Texas senate approves guns in college classrooms

[TheFeniX]

My point is, there WILL be a marginal increase in gun-related violent crime if you permit legal gun carriers, unless either the number of people with a concealed carry permit is zero, or their probability of using those guns to commit crimes is actually zero. It is a mathematical certainty, you cannot avoid it.

Mathematical certainty.....

From Here

After allowing concealed carry on campus for an average of over five and a half years (as of January 2011), none of these 12 colleges (33 campuses) has seen a single resulting incident of gun violence (including threats and suicides) or a single resulting gun accident.

Normally, I'd dig through my links for the actual statistics, but since you can't be asked to provide anything to back up your assertion, I don't feel it's even warranted. Your whole post is you arguing against reality and trying to scare-monger with cherry-picked examples of when a CHL could possibly be bad. You then post it as an inevitability without anything to back it up.

Given this, in order for this to be a good policy, the positive effects must outweigh the negatives. There must be a deterrence effect that outweighs the negative. I have run the statistics myself, there is no effect of concealed carry on crime once other factors are controlled. In fact, the statistically non-significant trend is for CCW to INCREASE aggravated assaults, so if there IS a marginal effect, it is in the opposite direction to the one you need.

So, you have statistics on hand, and won't provide them? Whatever.

CCW doesn't directly stop crime, it can't by it's nature. A successful armed robbery is no different statistically than an unsuccessful one stopped by fighting off the attacker. But let's say your unsubstantiated claim of "more assaults with CCW is true:" It could be just as likely assaults rise because someone defending themselves leads to them not being murdered, only assaulted.

[Anguirus]

UPDATE:Sorry, guys.

Still hard to say for sure if it's live or dead, it has been a real back-and-forth.

Where is Dr. Cummings Testimony, and why is his/her testimony any more than speculation?

I'm reasonably sure I already posted this.


IMO, a little more than speculation. She's done research and she's informally polled her colleagues. Note that she is hardly an anti-gun radical; she advocates on-campus lockers for guns so that students may deposit them before class and retrieve them after, a concession to gun owners that does not exist at this time.

Also observe that I've said from the beginning of this thread that I think all of her proposed methods for professors to prevent guns in the classroom represent overreactions that I do not personally agree with. Moreover, apart from leaving the state I don't think any of them are likely.

Cummings isn't the only one to testify.

So because we deny people certain rights when people don't like those rights based on perfectly good concerns about the effects of allowing them, that's somehow the same as disallowing them based on the unfounded concerns of the ignorant? Interesting.

Uh...no? That's 43 words you just put in my mouth.

It is trivially apparent that we disagree about which of the halves of your sentence applies here.

Your line sounds an awful lot like if I were to claim my stereotypes of black people were accurate, and I knew better because I worked in an inner city ghetto.

It's not a "stereotype" to observe that young people, particularly males, are often impulsive and given to crimes of passion. Can we mutually accept this point, or do I have to delve into the literature? I don't exempt myself from this. It's also nice that you've poisoned the well with respect to Alyrium...I sincerely hope that I never have to deal with a situation like his stalking. I've never met a student who makes me worry like that, but it's always a possibility.

I haven't seen that the University of Texas has anything close to a monopoly on "world class" in academics. Don't get me wrong, it's a good school and now that we live in Texas my daughter might even transfer there; she applied there for the coming year and decided to go elsewhere for this year. I'm not, however, buying that it has any bounty of fantastic faculty that can't be replaced with equally good faculty from elsewhere. UT is far from cornering the market.

Who said "monopoly"? (What was that about loaded language?) Researchers are not interchangeable, are not of the same quality, and often choose the schools that they apply to based on ideology. Having a flight of professors and a highly public scramble to replace them injures our reputation. I hope that whichever way this bill goes, this doesn't happen.

That's really not my problem, since I have not been the one whipping out campus shootings, and in fact have been arguing a net zero balance of safety. However, I don't think it's particularly ghoulish, since these people are misinformed, unlike the anti-CCW crowd who whip out suicide in desperation after their misconceptions about CCW are pointed out to be wrong... by people like me, who are really more or less neutral

Ok, I apologize for attributing that to you. I am myself extremely disapproving of the mass shooting justification that has been constantly trumpeted by legislators and student groups, and I inadvertently allowed that to spill over to you. In my opinion, that is a much better example of begging the question (assuming that CCW will blunt or stop a mass shooting) than my description of why I do not believe one specific, recent incident is a good example of guns being able to stop violence.

I really don't give a shit; I can carry a weapon anywhere on your campus any time I want to whether you, or your police chief like it or not.

Uh...you really can't, legally, unless the law gets passed.

Yes, so what? This doesn't establish why a college campus is in need of special protections from this.. nor why its an afterthought from the CCW crowd. People age 65 and over have a higher rate of suicide than college age people. In any case, "guns make suicide easier" is a very weak argument. Why are we arbitrarily drawing a line at how much easier guns make it compared to.. well anything else people use to commit suicide?

The point is that a gun enables very quick, snap decisions, such as the one in the article I posted. As far as other types of suicidal thoughts I agree that it's not relevant. It's not as if I'm arguing that no guns on campus obviates the need for other suicide-prevention programs. As for the point about people 65 and older having a (barely--it's 14.3 vs. 12.7, I bet that's within the margin of error), it's a red herring.

Moreover, young early twenties people with guns will be present anywhere else a shooting might occur; there's no reason they should be such a problem on a college campus.

There is an extremely high concentration of these people in a college classroom, and on a college campus.

I live in Texas (for the second time, I actually lived here before once), and again, that is not an argument. "I live here, so I get a special veto on public policy that no one else gets on any other matter!" Uh.. no, sorry, we don't live in a dictatorship of the randomly frightened.

No, but in my opinion and Sen. Ogden's, public policy on college campuses impacts people who work on college campuses disproportionately. For my money, the "mass shooting" argument and the "freedom" argument would pale into insignificance if the pro- side could actually demonstrate that college campuses are made safer my concealed carry bills and their consequences. Instead, the arguments advanced by the pro- side are so fantastically weak that it makes no impact to many students and faculty next to the feelings of discomfort that they feel about guns in classrooms.

I recognize my own feelings of discomfort as just that: feelings, which is why I think that the bill will have little impact one way or another on campus safety. Point is, I don't believe that professor's rational and irrational feelings about guns in the classroom are irrelevant, because a professor's feelings about the matter have no impact on whether or not they are a good professor.

The best way to get this non-urgent bill passed in the end while minimizing negative consequences would be for Students for Concealed Carry on Campus and similar groups to actually engage faculty. Convince them that it's important to change the law to ensure the freedom to have guns in the claassroom. In my opinion, many people on both sides are so passionate about the issue that they don't believe it's worth dealing with the other side, and so they are just going to butt heads (as we've observed in the legislature).

People are NOT necessarily going to be rational when they feel pressured to accept something that they are not ready for. Instead, you feel a backlash. I don't think that guns in the classroom is the end of the world, but the sheer urgency with which the bill was advanced on the basis of, in my and your opinion, a faulty campus-safety argument, has certainly hardened me against the concept. Convince me. If you push me, I'll push back. And if you express contempt for an opinion on which reasonable people disagree, you'll get contempt right back.

Assumption may have been a poor choice of words on my part, but you could not have known in advance, and neither could anyone else, that he was only going to shoot himself. Coming back after the fact and saying "but he only did the minimum harm!" isn't valid, because that could not be known in advance, and can't be known in any future case. In hindsight, CCW holders could not have helped, but that cannot be generalized to any other case, and if one of them or the police had shot this guy you never would have known that.

Agreed. I don't think that either side gets any traction out of this incident. What appalled me was the use of the incident politically to advance the CCW bill. It's just relevant in the context of this specific place, time, and bill...which is what we are talking about.

As for it making the police "have to be a lot more careful", you mean as careful as we are in the rest of society where there are all kinds of jittery people with guns? Quit pretending like college students with guns are some sort of special tactical problem.

But they are. In no other situation but a mass shooting on campus do police storm multiple large buildings in close proximity that are filled with panicky, ill-informed twentysomethings in order to secure them. In that context, it becomes apparent why Art Acevedo doesn't think that CCWs would help a police response to a mass shooter.

The hypotheticals did not happen, and the situation will never be repeated.

You know what? You're absolutely right. This is just anecdote wars, and it's never going to convince anyone. I disagree with their use by the pros, more so than I think they help the antis.

Maybe it would help if you didn't insist on demonizing anyone who disagrees with you as a gun nut.

I'm sorry I got defensive a little while back. I think aside from that "Second Amendment alarm" crack, I have refrained from "demonizing" you in any way.

It is, however, trivially apparent that you do care about the issue. Are you seriously going to dispute this? We obviously both do care about the issue. I've just spent two hours that I don't have on this.

In fact, if it will hurt the ability to hire and retain faculty, then I would suggest that there will be a net improvement if faculty is willing to leave over its unwarranted fears

This is nonsense. The solution to this, as I've pointed out, is not to, at this time impose a law that both of us agree is non-urgent and does not affect security in the face of entrenched opposition, but rather, if a strong case exists in favor of this law, to make it. These are some of the smartest people in the world. Some won't listen, but some will.

Unfortunately, the bill's advocates have instead argued incoherent gibberish (Only a few people will be carrying, therefore, they will stop Whitman 2) and this does not gain them support from the people who will actually be affected most by the legislation.

What I disagree with you vehemently on is that it is in the state's interest to impose a de facto political litmus test on professors, or that professors' opinions on guns in the classroom are at all important to their ability to do their job. Your net improvement could only be at all an improvement in the mind of 1) an ideologue or 2) someone who has an incredibly dim opinion of the value of a trained faculty member.

Yes, and my detachment from the issue ought to be giving you great pause rather than causing you to constantly rant about how personally important it is. I'm not making any of this up out of any ideology; even if I wanted to go to a UT campus carrying a gun it doesn't affect me personaly.

Believe me, I am considering what you have to say. The problem is, your detachment is devoid of the benefit of personal experience. You express outright contempt for Alyrium's opinion of his student body despite the fact that what we are afraid vis a vis students responding poorly to grades actually did happen to him. Frankly, your approach to the debate is not one of detachment at all: you show no interest in the issues that are relevant to us and are more interested in browbeating for your personal amusement than in convincing us for the sake of...well, anything, since this issue does not affect you personally in any way.

