Mass shooting: At Least 11 Shot At Gilroy Garlic Festival

[XponentialChaos]

I already explained the drop. I think it's due to the societal norms that have changed over time, either due to law enforcement or cultural changes. We may be able to find data for that, but in general, I think that statement would be difficult to prove or disprove.

Yes. You assume -something- explains how the dramatic decline of gun-related murders, concurrent with a wholesale in the number of guns does not negate your argument.
That is -you- cannot explain away something that negates your premise, and you know it.
Thus
Your premise, negated..

Comparing gun owner percentage to gun-related homicides without the "noise" of societal changes over time, there is a distinct upward correlation. More guns = more deaths.

You mean, when you take away the inconvenient fact the number of guns has increased while the number of homicides has decreased, more guns = more gun homicides.

Correlation does not imply causation. When dealing with multiple variables, one can come up with any ridiculous argument.

I can just as easily say that gun deaths have decreased by x percent since the movie Lion King came out. Therefore, Lion King reduces deaths. But just like the argument you're making, there is a high possibility of an extraneous variable here - in this case time. To eliminate that possibility, we remove the extraneous variable to better compare the two things that we are truly comparing.

That's what I'm doing. And in doing so, there is a moderate correlation. I realize that you don't want to talk about this because it counters your argument.

 

[Slade3200]

Thanks for sharing... how do you feel about background checks?

To show I am willing to compromise....

I can live with the current background check system, no universal background check.....and the system should simply be a pass/fail, with no permanent record kept....and we can already to this.....you simply submit your name, if it comes back as a criminal or on the nutcase list...fail.....no registration of every single gun owner to do that...we register actual criminals instead. We can already do it.....

Why do you oppose universal? Wouldn’t that be more efficient and effective?

Why do you oppose universal?

useless.

Keeps honest people honest, keeps criminals laughing

Wouldn’t that be more efficient and effective?

How would it be either?

Gangbangers don't worry about background checks

I’m not talking about gang bangers

I’m not talking about gang bangers

oh....

you want universal checks, except for gangbangers?

When are you people going to get in into your little minds, universal isn't going to work?

Nothing is going to work to stop gun violence but a better background check system will help prevent some to get weapons which will result in some prevented gun violence. Some is better than none. Agreed?

 

[XponentialChaos]

Your point has been brought up before. The theory by anti-gun activists is that regardless of those other factors......More Guns = More Gun crime. That is where they hang their hat.

So.....the point they miss, and I think you miss....is that over those 26 years.....whether or not normal people owning guns was a factor in reducing gun crime.....

More Guns in the hands of law abiding people did not increase the gun crime rates...

So over that 26 years.....more Americans own and actually carry guns....17.25 million Americans from about 4 million actually being able to legally carry guns.....and the gun crime rates went still went down.

So the core theory is wrong....More Guns did not = More gun crime.

Now, it is true that various factors made the murder rate go down, more police, smarter police tactics and so on.......but that isn't their argument or their point.......

Also, for one thing........if you are being attacked, and you use a gun to stop the attack....that crime didn't happen to you....

Then, I have actual research from various researchers who state that there is a correlation to decreases in interpersonal crime when more people own and carry guns...for example, there are more home invasions in Britain than here in the U.S....why? When researchers ask criminals in prison, they state they go into empty houses in the U.S. because they don't want to get shot. In Britain, the criminals don't care about people being home, because they don't have guns...and since they don't have guns, they can be tied up and questioned about where their belongings are...

I don't think I got a clear answer so I'll keep this one short and more direct.

I don't want to discuss the 26 year time period, which I consider an extraneous variable.

Removing that variable from the discussion, it's a fact that states with more gun ownership have more gun homicides. Why is that?

It's not even a low correlation. It's a moderate to high correlation. Very distinct.

See post #1464.....

Addressed in #1472.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Less than a third of Americans own a gun. But that's still 100 million, and the average would be that each of them owns three or four. Of course, many own more than that and many own only one, like a handgun for personal protection when out in the city or a shotgun in the closet for when varmints hit the yard.

Damn - we gotta get those numbers up!!

The danger of so many guns is that when one of those 100 million people has a really bad nasty day or goes a little off the wall mentally, all that person has to do is grab the gun and start shooting.

Assuming this is the case for -every- murder committed with a gun...
For every gun used to commit a murder yesterday, >13.6 million were not.

Explain how this justifies your nonsense about how all those guns, for all those reasons, need to be much more strictly limited and handed out much more cautiously

 

[2aguy]

Less than a third of Americans own a gun. But that's still 100 million, and the average would be that each of them owns three or four. Of course, many own more than that and many own only one, like a handgun for personal protection when out in the city or a shotgun in the closet for when varmints hit the yard.

The danger of so many guns is that when one of those 100 million people has a really bad nasty day or goes a little off the wall mentally, all that person has to do is grab the gun and start shooting. That doesn't even take into account pissed off teenagers who feel "dissed" by a FB post or who are challenged to kill a rival gang member to be a big "man." It plays out every day in domestics, in the streets, and we haven't even mentioned criminals who shoot people for hire and use guns to hold up stores etc.
All those guns, for all those reasons, need to be much more strictly limited and handed out much more cautiously.

Except nothing you believe is actually true and did not happen....

Again....you believe that More Guns = More Gun Crime and Gun Murder.....that is what you just posted.

26 years...more Americans now own and actually carry guns.....the first part of your theory More Guns...has happened......

What was the result....

49% gun murder reduction.

75% gun crime reduction.

72% violent crime reduction...

All over the last 26 years....real world experience...

In actual science, when you have a theory, you implement an experiment to test the theory and then the exact opposite of what your theory states happens....in actual science that means you theory is wrong.....

 

[OldLady]

Your comment makes no sense to me. There is nothing crazy about deleting an amendment which is outdated and no longer applies to our society.

There is if you do it right after saying you are not coming for guns.

? I still don't understand what connection you're making that is so damning. But okay.

1. No we are not coming for your guns
2. Let's do away with the 2nd amendment.

Nothing more I can say.

You are oversimplifying and you know it. If the Second Amendment is going to be used as a roadblock toward effective regulation of guns in this country, then it needs to go. If people were willing to accept restrictions on the types of guns and ammunition they could own, the Second wouldn't need to go. But people are not willing to be reasonable in the name of public safety.

What blocking of regulations?

It is already against the law to use a gun in a crime, if you do you can be arrested.

It is already against the law to buy, own or carry a gun as a felon....you will be arrested.

It is already against the law to knowingly sell a gun to a felon...you will be arrested.

Nothing you propose would do anything you say it would do, so why would we want to do it?

And could you explain why you are so admiring of "Gun Registration?" What is it about that word that tickles your fancy so much...since it doesn't do anything you say it does?

You're WAY off base. I said restrictions on the type of guns people could own. That has nothing to do with what you listed.

 

[2aguy]

Less than a third of Americans own a gun. But that's still 100 million, and the average would be that each of them owns three or four. Of course, many own more than that and many own only one, like a handgun for personal protection when out in the city or a shotgun in the closet for when varmints hit the yard.

The danger of so many guns is that when one of those 100 million people has a really bad nasty day or goes a little off the wall mentally, all that person has to do is grab the gun and start shooting. That doesn't even take into account pissed off teenagers who feel "dissed" by a FB post or who are challenged to kill a rival gang member to be a big "man." It plays out every day in domestics, in the streets, and we haven't even mentioned criminals who shoot people for hire and use guns to hold up stores etc.
All those guns, for all those reasons, need to be much more strictly limited and handed out much more cautiously.

