This is purely an aside, because it's a claim often taken on faith.

Note that I'm not - now or before - advocating for blanket restrictions or taking paw's squirrel gun away. (assault weapons are another story)

I've seen some well-qualified research that shows some stricter gun laws do indeed correlate to lower gun homicides.  I have not seen as much reputable data on the other side, so...

I'm looking for objective, peer-reviewed studies on both sides of the issue, because even if we believe 'gun control' is a pipe dream, we should know what the real numbers are and what we're dealing with.

For instance, gun ownership in other countries varies widely without much trend to discern...guns are prevalent in seemingly peaceful (Sweden) and violent countries (Yemen) alike.  There's even some research that shows gun control laws in the U.S. have an effect on cross-border spillover violence in Mexico.

For now, let's keep this just about the numbers....

 

 

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No response from the otherside is telling. Keep your head down and let this thing age. Then wait for the official NRA response. At that point we'll see the usual parrot heads regurgitating the same message. 

At least ban assault weapons, then regulate and tax the crappe out of hanguns.

Sorry, I have no numerical stats.

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In response to BilltheKat's comment:

Two posts in and you are already claiming the "other side" is cowering in fear?

the numbers don't add up.  My thought is that the numbers presented include other than homicides, probably include suicides.  

Besides, who care what's happening in Europe? Twice in the last century they ran off the rails and ended up brining most of the rest of the world into hard times.  Not really a fan of the "everything in Europe is better" school of thought.

It's the people not the guns.  NH has the third lowest violent crime rate in America and very high gun ownership and very lenient gun laws.  Does that mean giving everybody in Chicago and D.C. a gun will stop crime??  Of course not.  It's the people....and everybody is afraid to acknowledge that out of political correctness.  

You do understand that a kid who grows up in a family with two parents living in a single family home with two incomes three toilets and a garage who goes to church on Sunday and plays soccer is less likely to be involved in a violent crime than a kid from a home where his mom has three kids from two different men, is unmarried on food stamps, never knew her own father and is struggling to make ends meet.

It's behavior and choices....some states have more people who are responsible and productive, other states have lots of people who have less responsible behavior that leads to violent crime.

It's not guns..it's people.  

Also....In England where guns are banned...40% of home invasions occur when people are home....in the US it's less than 10%....the reason??  Criminals in the US are afraid of being shot.  In England it's against the law to defend yourself and criminals know that.

Are there too many guns in the hands of the wrong people??  Absolutely....the problem is that gun laws only work on law abiding citizens.  The ONLY solution is confiscating all guns everywhere and that's not happening.

Banning the sale of guns will make people feel better after friday but wont change anything.  Punishing law abiding citizens for the behavior of criminals isn't sensible

I want someone to blame that is still alive for friday....but that's not possible the only person to blame is dead because he killed himself.

 

 

 

      

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"Again the fvcking nose-to-rectum crowd is just regurgitating whacko wingnut talking points from the echo chambers. And just making shiite up to fit their ignorant ideology"

Angryman with his usual conciliatory rhetoric....full of Holiday cheer, or perhaps  anger management meds...

"What can be asserted is that the states with the strictest gun laws - Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York - have among the lowest gun death rates, according to figures from the federal Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, and those with the most lenient laws - Alabama, Alaska, Louisiana, Mississippi - have among the highest. "

The impression would be 'gun death rates' involves criminals and madmen killing innocents with guns...but this is not what it means, is it?

It is always 1984 with the progressive causes, twisting the English language to their ends...

Their definition of "gun death rates" include hunting accidents, suicides, and  police or in some cases private citizens heroically risking their lives and discharging firearms to prevent heinous crimes by armed criminals. So what does skewing these numbers prove?  Nothing.

A woman heroically defending herself from an armed rapist would be considered a "gun death" by the oh-so-politically-correct Centers for Disease Prevention...(the Second Amendment is apparently a  'disease'.)

Low population states like Wyoming with many hunters will have high "gun death rates", by hunting accidents. What this proves in terms of gun control is...nothing.

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 Keep on saying that 12 and you'll be the first person that gets shot when you're home is invaded.

