When seconds count...

[Beowulf]

Police are only minutes away:

SAN ANTONIO - A woman is in critical condition after she was stabbed outside her child's school Tuesday morning.

The attack happened around 10:00 a.m. Tuesday outside the Bonham Academy on St. Mary's Street. Teresa Barron, 38, had just dropped off her child at the school when the child's father showed up, and the two got into an argument. The child's father, 38-year-old Roberto Barron allegedly then stabbed the woman several times in the upper body and neck area.

Police say a bystander who happened to be a concealed handgun license holder pulled his weapon and ordered Barron to drop the knife. Barron surrendered and was taken into custody by the bystander and a school district officer.

The woman was taken to San Antonio Military Medical Center.

Barron was arrested for aggravated assault, and is in jail on a $150,000 bond.

So, uh, what do you authoritarians want to ban now? Banning guns wouldn't have prevented this woman from getting attacked.

[mr friendly guy]

So do authoritarians claim banning guns will prevent ALL attacks, even those with non firearms? Otherwise this strawman is pretty blatant.

And before someone jumps in, I haven't gotten involved in those gun threads, so I wouldn't know if someone did make that claim. However the claim seemed so stupid that I find it incredulous anyone would make it, ie its a strawman.

[Jub]

One example where a gun was used to stop a crime commited with a knife is at best an annecdote. I don't have any evidence to back it up, but I still think less people would die if we outlawed or put very strict rules on guns. As for the actual story, I'd rather we just ban people from being murderous dicks, but barring that removing the deadliest weapon most people can access tends to stop more of this than it causes.

[Lonestar]

So do authoritarians claim banning guns will prevent ALL attacks, even those with non firearms? Otherwise this strawman is pretty blatant.

They claim there isn't much of a net benefit to having guns be available to the general public.

Alas, the answer is quite a bit more ambigious.

And, I'm sure that someone who did defend himself or someone else with their firearm really appreciates being told by internet nerds that their situation is an outlier and they still shouldn't have had firearm access.

[Alyrium Denryle]

So do authoritarians claim banning guns will prevent ALL attacks, even those with non firearms? Otherwise this strawman is pretty blatant.

They claim there isn't much of a net benefit to having guns be available to the general public.

Alas, the answer is quite a bit more ambigious.

And, I'm sure that someone who did defend himself or someone else with their firearm really appreciates being told by internet nerds that their situation is an outlier and they still shouldn't have had firearm access.

I did the math a while back. The availability of guns to the general public has no net effect on murder rates or other forms of violent crime when compared state by state and statistically controlling for rates of mental illness, poverty, population density, ethnic composition and drug use. Those factors drive crime. Not gun laws.

The only thing gun-related that has an effect is the flux of guns into the state by gun traffickers.

[Lonestar]

I did the math a while back. The availability of guns to the general public has no net effect on murder rates or other forms of violent crime when compared state by state and statistically controlling for rates of mental illness, poverty, population density, ethnic composition and drug use. Those factors drive crime. Not gun laws.

Cool.

Let's see your math. Because the column I linked to cited a bunch of studies that make your claim a lot more ambigious.

The only thing gun-related that has an effect is the flux of guns into the state by gun traffickers.

Throwing the book at existing gun law violations, through programs like EXILE, makes more sense than adding ink to the barrel IMO. Hell, I can think of a few things that would greatly curtail violent crime before we start targeting enumerated rights.

(1)More funding for mental health care(which has been slashed for decades), and freeer access for those who need it. Alas, teabaggers would scream SOCIALISM over this.

(2)End the war on drugs

(3)Have firearms education be free and readily available.

(4)Encourage to media to stop glorifying these mass shooters.

(5)Stringent enforcement of existing gun laws.


It's worth noting that Vermont has the most lax gun laws in the country, more lax than Arizona. And with low violent crime rates. Being a rural area there are aslo more "military style assault weapons" there that gun control advocates like to crow about.

So, what's the other big thing that makes VT an outlier compared to most of the rest of the country? It has a large safety net, and is well to the left of the rest of the country. This, to me, argues that we can overhaul our social safety net and change some of our laws(such as the war on drugs that spawned a private prison industry) that would greatly mitigate the danger the large numbers of private firearms pose in the US.