Do I accept the opinions of straight people as more "detached" than those of gay people on the subject of gay marriage? Or do I weight the concerns of those affected differently from those who aren't?

I've got to split, but I don't think there's that much meatiness in the remainder of the post (please inform me if you disagree). I think we have framed the debate as such (again, let me know if you feel I'm wrong).

1. Campus safety is not measurably impacted by the bill
2. Many students want to be able to carry guns on campus, as they can in other places.
3. Many others are made insecure by the presence of guns, particularly in a classroom setting.

So you are arguing for a change in order to have more consistency and to satisfy citizens who do and do not attend UT. I'm arguing to keep the status quo because I see no positive impact of the bill that outweighs the negative impact on the school's atmosphere and possibly the composition of its employment. So our positions are based on our relative weighting of citizens' concerns. Can we at least agree on that much?

(Now I think Alyrium has taken a decent stab at assessing if there IS an impact on campus safety, which we have agreed so far there is not outside of isolated incidents, so I'm going to check that out in the near future.)

Sen. Ogden observes that those who are the most impacted by the bill

[Alyrium Denryle]

Normally, I'd dig through my links for the actual statistics, but since you can't be asked to provide anything to back up your assertion, I don't feel it's even warranted. Your whole post is you arguing against reality and trying to scare-monger with cherry-picked examples of when a CHL could possibly be bad. You then post it as an inevitability without anything to back it up.

Bitch, I spent four days digging up actual data and DOING the math for the effect of concealed carry on crime at the state level. What do you have? Five years of data from 12 universities in a state that already has low state-wide gun violence, and had next to no murder before the law was passed.

Tell me, what happens when you add two very low probabilities together? You get a second low probability. The difference is an increase in marginal risk, and the effect of the proposed policy needs to outweigh that marginal risk in order for it to be a good policy. In order to see a change, you need longer than 5 years, much longer.

So, you have statistics on hand, and won't provide them? Whatever.

Yeah. Would you like my data tables? I can even retabulate them specifically for universities if you like (instead of state level). It would take a few days. The reason I did not post them directly is because they are in the form of SPSS output files, which I would have to host as screen captures. Tedium.

CCW doesn't directly stop crime, it can't by it's nature. A successful armed robbery is no different statistically than an unsuccessful one stopped by fighting off the attacker. But let's say your unsubstantiated claim of "more assaults with CCW is true:" It could be just as likely assaults rise because someone defending themselves leads to them not being murdered, only assaulted.

Not on a university campus it doesn't... Of course, you prove that you do not understand what I just wrote...

Still, for that to apply on a university campus, there need to be enough murders to account for any increase. Seeing as there is already no murder, even before CCW is passed, then no. It does not account for any increase.

[SVPD]

UPDATE:Sorry, guys.

Still hard to say for sure if it's live or dead, it has been a real back-and-forth.

Where is Dr. Cummings Testimony, and why is his/her testimony any more than speculation?

I'm reasonably sure I already posted this.


IMO, a little more than speculation. She's done research and she's informally polled her colleagues. Note that she is hardly an anti-gun radical; she advocates on-campus lockers for guns so that students may deposit them before class and retrieve them after, a concession to gun owners that does not exist at this time.

Also observe that I've said from the beginning of this thread that I think all of her proposed methods for professors to prevent guns in the classroom represent overreactions that I do not personally agree with. Moreover, apart from leaving the state I don't think any of them are likely.

Cummings isn't the only one to testify.

I'll allow that the Doctor is more reasonable than I had imagined. However, I would point out that
A) Her basic premise is incorrect. It is not about 'campus safety alone'. Campus safety is a major factor. However, it is also about gun rights. This is not to say gun rights are all-important or should outweigh safety, but in any case her basic position is inherently flawed. College campuses are not magical places where safety is the only concern. In the absence of a demonstrable, significant decrease in safety it is perfectly acceptable to consider gun rights.
B) Her list of experts is questionable. I strongly contest the idea that academic heads of universities are qualified as experts on campus safety, and the effects of guns on it. I am sure they are experts on college campuses, but I doubt very many of them are tactically proficient enough to really understand the issues involved in CCW, and furthermore, suffer this disturbing idea that college campuses are in some way special places
C) Of the other experts, I would question campus police departments, especially since it has been pointed out that some colleges do allow guns. I suspect strongly that many of these departments are simply afraid of change
D) The Austin P.D. is an acceptable expert source although its chief was.. not a very good representative.

I'm unfamiliar with this Virginia Tech board or council or whatever, but seeing as I am an alumni of Virginia Tech, including my beloved Corps of Cadets..

What the fuck is wrong with their police department? "Anyone emerging from a classroom with a gun would have been shot"? Yes, in that instance, because guns were not allowed on campus so any armed person was almost certainly the criminal. If your officers would shoot anyone with a gun at first glance knowing CCW permit holders were present then you're basically admitting to a "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude. It's disturbing to me that police actions unacceptable anywhere else in society suddenly become acceptable if the excuse is that it was a situation on a college campus wherein a CCW holder hypothetically go shot.

So because we deny people certain rights when people don't like those rights based on perfectly good concerns about the effects of allowing them, that's somehow the same as disallowing them based on the unfounded concerns of the ignorant? Interesting.

Uh...no? That's 43 words you just put in my mouth.

Clearly you did not say it that way, but when you assume that because we can deny certain rights in one situation we therefore necessaily can in another situation that's basically what it amounts to.

Your line sounds an awful lot like if I were to claim my stereotypes of black people were accurate, and I knew better because I worked in an inner city ghetto.

It's not a "stereotype" to observe that young people, particularly males, are often impulsive and given to crimes of passion. Can we mutually accept this point, or do I have to delve into the literature? I don't exempt myself from this. It's also nice that you've poisoned the well with respect to Alyrium...I sincerely hope that I never have to deal with a situation like his stalking. I've never met a student who makes me worry like that, but it's always a possibility.

In regard to Alyrium - I basically don't believe a word he says. If you want to talk about that, send me a PM.

In regard to the behavior of young males, yes, they may be "given" to those behaviors, but tey are that way everywhere, not just in college. Moreover, "given" in this context still only means that they are more likely than the average across the adult population to be impulsive or commit a crime of passion; it does not demonstrate about the absolute frequency of these occurences.

Who said "monopoly"? (What was that about loaded language?) Researchers are not interchangeable, are not of the same quality, and often choose the schools that they apply to based on ideology. Having a flight of professors and a highly public scramble to replace them injures our reputation. I hope that whichever way this bill goes, this doesn't happen.

Researchers choose based on ideology? That's an.. interesting revelation.

Again, if these researchers are so paranoid, or so tied to their ideology that they will leave because of this, I would say you're better off without them. What good is a researcher to whom his anti-gun ideology is more important than his research? Why must his ideas be catered to? This sounds like a bunch of spoiled brats to me

That's really not my problem, since I have not been the one whipping out campus shootings, and in fact have been arguing a net zero balance of safety. However, I don't think it's particularly ghoulish, since these people are misinformed, unlike the anti-CCW crowd who whip out suicide in desperation after their misconceptions about CCW are pointed out to be wrong... by people like me, who are really more or less neutral

Ok, I apologize for attributing that to you. I am myself extremely disapproving of the mass shooting justification that has been constantly trumpeted by legislators and student groups, and I inadvertently allowed that to spill over to you. In my opinion, that is a much better example of begging the question (assuming that CCW will blunt or stop a mass shooting) than my description of why I do not believe one specific, recent incident is a good example of guns being able to stop violence.

Fair enough.

I really don't give a shit; I can carry a weapon anywhere on your campus any time I want to whether you, or your police chief like it or not.

Uh...you really can't, legally, unless the law gets passed.

Uh.. yes I really can. I happen to be a Federal agent now, which is part of the reason behind my recent move to Texas. Not only can I carry a gun on your campus, I can carry one on a fucking airplane, or anywhere else in the country - which has been made clear to me in no uncertain terms in my training. I'm not saying this to be a tough guy, I'm pointing out just how little it affects me. State restrictions on firearms do not apply to me, unless I wanted to get a Texas CCW and carry a gun I personally own.

Yes, so what? This doesn't establish why a college campus is in need of special protections from this.. nor why its an afterthought from the CCW crowd. People age 65 and over have a higher rate of suicide than college age people. In any case, "guns make suicide easier" is a very weak argument. Why are we arbitrarily drawing a line at how much easier guns make it compared to.. well anything else people use to commit suicide?

The point is that a gun enables very quick, snap decisions, such as the one in the article I posted. As far as other types of suicidal thoughts I agree that it's not relevant. It's not as if I'm arguing that no guns on campus obviates the need for other suicide-prevention programs. As for the point about people 65 and older having a (barely--it's 14.3 vs. 12.7, I bet that's within the margin of error), it's a red herring.

I would imagine then, that the next group down is also within the margin of error, and regardless it demonstrates that college age people are not exceptional in this regard.

Yes, guns "enable snap decisions". So what? They do this everywhere.

Moreover, young early twenties people with guns will be present anywhere else a shooting might occur; there's no reason they should be such a problem on a college campus.

There is an extremely high concentration of these people in a college classroom, and on a college campus.

There's an extremely high percentage in the military too. Not only are they issued weapons, they are allowed to own their own.

No, but in my opinion and Sen. Ogden's, public policy on college campuses impacts people who work on college campuses disproportionately. For my money, the "mass shooting" argument and the "freedom" argument would pale into insignificance if the pro- side could actually demonstrate that college campuses are made safer my concealed carry bills and their consequences. Instead, the arguments advanced by the pro- side are so fantastically weak that it makes no impact to many students and faculty next to the feelings of discomfort that they feel about guns in classrooms.

Public policy on practically everything impacts someone disproportionately. What makes campus workers special in this regard?

As for the incompetency of the pro side, I agree. However, I do not buy that assuaging people's feelings is more important than permitting people a legal right when there is no meaningful difference in terms of safety. I do not believe that is how a free society should work.

To turn it around, if the anti- side could demonstrate a real decrease in safety, the gun rights argument would pale to insignificance.

I recognize my own feelings of discomfort as just that: feelings, which is why I think that the bill will have little impact one way or another on campus safety. Point is, I don't believe that professor's rational and irrational feelings about guns in the classroom are irrelevant, because a professor's feelings about the matter have no impact on whether or not they are a good professor.

