Gun Laws

[Elmer]

Maher is a an extreme liberal comedian/satirist/political junkie who admittedly smokes a lot of weed. If that's sleezy ... 

He is political humor and he is super to the left.
Sometime Mahar can be really funny, and sometimes not.
Dont like him, dont watch!

 

[Mr. Desmond]

I know very well who he is, and I said skeezy, which is worse than sleezy.  :)

Well, I think Donald Trump is skeezy, but what do I know?

Gun laws, back to gun laws ... or not. A difficult thread.

[Gator Hazard]

Well, I think Donald Trump is skeezy, but what do I know?

Gun laws, back to gun laws ... or not. A difficult thread.

Yeah okay, I agree with you on Trump, they are both skeezy, didn't mean to hurt your feelings about Maher.

Gun laws:  Make it harder for criminals to have guns but leave my guns alone.  There. 

[JazzFatCat]

Here was some findings done in a Harvard Law Study

http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf
 

I haven't been following this thread but I was curious about this so I looked it up and did some googling. This is not a "Harvard Law Study". It is a paper written by two authors not associated with Harvard (they are actually associated with two pro-gun right wing think tanks) that for some reason Harvard had the poor judgement to publish in their "Journal of Law & Public Policy". 

Here's a response to some of the issues found in that paper: http://www.ericgarland.co/2013/09/26/academic-support-american-gun-lobby/

It is to gun violence what the Exxon-funded climate deniers are to global warming, what the RJ Reynolds-funded studies were to cigarettes – an attempt to make an academic-looking cover for an idea that is obviously specious. 

If I can dredge up the will I'll try to see if I can find an actual academic paper on the relationship between gun ownership and gun related deaths.

[JazzFatCat]

Here's some more stuff I dug up about that paper saevel25 referenced.

The Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy is published three times annually by the Harvard Society for Law & Public Policy, Inc., an organization of Harvard Law School students. The Journal is one of the most widely circulated student-edited law reviews and the nation’s leading forum for conservative and libertarian legal scholarship.

http://www.harvard-jlpp.com/about/

So not a peer reviewed journal.

 

Gary Mauser the Canadian author of that paper is:

• The president of a Vancouver gun club
• Senior Fellow with the Fraser Institute (Canada's largest right wing think tank)

http://www.the-peak.ca/1998/11/gun-clubs-refuse-to-leave-burnaby-mountain/

Do an image search for Gary Mauser and here's what you get lol:

Don't think he's bringing a knife to a gunfight...

LOL. "findings done in a Harvard Law Study"

[CoachB25]

I love how people think owning handguns and rifles will save the if the military was turned on us. Sorry to say that's like bringing a knife to a gun fight. It's just a false sense of security that means nothing. this argument that it matters that we can arm ourselves is really outdated ignorance.

I'll leave my response to a brief comment.  The colonist faced the greatest military in the world for their fight for independence.  The French Underground stood firm and faced the NAZIs.  My family has members that are infamous.  Some formed one of the largest paramilitary groups in this country.  They believe in a standing Militia and are thousands of members strong.  I guess it is outdated ignorance but let me recommend to you to not try to take their guns.  You won't like the result. 

[ghalfaire]

OK, so im aware this may be a delicate subject for some, but as a resident of the UK it is shocking to tuen on the news and hear of yet another gun related killing. First and Foremost our deepest sympathies go out to the families of those involved, but should this sort of thing still be happening on whay now seems to be a monthly basis?

 

The latest incident made a lot of people sit up and wonder if it was time for the US to tighten gun laws. Most of the killers guns were said to have been bought legally which is a worry.

Now, on our news they had a Professor of Politics from the US and asked her why Obama wasnt doing anything about it and i was suprised by her reply. She said that as the majority of the senate is republican they would never vote in favour of democratic legislation no matter what it was (a little petty and childish on the face of it) and that the NRA provides a lot of funding to the goverment, which seems a bit of a bad "sponsor" to have with all thats going on.

My point of all this is, is for those American citizens on here, where do you stand on this debate, what could be the solution?