But Certain People would prefer to go after the quick and easy solution of "BAN THEM ARRGHHH PENIS COMPENSATION", rather than solving the underlying social problems.

[Lonestar]

Ghetto edit: Looking through, are you referring to that thread where you claimed that someone willing to murder a professor over an argument is gonna be stopped by prohibiting guns on campus?

[Hillary]

Police are only minutes away:

SAN ANTONIO - A woman is in critical condition after she was stabbed outside her child's school Tuesday morning.

The attack happened around 10:00 a.m. Tuesday outside the Bonham Academy on St. Mary's Street. Teresa Barron, 38, had just dropped off her child at the school when the child's father showed up, and the two got into an argument. The child's father, 38-year-old Roberto Barron allegedly then stabbed the woman several times in the upper body and neck area.

Police say a bystander who happened to be a concealed handgun license holder pulled his weapon and ordered Barron to drop the knife. Barron surrendered and was taken into custody by the bystander and a school district officer.

The woman was taken to San Antonio Military Medical Center.

Barron was arrested for aggravated assault, and is in jail on a $150,000 bond.

So, uh, what do you authoritarians want to ban now? Banning guns wouldn't have prevented this woman from getting attacked.

What are you saying here? Handguns are doubleplus good because they stopped this particular robbery? That handguns shouldn't be banned from public ownership because there are other weapons available?

Either way, you are trying to win an argument with one anecdote. This isn't fucking twitter.

[Col. Crackpot]

Police are only minutes away:

SAN ANTONIO - A woman is in critical condition after she was stabbed outside her child's school Tuesday morning.

The attack happened around 10:00 a.m. Tuesday outside the Bonham Academy on St. Mary's Street. Teresa Barron, 38, had just dropped off her child at the school when the child's father showed up, and the two got into an argument. The child's father, 38-year-old Roberto Barron allegedly then stabbed the woman several times in the upper body and neck area.

Police say a bystander who happened to be a concealed handgun license holder pulled his weapon and ordered Barron to drop the knife. Barron surrendered and was taken into custody by the bystander and a school district officer.

The woman was taken to San Antonio Military Medical Center.

Barron was arrested for aggravated assault, and is in jail on a $150,000 bond.

So, uh, what do you authoritarians want to ban now? Banning guns wouldn't have prevented this woman from getting attacked.

What are you saying here? Handguns are doubleplus good because they stopped this particular robbery? That handguns shouldn't be banned from public ownership because there are other weapons available?

Either way, you are trying to win an argument with one anecdote. This isn't fucking twitter.

I could be wrong but his post seemed rather tongue in cheek Hillary. As if he was replying to the flood anecdotal 'guns are teh eval!' threads with an anecdotal 'gunz will save us!' thread

[Hillary]

I could be wrong but his post seemed rather tongue in cheek Hillary. As if he was replying to the flood anecdotal 'guns are teh eval!' threads with an anecdotal 'gunz will save us!' thread

That wasn't obvious to me - if it was satirical, then apologies to Beowolf. If not, eat my shorts.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Cool.

Let's see your math. Because the column I linked to cited a bunch of studies that make your claim a lot more ambigious.

Posted in a thread something like a year or two years ago, I will need to dig it up. Or I could refine my methods. Give me a few days to either hunt down my tables (I dont have the file anymore, that computer is no longer operational, just the data summary I posted here) or refine the methods (I have better data access now. I will be able to run a time series across all 50 states).

Either way , I think you mistook my meaning. No effect means no effect. Positive or negative. There is no point in banning guns or as you put it "targeting enumerated rights". There needs to be a god damn point before someone makes policy. Without one, permissiveness should be the default.

Effectively, private gun ownership on its own facilitates some crimes, prevents others. They cancel out, no matter what private gun ownership or gun laws are like within a region. Violent crime is instead driven by other factors. Demographics, poverty, mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse etc. The weapon used is incidental.

The only thing that does a damn thing in terms of crime are the guns being sold in a state illicitly. Of course, the causation there is probably the other way. Someone who already intends to commit violent crimes goes and buys a gun from the local thug or crooked dealer. The invisible hand of the black market does the rest.

