Serious Never Again

[tcr]

These two bolded lines are unrelated. Looking through this list, of the 25 states that report above-average firearm death rates, 17 of them require a permit to carry a handgun. States with the highest rates of gun death could be "often" not ones with loose gun restrictions, unless there are some unreported metrics going on. For example, this list doesn't list CC laws.

yes, as I stated there are multiple reasons that death rates may be influenced, and gun control surely wouldn't be the only thing that would be required for crime / death rates go down. How are the two not related? There is no difference between firearm-related deaths and gun related deaths, they are semantically the same thing.

1 to 6 fewer fatalities per 100,000 residents. Do you happen to have full access to the study? I'd be interested to see relative improvement this results in between the laxest and scrictest gun control states. The study also says "These findings suggest that gun-related deaths have a variety of causes and that attempts to legislate a solution to this problem will need to be correspondingly complex and multifaceted. "

I have access to the journal that was published but not the actual study notes and data and such though I'm sure it would not be that difficult to find. And yes, gun control laws would have to be elaborate and there's no catch all. Does that mean that gun control legislation should just be stifled? No not at all.

Fairly comprehensive stuff, but I still do wonder exactly how much of an effect the laws actually have relative to the poorly ranked states

For the last set of articles--the politifact one says that the USA has lower mass shooting death rates than Norway, Finland, and Switzerland, and then says "they have populations so small that one or two mass-casualty events can produce a relatively high per capita rate." Yeah, uh, so? Sorry, but that's how statistics WORK. Snopes does the same thing, such as with this scary looking table. The numbers for the USA are so high! Yeah, but they didn't apply population to it.

It is important to look at frequency rate versus mortality rate because it can only be assumed that one cannot completely eliminate gun violence, as there will always be outliers. Reasons that European countries have a much higher relative mortality rate can be anything from Europe being a largely much more urban society than America, with higher density at big cities like Paris and London compared to Seattle or New York. Other reasons could include something like the extrapolation of data points on the United States side, that the "one-offs" of small scale mass shootings that don't even pale in comparison to shootings like Parkland or Orlando. Alternatively it could also be due to a more "vulnerable" society in Europe in that people dont open carry and such. It's a lot of reasons that's why people focus on the frequency of attacks more so than the mortality. It's pretty common in the field of statistics to ignore outliers.

Hide

In 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015, there was not a single death from a mass shooting in Norway.


If we compare the number of mass shooting deaths each year to the population of Norway each year, using the same method we did for the United States, we get an average annual death rate of 2 per million, more than 20 times higher than the rate in the United States (0.09 per million), even though we know there were zero mass shooting deaths in six out of those seven years, in Norway.


If this strikes you as ridiculous, you’re on to something.

What sort of logic is this? Yes, norway had one large mass shooting. Sorry that that jacks up its death rate, but that's how statistics work.

yes this is how outliers work and outliers can oft be discounted.

I'm not going to deny that Lott has a serious agenda and has questionable honesty. But these numbers are real numbers. Snope's rhetoric in their fact check is that it is somewhat dubious to say that the US has a lower mass shooting death rate than europe, while also saying that "mass shootings are rare in europe". The question becomes, what does "rare" mean?

If Lott's research was so groundbreaking and seemed to break the narrative that gun control laws help with gun related deaths, then why does academia not rally behind that research? Because Lott has a history of falsifying surveys, creating false names online to defend him and boost his credibility, as well as misrepresenting statistics. In just this study Lott makes the claim that the per capita rate in the United States and Europe are approximately the same, yet his own data tables in the study show a per capita rate of .0078 and .0037 for US and Europe respectively, with the United States doubling Europe's rate.

When I was researching my last post, I went though this article against Lott (https://thinkprogress.org/debunking-john-lott-5456e83cf326/).

passage of note

While Lott claims the per capita rate in the United States and Europe are approximately the same, his own data tables tell a different story. Accepting his data at face value, between 2009 and 2015, the United States had 25 mass shootings versus 19 in the E.U. and 24 in Europe as a whole. This comes out as a rate of .078 shootings per million individuals in the United States, .038 for the E.U., and .032 for Europe as a whole. The United States has more than double the mass shooting rate of the E.U. and Europe, directly contradicting Lott’s statements about his own data.

