US Politics Mass Shootings and Gun Debate 2021

[birdup.snaildown]

Wow, that was a longer response than I anticipated. I should know better by now, right?

I'll break your response down to 3 things and respond briefly cause I don't have time for a long discussion.

MASS

2 people dead doesn't qualify as a mass gun killing. I said mass shooting. 7 people were shot. So, technically, you are correct. I meant incidents in which more than 2 people are shot to death by a gunman/woman (gotta be PC; equality and what not).

The fact remains that there was about one (mass gun killing) per year in Australia prior to the 96/03 amnesties. Since then there have been none... but if we look at it as mass shootings (ignoring deaths) and the only example is Monash uni, that's still a MASSIVE reduction.

SUICIDE

There was an insignificant reduction in overall suicides, but that is partly due to an increase in suicides within Aboriginal communities. There are so many factors at play, it's difficult to see trends for what they are. I don't have the time for a thorough analysis. Perhaps you're right. If I was going to kill myself and I had a gun in the house, it would be a thousand times easier. I might already be dead. If there was indeed a significant reduction in suicides, that works in favour of the gun amnesties. So, I don't care.

So far - mass gun killings have reduced massively and overall suicides have probably seen a significant reduction.

HOMICIDE

The 2003 handgun amnesty had more of a significant effect on the homicide rate than the 1996 amnesty, which makes sense because you can't really walk around with a rifle. There was a MASSIVE sustained reduction in the homicide rate around the time of the second amnesty. The homicide rate in Australia has nearly halved in the past 30 years. It's near impossible (considering how many factors are at play and how complex the underlying statistics are) to conclude that the gun amnesties are responsible for this decline. I don't give all the credit to gun control, but (at the same time) I'm not going to conclude that it had no impact. It's common sense that taking away weapons is going to significantly reduce homicide. To clarify what I'm saying here, 10% is significant.

To further clarify my position, one life is significant.

 

[JessFR]

Wow, that was a longer response than I anticipated. I should know better by now, right?

I'll break your response down to 3 things and respond briefly cause I don't have time for a long discussion.

MASS

2 people dead doesn't qualify as a mass gun killing. I said mass shooting. 7 people were shot. So, technically, you are correct. I meant incidents in which more than 2 people are shot to death by a gunman/woman (gotta be PC; equality and what not).

The fact remains that there was about one (mass gun killing) per year in Australia prior to the 96/03 amnesties. Since then there have been none... but if we look at it as mass shootings (ignoring deaths) and the only example is Monash uni, that's still a MASSIVE reduction.

SUICIDE

There was an insignificant reduction in overall suicides, but that is partly due to an increase in suicides within Aboriginal communities. There are so many factors at play, it's difficult to see trends for what they are. I don't have the time for a thorough analysis. Perhaps you're right. If I was going to kill myself and I had a gun in the house, it would be a thousand times easier. I might already be dead. If there was indeed a significant reduction in suicides, that works in favour of the gun amnesties. So, I don't care.

So far - mass gun killings have reduced massively and overall suicides have probably seen a significant reduction.

HOMICIDE

The 2003 handgun amnesty had more of a significant effect on the homicide rate than the 1996 amnesty, which makes sense because you can't really walk around with a rifle. There was a MASSIVE sustained reduction in the homicide rate around the time of the second amnesty. The homicide rate in Australia has nearly halved in the past 30 years. It's near impossible (considering how many factors are at play and how complex the underlying statistics are) to conclude that the gun amnesties are responsible for this decline. I don't give all the credit to gun control, but (at the same time) I'm not going to conclude that it had no impact. It's common sense that taking away weapons is going to significantly reduce homicide. To clarify what I'm saying here, 10% is significant.

To further clarify my position, one life is significant.

I would have to really dig into the data again, but my recollection is I concluded that the post 03 decline was highly unlikely to be a result of the buyback in the wake of Monash.

I'll consider seeing if I can dig up how I came to that conclusion maybe. It wasn't easy working out all this stuff, if memory serves I had to download piles of independent ABS datasheets and plot them. I think some of them use different metrics, 1 in 1,000 vs 1 in 100,000 or something that I had to account for too.

My recollection, keeping in mind how long its been, I think I found that there was a similar sudden decrease in other measures of crime unrelated to guns, I think I might have also taken that as another indication as to why the 03 drop was unlikely to be related.

Keep in mind that immediately following 96, the homicide rate increased for a couple years too. My recollection is at the time I judged that to also be unrelated to the buyback. I'm just mentioning that to highlight that it goes both ways .