I would say that if a professor is willing to leave over his irrational feelings on guns on campus, then his feelings are making him not a good professor - he cares more about holding onto ideology-driven fears than his students or his discipline.

I do think that the rational feelings of professors are relevant, and I compliment your frankness on the entire issue, but so far you seem to be the exception.

The best way to get this non-urgent bill passed in the end while minimizing negative consequences would be for Students for Concealed Carry on Campus and similar groups to actually engage faculty. Convince them that it's important to change the law to ensure the freedom to have guns in the classroom. In my opinion, many people on both sides are so passionate about the issue that they don't believe it's worth dealing with the other side, and so they are just going to butt heads (as we've observed in the legislature).

I agree that would be the best way, but I strongly suspect that if these professors are really serious about leaving, there is no "engaging" them. They simply think they know better and aren't about to discuss the issue with mere students.

Other professors might be more approachable, but I have a feeling that no matter how willing to talk they would be, no meaningful progress could ever be made if the students accepted the premise that convincing the faculty was a prerequisite. Much of the faculty would simply nod politely but "remain unconvinced."

People are NOT necessarily going to be rational when they feel pressured to accept something that they are not ready for. Instead, you feel a backlash. I don't think that guns in the classroom is the end of the world, but the sheer urgency with which the bill was advanced on the basis of, in my and your opinion, a faulty campus-safety argument, has certainly hardened me against the concept. Convince me. If you push me, I'll push back. And if you express contempt for an opinion on which reasonable people disagree, you'll get contempt right back.

In what way will people push back? Fail students for carrying a gun?

Assumption may have been a poor choice of words on my part, but you could not have known in advance, and neither could anyone else, that he was only going to shoot himself. Coming back after the fact and saying "but he only did the minimum harm!" isn't valid, because that could not be known in advance, and can't be known in any future case. In hindsight, CCW holders could not have helped, but that cannot be generalized to any other case, and if one of them or the police had shot this guy you never would have known that.

Agreed. I don't think that either side gets any traction out of this incident. What appalled me was the use of the incident politically to advance the CCW bill. It's just relevant in the context of this specific place, time, and bill...which is what we are talking about.

I don't really see how its relevant except in demonstrating the immaturity of both sides.

As for it making the police "have to be a lot more careful", you mean as careful as we are in the rest of society where there are all kinds of jittery people with guns? Quit pretending like college students with guns are some sort of special tactical problem.

But they are. In no other situation but a mass shooting on campus do police storm multiple large buildings in close proximity that are filled with panicky, ill-informed twentysomethings in order to secure them. In that context, it becomes apparent why Art Acevedo doesn't think that CCWs would help a police response to a mass shooter.

They could have to storm a crowded building anywhere. The fact that it is filled with twentysomethings is really pretty irrelevant; panicky people are panicky people. The difference between people in their early 20s and everyone else is not some vast gulf that massively changes the tactical equation.

As for it "not helping police" Art is absolutely right, but he is missing the point: The point of CCW is not to aid the police but to defend the CCW holder. Once the police arrive, the CCW holder is done.

The hypotheticals did not happen, and the situation will never be repeated.

You know what? You're absolutely right. This is just anecdote wars, and it's never going to convince anyone. I disagree with their use by the pros, more so than I think they help the antis.

Maybe it would help if you didn't insist on demonizing anyone who disagrees with you as a gun nut.

I'm sorry I got defensive a little while back. I think aside from that "Second Amendment alarm" crack, I have refrained from "demonizing" you in any way.

Fair enough

It is, however, trivially apparent that you do care about the issue. Are you seriously going to dispute this? We obviously both do care about the issue. I've just spent two hours that I don't have on this.

I care about the issue insofar as I care about pointing out the erroneous assumptions that are often used to attack gun rights in general by people who are fearful of things they simply don't understand. I am not at all in favor of unrestricted gun rights, but I do think that in a free society a law-abiding adult should be able to own a gun and have a route for obtaining legal permission to carry it. Any additional restriction on that should be based on real risk, not irrational fear.

In fact, if it will hurt the ability to hire and retain faculty, then I would suggest that there will be a net improvement if faculty is willing to leave over its unwarranted fears

This is nonsense. The solution to this, as I've pointed out, is not to, at this time impose a law that both of us agree is non-urgent and does not affect security in the face of entrenched opposition, but rather, if a strong case exists in favor of this law, to make it. These are some of the smartest people in the world. Some won't listen, but some will.

I'm not sure that there is a truly strong case to be made in favor. There is also not a strong case against it. You have pointed out a burden of proof to make a change; I have pointed out a burden of proof to continue a government restriction in a free society.

However, in the event that this change is made quickly, and without a strong case, I simply cannot have sympathy for a professor who wants to leave over it in the absence of a strong case against.

Unfortunately, the bill's advocates have instead argued incoherent gibberish (Only a few people will be carrying, therefore, they will stop Whitman 2) and this does not gain them support from the people who will actually be affected most by the legislation.

I would point out that the students are also going to be actually affected at least as much as the faculty.

What I disagree with you vehemently on is that it is in the state's interest to impose a de facto political litmus test on professors, or that professors' opinions on guns in the classroom are at all important to their ability to do their job. Your net improvement could only be at all an improvement in the mind of 1) an ideologue or 2) someone who has an incredibly dim opinion of the value of a trained faculty member.

I don't see where you're getting any "political litmus test" from. I'm saying that if the professors decide they can't do their job over something as trivial as this.. oh fucking well. Get a new professor who is not so distracted trying to perpetuate an ivory tower.

I don't necessarily have a dim view of a trained faculty member, but I do have a very dim view of many faculty members' opinion of themselves.

Believe me, I am considering what you have to say. The problem is, your detachment is devoid of the benefit of personal experience. You express outright contempt for Alyrium's opinion of his student body despite the fact that what we are afraid vis a vis students responding poorly to grades actually did happen to him. Frankly, your approach to the debate is not one of detachment at all: you show no interest in the issues that are relevant to us and are more interested in browbeating for your personal amusement than in convincing us for the sake of...well, anything, since this issue does not affect you personally in any way.

I express outright contempt for AD's opinion based on his past behavior; I do not give any credit whatsoever to his assessments of other people.

As for "the issues that are relevant" I have not yet seen how any of the issues you keep hammering (faculty reaction) really is relevant. Why should I care?

Do I accept the opinions of straight people as more "detached" than those of gay people on the subject of gay marriage? Or do I weight the concerns of those affected differently from those who aren't?

I don't see that this is relevant, seeing as its precisely the opposite situation; the people arguing for the thing in question are in favor of granting a legal right, not opposing it.

I've got to split, but I don't think there's that much meatiness in the remainder of the post (please inform me if you disagree). I think we have framed the debate as such (again, let me know if you feel I'm wrong).

1. Campus safety is not measurably impacted by the bill
2. Many students want to be able to carry guns on campus, as they can in other places.
3. Many others are made insecure by the presence of guns, particularly in a classroom setting.

Fair enough

So you are arguing for a change in order to have more consistency and to satisfy citizens who do and do not attend UT. I'm arguing to keep the status quo because I see no positive impact of the bill that outweighs the negative impact on the school's atmosphere and possibly the composition of its employment. So our positions are based on our relative weighting of citizens' concerns. Can we at least agree on that much?

I'm arguing that UT is a state institution and therefore has an obligation to respond to the wishes of the voters, as does any other state institution, and also that in order to restrict or continue to restrict a right, a free society must demonstrate a compelling state interest.

As for Alyrium, he is continuing with this canard that you can just add the number of illegal guns to the number of legal guns, multiply by the probability of a crime for each, and therefore demonstrate that any legal gun increases the probability of crime. This is not the case; any gun also deters crime and has a chance of preventing one. He's not assessing anything other than his own mistaken assumptions about guns.

He even tries to weasel out of the police problem by saying "well, obviously they're a third term with a positive effect". There's two possibilites here: He's either trying to just add up gross "gun crime" and ignore the net effect, or he's begging the question by assuming all legal guns must necessarily increase gun crime and cannot possibly decrease it.

[Alyrium Denryle]

In regard to Alyrium - I basically don't believe a word he says. If you want to talk about that, send me a PM.

Based on what? Your lack of knowledge of simple addition and probability?

[Alyrium Denryle]

Ghetto Edit:

Researchers choose based on ideology? That's an.. interesting revelation.

Most are fairly liberal. University policies with respect to say, GLBT equality, Religious Affiliation (if present), what the local politics are like do in fact matter. For example, Texas by constitutional amendment does not offer spousal benefits to gay couples, so gay academics generally wont go there. And would you feel very comfortable living in an area where the local political scene is particularly hostile to you? Probably not. Austin is fairly liberal, itself, and rather comfortable to academics, but in the DFW area, matters are different, and attracting good faculty can be difficult as a result.

[Shroom Man 777]

An area full of homophobic creationist fundie pro-lifers likewise won't attract a lot of so-called ivy league elitist intellectuals. Though how those political stances correlate with gun-ownership, CCWs, and eagerness to bring guns to campus, I don't know.

[SVPD]

It is simplified, yes, but not invalid. Yes, I could use a number of variables equal to the number of gun crimes, if I did that, I would have to denote them, I would have to visit exotic non-latin/greek alphabets, so I collapsed them into one. It is perfectly mathematically valid to do this. In any case, the results are the same. I will put this into small words so you can understand:

People who carry illegal guns have a certain probability of using those guns to commit various crimes. People who have legal guns have a certain probability of using those guns to commit various crimes. To get an approximate total for crime involving guns, you add the two together. This is a very simple concept. If you want to further approximate it, you can also add terms in for police officers who commit crimes.

You also seem to not understand how averaging and finding probabilities work. Were I looking at risk for individuals, I would use a number of cases (individuals) and their "commits violent gun crime" vs "not commit violent gun crime" as outcomes, and then analyze the effect of each individual variable on risk, to determine how much a given risk factor plays into the outcome of a given case. This is called LOGIT regression, and I can do this if I have access to a few hundred case studies. .

It is however, not what I was doing. In this case, I am simply dividing the number of crimes committed by two groups by the population size of each group and then adding them together to show that by definition, adding more guns means more crime, which given the lack of effect CCW has, means a net-negative effect of having more guns on campus. I will demonstrate this with a dataset I have taken the last few days to compile here in a moment.