They aren't handed out and the people using them to commit murder are already banned from buying, owning and carrying them...and when they are caught with the gun they can already be arrested....

What about that is so hard for you to understand?

What about the fact that Americans use their legal guns to stop violent criminals 1.1 million times a year...according to the Centers for Disease Control.......

 

[OldLady]

Less than a third of Americans own a gun. But that's still 100 million, and the average would be that each of them owns three or four. Of course, many own more than that and many own only one, like a handgun for personal protection when out in the city or a shotgun in the closet for when varmints hit the yard.

The danger of so many guns is that when one of those 100 million people has a really bad nasty day or goes a little off the wall mentally, all that person has to do is grab the gun and start shooting. That doesn't even take into account pissed off teenagers who feel "dissed" by a FB post or who are challenged to kill a rival gang member to be a big "man." It plays out every day in domestics, in the streets, and we haven't even mentioned criminals who shoot people for hire and use guns to hold up stores etc.
All those guns, for all those reasons, need to be much more strictly limited and handed out much more cautiously.

Except nothing you believe is actually true and did not happen....

Again....you believe that More Guns = More Gun Crime and Gun Murder.....that is what you just posted.

26 years...more Americans now own and actually carry guns.....the first part of your theory More Guns...has happened......

What was the result....

49% gun murder reduction.

75% gun crime reduction.

72% violent crime reduction...

All over the last 26 years....real world experience...

In actual science, when you have a theory, you implement an experiment to test the theory and then the exact opposite of what your theory states happens....in actual science that means you theory is wrong.....

Tell me what I said in the post above that is not true.
Tell me what I said in the post above does not happen.

 

[2aguy]

Your point has been brought up before. The theory by anti-gun activists is that regardless of those other factors......More Guns = More Gun crime. That is where they hang their hat.

So.....the point they miss, and I think you miss....is that over those 26 years.....whether or not normal people owning guns was a factor in reducing gun crime.....

More Guns in the hands of law abiding people did not increase the gun crime rates...

So over that 26 years.....more Americans own and actually carry guns....17.25 million Americans from about 4 million actually being able to legally carry guns.....and the gun crime rates went still went down.

So the core theory is wrong....More Guns did not = More gun crime.

Now, it is true that various factors made the murder rate go down, more police, smarter police tactics and so on.......but that isn't their argument or their point.......

Also, for one thing........if you are being attacked, and you use a gun to stop the attack....that crime didn't happen to you....

Then, I have actual research from various researchers who state that there is a correlation to decreases in interpersonal crime when more people own and carry guns...for example, there are more home invasions in Britain than here in the U.S....why? When researchers ask criminals in prison, they state they go into empty houses in the U.S. because they don't want to get shot. In Britain, the criminals don't care about people being home, because they don't have guns...and since they don't have guns, they can be tied up and questioned about where their belongings are...

I don't think I got a clear answer so I'll keep this one short and more direct.

I don't want to discuss the 26 year time period, which I consider an extraneous variable.

Removing that variable from the discussion, it's a fact that states with more gun ownership have more gun homicides. Why is that?

It's not even a low correlation. It's a moderate to high correlation. Very distinct.

That is not a fact....

The reason you want to ignore the 26 year period is because it shows that the claim that more guns = more gun crime did not come true...over 26 years of actual experience....gun murder down 49%, gun crime down 75%, violent crime down 72%....which wouldn't have happened if more guns = more gun crime......

You Know Less Than You Think About Guns

Do Gun Laws Stop Gun Crimes?

The same week Kristof's column came out, National Journal attracted major media attention with a showy piece of research and analysis headlined "The States With The Most Gun Laws See The Fewest Gun-Related Deaths." The subhead lamented: "But there's still little appetite to talk about more restrictions."

Critics quickly noted that the Journal's Libby Isenstein had included suicides among "gun-related deaths" and suicide-irrelevant policies such as stand-your-ground laws among its tally of "gun laws." That meant that high-suicide, low-homicide states such as Wyoming, Alaska, and Idaho were taken to task for their liberal carry-permit policies. Worse, several of the states with what the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence considers terribly lax gun laws were dropped from Isenstein's data set because their murder rates were too low!

Another of National Journal's mistakes is a common one in gun science: The paper didn't look at gun statistics in the context of overall violent crime, a much more relevant measure to the policy debate. After all, if less gun crime doesn't mean less crime overall—if criminals simply substitute other weapons or means when guns are less available—the benefit of the relevant gun laws is thrown into doubt. When Thomas Firey of the Cato Institute ran regressions of Isenstein's study with slightly different specifications and considering all violent crime, each of her effects either disappeared or reversed.

Another recent well-publicized study trying to assert a positive connection between gun laws and public safety was a 2013 JAMA Internal Medicine article by the Harvard pediatrics professor Eric W. Fleegler and his colleagues, called "Firearm Legislation and Firearm-Related Fatalities in the United States." It offered a mostly static comparison of the toughness of state gun laws (as rated by the gun control lobbyists at the Brady Center) with gun deaths from 2007 to 2010.

"States with strictest firearm laws have lowest rates of gun deaths," a Boston Globeheadline then announced. But once again, if you take the simple, obvious step of separating out suicides from murders, the correlations that buttress the supposed causations disappear. As John Hinderaker headlined his reaction at the Power Line blog, "New Study Finds Firearm Laws Do Nothing to Prevent Homicides."

Among other anomalies in Fleegler's research, Hinderaker pointed out that it didn't include Washington, D.C., with its strict gun laws and frequent homicides. If just one weak-gun-law state, Louisiana, were taken out of the equation, "the remaining nine lowest-regulation states have an average gun homicide rate of 2.8 per 100,000, which is 12.5% less than the average of the ten states with the strictest gun control laws," he found.

October interview with Slate and found it wanting: "There have been studies that have essentially toted up the number of laws various states have on the books and examined the association between the number of laws and rates of firearm death," said Wintemute, who is a medical doctor and researcher at the University of California, Davis. "That's really bad science, and it shouldn't inform policymaking."

Wintemute thinks the factor such studies don't adequately consider is the number of people in a state who have guns to begin with, which is generally not known or even well-estimated on levels smaller than national, though researchers have used proxies from subscribers to certain gun-related magazines and percentages of suicides committed with guns to make educated guesses. "Perhaps these laws decrease mortality by decreasing firearm ownership, in which case firearm ownership mediates the association," Wintemute wrote in a 2013 JAMA Internal Medicine paper. "But perhaps, and more plausibly, these laws are more readily enacted in states where the prevalence of firearm ownership is low—there will be less opposition to them—and firearm ownership confounds the association."

------

Would Cracking Down on Guns in the U.S. Really Reduce Violence? , by Robert VerBruggen, National Review

There is actually no simple correlation between states’ homicide rates and their gun-ownership rates or gun laws.
This has been shown numerous times, by different people, using different data sets.

A year ago, I took state gun-ownership levels reported by the Washington Post (based on a Centers for Disease Control survey) and compared them with murder rates from the FBI: no correlation.

The legal scholar Eugene Volokh has compared states’ gun laws (as rated by the anti-gun Brady Campaign) with their murder rates: no correlation.

David Freddoso of the Washington Examiner, a former National Review reporter, failed to find a correlation even between gun ownership in a state and gun murders specifically, an approach that sets aside the issue of whether gun availability has an effect on non-gun crime. (Guns can deter unarmed criminals, for instance, and criminals without guns may simply switch to other weapons.)