Now, there are certain conditions wherein banning guns on a location by location basis might be a good idea. Bars for example. Guns and angry drunks are a bad combination.

[Lagmonster]

I look at the 'safety + guns' issue thusly: If my attacker has a knife, I'm reasonably certain - given my age and health - that running will save me. I'm even somewhat confident, dependant on the age and size of my attacker, that fighting might save me.

If he has a gun, I'm reasonably certain that neither running nor fighting is an option. He might be a twelve-year old in a wheelchair, and I'm pretty sure I'm still fucked so long as he can see with both eyes and has one working arm. In fact, what I keep hearing in public safety seminars is "if they have a gun, give them whatever they want and hope they go away", which only serves to tell me that the missing variable in that recurring "1) X 2) ??? 3) Profit!" meme is the word "guns".

Does that mean I think strict gun laws would help? No. Does that mean I naively wish guns simply were not available to the public? Yeah.

[Hillary]

I look at the 'safety + guns' issue thusly: If my attacker has a knife, I'm reasonably certain - given my age and health - that running will save me. I'm even somewhat confident, dependant on the age and size of my attacker, that fighting might save me.

If he has a gun, I'm reasonably certain that neither running nor fighting is an option. He might be a twelve-year old in a wheelchair, and I'm pretty sure I'm still fucked so long as he can see with both eyes and has one working arm. In fact, what I keep hearing in public safety seminars is "if they have a gun, give them whatever they want and hope they go away", which only serves to tell me that the missing variable in that recurring "1) X 2) ??? 3) Profit!" meme is the word "guns".

Does that mean I think strict gun laws would help? No. Does that mean I naively wish guns simply were not available to the public? Yeah.

This is my view as well. Instinctively I feel that fewer guns in the hands of the general public will result in fewer deaths from violence. I fully admit I have no hard evidence to back this up and I will be interested to read AD's numbers on this.

[Surlethe]

Here's a data breakdown I'd like to see. Take gun violence and split it into "systematic" and "random" violence. Systematic violence is violence planned, organized, and facilitated by groups of people -- militas, gangs, so on. Random violence is everything else, including school shootings, movie theater shootings, crimes of passion. One would expect the effect of gun control on systematic violence to be smaller than the effect on random violence, so if the preponderance of gun violence is gang-related, say, we should take steps to eliminate the causes of gangs, rather than to control guns. If the preponderance of gun violence is random, then we could more reasonably argue that gun control is an avenue to mitigate those crimes.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I look at the 'safety + guns' issue thusly: If my attacker has a knife, I'm reasonably certain - given my age and health - that running will save me. I'm even somewhat confident, dependant on the age and size of my attacker, that fighting might save me.

If he has a gun, I'm reasonably certain that neither running nor fighting is an option. He might be a twelve-year old in a wheelchair, and I'm pretty sure I'm still fucked so long as he can see with both eyes and has one working arm. In fact, what I keep hearing in public safety seminars is "if they have a gun, give them whatever they want and hope they go away", which only serves to tell me that the missing variable in that recurring "1) X 2) ??? 3) Profit!" meme is the word "guns".

Does that mean I think strict gun laws would help? No. Does that mean I naively wish guns simply were not available to the public? Yeah.

This is my view as well. Instinctively I feel that fewer guns in the hands of the general public will result in fewer deaths from violence. I fully admit I have no hard evidence to back this up and I will be interested to read AD's numbers on this.

OK. Well, it will take me a while to do. So I will post my methods first and take in any critiques.

I will be using a Within-Subjects design. In other words, I will use a time series of violent crime per 100k (I may restrict this only to murder, the other violence crimes use fists and knives and would create a lot of statistical noise) people from 2001 to 2007, three years on either side of the expiration of the federal "assault weapons" ban. I will also tabulate the following state laws that have been in effect a while:
Open Carry is permitted, Concealed Carry Permitted, No Carry Permits (for either open or concealed carry), No Gun Registration, No Weapon Bans (for example, assault weapon bans, restrictions on calibre etc). Some of these are numerous laws with disparate impacts, so I am collapsing similar ones together--which is why I do not have separate categories for purchase or ownership licenses.

