Is Croatia the best country to live in?

[brimstoneSalad]

Think of it this way: the vast majority of gun control laws only affect the sales of new guns. And there are 400 million guns already in the US. So, gun control laws only affect around 1% of total guns in existence. And homicide rates vary by around 6% from one year to the next. The signal-to-noise ratio is therefore at most 1:6. It is extremely unlikely that any such gun control study can arrive at a statistically significant result.

Too bad a significant number of mass shootings aren't committed by young people who just bought a bunch of guns recent... oh wait, they are.
Look at your signal to noise ratio again accounting for the disproportionate percentage of guns used in violence that were recently purchased.

Typically dangerous people buy guns with the intent to use them soon, and don't sit on them long before doing so.
Safe owners have their guns locked up for many years without incident, and it's unlikely they'll ever be used for anything outside of hunting, suicide, or a crime of passion like a domestic murder (e.g. wife cheating) unless they are stolen.

Extant guns just aren't that much of a problem as long as you crack down on transfers into unsafe hands.


Bottom line: You do look at studies, and you do look at evidence.

[teo123]

Think of it this way: the vast majority of gun control laws only affect the sales of new guns. And there are 400 million guns already in the US. So, gun control laws only affect around 1% of total guns in existence. And homicide rates vary by around 6% from one year to the next. The signal-to-noise ratio is therefore at most 1:6. It is extremely unlikely that any such gun control study can arrive at a statistically significant result.

Too bad a significant number of mass shootings aren't committed by young people who just bought a bunch of guns recent... oh wait, they are.
Look at your signal to noise ratio again accounting for the disproportionate percentage of guns used in violence that were recently purchased.

Typically dangerous people buy guns with the intent to use them soon, and don't sit on them long before doing so.
Safe owners have their guns locked up for many years without incident, and it's unlikely they'll ever be used for anything outside of hunting, suicide, or a crime of passion like a domestic murder (e.g. wife cheating) unless they are stolen.

Extant guns just aren't that much of a problem as long as you crack down on transfers into unsafe hands.


Bottom line: You do look at studies, and you do look at evidence.

I think most gun control proposals should be rejected a-priori. What magic would make them work? What most gun control laws are essentially saying is:
1) Let's ban "assault weapons" (which essentially means guns which can shoot with high precision).
2) Let's prevent mentally ill people from acquiring firearms.

For the first one... Why the hell would one need a high-precision gun to commit a mass shooting? Mass shootings have existed long before high-precision guns. I can see why you would need a high-precision gun to stop a mass shooting (to fatally injure the shooter without injuring an innocent bystander), but to commit a mass shooting...
For the second one... The fact is that a diagnozed mental illness is not a good predictor of being a mass shooter. Only around 20% of mass shooters have a diagnozed mental illness, and the vast majority of those mental illnesses are mild. Sure, that's higher than the general population, but it's still not a good predictor. On the other hand, the fact is that having a diagnozed mental illness is an excellent predictor of being a victim of violent crime. In fact, people with severe mental illnesses are over 10 times more likely to be victims of a violent crime than the general population. So, what gun control is doing is making people who are much more likely to be victims defenseless.

So, what magic would make gun control work?

And that's before we even look at the studies done by Gary Kleck and John Lott and others that show beyond reasonable doubt that guns are used much more often to prevent a crime than to commit a crime.

[teo123]

Bottom line: You do look at studies, and you do look at evidence.

I am interested, how do you respond to the egg industry apologists saying "There is no evidence that the use of antibiotics in the egg industry causes superbacteria."?