I said in my previous post that Lott's claim that there is no statistically significant difference in USA/EU mass shooting death rate, because there is a statistically significant difference: USA has double the rate of the EU. However, if Snopes is going to call .038/million death rate for the EU as "mass shootings are rare in the EU", what does that make a rate of .078/million for the USA? It is double, it is statistically significant, but it is still "rare". Snope's rhetoric is that the low population of european countries makes them unsuitable for comparing to the high-population US, then simultaneously saying the USA has so many deaths a few sentences later. "Ah, the low population of Europe means that one event skews the data...but look at this number of deaths in the USA! (not the rate)"

If people just used rate consistently, for everything, it would at least make it easier to read the damn articles, by both sides of this stupid argument this gets seriously annoying

Not sure if you even read the whole article you yourself linked because that article addresses the point I made earlier of him falsifying data tables and extrapolating absurd conclusions from them. Regardless, does your argument against this and Snopes somehow fall under a semantically argument? Snopes says "rare" because mass shootings themselves are rare and that in respect to shootings globally (especially when taking into account the Middle East and Africa) mass shootings in Europe are extremely rare. I don't see what's so difficult about understanding the significance of how one-off events like the one mass shooting in Norway over a period of 4 years can impact data in such a manner, it seems you are purposefully misinterpreting everything.

Protip: using misleading data and arguments actually makes your argument seem weaker

First off the notion that "this area has more guns and more gun deaths so clearly gun control works" is laughable. That article provides no evidence of the link between more guns and more gun deaths, neither does it provide evidence that gun control had a positive effect. It also conveniently measures firearm deaths--which is completely absurd given that more than half of all gun deaths in the US are suicides. If we want to look at homicide rates, the link between strict gun laws and gun homicides is all over the place. A nonprofit anti-gun organization called the Brady Campaign made a grading system so simplify understanding of which states had the most gun laws. Eight of the ten states with the highest homicide rates and the eight of the ten states with the lowest homicide rates all received a D or an F on this scale.

Despite me never claiming that lower gun rates necessarily caused or resulted in lower amounts of gun deaths, I only claimed there is a correlation, and there is. appeal to the stone lol, mind explaining why it is absurd to not include suicides? suicides are firearm related deaths too, which happen to fall under your criteria set earlier of gun deaths. If you want to specify gun-related deaths but you really just mean crime rates than say so in your original post, don't attack my post or source for not upholding criteria you set after the fact.

Yeah, I'll agree there really isn't sufficient research to show that homicide rates have a negative correlation to gun legislature but I don't think it's quite right to dismiss it altogether either, because, as you said the subject has no defined correlation. To assume that there isn't tho is fallacious, just as there are multiple factors that influence violence rates and gun related deaths there are similar variables that could distort such a study that haven't been controlled for.

Mind showing us which ones?

All snark aside... I have already provided multiple sources that show the correlation between gun control and fewer gun deaths. To dismiss suicide statistics as irrelevant to the argument is but another example of how you distort the information given to you to fit your world view. Moreover if you peruse the Center for Disease Control Prevention the top 10 states for homicides are Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Maryland, Missouri, New Mexico, Illinois, South Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas. Coincidentally, according to Business Insider and Zippia's analysis of "the best states for gun owners with respect to jobs and legislation." Many of the top 10 homicidal rate states appear in this list of best states for gun owners, including Mississippi, Louisianna, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Alaska, Indiana, Florida, and Arizona. There definitely seems to be a correlation between gun control laws and homicide rates however little it is. Now will enacting gun control laws necessarily lower the crime rate, homicide rate, etc? I can't say, there are many factors that influence the homicide rate that aren't just gun legislation, and enacting one such portion of it would not have such an effect on gun related deaths.

They're citing research that only used data from 2000-2014, and did not include terrorist attacks. Elsass, one of the lead researchers said this:
"If these were included, we are likely to see something much different statistically as there have been a number of very high-profile terrorist attacks in Europe, some including the use of firearms, that are excluded from the current analysis"

What does it matter if its from 2000-2014? Is that not current enough for this debate? Or will you only accept data within the last 2 months because apparantly the concept of gun control and murder has changed rapidly in the modern age. Do you really think that including terrorist attacks would have such a drastic change on the data when the United States would have to front a massive outlier in 9/11 alone, which totaled close to 3000 deaths, an absurd number of casualties, where the highest number of casualties from European terrorist attacks was the Madrid train bombings committed by Al Quaeda in 2004 (the casualties were 192). So even if you included terrorist attacks, there's a strong possibility that with the frequency and magnitude of America's terrorist attacks they would rival if not lengthen the gap that already exists in this research.

