not even close
You call for a ban on guns, there is no ban on tobacco or alcohol. To compare a ban on one item while the other you are comparing it to is not banned is simply not applicable. How about comparing to when alcohol was banned and how well that worked, how about comparing to the ban on marijuana and how well that works. Marijuana is illegal so by your own reasoning it would go away yet freaking high school kids can (and do) get it with ease.

and again, for the umpteenth time, you want to tell us all about the considerable restrictions put on tobacco ...no kidding, but you want us to believe we have zero restrictions on guns? We have far more restrictions on guns than we do on tobacco so the comparison once again is ...laughable!

GMTom wrote:and banning guns would of course make them all go away, nobody wants to break the law when they kill someone else now do they?

Of course a simple ban is not the complete answer.

However, banning certain types of gun, making the process to own a gun more rigorous, adding more safeguards in law (and in the practice of regulation), proper full registration, improved mental health care and diagnosis etc etc can all work together as part of a more holistic solution.

Tom, you're the guy bringing up "ban" time and again. If you carefully reread what I wrote last page. you'll see that I was only reacting to your straw man of a ban. Your argument being "You shouldn't ban guns because a ban would be ineffective".
Or more narrowly "You shouldn't regulate guns any more, because the regulations will be ineffective".

Regulations, restrictions and enforcement have managed positive outcomes in areas of tobacco use. Agree or disagree? If you disagree, please provide evidence that tobacco use has stayed the same or increased since 1960. (Hint. It hasn't)
The same can be said for drinking and driving. Agree or disagree? If you disagree please provide evidence that drunk driving and resulting deaths from accidents blamed on DD, have stayed the same or gone up since 1990. (A point when most states had DD laws and stricter enforcement). You won't find evidence of this either, since they've decreased by a third.

Any regulation coming in, will take time to be enforced effectively. Nothing will end gun deaths (short of total confiscation which isn't going to happen). However, pursuing better regulation and enforcement is a worthwhile pursuit. Even Though it can't achieve 100% success. Why? Because lives saved matter.

But I'll repeat, that my original comment, which you still misconstrue, is that debate over gun control is an echo of previous debates. One over tobacco and the other over global warming. In all three cases there is a sector of business that is spearheading the defence of the status quo. Because they have an enormous financial stake in maintaining the status quo.
And what they need to do, is confuse, conflate, distract and as much as possible minimize objective scientific evidence that contradicts their claims. In the case of guns, the primary rationale is that guns make people safer. The actuarial data shows exactly the opposite.
Once people accept this fact, enhanced restrictions and regulation and enforcement become easier. (Just as when people finally accepted that Tobacco is a killer, restricting its use became easier to both introduce and to enforce.) You'll notice I said, "restricting its use" not ban.

funny how we see things so differently, I happen to think your side is the side guilty of confusing the subject, Conflation, distraction and minimizing the issue. You simply can not see any possible other side other than your own, your postings continually prove so.

bbauska

And how can you be sure that new gun laws will stop gun violence.

Nothing is certain. But the insurance industry, which underpins the entire business world, is built upon being able to calculate risk.
So we do what they do, and look at other areas where effective regulation and enforcement has managed to mitigate the damage from high risk behaviour.
Seat Belt laws.
Drunk Driving Laws.
Use of Tobacco.
Since regulation and enforcement has been successful in these, and other, areas, its reasonable to assume that it can work in the area of guns.
Acceptance of enhanced regulation and enforcement comes down to the acceptance of the fact that gun ownership in a household increases the risks of death and injury for those with ... and that it decreases in households where no guns are present...
So, stop violence? No. Decrease gun violence? Certainly.

and again, we do already have multiple laws restricting guns don't we?
Far more than we do for alcohol and tobacco.

Enforcement for alcohol and tobacco being "effective" yet not effective for gun control is nothing more than your opinion. It would seem to me that you think alcohol laws are working well yet we have more drunk driving deaths (and more tobacco related death) than we do shooting deaths ...seems to me (based on your own logic) that the gun laws are working swell!

and homes that own alcohol in them increase the likelihood of people getting drunk in them ...no kidding
homes that own swimming pools have more drownings ..no kidding
homes that own guns have more gun deaths in them ...wow, who woulda thunk it?

just like your rights to smoke and drink (and swim), guns also present certain risks, it's common sense!

GMTom - what is the trend with drink driving deaths - is it increasing or decreasing?

Also, what is the trend on smoking deaths?

The trend on gun deaths is upwards, suggesting that things are getting worse, which suggests a failure somewhere. If the trend were going down, that would suggest some success.

By the way, total car deaths is only just above total gun deaths, and many car deaths will not be due to alcohol so I suspect your assertion is wrong. Care to present data?

danivon wrote:GMTom - what is the trend with drink driving deaths - is it increasing or decreasing?

Also, what is the trend on smoking deaths?

The trend on gun deaths is upwards, suggesting that things are getting worse, which suggests a failure somewhere. If the trend were going down, that would suggest some success.

By the way, total car deaths is only just above total gun deaths, and many car deaths will not be due to alcohol so I suspect your assertion is wrong. Care to present data?

