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This is not right ... is it?

Joseph57

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I've been on the fence on gun control, but I saw a statement on Facebook that, if completely accurate, really puts a lid on the gun control argument in my mind. It reports the following CDC numbers for the "previous year" (not sure what yr it is referring to):
"There were 32,000 gun deaths:
60% are suicide
3% are accidents
4% are justified
33% are homicides
80% of homicides are gang-related"

It then makes the following statement: "If you are not part of a gang, don't commit crime or plan on committing suicide, you have a 0.000009% chance of death by firearm."

Ok... that wakes me up a little. Tell me again why people shouldn't be allowed to arm themselves?
 
Without context for or the direct source itself for the "statement of Facebook" we have little to talk about. It is unfortunate these days but that is the power and also the curse of social media.
 
Without context for or the direct source itself for the "statement of Facebook" we have little to talk about. It is unfortunate these days but that is the power and also the curse of social media.
Ok... here is some REAL data: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm_mortality/firearm.htm ... add it up and that is 38k deaths. Not much more than the Facebook claim.... The precise number isn't as important as the accuracy of the number so ... I'd say the numbers sound about right.... The point is that the fear of death by firearm due to loose gun laws is greatly exagerated. I'd say the numbers support that claim....
 
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Why don't the percentages add up to a 100%?
 
Why don't the percentages add up to a 100%?
Good point ... makes supporting some of the conclusions kinda difficult!! So let's keep it simple... even if we go by pure CDC numbers for last year and the current accepted population of the united states and we ignore all the other stuff then there is about 1/100th of a 1% chance of dying by firearm in a given year.... Kinda says something ... don't you think?
 
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Ok... here is some REAL data: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm_mortality/firearm.htm ... add it up and that is 38k deaths. Not much more than the Facebook claim.... The precise number isn't as important as the accuracy of the number so ... I'd say the numbers sound about right.... The point is that the fear of death by firearm due to loose gun laws is greatly exagerated. I'd say the numbers support that claim....

My take on this is going to be very different even if we accidentally agree on the likely results of increased gun laws.

What grabs the attention of the media (who of course have their own biases and objectives) are the "mass shooting" events that seemingly have any number of conditions and motivations as to why they occurred. No matter if we are talking about the lunatic that went after "sex workers" across Atlanta massage parlors or some other lunatic in a story gunning down random people or dozens of other examples the media will run with the platform of the common denominator it feels it can control. The gun.

At best what is rarely talked about but at worst is monumentally ignored is gun violence occurs every single day in this nation across a plethora of motivations that are ultimately excluded from the debate.

As you point out and some of the sources below confirm is the overwhelming majority of gun violence is suicides, it is not even statistically close how far out front deaths by firearms per year.

What is in second is male vs. male intentional homicides and usually of minority status, i.e. inner city and economically depressed violence. Call it gangs, call it control over drug trade, or whatever else what is not leading the pack are these random acts of violence but rather these weekly if not daily occurrences in larger cities like Detroit, St Louis, Memphis, Baltimore, Cleveland, Chicago, Oakland, etc. The underline causes having less to do with "gun culture" and more to do with sociology and economics.

But that does not move the needle in the world of politics, someone going into an elementary school with an assault rifle does.

As you point out gun control laws will have very little impact on the #1 and #2 motivations and reasons we have gun violence year on year. We have little but some evidence that making it harder to obtain a gun will impact those who want to take their own life. But we have no evidence that people already breaking any number of laws within inner city violence will be less motivated to do so with yet another law.

That is my point, if the demand is there to obtain a gun then US history proves conclusively that the government saying no means criminal enterprise is all to happy to step in and fulfill the demand.

Our issue has always been the same, it was just amplified by gun culture. But the underline reasons are sociology and economics. Those are the reasons why our "homicide rate" is so much higher than comparable nations.

Moreover it means all these political feel good intentions will backfire and in the end the weight of the new laws will end up falling squarely on the backs of minorities in these already depressed areas leading to even more unequal application of the law and even more minorities in some phase of the criminal justice system. It is taking the 'war on drugs' mentality and doubling down on the effort. Who ended up most impacted? Minorities, and we have no evidence things will be different this time.

Mass shootings are going to happen, but that is not our real issue. Those instances are just splashy headlines grabbing for political reasons via a largely complicit media.

Deal with actual people (again, sociology and economics) and we might get somewhere with the real reasons we have so much gun violence.

It is worth noting that politically speaking the CDC is limited in how far they go down the analytics route on this subject, and some of the available stats with analysis are a few years old.