, I recently redid my analysis with a few tweaks. Instead of relying on a single year of survey data, I averaged three years. (The CDC survey, the best available for state-level numbers, included data on gun ownership only in 2001, 2002, and 2004. Those were the years I looked at.)

And instead of comparing CDC data with murder rates from a different agency, I relied on the CDC’s own estimates of death by assault in those years. Again: no correlation.

------

Left-leaning media outlets, from Mother Jones to National Journal, get around this absence of correlation by reporting numbers on “gun deaths” rather than gun homicides or homicides in general.
More than 60 percent of gun deaths nationally are suicides, and places with higher gun ownership typically see a higher percentage of their suicides committed with a gun.
Focusing on the number of gun deaths practically guarantees a finding that guns and violence go together. While it may be true that public policy should also seek to reduce suicide, it is homicide — often a dramatic mass killing — that usually prompts the media and politicians to call for gun control, and it is homicide that most influences people as they consider supporting measures to take away their fellow citizens’ access to guns.
There are large gaps among the states when it comes to homicide, with rates ranging all the way from about two to twelve per 100,000 in 2013, the most recent year of data available from the CDC. These disparities show that it’s not just guns that cause the United States to have, on average, a higher rate of homicide than other developed countries do. Not only is there no correlation between gun ownership and overall homicide within a state, but there is a strong correlation between gun homicide and non-gun homicide — suggesting that they spring from similar causes, and that some states are simply more violent than others. A closer look at demographic and geographic patterns provides some clues as to why this is.

It is a fact. I ran the numbers myself. Give me Pearson's correlation coefficient for the numbers and tell me what you come up with. I'm getting 0.698.

Once again, you're giving me a block of text regarding gun crime. I'm not talking about gun crime so I don't see the use in posting or reading those links.

I'm specifically talking about the connection between gun ownership rate vs gun homicides.

Sorry....your stats don't hold up.... again....26 years, more gun ownership.....gun murder down 49%........are you playing the game where you include suicide?

 

[XponentialChaos]

Other researchers have done the same thing and found the opposite....and then you get into the chicken and egg problem.....

Are more people getting legal guns, which are different from criminals getting guns, because of the violent crime...or is gun ownership driving up the gun crime rate....

You have to think, that coming from your thought, that normal people having guns, means they are then using those guns for crime....which doesn't make any sense. Criminals drive the gun crime rate, not normal people.

Here are papers that show that concealed carry permits actually help reduce crime.....not by huge amounts, but they do lower the crime rate....interpersonal crimes...

http://crimeresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Bartley-Cohen-Economic-Inquiry-1998.pdf


The Effect of Concealed Weapons Laws: An Extreme Bound Analysis by William Alan Bartley and Mark A Cohen, published in Economic Inquiry, April 1998 (Copy available here)

.....we find strong support for the hypothesis that the right-to-carry laws are associated with a decrease in the trend in violent crime rates.....

Paper........CCW does not increase police deaths...

http://crimeresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Mustard-JLE-Polic-Deaths-Gun-Control.pdf

This paper uses state-level data from 1984–96 to examine how right-to-carry laws and waiting periods affect the felonious deaths of police. Some people oppose concealed weapons carry laws because they believe these laws jeopardize law enforcement officials, who risk their lives to protect the citizenry. This paper strongly rejects this contention. States that allowed law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons had a slightly higher likelihood of having a felonious police death and slightly higher police death rates prior to the law. After enactment of the right-to-carry laws, states exhibit a reduced likelihood of having a felonious police death rate and slightly lower rates of police deaths. States that implement waiting periods have slightly lower felonious police death rates both before and after the law. Allowing law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons does not endanger the lives of officers and may help reduce their risk of being killed

========

http://johnrlott.tripod.com/tideman.pdf


Does the Right to Carry Concealed Handguns Deter Countable Crimes? Only a Count Analysis Can Say By FLORENZ PLASSMANN AND T. NICOLAUS TIDEMAN, Journal of Law and Economics, October 2001

However, for all three crime categories the levels in years 2 and 3 after adoption of a right-to-carry law are significantly below the levels in the years before the adoption of the law, which suggests that there is generally a deterrent effect and that it takes about 1 year for this effect to emerge.

=======

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/323313

Testing for the Effects of Concealed Weapons Laws: Specification Errors and Robustness*




Carlisle E. Moody
College of William and Mary
Overall, right‐to‐carry concealed weapons laws tend to reduce violent crime. The effect on property crime is more uncertain. I find evidence that these laws also reduce burglary.
====
http://crimeresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Helland-Tabarrok-Placebo-Laws.pdf
Using Placebo Laws to Test “More Guns, Less Crime”∗ Eric Helland and Alexander Tabarrok

We also find, however, that the cross equation restrictions implied by the Lott-Mustard theory are supported.
-----
Surprisingly, therefore, we conclude that there is considerable support for the hypothesis that shall-issue laws cause criminals to substitute away from crimes against persons and towards crimes against property.
===========
http://johnrlott.tripod.com/Maltz.pdf

Right-to-Carry Concealed Weapon Laws and Homicide in Large U.S. Counties: The Effect on Weapon Types, Victim Characteristics, and Victim-Offender Relationships By DAVID E. OLSON AND MICHAEL D. MALTZ, Journal of Law and Economics, October 2001

Our results indicated that the direction of effect of the shall-issue law on total SHR homicide rates was similar to that obtained by Lott and Mustard, although the magnitude of the effect was somewhat smaller and was statistically significant at the 7 percent level. In our analysis, which included only counties with a 1977 population of 100,000 or more, laws allowing for concealed weapons were associated with a 6.52 percent reduction in total homicides (Table 2). By comparison, Lott and Mustard found the concealed weapon dummy variable to be associated with a 7.65 percent reduction in total homicides across all counties and a 9 percent reduction in homicides when only large counties (populations of 100,000 or more) were included.43

===============

This one shows the benefits, in the billions of CCW laws...

http://johnrlott.tripod.com/Plassmann_Whitley.pdf

COMMENTS Confirming ìMore Guns, Less Crimeî Florenz Plassmann* & John Whitley**

CONCLUSION Analyzing county-level data for the entire United States from 1977 to 2000, we find annual reductions in murder rates between 1.5% and 2.3% for each additional year that a right-to-carry law is in effect. For the first five years that such a law is in effect, the total benefit from reduced crimes usually ranges between about $2 and $3 billion per year. The results are very similar to earlier estimates using county-level data from 1977 to 1996. We appreciate the continuing effort that Ayres and Donohue have made in discussing the impact of right-to-carry laws on crime rates. Yet we believe that both the new evidence provided by them as well as our new results show consistently that right-to-carry laws reduce crime and save lives. Unfortunately, a few simple mistakes lead Ayres and Donohue to incorrectly claim that crime rates significantly increase after right-to-carry laws are initially adopted and to misinterpret the significance of their own estimates that examined the year-to-year impact of the law.

=============

http://crimeresearch.org/wp-content...An-Exercise-in-Replication.proof_.revised.pdf

~ The Impact of Right-to-Carry Laws on Crime: An Exercise in Replication1

Carlisle E. Moody College of William and Mary - Department of Economics, Virginia 23187, U.S.A. E-mail: [email protected] Thomas B. Marvell Justec Research, Virginia 23185, U.S.A. Paul R. Zimmerman U.S. Federal Trade Commission - Bureau of Economics, Washington, D.C., U.S.A. Fasil Alemante College of William and Mary, Virginia 23187, U.S.A.