As for police, they commit crimes at a different probability than the other two, and it is obvious for those who do not wish to commit strawmen fallacies that they should be a separate term, and that their net-effect will be positive.

I will put this into small words so you can understand:

People who carry illegal guns have a certain probability of using those guns to commit various crimes. People who have legal guns have a certain probability of using those guns to commit various crimes. To get an approximate total for crime involving guns, you add the two together. This is a very simple concept. If you want to further approximate it, you can also add terms in for police officers who commit crimes.

Let me make this exceedingly clear: YOU CANNOT JUST ADD UP THE PROBABILITY OF A CRIME FOR ALL GUNS AND CALL IT A DAY, MORON. YOU HAVE TO CONSIDER THE NET EFFECT, INCLUDING DETERRENCE AND PREVENTION OF CRIMES, AND YOU CANNOT ASSUME THAT PRIVATELY OWNED LAWFUL GUNS DO NOT PREVENT OR DETER. THAT IS CALLED BEGGING THE QUESTION.

The point being, you do not want to have an argument about statistics with me. You will lose.

Don't have an argument about guns with me. You'll loose. Especially when you're a dishonest fuck that tries to pretend he has the statstical expertise to lie and cover it up - and then fails.

So? It has already been demonstrated that some of this gun crime is utterly trivial (improper carry, improper storage and the like) and the remainder is not all of equal severity; in fact, any crime other than a shooting is essentially irrelevant since the criminal can then be reported and arrested and no one ends up being hurt

And? This does not change the fact that some of that gun crime will be shootings. You are right. trivial gun crime is irrelevant, and a red herring. It is not germain to this discussion, and in my statistical analysis you will see momentarily, I only consider gun deaths.

And yet you insist on referring to "gun crime". This is an at

Yes, and? The same situation pertains to everywhere else in society. What makes campuses special?

The problem of HIPPA preventing us from actually ENFORCING the provision of CCW laws which supposedly prevents dangerously mentally ill people from getting CCW permits. Moreover, the concentration of people with undiagnosed mental illnesses is WAY the fuck higher on a college campuses, because they simply have not manifested earlier, and college students often do not know how to access mental health services on campus--limited as they are--and even if they did, do not have the money to pay for the third party therapy or medication they may be referred to.

And yet there is no significant problem of the mentally ill obtaining CCW permits and guns and then going off to commit crimes. Generally, the mentally ill do not bother with permits.

As for the "concentration being way the fuck higher", prove it. How much higher is "way the fuck higher?" Is there some line it is above that necessarily makes CCW permits a horrible idea? If so, why?

You are complaining that there is a small minority of college students with undiagnosed mental illness that ALSO will go get a CCW permit and ALSO will go get a gun, but mysteriously wouldn't go get one without a permit?

No, you're grasping at straws here. There is always a portion of the population with undiagnosed mental illness or who have not yet manifested.

Do you seriously think that increasing the access of these people to guns is a good idea? Are you mentally ill yourself, or just mind-numbingly stupid?

Are you so mind-numbingly stupid that you think allowing CCW meaningfully increases the access of these people to guns?

No, it really doesn't. All you're doing is claiming that the concentration of the undiagnosed mentlly ill on college campuses is above some arbitrary line that exists in your mind - a line that is whereever it needs to be for you to say there are too many. Then you are going and pretending that lack of a CCW permit really affects whether a mentally ill person will get a weapon.

If you want to bitch about HIPAA, go right ahead. Soory, can't help you there.

You also have better screening and mental health care in all of the above. Better training etc.

Which doesn't change the fact that screeing, training and mental health care can;t help for illnesses that haven't appeared yet. There's also the fact that these people are exposed to far more stress when armed and expected to take action far beyond that of normal civilians; hence the additional training.

Oh yes, I suppose that all of those people who are in their Jr. and Sr years, as well as graduate students and people who get discharged at 24 from the military and come back with MORE mental illnesses than they had going in are perfectly safe. Of course! I never would have guessed!

"All of these people"? Everyone who was in the military must have a mental illness now? How many are "all of these people" and how do you know if they have a mental illness - and if they really want a gun, what makes you think lack of a permit will stop them?

Hear that? That was the sound of The Point whisking over your head. For things like armed robbery, yes, past criminal records are good indicators. However we are not talking about those crimes. We are talking about a group of people which has been selected (via financial aid eligibility) to not have criminal records, but who are prone to whole new sorts of emotional and social stress. The sorts of crime you see on college campuses that CCW would negatively effect are those committed by emotionally disturbed persons (for whom past criminal record is not a good indicator, because being emotionally disturbed is by definition transient) and the mentally ill (which do not exhibit symptoms until they are university age).

Demonstrate that any of these are significant enough to matter, and that not being able to have a CCW permit would make a menaingful difference - no wait, strike that. They can get one. Demonstrate that simply not being able to use their CCW on campus would really do anything whatsoever to prevent them from hurting themself or someone else.

These are all things I have actually seen. An ex of mine manifested severe bipolar disorder after getting out of the military and loosing his best friend. The only reason his brain did not splatter against the wall is because he kept his guns unloaded, and they were in a secure gun case. I have seen schizophrenia manifest in one of my fellow graduate students, and she did artwork on the walls with her own blood--WHEN MEDICATED. It is REALLY bad when she is not medicated. These are of course just illustrative examples. The data says everything. When you look at crime statistics for university campuses (the FBI collects them, they are easy to access). Violent crimes are amazingly low, murder is almost non-existent. Most assaults happen at bars off campus. Rape is massively under-reported on university campuses, so I dont consider those statistics [on rape only] to be reliable (You cannot have some statistics saying 1 in 4 female college students are the victim of rape and sexual assault, while also having 1 rape on campus. Someone is wrong there...). My point is, there WILL be a marginal increase in gun-related violent crime if you permit legal gun carriers, unless either the number of people with a concealed carry permit is zero, or their probability of using those guns to commit crimes is actually zero. It is a mathematical certainty, you cannot avoid it.

No, there will NOT necessarily be a mariginal increase in gun-related crime. There could be a mariginal decrease. It is NOT a methematical certainty, because there already is some crime and guns may prevent or deter some of it. Don't bring up mathematical certainty again. You do not get to argue mathematical certainty and statsitics by pretending deterrent and prevention effects don't exist just ebcause you don't want them to.

You are failing uttelry at applying anecdotal evidence. Look at your very first story: He might have shot himself if he hadn't kept his guns unloaded. Well, evidently, despite having mental issues he was still able to handle his guns responsibly and not kill himself or anyone else, you fucking moron! Just having a mental issue does not make you a murderer or suicidal, nor completely negate your ability to understand what's going on. People with these kinds of issues that recognize they have a problem do what your friend did; those that are homicidal or suicidal go get a gun anyhow. Or, they have a CCW permit anyhow, and the magic invisible line at the edge of campus.. does nothing.

You CAN say that 1 in 4 college females is sexually assulted with only one on campus rape, because rapes can happen off campus as well.. but then, the 1 in 4 stat IS very dubious.

Given this, in order for this to be a good policy, the positive effects must outweigh the negatives. There must be a deterrence effect that outweighs the negative. I have run the statistics myself, there is no effect of concealed carry on crime once other factors are controlled. In fact, the statistically non-significant trend is for CCW to INCREASE aggravated assaults, so if there IS a marginal effect, it is in the opposite direction to the one you need.

(I controlled for poverty, drug use, population density, legal and illegal guns per capita, alcohol use, mental illness and police officers per capita)

Aside from the fact that a self-defense incident could easily be reported as an aggravated assault.. let's see your work. It's pretty suspicious that you've "run statistics" and don't even say the results, much less show the methodology. Then there's the fact that being able to run statistics doing research on amphibians does not, in any way, mean you have the knowledge necessary to competantly "control" for povery, drug use, etc. I mean, really, why bother with sociologists or psychologists when we have amphibian biologists to "run the statistics"?

And that has absolutely nothing to do with you being trained for it right? I am not worried about the responsible ones. I have students who I would be perfectly comfortable with guns. There are some students I would not be. IE. Last year's little stalking incident.

So go get some training yourself.

I mean premed students stalking me, and attempting to intimidate me into giving them a better grade. It does not work for them, but I should not have to worry that such a student is armed.

You already do have to worry about that. If he wants to shoot you, do you really think "CCW is no good on campus" is stopping him?

Enjoy your false sense of security.

Sure. On the other hand, they are NORMALLY law-abiding. Someone who is emotionally disturbed without ready access to a gun, is safer than someone who has to jump through hoops to get them. Put it this way. If on a daily basis they are not carrying a gun, but are suddenly want to obtain one for the purposes of shooting me, or using it to intimidate me directly, they would need to go through a few hoops to get one, because they do not have one pre-existing. They would need to get the ready cash to obtain one, for most students that takes time.

You REALLY think that not being allowed to apply a CCW permit on campus is "jumping through hoops"? Really? If they have a gun, they just carry it on campus; if they don't, being allowed to use the permit on campus doesn't magically give them a gun.

Wow. I mean, look at what you just said. If they were allowed a CCW on campus, where would the gun come from? If they don't have ready cash for one now, why would they have it if their permit was good on campus? It doesn't make the gun cheaper.

As for "normally law abiding".. so they're suddenly going to shoot you out of rage? This is absurd. You may want to read "On Killing" by David Grossman. If they're normally law abiding, they will be no less so with a gun.

If CCW becomes legal, some of these students will already be carrying a weapon. Do you see how this may be a problem? Guns dont cause crimes, but ready access to them makes the commission of a crime much easier.

They could commit a crime easily anyhow. However, you are wildly exaggerating the severity and frequency of emotional disturbance, and their likelyhood of shooting even if those apply.

So, no, it is not a problem any more than it is anywhere else. All you're doing is grasping at straws to preserve your little enclave where you think you're safer. You are trying to conflate means and intent. A gun is a means to commit a crime; it in no way increases intent. Do you know how much trouble you'd be in if you were a cop and arrested someone because they had a gun and therefore could commit a crime.

Did you report this? Were they charged? I'd be very interested to hear their side of the story, and that of any third parties.

It stopped after the people in question had time to cool the fuck down, and come to terms with the fact that their hopes and dreams were dust. We are not talking creepy pathological stalking. We are talking about transient emotional distress. The two are different things, and the best way to respond is to ignore them and not reinforce the behavior. I was not worried about what said students might do to me, because there was nothing they COULD do but complain to the department chair that I was not giving them undeserved points. That would not go over well. So, I rode it out.

