US Supreme Court upholds individual right to gun ownership

[Asher]

Only in America do you guys care about stopping thieves from taking your TV so much that you perpetuate a deadly gun culture that puts you guys very near the top of the list for murders per capita.

Have you considered getting a security system?

I don't like this argument because it has the wrong priorities. Sorry, Deity, but your right to own a handgun just incase somebody steals your Plasma screen doesn't trump public safety. I suggest you think hard about the consequences of pervasive guns in terms of human life rather than material possession.

I think these stats should interest you.

Robbery rate per 100,000 citizens:
USA: 136.7
Canada: 94

So not only are your murder and assault rates far higher, the same is true for your robbery rates which is supposedly one of the reasons behind owning a gun (that it deters robbery).

Are you questioning your reasoning yet? Because you really should be.

[Deity Dude]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
If in a room you find 2 people. One person dead of a gunshot wound, the other person holding the gun. If you stop at that random sample, 100% of guns are used for murder.

Only if the murderers are the only ones allowed to have guns. What if the person holding the gun is an elderly lady who was about to get raped then stabbed and then robbed. I wouldn't call her a murderer. I'd call her a hero.

[Asher]

I'm going to shotgun this thread with some more statistics before bed.



Homicide of a family member is 2.7 times more likely to occur in a home with a firearm than in homes without guns. Keeping one or more firearms was associated with a 4.8 fold increased risk of suicide in the home.

Dr. Ted Miller, National Public Services Research Institute examined the link between gun ownership rates and firearms death within Canadian provinces, the United States, England/Wales and Australia and concluded that 92% of the variance in death rates was explained by access to firearms in those areas. He suggested that a 1% increase (or decrease) in the percentage of households with guns in Canada would be associated with a 5.8% increase (or decrease) in the Canadian gun death rate.(T. Miller, M. Cohen. "Costs of Gunshot and Cut/Stab Wounds in the United States, with some Canadian Comparisons. " Accid Anal Prev 1997; 29 (3): 329-41.)

or example, a review of 13 countries showed that there was a strong correlation between gun ownership and both homicide with a gun and overall homicide rates (Killias excluded Northern Ireland from the analysis because of the level of civil unrest). In an analysis of 14 countries, the correlation between gun ownership and gun suicide was also significant, as was the correlation of gun ownership with overall suicide rates. Killias found no evidence of a compensation process whereby other means were substituted with firearms. (Killias, M. "International Correlations between Gun Ownership and Rate of Homicide and Suicide." Canadian Medical Association Journal. 1993;148 (10): 1721-5)

Canada has always had stronger firearms regulation than the United States, particularly with respect to handguns. In Canada, handguns have been licensed and registered since the 1930’s, ownership of guns has never been regarded as a right and several court rulings have reaffirmed the right of the government to protect citizens from guns. Handgun ownership has been restricted to police, members of gun clubs or collectors. Very few (about 50 in the country) have been given permits to carry handguns for "self-protection." This is only possible if an applicant can prove that their life is in danger and the police cannot protect them.

As a result, Canada has roughly 1 million handguns while the United States has more than 76 million. While there are other factors affecting murder, suicide and unintentional injury rates, a comparison of data in Canada and the United States suggests that access to handguns may play a role. While the murder rate without guns in the US is roughly equivalent (1.8 times) to that of Canada, the murder rate with handguns is 14.5 times the Canadian rate. The costs of firearms death and injury in the two countries have been compared and estimated to be $495 (US) per resident in the United States compared to $195 per resident in Canada.

Australian states with registration had significantly lower rates of homicide and suicide with firearms than states without registration of firearms. (You'll like this one, Deity Dude!)

Studies examining the effects of legislation on death and injury rates in Canada have also suggested that stricter controls reduce gun death. A more recent study suggests that changes to Canada’s gun control law have had an effect on accidental firearm death rates, particularly in males.(Boyd, Neil. "A Statistical Analysis of the Impacts of the 1977 Firearms Control Legislation: Critique and Discussion." Department of Justice Canada. 1996.)