As an outsider looking in maybe tighter laws on who can purchase/own firearms and what firearms are legal seems to be a logical step

I did not read all the posts so it is possible I am repeating what you already know or have been told anyway.  

First I suspect the killing that make the news in the UK are more than likely atypical of the gun related deaths in the USA.  They are likely the ones that are horrific and usually involve a number innocents of some sort or another and the ones that make the news here also.  But the overwhelming majority of gun deaths in the USA occur in major metropolitan areas in the inter cities.  Almost all are committed by individuals that are in possession of the firearm illegally.  The deaths are usually the result of gang  battles over territory to perform their illegal activities in.  These killing usually don't make the news here, probably because they are common so the press does not deem them news worthy or a cynic might say they don't fit the agenda.  I am sure they would not make the news in the UK so you don't hear about them.  If we in the USA wanted to reduce the deaths by firearms in this country this is the place to do it, in the inner cities.

Second I would like to point out there are already several prohibitions in our Federal Laws that preclude many citizens from owning a firearm.  These include the following: anyone who;is charged with or convicted of a crime that carries more than a one year sentence; is a fugitive from Justice; unlawfully uses or is addicted to marijuana, a depressant, a stimulant or narcotic drug;  is mentally defective; is committed to a mental institution; has been dishonorably discharged from the armed forces; has renounced their US Citizenship; is an illegal alien; is in the USA under an non-immigration visa;  is under a court ordered restraining order for harassment, stalking or threatening another; had been convicted of domestic violence. In addition to these each of the states and local authorities can impose further restrictions specific to their jurisdiction. 

What you heard about many of the deaths that made the news that the fire arms were legally purchased is true.  However the individuals that committed the killings in most cases were not the ones that owned or purchased the firearms.  That being the case the killer were not in legal possession of the firearm. However some were.   But I will repeat again that these deaths are not typical of gun deaths in the USA and in fact don't represent even 5% of the total gun deaths in the USA.  I am not trying to minimize these crimes, the are horrific and that's why they make the news,  but rather make a point that if we stopped all of them the number of gun deaths would not decrease by any significant amount. 

So I have to wonder just what further gun control legislation would accomplish as most murders in the USA are committed today by individuals that are in violation of our existing gun laws.  Making more laws just will further restrict the law abiding but not the criminals.  I believe life just comes with some danger and in a free society you will never be 100% safe.  The only societies I know of where the government makes you safe, you are safe from everyone except your own government.  I would not want that here and our second amendment is precisely for that reason.  Back when they really taught history one learned that is how the USA started, in revolt against a totalitarian King (no offence intended).  

So I am against any further restriction on citizens owning fire arm and my solution to the overwhelming firearm deaths in the inter cities is to enforce the laws we have to the maximum extent possible.  Maybe we should also quit acting like other citizens who disagree with us are enemies and show some respect for each other and really listen to each other.  Unlike what our liberal press tells you illegal drugs are not a victimless crime.

[JazzFatCat]

As far as I can see this is the actual site for research Harvard has done into firearms: 

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/

 

Their "overall" cliff notes kind of page has the following bullets:

1. The United States has a very high rate of firearm death
2. The risks of a gun in the home typically far outweigh the benefits
3. More guns, more violent death.
4. Better mental health treatment may help but effective legislation is crucial to reduce gun violence. 

 

In fact they even have a "bad science" page that rebuts the paper that saevel25 references, so good work in finding a supposed "Harvard Law Study" that actual Harvard researchers say is terrible.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/bad-science-3/

 

Edited October 21, 2015 by JazzFatCat

[saevel25]

As far as I can see this is the actual site for research Harvard has done into firearms: 

Not sure I trust some of those article. One of them, "Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David. Household firearm ownership levels and homicide rates across U.S. regions and states, 1988-1997. American Journal of Public Health. 2002: 92:1988-1993."

Acknowledgement were given to a foundation that had Obama as the director during the 90's. Another foundation is run by George Soros. Who is notorious for throwing around money to push a very socialist agenda. 

