http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/02/19/four-dead-multiple-injured-during-california-shooting-spree Comments On: Four Dead, Multiple Injured During California Shooting Spree by Cienna Madrid en-us Copyright 2013 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:01 -0700 Thu, 23 May 2013 17:45:00 -0700 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss "And although you may have answered it to your own satisfaction, you fall short from what is actually reasonable."

And you are the judge of what is reasonable.
I don't think you will understand it but that itself shows that you are unreasonable.
At least I know that my opinion is my opinion.

"So go ahead, keep copying and pasting."

The problem is that you have NOT addressed what I posted.
You've just decided that YOU are the arbiter of what is reasonable and what is not.
There is a reason you will not address what I posted and that reason is that you cannot.

"motherfucker"
"shit stain"
"dog's anus"

Yes. Reasonable is exactly what you are?
If someone has an opinion that is different than yours then they are wrong.
Because YOU have the only true opinion on the matter.

1. There is no law aside from a complete ban that would have any effect on suicides. Limiting the magazine capacity, banning bayonet lugs, requiring background checks and so forth would do nothing. Even a one bullet per barrel law would have no effect. SO LET'S FOCUS ON LAWS THAT DO HAVE AN EFFECT ON REDUCING INCIDENTS THAT CAN BE REDUCED THROUGH THOSE LAWS.
Posted by fairly.unbalanced]]> Wed, 20 Feb 2013 14:13:53 -0800 The Stranger
As I repeatedly said, in asking for clarification, I have no idea what you were trying to say!
Posted by randoma]]> Wed, 20 Feb 2013 12:39:00 -0800 The Stranger
This is too bad. I was thinking that I was talking to an honest person, but a motherfucker who sets up straw men like that, placing words in another's posts because he's too dishonest to deal with what was actually written, isn't worth a shit stain on a dog's anus. I hope you're proud of yourself.
Posted by Matt from Denver]]> Wed, 20 Feb 2013 12:19:44 -0800 The Stranger
The actual data shows that states with higher rates of gun ownership do not necessarily have higher rates of gun violence. The actual data also shows that there is a far greater link between poverty and gun violence than between guns and gun violence. (Areas that are relatively affluent, with lower levels of income inequality, have less gun violence than areas that are poorer/have greater levels of income inequality.)

So, full speed ahead with what exactly?

"marginal is better than zero." So, in your mind, it would be worth it, whatever the cost, to save around 3-8000 lives per year by getting rid of all firearms in the USA even though putting those resources into other things could potentially save many more lives?

Do you realize that the USA ranks near the bottom of industrialized nations in preventing premature death, infant mortality, total health care coverage, number of practicing doctors, and preventing heart disease death? The death toll from internal health related issues is in the millions. Many of those deaths could be prevented with a better health care system. The USA spends more per capita for health care than most other industrialized nations yet still ranks in the bottom for all the things mentioned above.

Here's a study that shows that 45,000 people per year die because they lack health care:

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/20…

If you saved 10% of those you'd save more lives than you would save from suicide by magically getting rid of all the firearms in the country. (And the cost would be a hell of a lot lower.)

I am not saying that there aren't plenty of things you can do, in regards to firearms, that would save lives. (I, and other 'gun-nuts' have proposed various things that we believe would be effective). However, as a country, we have a limited amount of resources (both monetary and politically). Gun-control-nuts often talk about an "assault weapons" ban as being "low hanging fruit", meaning that it is relatively easy to pass and is therefore worthwhile even though it will have little, impact on firearms related deaths. I say why don't we pick some other low hanging fruit that will have a greater impact on deaths.

Posted by randoma]]> Wed, 20 Feb 2013 12:07:15 -0800 The Stranger
Here's the data on homicides:

http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicid…

Take a look at the second graph:

http://www.aic.gov.au/media_library/aic/…

That's the overall homicide rate. Do you notice a significant drop after 1996 or do you notice a rise? Has the overall homicide rate in Australia dropped? Yes, it has. However, it has dropped at the same rate pre-ban and post ban, statistically speaking.