Various sources for one to consider:
 
I've been on the fence on gun control, but I saw a statement on Facebook that, if completely accurate, really puts a lid on the gun control argument in my mind. It reports the following CDC numbers for the "previous year" (not sure what yr it is referring to):
"There were 32,000 gun deaths:
60% are suicide
3% are accidents
4% are justified
33% are homicides
80% of homicides are gang-related"

It then makes the following statement: "If you are not part of a gang, don't commit crime or plan on committing suicide, you have a 0.000009% chance of death by firearm."

Ok... that wakes me up a little. Tell me again why people shouldn't be allowed to arm themselves?

Traffic laws don’t mean you can’t drive. Gun laws will not mean you can’t arm yourself. All potentially dangerous equipment, whether cars, guns, or dangerous chemicals, needs some regulation.
 
You can come up with pretty much whatever % gang related homicides you want it to be. This article came up with 13%.

(See 9th para):
PolitiFact | Are most murders 'gangbangers killing gangbangers,' as Van Cleave says?

Gang stats are probably the sketchiest of any crime stat for at least one of many reasons being that once ID’d as a gang member they are never dropped from the list should they one day no longer be a gang member. It isn’t a lifetime position.
 
My take on this is going to be very different even if we accidentally agree on the likely results of increased gun laws.

What grabs the attention of the media (who of course have their own biases and objectives) are the "mass shooting" events that seemingly have any number of conditions and motivations as to why they occurred. No matter if we are talking about the lunatic that went after "sex workers" across Atlanta massage parlors or some other lunatic in a story gunning down random people or dozens of other examples the media will run with the platform of the common denominator it feels it can control. The gun.

At best what is rarely talked about but at worst is monumentally ignored is gun violence occurs every single day in this nation across a plethora of motivations that are ultimately excluded from the debate.

As you point out and some of the sources below confirm is the overwhelming majority of gun violence is suicides, it is not even statistically close how far out front deaths by firearms per year.

What is in second is male vs. male intentional homicides and usually of minority status, i.e. inner city and economically depressed violence. Call it gangs, call it control over drug trade, or whatever else what is not leading the pack are these random acts of violence but rather these weekly if not daily occurrences in larger cities like Detroit, St Louis, Memphis, Baltimore, Cleveland, Chicago, Oakland, etc. The underline causes having less to do with "gun culture" and more to do with sociology and economics.

But that does not move the needle in the world of politics, someone going into an elementary school with an assault rifle does.

As you point out gun control laws will have very little impact on the #1 and #2 motivations and reasons we have gun violence year on year. We have little but some evidence that making it harder to obtain a gun will impact those who want to take their own life. But we have no evidence that people already breaking any number of laws within inner city violence will be less motivated to do so with yet another law.

That is my point, if the demand is there to obtain a gun then US history proves conclusively that the government saying no means criminal enterprise is all to happy to step in and fulfill the demand.

Our issue has always been the same, it was just amplified by gun culture. But the underline reasons are sociology and economics. Those are the reasons why our "homicide rate" is so much higher than comparable nations.

Moreover it means all these political feel good intentions will backfire and in the end the weight of the new laws will end up falling squarely on the backs of minorities in these already depressed areas leading to even more unequal application of the law and even more minorities in some phase of the criminal justice system. It is taking the 'war on drugs' mentality and doubling down on the effort. Who ended up most impacted? Minorities, and we have no evidence things will be different this time.

Mass shootings are going to happen, but that is not our real issue. Those instances are just splashy headlines grabbing for political reasons via a largely complicit media.

Deal with actual people (again, sociology and economics) and we might get somewhere with the real reasons we have so much gun violence.

It is worth noting that politically speaking the CDC is limited in how far they go down the analytics route on this subject, and some of the available stats with analysis are a few years old.

Various sources for one to consider:
Wow ... excellent points. Well thought out. Thanks!!!
 
I've been on the fence on gun control, but I saw a statement on Facebook that, if completely accurate, really puts a lid on the gun control argument in my mind. It reports the following CDC numbers for the "previous year" (not sure what yr it is referring to):
"There were 32,000 gun deaths:
60% are suicide
3% are accidents
4% are justified
33% are homicides
80% of homicides are gang-related"

It then makes the following statement: "If you are not part of a gang, don't commit crime or plan on committing suicide, you have a 0.000009% chance of death by firearm."

Ok... that wakes me up a little. Tell me again why people shouldn't be allowed to arm themselves?

So I guess those folks in Atlanta and Boulder last week just got really lucky huh ?
 
So I guess those folks in Atlanta and Boulder last week just got really lucky huh ?
You are missing the point.... 99% of people who own guns are not crazy, but if you try to take away their guns a few of them will act out ... also, even if you manage to pass laws to restrict guns and take guns away from law-abiding citizens that doesn't mean the crazies won't still be able to get guns. There will just be few armed citizens to stop them...
 