Can you explain to me how Lott could have fabricated this study without any of the other researchers realizing, or show me evidenced it was fabricated?

I strongly suggest you read this article for a comprehensive history of Lott's dishonest tactics and history of deflection and deceit. And yes, as Gato said, when confronted about the seeming lack of his data or sources to back it up, Lott's claims were that:

1. His hard drive crashed in June of 1997, erasing all evidence of the survey. There is therefore no hard evidence of the survey’s existence.
2. He paid for the entire project out of his own pocket, and no expense information is available to substantiate the fact that any survey was ever administered.
3. The survey was done by unpaid fulltime undergraduates at the University of Chicago in their junior and senior years. Therefore, there are no employee records.
4. He instructed each of the students to use their own telephones, and would subsequently reimburse them out of his own pocket. Thus, there are no telephone records.
5. He does not remember the names, contact details, or faces of a single student volunteer. Thus, there is no way to corroborate the fact that students were involved in survey administration.
6. He does not remember the questions asked on the survey.
7. He had no discussions with anybody about sampling design.
8. He did not retain any of the tally sheets because they were lost in an office move in 1997.

I'm sorry but what is the obsession with anti-gun people and the number of mass shootings? I could care less if the US had a higher number of mass shootings, I care more about how deadly they were. Anyone logical would assume that, but because the data benefits them, you people hone in this.

Deflection, a classic tactic. It's incredibly important to look at these types of statistics with context. Looking at raw data numbers to imply that European mass shootings are somehow more violent is ignorant, when in reality Europe doesn't have as many attempted mass shootings to lower the rates. When the sample sizes are 1000 events in the US vs Europe which has a far lower number of shootings, then of course the amount killed will be higher on the lower sampled object. That's how statistics work.

 

[atomicllamas]

if you take the Lott study and apply the same arbitrary time period now (2012-2018 instead of 2009-2015), Norway’s death rate from mass shootings drops to 0 and the US’s increases. Also why only 7 years? Seems arbitrary (suspicious?).

Also the fact that a mass shooting only counts when 3 or more people die rather than 3 or more people get shot is baffling to me. Using 4 or more people being shot there have been 57 mass shootings in the US this year (6 by the fbi standard of 3+ dead, which is obviously more than Norway which had its last mass shooting in 2011, but which one has the mass shooting problem?). Does it not matter if people are only injured, is it no longer a big deal? https://www.abc15.com/news/data/mass-shootings-in-the-us-when-where-they-have-occurred-in-2018

But I guess it’s fine cause 70 people were killed by a right-wing Anglo Christian terrorist in Norway in 2011! (please note the irony of conservatives using this to argue the us doesn’t have a mass shooting problem).

No wait what-aboutisms are stupid and even if Norway were worse that wouldn’t mean that the us should twiddle it’s thumbs and just say “nothing we can do about it!”

 

[GatoDelFuego]

If Lott's research was so groundbreaking and seemed to break the narrative that gun control laws help with gun related deaths, then why does academia not rally behind that research? Because Lott has a history of falsifying surveys, creating false names online to defend him and boost his credibility, as well as misrepresenting statistics. In just this study Lott makes the claim that the per capita rate in the United States and Europe are approximately the same, yet his own data tables in the study show a per capita rate of .0078 and .0037 for US and Europe respectively, with the United States doubling Europe's rate.

yes this is how outliers work and outliers can oft be discounted.

Yeah, I brought up that the rate is higher in the USA than in europe. I also said I'm not denying Lott is drawing bad conclusions or that he's not an extremist (for example, he tries to say the "average" mass shooting rate is higher in europe compared to the actual mass shooting rate in the USA, lol). The .0078/.0037 is the real numbers. Yes, the USA has double the rate. But it is double a very, very small rate. If people are going to say that the USA definitely has a mass shooting problem, then I would say Europe does too, and then conclude that Europe's relatively strict gun laws did not "solve" their problem, only reduced it from a "rare" occurrence to an "even rarer" occurrence.