 

[birdup.snaildown]

Let me ask you this, @JessFR.

You said the gun amnesty didn't work. What would constitute a success? Is a 5% reduction in homicide a success? 10%? If gun control saves one person per year, how is that a failure?

It's not realistic to expect a 50% or 100% reduction in homicide. Homicide existed long before guns. It will always exist.

 

[JessFR]

CAUTION: BIG POST AHEAD!

Let me ask you this, @JessFR.

You said the gun amnesty didn't work. What would constitute a success? Is a 5% reduction in homicide a success? 10%? If gun control saves one person per year, how is that a failure?

It's not realistic to expect a 50% or 100% reduction in homicide. Homicide existed long before guns. It will always exist.

Good question.

If it had reduced the number of deaths by homicide on an average year by say.... 5-10% Yeah that's probably enough to call it a success.

It would have to be statistically significant enough to say that it has had a positive impact and has definitely saved lives to a statistically measurable amount. That would be enough for me to call it a success.

Other people might want it to save a higher percentage to justify the loss of freedom, and I might well have argued that at the time. But today I'd argue any measurable saving of lives in the actual homicide rates and such would constitute success.

Arguments can be made that reducing the number of mass shootings should be considered a success, and I'll admit to finding that argument pretty persuasive. What makes me want to dismiss mass shootings is they make up such a tiny number of people statistically speaking.

It's still tragic, it's still peoples lives we're talking about. But there are costs for having such laws in the first place. While in Australia there wasn't much if any kind of armed self defense culture anyway, to the point that I didn't put much consideration into the number of people saved by having a firearm to defend themselves, I quickly determined that to also be below a statistically significant quantity as to be worth including.

But there is also weight to the argument of personal freedoms, to the ability of people to feel safer, as costs of gun control that need to be considered along with how many people it might save.

Again, I appreciate that Australia didn't have an armed self defense culture or mindset to start with, but this is something you'd definitely have to consider in some countries.

And, getting more to the point. Say there's no statistically significant impact on homicides, which I believe to be the case, lets just take the mass shootings.

By reducing mass shootings, how many people do you save? Maybe a few dozen over a 5 year period. Once you start considering factors that are that... I hate to say this but, adhering to cold numbers here, that insignificant (again I don't want to come off heartless here, it's just that in a country of 25 million, 50 deaths in 5 years is statistically insignificant). Once you do that, You have to also start weighing in things like the impact on peoples lives in other ways. There are a lot of people for whom shooting is a sport, this significantly reduces and hinders their recreational activity.

Additionally, and this... this really gets to the heart of my quasi-pro gun beliefs. One major reason I hold the beliefs I do. I mean originally I would say if I'm being honest that I was brainwashed into them. I grew up around some very right wing progun type people and was taught from a fairly young age that guns are good anti-gun people are idiots liberals suck etc etc. Over time as I got older, and especially after moving to Australia and seriously questioning my beliefs, I stopped holding a lot of the right wing beliefs I once held. But one major part of my beliefs I've never stopped holding is my belief that people, and especially women, have a right to defend themselves.

I've never liked that because a bunch of young men, and it's almost exclusively young men, misuse guns and kill a bunch of people, that women are prevented from having a gun with which to defend themselves.

To many times I've seen or heard of women being stalked by dangerous men, being let down by useless police and ineffective restraining orders, and having to live in fear.

A gun provides another option, it provides a way to take back a degree of control and defend oneself and not be dependent on police response time.

These are also people impacted by these kinds of laws. Now I would be tempted to say that it's perhaps still worthwhile if you can save thousands or even hundreds of lives a year by introducing gun control. But a dozen or so over 5 years? I'm not so certain.

And it doesn't HAVE to be this kind of gun control or no gun control!. There's no good reason we shouldn't try gun control that strongly clamps down on who can have guns but still allows women (and men) to have weapons to defend themselves with in these sorts of situations. As well as letting gun enthusiasts to continue their recreationally activity. While still saving lives!

That is why I don't like the Australian flavor of gun control. And why I think there are better ways, and why I don't consider it much of a success. If you're read this far though I wanna say I appreciate it.

One last thing, you'll note that among this 'pro-gun' argument I don't include society defending itself against a tyrannical state. And it's because like you I consider that argument a joke.

 

[Iceman1216]

"both be regulated and controlled within reason."
This seems to be the sweet spot that we can not find??
I am a big gun guy! i do not hunt and online shoot paper and clay pigeons, in competition all over the country.
But why civilians need military weapons and Ammo ( its the ammo that does the real distruction to human flesh, and it was built only for that purpose) Not some BS 3 gun tactical course!! Thats just a fabricated sport to try and justify ownership of these weapons with 30 to 100 round Magazines. I grew up one shot one kill!!

