This website "suggests" gun death rates are lowest where gun laws are stricter.

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BringHomeTheBacon

BringHomeTheBacon

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https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/strictest-gun-laws-by-state

It just talks about "gun deaths" and so-called "gun violence". It doesn't distinguish gun deaths by categories:

Firearms-related deaths attributed to:

1. criminal or terrorist acts
2. insanity
3. suicide
4. law enforcement operations
5. lawful self-defense or defense of others
6. unintended discharges
7. firearms malfunctions, ammo defects
8. hunting accidents
9. state executions by firing squad
10. military operations/acts of war
11. rioting/civil unrest
12. other gun-related fatalities


I do believe violent/threatening criminal activity is more greatly deterred in states with few if any gun restrictions. Certainly, California, Illinois, Washington, DC and New York has a lot more violent crime per capita than Idaho, Mississippi, Montana or Oklahoma. I would be scared chitless to even dream about holding up a bank or a liquor store in a Red pro-gun state.
 
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Redcon 1 has a chart of "homicides".

Are all these so-called "homicides" unlawful human killings (murders)? Are there any JUSTIFIABLE homicides included? I would have to venture to say the overwhelming majority of California and New York homicides were unlawful killings. I wouldn't be surprised if a good percentage of Texas homicides were justifiable. Also, HOMICIDES can occur by guns or even OTHER means.
 
This is probably because the vast majority of gun deaths (at least in the US) are suicides.

Gun control advocates like to say limiting access to guns will prevent suicides and use that to justify their inclusion in the numbers.

however the suicide rate in the US is within 1% of Finland, Japan, Botswana, Croatia and Hungry. Guns are not the common denominator between these countries and they have wildly different amounts and types of gun control across the sampling.

so yeah there is always some nuance to the numbers.
 
We shouldn't deal in feelings or bad data.

All violent deaths have to be parsed for means of death in detail and have to be expressed as rates instead of counts. In the USA the rate of murders is greater with knives, or clubs, or hands/feet than with all long guns. The rate of suicides should be parsed from all violent deaths. The rate of deaths due to LE shootings should be parsed into its own category. The rate of deaths due to justifiable shootings needs to be in its own.
 
BringHomeTheBacon said:
I do believe violent/threatening criminal activity is more greatly deterred in states with few if any gun restrictions.
Click to expand...

Not the case. Our wishful thinking along those lines isn't borne out by the data, but neither is the Anti position that restrictions reduce firearms deaths and injuries. What we find is that there is no correlation. We find states with few restrictions on gun ownership and carry that have rates of death higher or lower than other states with similar restrictions and higher or lower than various states with more restrictions. The comparisons are all over the map (literally and figuratively). This lack of correlation disproves both arguments. Neither restrictive nor liberal state rules on firearms make a clear difference and therefore restrictions are not going to solve the problem of deaths due to violence because they don't address the root cause in the societies and cultures.
 
I personally feel safer in jurisdictions with little or no gun control laws in spite of what is reported in the press and in spite of whatever numbers are on any chart. I certainly believe in what Gun Owners of America has to say over what the antis say.
 
Remember that GOA is an advocacy group, not the Cato Institute. When data is scattershot across the nation it argues against drawing conclusions, not for drawing conclusions. The conclusion that there's no relationship is a huge plus for us and against antis.
 
Oh there is so much nuance here I just want to lay into but it's so difficult because it's ya know nuanced. It really depends on specifically how you phrase the question.

For instance you could say "there is not a consistent correlation between stricter gun laws and violent crime rates" and that would be true. But you could also say "In the United States zip codes with hire rates of legal gun ownership tend to have lower overall crime rates." and that would also be true. But you could also say "In the United States zip codes with a hire rate of wealthy married caucasian conservatives also tend to have a hire rate of legal fire arms ownership."

you see how depending on how you decide to word the question you can basically target your desired outcome? This is why whenever you see a sweeping statement as a headline be skeptical and wonder if the question that was asked was as sweeping as the headline.
 