RE: statistical outliers. I talked about this too. If you say that one mass shooting in the years in question here is a statistical outlier, then what happens when you apply the logic to individual states/countries (with comparable populations) rather than Europe/USA? Is the one mass shooting in Germany in 2009 a statistical outlier, as well as the one mass shooting in Texas that same year?

"In 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015, there was not a single death from a mass shooting in Texas. We get an average annual death rate of .22 per million, more than twice as high as the rate in the United States (0.09 per million), even though we know there were zero mass shooting deaths in six out of those seven years, in Texas.

If this strikes you as ridiculous, you’re on to something."


I know this study is a narrow time frame. I know Lott is drawing sensationalist conclusions from his "study". I'm just saying Snopes is, too. Their use of the 'median' to "remove statistical outliers" results in a median rate for most states being zero, too. It's bad arguing by both of these people to push their own agendas.

No wait what-aboutisms are stupid and even if Norway were worse that wouldn’t mean that the us should twiddle it’s thumbs and just say “nothing we can do about it!”

I'll bite, tbh, what is the thing that we should do about it? Banning "assault weapons" when the vast majority of shootings happen with handguns? "common sense" background checks when many states already have them in place?

 

[earl]

So we shouldn’t ban the more dangerous weapon because more shootings happen with handguns? What kind of logic is that? It’s like making cocaine legal because more people are killed by smoking.

I’d say the right to “defend myself” with an assault weapon is about as justifiable as my right to smoke crack.

 

[atomicllamas]

I'll bite, tbh, what is the thing that we should do about it? Banning "assault weapons" when the vast majority of shootings happen with handguns? "common sense" background checks when many states already have them in place?

Can start by closing the trade show loopholes for background checks that exist in several states (literally 44 states do not require background checks for guns sold at trade shows). Implement Australia’s laws about gun storage (from my understanding they have strict rules about locking guns so that only the owner can get at them, violators get fined and/or guns taken away), which would prevent Billy from grabbing daddy’s guns and shooting up the school when he feels sad. There are other possible options short of all out bans that would certainly reduce gun deaths in the US, for example treating guns like a car, you need x hours of training and to pass a test on gun safety + background check (obviously) in order to purchase a gun (in my state you need to go to a one day training session to carry a gun, but in order to purchase one all you need to do is get a background check, I assume it’s similar in other states). I came up with three and I’m not even in Congress, I’m sure people whose actual job is politics could come up with even better ones.

I don’t think the solution needs to be banning x gun (though I do agree I don’t see the actual need for an assault rifles). But the law need to treat guns seriously, they aren’t some toy to fool around with when you’re bored, and owning one is a responsibility not everyone is capable of handling, obviously.

 

[GatoDelFuego]

So we shouldn’t ban the more dangerous weapon because more shootings happen with handguns? What kind of logic is that? It’s like making cocaine legal because more people are killed by smoking.

I’d say the right to “defend myself” with an assault weapon is about as justifiable as my right to smoke crack.

What exactly makes "assault weapons" so much more deadly? What makes something a "military style" weapon? It's just rhetoric. Handguns kill many more people than rifles, both in "regular" homicides and mass shootings. Their key factor is they are easily concealable.

Can start by closing the trade show loopholes for background checks that exist in several states (literally 44 states do not require background checks for guns sold at trade shows). Implement Australia’s laws about gun storage (from my understanding they have strict rules about locking guns so that only the owner can get at them, violators get fined and/or guns taken away), which would prevent Billy from grabbing daddy’s guns and shooting up the school when he feels sad.

The gun show loophole is often talked about, but is it a big player? I have tried searching for data on gun show sales to criminals and mostly come up with theoretical data. I cannot find articles talking about mass shooters that have purchased their weapons through the gun show loophole. I have found a 1998 study (pretty old, but during a period of much more gun violence in america) that 2% of criminal guns came from gun shows, and that 50-75% of gun show sellers are required to make those background checks anyway.