Each of these will be tabulated as either a 1 for true, and or 0 for not true. They will then be added, giving an index of 0-6 for each state, with 0 being strict gun laws, 6 being very lax. California for example is a 2, while Alaska is a 6.

Gun trafficking is harder. I have to hunt down the data on that again, but I will use number of guns imported and exported to create a positive or negative number indicating the net number of illegal guns into or out of the state

OK. This part is important. I have two options. If working by myself, I can probably get information on poverty (or GINI coefficient which is a better measure), percent of the population in a metro area, severe mental illness, and drug abuse rates state by state for one year within the data range or close to it (maybe at the time of the 2000 census or somesuch). If people are willing to help me out, I can make this better by getting the entire data range. That could take some digging, and I have a dissertation to write. If you want to help, shoot me an email at Alyrium@gmail.com I can direct you toward sources of information and let you know how to tabulate it in excel (I use excel to organize data, and SPSS to run it). This will increase statistical power, and give a more accurate picture of what is going on in a state.

I will take this data, and run a repeated measures analysis of variance, with unequal replication. This will use the gun law index and the status of the assault weapon's ban as independent variables, violent crime as a dependent variable, and the various state demographic statistics and gun-flux as covariates.

Here's a data breakdown I'd like to see. Take gun violence and split it into "systematic" and "random" violence. Systematic violence is violence planned, organized, and facilitated by groups of people -- militas, gangs, so on. Random violence is everything else, including school shootings, movie theater shootings, crimes of passion. One would expect the effect of gun control on systematic violence to be smaller than the effect on random violence, so if the preponderance of gun violence is gang-related, say, we should take steps to eliminate the causes of gangs, rather than to control guns. If the preponderance of gun violence is random, then we could more reasonably argue that gun control is an avenue to mitigate those crimes.

I... might... be able to manage that. I will see what the UCR has to offer. There are subsets of the FBI's uniform crime reports that I will explore and see what I can hunt down. Other than that though, I dont even know where to look. I am not sure the data is readily available. At least not for every state, and I want to avoid any sort of cherry picking, which I have found is the downfall of most studies on gun violence.

Heh. If I do this right, I might even see about publishing this....

[Phantasee]

I'd rather we just ban people from being murderous dicks,

We did. I guess it's another example of how banning things doesn't make them go away, hey?

[Jub]

I'd rather we just ban people from being murderous dicks,

We did. I guess it's another example of how banning things doesn't make them go away, hey?

I understand that banning guns isn't going to magically get rid of them. You'd need to implement other changes and do it over time while trying to change the underlying culture. However, just with a blanket removal of guns from law abiding citizens, you remove Joe Average's ability to shoot up a movie theater or a school.

[Agent Fisher]

The problem is, Jub, that Joe Average isn't going to shoot up a movie theater or school. Those are actions that are not average. Those are the actions of individuals who have stepped outside the averages of society, either through nature or nurture (mental issues or raised in a hate-filled environment).

So, basically, you'd be punishing 99.9% of lawful gun owners for something that an incredibly small minority does.


Now, onto the story. I certainly hope the woman is alright, and I'm glad that, even if this is anecdotal, there was a licensed CCW holder nearby to stop the knifeman. What, I believe, is needed to prevent situations like this is better domestic counseling, because based on the news report, this was a domestic violence situation that spiraled off the deep end.

[Jub]

The problem is, Jub, that Joe Average isn't going to shoot up a movie theater or school. Those are actions that are not average. Those are the actions of individuals who have stepped outside the averages of society, either through nature or nurture (mental issues or raised in a hate-filled environment).

So, basically, you'd be punishing 99.9% of lawful gun owners for something that an incredibly small minority does.

They're Joe Average right up until they start shooting. Making it harder for them to find a weapon may not stop them from being violent, but a wackjob with a gun is usually going to be more deadly than that same loon with a knife. I'd be willing to bet that most mass shooters use legally registered weapons; though I'd be willing to see evidence that refutes my claim.

[Surlethe]

I don't think random shootings like the one in Aurora or in Columbine really warrant much policy attention at all. They're convenient symbols to talk about, but that kind of single-handed mass slaughter doesn't meaningfully impact annual deaths caused by guns. So this entire discussion about "Joe Average" shooting up a city hall or a movie theater is just pointless, unless someone wants to present evidence that I'm wrong and these mass shootings actually cause significant changes in national gun violence death statistics.