Criminologist Neil Boyd concluded that there is more evidence to support the efficacy of gun control legislation in reducing death and injury than there is for most other legislative interventions. In reviewing the evaluations of the Canadian legislation he wrote:

"In three separate forms of statistical analysis - exploratory, time-series and structural - researchers have found evidence to suggest that gun control has had an impact on homicides and firearms homicides. The finding that an amendment to criminal law can change behaviour in the direction desired is unusual. We have had many amendments to Canadian criminal law during the past 40 years: for example changes to the penalty structure for homicide in 1961, 1967, 1973, 1974, 1976 and 1985; changes for the penalty structure affecting illegal drug use and distribution in 1961, 1969 and 1974.... In none of these circumstances has it been possible to establish that a change in law can impact behaviour in the direction that the law hopes for or anticipates. With gun control legislation, we have some preliminary evidence - some strong suggestions - that the criminal law is working. And it is working, not by manipulating penalty levels for specific forms of crime, but by putting a regulatory system in place that can limit access to firearms, enhance the safety of firearm use, and, in a more general sense, educate the public with respect to the dangers inherent in widespread availability of these potentially lethal commodities."

This stuff deals specifically with the argument that "guns are for self-defence":
The easiest response to suggestions that Canadian civilians need guns to protect themselves is to look south to the US to see where arming for self protection leads. While rates of violence in the US are comparable to countries such as Canada, Australia and Great Britain, rates of lethal violence are much higher. For example, murders without guns in the US are about 40% higher (1.4 times the rate) than in Canada while murders WITH handguns are 1500% higher (15 times the rate).

Source: http://www.guncontrol.ca/Content/The...unControl.html

Good night, and I look forward to your rebuttal to all of my fun stats since you were so hell-bent on me wasting time on your drivel.

[Deity Dude]

Originally posted by Mr Snuggles
I'm going to shotgun this thread with some more statistics before bed.



Homicide of a family member is 2.7 times more likely to occur in a home with a firearm than in homes without guns. Keeping one or more firearms was associated with a 4.8 fold increased risk of suicide in the home.

Please give some sort of reference because this stat is in direct contradiction to the FBI and US Govt stats I quoted.

for example, a review of 13 countries showed that there was a strong correlation between gun ownership and both homicide with a gun and overall homicide rates (Killias excluded Northern Ireland from the analysis because of the level of civil unrest). In an analysis of 14 countries, the correlation between gun ownership and gun suicide was also significant, as was the correlation of gun ownership with overall suicide rates. Killias found no evidence of a compensation process whereby other means were substituted with firearms. (Killias, M. "International Correlations between Gun Ownership and Rate of Homicide and Suicide." Canadian Medical Association Journal. 1993;148 (10): 1721-5)

Well these stats look a little biased because:

A: the only country excluded from the study was the only area allowed to possess guns (Northern Ireland) Ironically Northern Ireland has a lower crime rate than the countries with gun control that he chose to include.

B: Then he took countries where only criminals have guns. Then he was able to co relate gun ownership with crime. Well if it is a crime to own a gun, every gun owner is a criminal.

WHICH IS MY POINT EXACTLY.

If only criminals own guns the more guns there are the worse it is.

If law abiding citizens, who pass a training course are allowed to own guns the crime rate will go down as a higher pct of gun owners are law abiding trained gun owners.

Maybe you should cite a study that has something to do with what we are discussing.

Canada has always had stronger firearms regulation than the United States, particularly with respect to handguns. In Canada, handguns have been licensed and registered since the 1930’s, ownership of guns has never been regarded as a right and several court rulings have reaffirmed the right of the government to protect citizens from guns. Handgun ownership has been restricted to police, members of gun clubs or collectors. Very few (about 50 in the country) have been given permits to carry handguns for "self-protection." This is only possible if an applicant can prove that their life is in danger and the police cannot protect them.

