The Virginia Shooting, Gun Rights, and Revolutions (Split from News thread)

Started by consortium11, August 26, 2015, 11:35:56 AM

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Ironwolf85

I think it's more we need to change the culture around guns... not sure what it is but it feels like there a more... "shoot first never talk about it" or "guns = POWAR" mind set going around since the 80s
Prudence, justice, temperance, courage, faith, hope, love...
debate any other aspect of my faith these are the heavenly virtues. this flawed mortal is going to try to adhere to them.

Culture: the ability to carve an intricate and beautiful bowl from the skull of a fallen enemy.
Civilization: the ability to put that psycho in prision for killing people.

eBadger

Quote from: Ironwolf85 on October 15, 2015, 07:21:50 PM
I think it's more we need to change the culture around guns... not sure what it is but it feels like there a more... "shoot first never talk about it" or "guns = POWAR" mind set going around since the 80s

And yet violent crime has dropped by half since the 90s and continues a steady decline. 

Oniya

Quote from: eBadger on October 15, 2015, 07:52:02 PM
And yet violent crime has dropped by half since the 90s and continues a steady decline. 

I'm still not sure how they are measuring that.  Is it number of incidents?  Number of victims?  Something else?
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
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Lustful Bride

Quote.Because otherwise they're just quaint signs on a door. I know I ignore them every time I go to the movies or the mall because I have no interest in being disarmed by a little yellow placard that will be equally ignored by anyone that is actually meaning to do harm.   


*Kind of feels like a chump for obeying the law in those areas*....... oh well I'm such a square Il probably still never carry in those zones cause 'Law" :P

Hurray for me, *waits for my gold star*

Caehlim

Quote from: Oniya on October 15, 2015, 08:16:40 PM
I'm still not sure how they are measuring that.  Is it number of incidents?  Number of victims?  Something else?

I looked into it. This statistic is from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program, which is incident based per 100,000 people. (source).

QuoteIn the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, violent crime is composed of four offenses: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Violent crimes are defined in the UCR Program as those offenses that involve force or threat of force.
QuoteThe data presented in Crime in the United States reflect the Hierarchy Rule, which requires that only the most serious offense in a multiple-offense criminal incident be counted. The descending order of UCR violent crimes are murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, followed by the property crimes of burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft. Although arson is also a property crime, the Hierarchy Rule does not apply to the offense of arson. In cases in which an arson occurs in conjunction with another violent or property crime, both the arson and the additional crime are reported.



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Oniya

Okay - is an incident where one perpetrator kills 5 people in one location at one time counted as one or as five?
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Caehlim

Quote from: Oniya on October 15, 2015, 08:38:50 PMOkay - is an incident where one perpetrator kills 5 people in one location at one time counted as one or as five?

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TheGlyphstone

Just idle number-crunching too, and some unscientific rounding via napkin math....

Using the chart, there were a little over 700 violent crimes per hundred thousand people in 1990. Out of the 249.6 million people in the US in that year, that'd be a total of est. 1.75 million violent crimes.

In 2014, there were...call it 375 per hundred thousand. The population increased to 318.9 million too. That makes, roughly 1.2 million violent crimes.

So per capita, the violent crimes dropped by almost 50%. In absolute numbers, it dropped by around 30%. Still a nice figure though.

Quote from: Cycle on October 15, 2015, 08:37:17 PM
And this drop is due to the increase in gun ownership?
This Gallup poll says that an even 50% of American households self-reported that they owned a gun in  1991.

This Pew Research poll says that around 34% of American households have a gun in 2014.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/15/the-demographics-and-politics-of-gun-owning-households/

So gun ownership has dropped by a hair under one-third in the same period that absolute violent crimes dropped by one-third and per capita violent crimes dropped by one-half. Could just be a coincidence, but it's interesting data to chew over.

eBadger

Quote from: Oniya on October 15, 2015, 08:16:40 PM
I'm still not sure how they are measuring that.  Is it number of incidents?  Number of victims?  Something else?

That number is pulled from FBI data which is focused on criminal activity rather than victims, so yes, per incident.  However, the overall trend is consistent by every metric I've seen. 

