond to here since it got cut off.

I think this actually illustrates your mentality quite well.  You view the fact that the purchase goes forward after the 3 days regardless to be a loophole.  I view that to be a safeguard.  A big difference in our thought process. The reason that exists is to prevent the government from using beauracratic BS to clog up the background checks and make it impossible for people to get a background check done. NY does something similar to this iirc.

I see a very distinct difference between "gun control" and "gun responsibility".  I think rights come with responsibilities and legislating repurcussions for failing to fulfill responsibilities is fine with me, but restricting rights to relieve people of their responsibility is not fine with me.

The simple unavoidable fact is that personal responsibility is a necessary side-effect of personal freedoms.  The responsibility of owning and handling a gun is something everyone needs to decide if they can handle for themselves and act accordingly.  In every case of someone owning a gun they will have chosen to accept the responsibility and in doing so any problem that arises as a result becomes a direct cause of their bad choices.  It no longer has anything to do with the the gun, the gun laws, the gun store, etc....It's their choice to comit a crime that is at fault.  Or their choice to handle their weapon carelessly that is the problem.  In either case of purpose or accident the responsibility does not lie with the gun but the individual who accepted the responsibility that came with it. I think most people would agree with this which is why I do not understand, at all, the logic to punish those who are not responsible by restricting or revoking their rights (depending on who you talk to).

In closing I think we are much closer to agreement on this issue than it appears, we simply have a different perspective on what gun ownership means and how much room there is for the government to dictate what kind of gun owner you are. 

@Gnizmo: i understand what you mean with regards to the difficulty of analysing the data given different laws and circumstances across states i meant it more in the sense of a thought experiment.

To draw a parallel in a different field, it was this same difficulty in providing 'hard evidence' that allowed cigarette companies for so long to get away with denying a link between smoking and lung cancer.