As a result, Canada has roughly 1 million handguns while the United States has more than 76 million. While there are other factors affecting murder, suicide and unintentional injury rates, a comparison of data in Canada and the United States suggests that access to handguns may play a role. While the murder rate without guns in the US is roughly equivalent (1.8 times) to that of Canada, the murder rate with handguns is 14.5 times the Canadian rate. The costs of firearms death and injury in the two countries have been compared and estimated to be $495 (US) per resident in the United States compared to $195 per resident in Canada.

Once again you try and compare the US to Canada as if the two were the same. For that fact you might as well compare Idaho to New York City. How about this stat. There are probably more police in New York City per person than in Idaho per person. By your logic if the crime rate was higher in NYC than Idaho you would argue for the elimination of police.

The only true comparison is to take a jurisdiction and do a before and after comparison of the question. Which I have continually posted and show that law abiding citizens being allowed to own guns decreases the violent crime rate.

Other evidence might include asking murderers what would stop them from commiting a murder. Asking rapists what would stop them from committing a rape. Asking other violent criminals, and for that fact all criminals, what would deter them from commiting their crime. The 2nd most common answer was the thought of the potential victim being able to defend themselves.

Australian states with registration had significantly lower rates of homicide and suicide with firearms than states without registration of firearms. (You'll like this one, Deity Dude!)

I have no problem with registrationand in fact I believe that should be a vital part of the law. I'll state the obvious for you because you don't seem to get it; law abiding citizens would have no problem registering their legal gun. Only criminals would have a problem.

Studies examining the effects of legislation on death and injury rates in Canada have also suggested that stricter controls reduce gun death. A more recent study suggests that changes to Canada’s gun control law have had an effect on accidental firearm death rates, particularly in males.(Boyd, Neil. "A Statistical Analysis of the Impacts of the 1977 Firearms Control Legislation: Critique and Discussion." Department of Justice Canada. 1996.)

Well while your studies by individuals who may or may not have an agenda SUGGEST (and I repeat SUGGEST with no statistical evidence) that stricter gun control MIGHT reduce gun death. I'll go by the FBI, the US Govt and the UN stats (all of which agencies are for taking guns away from private citizens). None of them SUGGEST anything. They point out, with FACTS the various points I posted on page 7. Some of which include:

Crime rates go down
Violent crime rates go down

I am assuming the following 2 are because by making it legal and requiring education people act more responsible with their guns

Suicide rates using handguns goes down.
Child accidents involving handguns go down.

BTW these stats weren't suggested, they were stated as fact by the FBI.

Criminologist Neil Boyd concluded that there is more evidence to support the efficacy of gun control legislation in reducing death and injury than there is for most other legislative interventions. In reviewing the evaluations of the Canadian legislation he wrote:

"In three separate forms of statistical analysis - exploratory, time-series and structural - researchers have found evidence to suggest that gun control has had an impact on homicides and firearms homicides. The finding that an amendment to criminal law can change behaviour in the direction desired is unusual. We have had many amendments to Canadian criminal law during the past 40 years: for example changes to the penalty structure for homicide in 1961, 1967, 1973, 1974, 1976 and 1985; changes for the penalty structure affecting illegal drug use and distribution in 1961, 1969 and 1974.... In none of these circumstances has it been possible to establish that a change in law can impact behaviour in the direction that the law hopes for or anticipates. With gun control legislation, we have some preliminary evidence - some strong suggestions - that the criminal law is working. And it is working, not by manipulating penalty levels for specific forms of crime, but by putting a regulatory system in place that can limit access to firearms, enhance the safety of firearm use, and, in a more general sense, educate the public with respect to the dangers inherent in widespread availability of these potentially lethal commodities."

I'm glad you found a criminologist who concludes something. Again I'll rely on the FBI stats.