Abstract: In an article published in 2011, Aneja, Donohue and Zhang found that shall-issue or right-to-carry (RTC) concealed weapons laws have no effect on any crime except for a positive effect on assault. This paper reports a replication of their basic findings and some corresponding robustness checks, which reveal a serious omitted variable problem. Once corrected for omitted variables, the most robust result, confirmed using both county and state data, is that RTC laws significantly reduce murder. There is no robust, consistent evidence that RTC laws have any significant effect on other violent crimes, including assault. There is some weak evidence that RTC laws increase robbery and assault while decreasing rape. Given that the victim costs of murder and rape are much higher than the costs of robbery and assault, the evidence shows that RTC laws are socially beneficial.

=======

States with lower guns = higher murder....and assault weapon ban pointless..

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504851.2013.854294

An examination of the effects of concealed weapons laws and assault weapons bans on state-level murder rates
Mark Gius

Abstract
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).





Taking apart ayre and donahue one....




“The Debate on Shall-Issue Laws” by Carlisle e. Moody and Thomas B. Marvell, published in Econ Journal Watch, volume 5, number 3, September 2008 It is also available here..



Abstract
“Shall-issue” laws require authorities to issue concealed-weapons permits to anyone who applies, unless the applicant has a criminal record or a history of mental illness. A large number of studies indicate that shall-issue laws reduce crime. Only one study, an influential paper in the Stanford Law Review (2003) by Ian Ayres and John J. Donohue iii, implies that these laws lead to an increase in crime. We apply an improved version of the Ayres and Donohue method to a more extensive data set. Our analysis, as well as Ayres and Donohue’s when projected beyond a five-year span, indicates that shall-issue laws decrease crime and the costs of crime. Purists in statistical analysis object with some cause to some of methods employed both by Ayres and Donohue and by us. But our paper upgrades Ayres and Donohue, so, until the next study comes along, our paper should neutralize Ayres and Donohue’s “more guns, more crime” conclusion.

Summary and Conclusion Many articles have been published finding that shall-issue laws reduce crime. Only one article, by Ayres and Donohue who employ a model that combines a dummy variable with a post-law trend, claims to find that shall-issue laws increase crime. However, the only way that they can produce the result that shall-issue laws increase crime is to confine the span of analysis to five years. We show, using their own estimates, that if they had extended their analysis by one more year, they would have concluded that these laws reduce crime. Since most states with shallissue laws have had these laws on the books for more than five years, and the law will presumably remain on the books for some time, the only relevant analysis extends beyond five years. We extend their analysis by adding three more years of data, control for the effects of crack cocaine, control for dynamic effects, and correct the standard errors for clustering. We find that there is an initial increase in crime due to passage of the shall-issue law that is dwarfed over time by the decrease in crime associated with the post-law trend. These results are very similar to those of Ayres and Donohue, properly interpreted. The modified Ayres and Donohue model finds that shall-issue laws significantly reduce murder and burglary across all the adopting states. These laws appear to significantly increase assault, and have no net effect on rape, robbery, larceny, or auto theft. However, in the long run only the trend coefficients matter. We estimate a net benefit of $450 million per year as a result of the passage of these laws. We also estimate that, up through 2000, there was a cumulative overall net benefit of these laws of $28 billion since their passage. We think that there is credible statistical evidence that these laws lower the costs of crime. But at the very least, the present study should neutralize any “more guns, more crime” thinking based on Ayres and Donohue’s work in the Stanford Law Review. We acknowledge that, especially in light of the methodological issues of the literature in general, the magnitudes derived from our analysis of crime statistics and the supposed costs of crime might be dwarfed by other considerations in judging the policy issue. Some might contend that allowing individuals to carry a concealed weapon is a moral or cultural bad. Others might contend that greater liberty is a moral or cultural good. All we are confident in saying is that the evidence, such as it is, seems to support the hypothesis that the shall-issue law is generally beneficial with respect to its overall long run effect on crime.

Whoa, that's a lot of text for something I didn't say. I didn't say anything about gun crime rate. I'm specifically linking gun ownership rate to homicides.

It's a fact that these two measures have a moderate to high positive correlation.

Then you have this.....

Notes on the Harvard Injury Control Research Center page on Homicide - Crime Prevention Research Center

The discussion below primarily focuses on a couple problems that are observed over and over again in many public health studies: either they use purely cross-section data or the studies with panel data, which follow many different places over time, fails to use the proper controls that are used in normal academic empirical research.



Across states, more guns = more homicide

Rates of Household Firearm Ownership and Homicide Across US Regions and States, 1988–1997


American Journal of Public Health, December 2002, Vol 92, No. 12

Very basic control variables that they have used in other papers are not used here: No fixed effects for state and year. There is a big benefit to using so-called panel data, where you can more accurately account for differences in crime rates across states or over time. This method is called “fixed effects.” Ask any academic who deals with this type of data, and they will tell you that these are basic controls that all papers in this area account for.

A couple of simple examples show why other studies on crime take into account these factors

Take the differences across places. Many people point out that the UK has both a lower gun ownership rate and a lower homicide rate than the US. Some use this to claim that gun control causes crime rates to fall. But the homicide rate actually went up by 50 percent in the eight years after the 1997 handgun ban went into effect. The homicide rate was still lower than that in the US, but there were lots of reasons it was lower to begin with, not the handgun ban.

The same point applies over time. Suppose a state passes a gun control law at the same time that crime rates are rising nationally. It would be a mistake to attribute the overall increase in national crime rates to the law that got passed. To account for that concern, researchers normally see whether the increase in crime rate for the state that had the change is greater or less than the overall national change.

There are many other strange things about these public health studies. For example, it isn’t obvious why one would want to use homicides, which includes justifiable homicides, and not murders. One expects that were people have guns they might be more likely to have defensive guns uses.
--------
Across states, more guns = more homicide

State-level homicide victimization rates in the US in relation to survey measures of household firearm ownership, 2001–2003

Matthew Miller, David Hemenway, Deborah Azrael

Social Science & Medicine 64 (2007) 656–664

Again purely cross-sectional estimates, not panel data, with all the problems just noted. Very difficult to account for differences across countries.

I'm not claiming that this is true in other countries. I think I ran those numbers once and it was just scattered all over the place. It adds yet another extraneous variable - basically that countries are vastly different in terms of gun-related homicides.

States with higher gun ownership rates tend to have a higher rate of homicides. Why is this?

 

[M14 Shooter]

Correlation does not imply causation. When dealing with multiple variables, one can come up with any ridiculous argument.

The only person arguing correlation of any kind here is you.
I have, several times, posted out a fact that -negates- your claimed correlation.
I realize that you don't want to talk about this because it counters your argument

That's what I'm doing. And in doing so, there is a moderate correlation.

Correlation does not imply causation.
So...?

 

[2aguy]

Less than a third of Americans own a gun. But that's still 100 million, and the average would be that each of them owns three or four. Of course, many own more than that and many own only one, like a handgun for personal protection when out in the city or a shotgun in the closet for when varmints hit the yard.

The danger of so many guns is that when one of those 100 million people has a really bad nasty day or goes a little off the wall mentally, all that person has to do is grab the gun and start shooting. That doesn't even take into account pissed off teenagers who feel "dissed" by a FB post or who are challenged to kill a rival gang member to be a big "man." It plays out every day in domestics, in the streets, and we haven't even mentioned criminals who shoot people for hire and use guns to hold up stores etc.
All those guns, for all those reasons, need to be much more strictly limited and handed out much more cautiously.