It would be a different story if I could see a shoulder strap under their shirt.

Why would it be a different story? Because you think yourself qualified to diagnose mental conditions and have an irrational fear of guns?

As for "seeing a shoulder strap".. good luck. If you are not a tactically trained person or an experienced criminal yourself your chances of spotting a properly concealed weapon are damn low.

Non-zero probability+non-zero probability=bigger non-zero probability. Yes, there is always the possibility that someone could attack me. However, with more armed people, that possibility becomes larger. Again, mathematical certainty. It cannot be avoided in this case.

Not mathematical certainty at all. If a person really wanted to hurt you out of some sort of rage or emotional reaction, they would almost certainly punch you or stab you if they didn't have a gun. On the other hand, the possibility of being arrested for assault, as opposed to attempted murder or murder is pretty likely to deter someone who wants to punch you from shooting you instead.

You are trying to apply probabilities and statistics without understanding the underlying subject matter. It's hilarious, but its stupid.

[SVPD]

In regard to Alyrium - I basically don't believe a word he says. If you want to talk about that, send me a PM.

Based on what? Your lack of knowledge of simple addition and probability?

My knowledge of both is fine. The issue is your inability to understand the subject matter. You can't just make up whatever assumptions fly into your little head and do math based on them.

[SVPD]

An area full of homophobic creationist fundie pro-lifers likewise won't attract a lot of so-called ivy league elitist intellectuals. Though how those political stances correlate with gun-ownership, CCWs, and eagerness to bring guns to campus, I don't know.

Wow, that's not bigoted at all.

[Terralthra]

An area full of homophobic creationist fundie pro-lifers likewise won't attract a lot of so-called ivy league elitist intellectuals. Though how those political stances correlate with gun-ownership, CCWs, and eagerness to bring guns to campus, I don't know.

Wow, that's not bigoted at all.

It wasn't, actually, unless you read it assuming he means the exact opposite of what he said.

[SVPD]

An area full of homophobic creationist fundie pro-lifers likewise won't attract a lot of so-called ivy league elitist intellectuals. Though how those political stances correlate with gun-ownership, CCWs, and eagerness to bring guns to campus, I don't know.

Wow, that's not bigoted at all.

It wasn't, actually, unless you read it assuming he means the exact opposite of what he said.

Claiming Texas is "An area full of homophobic creationist fundie pro-lifers" sounds pretty bigoted to me. Sure, there are people like that. There are people like that in lots of places.

[Shroom Man 777]

Did I give a specific geological criteria for "area"?

It is a response to these statements:

Researchers choose based on ideology? That's an.. interesting revelation.

And would you feel very comfortable living in an area where the local political scene is particularly hostile to you? Probably not.

Certain regions do lean towards creationism, pro-life, anti-marriage equality, etcetera. Politically. And this would be uncomfortable for liberal-leaning atheist homosexual abortionists.

Just like how a region under Shariah Law would be uncomfortable for a gay atheist Jew single mother playboy model who also runs a hamburger shop.

[Terralthra]

An area full of homophobic creationist fundie pro-lifers likewise won't attract a lot of so-called ivy league elitist intellectuals. Though how those political stances correlate with gun-ownership, CCWs, and eagerness to bring guns to campus, I don't know.

Claiming Texas is "An area full of homophobic creationist fundie pro-lifers" sounds pretty bigoted to me. Sure, there are people like that. There are people like that in lots of places.

He....didn't.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Let me make this exceedingly clear: YOU CANNOT JUST ADD UP THE PROBABILITY OF A CRIME FOR ALL GUNS AND CALL IT A DAY, MORON. YOU HAVE TO CONSIDER THE NET EFFECT, INCLUDING DETERRENCE AND PREVENTION OF CRIMES, AND YOU CANNOT ASSUME THAT PRIVATELY OWNED LAWFUL GUNS DO NOT PREVENT OR DETER. THAT IS CALLED BEGGING THE QUESTION.

When you are ONLY addressing the number of crimes committed with those weapons, yeah. You can. I have even discussed in this thread WHY there will be no deterrent effect. Namely, that the murders committed on campus are crimes of passion or the result of mental illness, forms of crime for which deterrence has no effect. Unless you are going to take a single statement out of the context of the rest of the things I have said in this thread. Seriously, go look at the number of murders on college campuses. The FBI has been tabulating the data for decades, we are talking about 0 or 1, maybe all the way up to two murders on campus a year, and usually 0. Here. Let me randomly[sic] select a university system for you. Every university in texas, just for shits and giggles. I will go back from 2009 (most recently available) to 2004. I will look up any murders I find, and show you what the root cause of the crime appears to be.

http://www.click2houston.com/news/19270469/detail.html

guy's crazy

http://chronicle.com/article/Librarian- ... oots/41793

No apparent motive, cant find anything on follow up. Again, seems like the sort of non-rational thing for which armed people would not be a deterrent.

Cant find an article from Baylor in 2007

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... n27097161/

Heat of the moment pulling of a gun by someone who was probably intoxicated. No real prospect of deterrence.

And that is it. Not a single murder that one could reasonably assume could have been deterred or prevented by gun-carrying citizens.

I could look over the UC system if you like. Maybe SUNY?

Don't have an argument about guns with me. You'll loose. Especially when you're a dishonest fuck that tries to pretend he has the statstical expertise to lie and cover it up - and then fails.

You know, I dont know about guns. I do however know about criminology and mental illness.

Then there is the accusation of lies. Do you have anything to back that up, any statement I have made that you can prove that I know to be false? If you dont, shut the fuck up. I can be mistaken about things. I may overlook things accidentally, but I do not lie. I also dont need to pretend to have statistical expertise. I have a total of four graduate level courses in statistics and statistical biology, I know more stats than most social scientists. Would you like to see the relevant bits of my transcripts?

Fuck it. Here are the output tables



This is a linear regression showing the relationship between firearm homicide per capita in each state and a bunch of variables. The take home message, if you look at the column for "sig" any number there lower than .05 is a relationship statistically different from zero. The Adjusted R Squared is the amount of the variation explained by those relationships, in this case, around 50%. Drugs and booze are calculated as the percent of people above the age of 12 who have engaged in binge drinking or use of a non-pot illicit drug in the past month.

Oh, what could that be? Do I see both legal and illegal guns per capita having a positive effect on the number of murders? I think I do. Keep in mind though, many of these other variables are probably relevant, however, because the state to state variation has a LOT of other factors that go into it, the effect size of a lot of the others may get washed out. The relationship may also just not be linear. Police per capita actually has a quadratic relationship with murder due to complex causation. Places with little murder dont need that many cops, places with a lot of cops have less murder, and murder peaks in the center, however, I cannot run multivariate statistics with multiple relationship curves. Well, I could, but it would require more effort than I am willing to put in on your behalf when I have other shit to do.



Now, when I corrected for the relationships in that regression (by using the residuals) and running an Analysis of Variance on Shall Issue, May Issue, and No CCW, I got that. Lower murder rate for No CCW, however, the Analysis of Variance was not significant, and that trend is not distinguishable from zero.

Now, the same thing with Rape, same variables.



Legal guns make rape more common. Then again, rape is sort of an everyman's crime (or rather, with 1/4th of women being sexually assaulted at some point, and if we assume for the sake of amusement a 1:1 rape ratio, 1/4th of everyman's crime), and it makes sense that to the extent rape is gun-facilitated, that those guns would be legal.



Same deal, same results. I suppose having a concealed gun makes it easier to rape, but only just and not distinguishable from zero.

Are you done?

And yet you insist on referring to "gun crime".

Because I dont give a shit about your semantical nitpicking. I have been referring to murder and other violent crime, if you had half a brain, you could infer that this is what I am referring to. I dont give a shit about permit violations, and when I pull data, I ONLY look at firearm homicides and aggravated assault. Now, kindly go fuck yourself.

And yet there is no significant problem of the mentally ill obtaining CCW permits and guns and then going off to commit crimes. Generally, the mentally ill do not bother with permits.

Most mentally ill people are not gibbering loons all or even most of the time. You have a point when it comes to people who manifest schizophrenia early and start out with crazy command hallucinations. Even then, they should not be able to legally get a gun at all, but still can due to HIPPA, and most of the ones you may see on a college campus have no criminal record and dont know where to get an illegal gun. If they did, they would be ineligible for financial aid, which prices them out.

The same goes for depression--which does not preclude a person from appearing to function normally, bi-polar disorder, and a host of other things that make someone dangerous to themselves and others but also dont make them gibbering loons.

As for the "concentration being way the fuck higher", prove it. How much higher is "way the fuck higher?"

It is the age distribution fuckwad. The general population has a certain percentage of young people, a portion of which have an undiagnosed serious mental illness. University campuses have a student population comprised almost entirely of people between the ages of 18 and 25, who may have an undiagnosed mental illness.

Here however, are some numbers for depression among grad students

Studies have found that graduate school is not a particularly healthy place. At the University of California at Berkeley, 67 percent of graduate students said they had felt hopeless at least once in the last year; 54 percent felt so depressed they had a hard time functioning; and nearly 10 percent said they had considered suicide, a 2004 survey found. By comparison, an estimated 9.5 percent of American adults suffer from depressive disorders in a given year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Meanwhile, nearly a quarter of the graduate students surveyed were not aware of mental-health services on the campus. And another Berkeley study recently found that graduate students were becoming increasingly disillusioned with careers in academe and did not view large research institutions as family-friendly workplaces (The Chronicle, January 23).

http://www.grad.uci.edu/forms/students/ ... ultsJS.pdf

17% of grad students have a serious axis 1 disorder. Compare that to the rest of the population: 3.9% from my dataset. So yeah. Mental illness is a BIG problem.

You are complaining that there is a small minority of college students with undiagnosed mental illness that ALSO will go get a CCW permit and ALSO will go get a gun, but mysteriously wouldn't go get one without a permit?

Considering the (relatively) high probability that someone with an Axis 1 mental disorder will be a danger to themselves or others, yeah. The average university student does not know where to get an illegal weapon. I think we can both agree to this. No criminal record, the most they have ever done might be a smoke some pot, HIPPA prevents adequate screening at legal gun dealers. They are not generally so insane that they dont give a shit about the law most of the time. You know, unless they have REALLY bad command hallucinations. People with mood disorders, which are the most common, certainly care. Also, by the time many of these illnesses have fully revealed themselves, the student is already 21, or fast approaching it.