Here's another counter study:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-…

(Link to the actual study: http://www.popcenter.org/problems/gun_vi… )

Here's another study:

http://www.melbourneinstitute.com/miaesr…

As far as suicides go, yes, there has been a drop in suicides since the ban. There was also a massive suicide prevention program that was put in place two years after the ban. Why don't you get your facts straight?

Here's a link to the actual data for suicides in Australia:

http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/…

Do you see a 65% drop in overall suicide rates in any year? Hell no. There may have been a 65% drop in Firearms related suicide (as stated in your "study") but it absolutely had a parallel increase in other methods.

Here's another study on suicide in Australia:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12882…

So tell me, why does your study lie? The data doesn't lie. What people do with the data is another story.
Posted by randoma]]> Wed, 20 Feb 2013 11:40:18 -0800 The Stranger
So go ahead, keep copying and pasting. The sheep in Animal Farm never got tired of saying "Four legs good, Two legs bad," so I don't expect you to tire of your version of that, either.

@ 47, I don't know that for sure. If the current data IS complete and accurate, then lets go full speed ahead now. (And if you don't believe that the NRA hasn't been interfering with such studies, I've got a bridge for sale.)

As far as warning signs go, I've yet to hear of a shooter who was so out there with them that he stood out from the other mentally disturbed people out there who never went out on a murder spree. If you know different, then please share what you know.

@ 48, marginal is better than zero.
Posted by Matt from Denver]]> Wed, 20 Feb 2013 10:47:42 -0800 The Stranger
So it is obviously a contentious issue, but I do think the stats are used dishonestly when you hear "X people killed by gun violence each year" and the majority of X are suicides. A person getting shot dead in a robbery and a person shooting themself in their home are two very different events and social issues, even if the result is essentially the same. Further complicating this idea is that no one can say for sure if a person would have killed themselves or not if there was a gun around (or not).

But the main point was that comparing gun deaths to traffic deaths is apples and oranges, the difficult suicide question being only one reason why. Because if we are going to count gun suicides, shouldn't we also count people who commit suicide by jumping in traffic, or purposefully crash their car?


Posted by Theodore Gorath]]> Wed, 20 Feb 2013 05:51:47 -0800 The Stranger
Umm, that's not right. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonk…

"So what have the Australian laws actually done for homicide and suicide rates? Howard cites a study by Andrew Leigh of Australian National University and Christine Neill of Wilfrid Laurier University finding that the firearm homicide rate fell by 59 percent, and the firearm suicide rate fell by 65 percent, in the decade after the law was introduced, without a parallel increase in non-firearm homicides and suicides. That provides strong circumstantial evidence for the law’s effectiveness." See the article for the link to that study and others. Why you lie?
Posted by diner mo]]> Wed, 20 Feb 2013 00:48:11 -0800 The Stranger I agree.
Posted by fairly.unbalanced]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 21:59:35 -0800 The Stranger
Removing firearms from the equation just removes one of many means. It does not remove the underlying urge/desire. (Yes, I know you already know this.)
Posted by randoma]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 21:20:46 -0800 The Stranger
"(and I'm going to make an assumption that the data we do have is going to be bolstered by these studies)" I'm afraid that I'm not able to parse what you mean here.

"guns should be treated as a public health issue, and have a huge, decades-long campaign about that." Also don't know what you mean here.

Did you actually read my post #41? If you want to address HOMICIDE as a public health issue, that's great. But despite the calls of otherwise rational human beings, more guns does not = more homicides. So saying you want to address firearms as a public health issue is narrow minded at best.

And if more guns == more suicide, then why is the USA relatively average for suicide rate per capita when it has more firearms than anywhere else?

Exactly which proposal is it that may be effective at reducing casualties from mass shooters? The worst (in terms of total people killed) mass shooting to date, was the Virginia Tech shooting. An "assault weapons" ban would have had no effect. A high cap magazine ban would have had no effect. If the Newtown shooter had only had the two handguns and hadn't had the "assault rifle", the total killed would have been just as high. On the other hand, if the Oklahoma City bombing had been a shooting instead of a bombing, the total killed probably would have been much lower.