Except nothing you believe is actually true and did not happen....

Again....you believe that More Guns = More Gun Crime and Gun Murder.....that is what you just posted.

26 years...more Americans now own and actually carry guns.....the first part of your theory More Guns...has happened......

What was the result....

49% gun murder reduction.

75% gun crime reduction.

72% violent crime reduction...

All over the last 26 years....real world experience...

In actual science, when you have a theory, you implement an experiment to test the theory and then the exact opposite of what your theory states happens....in actual science that means you theory is wrong.....

Tell me what I said in the post above that is not true.
Tell me what I said in the post above does not happen.

What you said isn't true.....I stated your theory, I stated the last 26 years of increasing gun ownership and carrying guns in public, and the exact opposite of what you said would happen happened.

 

[OldLady]

Less than a third of Americans own a gun. But that's still 100 million, and the average would be that each of them owns three or four. Of course, many own more than that and many own only one, like a handgun for personal protection when out in the city or a shotgun in the closet for when varmints hit the yard.

The danger of so many guns is that when one of those 100 million people has a really bad nasty day or goes a little off the wall mentally, all that person has to do is grab the gun and start shooting. That doesn't even take into account pissed off teenagers who feel "dissed" by a FB post or who are challenged to kill a rival gang member to be a big "man." It plays out every day in domestics, in the streets, and we haven't even mentioned criminals who shoot people for hire and use guns to hold up stores etc.
All those guns, for all those reasons, need to be much more strictly limited and handed out much more cautiously.

They aren't handed out and the people using them to commit murder are already banned from buying, owning and carrying them...and when they are caught with the gun they can already be arrested....

What about that is so hard for you to understand?

What about the fact that Americans use their legal guns to stop violent criminals 1.1 million times a year...according to the Centers for Disease Control.......

The Center for Disease Control has been effectively prohibited from conducting any meaningful research on guns in the country for decades. Thanks to folks like you and your handler, the NRA. I don't know what bullshit numbers you are going to quote me now, but I know that for a fact. It doesn't surprise me though that you would tie the truth into a knot and hope to get away with it.

 

[M14 Shooter]

States with higher gun ownership rates tend to have a higher rate of homicides. Why is this?

Dunno. Tell us.

 

[2aguy]

Other researchers have done the same thing and found the opposite....and then you get into the chicken and egg problem.....

Are more people getting legal guns, which are different from criminals getting guns, because of the violent crime...or is gun ownership driving up the gun crime rate....

You have to think, that coming from your thought, that normal people having guns, means they are then using those guns for crime....which doesn't make any sense. Criminals drive the gun crime rate, not normal people.

Here are papers that show that concealed carry permits actually help reduce crime.....not by huge amounts, but they do lower the crime rate....interpersonal crimes...

http://crimeresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Bartley-Cohen-Economic-Inquiry-1998.pdf


The Effect of Concealed Weapons Laws: An Extreme Bound Analysis by William Alan Bartley and Mark A Cohen, published in Economic Inquiry, April 1998 (Copy available here)

.....we find strong support for the hypothesis that the right-to-carry laws are associated with a decrease in the trend in violent crime rates.....

Paper........CCW does not increase police deaths...

http://crimeresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Mustard-JLE-Polic-Deaths-Gun-Control.pdf

This paper uses state-level data from 1984–96 to examine how right-to-carry laws and waiting periods affect the felonious deaths of police. Some people oppose concealed weapons carry laws because they believe these laws jeopardize law enforcement officials, who risk their lives to protect the citizenry. This paper strongly rejects this contention. States that allowed law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons had a slightly higher likelihood of having a felonious police death and slightly higher police death rates prior to the law. After enactment of the right-to-carry laws, states exhibit a reduced likelihood of having a felonious police death rate and slightly lower rates of police deaths. States that implement waiting periods have slightly lower felonious police death rates both before and after the law. Allowing law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons does not endanger the lives of officers and may help reduce their risk of being killed

========

http://johnrlott.tripod.com/tideman.pdf


Does the Right to Carry Concealed Handguns Deter Countable Crimes? Only a Count Analysis Can Say By FLORENZ PLASSMANN AND T. NICOLAUS TIDEMAN, Journal of Law and Economics, October 2001

However, for all three crime categories the levels in years 2 and 3 after adoption of a right-to-carry law are significantly below the levels in the years before the adoption of the law, which suggests that there is generally a deterrent effect and that it takes about 1 year for this effect to emerge.

=======

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/323313

Testing for the Effects of Concealed Weapons Laws: Specification Errors and Robustness*




Carlisle E. Moody
College of William and Mary
Overall, right‐to‐carry concealed weapons laws tend to reduce violent crime. The effect on property crime is more uncertain. I find evidence that these laws also reduce burglary.
====
http://crimeresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Helland-Tabarrok-Placebo-Laws.pdf
Using Placebo Laws to Test “More Guns, Less Crime”∗ Eric Helland and Alexander Tabarrok

We also find, however, that the cross equation restrictions implied by the Lott-Mustard theory are supported.
-----
Surprisingly, therefore, we conclude that there is considerable support for the hypothesis that shall-issue laws cause criminals to substitute away from crimes against persons and towards crimes against property.
===========
http://johnrlott.tripod.com/Maltz.pdf

Right-to-Carry Concealed Weapon Laws and Homicide in Large U.S. Counties: The Effect on Weapon Types, Victim Characteristics, and Victim-Offender Relationships By DAVID E. OLSON AND MICHAEL D. MALTZ, Journal of Law and Economics, October 2001

Our results indicated that the direction of effect of the shall-issue law on total SHR homicide rates was similar to that obtained by Lott and Mustard, although the magnitude of the effect was somewhat smaller and was statistically significant at the 7 percent level. In our analysis, which included only counties with a 1977 population of 100,000 or more, laws allowing for concealed weapons were associated with a 6.52 percent reduction in total homicides (Table 2). By comparison, Lott and Mustard found the concealed weapon dummy variable to be associated with a 7.65 percent reduction in total homicides across all counties and a 9 percent reduction in homicides when only large counties (populations of 100,000 or more) were included.43

===============

This one shows the benefits, in the billions of CCW laws...

http://johnrlott.tripod.com/Plassmann_Whitley.pdf

COMMENTS Confirming ìMore Guns, Less Crimeî Florenz Plassmann* & John Whitley**

CONCLUSION Analyzing county-level data for the entire United States from 1977 to 2000, we find annual reductions in murder rates between 1.5% and 2.3% for each additional year that a right-to-carry law is in effect. For the first five years that such a law is in effect, the total benefit from reduced crimes usually ranges between about $2 and $3 billion per year. The results are very similar to earlier estimates using county-level data from 1977 to 1996. We appreciate the continuing effort that Ayres and Donohue have made in discussing the impact of right-to-carry laws on crime rates. Yet we believe that both the new evidence provided by them as well as our new results show consistently that right-to-carry laws reduce crime and save lives. Unfortunately, a few simple mistakes lead Ayres and Donohue to incorrectly claim that crime rates significantly increase after right-to-carry laws are initially adopted and to misinterpret the significance of their own estimates that examined the year-to-year impact of the law.

=============

http://crimeresearch.org/wp-content...An-Exercise-in-Replication.proof_.revised.pdf

~ The Impact of Right-to-Carry Laws on Crime: An Exercise in Replication1

Carlisle E. Moody College of William and Mary - Department of Economics, Virginia 23187, U.S.A. E-mail: [email protected] Thomas B. Marvell Justec Research, Virginia 23185, U.S.A. Paul R. Zimmerman U.S. Federal Trade Commission - Bureau of Economics, Washington, D.C., U.S.A. Fasil Alemante College of William and Mary, Virginia 23187, U.S.A.


