The NRA Suppressing research into Gun Violence

[Avatar]

Haha, I've noticed a couple of other Pratchett references in your posts. I love the Patrician. The problem is it only works because it's him.

Benevolent dictatorship is the most effective form of government. Unfortunately it relies on one person. What happens when he dies?

Funnily enough, the most common form of voter protest here is not voting.

People who are angry with their party don't vote for the opposition, (they don't believe that there is credible opposition), and they don't spoil their votes. They just don't vote.

As for what empty seats could do, it might not affect votes, but it could still affect something...here a party needs 66% of the seats in parliament in order to change the constitution. Empty seats could help prevent that.

(In the last 20 years, the ruling party has swung between a 63% (at the lowest) and 71% (at the highest) majority. Even if every other person voted for the same party (and we actually have 20 or so), it wouldn't be possible to dent their majority.)

--A

[Cail]

Washington Navy Yard Already Suffers the Restrictions That Gun Control Advocates Favor

Yet another mass shooting, and flags fly across the country at half-mast to mourn the 13 dead at the Washington Navy Yard—well, 12 of them, anyway, since one of the bodies was that of the murderer. Gun control advocates wasted no time in demanding new restrictions on the means of self-defense. Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA), who used to carry a pistol for her own defense, responded to the crime by saying, "Congress must stop shirking its responsibility and resume a thoughtful debate on gun violence in this country. We must do more to stop this endless loss of life." But the unhappy truth is that the scene of the crime, the Washington Navy Yard, is subject to many of the restrictions that gun control advocates favor. And the perpetrator, Aaron Alexis, had passed a background check for a security clearance. Unfortunately, laws and databases don't create magic forcefields against criminal intent.

Navy public affairs officers have full voicemail boxes, today, for obvious reason, so it's difficult to learn if there were specific restrictions that applied to the Washington Navy Yard or to Naval Sea Systems Command Headquarters, where the shootings took place. But military installations, despite their obvious role in waging war, come pretty close to being gun-free zones, given the rules by which personnel and visitors must abide. Or, if not strictly gun-free-zones, they're subject to tight regulations that keep most (law-abiding) people largely disarmed.

Firearms regulations at military installations are sufficiently byzantine that the Quantico Shooting Club at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, cautions members and guests about them and maintains a listing of restrictions (PDF). In particular, U.S. Navy Regulation 1159 (PDF) states:

Except as may be necessary to the proper performance of his or her duty or as may be authorised by proper authority, no person in the naval service shall:

a. have concealed about his or her person any dangerous weapon, instrument or device, or any highly explosive article or compound; or

b. have in his or her possession any dangerous weapon, instrument or device or any highly explosive article or compound on board any ship, craft, aircraft, or in any vehicle of the naval service or within any base or other place under naval jurisdiction.

The Quantico summary clarifies interpretation of the rules for the base, adding, "Under no circumstances will the transportation of loaded or concealed handguns, shotguns, or rifles be permitted on MCBQ except under those situations outlined in paragraph 7 of this Order." That's specific to Quantico, but there's little reason to think that's at wide variance from policy anywhere else.

Then-President Clinton issued an order in 1993 (PDF) severely tightening gun restrictions at all Department of the Army installations. The directive said in part, "The authorization to carry firearms will be issued only to qualified personnel when there is a reasonable expectation that life or Department of the Army (DA) assets will be jeopardized if firearms are not carried." The same rules seem to apply to the other branches of service, to go by the Navy regulations above.

That makes military bases much like other "gun-free zones." They're only as well protected as the willingness of would-be perpetrators to follow rules allows, along with the ability of a thin line of personnel authorized to carry arms to deter or stop criminals.

And detecting would-be perpetrators isn't as simple as imposing ever-tougher background checks. Aaron Alexis passed such a check. "Alexis had a security clearance that was updated in July, approved by military security service personnel," said Thomas Hoshko, CEO at The Experts, Alexis's employer. That's despite being pushed out of the military "over a pattern of misconduct that included insubordination, unauthorized absences and other infractions" as well as two criminal incidents—one of which involved shooting out a car's tires. Alexis also reportedly sought help with mental health issues from the Veterans Administration.

And yet he received a security clearance last year which was renewed in July.