As far as "perfectly law abiding citizens until the moment they commit those murders" goes - the vast majority of mass shooters had LOTS of warning signs before hand. Unlike serial killers such-as Ted Bundy, no one, after the fact, is saying, "Oh. He was such a nice young man, I can't believe he suddenly went insane and killed all those people." It is more like, "He was absolutely bonkers. I can't believe he wasn't in a mental institution."
Posted by randoma]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 21:14:20 -0800 The Stranger "... you're not exactly qualified yourself to make that call."

I didn't say I was.
I know that people have different opinions.
You seem to have a problem with that concept.
Your opinion is nothing more than your opinion. Learn that.

"... but given that you can't answer why victims of suicide by gunshot shouldn't be included as victims of gun violence ..."

I have answered that.
And I can copy-paste it AGAIN because YOU don't want to accept it.
1. There is no law aside from a complete ban that would have any effect on suicides. Limiting the magazine capacity, banning bayonet lugs, requiring background checks and so forth would do nothing. Even a one bullet per barrel law would have no effect. So let's focus on laws that DO have an effect on reducing incidents that CAN be reduced through those laws.

"After all, look at your own comment at 40. Deciding to define 'impetuous' to mean 'instantaneous.'"
"Did you know that suicidal feelings can last for hours, even a few days?"

Again, you have a problem seeing when your opinion is your opinion and not a fact.
Learn that.
All the steps I outlined seem to indicate someone who is committed to the idea of suicide.
Which is kind of the opposite of "impetuous".

If the person has enough time to get to the store to buy a knife or a rope or any other method then WAITING TO GO TO A GUN SHOW really isn't going to change much.

"But the fact remains - people who die by the gun are victims of gun violence."

Yes. That is known as a "tautology".
Look it up.

"Maybe the exact things being proposed don't address suicide, as you say, but it wasn't suicide that prompted any of this. It was mass murder."

And, again:
1. There is no law aside from a complete ban that would have any effect on suicides. Limiting the magazine capacity, banning bayonet lugs, requiring background checks and so forth would do nothing. Even a one bullet per barrel law would have no effect. SO LET'S FOCUS ON LAWS THAT DO HAVE AN EFFECT ON REDUCING INCIDENTS THAT CAN BE REDUCED THROUGH THOSE LAWS.

Did you understand it THAT time?
Because right now you're arguing that I'm right.
Posted by fairly.unbalanced]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 21:00:20 -0800 The Stranger
In the short term, I support universal background checks and waiting periods. Most other proposals may be effective at reducing casualties from mass murders (and are worth supporting for that reason). And let's be honest, as bad as the problem of gun violence is in America, mass murders are scarier to most law abiding Americans because most mass murderers are perfectly law abiding citizens until the moment they commit those murders, and their random nature means that everyone is a potential target, even if the chances of being shot that way are virtually nil.

That said, gun deaths (even without mass murders) are great enough to be considered a public health issue, and treating it as such is probably the only way to make a meaningful reduction in those deaths.
Posted by Matt from Denver]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 20:46:08 -0800 The Stranger
After all, look at your own comment at 40. Deciding to define "impetuous" to mean "instantaneous." Did you know that suicidal feelings can last for hours, even a few days? If one doesn't own a gun, one can go buy one and do the deed - unless they have to wait 14 days.

But that undermines your contention, doesn't it?

Any decision taken during a period of suicidal thoughts can be described as impetuous. Ask a suicide hotline worker about that sometime.

Anyway, that's just an example. But the fact remains - people who die by the gun are victims of gun violence. Even when they pull the trigger themselves. Maybe the exact things being proposed don't address suicide, as you say, but it wasn't suicide that prompted any of this. It was mass murder.
Posted by Matt from Denver]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 20:35:47 -0800 The Stranger
However, there is almost no education whatsoever on firearm safety. The basics of modern firearm safety, as codified by Jeff Cooper, are the "four rules". Which are:

1) All guns are always loaded.
2) Never point a gun at something you are not willing to destroy.
3) Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target and you are ready to shoot.
4) Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.

Pretty simple, right? But not simple if you've never heard of them. You want to start reducing 'accidents'? How about making a small quiz part of the background check? Form 4473 has 17 questions for the buyer (including name/address..etc..) would it be so hard to include another 10 questions relating to firearm safety?