Abstract: In an article published in 2011, Aneja, Donohue and Zhang found that shall-issue or right-to-carry (RTC) concealed weapons laws have no effect on any crime except for a positive effect on assault. This paper reports a replication of their basic findings and some corresponding robustness checks, which reveal a serious omitted variable problem. Once corrected for omitted variables, the most robust result, confirmed using both county and state data, is that RTC laws significantly reduce murder. There is no robust, consistent evidence that RTC laws have any significant effect on other violent crimes, including assault. There is some weak evidence that RTC laws increase robbery and assault while decreasing rape. Given that the victim costs of murder and rape are much higher than the costs of robbery and assault, the evidence shows that RTC laws are socially beneficial.

=======

States with lower guns = higher murder....and assault weapon ban pointless..

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504851.2013.854294

An examination of the effects of concealed weapons laws and assault weapons bans on state-level murder rates
Mark Gius

Abstract
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).





Taking apart ayre and donahue one....




“The Debate on Shall-Issue Laws” by Carlisle e. Moody and Thomas B. Marvell, published in Econ Journal Watch, volume 5, number 3, September 2008 It is also available here..



Abstract
“Shall-issue” laws require authorities to issue concealed-weapons permits to anyone who applies, unless the applicant has a criminal record or a history of mental illness. A large number of studies indicate that shall-issue laws reduce crime. Only one study, an influential paper in the Stanford Law Review (2003) by Ian Ayres and John J. Donohue iii, implies that these laws lead to an increase in crime. We apply an improved version of the Ayres and Donohue method to a more extensive data set. Our analysis, as well as Ayres and Donohue’s when projected beyond a five-year span, indicates that shall-issue laws decrease crime and the costs of crime. Purists in statistical analysis object with some cause to some of methods employed both by Ayres and Donohue and by us. But our paper upgrades Ayres and Donohue, so, until the next study comes along, our paper should neutralize Ayres and Donohue’s “more guns, more crime” conclusion.

Summary and Conclusion Many articles have been published finding that shall-issue laws reduce crime. Only one article, by Ayres and Donohue who employ a model that combines a dummy variable with a post-law trend, claims to find that shall-issue laws increase crime. However, the only way that they can produce the result that shall-issue laws increase crime is to confine the span of analysis to five years. We show, using their own estimates, that if they had extended their analysis by one more year, they would have concluded that these laws reduce crime. Since most states with shallissue laws have had these laws on the books for more than five years, and the law will presumably remain on the books for some time, the only relevant analysis extends beyond five years. We extend their analysis by adding three more years of data, control for the effects of crack cocaine, control for dynamic effects, and correct the standard errors for clustering. We find that there is an initial increase in crime due to passage of the shall-issue law that is dwarfed over time by the decrease in crime associated with the post-law trend. These results are very similar to those of Ayres and Donohue, properly interpreted. The modified Ayres and Donohue model finds that shall-issue laws significantly reduce murder and burglary across all the adopting states. These laws appear to significantly increase assault, and have no net effect on rape, robbery, larceny, or auto theft. However, in the long run only the trend coefficients matter. We estimate a net benefit of $450 million per year as a result of the passage of these laws. We also estimate that, up through 2000, there was a cumulative overall net benefit of these laws of $28 billion since their passage. We think that there is credible statistical evidence that these laws lower the costs of crime. But at the very least, the present study should neutralize any “more guns, more crime” thinking based on Ayres and Donohue’s work in the Stanford Law Review. We acknowledge that, especially in light of the methodological issues of the literature in general, the magnitudes derived from our analysis of crime statistics and the supposed costs of crime might be dwarfed by other considerations in judging the policy issue. Some might contend that allowing individuals to carry a concealed weapon is a moral or cultural bad. Others might contend that greater liberty is a moral or cultural good. All we are confident in saying is that the evidence, such as it is, seems to support the hypothesis that the shall-issue law is generally beneficial with respect to its overall long run effect on crime.

Whoa, that's a lot of text for something I didn't say. I didn't say anything about gun crime rate. I'm specifically linking gun ownership rate to homicides.

It's a fact that these two measures have a moderate to high positive correlation.

Then you have this.....

Notes on the Harvard Injury Control Research Center page on Homicide - Crime Prevention Research Center

The discussion below primarily focuses on a couple problems that are observed over and over again in many public health studies: either they use purely cross-section data or the studies with panel data, which follow many different places over time, fails to use the proper controls that are used in normal academic empirical research.



Across states, more guns = more homicide

Rates of Household Firearm Ownership and Homicide Across US Regions and States, 1988–1997


American Journal of Public Health, December 2002, Vol 92, No. 12

Very basic control variables that they have used in other papers are not used here: No fixed effects for state and year. There is a big benefit to using so-called panel data, where you can more accurately account for differences in crime rates across states or over time. This method is called “fixed effects.” Ask any academic who deals with this type of data, and they will tell you that these are basic controls that all papers in this area account for.

A couple of simple examples show why other studies on crime take into account these factors

Take the differences across places. Many people point out that the UK has both a lower gun ownership rate and a lower homicide rate than the US. Some use this to claim that gun control causes crime rates to fall. But the homicide rate actually went up by 50 percent in the eight years after the 1997 handgun ban went into effect. The homicide rate was still lower than that in the US, but there were lots of reasons it was lower to begin with, not the handgun ban.

The same point applies over time. Suppose a state passes a gun control law at the same time that crime rates are rising nationally. It would be a mistake to attribute the overall increase in national crime rates to the law that got passed. To account for that concern, researchers normally see whether the increase in crime rate for the state that had the change is greater or less than the overall national change.

There are many other strange things about these public health studies. For example, it isn’t obvious why one would want to use homicides, which includes justifiable homicides, and not murders. One expects that were people have guns they might be more likely to have defensive guns uses.
--------
Across states, more guns = more homicide

State-level homicide victimization rates in the US in relation to survey measures of household firearm ownership, 2001–2003

Matthew Miller, David Hemenway, Deborah Azrael

Social Science & Medicine 64 (2007) 656–664

Again purely cross-sectional estimates, not panel data, with all the problems just noted. Very difficult to account for differences across countries.

I'm not claiming that this is true in other countries. I think I ran those numbers once and it was just scattered all over the place. It adds yet another extraneous variable - basically that countries are vastly different in terms of gun-related homicides.

States with higher gun ownership rates tend to have a higher rate of homicides. Why is this?

Sorry.....even if that was true, criminals use illegal guns to kill people, normal people do not use their guns to kill people...you can't get away from the other factors that you are trying to ignore..... sentencing of gun offenders..... out of wedlock birth rates.....factors you are not considering because they explain murder more than normal people and their access to guns.

 

[M14 Shooter]

The Center for Disease Control has been effectively prohibited from conducting any meaningful research on guns in the country for decades.

Someone lied to you - the CDC has -all kinds- of information and research regarding gun violence.

 

[Auld Phart]

To show I am willing to compromise....

I can live with the current background check system, no universal background check.....and the system should simply be a pass/fail, with no permanent record kept....and we can already to this.....you simply submit your name, if it comes back as a criminal or on the nutcase list...fail.....no registration of every single gun owner to do that...we register actual criminals instead. We can already do it.....

Why do you oppose universal? Wouldn’t that be more efficient and effective?