Sounds like a classic, we can manipulate the data to prove our ideology. Can one study be done with out the backing of  high conservative or highly liberal group ;)


 

[iacas]

Not sure I trust some of those article. One of them, "Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David. Household firearm ownership levels and homicide rates across U.S. regions and states, 1988-1997. American Journal of Public Health. 2002: 92:1988-1993."

I was going to respond similarly. I skimmed the Kleck response paper, for example, and it was just one person's response to an article Kleck wrote somewhere. That entire little sub-section of the site seems to be written by one person, or is at least about as politicized as the original article cited.

1. The United States has a very high rate of firearm death
2. The risks of a gun in the home typically far outweigh the benefits
3. More guns, more violent death.
4. Better mental health treatment may help but effective legislation is crucial to reduce gun violence.

1. The vast majority of those are minority-on-minority crimes in the inner cities.
2. Not in my home, sorry. There's not going to be a risk and I hope there's never a benefit (because that would mean I had to at least threaten to use it against an intruder or something). Guns are used to save lives and prevent crimes and serious injury fairly often, too.
3. Proportionally? Canada has lots of guns. So do other countries. Do they have the gun deaths we have? We don't even see a relationship between gun ownership numbers and gun homicides. Many people are murdered with guns in Chicago, NYC, LA… where it's basically illegal (very, very difficult) to legally own a gun. Why? Because you can't get the guns out of the hands of criminals.
4. Good luck designing effective legislation for people who disobey the law.

You can't legislate this stuff. If using a gun to kill people is already illegal. Has been for centuries because murder is against the law. And yet… that hasn't stopped people from killing each other. Via any method. Criminals by definition don't care what the law is.

My dad used to have a bumper sticker on his gun case, and it read: "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." You can read that two ways: that he'd become an outlaw because he wouldn't give up his guns, or the way more people read it: make guns illegal and the only people with guns will be the criminals.

Seriously… I think people like to look at stats to see how many people commit "gun crimes in the U.S. per year" or something, but fail to look at who is committing those crimes. If I told you I could reduce violent gun crimes by 90%, you'd think I was a genius. Here's how I could: throw out the minority-on-minority inner-city gun crimes and BAM! We're there!

Now, that may sound like I don't care about those people. I do… but to be totally honest, I don't care about them nearly as much as I care about my wife, my kid, my neighbors. They're likely already criminals, or drug users, or whatever. I care about the loss of life, but not as much as I care about the loss of my life or the lives of those I know.

If you're not an inner-city black guy already involved in illegal activities, you probably aren't ever going to see a gun even pointed at you in your lifetime. You're probably at higher risk of death or serious injury every day you drive to work and back home again than you are from having a gun fired at you, ever.

[JazzFatCat]

Not sure I trust some of those article. One of them, "Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David. Household firearm ownership levels and homicide rates across U.S. regions and states, 1988-1997. American Journal of Public Health. 2002: 92:1988-1993."

Acknowledgement were given to a foundation that had Obama as the director during the 90's. Another foundation is run by George Soros. Who is notorious for throwing around money to push a very socialist agenda. 

Sounds like a classic, we can manipulate the data to prove our ideology. Can one study be done with out the backing of  high conservative or highly liberal group ;)


 

Oh well. If threads like this prove anything to me it's that people accept stuff that reinforces their beliefs and reject stuff that doesn't. 

[newtogolf]

Seriously… I think people like to look at stats to see how many people commit "gun crimes in the U.S. per year" or something, but fail to look at who is committing those crimes. If I told you I could reduce violent gun crimes by 90%, you'd think I was a genius. Here's how I could: throw out the minority-on-minority inner-city gun crimes and BAM! We're there!

Now, that may sound like I don't care about those people. I do… but to be totally honest, I don't care about them nearly as much as I care about my wife, my kid, my neighbors. They're likely already criminals, or drug users, or whatever. I care about the loss of life, but not as much as I care about the loss of my life or the lives of those I know.

If you're not an inner-city black guy already involved in illegal activities, you probably aren't ever going to see a gun even pointed at you in your lifetime. You're probably at higher risk of death or serious injury every day you drive to work and back home again than you are from having a gun fired at you, ever.