However, they cant have their gun on campus. Most of them if they have a gun, will have left it at home because they DO care about the law(most of the time). So if they have a bad day/something happens/something snaps inside, whatever, they wont have it on them. If they are permitted to carry on campus, permitted to have their gun in the dorm, this substantially increases the risk.

Is the effect size small? Sure, of course it is. I am not saying that any of these things are going to have huge effects. Just that you have to consider the net effects of that risk, with the very deterrent effect that you say I dont address (which I absolutely do, just not in the particular statement you scream about).

No, you're grasping at straws here. There is always a portion of the population with undiagnosed mental illness or who have not yet manifested.

And because of the demographics of a college campus, that percentage is much higher.

Are you so mind-numbingly stupid that you think allowing CCW meaningfully increases the access of these people to guns?

No, it really doesn't. All you're doing is claiming that the concentration of the undiagnosed mentlly ill on college campuses is above some arbitrary line that exists in your mind

There is no line. I am a utilitarian. Even if the net-negative is very small, if the net-negative of a policy is larger in absolute value than another alternative, it is not a good policy. Given that the effect of CCW on crime is non-existent or even increases the number of violent crimes (depending on how much stock you put in trends that are not readily distinguishable from zero statistically because of small effect sizes. I am inclined to say zero.

Which doesn't change the fact that screeing, training and mental health care can;t help for illnesses that haven't appeared yet

They can if it is regular enough.

"All of these people"? Everyone who was in the military must have a mental illness now? How many are "all of these people" and how do you know if they have a mental illness - and if they really want a gun, what makes you think lack of a permit will stop them?

Oh jesus... did you seriously do the equivalent of "You people? What do you mean by you people?"?

1 in 5 Iraq/Afghanistan war veterans have PTSD or Clinical Depression and have double the suicide rate of civies.

Again, keep in mind that most wont know where to get a gun illegally. If they were screened, permitting would be a non-issue because they could never get a legal gun at all. If someone REALLY wants to kill themselves or others, you cannot stop them, but you can make it difficult or less effective. Jesus christ, your argument is identical in its logic to saying "We cannot stop industrial accidents, so why regulate them?" You CAN reduce the number.

Demonstrate that any of these are significant enough to matter, and that not being able to have a CCW permit would make a menaingful difference - no wait, strike that. They can get one. Demonstrate that simply not being able to use their CCW on campus would really do anything whatsoever to prevent them from hurting themself or someone else.

See stats above.

There could be a mariginal decrease. It is NOT a methematical certainty, because there already is some crime and guns may prevent or deter some of it.

My numbers say otherwise. I suppose I could increase the resolution by considering metro areas.

Aside from the fact that a self-defense incident could easily be reported as an aggravated assault.. let's see your work. It's pretty suspicious that you've "run statistics" and don't even say the results, much less show the methodology.

Because it is a pain in the ass. In any case, I reran the stats with things more likely to have a decent distribution (there is no real difference with mental health between states for example, so I excluded it, and GINI encapsulates more variation than poverty and population density stats)

OK. Methods: I collected data from the 2009 UCR for the firearm homicides, rape and police per capita across 50 states. GINI was tabulated from the US Census, Legal firearms are measured as gun ownership by houshold, illegal guns are measured as per capita gun imports (easier to do than net import/export rates, there are convenience concerns). Alcohol and Drug use was tabulated from the the CDC (or rather, another acronym under the CDC, I forget which it is). All data is from 2009

The mathematical methods are posted above.

Then there's the fact that being able to run statistics doing research on amphibians does not, in any way, mean you have the knowledge necessary to competantly "control" for povery, drug use, etc. I mean, really, why bother with sociologists or psychologists when we have amphibian biologists to "run the statistics"?

Ecologists actually have a larger statistical toolbox than most social scientists, and math is the same regardless of who uses it, unless you think that a linear regression for a biologist is performed differently than the linear regression run by a criminologist. The control procedure in large datasets is exactly the same. Namely, running your regression and then using the residuals from that regression for the ANOVA on the fixed factor. My analysis is a bit simple (If I wanted to dig through more records, I could have done a repeated measures analysis state by state (or even using a few cities) using a time series, but... good god why?)

Why would it be a different story? Because you think yourself qualified to diagnose mental conditions and have an irrational fear of guns?

Because the person then has the potential to do me actual harm dumbfuck. I am also not afraid of guns. I am rather comfortable using them for target shooting, I am just not tactically trained (with post-medieval weapons anyway). As for mental illnesses, i cannot diagnose. I do however have a good theoretical background in them (having read the DSM IV, and being one course shy of a psych minor)

You are trying to apply probabilities and statistics without understanding the underlying subject matter. It's hilarious, but its stupid.

HAH! That is rich, he who thinks that math is different between disciplines. Here, lets take a look at the literature on criminal deterrence:


Grambsch P. 2008. Regression to the Mean, Murder Rates, and Shall-Issue Laws. Am. stat. 22(4)

Abstract: The relationship between state Murder rates and the liberalization of conditions under which a citizen can obtain a permit to carry a concealed weapon (shall-issue laws) is controversial and important for policy. Many analyses have been done during the last decade, but regression to the mean has been ignored with the exception of two papers which concluded that it did not matter. We consider state Murder rates for 1976-2001 and compare relative Murder rate slopes (relative to the U.S. Murder rate) for the five years following state adoption of shall-issue laws to the five years preceding for the 25 states becoming shall-issue in 1981-1996. We find strong evidence for regression to the mean. Using both a random and a fixed effects model, we compare analyses ignoring the regression effect via a paired t-test to those controlling for it by conditioning oil the pre shall-issue slopes. We find that controlling for regression to the mean changes the sign of the estimated intervention effect oil murder rate slopes from negative to positive, has strong impact on statistical significance, and gives no support to the hypothesis that shall-issue laws have beneficial effects in reducing murder rates.

Rosengart M, Cummings P, Nathens A, Heagerty P, Maier R, Rivara F. 2005. An evaluation of state firearm regulations and homicide and suicide death rates. Injury Prevention 11(2)

Abstract: Objective: To determine if any of five different state gun laws were associated with firearm mortality: ( 1) " shall issue'' laws permitting an individual to carry a concealed weapon unless restricted by another statute; ( 2) a minimum age of 21 years for handgun purchase; ( 3) a minimum age of 21 years for private handgun possession; ( 4) one gun a month laws which restrict handgun purchase frequency; and ( 5) junk gun laws which ban the sale of certain cheaply constructed handguns.
Design: A cross sectional time series study of firearm mortality from 1979 to 1998.
Setting: All 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Subjects: All residents of the United States.
Main outcome measures: Firearm homicides, all homicides, firearm suicides, and all suicides.
Results: When a " shall issue'' law was present, the rate of firearm homicides was greater, RR 1.11 ( 95% confidence interval 0.99 to 1.24), than when the law was not present, as was the rate of all homicides, RR 1.08 ( 95% CI 0.98 to 1.17), although this was not statistically significant. No law was associated with a statistically significant decrease in the rates of firearm homicides or total homicides. No law was associated with a statistically significant change in firearm suicide rates.
Conclusion: A " shall issue'' law that eliminates most restrictions on carrying a concealed weapon may be associated with increased firearm homicide rates. No law was associated with a statistically significant reduction in firearm homicide or suicide rates.

Rubin PH, Dezhbakhsh H. 200. The effect of concealed handgun laws on crime: beyond the dummy variables. INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF LAW AND ECONOMICS 23(2)

Abstract: So far 33 states have adopted right-to-carry concealed handgun laws. The advocates argue these laws have a deterrent effect on crime, while the opponents believe they facilitate crime by increasing gun availability. Although both sides assume that these laws affect behavior, no attempt has yet been made to model such effects using crime theory. Consequently, the empirical evidence on such effects lack a theoretical basis; for example, a highly publicized study by Lott and Mustard (1997) inappropriately models the effect of the law through a dummy variable (a binary-valued regressor). We extend the economic model of crime to formulate a theoretical basis for empirical examination of the issue. We show that using a dummy variable leads to misspecification, and use an alternative procedure to estimate the effect of concealed handgun laws in 1992 for states which had not yet adopted such laws. Our results show that the expected effect of the law on crime varies across the counties and states and depends on county-specific characteristics in a meaningful way. Such effects appear to be much smaller and more mixed than Lott and Mustard suggest, and are not crime-reducing in most cases. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Aaah, the joys of background reading.

[SVPD]

Let me make this exceedingly clear: YOU CANNOT JUST ADD UP THE PROBABILITY OF A CRIME FOR ALL GUNS AND CALL IT A DAY, MORON. YOU HAVE TO CONSIDER THE NET EFFECT, INCLUDING DETERRENCE AND PREVENTION OF CRIMES, AND YOU CANNOT ASSUME THAT PRIVATELY OWNED LAWFUL GUNS DO NOT PREVENT OR DETER. THAT IS CALLED BEGGING THE QUESTION.

When you are ONLY addressing the number of crimes committed with those weapons, yeah. You can. I have even discussed in this thread WHY there will be no deterrent effect. Namely, that the murders committed on campus are crimes of passion or the result of mental illness, forms of crime for which deterrence has no effect. Unless you are going to take a single statement out of the context of the rest of the things I have said in this thread. Seriously, go look at the number of murders on college campuses. The FBI has been tabulating the data for decades, we are talking about 0 or 1, maybe all the way up to two murders on campus a year, and usually 0. Here. Let me randomly[sic] select a university system for you. Every university in texas, just for shits and giggles. I will go back from 2009 (most recently available) to 2004. I will look up any murders I find, and show you what the root cause of the crime appears to be.

When you're only addressing numbers of crimes committed, you're being dishonest. Net effect is what's important.

Moreover, deterrence does have an effect for both crimes of passion and the mentally ill. Not all mentally ill people are perfectly willing to get shot; if that were true the police would shoot mentally ill people committing suicide by cop a lot more frequently.

http://www.click2houston.com/news/19270469/detail.html

guy's crazy

Was not committed on campus, and might have been prevented if either a passerby or the victim had been armed.

http://chronicle.com/article/Librarian- ... oots/41793

No apparent motive, cant find anything on follow up. Again, seems like the sort of non-rational thing for which armed people would not be a deterrent.