Why do you oppose universal?

useless.

Keeps honest people honest, keeps criminals laughing

Wouldn’t that be more efficient and effective?

How would it be either?

Gangbangers don't worry about background checks

I’m not talking about gang bangers

I’m not talking about gang bangers

oh....

you want universal checks, except for gangbangers?

When are you people going to get in into your little minds, universal isn't going to work?

Nothing is going to work to stop gun violence but a better background check system will help prevent some to get weapons which will result in some prevented gun violence. Some is better than none. Agreed?

but a better background check system

Support the one in place, first.

Someone lies on the Form 4473, call the cops, 30 days minimum.

Catch a straw buyer?

a year in jail, minimum.

Enforce current laws on the books before making new ones.

 

[XponentialChaos]

Your point has been brought up before. The theory by anti-gun activists is that regardless of those other factors......More Guns = More Gun crime. That is where they hang their hat.

So.....the point they miss, and I think you miss....is that over those 26 years.....whether or not normal people owning guns was a factor in reducing gun crime.....

More Guns in the hands of law abiding people did not increase the gun crime rates...

So over that 26 years.....more Americans own and actually carry guns....17.25 million Americans from about 4 million actually being able to legally carry guns.....and the gun crime rates went still went down.

So the core theory is wrong....More Guns did not = More gun crime.

Now, it is true that various factors made the murder rate go down, more police, smarter police tactics and so on.......but that isn't their argument or their point.......

Also, for one thing........if you are being attacked, and you use a gun to stop the attack....that crime didn't happen to you....

Then, I have actual research from various researchers who state that there is a correlation to decreases in interpersonal crime when more people own and carry guns...for example, there are more home invasions in Britain than here in the U.S....why? When researchers ask criminals in prison, they state they go into empty houses in the U.S. because they don't want to get shot. In Britain, the criminals don't care about people being home, because they don't have guns...and since they don't have guns, they can be tied up and questioned about where their belongings are...

I don't think I got a clear answer so I'll keep this one short and more direct.

I don't want to discuss the 26 year time period, which I consider an extraneous variable.

Removing that variable from the discussion, it's a fact that states with more gun ownership have more gun homicides. Why is that?

It's not even a low correlation. It's a moderate to high correlation. Very distinct.

That is not a fact....

The reason you want to ignore the 26 year period is because it shows that the claim that more guns = more gun crime did not come true...over 26 years of actual experience....gun murder down 49%, gun crime down 75%, violent crime down 72%....which wouldn't have happened if more guns = more gun crime......

You Know Less Than You Think About Guns

Do Gun Laws Stop Gun Crimes?

The same week Kristof's column came out, National Journal attracted major media attention with a showy piece of research and analysis headlined "The States With The Most Gun Laws See The Fewest Gun-Related Deaths." The subhead lamented: "But there's still little appetite to talk about more restrictions."

Critics quickly noted that the Journal's Libby Isenstein had included suicides among "gun-related deaths" and suicide-irrelevant policies such as stand-your-ground laws among its tally of "gun laws." That meant that high-suicide, low-homicide states such as Wyoming, Alaska, and Idaho were taken to task for their liberal carry-permit policies. Worse, several of the states with what the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence considers terribly lax gun laws were dropped from Isenstein's data set because their murder rates were too low!

Another of National Journal's mistakes is a common one in gun science: The paper didn't look at gun statistics in the context of overall violent crime, a much more relevant measure to the policy debate. After all, if less gun crime doesn't mean less crime overall—if criminals simply substitute other weapons or means when guns are less available—the benefit of the relevant gun laws is thrown into doubt. When Thomas Firey of the Cato Institute ran regressions of Isenstein's study with slightly different specifications and considering all violent crime, each of her effects either disappeared or reversed.

Another recent well-publicized study trying to assert a positive connection between gun laws and public safety was a 2013 JAMA Internal Medicine article by the Harvard pediatrics professor Eric W. Fleegler and his colleagues, called "Firearm Legislation and Firearm-Related Fatalities in the United States." It offered a mostly static comparison of the toughness of state gun laws (as rated by the gun control lobbyists at the Brady Center) with gun deaths from 2007 to 2010.

"States with strictest firearm laws have lowest rates of gun deaths," a Boston Globeheadline then announced. But once again, if you take the simple, obvious step of separating out suicides from murders, the correlations that buttress the supposed causations disappear. As John Hinderaker headlined his reaction at the Power Line blog, "New Study Finds Firearm Laws Do Nothing to Prevent Homicides."

Among other anomalies in Fleegler's research, Hinderaker pointed out that it didn't include Washington, D.C., with its strict gun laws and frequent homicides. If just one weak-gun-law state, Louisiana, were taken out of the equation, "the remaining nine lowest-regulation states have an average gun homicide rate of 2.8 per 100,000, which is 12.5% less than the average of the ten states with the strictest gun control laws," he found.

October interview with Slate and found it wanting: "There have been studies that have essentially toted up the number of laws various states have on the books and examined the association between the number of laws and rates of firearm death," said Wintemute, who is a medical doctor and researcher at the University of California, Davis. "That's really bad science, and it shouldn't inform policymaking."

Wintemute thinks the factor such studies don't adequately consider is the number of people in a state who have guns to begin with, which is generally not known or even well-estimated on levels smaller than national, though researchers have used proxies from subscribers to certain gun-related magazines and percentages of suicides committed with guns to make educated guesses. "Perhaps these laws decrease mortality by decreasing firearm ownership, in which case firearm ownership mediates the association," Wintemute wrote in a 2013 JAMA Internal Medicine paper. "But perhaps, and more plausibly, these laws are more readily enacted in states where the prevalence of firearm ownership is low—there will be less opposition to them—and firearm ownership confounds the association."

------

Would Cracking Down on Guns in the U.S. Really Reduce Violence? , by Robert VerBruggen, National Review

There is actually no simple correlation between states’ homicide rates and their gun-ownership rates or gun laws.
This has been shown numerous times, by different people, using different data sets.

A year ago, I took state gun-ownership levels reported by the Washington Post (based on a Centers for Disease Control survey) and compared them with murder rates from the FBI: no correlation.

The legal scholar Eugene Volokh has compared states’ gun laws (as rated by the anti-gun Brady Campaign) with their murder rates: no correlation.

David Freddoso of the Washington Examiner, a former National Review reporter, failed to find a correlation even between gun ownership in a state and gun murders specifically, an approach that sets aside the issue of whether gun availability has an effect on non-gun crime. (Guns can deter unarmed criminals, for instance, and criminals without guns may simply switch to other weapons.)


, I recently redid my analysis with a few tweaks. Instead of relying on a single year of survey data, I averaged three years. (The CDC survey, the best available for state-level numbers, included data on gun ownership only in 2001, 2002, and 2004. Those were the years I looked at.)

And instead of comparing CDC data with murder rates from a different agency, I relied on the CDC’s own estimates of death by assault in those years. Again: no correlation.

------

Left-leaning media outlets, from Mother Jones to National Journal, get around this absence of correlation by reporting numbers on “gun deaths” rather than gun homicides or homicides in general.
More than 60 percent of gun deaths nationally are suicides, and places with higher gun ownership typically see a higher percentage of their suicides committed with a gun.
Focusing on the number of gun deaths practically guarantees a finding that guns and violence go together. While it may be true that public policy should also seek to reduce suicide, it is homicide — often a dramatic mass killing — that usually prompts the media and politicians to call for gun control, and it is homicide that most influences people as they consider supporting measures to take away their fellow citizens’ access to guns.
There are large gaps among the states when it comes to homicide, with rates ranging all the way from about two to twelve per 100,000 in 2013, the most recent year of data available from the CDC. These disparities show that it’s not just guns that cause the United States to have, on average, a higher rate of homicide than other developed countries do. Not only is there no correlation between gun ownership and overall homicide within a state, but there is a strong correlation between gun homicide and non-gun homicide — suggesting that they spring from similar causes, and that some states are simply more violent than others. A closer look at demographic and geographic patterns provides some clues as to why this is.

