Myth #3 - Guns are bad

[downwardspiral 0]

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Myth No. 3 — Guns are Bad

America is notorious for its culture of gun violence. Guns sometimes do cause terrible harm, and many kids are killed every year in gun accidents. But public service announcements and news stories make it seem as if the accidents kill thousands of kids every year.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, however, fewer than 100 kids 15 and under are killed in gun accidents every year. Of course that's horrible, and I understand why demonstrators say we need more gun control.

But guess what? The Centers for Disease Control recently completed a review of studies of various types of gun control: background checks, waiting periods, bans on certain guns and ammunition. It could not document that these rules have reduced violent crime.

The government wants to say things like the Brady Gun Control Law are making a difference, but they aren't. Some maximum security felons I spoke to in New Jersey scoffed at measures like the Brady law. They said they'll have no trouble getting guns if they want them.

A Justice Department study confirmed what the prisoners said. But get this: the felons say that the thing they fear the most is not the police, not time in prison, but, you, another American who might be armed.

It's a reason many states are passing gun un-control. They're allowing citizens to carry guns with them; it's called concealed carry or right to carry. Some women say they're comforted by these laws.

Many people are horrified at the idea of concealed carry laws, and predict mayhem if all states adopt these laws.

But surprise, 36 states already have concealed carry laws, and not one reported an upsurge in gun crime.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/2020/2020/myths_john_stossel_040123-7.html

Anyone have a gun for sale?

Edited to add: Check out the rest of the myths. Its actually very interesting.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/2020/2020/myths_john_stossel_040123-1.html

www.FourWheelerHB.com

[Gawain 0]

No surprise there. Here in SoCal, and not having "in-depth" knowledge of all the "right" people, I could still probably get ahold of a gun in about 30 minutes...despite the laws in place.

So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh
Just to prove I'm alive, and it's alright
'Cause tonight there's a way I'll make light of my treacherous life
Make light!

[sundevil777 102]

[homer simpson voice] But I don't want to wait 5 days, I'm angry now [/end homer voice]

People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

[FallRate 0]

Stossel is a national treasure! I loved it when he interviewed an owner of a pro baseball team (I think it was baseball) who had received a considerable amount of local taxpayer funds to subsidize his struggling new franchise. When Stossel asked the worthless-fat-fucking-rich-asshole-on-welfare about his personal salary of $3,000,000 the guy walked off the set. Priceless!

FallRate

[nbblood 0]

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Anyone have a gun for sale?

From another thread:

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Personally, I have a Federal Firearms License (FFL), a concealed weapons license, a small business dealing in arms, and numerous weapons including, rifles, shotguns, pistols, muzzleloaders, etc.

Answer: Why, yes I do!! PM me if you're really interested.

Oh, and here are my thoughts from the other thread:

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So, IMO, the gun control debate completely avoids the real issue.....crime. ....However, the problem society has is that individuals that have proven they are NOT responsible, often repeatedly, through commission of serious crimes, are turned back onto society with a slap on the wrist that hardly serves as any meaningful correction. Yes, they are often restricted from possessing firearms.....keep in mind they've already proven they DON"T CARE what they are restricted from doing. By restricting firearms you are punishing me......and NOT removing threats, because these criminals continue criminal activity.....they go get another gun anyway. My point.....finally......don't take away my freedom, lifestyle, my PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, to alleviate the problem. Remove the problem....those that have been proven unworthy with stricter and highly enforced punishment for crime.

Nathan

Blues,
Nathan

If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

[quade 4]

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The government wants to say things like the Brady Gun Control Law are making a difference, but they aren't. Some maximum security felons I spoke to in New Jersey scoffed at measures like the Brady law. They said they'll have no trouble getting guns if they want them.

Bull shit.

The Brady Bill was passed in 1993.

Look at these statistics on the US Department of Justice web site:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/guns.htm

Criminals do get guns from family, friends, the street and illegal sources in 80% of crimes. However, gun control -does- have an effect. Especially when you talk about keeping certain types guns off the street. It makes arrests for possession of these types of guns much easier to prosecute and -- bottom line -- reduces the number of bullets in bodies.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[FallRate 0]

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Bull shit.

Should greenies get so worked up?

FallRate

[FallRate 0]

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The Brady Bill was passed in 1993.

Yes, but Stossel states that the Centers for Disease Control has not been able to link firearms restrictions with a decrease in firearms related violence. At least that's how I read it. The point being that from the site you posted there is an obvious decline in the incidence of firearms related violence. But there has been a large increase in the number of concealed carry permits issued in the last ten years and an increase in the number or States that allow it. It could be argued that this is the reason for the decline. In fact, many people do.