You are missing the point.... 99% of people who own guns are not crazy, but if you try to take away their guns a few of them will act out ...

Yes


...also, even if you manage to pass laws to restrict guns and take guns away from law-abiding citizens that doesn't mean the crazies won't still be able to get guns...

Yes it does


...there will just be few armed citizens to stop them...

And that's a good thing - do you seriously want gun fights between criminals and armed citizens ?
 
Yes




Yes it does




And that's a good thing - do you seriously want gun fights between criminals and armed citizens ?
No ... it is a deterrent. Crazy people are not usually fearless...
 
Traffic laws don’t mean you can’t drive. Gun laws will not mean you can’t arm yourself. All potentially dangerous equipment, whether cars, guns, or dangerous chemicals, needs some regulation.

We already have "some regulation" for guns.
 
do you seriously want gun fights between criminals and armed citizens ?

Beats unarmed citizens just being gunned down by armed criminals.
 
It then makes the following statement: "If you are not part of a gang, don't commit crime or plan on committing suicide, you have a 0.000009% chance of death by firearm."
You don't need to be a gang member to be a victim of gang-related homicide, committing crime in general isn't relevant to being a victim by these statistics and you don't need to be planning to commit suicide for it to happen within a year.

But yes, the chance of being killed by a firearm in any way is very low for any random individual. The chance of being killed by any specific cause is very low for any random individual. I don't see that as a valid reason not to take reasonable measures to reduce the number of deaths from all causes though. The key question is where the line of "reasonable measures" should be drawn.
 
We already have "some regulation" for guns.

You say that like it’s a good thing. Why? Isn’t that unconstitutional?

As weapons technology continues to advance and become more efficient, is it wrong to try to ask for any more regulations to keep up with the technology, like in any other area?
 
Traffic laws don’t mean you can’t drive. Gun laws will not mean you can’t arm yourself. All potentially dangerous equipment, whether cars, guns, or dangerous chemicals, needs some regulation.

Let's rephrase that last sentence and be a little more precise:

"All potentially dangerous equipment, whether cars, guns, or dangerous chemicals, need to be a political matter."

Making things political usually makes the situation worse, not better.
 
You say that like it’s a good thing. Why? Isn’t that unconstitutional?

As weapons technology continues to advance and become more efficient, is it wrong to try to ask for any more regulations to keep up with the technology, like in any other area?

So the argument is: The state already has its dirty fingers in every pie, so why not give it even more power?

The government already censors TV, so why not let it censor the internet?

The government already controls which drugs you may put into your own body, so why not have the government control our diets?

I don't find this very compelling, but I guarantee every leftist does.
 
You say that like it’s a good thing. Why? Isn’t that unconstitutional?

As weapons technology continues to advance and become more efficient, is it wrong to try to ask for any more regulations to keep up with the technology, like in any other area?

I said that like it's a fact. I made no comment and implied nothing about whether it's good or bad. I think some regulation is good, but also that a lot of the regulations we currently have are idiotic.

There hasn't been an advancement in weapons technology that is significantly relevant to public safety in the last 80 years (except perhaps to make them safer), and there have never been more meaningful restrictions on firearm ownership in the US than there are now. So it would be rational to conclude that things like the recent increase in mass shootings have other causes.
 
I said that like it's a fact. I made no comment and implied nothing about whether it's good or bad.

So please do make a comment. I'd love to know your thoughts on it.


I think some regulation is good, but also that a lot of the regulations we currently have are idiotic.

There hasn't been an advancement in weapons technology that is significantly relevant to public safety in the last 80 years (except perhaps to make them safer), and there have never been more meaningful restrictions on firearm ownership in the US than there are now. So it would be rational to conclude that things like the recent increase in mass shootings have other causes.

So would you say there has been some advance in weapons technology between today's AR-15 and the front loading muskets of the 18th century? Do you think there will be no further advances?

And would you agree that SOME new regulations will always be necessary to keep up with this constantly evolving sector, or do you think, like the NRA, that any regulation is a slippery slope to the ultimate agenda of destroying all 2nd Amendment rights for Americans?
 
So please do make a comment. I'd love to know your thoughts on it.




So would you say there has been some advance in weapons technology between today's AR-15 and the front loading muskets of the 18th century? Do you think there will be no further advances?

And would you agree that SOME new regulations will always be necessary to keep up with this constantly evolving sector, or do you think, like the NRA, that any regulation is a slippery slope to the ultimate agenda of destroying all 2nd Amendment rights for Americans?

It looks like you didn't bother reading what I wrote.

If you have an argument to make, make it. You don't need to use question marks. Just be sure to back it up with something.
 
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