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In general, tracking of firearms data has been abysmal even for supposedly highly regulated. Even if everyone decided tracking and registration for every firearm should br a thing, no organization thus far has proved particularly adept or competent at maintaining the data in any reasonable fashion. Be it the ATF's NFA refistry, the FBI's background check system, various state felony databases, state "assault weapon" registries, etc.

The irony is that I can buy a pistol face to face without a background check but I can't cross State lines to avoid sales tax on a pistol purchase.

 Breotan wrote:
The irony is that I can buy a pistol face to face without a background check but I can't cross State lines to avoid sales tax on a pistol purchase.

The states clearly have their priorities straight

 Breotan wrote:
The irony is that I can buy a pistol face to face without a background check but I can't cross State lines to avoid sales tax on a pistol purchase.

it's just like when e-filing for an NFA stamp...you have to pay even *before* they'll let you certify the information or submit the application.

Thats not even getting into the literal 4 month response time

I think it's important to distinguish between "gun crimes" and crimes committed with a gun. For example, buying or owning an unregistered gun would be a gun crime in the UK, as you can only legally hold a weapon on licence. However if you commit a murder, it's a murder whether you do it with a gun or a knife or poison, not a gun crime in itself.

With this in mind, it is entirely logical that the amount of gun crime would go up in areas with stricter gun laws. To draw an analogy, in Japan, foreigners are known to commit crimes at a higher rate than natives. But, if you deduct visa crimes, which cannot be committed by Japanese natives, then the crime rate of foreigners actually is lower than natives. In the same way, there is no gun crime in Somalia because there aren't any laws on guns.

It's also obvious that crimes committed with guns would increase if more guns are owwed.

My question is whether the overall crime rate has dropped because of more guns. This does not correlate with ownership of guns, which has been falling in the USA, apparently because fewer people are buying guns, but they are buying more guns each, so there are fewer households equipped with guns.

When you think about it, it's entirely possible that the crime rate has fallen for various reasons that are nothing to do with guns, and people have responded by reducing gun ownership overall.

One factor to keep in mind also is urbanization. More and more people live in large cities, as opposed to rural areas. Cities, particularly bigget ones, make it difficult to actually go out and engage in shooting activities, as you cant just shoot in your back yard, and shooting ranges or BLM land are often not conveniemt or in some cases are entirely absent, and the hoops to jumo through to obtain a firearm in many large cities make legally owning one increasingly difficult. NYC for example has a population of over 8 million, 25 million in the metro area including jersey city and the like, but owning a gun there requires a lot of time and effort and expense, and then there's almost nowhere to actually go shooting, thus making firearm ownership unappealing to many.

Interesting points but how do we discuss this without getting into a "my statistics can beat up your statistics" slapfest?

There is also the fact that urban areas will tend to have more crime in general, which will probably lead local government to want stricter control on guns. Rural areas might have more firearms per person, but less control because there is less crime, and many of the guns are used for farming.

 Smacks wrote:
There is also the fact that urban areas will tend to have more crime in general, which will probably lead local government to want stricter control on guns. Rural areas might have more firearms per person, but less control because there is less crime, and many of the guns are used for farming.

Yes, there is an extensive list of factors that hold much more influence over crime rates than gun ownership.

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Perhaps the reason why gun crime is going down is fewer people owning them.

Doubtful as states with high gun ownership rates and high issuance rates of concealed carry permits don't have high levels of gun crime and municipalities that have very strict gun control laws have very high incidence rates of gun crime.

So, using that rational, how do you explain the incredibly low levels of gun crime in the UK, and other countries with very strict gun laws?

 r_squared wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Perhaps the reason why gun crime is going down is fewer people owning them.

Doubtful as states with high gun ownership rates and high issuance rates of concealed carry permits don't have high levels of gun crime and municipalities that have very strict gun control laws have very high incidence rates of gun crime.

So, using that rational, how do you explain the incredibly low levels of gun crime in the UK, and other countries with very strict gun laws?

Many they are contempt with other sorts of non gun flavored violence.

Sorry, what? Have you had an auto correct typo?

 r_squared wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Perhaps the reason why gun crime is going down is fewer people owning them.