In strict numbers by the Department of Justice,

QuoteThere were 11,101 firearm homicides in 2011, down by 39% from a high of 18,253 in 1993

From Pew Research:

QuoteCompared with 1993, the peak of U.S. gun homicides, the firearm homicide rate was 49% lower in 2010, and there were fewer deaths, even though the nation’s population grew. The victimization rate for other violent crimes with a firearm—assaults, robberies and sex crimes—was 75% lower in 2011 than in 1993. Violent non-fatal crime victimization overall (with or without a firearm) also is down markedly (72%) over two decades.

Note that it's not just for incidents with a firearm, though.  Nor does it look like the absolute number of guns in the US dropped. 

The frustrating thing for me, because it demonstrates a consistent and deliberate theme of misinformation from our news sources and politicians to create tension and panic, is this bit:

QuoteDespite national attention to the issue of firearm violence, most Americans are unaware that gun crime is lower today than it was two decades ago. According to a new Pew Research Center survey, today 56% of Americans believe gun crime is higher than 20 years ago and only 12% think it is lower.

Crime is cut in half, but somehow nearly five times as many people think it's up compared to those who know the truth.  And that belief is so deep that, as we see in this thread, the initial response is to disbelieve the hard numbers. 

For more craziness: the trend in schools is even more pronounced

QuoteSchool violence in the U.S. reached a peak in 1993, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That year, there were 42 homicides by students in total, as well as 13 "serious violent crimes" — rape, sexual assault, robbery and aggravated assault — per 1,000 students at primary and secondary schools. By 2010, the latest figures available, those numbers had decreased to two homicides and four violent crimes per 1,000 students.

Total homicides in primary and secondary schools:


Note that Columbine, typically seen as the start of our current mass killing era, was in '99 - after which there's actually a marked decade of significantly reduced violence.  The numbers are certainly up in the last couple of years, but I haven't found any raw numbers for '13 and after. 

QuoteIt may come as no surprise that the 24-hour news cycle gets much of the blame for perpetuating a false notion about the extent of school violence.

I also think they deserve a lot of the blame for causing it, but that's opinion :-)

To be clear, I'm not saying there isn't a problem - there absolutely is.  However, it should be approached with an informed and logical conversation, and the evidence shows that various social programs, most of which aren't very newsworthy, are being very successful at reducing crime and deaths during an era with very little increased gun regulation.  We can be an armed and polite society. 

On the other hand, most of the deaths from firearms are not murders: they're suicides.  While we're fixated on stranger danger, the reality is that you're more likely to do yourself in than be killed by someone else with a gun. 

Quotegun suicides now account for six-in-ten firearms deaths
And an article here: Gun Deaths Are Mostly Suicides.

Which, despite the difficulties involved, is a solid argument for finding a way to keep guns away from those suffering dangerous mental illness, primarily by some sort of screening process but also, yes, by finding ways to reduce and control the national arsenal. 


Cassandra LeMay

Yes, firearm homicides have dropped a lot since 1993. But - the largest drop was from the early to the mid/late 1990s. The rate of gun homicides has stayed almost constant over the last 15 years. 1993 had the highest rate of the last 35 years. Picking that year as a basis for the comparrison does not at all reflect more recent trends.



And while firearm homicides have remained at a mostly constant rate over the 2000s and 2010s, the number of non-fatal firearm injuries has risen by about 50% since the turn of the century. What has also increased is the survival chance for people admitted to hospitals with gunshot wounds. In short: the number of fatalities has remained constant (at least in part) because doctors are getting better at saving gunshot victims, not because the number of shootings has remained constant, or even dropped.
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eBadger

Quote from: Cassandra LeMay on October 16, 2015, 02:09:00 AMThe rate of gun homicides has stayed almost constant over the last 15 years.

That shows the number of homicides, not the rate (which has steadily decreased as population increases), but yes. 

Quote from: Cassandra LeMay on October 16, 2015, 02:09:00 AMIn short: the number of fatalities has remained constant (at least in part) because doctors are getting better at saving gunshot victims, not because the number of shootings has remained constant, or even dropped.

Could be valid to a degree (where did you get the injury numbers?) and yes, the decline certainly isn't as dramatic after 2000, but the last 15 years haven't been stagnant.  The trend is actually more pronounced in non-fatal firearms crime, which drops by 1/3 after 2001.  If the issue were just better hospitals, that number would reflect an increase coinciding with your theoretical 'would have been a fatality but saved by medicine' cases. 