 Hello everyone. How about letting the guy who's had a gun pointed directly at him, who's had a knife pressed against him, and who's been held to a wall by his throat say something about weapons.

 And no, I wasn't in the military. This was when I was in grade and high school in two different states.

 I know what it's like to have no weapons and wind up staring one down. I know what it's like to have a weapon and be in a standoff. Do not even begin to tell me that not having the weapon to defend yourself with is better than not having one.

 That doesn't mean I believe that people should have weapons for the sake of having weapons. I am a full believer in that everyone with access to said weapon should be fully trained on how to use it. This prevents accidents which can result in serious injury or death, which I'm sure showed up in the numbers reported earlier.

 I am also a big believer in learning how to use ordinary items found in your home as weapons. The most important weapon of all, though, is yourself. You don't have to be a black belt to do some major damage to someone but you do need some basic training on how and where to hit, not to do damage but instead to force the person attacking you to back off in pain and give you enough time to run for help.

 If everyone knew how to defent themselves then you wouldn't have as many deaths. You'd still have people committing mass murders but the death toll would be lower as people would react in a way to defend or attack instead of trying to hide. Running or hiding gets you killed. Taking out the attacker gets you hurt, but you will live, and so will the other people around you.

 

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Here I have to part ways with my conservative brothers. I have no use for guns and certainly no use for automatic weapons. In places I have worked and met people who get jacked up on owning automatic and semi automatic weapons it has left me more worried than secure knowing there are loons out there on both sides that own these Weapons. 

As i have said before, you want to own a hunting rifle for hunting great. Since the days of our founding fathers we a have willingly grown our law enforcement and military for protection and do not need these weapons for self protection. If we get to the point where we are defending our homes with automatic weapons against the govt we have bigger problems that gun rights. I would gladly give up my home it would mean one less child killed by one of these weapons.

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I hear ya pink. Look at it this way, you shoot someone entering your home and now "you" go to jail. So what's the point? I keep a Louisville slugger under my bed.if figure I have the same chance of survival. 

With a 3 and a 13 year old in the house don't want to run the risk of them having an accident as well. 

This one hit me hard. I can't defend it. 

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In response to 12-Angry-Men's comment:

 You faced military targets, I faced mafia and gang targets. When your life's on the line it doesn't matter what you're facing, so long as you have something that works fast and does the job.

 And I find your concending attitude towards non-military people to be disturbing. Just because I didn't have your training doesn't mean I don't know how to use them or have scruples of my own, and it doesn't automatically make you a better shot either.

 This is the real world. Chaos reigns, not order, and you can't change that outside of your own 4 walls. You have a bad habit of assuming that John Q. Public will never have to face a full blown war on their own. I hate to tell you this but the US was successfully attacked on its own soil on 9/11, and only a fool would believe it couldn't happen again. There is no guarantee that a full scale invasion won't happen down the road and I'd hate to think of what would happen if the town shows up holding a revolver against a helicopter armed with gunpods.

 Training is the key. Don't just teach people how to use the weapon, teach them the merits. Install a sense of conscience. There is a price to pay for pulling the trigger against a non-paper target. Explain this and make them understand what they are getting into when they have to make a decision on how to use it.

 

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In response to undead's comment:

You dope.  The guy that killed all those kids did have training.

 Yes he did, but when you add ADD, Aspergers, or Autism into the mix it doesn't work very well, does it. He got the 'how to' part down cold but, alas, his mind wouldn't allow for the rules and regulations.

 Remember, genius with no morals equals evil genius, which is what the shooter apparently was. He's the last guy you want holding a gun at you. His mom apparently thought she could bring him around but she apparently failed miserably. A shame that so many others had to suffer for that but what's done is done.

 

In response to undead's comment:

A note here: there is very little correlation between asperger's/autism and violence, much less gun violence.

I get and agree with your point about something being wrong with someone's cranial "mixture" and the risk of guns, but those conditions don't usually apply.  In fact, they are much more likely to hurt themselves than others.

Absolutely, some people should not have access to guns, but I'm not entirely sure that can be determined by a simple, one-word diagnosis.