It is a fact. I ran the numbers myself. Give me Pearson's correlation coefficient for the numbers and tell me what you come up with. I'm getting 0.698.

Once again, you're giving me a block of text regarding gun crime. I'm not talking about gun crime so I don't see the use in posting or reading those links.

I'm specifically talking about the connection between gun ownership rate vs gun homicides.

Sorry....your stats don't hold up.... again....26 years, more gun ownership.....gun murder down 49%........are you playing the game where you include suicide?

If you don't think the numbers hold up, then run the number yourself and let me know what you get. The numbers obtained are from the following links:

What Is Gun Ownership Like on a State by State Basis?
Firearm death rates in the United States by state - Wikipedia

Sorry, I was unclear with the measure I was using. I'm looking at "overall firearm death rates", which includes suicide, self-defense, and accidents.

 

[2aguy]

Less than a third of Americans own a gun. But that's still 100 million, and the average would be that each of them owns three or four. Of course, many own more than that and many own only one, like a handgun for personal protection when out in the city or a shotgun in the closet for when varmints hit the yard.

The danger of so many guns is that when one of those 100 million people has a really bad nasty day or goes a little off the wall mentally, all that person has to do is grab the gun and start shooting. That doesn't even take into account pissed off teenagers who feel "dissed" by a FB post or who are challenged to kill a rival gang member to be a big "man." It plays out every day in domestics, in the streets, and we haven't even mentioned criminals who shoot people for hire and use guns to hold up stores etc.
All those guns, for all those reasons, need to be much more strictly limited and handed out much more cautiously.

They aren't handed out and the people using them to commit murder are already banned from buying, owning and carrying them...and when they are caught with the gun they can already be arrested....

What about that is so hard for you to understand?

What about the fact that Americans use their legal guns to stop violent criminals 1.1 million times a year...according to the Centers for Disease Control.......

The Center for Disease Control has been effectively prohibited from conducting any meaningful research on guns in the country for decades. Thanks to folks like you and your handler, the NRA. I don't know what bullshit numbers you are going to quote me now, but I know that for a fact. It doesn't surprise me though that you would tie the truth into a knot and hope to get away with it.

Wrong.....that is the lie anti-gunners tell you...it is not true...

Oh, yeah......you can't explain why your theory over the last 26 years is wrong....so now you toss out the "NRA" card.....and call research from the CDC bullshit because it contradicts what you believe....

No, The Government Is Not 'Banned' From Studying Gun Violence

Absolutely nothing in the amendment prohibits the CDC from studying “gun violence,” even if this narrowly focused topic tells us little. In response to this inconvenient fact, gun controllers will explain that while there isn’t an outright ban, the Dickey amendment has a “chilling” effect on the study of gun violence.


Does it? Pointing out that “research plummeted after the 1996 ban” could just as easily tell us that most research funded by the CDC had been politically motivated. Because the idea that the CDC, whose spectacular mission creep has taken it from its primary goal of preventing malaria and other dangerous communicable diseases, to spending hundreds of millions of dollars nagging you about how much salt you put on your steaks or how often you do calisthenics, is nervous about the repercussions of engaging in non-partisan research is hard to believe.

Also unlikely is the notion that a $2.6 million cut in funding so horrified the agency that it was rendered powerless to pay for or conduct studies on gun violence. The CDC funding tripled from 1996 to 2010. The CDC’s budget is over six billion dollars today.

And the idea that the CDC was paralyzed through two-years of full Democratic Party control, and then six years under a president who was more antagonistic towards the Second Amendment than any other in history, is difficult to believe, because it’s provably false.

In 2013, President Barack Obama not only signed an Executive Order directing the CDC to research “gun violence,” the administration also provided an additional $10 million to do it. Here is the study on gun violence that was supposedly banned and yet funded by the CDC. You might not have heard about the resulting research, because it contains numerous inconvenient facts about gun ownership that fails to propel the predetermined narrative. Trump’s HHS Secretary Alex Azar is also open to the idea of funding more gun violence research.

It’s not banned. It’s not chilled.

Meanwhile, numerous states and private entities fund peer-reviewed studies and other research on gun violence. I know this because gun control advocates are constantly sending me studies that distort and conflate issues to help them make their arguments. My inbox is bombarded with studies and conferences and “webinars” dissecting gun violence.

The real problem here is two-fold. One, researchers want the CDC involved so they can access government data about American gun owners. Considering the rhetoric coming from Democrats — gun ownership being tantamount to terrorism, and so on — there’s absolutely no reason Republicans should acquiesce to helping gun controllers circumvent the privacy of Americans citizens peacefully practicing their Constitutional rights.

Second, gun control advocates want to lift the ban on politically skewed research because they’re interested in producing politically skewed research. When the American Medical Association declares gun violence a “public health crisis,” it’s not interested in a balance look at the issue. When researchers advocate lifting the restrictions on advocacy at the CDC, they don’t even pretend they not to hold pre-conceived notions about the outcomes.

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There’s no reason to allow activists — then or now — to use the veneer of state-sanctioned science for their partisan purposes. For example, we now know that Rosenberg and others at the CDC turned out to be wrong about the correlation between guns and crime — a steep drop in gun crimes coincided with the explosions of gun ownership from 1996 to 2014.

 

[OldLady]

Less than a third of Americans own a gun. But that's still 100 million, and the average would be that each of them owns three or four. Of course, many own more than that and many own only one, like a handgun for personal protection when out in the city or a shotgun in the closet for when varmints hit the yard.

The danger of so many guns is that when one of those 100 million people has a really bad nasty day or goes a little off the wall mentally, all that person has to do is grab the gun and start shooting. That doesn't even take into account pissed off teenagers who feel "dissed" by a FB post or who are challenged to kill a rival gang member to be a big "man." It plays out every day in domestics, in the streets, and we haven't even mentioned criminals who shoot people for hire and use guns to hold up stores etc.
All those guns, for all those reasons, need to be much more strictly limited and handed out much more cautiously.

Except nothing you believe is actually true and did not happen....

Again....you believe that More Guns = More Gun Crime and Gun Murder.....that is what you just posted.

26 years...more Americans now own and actually carry guns.....the first part of your theory More Guns...has happened......

What was the result....

49% gun murder reduction.

75% gun crime reduction.

72% violent crime reduction...

All over the last 26 years....real world experience...

In actual science, when you have a theory, you implement an experiment to test the theory and then the exact opposite of what your theory states happens....in actual science that means you theory is wrong.....

Tell me what I said in the post above that is not true.
Tell me what I said in the post above does not happen.

What you said isn't true.....I stated your theory, I stated the last 26 years of increasing gun ownership and carrying guns in public, and the exact opposite of what you said would happen happened.

Well don't say I'm stating things that aren't true when I didn't say a single thing in that post that wasn't true. If you knew what a "theory" was, you wouldn't say it wasn't true, since theories have not been proven. I am thinking that much stricter regulation on guns would cut way back on gun homicides because it has worked in every other country in the world where it has been used.