FallRate

[quade 4]

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But there has been a large increase in the number of concealed carry permits issued in the last ten years and an increase in the number or States that allow it. It could be argued that this is the reason for the decline. In fact, many people do.

And I would argue that the rate of bullets going into people bodies has decreased -despite- the number of CCs issued.

If you want to check it out, then dig a little deeper into the numbers and see which states have CCs and which don't and which states have had the greatest reductions in gun related crimes.

Further, The Center for Disese Control hasn't found a correlation? Well, geeze, I guess NASA or the Department of Agriculture hasn't found a correlation between the Brady Bill and the decrease in gun related violence either. Big whoop. I think if you look at the Department of Justice, you'll see a pretty damn direct correlation.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[quade 4]

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Should greenies get so worked up?

Worked up? Hey, it's not like I'm goin' Dean on ya.

I just calls 'em likes I see's 'em.

If it looks like bull shit and smells like bull shit, then my guess is it -IS- bull shit. Of course, unlike the Stossel editorial piece, I'm backing my claim up with some facts.

Oh, BTW, don't you know the media is run by the left wing . . . the Stossel piece musta slipped in there by mistake.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[sdgregory 0]

Association vs. Causation. Ever heard of it?

I wrote a paper in college just a couple of years ago showing that there was too many factors to determine which factor caused the decrease in gun related crimes.

Hey in fact I wrote another paper showing the increase in divorced families correlating to the increase of violent crime amongst juveniles. All based on GOVERNMENT statistics from the census bureau and DOJ statistics. I could just as easily wrote one saying the exact opposite I bet. I could have wrote the increase in Oil prices has caused a significant increase in juvenile crime because they cannot afford to drive on dates and now have too much free time. Hey look at Strossel's article, we do have more free time.


But just because the two occur at a similar point in time does not mean that one causes the other.This is what economists call Association vs. Causation.

There are far too many unknowns out there. Hell we could look at the increase in Homeschooling Parents over the past ten years and say that that has caused a significant decrease in the violent crime rate.

Association vs. Causation. Live it, learn it, love it.

All I do know is the I have a constitutional right to bear arms and arm bears. Give me my CCL please. And when ARE we gonna make a firearm that our bears can handle?

[jkm2500 0]

Quade,

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Criminals do get guns from family, friends, the street and illegal sources in 80% of crimes. However, gun control -does- have an effect. Especially when you talk about keeping certain types guns off the street. It makes arrests for possession of these types of guns much easier to prosecute and -- bottom line -- reduces the number of bullets in bodies.

I can understand how this correlation can be made. This is a good point. The fact is, that it is impossible to determine the exact reason that crime fell in the time period. According to the DOJ website it says that there were so many people declined firearms purchases between 1994-1998. Is there a direct correlation in the number of people declined and the number of crimes that werent commited?

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/phc98.pdf This truly shows the breakdown. It does show that there was some illegal gun buyers thwarted by the brady bill. It is effective by not allowing the 2.9% of all background checks to buy a gun that shouldn't have been allowed to purchase a gun anyway. But does it effectively control gun crime? I don't believe so. Would you enforce everyone to get a background check before buying a knife, baseball bat, or any other dangerous item if it reduced the number that could potentially get into the wrong hands to 2.9%? I don't think you would.

What you have failed to do is show me that these people that were declined on the background check going on to commit any crime. Lets get that statistic. That would prove or disprove your theory that there is a direct relationship that the Brady Bill reduces crime.

There is no background check on a stolen or illegally purchased firearm. Maybe we shouldn't call the general public guilty until proven innocent in the case that it stops 2.9% of the people submitting to a background check from purchasing a firearm that they will acquire through other means anyway.

I know that this will offend the liberals out there, but why don't we just enforce the laws that are on the books? Why dont we use the death penalty? Wouldn't that reduce crime effectively?

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Few weapons arrests (an estimated 11%) result in a felony conviction. Some people arrested for weapons offenses are charged with misdemeanors rather than felonies.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/woofcccj.txt

I would like to point out that there are more legal self-defense uses of firearms than people trying to purchase them illegally. Therefore the benefit outweighs the risk. There are approximately 82,500 self-defense uses of firearms every year. There are approximately 69,000 or 2.9% failed attempts to purchase firearms annually.

After all that what do you think has reduced crime? the 82,500 people using firearms to defend themselves, or the 69,000 people that were rejected through the Brady Bill?

One last question, what is the margin of error on these statistics?

The primary purpose of the Armed Forces is to prepare for and to prevail in combat should the need arise.

[quade 4]

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But just because the two occur at a similar point in time does not mean that one causes the other.This is what economists call Association vs. Causation.

