Metrics for gun violence statistics

[USMC1911]

Poor people are a group if you are classifying by wealth alone. And they will share some characteristics, and other's will be radically different. There aren't major gang problems on reservations, and there isn't as much suicide in the inner cities. Poor people in Los Angeles live about as long as everyone else, but poor people in Tulsa have extremely low life expectancy. So it is not super helpful to point to one thing or the other.

And finding patterns, after you tease through all the interactive markers, doesn't tell you what the cause is. People don't create self destructive behavior on their own, if you can actually find something like that, you'll find it is the result of external influences.

After that, you really have a choice of addressing external factors that can influence choices, slavery, genocide or ignoring the problem. The later is in current vogue, because there is nothing people seem to hate more than feeling any sort of responsibility to their society. Makes me wonder what would happen if we needed a new Draft.


That connection was suggested as more important than the other factors that go into why it exists. I didn't do that.

I did no such thing.

Someone brought up a metric - race. Sorry we're discussing it as a cause of violence.

Never did I say or imply that simply being black was a cause of violence.

 

[USMC1911]

Indeed, also to reframe every discussion back to the person committing the crime, because it is their fault, not the guns. Just like we don't blame Chrysler every time a drunk driver kills someone with their car.

Stop it... Personal responsibility is racist.

 

[RX-79G]

They don't have a television or access to the internet, or a phone or a library and are able to learn?

If home is bad, and school is bad, and neighborhood is bad, sure, that's going to set the deck pretty hard against you, but despite all that, at some point there are still personal choices that have to be made to either continue the status quo or rise beyond it.

Well, the real question is whether you expect a violence problem to end because we want children to cause change.

Children that don't necessarily share usual values about the value of their lives, others lives or the destructiveness of drugs. What they do know is that they can get in on the ground floor of a growth industry and rise out of poverty on that.

 

[RX-79G]

Indeed, also to reframe every discussion back to the person committing the crime, because it is their fault, not the guns. Just like we don't blame Chrysler every time a drunk driver kills someone with their car.

Sure, but that doesn't solve the problem of widespread violence at all. We are one of the most policed countries with the single highest incarceration rate and one of the last death penalties - all in an effort to hold individuals accountable. Yet the violence doesn't end. Especially when the economy is bad.

 

[The Heretic]

Do Studies Show Gun Control Works? No.

Out of 27,900 research publications on gun laws, only 123 tested their effects rigorously.

reason.com

 

[ma96782]

RE : Post #145

Yup. From the link.

We took a look at the significance of the 123 rigorous empirical studies and what they actually say about the efficacy of gun control laws.

The answer: nothing. The 123 studies that met RAND's criteria may have been the best of the 27,900 that were analyzed, but they still had serious statistical defects, such as a lack of controls, too many parameters or hypotheses for the data, undisclosed data, erroneous data, misspecified models, and other problems.

And these glaring methodological flaws are not specific to gun control research; they are typical of how the academic publishing industry responds to demands from political partisans for scientific evidence that does not exist.

BUT, But, but.......

Aloha, Mark

 

[American123]

Sure, but that doesn't solve the problem of widespread violence at all. We are one of the most policed countries with the single highest incarceration rate and one of the last death penalties - all in an effort to hold individuals accountable. Yet the violence doesn't end. Especially when the economy is bad.

I would solve violence with violence. The list of hangable crimes would grow substantially.

 

[RX-79G]

I would solve violence with violence. The list of hangable crimes would grow substantially.

Works for China, Iran, Saudi, North Korea.

 

[American123]

Works for China, Iran, Saudi, North Korea.

Works, period. It just isn't used lots of places. The recidivism rate is impeccable though.

 

[Andy54Hawken]

Violence is simply violence.....Its usage can be good or bad.

Football and boxing both have been considered violent.
Hunting as well as been called violent.
I personally have used violence to solve certain issues during my four combat tours.

The above examples are what I would call the good usage of violence.
Using violence to commit a crime...well that is an example of the bad usage of violence.

The common factor here is not what was used during the committing of violence , but the willingness to commit violence.
Used well and good....
One can win a game , bring home dinner or save your life and the lives of others.
Used badly...one will harm or murder others.

Please note that the above are just my thoughts.
I don't expect than many would agree with them.
Andy

 

[American123]

Violence is simply violence.....Its usage can be good or bad.

Football and boxing both have been considered violent.
Hunting as well as been called violent.
I personally have used violence to solve certain issues during my four combat tours.

The above examples are what I would call the good usage of violence.
Using violence to commit a crime...well that is an example of the bad usage of violence.

The common factor here is not what was used during the committing of violence , but the willingness to commit violence.
Used well and good....
One can win a game , bring home dinner or save your life and the lives of others.
Used badly...one will harm or murder others.

Please note that the above are just my thoughts.
I don't expect than many would agree with them.
Andy

It always gets back to the moral/immoral people problem. A moral people don't need laws and immoral people tend to ignore them.

 

[The Heretic]

It always gets back to the moral/immoral people problem. A moral people don't need laws and immoral people tend to ignore them.

There are a lot of relatively "moral" people out there who don't understand the principles behind basic common law and think their actions are moral - usually they are, sometimes they are not.