Cassandra LeMay

Quote from: eBadger on October 16, 2015, 04:31:45 AM
Could be valid to a degree (where did you get the injury numbers?)
CDC data. And yes, I know the CDC data is something to be taken with a grain of salt, as they don't collect these statistics nationwide (I think?). The numbers I retrieved at their database for " Violence-Related Firearm Gunshot Nonfatal Injuries and Rates per 100,000" are:
2001: Total 45,000 = 15.9 per 100,000 population
2013: Total 67,000 = 21.3 per 100,000 population

I'll take a closer look at the Pew data you cited later. I am not sure what their definition of "non-fatal victimization" is, e.g. if they include armed robberies where guns were brandished but not actually used.
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Ironwolf85

Quote from: eBadger on October 15, 2015, 07:52:02 PM
And yet violent crime has dropped by half since the 90s and continues a steady decline.
correct, because the culture is shifting on it's own, we are actually growing less violent. However there are people who still subscribe to those ideas, and some of them ARE the kind of people who shoot people trying to prove this or stop that.
most of the shootings lately have been ideological, in so far as you can call coming up with a conspiracy about the government and christian help groups controlling your mind, or black people fighting a secret war of races against you, or "blowing up this marathon will some how magically liberate a homeland I've never been to from a government that doesn't exist" an ideology.
random communist-related scribbles worked as a justification for the Oklahoma bomber X,x

it's like... the violent crazies in our culture are coming out of the woodwork as the population gets less violent or somthing. Wierd.
Prudence, justice, temperance, courage, faith, hope, love...
debate any other aspect of my faith these are the heavenly virtues. this flawed mortal is going to try to adhere to them.

Culture: the ability to carve an intricate and beautiful bowl from the skull of a fallen enemy.
Civilization: the ability to put that psycho in prision for killing people.

Mithlomwen

So....I have to wonder.....if the statistics show that we are actually becoming less violent, the impression is that we are becoming more violent...do any of you think that the media has anything to do with that? 
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that your half of the flesh and blood that makes me whole...

Cassandra LeMay

Quote from: eBadger on October 16, 2015, 04:31:45 AM
That shows the number of homicides, not the rate (which has steadily decreased as population increases), but yes.
Even if you look at the per-capita figures, numbers have remained relatively stable over the last 10 to 15 years. I don't think there is all that great a difference between 3.8 per 100,000 and 3.6 per 100,000 (2000 vs. 2010 figures).

Quote from: eBadger on October 16, 2015, 04:31:45 AMThe trend is actually more pronounced in non-fatal firearms crime, which drops by 1/3 after 2001.  If the issue were just better hospitals, that number would reflect an increase coinciding with your theoretical 'would have been a fatality but saved by medicine' cases. 

Just as I suspected, the Pew data for "non-fatal violent firearm crime"  does not say much (if any) about the number of guns fired or people injured. As they explain on page 2 of the report:
QuoteNon-fatal firearm crimes are defined throughout this section as aggravated assault, robbery and sex crimes in which the victim saw a weapon.
So it is entirely possible for the number of those cases to fall, while firearm injuries (excluding accidents) can rise. One possible explanation could be a shrinking number of armed criminals, with a higher tendency to make use of guns among the smaller, shrinking base number of "hardened criminals".

Edit:
Quote from: Mithlomwen on October 16, 2015, 08:03:39 AM
So....I have to wonder.....if the statistics show that we are actually becoming less violent, the impression is that we are becoming more violent...do any of you think that the media has anything to do with that?
I don't think the statistics actually show a drop in violence. Gun-related, non-accidental firearm injuries have risen in absolute, and per-capaita terms, while the number of gun-related deaths has remained stable for about a decade. There are some changes in how many of those are suicides and how many homicides, but the numbers look pretty stable from where I sit.
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You can not value dreams according to the odds of their becoming true.
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TheGlyphstone

Quote from: Mithlomwen on October 16, 2015, 08:03:39 AM
So....I have to wonder.....if the statistics show that we are actually becoming less violent, the impression is that we are becoming more violent...do any of you think that the media has anything to do with that?

I certainly think they are a contributing factor, though not in the sense that it's a deliberate conspiracy to make us want to buy more guns to protect ourselves.  Media outlets are slaves to their advertising revenue, which is more or less directly derived from the number of viewers they get (the all-important 'Ratings'). So they will always pick sensationalist stories, or report on otherwise mundane stories as if they were more exciting than they are, to lure in more viewers.