Isn't that misleading?

First of all homicides by gun are decreasing.



http://hotair.com/archives/2012/12/26/c ... -20-years/

Second, aren't you counting suicides to get to a higher number?

Third, unless you amend the Constitution and go door to door, seizing weapons, you are going to have very little impact on this. Look at Massachusetts:

Massachusetts has a national reputation as a bastion of gun control, but crimes and injuries related to firearms have risen — sometimes dramatically — since the state passed a comprehensive package of gun laws in 1998.

Murders committed with firearms have increased significantly, aggravated assaults and robberies involving guns have risen, and gunshot injuries are up, according to FBI and state data.

To gun-rights groups like the National Rifle Association, these statistics are evidence that gun control does not work. But to gun-control advocates, the numbers show that no state — no matter how tough the laws — is protected from firearms violence when guns are brought in from other states.

“The quality of your gun-licensing laws is only as good as those surrounding you,” said James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University criminologist.

By that measure, according to gun-law proponents, Massachusetts has proved to be vulnerable. Only two states have a higher percentage of out-of-state guns found at crime scenes, according to a study by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group cofounded by Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino.

Many guns found in Massachusetts travel only a short distance: 133 crime guns were traced to New Hampshire in 2011, and 79 to Maine, according to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Those states alone accounted for nearly one-third of the 669 crime guns traced to states outside of Massachusetts.

Gun control is not THE answer. You've either got to amend the Constitution or look at other issues, including mental health and a society that increasingly justifies elevating oneself over everyone else in terms of self-esteem.

tom

Enforcement for alcohol and tobacco being "effective" yet not effective for gun control is nothing more than your opinion

No, its not my opinion. Its the statistics. Earlier I linked you to the stats on drunk driving. Deaths in 91 were 15,000. Last year they were 10,000. And they have been trending down since 91.

fate

Isn't that misleading?
First of all homicides by gun are decreasing

From your source:
Gun-related homicides have increased slightly each year since 2002.

One of the reasons that gun deaths decreased was that emergency medicine made major strides in dealing with firearms injuries. Particularly head injuries. The same phenomenon occurred in Iraq. Fewer combat deaths, but with increased survival rates, more horribly handicapped soldiers . Gabrielle Gifford is an example of someone who probably could not have survived the same injury any time before 1998 or so....

One other problem, is that data collection hasn't really been consistent since the funding for fire arms injury tracking by the Centre for Disease control was cut by Congress. Having said that, the FBI data Hot Air quotes pretty clearly indicates that hunting rifles and shotguns aren't really a source of a lot of deaths, especially when compared to rates of ownership or numbers of these type of guns in society. Hand guns, on the other hand.

fate

Gun control is not THE answer. You've either got to amend the Constitution or look at other issues, including mental health and a society that increasingly justifies elevating oneself over everyone else in terms of self-esteem

How do you keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill people without some kind of extensive screening process that includes a central registry? Its all very well and good to say that mental illness is an issue, as it is, but France has the same numbers of mentally ill. But don't have the same kinds of gun crimes committed by them. Their crazy people have a harder time acquiring firearms. As long as a mentally ill person can visit a gun show, or acquire a gun privately (as some 30 to 40% of guns are purchased) what good is focusing on them? You're not talking about rounding all of them up are you? (That could be construed as voter suppression of republicans you know...)

Moreover, the notion that mentally ill people are responsible for an large amount of gun crime is wrong. There are high profile incidents where mentally ill people used semi automatic weapons to kill dozens, but most gun incidents are the work of people who would be judged completely sane. Mentally ill people are more often victims of violence then perpetrators...

uh, can you not also claim medical strides have been made in helping those who were involved in a drunk driving crash?
funny also how you point to accuracy of statistics while a gun crime is immediately known, it is always reported as such. Drunk driving? Can you say the same thing about that? (the answer is NO) yet accuracy of statistics only applies when it suits your position, no doubt drunk driving deaths are far higher than reported

and you keep bringing up the same issues
France (or any other country) compared to the USA, how many people had guns in France before they changed any laws? You can't point to a country and show how they have reduced gun deaths and say the US could do the same when we already have so damned many so readily available that that other country did not have. Mentally ill Frenchmen have a harder time acquiring guns ...yep, send that same mentally unstable Frenchman to any US inner city and see how hard it will be for him to buy a gun

Mentally ill should not be able to buy guns, no kidding. That aspect of the law needs to be tightened (I don't think anyone here has said we should not try to enforce current laws better and nobody has suggested we might not be able to have some better laws as well, banning guns simply does not equate)

Doctor Fate wrote:

danivon wrote:GMTom - what is the trend with drink driving deaths - is it increasing or decreasing?

Also, what is the trend on smoking deaths?

The trend on gun deaths is upwards, suggesting that things are getting worse, which suggests a failure somewhere. If the trend were going down, that would suggest some success.

By the way, total car deaths is only just above total gun deaths, and many car deaths will not be due to alcohol so I suspect your assertion is wrong. Care to present data?

Isn't that misleading?

First of all homicides by gun are decreasing.

Tom mentioned 'deaths', not homicides. So I am not being misleading on that score.