Doubtful as states with high gun ownership rates and high issuance rates of concealed carry permits don't have high levels of gun crime and municipalities that have very strict gun control laws have very high incidence rates of gun crime.

So, using that rational, how do you explain the incredibly low levels of gun crime in the UK, and other countries with very strict gun laws?

Countries that have taken away citizens's rights to arm themselves and have systematically removed guns from private ownership and all but eliminated the market for privately owned guns are going to have less gun crime because guns themselves are rare. No one is arguing that societies that are virtually gun free aren't going to have low incidence of crimes involving firearms. None of those conditions presently exists in the US nor will any of those conditions manifest here anytime in the foreseeable future. US municipalities can enact the most draconian gun laws imaginable and they won't eliminate gun crime because such laws don't deal with the societal reality that exists.

The US isn't going to have gun ownership rates or gun laws as seen in the UK or EU or other places because such things are currently literally impossible to achieve in a lawful manner and the kind of popular impetus required to change those laws doesn't exist at this time and if it did it is dubious in the extreme that the govt would be capable of removing the hundreds of millions of guns from private ownership.

 r_squared wrote:
Sorry, what? Have you had an auto correct typo?

What im implying is perhaps as its much harder to get guns people that want to preform a crime will opt to use other methods that dont involve a gun.

or are we doing the whole gun crimes vs crimes involving guns semantics thing?

He is just saying that other types of violence replace gun violence: assaults, knife, etc.

OK, that makes more sense, that other sentence was confusing.

I don't believe that the absence of guns necessarily means that those crimes are committed by other weapons. How would you know, or even begin to establish a correlation. All we can reliably state is that in the UK there is significantly less gun crime as a percentage of population when compared to the US. I believe that you could attribute that to the lack of availability of firearms.

Clearly a European disarmament model will not work, and is inadvisable at the very least because of the proliferation and ready availability of weaponry, so what solution do you see to the high proportion of mass killings of your own citizens by your own citizens as compared to other nations of a similar standing to you?
Are mass killings an inevitable part of modern America, and must be endured as a consequence of upholding the second ammendment?
How would you prevent another Sandy Hook?

Well if you cant reasonably take away the guns
then why not work on the other half of the gun violence equation and help the people.

the mentally unstable and the revolving prison system really needs work.

Especially the privatized prison system shouldn't of been a thing in the first place.

I highly doubt that they will be willing to give away a lot of there power as well .

but even if all of that was reformed it wont "prevent a sandy hook"

edit: Even taking away guns wouldnt stop a sandy hook. people that far go will find ways of doing the horrible things they want to do.

The thing is, I believe that even the UK will endure another Dunblane, or Sandy Hook in the future.

As long as the ability to kill using firearms exists, it is conceivable that it can happen anywhere, eventually. Laws and restrictions only mitigate so much.

However, are there nations that do not suffer mass killings? What do they do, or dont do, that equates to a reduced homicidal impulse in their citizens.

From Wikipedia's list of countries by firearm death rate. What makes Hong Kong, Japan, India, Azerbaijan, Poland and South Korea so safe?
All very different cultures, so why such incredibly low rates of firearms deaths? Those figures include suicides and lawful killings btw.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate

Is it something to do with western attitudes? Is our sense of entitlement a problem? Does that provoke an anger or resentment that explodes in violence, and the accessibility of weaponry allows us to do harm far beyond our own inherent physical capability?

 r_squared wrote:
The thing is, I believe that even the UK will endure another Dunblane, or Sandy Hook in the future.

As long as the ability to kill using firearms exists, it is conceivable that it can happen anywhere, eventually. Laws and restrictions only mitigate so much.

However, are there nations that do not suffer mass killings? What do they do, or dont do, that equates to a reduced homicidal impulse in their citizens.