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hso said:
All violent deaths have to be parsed for means of death in detail and have to be expressed as rates instead of counts.
Click to expand...
No they don't. Raw numbers are a completely valid statistic and it is also valid to discuss raw numbers in individual cities as well as rates in individual cities. Limiting our analysis to a comparison of statewide rates limits our ability to honestly assess the efficacy of our interventions. Looking at individual city rates and raw numbers gives us a more accurate assessment of whether or not our gun control laws or lack of gun control laws are actually correlated with decreasing or increasing homicide rates. when we look at statewide rates only, it may appear that one state with strong gun control laws is safer but when you look at the places where the homicides are actually occurring in that state, you see that that is not the case. Look at Baltimore for example. Maryland is known to have extremely strict gun control laws and the Giffords people would have us believe, based on Maryland's statewide homicide rate, that their gun laws are proof that gun control laws are effective but if you look at the place in Maryland where most of the homicides occur, Baltimore, it's clear, there's no correlation between homicides and gun control laws. Baltimore had 348 homicides of Maryland's 542 homicides in 2019. So 64% of Maryland's 2019 homicides occurred in this one city which only represents ~10% of Maryland's overall population. Would anybody argue that Baltimore is an extremely safe city? So clearly we need to be looking at Baltimore, not at Maryland if we're going to draw conclusions about the actual effectiveness of Maryland's gun control laws and if we're going to use those conclusions to justify national level gun control measures.

The fact is, the pertinent statistics are buried deeply and creatively hidden from us by google and our government and various social media sites and their BS statistics are spoon fed to us for breakfast, lunch and dinner day in and day out in order to promote the false narrative that we'll all be safer if only we adopt strict gun control laws just like Maryland and California. And when the time comes for them to disarm us, you can bet they will be using these bogus statistics to justify it. It is a mass deception that would certainly impress Joseph Goebbels.
 
redcon1 said:
the pertinent statistics are buried deeply
Click to expand...
Which is why websites and social media can't be the sources we cite. They're going to have spin. We must dig deeper into the source material and put the work in to find out what the reality is. We also have to admit our own bias and work to set it aside and let the data take us where it leads instead of "putting our thumb on the scale".
 
redcon1 said:
No they don't. Raw numbers are a completely valid statistic and it is also valid to discuss raw numbers in individual cities as well as rates in individual cities. Limiting our analysis to a comparison of statewide rates limits our ability to honestly assess the efficacy of our interventions. Looking at individual city rates and raw numbers gives us a more accurate assessment of whether or not our gun control laws or lack of gun control laws are actually correlated with decreasing or increasing homicide rates. when we look at statewide rates only, it may appear that one state with strong gun control laws is safer but when you look at the places where the homicides are actually occurring in that state, you see that that is not the case. Look at Baltimore for example. Maryland is known to have extremely strict gun control laws and the Giffords people would have us believe, based on Maryland's statewide homicide rate, that their gun laws are proof that gun control laws are effective but if you look at the place in Maryland where most of the homicides occur, Baltimore, it's clear, there's no correlation between homicides and gun control laws. Baltimore had 348 homicides of Maryland's 542 homicides in 2019. So 64% of Maryland's 2019 homicides occurred in this one city which only represents ~10% of Maryland's overall population. Would anybody argue that Baltimore is an extremely safe city? So clearly we need to be looking at Baltimore, not at Maryland if we're going to draw conclusions about the actual effectiveness of Maryland's gun control laws and if we're going to use those conclusions to justify national level gun control measures.

The fact is, the pertinent statistics are buried deeply and creatively hidden from us by google and our government and various social media sites and their BS statistics are spoon fed to us for breakfast, lunch and dinner day in and day out in order to promote the false narrative that we'll all be safer if only we adopt strict gun control laws just like Maryland and California. And when the time comes for them to disarm us, you can bet they will be using these bogus statistics to justify it. It is a mass deception that would certainly impress Joseph Goebbels.
Click to expand...


Then again what percentage of those so-called HOMICIDES were justifiable or lawful? Homicide is a loose term. Should we ban guns in a jurisdiction if 90% of the gun-related homicides there were actually justifiable as in police actions or self-defense actions? That would tell me that a gun presence is really keeping our society safe as it should. If there is a high murder-by-gun rate in an anti-gun-rights jurisdiction, that could only logically tell me there is not enough good folks with guns to begin with because of the restrictive gun laws. Those who murder by gun have no respect for gun control laws or any laws.
 