 

[JessFR]

"both be regulated and controlled within reason."
This seems to be the sweet spot that we can not find??
I am a big gun guy! i do not hunt and online shoot paper and clay pigeons, in competition all over the country.
But why civilians need military weapons and Ammo ( its the ammo that does the real distruction to human flesh, and it was built only for that purpose) Not some BS 3 gun tactical course!! Thats just a fabricated sport to try and justify ownership of these weapons with 30 to 100 round Magazines. I grew up one shot one kill!!

I've never found this a compelling line of reasoning either.

Mainly because a semiautomatic firearm can be reloaded so fast, magazine size limits just don't seem like something that would do anything.

And well.. we already tried an assault weapons ban. I have been unable to establish that the assault weapon ban actually saved any lives either. I consider it another flawed type of gun control.

Assault weapon bans are especially nonsensical because they're generally devised by people who have no idea what they're talking about.

I still say the answer is controlling who has guns. Controlling the guns themselves is a bad method.

Look how many people the vtech shooter killed, it's one of the deadliest mass shootings in american history and he didn't need an ar-15.

I'm not convinced.
I am most definitely not trying to suggest that the status quo in America is acceptable though. I agree that there desperately needs to be change. And that change needs to be gun laws not mental health or some other diversion.

 

[birdup.snaildown]

Arguments can be made that reducing the number of mass shootings should be considered a success, and I'll admit to finding that argument pretty persuasive. What makes me want to dismiss mass shootings is they make up such a tiny number of people statistically speaking.

Considering that was the stated point of both the Australian and NZ amnesties, yes, I'd say that means it (the Australian amnesty) was a success. I assume that the NZ amnesty will be similarly successful in that department.

Is there any benefit to people having handguns or automatic rifles in Australia?

After Christchurch, my dad had to hand in the old 303 and a semi-auto 22-250. I like guns. They're fun. Anybody who says otherwise has never played with one. I like crack too, but I don't think it should be legal despite never personally having a problem with it.

By reducing mass shootings, how many people do you save? Maybe a few dozen over a 5 year period.

A few dozen innocent people is worth it. The difference between mass gun killings and other gun related homicides is substantial. Most homicides in Australia are between people who know each other. They aren't totally random. Guns capable of killing a dozen people in 5 minutes have no place in society.

What is the benefit of guns in Australia?

Combined with our abortion discussion, I don't think you're left wing any more.

 

[birdup.snaildown]

If it had reduced the number of deaths by homicide on an average year by say.... 5-10% Yeah that's probably enough to call it a success.

I'd love to see your mathematical proof that it didn't reduce homicides by 5%.

 

[Iceman1216]

I've never found this a compelling line of reasoning either.

Mainly because a semiautomatic firearm can be reloaded so fast, magazine size limits just don't seem like something that would do anything.

And well.. we already tried an assault weapons ban. I have been unable to establish that the assault weapon ban actually saved any lives either. I consider it another flawed type of gun control.

Assault weapon bans are especially nonsensical because they're generally devised by people who have no idea what they're talking about.

I still say the answer is controlling who has guns. Controlling the guns themselves is a bad method.

Look how many people the vtech shooter killed, it's one of the deadliest mass shootings in american history and he didn't need an ar-15.

I'm not convinced.
I am most definitely not trying to suggest that the status quo in America is acceptable though. I agree that there desperately needs to be change. And that change needs to be gun laws not mental health or some other diversion.

We have way over 400 million guns in America!! Plus a million or so "Ghost guns" II
I totally understand the "Gun situation in America trust me" As an EMT that has responded to gun deaths in a large cit, I have seen first hand and had my hands on dying people that would have lived if Less round and less Fatal ammunition!!
So pleas I am so Done with the BS of Guns dont kill people, People do!!
Less people with weapons of war in the general population will help safe lives!!
Lets see where we are when we Double the number of guns in America to 800 million and 2-3 million ghost guns ??????

Self deference, by law is No further than 18 feet in NY, and father you have no right o take a life ( unless under fire)
and the 100s of people I have taught gun safety cant hit anything even that close under the stress of an attack.
The NRA and gun manufactures have sold a portion of America a Big Pile of Shit for money.
I am very safe with one pump shot gun and a revolver ( I do prefer 357 mag Colt Python) anyone who needs more will be dead, and lose there weapon

 

[birdup.snaildown]

I still say the answer is controlling who has guns. Controlling the guns themselves is a bad method.