Could easily have been a deterrent; the man clearly did not want to die since he neither shot himself, nor shot at the police. Also might have been prevented if someone present were armed. 15-20 other people, plus the victim. Shooter was not a student and not even close to the age range.

Cant find an article from Baylor in 2007

Sorry.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... n27097161/

Heat of the moment pulling of a gun by someone who was probably intoxicated. No real prospect of deterrence.

Not done by a student, and happened off campus. Not relevant to the issue. Victim just happened to be a student.

And that is it. Not a single murder that one could reasonably assume could have been deterred or prevented by gun-carrying citizens.

At least 2 might posibly have been deterred or prevented if the victim or a third party were armed.

Don't have an argument about guns with me. You'll loose. Especially when you're a dishonest fuck that tries to pretend he has the statstical expertise to lie and cover it up - and then fails.

You know, I dont know about guns. I do however know about criminology and mental illness.

No, you don't. You're a layman on both those subjects. I, on the other hand, ahve 10 years of law enforcement experience in various capacties.. and a degree in psychology.

Then there is the accusation of lies. Do you have anything to back that up, any statement I have made that you can prove that I know to be false? If you dont, shut the fuck up. I can be mistaken about things. I may overlook things accidentally, but I do not lie. I also dont need to pretend to have statistical expertise. I have a total of four graduate level courses in statistics and statistical biology, I know more stats than most social scientists. Would you like to see the relevant bits of my transcripts?

You certainly do lie, when you attempt to pretend that there is some mathematical certainty of an increase in overall gun crime by just assuming each gun is responsible for a certain amount of crime and ignoring the amount it prevents or stops.

Fuck it. Here are the output tables

<snip image>

This is a linear regression showing the relationship between firearm homicide per capita in each state and a bunch of variables. The take home message, if you look at the column for "sig" any number there lower than .05 is a relationship statistically different from zero. The Adjusted R Squared is the amount of the variation explained by those relationships, in this case, around 50%. Drugs and booze are calculated as the percent of people above the age of 12 who have engaged in binge drinking or use of a non-pot illicit drug in the past month.

Oh, what could that be? Do I see both legal and illegal guns per capita having a positive effect on the number of murders? I think I do. Keep in mind though, many of these other variables are probably relevant, however, because the state to state variation has a LOT of other factors that go into it, the effect size of a lot of the others may get washed out. The relationship may also just not be linear. Police per capita actually has a quadratic relationship with murder due to complex causation. Places with little murder dont need that many cops, places with a lot of cops have less murder, and murder peaks in the center, however, I cannot run multivariate statistics with multiple relationship curves. Well, I could, but it would require more effort than I am willing to put in on your behalf when I have other shit to do.

<snip image>

Now, when I corrected for the relationships in that regression (by using the residuals) and running an Analysis of Variance on Shall Issue, May Issue, and No CCW, I got that. Lower murder rate for No CCW, however, the Analysis of Variance was not significant, and that trend is not distinguishable from zero.[/quote]

Wow, look. A whole wall of text and numbers purporting to show.. a correlation, that you yourself admit includes enormous numbers of other variables. In fact, rates between states are dubious in and of themself simply because of the enormous population difference between states. Some states have single-digit yearly murders and yet have lower rates than states like California because California or Texas or NY have such high populations; a single murder therefore shoots Wyoming's rate through the roof.

Vastly more competent people than you have studied tis same data, and yet they do not arrogantly try to proclaim it demonstrates much of anything except.. a correlation. They even admit that it may be a reverse causation because, while that hypothesis does not explain the rate of non-firearm homicide to gun ownership, it says nothing about overall crime.

Now, the same thing with Rape, same variables.

<snip image>

Legal guns make rape more common. Then again, rape is sort of an everyman's crime (or rather, with 1/4th of women being sexually assaulted at some point, and if we assume for the sake of amusement a 1:1 rape ratio, 1/4th of everyman's crime), and it makes sense that to the extent rape is gun-facilitated, that those guns would be legal.

Wow, that was completely shameless. I ahve to give serious credit for being so blatant with both a correlation/causation fallacy and a complex cause fallacy. "Legal guns make rape more common". And you wonder why I accuse you of dishonesty.

Same deal, same results. I suppose having a concealed gun makes it easier to rape, but only just and not distinguishable from zero.

Are you done?

So you admit it makes no meaningful difference. Having a concealed gun makes it easier to rape; it also makes it easier to avoid rape, but for some reason we don't seem to have statistics on crimes prevented by guns.

Because I dont give a shit about your semantical nitpicking. I have been referring to murder and other violent crime, if you had half a brain, you could infer that this is what I am referring to. I dont give a shit about permit violations, and when I pull data, I ONLY look at firearm homicides and aggravated assault. Now, kindly go fuck yourself.

Quit your fucking whining. If you'd specified that in the first place we wouldn't be having this problem, and statistical arguments in pretty much any context are notorious for just this sort of chicanry.. and you're already on thin ice by trying to pretend correlation = causation and arguing that you can just add up crimes per gun without considering deterrence or prevention to figure out a net effect.

Most mentally ill people are not gibbering loons all or even most of the time. You have a point when it comes to people who manifest schizophrenia early and start out with crazy command hallucinations. Even then, they should not be able to legally get a gun at all, but still can due to HIPPA, and most of the ones you may see on a college campus have no criminal record and dont know where to get an illegal gun. If they did, they would be ineligible for financial aid, which prices them out.

Obviously they are not "gibbering loons". No one claimed any such thing.

You are really having trouble with this: First of all, the number of mentally ill people on college campuses is not that enormous, unless we start classifying any and all distress as "mental illness". So far, I'm not even certain what you mean by mental illness; since you're talking about schizophernia, you must mean something at least moderatley severe. It is not as if college campuses are overrun with students barely hanging on or avoiding a breakdown by the skin of their teeth.

Second, if they can buy a gun because of HIPAA, even when they shouldn't, then not allowing them to utilize a CCW on campus, does not, in any way

The same goes for depression--which does not preclude a person from appearing to function normally, bi-polar disorder, and a host of other things that make someone dangerous to themselves and others but also don't make them gibbering loons.

Neither depression nor bi-polar disorder necessarily make a person a danger to themself or others. Depression is exceedingly common (as much as 10% of the adult population), but the vast majority of the depressed do not hurt anyone, including themself. In fact, "depression" has become almost fashionable, with practically any negative mood or hard life circumstance being considered "depression" in some circles, especially where there's money to be made.

More importantly, preventing suicide is an exceedingly weak anti-CCW argument. The only people this would affect are those that A) want to commit suicide B) have a gun C) would have a permit D) would actually carry the gun on campus with the permit E) would decide to use that gun to kill themself while on campus and F) otherwise would somehow be detected and prevented before getting access to their gun or another method.

As for bi-polar disorder and others..2.6% of the adult population with Bi Polar disorder.

Aside from the fact that merely being bi polar, even severely, does not make one a danger to onesself or others (although it still means you shouldn't have a gun until you can demonstrate that) again, out of that 2.6% the only people that this change in the law would matter to are those that A) own a gun or have the means and willingness to get one B) can qualify for and will actually go obtain a CCW permit, or already have one C) would actually carry that gun on campus.

Seeing as much of your student population is too young in the first place to qualify, and many will have neither the means nor the interest in getting the gun and permit, and even of those, not all will carry (many CCW holders carry irregularly, or almost never simply because carrying a gun can be a pain in the ass, sometimes literally depending on what kind of chair you sit in) we are talking about a vanishingly small number of people, and even for them there is very little chance of homicidal behavior. Other mental illnesses exist - but often in the same people, and the more mental illnesses a person has the more likely they are to be detected. People like the VT shooter are rare because everything goes wrong, both inside their brain and outside.

A
It is the age distribution fuckwad. The general population has a certain percentage of young people, a portion of which have an undiagnosed serious mental illness. University campuses have a student population comprised almost entirely of people between the ages of 18 and 25, who may have an undiagnosed mental illness.

Dumbass, "a proportion" doesn't mean anything. Obviously "a proportion" does. You're carefully avoiding saying what that proportion is because you know it's damn low. For "Severe" bi polar disorder, 2.2%, as my link showed. Of that 2.2% we can eliminate anyone 18-20 years old, so there's 37.5% of your "undiagnosed" people eliminated right away as irrelevant because if they are carrying a weapon it will already be illegal based on not being old enough for a permit.

Of the rest, they also have to own a gun, get a permit, and carry it on campus to even be relevant. We're talking now about tenths or hundredths of a percent, and those tenths or hundredths still aren't even likely to actually go on a shooting rampage. Most of those old enough to obtain one won't have the money, inclination, or either to go get both a weapon and a permit.

Here however, are some numbers for depression among grad students

Studies have found that graduate school is not a particularly healthy place. At the University of California at Berkeley, 67 percent of graduate students said they had felt hopeless at least once in the last year; 54 percent felt so depressed they had a hard time functioning; and nearly 10 percent said they had considered suicide, a 2004 survey found. By comparison, an estimated 9.5 percent of American adults suffer from depressive disorders in a given year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Meanwhile, nearly a quarter of the graduate students surveyed were not aware of mental-health services on the campus. And another Berkeley study recently found that graduate students were becoming increasingly disillusioned with careers in academe and did not view large research institutions as family-friendly workplaces (The Chronicle, January 23).

http://www.grad.uci.edu/forms/students/ ... ultsJS.pdf

Holy shit. Really? "Had felt hopeless at least once in the past year?" Lots of people feel hopeless when they have a lot of major challenges going on.. then they get through it. "So depressed they had a hard time functioning"? What the hell is that supposed to mean? "Had considered suicide"? Practically everyone at least idly considers suicide at some point. How many of these 9.5% of depressed people are mildly depressed? Wow, we're not trying to make the numbers as big as possible, are we? Open-ended question and vague terminology are really handy!

As for "disillusioned with acadame" or "not family friendly" I fail to see the relevance.

17% of grad students have a serious axis 1 disorder. Compare that to the rest of the population: 3.9% from my dataset. So yeah. Mental illness is a BIG problem.

From your own article, on the page with that statistic:

Actual prevalence in UCIrvine students may be lower than 17%, as students with mental health concerns may have been more
inclined to respond to this survey than students without such concerns

Considering the (relatively) high probability that someone with an Axis 1 mental disorder will be a danger to themselves or others, yeah. The average university student does not know where to get an illegal weapon. I think we can both agree to this. No criminal record, the most they have ever done might be a smoke some pot, HIPPA prevents adequate screening at legal gun dealers.