Background checks are only as good as the information in the database and the people running them. Alexis passed his background checks, then was issued credentials that allowed him to enter the Navy Yard, bypassing such armed security personnel as guarded the perimeter.

After that, he faced unarmed victims, deprived of the means to defend themselves. At this point the choice of weapons, nevermind Sen. Feinstein's fixation on AR-15s, was moot*.

This is gun control.

*Update: The FBI now says the weapons used by Aaron Alexis in the Washington Navy Yard attack were one shotgun and two pistols.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Excellent find, Cail. That article summarizes it nicely--gun control laws will only make it easier for mass shootings to take place because the people who have made up their minds that they are going to go on this sort of rampage aren't concerned about the law--they expect to die as part of their rampage so legal consequences are irrelevant.

Again, the article correctly states that despite initial reports to the contrary, no AR-15s were used in this assault.

[Zarathustra]

We've limited Constitutional rights on a military base--one of the most reasonable places you'd expect people to be armed--so that they can't protect themselves ... meanwhile we're arming Syrian rebels who are aligned with our enemy. Guns are good for AQ in Syria, but not our soldiers in their own country. WFT??

[Cail]

At some point, people will have to accept the obvious.....Gun-free zones are nothing more than game preserves for criminals.

[Avatar]

Not that guns prevent crime either. At the very best, all it can hope to achieve is an uneasy balance. (And not even that really, because criminals still have an advantage...they've realised that the rules don't have to apply if you don't want them to.)

But I still prefer that to tipping the scales further in the other direction.

--A

[Cail]

Not that guns prevent crime either. At the very best, all it can hope to achieve is an uneasy balance. (And not even that really, because criminals still have an advantage...they've realised that the rules don't have to apply if you don't want them to.)

Nope. The CDC's study commissioned by the Obama administration found that guns in fact do get used for self-defense and crime prevention far more often than not.

Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year, in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.

[Avatar]

No, what I mean is that even if people are allowed to carry guns, there will still be crime.

--A

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Similarly, if all guns disappeared right now there would still be violence and murder.

[Cail]

Yup. England's violent crime rate's higher than ours.

[sindatur]

Yup. England's violent crime rate's higher than ours.

Yea, I'm not really into either, but, I think I'd rather be shot dead then knifed or bludgeoned to death

[TheFallen]

Yup. England's violent crime rate's higher than ours.

Yea, I'm not really into either, but, I think I'd rather be shot dead then knifed or bludgeoned to death

Got to be very careful with the notorious "England is more violent than the US" meme.

The UK was widely reported a while back as being between 4 - 8 times more violent than the US, based on official crime figures released by the UK Home Office on one side and the FBI on the other. This of course turned out to be a complete and utter nonsense. The FBI were only counting four categories of crime - namely murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault - as violent crimes, whereas we Brits included all “crimes against the person,” including simple assaults, all robberies, and all “sexual offenses”.

Nobody has yet made a like-for-like comparison - the best guess so far is that the USA has 466 violent crimes against the person per 100k of population, whereas the UK has 776. So yes, we are apparently 1.74 times more prone to commit violent crime over here.

A statistically-based good debunk of the "UK's way more violent" urban myth is to be found here.

However, Sin, your assumption could not be more wrong when it comes to murder. The overall UK homicide rate is 1.2 per 100k of population, whereas the US is somewhere between 4.5 and 5.3 per of 100k population, depending upon which set of official data you take... so the likelihood of being murdered is between 375% - 440% higher in the US. Bear in mind that's homicide by any means, not just firearms, where the likelihood of being shot dead is between 43 and 51 times greater in the US... but then again, dead is dead, so method doesn't really matter.

So don't cancel your UK holiday yet, Sin. Okay we're more likely to beat you up over here - but far FAR less likely to kill you by any method.

[sindatur]

Yup. England's violent crime rate's higher than ours.

Yea, I'm not really into either, but, I think I'd rather be shot dead then knifed or bludgeoned to death

Got to be very careful with the notorious "England is more violent than the US" meme.

The UK was widely reported a while back as being between 4 - 8 times more violent than the US, based on official crime figures released by the UK Home Office on one side and the FBI on the other. This of course turned out to be a complete and utter nonsense. The FBI were only counting four categories of crime - namely murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault - as violent crimes, whereas we Brits included all “crimes against the person,” including simple assaults, all robberies, and all “sexual offenses”.