From Wikipedia's list of countries by firearm death rate. What makes Hong Kong, Japan, India, Azerbaijan, Poland and South Korea so safe?
All very different cultures, so why such incredibly low rates of firearms deaths? Those figures include suicides and lawful killings btw.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate

The problem with just looking at firearms deaths means you miss the greater picture of violence in general. Japan has a very low homicide rate period, no matter what the instrument, doesn't matter if it's a gun or a knife or a pipe or bare fists, murder is simply much rarer. Meanwhile, while the US may have a much higher firearms murder rate than India, the total murder rate is almost identical, which means people are just using different methods.

A lot of this also boils down to socio-economic issues. Japan has an extremely uniform society where people just don't do certain things. In Japan, if a cop asks a random person on the street to look in their backpack, nobody is going to tell them "piss of bacon grease, get a warrant" they way they might in the US. Acceptable social norms and attitudes towards violence vary wildly. Likewise, even within the US, murder rates and firearms homicides vary wildly depending on where you are, with cities like Chicago having murder rates similar to say, South Sudan, while say, Seattle's homicide rate is close to Taiwan's, and even within cities this is often isolated to relatively small areas, though Taiwan had a mass stabbing attack on its subway a couple of year ago too.

 r_squared wrote:
Is it something to do with western attitudes? Is our sense of entitlement a problem? Does that provoke an anger or resentment that explodes in violence, and the accessibility of weaponry allows us to do harm far beyond our own inherent physical capability?

One underlining theory is that mass shootings, with exposure to social media and how fast information now travels, not only in accurate amounts but also spreads inaccurate information ultimately fuels them. It isn't necessarily so much western attitudes as it is that the threshold, when you apply riot theory has been reached for that environment. The threshold is already surpassed so they will continue to happen. The problem is everyone tries to look at each situation individually instead of the collective whole, that is why individually these acts don't make sense unless you apply the psychology of mob/riot mentality to them.

Riot and mob mentality says when a group of people has assembled because they're emotional and angry about something, it only takes one act of violence to whip the crowd into a fury. Others will follow the initial rioter's lead and begin destroying property or hurting people. A lot of research has been conducted into the mindset of a violent mob. Being part of a group can destroy people's inhibitions, making them do things they'd never otherwise do. They lose their individual values and principles and adopt the group's principles, which, during a riot, are usually to cause destruction and avoid detection. This standard can seem to be a just and righteous one, since the mobs assembled after an act of perceived inequality or unfairness, and the communal emotion can make the cause seem even more important. Being in the midst of a mob can be exciting and powerful, and it can make people feel invisible -- they are part of a huge group, and they won't be detected or held responsible for their actions.

While mobs are powerful and wreak intense havoc in a short period of time, they are hard to sustain. Though people feel intense allegiance to them for short periods of time, at heart, the connections between rioters are tenuous and temporary. That's why many riot control tactics employed by police rely on intimidation, rather than actual violence.

The main issue is that it is difficult to apply riot control tactics to these situations as the shooters tend to already be dead. Social media/internet lets them feel connected creating a group principles and emotions that didn't normally exist years ago. You'd read about it in the paper or maybe watched it on the news, there wasn't a feeling of being part of it. Now with social media, twitter, internet, everyone is connected with a push of a button instantly in a faceless anonymity that doesn't have any real visible consequences for ones actions.

So, effectively the answer is, we should all embrace and adopt Japanese culture and social norms to reduce murder rates.
Maybe I should pay a bit more attention to my daughter's interest in anime and manga.
Although I'm finding Attack on Titan both compelling and annoying at the same time tbh.

 r_squared wrote:

Are mass killings an inevitable part of modern America, and must be endured as a consequence of upholding the second ammendment?

Yes, yes they are. The odds of dying in an attack like Sandy Hook or San Bernadino or Virgina Tech or Aurora are infinitesimally small. If you drive a car, smoke, drink, eat any kind of processed food, have sex, walk in a public area, bike, hike, boat (you get my point) you are in way more danger than getting shot by a nut.

It is a price that we pay, and one I wish more Americans would just flat out admit. But it's still a tiny, tiny slice of the risk that is life we all play. I for one don't want to have the option taken away from me.