Secondly, the graph shows a major decline during the period of the Assault Weapons Ban (and we keep being told by Tom and others that bans simply do not work), but what is the trend since it was allowed to expire?

Thirdly, on suicide, I have to say that the assumption that suicides would kill themselves even if access to guns were more limited is just that, an assumption. This morning I was listening to a discussion on studies into suicide prevention. What had been found were two key points:

1) If you reduce the incident of one method, the other methods do not increase much, meaning that the overall suicide rate declines. If that method is a very common one (as gunshot is in the USA), then the effect is more marked.

2) A key issue with suicide is the issue of what they called 'rumination' - if you increase the steps and or time that need to be taken between deciding to commit suicide and actually completing it, that will discourage more people from going all the way through. Thus, restricting paracetamol purchases does not stop someone from getting hold of enough to kill themselves, but it does involve multiple purchases, at different places, which may give them time and opportunity to rethink. With a gun, there is not much time. You load it, aim and fire. So suicide by gun should be included in a discussion about 'gun deaths'.

Third, unless you amend the Constitution and go door to door, seizing weapons, you are going to have very little impact on this.

I love a bit of hyperbole, it really helps to keep the debate on an even track. I was asking about statistics, you come back with that line. Oh, brother!

Gun control is not THE answer. You've either got to amend the Constitution or look at other issues, including mental health and a society that increasingly justifies elevating oneself over everyone else in terms of self-esteem.

Indeed. Which is why from the beginning of the thread I have said that there are many parts to the solution. Because I advocate greater regulation of guns does not mean that's all I advocate. But I do think a comprehensive solution should include it. I take it that you do not?

Tom, I missed your answer to my direct questions.

Do you concede that the trend in drunk-driving deaths in the USA is down?

And that the trend in gun deaths in the USA is up?

And, in direct contradiction of your assertion, that gun deaths exceed drunk-driving deaths?

If not, are you going to provide evidence, or should I?

Nope, drunk driving is down but it is not anywhere near acceptable levels, reporting is not the same as gun shooting reporting, and I could give a damn about gun suicides.
Your saying gun deaths are down since the assault weapon ban is misleading, it did go down but continued to decline after the ban expired showing the ban was ineffectual and the drop was obviously due to other reasons.

drunk driving deaths (we have reported mind you)
10,228
http://www.centurycouncil.org/drunk-dri ... statistics


Gun Homicides (I could care less about suicides or accidents)
11,078
http://smartgunlaws.org/gun-deaths-and- ... tatistics/

Holy cow, what a serious difference!? my assumption was just sooooo off base but do remember we KNOW of every gun death, we do not know about every highway death, I'm gonna guess the difference to be more than this here. So yeah, I stand by the statement, not 100% accurate but close enough for what I was getting at, once again, splitting hairs like this only shows your position to be weak at best to resort to hair splitting?

GMTom wrote:Nope, drunk driving is down but it is not anywhere near acceptable levels, reporting is not the same as gun shooting reporting,

So, what is the 'acceptable' level?

and I could give a damn about gun suicides.

Your compassion is duly noted. But suicides are still deaths and each one is a tragedy. And you clearly haven't read what I've written about suicide and how it's not simply a case that they would do it another way if not by the means that is chosen.

I also deplore your lack of concern displayed later about accidental deaths by gun. Especially when comparing with drunk driving - you do realise that driving deaths are not intentional in all but a few cases?

Your saying gun deaths are down since the assault weapon ban is misleading, it did go down but continued to decline after the ban expired showing the ban was ineffectual and the drop was obviously due to other reasons.

And yet a couple of years later it started to go up? Perhaps the effect of the assault weapons ban lasted for a while, and is now unwinding?

drunk driving deaths (we have reported mind you)
10,228
http://www.centurycouncil.org/drunk-dri ... statistics


Gun Homicides (I could care less about suicides or accidents)
11,078
http://smartgunlaws.org/gun-deaths-and- ... tatistics/

Holy cow, what a serious difference!? my assumption was just sooooo off base but do remember we KNOW of every gun death, we do not know about every highway death, I'm gonna guess the difference to be more than this here. So yeah, I stand by the statement, not 100% accurate but close enough for what I was getting at, once again, splitting hairs like this only shows your position to be weak at best to resort to hair splitting?

So, when you said that drunk driving deaths were more than gun deaths you were wrong. And it turns out that it's less than the number of gun homicides. It's not hair splitting to ask you to back up your 'facts'. Finally, you get around to checking the figures, see you are wrong and then whinge about splitting hairs. A simple "seems I was wrong" would have done just as well.

Now, another question, dear Thomas,

If the level of drunk driving deaths is not acceptable, but is falling...

Is the similar level of gun deaths (even by your uncaring omission of suicide and accident) also unacceptable? And is it even less acceptable that it is rising rather than falling?

Careful now, don't blow a gasket.

We should all be careful about trying to read too much into overall crime trends one way or the other. Crime levels in almost every western nation have been in steep decline since they peaked in the mid 90s (nobody really knows why) so if you try to isolate a trend in the US alone it could very easily prove to be misleading.