Cassandra LeMay

ONs, OFFs, and writing samples | Oath of the Drake

You can not value dreams according to the odds of their becoming true.
(Sonia Sotomayor)

theLeslie

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on October 14, 2015, 06:18:30 AM
Completely and utterly wrong. It IS a matter of law, since these weapons are used to BREAK the law and hurt people.

You can not use laws to regulate people who willingly break the law.

LisztesFerenc

Quote from: theLeslie on October 16, 2015, 03:53:54 PM
You can not use laws to regulate people who willingly break the law.

  So we theft shouldn't be illegal, since people will just do it anyway? What about traffic laws, they are perfect either, some people break them. In fact, I think we just lost all laws. I say good riddance, who really law and order. Seriously, that show was overhyped. It was decent, but not amazing.

  In all seriousness, what do you propose we use to regulate people willing to break the law?


theLeslie

Hyperbole does nothing to add to a commentary on any issue, nor does the straw man fallacy.  We have a criminal justice system that is supposed to deal with people who violate the law.  Regrettably some of the more recent people who've decided to go on killing sprees have ended it by taking their own life, thus skirting the justice system, however that justice system would have only given them death, or life behind bars.

This is punishment, however, and not prevention.  Can we say it is just or moral to allow the actions of others, and a very small minority of others it is, affect the personal liberties of people who have in no way done anything wrong?  Stricter laws are going to do nothing to someone who is willing not only to violate laws to get what they want, but to die in the end.  Much like kamikaze planes in the pacific theater of World War 2, the only thing you can do is shoot at them, and pray for the best.  Do not take this as me saying that we should all be armed and shooting people to protect ourselves, so much as me saying that our hopes in stopping someone who is willing to die to do something are slim to none.  Most of the time shooting at Kamikaze pilots did nothing, and they ended up sinking whatever boat they set into their sights.

Like Kamikaze, these people are born from desperation.  They are born from a society that is less and less willing to comprise, and is more and more divisive and bleak.  As love vanishes, only hate can take it's place.  As tolerance thins, only intolerance can step forth to fill that void.  These people are lost, and they need to be found.  They need to be understood, and treated with the care and compassion that this culture should be placing on all those with mental and emotional difficulties.  We can not just marginalize them by pretending that they are simply born evil.  They are not, they are made evil (or desperate as the case surely is) because of the lives they lived, the society they grew up in, and an over abundance of media giving forth the idea that they can become famous, or that a single dedicated soul can truly change the world.

Laws will not prevent someone who ignores laws from doing as they please, they only place harsher sanctions against people who have otherwise been perfectly law abiding citizens.  This is a tricky issue, it is not black and white, it is not even shades of gray.  There is no single solution to this, and certainly more laws are going to have very little effect on it.  It requires a social approach to seek out the root of the issue, to find out what has pushed us so far that slaughter is the only option we have left, and then to deal with it from there.

No one wants to kill, to hurt, or to destroy, until something has pushed them there.  People are not born "evil".

LisztesFerenc

Quote from: theLeslie on October 16, 2015, 04:47:10 PMLaws will not prevent someone who ignores laws from doing as they please, they only place harsher sanctions against people who have otherwise been perfectly law abiding citizens.  This is a tricky issue, it is not black and white, it is not even shades of gray.  There is no single solution to this, and certainly more laws are going to have very little effect on it.  It requires a social approach to seek out the root of the issue, to find out what has pushed us so far that slaughter is the only option we have left, and then to deal with it from there.

  Again, Europe, Canada, Australia and Japan. They don't have spree killers and the murder rate is lower, yet presumably they have similar social problems to the ones in USA and share aspects of the culture. They have far stricter gun control. Its not conclusive, but doesn't it at least suggest that there may be a simply solution?

  In some ways I guess I agree with the idea of a social approach. Specifically accepting that even if they will never be implemented, repealing the second amendment could very well save lives. That would at least lead to a healthier attitude to what a gun does, even if no laws change.

Cycle

You say this:

Quote from: theLeslie on October 16, 2015, 04:47:10 PM
This is a tricky issue, it is not black and white, it is not even shades of gray. 

Yet you also say this:

Quote from: theLeslie on October 16, 2015, 04:47:10 PM
Stricter laws are going to do nothing to someone who is willing not only to violate laws to get what they want,

Seems like you're advocating a black and white position to me:  no new gun laws ever!