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BringHomeTheBacon said:
Then again what percentage of those so-called HOMICIDES were justifiable or lawful? Homicide is a loose term. Should we ban guns in a jurisdiction if 90% of the gun-related homicides there were actually justifiable as in police actions or self-defense actions? That would tell me that a gun presence is really keeping our society safe as it should. If there is a high murder-by-gun rate in an anti-gun-rights jurisdiction, that could only logically tell me there is not enough good folks with guns to begin with because of the restrictive gun laws. Those who murder by gun have no respect for gun control laws or any laws.
Click to expand...
What you're talking about is "conflation". Conflation is defined as: the merging of two or more sets of information, texts, ideas, etc. into one and it is another extremely common mechanism by which statistics are used to support false conclusions and narratives. Conflating suicide deaths with homicide deaths is the classic example of this but they have improved their use of this trick over the years and it permeates their arguments everywhere. The Giffords center discusses "gun deaths per 100,000" which is clearly a conflation of the data to the maximum extent possible and, of course, they make no mention of this fact. Gun deaths per 100,000 is the CDC equivalent of firearm mortality rate and the firearm mortality rate definitely includes suicides and every other type of gun related death. Homicide, on the other hand, in this context, implies murder. When we and the FBI talk about FBI homicide rates, this generally exclude justifiable homicides and that is discussed separately which is quite reasonable. We're talking about murder and nonnegligent manslaughter specifically. Here's what the FBI says about this:

Because these killings are determined through law enforcement investigation to be justifiable, they are tabulated separately from murder and nonnegligent manslaughter.


In other words, they don't generally conflate that data unlike Giffords et al. This is all yet another reason why it's important to focus on homicide statistics i.e. murders in cities. It's a much more accurate metric for anyone who is honestly trying to determine if gun control laws have any correlation with criminal gun use. Gun control laws are not passed to prevent suicides. An assault weapon ban has nothing to do with suicide. A magazine ban has nothing to do with suicide. There is no need to include suicide data in our analysis of the effects of gun control. The number of homicides in a city, however, is a metric that anyone can grasp. It isn't expanded to include unnecessary data that only muddies the waters.
 
hso said:
Which is why websites and social media can't be the sources we cite. They're going to have spin. We must dig deeper into the source material and put the work in to find out what the reality is. We also have to admit our own bias and work to set it aside and let the data take us where it leads instead of "putting our thumb on the scale".
Click to expand...
I have spent a lot of hours digging. That info is buried very deeply now and is not readily retrieved and, as time goes on, it will get deeper and deeper until it will be completely unobtainable and anything you do find will not be terribly useful. The opposing force will be able to say, "well that data is from 20 years ago. That's no longer relevant. Things have changed in 20 years." and they'll LOL and walk away from the confrontation victorious and you'll go back to angrily digging through Google's mountain of BS looking for those sacred remnants of the truth. Google is an enemy of the truth. So is our government. Truth is like their kryptonite. Google specifically started hiding the truth after Dylan Roof shot up a black church as far as I can tell though they probably acted before that. Here's an NPR article that details what prompted it ostensibly.

I think it's important to remember as you read that article that, if they actually wanted you to have the truth, they wouldn't hide it from you.
 
FBI UCR data isn't buried and has been regularly cited here.

"Scholarly" research is more difficult to trace back to the original and much of it is done from a presumptive bias trying to support a position, but other academics and advocates often point out the flawed methodologies and bias in such papers.

What comes out of any advocacy group (including reporting and self-identified advocates) is presented from their POV. We're forced to research the sources, but they're not hard to find for me. Then again, I am trained as a researcher and have been pointing out the errors and downright misrepresentations of Anti groups since the irrational AWB so what seems simple to me may not be for others. What I do think is that people simply don't want to try because they walk away or stop and consume whatever feeds their confirmation bias.
 