And really, a 4 out of 100K murder rate really isn't that much worse than a 2 out of 100k murder rate. Cut out poor, young male minorities killing over the most lucrative drug trade in the world and the US suddenly looks like the rest of the first world.

 r_squared wrote:
So, effectively the answer is, we should all embrace and adopt Japanese culture and social norms to reduce murder rates.

Hrm, it'd be pretty hard to replicate that. Japan also has huge issues with suicides, birth rates, etc and the Japanese justice system has a litany of issues as bad as the US's (though for different reasons). So yeah, while they've got far lower violent crime rates, they have different issues instead.

DutchWinsAll wrote:
If you drive a car, smoke, drink, eat any kind of processed food, have sex, walk in a public area, bike, hike, boat (you get my point) you are in way more danger than getting shot by a nut.

The difference is, we constantly look for ways to mitigate risks with those things. If you look at driving, for example, safety has come a long way, even in the last 20 years. We have crumple zones, airbags, intelligent breaking, seatbelt warnings etc... We have also made changes to the roads (at least in the UK), we have more speed humps, speeding cameras, many cities have introduced bypasses, pedestrianised areas, one way systems, and improved crossings. That's not to mention the environmental improvements. I have no doubt that people will strive to keep improving driving to make it ever safer.

When it comes to guns however, there is a section of the population who will resist any change, regardless of what it is, because they perceive all change as a slippery slope towards their guns being taken away. Which is akin to drivers in the 1980 crying about having to wear their seatbelt, and spouting nonsense anecdotes about some guy being burned to death, trapped in his car by these seatbelt death-traps.

Firearm deaths might be expected, or statistically probable, but that never makes them "acceptable", which is something a lot of people here seem to not understand. There is no point where it's okay to say: "one school-shooting a year is acceptable collateral". As with cars, people need to be open to ways to make things safer. Instead of spouting paranoid nonsense straw-men like: "So what are you gunna do take our guns away? Why don't you just take cars away then?", without aknowladging that car safety is something that people do care about, and something that has been continually changing and improving.

 Smacks wrote:

DutchWinsAll wrote:
If you drive a car, smoke, drink, eat any kind of processed food, have sex, walk in a public area, bike, hike, boat (you get my point) you are in way more danger than getting shot by a nut.

The difference is, we constantly look for ways to mitigate risks with those things. If you look at driving, for example, safety has come a long way, even in the last 20 years. We have crumple zones, airbags, intelligent breaking, seatbelt warnings etc... We have also made changes to the roads (at least in the UK), we have more speed humps, speeding cameras, many cities have introduced bypasses, pedestrianised areas, one way systems, and improved crossings. That's not to mention the environmental improvements. I have no doubt that people will strive to keep improving driving to make it ever safer.

When it comes to guns however, there is a section of the population who will resist any change, regardless of what it is, because they perceive all change as a slippery slope towards their guns being taken away. Which is akin to drivers in the 1980 crying about having to wear their seatbelt, and spouting nonsense anecdotes about some guy being burned to death, trapped in his car by these seatbelt death-traps.

Firearm deaths might be expected, or statistically probable, but that never makes them "acceptable", which is something a lot of people here seem to not understand. There is no point where it's okay to say: "one school-shooting a year is acceptable collateral". As with cars, people need to be open to ways to make things safer. Instead of spouting paranoid nonsense straw-men like: "So what are you gunna do take our guns away? Why don't you just take cars away then?", without aknowladging that car safety is something that people do care about, and something that has been continually changing and improving.

The issue is that guns are as mechanically safe as they can get, they really haven't changed much in the last 50-70 years in that regard. We're not talking the same kind of advances we saw in cars. Gun deaths generally aren't due to the gun being unable to withstand something or something failing on the gun itself as you'd get with a car, it's that they're operated inappropriately. The only real solution there then is regulation of users, and thus straight into the slippery slope.

 Dark Severance wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
Is it something to do with western attitudes? Is our sense of entitlement a problem? Does that provoke an anger or resentment that explodes in violence, and the accessibility of weaponry allows us to do harm far beyond our own inherent physical capability?