This stuff deals specifically with the argument that "guns are for self-defence":
The easiest response to suggestions that Canadian civilians need guns to protect themselves is to look south to the US to see where arming for self protection leads. While rates of violence in the US are comparable to countries such as Canada, Australia and Great Britain, rates of lethal violence are much higher. For example, murders without guns in the US are about 40% higher (1.4 times the rate) than in Canada while murders WITH handguns are 1500% higher (15 times the rate).

Nice try again comparing apples and oranges. I prefer all the stats I showed you that continually prove that crime rates go down EVERY TIME after "shall-issue" laws are established. And NOT ONE STATE has ever revoked one once it was put in place. I guess I put less credence in Canadian criminologists with an agenda. I just prefer that our crime rates go down and I rely on the FBI for our data.

Good night, and I look forward to your rebuttal to all of my fun stats since you were so hell-bent on me wasting time on your drivel.

Well at least you tried this time to address the issues. Unfortunately the best you could do was find a couple private citizens that wrote a book. I prefer government statistics. Especially when they are in conflict with the governments own stated agenda.

Good Night and talk to you later.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Deity Dude
[..]

1) Its childish
2) Its an attempt to "win" no matter
3) He has no rational response to the argument given him so he resorts to name calling and obsceneties.

[..]

I don't want to keep listing them but Asher's startegy seems to keep bull****ting until they get off the current page and then claim victory.

How long have you been posting here? He's always been like this. You missed one point though: his tendency to simply make **** up.

[Agathon]

Before this thread descends off topic even further, does anyone care to steer the discussion back towards the law?

I mean, the decision says that reasonable restrictions on gun ownership are allowed, but this seems empty to me, since a reasonable restriction, according to the constitution could be the restriction of any firearm ownership that was not plausibly intended to arm a militia. What about small bore competition rifles or pistols that have no conceivable military use?

I think it's a right of any law abiding citizen to own one of those firearms, since they pose a negligible danger to others, and small bore target shooting is a hobby that many people enjoy.

Scalia seems to think that the initial clause doesn't limit or expand the scope of the second part, but I can only offer the Samuel L Jackson response to that: "English, mother******: do you speak it?

[Jon Miller]

Asher, you forgot that guns are sexy.

JM

[Asher]

Originally posted by Deity Dude
Please give some sort of reference because this stat is in direct contradiction to the FBI and US Govt stats I quoted.

I linked to the page all of these came from.

Source: Miller, T. and Cohen, M. "Costs of Gunshot and Cut/Stab Wounds in the United States, with some Canadian Comparisons. " Accid Anal Prev 1997; 29 (3): 329-41.

Well these stats look a little biased because:

A: the only country excluded from the study was the only area allowed to possess guns (Northern Ireland) Ironically Northern Ireland has a lower crime rate than the countries with gun control that he chose to include.

Northern Ireland was excluded for quite obvious reasons -- I'm not sure IRA crime is applicable to our discussion. No, it's not biased, but you clearly are.

B: Then he took countries where only criminals have guns. Then he was able to co relate gun ownership with crime. Well if it is a crime to own a gun, every gun owner is a criminal.

WHICH IS MY POINT EXACTLY.

What the hell are you talking about. Countries with more guns per capita have far more deaths per guns per capita. This says nothing about only criminals owning handguns (in fact, you're flat out wrong here because it is legal to own handguns in Canada, for instance). The point the graph makes is that the more guns you have, you have even MORE deaths than a 1:1 relationship -- far more.

Maybe you should cite a study that has something to do with what we are discussing.

I'm not sure what to tell you. If you don't think a study illustrating that more firearms per capita result in exceptionally more deaths per capita is not related to an argument to reduce the amount of guns per capita, you're truly a special individual.

Once again you try and compare the US to Canada as if the two were the same. For that fact you might as well compare Idaho to New York City. How about this stat. There are probably more police in New York City per person than in Idaho per person. By your logic if the crime rate was higher in NYC than Idaho you would argue for the elimination of police.