Great post, the anti-gun politicians know this (bolded) which is why they try to leverage every mass shooting by a non-minority to pass gun laws.  

You're being nice, but no one in power really cares about the inner-city gang  / drug related gun murders because they know even without guns they'd find a way to kill each other.   You never see Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, #blacklivesmatter or Obama holding press conferences or marches over inner-city minority on minority shootings.   

[saevel25]

Oh well. If threads like this prove anything to me it's that people accept stuff that reinforces their beliefs and reject stuff that doesn't. 

To respond to your quote above. I quote you below. 

This is not a "Harvard Law Study". It is a paper written by two authors not associated with Harvard (they are actually associated with two pro-gun right wing think tanks) that for some reason Harvard had the poor judgement to publish in their "Journal of Law & Public Policy". 

So you are able to attack who is associated or wrote a published paper in attempt to discredit the paper. Yet when I find that two of the three primary contributors to some of the articles on that Harvard website you posted are linked to very liberal organizations and/or people with great influence you say just brush it aside as people not wanting to believe in it for their own agenda. How very hypocritical of you. 

If there is significant evidence outside the outlier situations of poverty, urban areas and minority gangs that guns ownership does not help in stopping other crimes and actually raises the homicide rate then I will change my opinion. As of right now there isn't any real hard evidence pointing to that. 
 

[RussUK]

Here's some more stuff I dug up about that paper saevel25 referenced.

http://www.harvard-jlpp.com/about/

So not a peer reviewed journal.

 

Gary Mauser the Canadian author of that paper is:

• The president of a Vancouver gun club
• Senior Fellow with the Fraser Institute (Canada's largest right wing think tank)

http://www.the-peak.ca/1998/11/gun-clubs-refuse-to-leave-burnaby-mountain/

Do an image search for Gary Mauser and here's what you get lol:

 

LOL. "findings done in a Harvard Law Study"

Ooh, model 1851 Colt Navy, probably a replica but nice all the same.

Boys and their toys eh?

[ghalfaire]

To respond to your quote above. I quote you below. 

So you are able to attack who is associated or wrote a published paper in attempt to discredit the paper. Yet when I find that two of the three primary contributors to some of the articles on that Harvard website you posted are linked to very liberal organizations and/or people with great influence you say just brush it aside as people not wanting to believe in it for their own agenda. How very hypocritical of you. 
If there is significant evidence outside the outlier situations of poverty, urban areas and minority gangs that guns ownership does not help in stopping other crimes and actually raises the homicide rate then I will change my opinion. As of right now there isn't any real hard evidence pointing to that. 
 

Try taking a look at the FBI crime statistics.  See where and who are committing a significant majority of the murders with firearms in the USA.  It takes a little digging but it is the most unbiased statistical data concerning crime with firearms I know of.  If you could remove the murders committed in 5 major metro areas of the USA we would be ranked third or fourth from the bottom of the list industrialized countries gun deaths per Capita.   

[dchoye]

i think it healthy to have some debate on gun ownership and gun laws and really don't need to lock gun threads up when discussion gets heated.

So what if we disagree?

Why do we must we be redirected to golf topics ?

Isn't that what the Grill Room was for?

[boogielicious]

5 minutes ago, dchoye said:

i think it healthy to have some debate on gun ownership and gun laws and really don't need to lock gun threads up when discussion gets heated.

So what if we disagree?

Why do we must we be redirected to golf topics ?

Isn't that what the Grill Room was for?

When threads start to get out of hand, we sometimes feel the need to lock the thread before forum members cross the line. Almost all of our members are respectful to each other, but emotional threads can cloud their judgement, then they write something that would cause a warning. The mods try to redirect, but sometimes that doesn't help. We felt the need to close those two threads to curtail this.

[rkim291968]

7 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

When threads start to get out of hand,  ...

It does when posters do not respect opposing views and start belittling other posters for what they said.   Don't read negatively between the lines.  Take it as what was said and respond to it.   Ask for clarification if you didn't understand instead of assuming the worst.  Give the others a benefit of doubt.  Don't put words in another poster's mouth to make your point.  These are some of the things we can follow that will lead to healthy discussion.