One underlining theory is that mass shootings, with exposure to social media and how fast information now travels, not only in accurate amounts but also spreads inaccurate information ultimately fuels them. It isn't necessarily so much western attitudes as it is that the threshold, when you apply riot theory has been reached for that environment. The threshold is already surpassed so they will continue to happen. The problem is everyone tries to look at each situation individually instead of the collective whole, that is why individually these acts don't make sense unless you apply the psychology of mob/riot mentality to them.

Mob mentality works because of the impact of crowds when there is a short time frame for decision making. You can get a large crowd to clap by having a few strategically placed clappers placed among the audience, but you can't get someone to clap and expect that someone in another state will clap three months later. Trying to apply mob mentality to shooting events that occur months apart doesn't really work. And then there's the issue that you're explaining changes in Western culture, but spree killings are not uniform, most country have had one or none in the last few years, only one developed country has lots.

Really, the basic explanation is gun proliferation. If we take as an assumption the likelihood that every developed country has the same proportion of suicidal people, then we ask what would make a suicidal person more likely to commit the act? And we know that having a trigger, an object that triggers suicidal thoughts is a major driver of suicide. It can be a bottle of pills, or a daily drive by a steep cliff, anything that is likely to get a person back to thinking about suicide. And yeah, that means when there's a gun around, it's no surprise that suicide is way more likely.

And if we extend that out, and make the reasonable assumption that all developed countries have the same number of crazy and embittered people, well it isn't hard to see how having guns around might be more likely to trigger behaviour compared to when there is no gun around. Similarly for spur of the moment killings (by far the most common) - consider a heated family argument, one with a gun within a few paces walking distance and one without - which is more likely to end up with someone making a very stupid decision?

That doesn't mean that gun control is right, of course, just because something has a negative impact that doesn't mean you ban it. Having lots of alcohol readily available will mean lots more instances of drinking to dangerous levels, but that doesn't mean you should ban alcohol. But it is important to start with the basic point that proliferation leads to increased instances of negative consequences.

 sebster wrote:

 Dark Severance wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
Is it something to do with western attitudes? Is our sense of entitlement a problem? Does that provoke an anger or resentment that explodes in violence, and the accessibility of weaponry allows us to do harm far beyond our own inherent physical capability?

One underlining theory is that mass shootings, with exposure to social media and how fast information now travels, not only in accurate amounts but also spreads inaccurate information ultimately fuels them. It isn't necessarily so much western attitudes as it is that the threshold, when you apply riot theory has been reached for that environment. The threshold is already surpassed so they will continue to happen. The problem is everyone tries to look at each situation individually instead of the collective whole, that is why individually these acts don't make sense unless you apply the psychology of mob/riot mentality to them.

Mob mentality works because of the impact of crowds when there is a short time frame for decision making. You can get a large crowd to clap by having a few strategically placed clappers placed among the audience, but you can't get someone to clap and expect that someone in another state will clap three months later. Trying to apply mob mentality to shooting events that occur months apart doesn't really work. And then there's the issue that you're explaining changes in Western culture, but spree killings are not uniform, most country have had one or none in the last few years, only one developed country has lots.

Really, the basic explanation is gun proliferation. If we take as an assumption the likelihood that every developed country has the same proportion of suicidal people, then we ask what would make a suicidal person more likely to commit the act? And we know that having a trigger, an object that triggers suicidal thoughts is a major driver of suicide. It can be a bottle of pills, or a daily drive by a steep cliff, anything that is likely to get a person back to thinking about suicide. And yeah, that means when there's a gun around, it's no surprise that suicide is way more likely.

And if we extend that out, and make the reasonable assumption that all developed countries have the same number of crazy and embittered people, well it isn't hard to see how having guns around might be more likely to trigger behaviour compared to when there is no gun around. Similarly for spur of the moment killings (by far the most common) - consider a heated family argument, one with a gun within a few paces walking distance and one without - which is more likely to end up with someone making a very stupid decision?

That doesn't mean that gun control is right, of course, just because something has a negative impact that doesn't mean you ban it. Having lots of alcohol readily available will mean lots more instances of drinking to dangerous levels, but that doesn't mean you should ban alcohol. But it is important to start with the basic point that proliferation leads to increased instances of negative consequences.