Totaly understood. In economics people are usually trying to correlate unrelated terms, so you end up with silly market indexes like [url]http://www.stoxx.com/index.html[url] where, honest god, people invest their hard earned money in the stock market based on european football. Yes, there simply is no real correlation between the two.

However, just because there isn't a correlation between the european football scores and the actual rise and fall of the Dow, doesn't mean that correlations don't exits in the universe.

For instance, if a person eats a LOT of doughnuts that person does tend to gain weight. When that same person stops eating doughnuts and goes on a starvation diet, that person will lose weight.

This is essetially the problem that was addressed with the Brady Bill with regards to guns and gun related crime in the United States. There was a large influx of certain types of weapons and crime was increasing at an alarming rate, Reagan got shot (so did Brady and much worse so), people got scared and finally even strong supporters of the NRA had to take notice. They wrote a bill to eliminate certain types of weapons and almost immediately the crime rates dropped. They've continued to do so year after year.

While, just as with some diets, it's difficult to tell exactly why certain things happen, it's pretty obvious that slowing down the rate of ingestion does help solve the problem.

Is it a complete solution? No. Gun control alone can not solve all the country's crime issues, but it does help -- significantly.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[vonSanta 0]

I always found the gun duscissions to be sorta entertaining.

Both sides erroneously take a fact and claim it to be caused by some thing.

In the process, they ignore all other variables and go on and on about how right they are.

There are way too many factors that needs to be isolated before one can say anything though. if violent crime goes down, it may be attributed to improvign economy, change in attitude, more people in jail, people being fatter and thus not moving around so much or just about anything.

Before a correlation can accurately be made, one should not attempt to call such a thing a fact.

We'd need to do a controlled experiment. A mixed Solomon 4 group and perhaps a MANOVA analysis of the data gathered would be preferrable, so we could establish statistical significance. But experimenting on humans like this would be unethical since the measures that would have to be taken to ensure control over variables would be considered "torture" or "freedom inhibiting" by many.

On the other hand, the US could just invade Denmark, cut it off in two halves and introduce guns in one. Danes are foreigners after all.

And I would really like to be able to carry a handgun, so get to it! And make sure the northern half gets the guns.

Santa Von GrossenArsch
I only come in one flavour
ohwaitthatcanbemisunderst

[kallend 2,067]

How about this one:

Myth No. 6 — Republicans Shrink the Government

Republicans always trot out the slogan that they oppose big government and want to shrink the federal payroll. President Bush tells us that "big government is not the answer." President Reagan told us, "Our government is too big and it spends too much."

But for more than 75 years, no Republican administration has cut the size of government. Since George W. Bush became president, government spending has risen nearly 25 percent.

And the spending increase isn't just tied to the war on terrorism. The Office of Management and Budget says spending at the Environmental Protection Agency is up 12 percent, it's up 14 percent at the Agriculture Department, 30 percent at the Department of the Interior, 64 percent at the Department of Labor, and 70 percent at the Department of Education.

And the pork keeps pouring out. Even the Peanut Festival in Dothan, Ala., got $200,000. Republican congressman Terry Everett got them the money. He wouldn't talk to us about it. But the locals said they like getting your money. "I think it's a waste of money, but if they're going to waste money, I guess it's better to waste it here than anywhere else," one man told me.

Economist Stephen Moore, a Republican, says, "We fought a war against big government and you know what? Big government won."

He noted, "You look at what's happened to the government in the 10 years since the Republicans took control of Congress, the government is twice as big."

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[bill2 0]

Further, The Center for Disese Control hasn't found a correlation? Well, geeze, I guess NASA or the Department of Agriculture hasn't found a correlation between the Brady Bill and the decrease in gun related violence either. Big whoop. I think if you look at the Department of Justice, you'll see a pretty damn direct correlation.
____________________________
The reason that this is brought up is that the CDC has been backing gun control laws for several years, since some of the doctors there say that gun violence is a "disease" and they know how to cure it. Earlier in 2003, the CDC released a study of dozens of other studies about the effectiveness of gun control. The CDC said that after all these years of gun controls, they could not point out that these laws had done anything to reduce gun crime at all.

Also, when you mention the Brady Bill preventing crime, you should keep in mind that the vast majority of those rejected for purchasing a gun, had to do with computer glitches and paperwork errors. The justice dept put out a report saying that of the 100,000 or so "crimes" prevented, over 80,000 had to do with the above mentioned errors. And of the rest, many had to do with people buying guns who had a minor crime committed back when they were very young and not because they were about to or just had committed a murder or other violent felony. Of the total, approximately 100,000, the federal government prosecuted less than a dozen.