[Jub]

I don't think random shootings like the one in Aurora or in Columbine really warrant much policy attention at all. They're convenient symbols to talk about, but that kind of single-handed mass slaughter doesn't meaningfully impact annual deaths caused by guns. So this entire discussion about "Joe Average" shooting up a city hall or a movie theater is just pointless, unless someone wants to present evidence that I'm wrong and these mass shootings actually cause significant changes in national gun violence death statistics.

It might not make much of a change, but it would still, potentially save lives. The only way it wouldn't is if the threat of a victim carrying a gun stops more deaths than owning a gun causes.

[General Zod]

I don't think random shootings like the one in Aurora or in Columbine really warrant much policy attention at all. They're convenient symbols to talk about, but that kind of single-handed mass slaughter doesn't meaningfully impact annual deaths caused by guns. So this entire discussion about "Joe Average" shooting up a city hall or a movie theater is just pointless, unless someone wants to present evidence that I'm wrong and these mass shootings actually cause significant changes in national gun violence death statistics.

It might not make much of a change, but it would still, potentially save lives. The only way it wouldn't is if the threat of a victim carrying a gun stops more deaths than owning a gun causes.

Except the genie's already out of the bottle, and it's not going to go back in anytime soon. So in the meantime maybe you could focus on the underlying problems instead of fantasy solutions?

Banning liquor might potentially save lives from drunk driving too, but we all know how well prohibition worked.

[Jub]

Except the genie's already out of the bottle, and it's not going to go back in anytime soon. So in the meantime maybe you could focus on the underlying problems instead of fantasy solutions?

Banning liquor might potentially save lives from drunk driving too, but we all know how well prohibition worked.

I never said that other steps shouldn't be taken. Frankly the state of the social saftey nets in the states is shocking, there are poverty stricken sections of some large cities that are bigger than any city I've ever lived in, the education system has massive flaws, bridges are crumbling... I could go on. The thing is the genie is out of the bottle on those issue to. Getting gun control started is as big of a pipedream as anything else at this point.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I don't think random shootings like the one in Aurora or in Columbine really warrant much policy attention at all. They're convenient symbols to talk about, but that kind of single-handed mass slaughter doesn't meaningfully impact annual deaths caused by guns. So this entire discussion about "Joe Average" shooting up a city hall or a movie theater is just pointless, unless someone wants to present evidence that I'm wrong and these mass shootings actually cause significant changes in national gun violence death statistics.

It might not make much of a change, but it would still, potentially save lives. The only way it wouldn't is if the threat of a victim carrying a gun stops more deaths than owning a gun causes.

Put it this way:

If: Banning guns does not make a change in overall mortality
If: Banning guns saves lives
Then: By banning guns, some lives are saved, others are ended, to no measurable net change other than chance.

Put it this way

If someone is prone to committing crimes using weapons (armed robbery, gang members, mob hitmen), they will get them. They do not use their own weapons when they commit their crimes. They use guns that cannot in any way be traced back to them. They get them on the black market which by definition operates outside the law.

With crimes of passion, someone uses the weapon that is on hand. This could be a gun, a kitchen knife, a frying pan, or their sword collection.

Someone going postal can just as easily kill a shit load of people with other weapons. If I ever snap for example, I have a fully functional properly made replica 15th century bastard sword that would be absolutely murderous in a crowded place. I also know how to make gunpowder (the materials are readily available), and could readily make primitive shrapnel grenades out of gunpowder, mason jars, and ball-bearings. One should never under-estimate the creativity of a person bent on killing a lot of people. Guns are easier, but they are also incidental to the goal. If someone has planned to kill a bunch of people at the post office, the marginal increase in prep time is irrelevant.

[madd0ct0r]

well, is there anything underlying the number of 'going postal' incidents in the USA?

It's got a big popualtion, so that alone might account for it, but I'm not sure. When I tried to setup a dead simple study on this a few weeks back I found I couldn't get decent data for the 'going postal incidents' so i just gave up. No point running a regression if you haven't got good numbers for the thing you want to check.