Would it help much? I don't really know, but I do know that the cost of implementing it would be really low and based on the sort of 'accidents' that make it into the paper, a little education could go a long way.
Posted by randoma]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 19:58:55 -0800 The Stranger Posted by biffp]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 19:47:33 -0800 The Stranger
Best case, based on available information, if all the firearms in the USA magically disappeared tomorrow, suicides might drop by 10%, homicides might drop by 10%, or they might go up! (UK's homicide rate were higher in the 6 years after their last ban). Just because someone commits suicide with a firearm does not mean that without access to firearms they would now be alive. Similarly, every country that has banned guns has seen a rise in killings by other methods.

The fact is that the 5 states with the 5 highest rates of gun ownership have very similar gun-related homicides to the 5 states with the lowest rates of gun ownership. The states with the highest rates of gun-related homicide have two things in common - and it isn't firearm ownership, it is income inequality and high population density.

Conversely, the states with the highest rates of suicide are, on the whole, related by relatively low population densities, and a "cowboy up" mentality towards mental health. If you're really interested, here's an excellent article on suicide in Wyoming:

www.sheridanmedia.com/files/2012_report_…

If you really want to do something about homicides, do something about income inequality and our prison/drug war.

If you really want to do something about suicides, look at the root of why suicides happen. There are, more or less, three types of suicides - one is a "cry for help", these are likely to not succeed - they may, or may not, use a firearm - if they did, harder access to firearms might save them, but if they don't actually get help it is likely that they'll eventually find a way, or continue doing their probably-not-going-to-succeed method. A second is someone who has thought out and planned their death. These people are most likely to succeed. While removing firearms as a method may be a deterrent, the likelihood is that they will find another method. The third type is those people that have a temporary desire for suicide - it is quite possible that easier access to firearms would reduce their numbers. However, the bottom line is, even if you removed all firearms, the actual impact is nowhere near 20,000 people saved. And so far, none of the gun-control related proposals are likely to have any affect on suicide related deaths.

I'm pretty sure that most of the proposals currently on the table will cost governments (State and Federal) millions of dollars. If you want to look at return on the dollar, you'd save more lives/dollar spending that money on suicide prevention.
Posted by randoma]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 19:37:26 -0800 The Stranger "I'm here to make sure that the discussion is fair, and that people don't get away with marginalizing valid points that they can't address."

I doubt your qualifications for that.
Really, how are you even qualified to do that when you cannot keep your own opinions out of the discussion?
You are insisting that a specific category of deaths be included in the discussion despite the fact that nothing proposed in the discussion would have any effect on the deaths in that specific category.

"But, just to play devil's advocate, do you think waiting periods might not reduce suicide by gunshot?"

Remember that part I just posted about doubting your qualifications for your self-appointed role?
Well you just presented more evidence supporting that doubt.
The point is not "suicide by gunshot" but rather "suicide."
And no, it would not.

"Given that some suicides are impetuously decided upon,"

If they are that impetuous then the gun has to already have been purchased and available.
Otherwise they "impetuously" get out of the house, "impetuously" get some cash, "impetuously" drive to the gun show (how many such suicides were prevented by traffic jams?), "impetuously" buy a gun and ammo and then "impetuously" drive somewhere else to "impetuously" kill themselves.

Again, you are insisting that a specific category of deaths be included in the discussion despite the fact that nothing proposed in the discussion would have any effect on the deaths in that specific category.
Posted by fairly.unbalanced]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 19:07:26 -0800 The Stranger
But, just to play devil's advocate, do you think waiting periods might not reduce suicide by gunshot? Given that some suicides are impetuously decided upon, I think they might. I don't know if what the laws are anymore, or if that's something that applies to gun show sales or not (likely it doesn't).