Zendude said:
Maybe there are just better hospitals where gun laws are stricter.
Click to expand...

Then we need even more categories:

1. homicides with known medical intervention (to save victims)
2. homicides without known medical intervention (to save victims)

Apparently, John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald both had poor medical care in Dallas, Texas in late 1963 following the respective shootings of each.

Let's forget about homicides altogether.

The master question is: how does gun control or lack thereof affect the overall safety and well-being of human beings?

What is the true premise for gun control?

1. make the people weaker to governments?
2. protect innocent lives?
3. other?
 
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hso said:
FBI UCR data isn't buried and has been regularly cited here.
Click to expand...
The FBI data is useful but it isn't without problems. Specifically, the whole white, black, hispanic thing. You can look at that data for hours and still not get an accurate breakdown of how many murders, in any given year, were committed by blacks, how many were committed by whites and how many were committed by Mexicans and the race and ethnicity totals never equal out. Nobody really cares how many murders are committed by pacific islanders and Asians but yet that information is readily available. But when you try to figure out what how many murders were committed by Mexicans, good luck and I think that's information that's a lot more relative to the subject at hand here.
The OJJDP illustrates the problem better because it's hard to screenshot the FBI data due to the need to scroll.
481_n.jpg?_nc_cat=104&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=rxEubGWogqcAX-Y3VpW&_nc_ht=scontent.ftol2-1.jpg
 
Many factors involved. How they info is classified. How they question is asked.
All affect the outcome.

Yet, no correlation?
Strictest gun laws:
Chicago
New York
D. C.
Baltimore
St. Louis
Detroit

Highest homicide / violent crime:
Chicago
New York
D. C.
Baltimore
St. Louis
Detroit

Looks like a correlation.
 
BringHomeTheBacon said:
I do believe violent/threatening criminal activity is more greatly deterred in states with few if any gun restrictions. Certainly, California, Illinois, Washington, DC and New York has a lot more violent crime per capita than Idaho, Mississippi, Montana or Oklahoma. I would be scared chitless to even dream about holding up a bank or a liquor store in a Red pro-gun state.
Click to expand...

Part of the reason California, Illinois, Washington, DC and New York have a lot more violent crime per capita could be that perps are often released from jail in these states?
 
aaaaa said:
Part of the reason California, Illinois, Washington, DC and New York have a lot more violent crime per capita could be that perps are often released from jail in these states?
Click to expand...

That, and the fact it's also tough for good folks to have immediate access to guns in emergencies for those places is of no help to protecting them either.
 
Seedy Character said:
Many factors involved. How they info is classified. How they question is asked.
All affect the outcome.

Yet, no correlation?
Strictest gun laws:
Chicago
New York
D. C.
Baltimore
St. Louis
Detroit

Highest homicide / violent crime:
Chicago
New York
D. C.
Baltimore
St. Louis
Detroit

Looks like a correlation.
Click to expand...


This is exactly what Gun Owners of America and I believed all along. It's only pure logic to commit heinous crimes in places with little or no possible armed resistance from would-be victims. Any idiot or kindergartner knows that.
 
aaaaa said:
Part of the reason California, Illinois, Washington, DC and New York have a lot more violent crime per capita could be that perps are often released from jail in these states?
Click to expand...
or maybe the politicians in charge of those cities don't want to deal with the problem and the people that live in those cities are OK with that so they just try to hang their failure around someone else's neck e.g. gun owners, the NRA, the firearm industry, neighboring states? and so they torture the hell out of some statistics until they say what they want them to say. The Chicago homicide Clearance rate was 44.5% in 2020. That matters because there is evidence that suggests that individuals are often times responsible for multiple murders. So they murder someone, get a way with it and then go out and murder someone else and get away with it. Maybe they do a driveby and they add 3 or 4 bodies to the count including some innocent civilians that happened to be in the vicinity. And this gets repeated over and over. If the homicide clearance rate wasn't 44.5%, maybe they would have gotten them off the street before anyone else got killed but, again, that would require politicians that are willing to add cops and build prisons and civilians that are willing to vote for them when they promise to do that and, in these areas, that's just not going to happen. So, scapegoat time.
 
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