Closing the "gun show loophole" would mean requiring background checks on all private sales of guns. I don't think this would be a necessarily bad thing, but I do question its ability to reduce gun crime and gun violence. It's a talking point politicians love to mention but what do they gain by pushing for it? Liberal senators would much rather aim big and (unrealistically, i m o) appeal to their base by taking hard stances and trying to ban "assault rifles" or sometimes just going the full distance and saying to ban all guns. My opinion is that politicians have a vested interest to do this instead of "reasonable" actions or "common sense" because it doesn't help them win reelection.

I'm glad to hear that you don't think banning x gun is the solution. And I have to say I am with you 100% on the safety rules. Accidents, suicides are FAR too big a component of gun deaths. There is really no reason that anybody should be killed by an accidental discharge of a gun in the home. Keeping guns unloaded and in a safe takes no ability of somebody to hold weapons in their home and has a measurable impact on actual safety. That's one "gun control" method that is really going to save lives. And people that complain about quick access to their guns are crazy, it takes no time to open a safe and they all practice quick loading anyway, lmao, in case a predator comes prowling around (not that this is a common occurrence)

 

[TheValkyries]

What exactly makes "assault weapons" so much more deadly? What makes something a "military style" weapon? It's just rhetoric. Handguns kill many more people than rifles, both in "regular" homicides and mass shootings. Their key factor is they are easily concealable.

This is not the good logical gotcha against gun control rhetoric you think it is.

 

[Tera Melos]

So we shouldn’t ban the more dangerous weapon because more shootings happen with handguns? What kind of logic is that? It’s like making cocaine legal because more people are killed by smoking.

I’d say the right to “defend myself” with an assault weapon is about as justifiable as my right to smoke crack.

Not just handguns, illegally obtained handguns!

Also, 3D printing Gun parts is becoming a huge thing. All you have to do is buy the required real parts with no background check on eBay or someplace else and 3D print the other pieces.

 

[EnteiRaikouSuicune]

my school had a lockdown recently

click here to see what happened

some kid lost his phone at the shopping center across from my school... later, some other dude found it, and used the emergency call to call 911, and say he was gonna shoot up the school. he did this twice. the school didnt right away say it was a lockdown but it was, and it lasted 2 hours. after the lockdown ended, there were guys walking around with assault rifles. the kid found his phone he had lost, and he was put in custody but released as it wasnt him who "prank called". the one who actually called 911 was never found...

 

[Wandering Wobbuffet]

Daily reminder that people like Sarah Chadwick are the people who are ultimately responsible for these things happening.

https://archive.fo/e6U3Q

 

[TheValkyries]

That’s an extremely bad take.

Being bullied isn’t the “inciting incident” for mass shootings and hasn’t been for a while and even if it were the responsibility of the shooting does not and should not get moved from the shooter to those the shooter felt wronged him.

 

[vonFiedler]

Im confused does that qualify as bullying these days?

 

[Wandering Wobbuffet]

Well in regards to what I said it was a part of a larger problem that occurred at Stonewall Douglas. Cruz was one of the kids who was very isolated at lunch and was someone who supposedly sat at the "emo gazebo"

 

[vonFiedler]

Well in regards to what I said it was a part of a larger problem that occurred at Stonewall Douglas. Cruz was one of the kids who was very isolated at lunch and was someone who supposedly sat at the "emo gazebo"

and started vine threads

 

[Surgo]

I was "very isolated" at lunch back in school too but I didn't go shoot the place up. This mentality of pushing the blame for the shooting on people who aren't actually doing the shooting is fucked up.

 

[Wandering Wobbuffet]

I

I was "very isolated" at lunch back in school too but I didn't go shoot the place up. This mentality of pushing the blame for the shooting on people who aren't actually doing the shooting is fucked up.

I never put the blame on anyone but Cruz. I'm just saying I have no respect for one of the main people in the movement.

 

[atomicllamas]

I


I never put the blame on anyone but Cruz. I'm just saying I have no respect for one of the main people in the movement.

Daily reminder that people like Sarah Chadwick are the people who are ultimately responsible for these things happening.

You better hope Sarah Chadwick doesn’t end up shooting up a school because by your own logic you would be responsible. My hot take: implying someone is responsible for a school shooting they were a victim of is way worse than any of the “online bullying” she did (if that tweet is the extent of it then lol).