I think that that would reduce suicides, and it's far from a "complete ban." (I feel that that's a straw man, anyway, but I'll leave it to better informed and more passionate gun control advocates to take on.)
Posted by Matt from Denver]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 18:49:49 -0800 The Stranger
when a statistic/fact as simple as 30K firearm deaths per year is proferred, it is contested ad nauseum. to me, 20,000 suicide deaths from firearms is a public health issue, and it is UNACCEPTABLE. 10,000 homicides from firearms is ALSO a public health issue, and it too is UNACCEPTABLE. all these folks died from bullet wounds, not hammers/cars/defenistration. there has to be something that can reduce these numbers. what is it?

carnage like this ho-hum-4-persons-dead "spree" will go on & on, i know that. suicides will go on & on, i know that. but if there's something, anything, that might stop a mental defective like Adam Lanza from shooting 20 little kids to death with semi-automatic weapons, i want to try it.

even if it means making our militia regulations less liberal than they currently are.
Posted by Max Solomon]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 17:50:59 -0800 The Stranger "It's death by gunshot, and has every right to be included in the discussion."

I can copy-paste this as many times as needed.
1. There is no law aside from a complete ban that would have any effect on suicides. Limiting the magazine capacity, banning bayonet lugs, requiring background checks and so forth would do nothing. Even a one bullet per barrel law would have no effect. So let's focus on laws that DO have an effect on reducing incidents that CAN be reduced through those laws.

So you are insisting that a specific category of deaths be included in the discussion despite the fact that nothing proposed in the discussion would have any effect on the deaths in that specific category.
Posted by fairly.unbalanced]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 16:28:50 -0800 The Stranger
They lead with "guns kill 30000 per year", as if there is no difference between homicide and suicide. Or failing to point out that all the other combined methods of suicide are significant as well.
Posted by Lew Siffer]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 15:27:50 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Matt from Denver]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 15:03:36 -0800 The Stranger Posted by randoma]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 14:54:32 -0800 The Stranger
@30: Yes.

I know Ph'nglui is fixated on suicide by Firearm, mostly because suicide by Firearm is the only case where you can find any correlation between ownership of firearms and suicide rate (but only if you don't factor in population density - rural people are both more likely to commit suicide and are more likely to have a firearm. Suicide rates are higher in rural areas even in areas which do not have a lot of firearms.) However, why don't we put this in perspective:

Here are the 20 leading causes of death among persons older than 10:

http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/su…

Suicide is #10 on the list, Homicide is #15. (If you include persons under 10 years old, suicide and homicide get pushed down even more and drowning - swimming pools, buckets of water, tubs..etc becomes much more prominent).

So let's take a look at mechanisms for suicide:

http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/su…

Males, over 10 years old, predominately use firearms to commit suicide (approximately 56%). 44% of male suicides use some other method.

Females, over 10 years old, predominately use poisoning @ 39%, with firearms at about 30%.

On average, a firearm is used in about 50% of suicides, the type of firearm most used is a handgun, where the capacity is irrelevant. There has not been a single proposal by anyone that will have ANY effect on this. But let's just pretend that we could magically get rid of 50% of suicides, that would be a good thing, right? We have the potential of saving almost 18,000 people per year! (In reality, based on other countries that have banned firearms, the actual reduction is more like 5-10% because people will use other methods, but we're in make believe land right now, which is where most 'gun-control-nuts' are anyway..)

Now, what is the cost for saving, at most, 18,000 people per year and how many people could be saved if whatever that cost is was applied somewhere else? If you look at it more realistically, is that cost worth it to save 3,000 people? Do you really think that you can't get a much better return in other areas?

[Yes, if you magically got rid of all firearms in the country, you might also reduce the homicide rate - no other country in the world, that has gotten rid of firearms, has demonstrably reduced their homicide rate due to banning guns, but we're in fantasy land now, so let's say you reduce the homicide rate by 30%. That is still only another 3-4,000 people, max.]

Realistically, even the most draconian gun laws and a massive seizure/buyback is going to save, at most, 4-5,000 people per year and will cost hundreds of millions of dollars and a huge amount of political capital.

Which is not to say that there aren't plenty of things, that would be less expensive and more effective in the long run, to combat firearm violence. But as long as 'gun-control' is about making people feel like they've done something, rather than having an actual impact, we're just going to keep going around in circles.
Posted by randoma]]> Tue, 19 Feb 2013 14:47:23 -0800 The Stranger