If by "illegal gun" you mean one stolen, then yes. However, legally owning a gun is not the same as legally carrying it. If the student owns a gun they purchased legally, nothing physically prevents them from bringing it on campus if they feel like it. You seem to keep forgetting that the issue is not whether they have access to guns; its whether they can carry them on campus. Whether they can carry them elsewhere is essentially a closed issue: if they meet legal requirements, they may.

They are not generally so insane that they dont give a shit about the law most of the time. You know, unless they have REALLY bad command hallucinations. People with mood disorders, which are the most common, certainly care. Also, by the time many of these illnesses have fully revealed themselves, the student is already 21, or fast approaching it.

So if they do "give a shit about the law most of the time" what makes you think they will suddenly stop just because its legal to carry a gun on campus? Graduate students are not known for having hundreds of dollars extra to spend buying a gun plus permit fees. In any case, you're still quibbling about a tiny, tiny minority of students that have the guns, the permit, and the disorder. We do not restrict people, in a free society, simply because a tiny percentage of them might have a problem that we haven't yet detected.

However, they cant have their gun on campus. Most of them if they have a gun, will have left it at home because they DO care about the law(most of the time). So if they have a bad day/something happens/something snaps inside, whatever, they wont have it on them. If they are permitted to carry on campus, permitted to have their gun in the dorm, this substantially increases the risk.

And yet we're talking about such a vanishingly small number proportion of people that it's irrelevant, especially since "having a bad day" or "snapping" does not automatically mean getting out the gun and blasting away - not even close to it. This is essentially the reverse of the argument that people not being allowed to carry guns substantially increases the risk they are at to a campus shooter. The overall scenario is hugely unlikely because it only addresses the tiny percentage of students that have mental disorders AND a gun AND a CCW permit AND will actually engage in homicidal behavior. Even among people with serious mental conditions, sudden fits of homicidal rage are vanishingly rare.

Is the effect size small? Sure, of course it is. I am not saying that any of these things are going to have huge effects. Just that you have to consider the net effects of that risk, with the very deterrent effect that you say I dont address (which I absolutely do, just not in the particular statement you scream about).

No, you have done no such thing. All you have done is arbitrarily proclaim there isn't any in situations you have amply demonstrated you lack the ability to analyze. In fact, you couldn't even determine accurately that your anecdotes included only 1 on campus shooting of 3 stories, and only 1 student of stories.

The net effect of risk is, essentially, negligeble one way or the other when everything is totalled up, and there is therefore no compelling state interest in maintaining a legal restriction on the rights of adults. More minor restrictions, such as "no guns in the chemistry lab, where an accident could cause an explosion" might still be warranted.

And because of the demographics of a college campus, that percentage is much higher.

No, it is self-reported as higher, in a study that admits that.

There is no line. I am a utilitarian. Even if the net-negative is very small, if the net-negative of a policy is larger in absolute value than another alternative, it is not a good policy. Given that the effect of CCW on crime is non-existent or even increases the number of violent crimes (depending on how much stock you put in trends that are not readily distinguishable from zero statistically because of small effect sizes. I am inclined to say zero.

You have shown no net negative, and in any case, we don't live in a utilitarian society, at least not completely. Utilitarianism would be a great system if it didn't require people to apply it, because people absolutely suck at it, and it becomes a tool to advance the conclusion one wanted in the first place.

Which doesn't change the fact that screeing, training and mental health care can;t help for illnesses that haven't appeared yet

They can if it is regular enough.

If you screen someone regularly enough for mental illnesses you'll detect them when they haven't appeared yet?

"All of these people"? Everyone who was in the military must have a mental illness now? How many are "all of these people" and how do you know if they have a mental illness - and if they really want a gun, what makes you think lack of a permit will stop them?

Oh jesus... did you seriously do the equivalent of "You people? What do you mean by you people?"?

1 in 5 Iraq/Afghanistan war veterans have PTSD or Clinical Depression and have double the suicide rate of civies.

What I "seriously did" was point out that, once again, you're simply making a vague claim to large numbers. Wouldn't it have been easier to say what you meant in the first place?

Again, keep in mind that most wont know where to get a gun illegally. If they were screened, permitting would be a non-issue because they could never get a legal gun at all. If someone REALLY wants to kill themselves or others, you cannot stop them, but you can make it difficult or less effective. Jesus christ, your argument is identical in its logic to saying "We cannot stop industrial accidents, so why regulate them?" You CAN reduce the number.

Actually, most people with PTSD could get a permit and a gun, because screening does not and should not preclude anyone with any mental issue no matter how mild from getting a gun. Most PTSD is relatively mild; the reason the rate is so high is that the military has started diagnosing even marginal cases due to bad publicity on the issue.

In point of fact, PTSD does not preclude people from getting jobs in Federal Law Enforcement, nor should it, necessarily. Obviously some cases should. However, the fact is that simply having some mental difficulties does not automatically mean one cannot be trusted with a firearm any more than it means one can't be trusted with a car. People have been known to have flashbacks and black out while driving after hearing a tire blowout, yet no one is trying to take their driver's licenses away.

YOUR argument is essentially saying "We should impose any regulation that would reduce suicide by any amount, regardless of its affects on everyone else". Obviously we can reduce the number, but that does not automatically justify putting or maintaining a burden on other people, especially when that reduction is based on assessments of mental illness that are as wildly exaggerated and suspect as yours.

Demonstrate that any of these are significant enough to matter, and that not being able to have a CCW permit would make a menaingful difference - no wait, strike that. They can get one. Demonstrate that simply not being able to use their CCW on campus would really do anything whatsoever to prevent them from hurting themself or someone else.

See stats above.

See what above? You demonstrated absolutely nothing.

There could be a marginal decrease. It is NOT a mathematical certainty, because there already is some crime and guns may prevent or deter some of it.

My numbers say otherwise. I suppose I could increase the resolution by considering metro areas.

Your numbers say no such thing. They show correlation, not causation, and utterly fail to account for deterrence or prevention.

Because it is a pain in the ass. In any case, I reran the stats with things more likely to have a decent distribution (there is no real difference with mental health between states for example, so I excluded it, and GINI encapsulates more variation than poverty and population density stats)

Sorry to hear that. Maybe you should rely less on trying to run statistical analysis and getting a vague correlation (at best) and spend more time trying to understand the actual subject matter. I already pointed out that Harvard did essentially the same thing you did, yet they weren't making such claims based on that study.

OK. Methods: I collected data from the 2009 UCR for the firearm homicides, rape and police per capita across 50 states. GINI was tabulated from the US Census, Legal firearms are measured as gun ownership by houshold, illegal guns are measured as per capita gun imports (easier to do than net import/export rates, there are convenience concerns). Alcohol and Drug use was tabulated from the the CDC (or rather, another acronym under the CDC, I forget which it is). All data is from 2009.

The mathematical methods are posted above.

Gun imports/exports per capita as illegal guns? Do you have any idea how many perfectly legal guns we import? About 3 million per year. How exactly do you know how alcohol and drug data apply?

All this is a huge exercise in attmepting to show a correlation that, at most, is tiny, and says nothing of substance anyhow. Again, Harvard said

The authors are careful as to what conclusions they can draw from this work. They stress that this work does not establish a "causal relationship between guns and homicide"

I'll take their caution over your conclusions, thanks.

Ecologists actually have a larger statistical toolbox than most social scientists, and math is the same regardless of who uses it, unless you think that a linear regression for a biologist is performed differently than the linear regression run by a criminologist. The control procedure in large datasets is exactly the same. Namely, running your regression and then using the residuals from that regression for the ANOVA on the fixed factor. My analysis is a bit simple (If I wanted to dig through more records, I could have done a repeated measures analysis state by state (or even using a few cities) using a time series, but... good god why?)

That means.. pretty much nothing. You can't just plug in whatever numbers you want into an analysis program and act like that's the end of it. There are vastly more variables involved than you deal with in "hard" sciences. Look at your gun imports; how do you know they are representative of illegal firearms? Your alcohol and drug stats; how do you know you are properly applying them?

Because the person then has the potential to do me actual harm dumbfuck. I am also not afraid of guns. I am rather comfortable using them for target shooting, I am just not tactically trained (with post-medieval weapons anyway). As for mental illnesses, i cannot diagnose. I do however have a good theoretical background in them (having read the DSM IV, and being one course shy of a psych minor)

Reading the DSM IV and being a course shy of a psych minor is not a "good background"; I have a BS in PSychology and I would not say I ahve a "good" background, merely better than most people. There's a reason it takes a Ph.D. to do diagnosis and treatment.

As for them having the potential to do you harm.. tough. Your personal involvement is not an argument, and while you may not be afraid of guns in the "EEEK A GUN" *runscreaming* sense, you evidently are afraid of them when they're in the hands of other people outside a controlled environment.

You are trying to apply probabilities and statistics without understanding the underlying subject matter. It's hilarious, but its stupid.

HAH! That is rich, he who thinks that math is different between disciplines. Here, lets take a look at the literature on criminal deterrence:

No one said the math was different. Math, however, means nothing if you don't know what to put in and what it's talking about when you get it back out. It's especially unhelpful when you start slinging correlations around as.. well as much of anything.

<snip extended text>

Aaah, the joys of background reading.

Indeed.

No net reduction in suicide among males

The authors describe suicide rates in Toronto and Ontario and methods used for suicide in Toronto for 5 years before and after enactment of Canadian gun control legislation in 1978. They also present data from San Diego, Calif., where state laws attempt to limit access to guns by certain psychiatric patients. Both sets of data indicate that gun control legislation may have led to decreased use of guns by suicidal men, but the difference was apparently offset by an increase in suicide by leaping. In the case of men using guns for suicide, these data support a hypothesis of substitution of suicide method.

Little effect either way on crime for both gun control and gun permits

The bottom line is that any difference either way is negligeble, and statistical analysis largely reflect whatever correlation the person doing it wants it to. Yours is hardly the first or the last, and produces no real new data or argument. It essentially rehashes the same old gun-control debates.

I still haven't seen any real reason why college campuses are special except for the assertion that there's some unsightly concentration of mentally ill people there, which is supported by nothing more than your claims and one study which straight-up admits that it has a massive self-selection bias.