Nobody has yet made a like-for-like comparison - the best guess so far is that the USA has 466 violent crimes against the person per 100k of population, whereas the UK has 776. So yes, we are apparently 1.74 times more prone to commit violent crime over here.

A statistically-based good debunk of the "UK's way more violent" urban myth is to be found here.

However, Sin, your assumption could not be more wrong when it comes to murder. The overall UK homicide rate is 1.2 per 100k of population, whereas the US is somewhere between 4.5 and 5.3 per of 100k population, depending upon which set of official data you take... so the likelihood of being murdered is between 375% - 440% higher in the US. Bear in mind that's homicide by any means, not just firearms, where the likelihood of being shot dead is between 43 and 51 times greater in the US... but then again, dead is dead, so method doesn't really matter.

So don't cancel your UK holiday yet, Sin. Okay we're more likely to beat you up over here - but far FAR less likely to kill you by any method.

Fair enough. Though, the point still stands, that if I was murdered in the UK, it'f more likely to be a painful, brutal beating or knifing, then a quick shot to to the head

[TheFallen]

That I cannot deny - but let me add that your fierce nationalistic pride in the humane method by which your fellow countrymen so frequently do away with each other does you credit...

[sindatur]

That I cannot deny - but let me add that your fierce nationalistic pride in the humane method by which your fellow countrymen so frequently do away with each other does you credit...

In all seriousness, there are undeniably a few areas where we have a very big problem, Z mentioned a couple. I wonder, might those make up a good portion of the difference? Does the UK have more balanced statistics through all walks of life and Demographics? If the US didn't have such awful statistics in those few areas, if it was more balanced, would we still be so far out front?

So, is it the guns themselves that jack up our murder rate, or is the higher prevelance in certain demographics/situations that we have a bigger problem with?

[Cail]

What would be interesting would be to remove the gang warfare killings from the statistics and then see what the actual rate is for "normal" people.

[Rawedge Rim]

What would be interesting would be to remove the gang warfare killings from the statistics and then see what the actual rate is for "normal" people.

As I've noted a number of times, if one were to remove the drug and gang related violence (and a lot of the gang violence is drug related), I imagine that the murder rate within the US would plummet.

[Holsety]

If you really want to shake things up, then change election results so that the guy who wins second place wins the election. This way, candidates will campaign aggressively but not too aggressively and they won't try to clearly win.

Where did the "good post" button go?

Which reminds me. Just over 10 years ago, a UK-wide census was due to be taken and one of the questions to be asked was "What religion are you?" A multiple choice was offered, including "Other - please state". This caused some annoyance, because it was (quite rightly) considered as none of the State's business. This, plus the fact that a very widespread rumour arose that any mentioned belief set would have to be recognised as an official religion if it got 40,000 mentions, led to tens of thousands of people putting down "Jedi Knight" as their religious persuasion. I'm next to certain that this also occurred elsewhere in the world, and as such is a noticeable and effective protest against State intrusiveness.

I was told by a professor once that the Indonesian government asks/ed people for their religion on the basis that Communists (who at one point governed Indonesia) were largely atheistic, and that the reason so many of Indonesians are listed as muslim is because it was the first option to choose from (most Indonesians would properly ID as multiple religions, apparently). That second part kinda has the feeling of a story rather than a truth to me, but I thought it was worth rumor-mongering anyway.

[Avatar]

Where did the "good post" button go?

Sorry guys, the good post button is gone. Looks like we need Vain to put it back. I'll see what I can do.

--A

[Cail]

Oddly, the NRA didn't suppress this research.....

The purpose of the present study is to determine the effects of state-level assault weapons bans and concealed weapons laws on state-level murder rates. Using data for the period 1980 to 2009 and controlling for state and year fixed effects, the results of the present study suggest that states with restrictions on the carrying of concealed weapons had higher gun-related murder rates than other states. It was also found that assault weapons bans did not significantly affect murder rates at the state level. These results suggest that restrictive concealed weapons laws may cause an increase in gun-related murders at the state level. The results of this study are consistent with some prior research in this area, most notably Lott and Mustard (1997).