While true to a point, it should also be recognized that mass shootings of the Columbine or Sandy Hook style are a relatively recent phenomenon. There was a time when nobody would blink an eye at a student bringing a hunting rifle to school (my grandfather certainly never had any problems doing so in the 1920's), and such things didn't occur when you could mail order fully automatic machine guns to your door through the Sears catalog without NFA controls or needing to go through an FFL. It's a relatively recent phenomenon that coincides with the rise of certain types of media in many ways.

 Talizvar wrote:
Hey! You identified my intent that it was speculation, though you label it as unhelpful.
Oh, I am sure getting that evidence will be every bit as difficult as you can probably speculate.
Though they do point to a few papers I was aware of here: https://samanthasprole.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/a-psychological-perspective-on-gun-violence-in-the-united-states/

Because taking a concept and applying it to millions of law abiding Americans on the basis of the actions of three people is not only helpful, but scientifically sound....

 Talizvar wrote:
Or this: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/get-psyched/201301/the-weapons-effect

So when someone is threatened and suffering pain at the hands of another their instinct is to defend themselves using the most efficient means to hand. You are trying to prove what exactly?
And yet time and time again we see nationally that increased firearm ownership, relaxed rules on the carrying of firearms does not increase violent crimes or confrontations.

 Talizvar wrote:
Though this is a bit more applicable: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/get-psyched/201208/the-tradeoffs-gun-ownership-0

So you are basing your opinions on law abiding gun owners based on bumper stickers, and juveniles (who are more likely than not prohibited from carrying firearms by law) who have been involved in gang activity. So that is less than worthless

 Talizvar wrote:
Which does happen to mention some 19,000 gun accidents.

Out of how many million firearms, across how many years? Statistically insignificant. Again

So your attempted an appeal to authority to perform a psychological character smear failed.

 Talizvar wrote:
All this helps paint the picture of why to feel attracted to guns and that is typically those who are aggressive, feeling impotent or powerless, you know, the more vulnerable elements of society who have some discipline issues.

Still waiting for evidence of this, because the facts and figures say you're wrong.

 Talizvar wrote:
This open letter is particularly interesting: http://www.fairwarning.org/2013/05/an-open-letter-to-gun-owners/

What did you find interesting? Other than the fact that it confirmed your biases and trotted out all the usual talking points?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 r_squared wrote:
[So, using that rational, how do you explain the incredibly low levels of gun crime in the UK, and other countries with very strict gun laws?

Welcome back.

Quite simple; availability. And while gun crime might not be an issue other tools are used in crime instead. So the violence issue still exists, it has just been shifted to another area.

Firearms ownership in the USA has been declining for decades.

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.norc.org/PDFs/GSS%2520Reports/GSS_Trends%2520in%2520Gun%2520Ownership_US_1972-2014.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwiEp9Pp9sLLAhVDMhoKHaYOAC8QFghIMAs&usg=AFQjCNEuxc5CqRmC-ZJPNoTD2nuqbpV6aQ&sig2=3tEUvgR2e6LEvszpsyU7Aw

Gallup polling also confirms this.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Firearms ownership in the USA has been declining for decades.

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.norc.org/PDFs/GSS%2520Reports/GSS_Trends%2520in%2520Gun%2520Ownership_US_1972-2014.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwiEp9Pp9sLLAhVDMhoKHaYOAC8QFghIMAs&usg=AFQjCNEuxc5CqRmC-ZJPNoTD2nuqbpV6aQ&sig2=3tEUvgR2e6LEvszpsyU7Aw

Gallup polling also confirms this.

That's an interesting survey. It also highlights the urban rural divide with less than 15% of major city residents owning firearms and over 50% of rural residents owning firearms. Geographic differences are also evident, New England, the mid Atlantic (essentially the DC to Boston megaopolis) and the West Coast have a 24.5% ownership rate while the rest of the country has a 39.5% ownership rate. Given that the areas with the strictest control and lowest ownership rates have the most people it's no surprise that the national rate is down. I also noticed that the percentage of respondents choosing not to answer is at an all time high which mirrors an elevated level of distrust of government.