Laws are there to settle such disputes and hopefully to let people know what is lawful and what isn't. Sometimes it is to protect the rights of people who are wronged, sometimes it is to set guidelines for things like contracts, sometimes it is to let people know they are about to step over the line of what is allowed and not allowed.

I agree that there are entirely too many specious/flawed laws. When it comes to violence, then there are some pretty clear lines that you would think most moral people would agree on right? Yet I have seen more than one person on this forum applaud someone punching or otherwise assaulting someone for something that person said. Sorry, but that is what freedom of speech is about; not just protection from the government, but the right to say something that others don't like without fear of physical reprisals.

Unfortunately, the judicial and legislative systems have been used to oppress, control and defraud the populace. The answer is not to have anarchy and no laws, but to reign in overstepping the boundaries of laws - especially those laws that conflict with the supreme law of the land - the US Constitution.

 

[American123]

There are a lot of relatively "moral" people out there who don't understand the principles behind basic common law and think their actions are moral - usually they are, sometimes they are not.

Laws are there to settle such disputes and hopefully to let people know what is lawful and what isn't. Sometimes it is to protect the rights of people who are wronged, sometimes it is to set guidelines for things like contracts, sometimes it is to let people know they are about to step over the line of what is allowed and not allowed.

I agree that there are entirely too many specious/flawed laws. When it comes to violence, then there are some pretty clear lines that you would think most moral people would agree on right? Yet I have seen more than one person on this forum applaud someone punching or otherwise assaulting someone for something that person said. Sorry, but that is what freedom of speech is about; not just protection from the government, but the right to say something that others don't like without fear of physical reprisals.

Unfortunately, the judicial and legislative systems have been used to oppress, control and defraud the populace. The answer is not to have anarchy and no laws, but to reign in overstepping the boundaries of laws - especially those laws that conflict with the supreme law of the land - the US Constitution.

Freedom of speech and the defense of honor are two different things though. Freedom of speech is about the government not restricting speech of harrasing/endangering those who say things that may be undesirable for the government to have shared. Insulting others gets into a realm that is really outside the purview of the law, it's lawful because no physical violence has occurred, but it definitely still has history to show that it was a violence inducing action - consider that dueling was at one point an acceptable method of settling disputes of honor.

 

[The Heretic]

Freedom of speech and the defense of honor are two different things though. Freedom of speech is about the government not restricting speech of harrasing/endangering those who say things that may be undesirable for the government to have shared. Insulting others gets into a realm that is really outside the purview of the law, it's lawful because no physical violence has occurred, but it definitely still has history to show that it was a violence inducing action - consider that dueling was at one point an acceptable method of settling disputes of honor.

Correct, but freedom of speech is based on being able to say something and not fear physical harm, whether it is from the government or others. After all, in our country, the government is the people.

I am mostly thinking of the bully type of person who wants to shut someone else up because he doesn't like what the person is saying. Who is to say what is offensive to a point where physical harm is justified? The law pretty much says nothing is that offensive. Having been bullied myself when I was young, my sympathies lay with the person talking, not the person using physical force, regardless of what is being said, and the old saying of "sticks and stones" always comes to mind.

A person who takes so much offense at speech by another, is in my opinion, the weaker in spirit, and appeals to "honor" are a bully's excuse for resorting to physical force.

If speech crosses a legal line, it is with defamation/libel/slander, and theoretically at least, this can be resolved with lawsuits. So there is little to no reason to use physical force.

Also, resorting to force, can result in lethal consequences - the speaker may be legally justified in using lethal force to defend themselves against an assault, also, the victim of the assault may be killed by a simple punch to the face that went wrong or the victim falls down and hits their head on something. Either way, such "honorable" assaults can result in consequences that go far beyond what society and the law feel are justified regardless of the speech.

In short, there is a reason the law does not allow duels. And the law is often based on what society feels a reasonable person is allowed or not allowed to do. So no, physical "consequences" for speech are not justified.

 

[Nick Burkhardt]

 

[RX-79G]

Correct, but freedom of speech is based on being able to say something and not fear physical harm, whether it is from the government or others. After all, in our country, the government is the people.

Except that you can be jailed or even executed for exercising your speech about state secrets or committing perjury. Which, since that is pretty much the way it should be, means that the 1st Amendment isn't absolute and has exceptions to its prohibition on laws curtailing speech.

 

[Nick Burkhardt]

 

[The Heretic]

Except that you can be jailed or even executed for exercising your speech about state secrets or committing perjury. Which, since that is pretty much the way it should be, means that the 1st Amendment isn't absolute and has exceptions to its prohibition on laws curtailing speech.

As such, there are legal remedies for speech that does harm - and I mentioned some of them earlier.

Perjury is akin to fraud.

 

[RX-79G]

As such, there are legal remedies for speech that does harm - and I mentioned some of them earlier.

Perjury is akin to fraud.

I just pointed out that those are physical punishments, rather than just civil monetary ones.

 

[Nick Burkhardt]

As Minorities Buy More Guns, Dems Fear They Will Turn Into Republicans | The Gateway Pundit | by ProTrumpNews Staff

A survey from The National Shooting Sports Foundation found that a record 5.4 million Americans were first-time gun buyers in 2021.

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