It doesn't have to be one or the other. As far as controlling guns goes, surely you think some level of gun control makes sense. I can't imagine you think people should have sub machine guns?

Look how many people the vtech shooter killed, it's one of the deadliest mass shootings in american history and he didn't need an ar-15.

The assault rifle thing is flawed, I agree, but not entirely pointless. It's a step in the right direction. The majority of mass gun killings involved an assault weapon. So activists and politicians (who obviously aren't gun experts) pushed for a ban on that type of weapon. If mass gun killings continued to occur with another type of weapon predominantly being used, they should ban them too.

a semiautomatic firearm can be reloaded so fast, magazine size limits just don't seem like something that would do anything

But it demonstrably does do something to prevent mass gun killings. Just look at the number of mass gun killings in the country you live in, post-amnesty.

You can't out-logic reality.

It's much easier to take down a shooter if they have to reload for every 7 bullets fired (I don't know what the mag limit in Australia is, but NZ has a 7 bullet limit). They aren't killing one person per bullet. So, how many magazines do they have to have on them to kill 50 people? I'd be happy with a 3 bullet limit. They should also limit the number of mags people can own.

It makes perfect sense to me to reduce magazine capacity. There is no benefit to society for 100 bullet magazines. If you've ever been hunting, you'll know that you don't need to fire 100 times in a short space of time. This is a weapon of war, as Iceman said. It has no place in society.

 

[JessFR]

It's not just about hunting. As I just said, self defense is my primary motivation for my pro gun beliefs.

I'm too tired right now to answer everything else. I'll write up a more detailed reply after sleep.

I'd love to see your mathematical proof that it didn't reduce homicides by 5%.

Wtf, OK.. Provide me a mathematical proof that the 96 buyback wasn't responsible for the increase in homicides in the 2 years after.

 

[birdup.snaildown]

Self-defence is a poor argument because guns cause more deaths than they prevent.

As far as the v-tech shootings go, I'd never heard of this incident before. It's hard to keep track of US shootings. There are so many of them. I wonder why that is. Anyway, I don't think handguns should be legal either. Between the two guns he used, he had a 25 bullet capacity... and the guy was a convicted stalker with mental health issues when he legally bought these guns? What the fuck?

Provide me a mathematical proof that the 96 buyback wasn't responsible for the increase in homicides in the 2 years after.

First of all, I don't have to substantiate claims I didn't make. You said you researched Australia gun violence and concluded that gun control was a failure. Then you said a 5% homicide reduction would be a success. So, if you put two and two together, you're saying that the amnesty didn't reduce homicide by 5% according to your research. I'm just saying: I'd love to see that research.

Homicide was reducing before the amnesty, sure, but not at the same rate as post-amnesty. Happy to illustrate this for you if you like.

Secondly, 2 years isn't a long enough period of time to weed out anomalies. If you graph homicide (or basically anything) in any country, it is inconsistent year-to-year. There are always ups and downs. You need to look at long-term trends.

 

[JessFR]

Self-defence is a poor argument because guns cause more deaths than they prevent.

Under the current political paradigm yes. But this whole argument is about hypothetical. And the fact that guns can be used for self defense has to be kept in consideration.

 

[birdup.snaildown]

this whole argument is about hypothetical

Not sure what that means.

guns can be used for self defense has to be kept in consideration

Can a SMG be used for self defence?

I need to go to work now.
Have a good sleep.

 

[JessFR]

Not sure what that means.

It means we are talking about what we respectively think the ideal gun laws would be.

Using self defense as an argument for preserving the status quo in the US doesn't work because as you said it causes far more deaths than it saves.

But we are talking about hypothetical systems. So in this case the relevant question is would more people die from guns than are saved from self defense in the system I propose. The answer to that is likely unknown because noone is attempting my proposal.

What I'm arguing is that self defense is something I value and it shouldn't be assumed that the only options are prevent all armed self defense OR have people dying in the numbers you see in the US. I think that's a false dichotomy.

Can a SMG be used for self defence?

I need to go to work now.
Have a good sleep.

Well yes of course it can, I don't think there are many situations where it'd be the ideal choice though. And I don't really see that as a relevant question.
And I will thank you.

 

[JessFR]

Alrighty you wore me down, I went and got out the data.

And using the australian institute of criminology data from 89 to 18 for homicide by weapon per capita, I created the following graph. (this is actually the original source of your earlier graph from guninfo. The original source data can be found in table A22 of the homicide incidents data release, I'll link if requested. Also I apologize for the similar colors in the below graph, it's what excel gave me and I was too tired to fix it after I noticed that they might be confusing.)