As for gun control preventing crime, Prof Gary Kleck of the Florida State Univ, reported that and he was backed up by FL state official statistics, that the homiced dropped rate dropped 20 % after FL passed its right to carry concealed law in the late 80's.

[AndyMan 7]

The gun control laws in the US are some of the weakest in the world. I'm not surprised at all that they've been proved innefective. Maybe if they actually had teeth they would work.

_Am

__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[Jimbo 0]

I don't know how weak the gun control laws are in the US when compared to other modernized countries. Please provide some examples. How are our laws lacking in the teeth?

-
Jim

"Like" - The modern day comma
Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

[Douva 0]

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The Brady Bill was passed in 1993.

Look at these statistics on the US Department of Justice web site:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/guns.htm

Criminals do get guns from family, friends, the street and illegal sources in 80% of crimes. However, gun control -does- have an effect. Especially when you talk about keeping certain types guns off the street. It makes arrests for possession of these types of guns much easier to prosecute and -- bottom line -- reduces the number of bullets in bodies.

Actually, a 2000 study by the American Medical Association showed that the rate of gun crimes dropped just as rapidly in the 18 states that didn't pass the Brady Bill as in the 32 states that did. The correlation between cause an effect can't be inferred.

I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

[Douva 0]

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If you want to check it out, then dig a little deeper into the numbers and see which states have CCs and which don't and which states have had the greatest reductions in gun related crimes.

Are you kidding me? According to the FBI, violent crime rates are 26% higher, homicide rates are 49% higher, robbery rates are 58% higher, and aggravated assault rates are 15% higher in states with strict gun laws. There has been a significant decrease in crime rates in states that have passed concealed carry laws. After passing their concealed carry law, the crime rate in Florida fell from 36% above the national average to 4% below the national average. The crime rate in Texas fell 50% faster than the national average. Again, you can't infer a direct cause/effect correlation between the passing of these laws and the drop in the crime rate, but you certainly can't claim that these laws are causing or perpetuating crime. A 2000 study showed that people with concealed carry permits are 5.6 times LESS likely to be arrested for violent crimes and 13.5 times LESS likely to be arrested for nonviolent offenses than the general public. This is do in great part to the rigorous screening process CHL applicants are put through. As of January 1999, the state of Florida had revoked only 109 of the 551,000 issued concealed carry permits. These permits were not necessarily revoked for violent crimes--Most were revoked because the holder became ineligible to hold the permit do to conviction of nonviolent crimes. If crime rates have fallen faster in any state without a concealed carry law than in a state with a concealed carry law, it is most likely because crime rates in the state without the concealed carry law had a lot further to fall.

I can't believe I actually got drug into one of these DZ.com gun debates. I normally don't even read them, but I watched the 20/20 special last night and was curious what the reaction would be. While I'm here, I'd like to point out one more interesting fact. A recent study of the safest and most dangerous cities in the US found Austin, TX, and San Diego, CA, to be in the top five safest and Dallas, TX, and Los Angeles, CA, to be in the top five most dangerous. Obviously gun control and geography are not the primary determining factors in the safety of a given city.

I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

[freeflir29 0]

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I can't believe I actually got drug into one of these DZ.com gun debates.

[Nelson] HA-HA....[/Nelson]

[Douva 0]

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Further, The Center for Disese Control hasn't found a correlation? Well, geeze, I guess NASA or the Department of Agriculture hasn't found a correlation between the Brady Bill and the decrease in gun related violence either. Big whoop. I think if you look at the Department of Justice, you'll see a pretty damn direct correlation.

This is a pretty naive statement. The CDC does annual studies to determine the leading causes of death throughout the US. If you'd like to present any findings from the DOJ (instead of hypothesizing about what these findings MIGHT show), we'll be happy to review them.

I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

[Douva 0]

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Oh, BTW, don't you know the media is run by the left wing . . . the Stossel piece musta slipped in there by mistake.

If you had actually watched or read the Stossel piece, you would have seen he also tore into the Republican Party for their claims that they create smaller government and less government waste. Personally, I thought it was a pretty balanced piece. He was dispelling myths on all sides.

I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

[Douva 0]

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The Brady Bill was passed in 1993.

As has already been stated, you are making unfounded assumptions about cause and effect. We could just as easily point out that states began issuing Concealed Handgun Licenses at about the same time. The real cause of the drop in gun crimes is a complicated issue that it is thoroughly studied and hotly debated by a lot of people with better access to statistics and a lot more free time than a bunch of politically active skydivers.

I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

[cvfd1399 0]

Yea so bad I have to buy more to punish them! I carried my Sig p220 all day concealed and it felt good. I also sold a bushmaster M4 to support my skydiving habits today. It was a sad day.

Just noticed the word skydiving shows up as misspelled on the spelling list on a skydiving forum