I'm sorry, but WTF. This is just lazy on your part. Here you are willing to cite TERRIBLE comparisons to Australia, but then you throw out out any comparisons to Canada. Have you been to Windsor? It's not too different from Detroit in terms of socioeconomic and cultural issues. Yet the murder and assault rates are far, far lower.

Before you complain about me throwing out your Australia stats, The Australia cite you gave was invalid not because it was from Australia but because the sample size was ridiculously low and it was done only a year after the ban occurred. New stats show it worked just as it was expected to, now that time has passed and we can average out outlier years.

The only true comparison is to take a jurisdiction and do a before and after comparison of the question. Which I have continually posted and show that law abiding citizens being allowed to own guns decreases the violent crime rate.

You have not posted any examples of jurisdictions after a complete handgun ban. You also have the problem inherent to any longitudinal study, in that there are many confounding factors.

I am absolutely sick of trying to explain to you that the murder rates have fallen faster in countries with stricter controls on handguns than in the US. But you see the murder rates fell with handguns and assume handguns are part of that. I don't see how you cannot tell that this is ridiculous to claim.

Well while your studies by individuals who may or may not have an agenda SUGGEST (and I repeat SUGGEST with no statistical evidence) that stricter gun control MIGHT reduce gun death. I'll go by the FBI, the US Govt and the UN stats (all of which agencies are for taking guns away from private citizens). None of them SUGGEST anything. They point out, with FACTS the various points I posted on page 7. Some of which include:

Crime rates go down
Violent crime rates go down

Those are going down regardless of handgun restrictions. They can go down faster if you get rid of the #1 murder tool and an enabler of confidence to criminals. Again, this is the 100th time I've said this, it's still not clicking for you.

You just discarded my stats because you think it's best to listen to reports from the FBI and US Govt which are absolutely terrible reports for reasons I've already mentioned -- mainly focusing on the fact that there's no causation indicated here at all, all you can say is "X fell", when X was falling everywhere regardless.

I'm glad you found a criminologist who concludes something. Again I'll rely on the FBI stats.

Again, I quote academic experts who spend years analyzing the situation around the world and you quote a notoriously half-assed FBI report that would result in a failure in a Stats 101 course because of the simple fact that "correlation does not equal causation".

No, you keep refuting valid points and coming back to that one study saying "I trust this more". The irony here is you're not debating the content or the topic, you're just wildly dismissing it because it disagrees with you.

I'm done here, for real. You've finally admitted you don't care what stats I show from whichever respected experts in the field, you always come back to your FBI report which isn't even comparing something relevant to my argument:
- I'm advocating far stricter controls on gun ownership, which would take decades to come to fruition because of how many guns you guys have already)
- The fundamental basis for your argument is that some crimes went down in states where gun ownership was higher. You dismiss the fact that these were going down despite that.

I don't know how many times I can give you basic statistical lectures or appeal to you with reasoning, because you are clearly impervious to it.

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by Deity Dude


Only if the murderers are the only ones allowed to have guns. What if the person holding the gun is an elderly lady who was about to get raped then stabbed and then robbed. I wouldn't call her a murderer. I'd call her a hero.

You kind of bastardized my example, DD.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Mr Snuggles

I'm done here, for real.

Uh huh - sure you are.

[Asher]

MrFun, have you ever considered making any kind of contribution to this site? So far all it seems you do is perpetuate the flamboyant artsy homosexual stereotype for Wiglaf to make fun of.

[SlowwHand]

Well, this should be interesting. Kind of like an Irish dude lifting another Irish dude's head off the table, and asking basically the same question.

[Asher]

I don't think anyone's ever called me flamboyant or artsy in my life.

[Jon Miller]

He is a Christian homosexual ( ) , which means he adds a demographic group to apolyton.

JM
(I don't know of anyone else)

[Asher]

There's always Ben, too.