For comparison you can also find here your original graph.

NSFW:

As I concluded last time, the fluctuations in the data aren't meaningful. The actual firearm homicide rate has done little but continue on its preexisting decline. The spikes you see aren't caused by people shooting people less. (seeing this now I find it very suspicious that the original graph authors omitted this)

For interests sake, I added together all the various types of non-firearm data so that the chart was clearer. But if you want the full chart of all homicide weapons I'll put it up, but I checked what specifically caused that big spike around 03ish. It was caused by the hand and feet homicides having a good year causing the numbers to drop, then it returned to normal the next year, which also coincidentally had above average knive homicides, causing the apparent spike, which then makes it look like there's a huge drop, when in fact it is just artifacts in the data.

This is why I'm not thrilled by the idea of reinvestigating all this. I spent a lot of time on it years ago and you really gotta dig deep to get to the truth. Even apparently unambiguous statistics can be very misleading if you make assumptions.

EDIT: Ok I decided to just put together all the data on one chart so you can see for yourself how it all breaks down when the other weapons are included. Just be aware that Non-firearm and All include the other data summed together.

NSFW:

In conclusion, it's just noise. The result of only having a hundred or so murders a year and then trying to plot it. You get random fluctuations from the small sample sizes. I think it's clear though that the gun buybacks didn't have a measurable impact on the raw data. Because there just wasn't a big enough problem to start with.

To clarify the Y axis is per 100,000.

 

[birdup.snaildown]

It's difficult, like I said, when dealing with something as complex as this. There are so many factors influencing the data you're presenting, but your analysis is simplified and doesn't cater to them... which is to be expected, because a thorough analysis worthy of a solid conclusion would take hours and I don't expect you to devote the time.

Having said that, it's not just noise.

Initially you said that knife attacks (etc) might replace gun violence in this situation, but your second graph doesn't show an increase in stabbing homicides or blunt instrument homicides or hands/feet. The latter (hands/feet) actually shows the opposite. The attacks are much less than half (despite the overall homicide rate halving). The only compelling data for your argument is "other".

What is other? The number increased fairly dramatically around 1996 and it is the only homicide rate that has increased overall in the past 30 years. I suspect this is due to how the data is collected. In other words, I suspect they have changed the parameters for the other category over time. I'd have to look into it further.

Your data doesn't support your argument that gun control has failed to reduce the homicide rate by 5%. The onus is on you to support your argument with data. I can't eyeball 5% from a graph.

As I've been saying, the gun buybacks didn't have a measurable impact on the raw data.

You're not digging deep enough to make that conclusion. Can I have the dataset you compiled? I'm too lazy to copy it all from the source, but I wouldn't mind having a look at it.

 

[birdup.snaildown]

I'm arguing is that self defense is something I value and it shouldn't be assumed that the only options are prevent all armed self defense OR have people dying in the numbers you see in the US. I think that's a false dichotomy.

I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your argument down.

I never said any such thing.

Well yes of course it can, I don't think there are many situations where it'd be the ideal choice though. And I don't really see that as a relevant question.

It's perfectly relevant. You said you don't think magazine size makes any difference. You said you can reload a semi-automatic so fast that blah blah blah. Sorry. Couldn't be bothered scrolling up to quote you properly. You made comments about the assault rifle ban.

I'm just wondering if you draw the line anywhere with guns, and (if so) why? Your argument is that we should control people who own guns not guns themselves. Does that apply to SMGs? I'm not sure what your position is on guns that are already illegal in the US. Should they remain illegal? If not, why?

 

[JessFR]

I'm going to bed, but I told you where you can find the source data. Just go to the Australian institute of criminology, click statistics (top right I thing) there's another button for homicide. The data is on a download able excel document. The data I used is table A22. It's the same source your graph used.

If you haven't found it by tomorrow I'll link it and reply to whatever else I've missed

 

[birdup.snaildown]

Okay found the data.

The total homicide rate for Australia was reducing per year prior to the amnesty, but (according to your data) it was reducing considerably slower than after the amnesty. (1.8% versus 2.1%). That's a pretty significant difference but - like I said - difficult to eyeball on a graph. After the 2003 amnesty, it speeds up. You can see this on the graph. That's why the bogus guninfo article I posted focuses on plus or minus 7 years. The rate of reduction after 2003 is 3.29% which is approaching double the rate prior to 1996. There could very well be another reason for this, don't get me wrong. I haven't looked into it too deeply.

You said there was another reason for the reduction in homicide after 2003, but you didn't say what it was?