Days Since Last Shooting II

[jerphisch]

Re: Days Since Last Shooting II

Congrats. You got me.

Look, I realize in today's world reading a HuffPost blog entry or someone's tweet constitutes gospel. So rather than locate actual studies that no one here will read, how about I just link to Wiki and you can decide whether you want to follow the links to the actual studies, or just believe Wiki over HuffPost.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban

I'm not convinced you've read as much as you claim either. From the little bit of reading I've done on it, it feels like the actual studies say it kind of worked. They say that crimes committed with the specific banned weapons were down, but crimes with other weapons were up offsetting that. So the ban was successful on the actual weapons it targeted, but due to the wide availability of substitutes there was no impact in the larger sense. So to say all the studies said the ban didn't work is stretching what they say to your benefit, I could just as easily say they found the ban did work, and we're both right. But in the larger context they do show that bans CAN be effective, if there aren't a wide range of easily available substitutes.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: Days Since Last Shooting II

Will move this to the religion thread and get back later.

 

[alfablue]

Re: Days Since Last Shooting II

Congrats. You got me.

Look, I realize in today's world reading a HuffPost blog entry or someone's tweet constitutes gospel. So rather than locate actual studies that no one here will read, how about I just link to Wiki and you can decide whether you want to follow the links to the actual studies, or just believe Wiki over HuffPost.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban

I'm not reading the Huff post for it's opinion, I'm looking at the data that has the # of deaths per year in "spree" shootings. It's not really hard to run data that shows for that 10 year period, the overall average during that span is lower than before it and lower than it is after it. And that includes on really high year.

The data in your WIKI page references the MotherJones data. You are saying that the HuffPost article is wrong because Wiki says so, but Wiki data shows the exact same trend (thanks to the MotherJones study. There is data in the effectiveness area that shows the data I'm talking about and you are dismissing. Here's the core data- http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data/

You are suggesting that the 10 year lull was all due to chance? IMHO, that's seems far more dubious, statistically, than suggesting that the ban was effective.

 

[SJHovey]

Re: Days Since Last Shooting II

I'm not convinced you've read as much as you claim either. From the little bit of reading I've done on it, it feels like the actual studies say it kind of worked. They say that crimes committed with the specific banned weapons were down, but crimes with other weapons were up offsetting that. So the ban was successful on the actual weapons it targeted, but due to the wide availability of substitutes there was no impact in the larger sense. So to say all the studies said the ban didn't work is stretching what they say to your benefit, I could just as easily say they found the ban did work, and we're both right. But in the larger context they do show that bans CAN be effective, if there aren't a wide range of easily available substitutes.

But that's been my whole point. It's not effective because there are so many substitutes. Yeah, you've banned the guns that look really scary. But in reality all the guns that don't look really scary work the exact same way, so as a result, the ban doesn't reduce deaths. It just causes the deaths to occur by some other gun. Which, leading back to my initial response to Handy, is why to really solve the problem you're going to have to ban private ownership of guns, period. And if you're not willing to do what is necessary to get that done, then everything else is just noise.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Days Since Last Shooting II

Will move this to the religion thread and get back later.

Done.

 

[jerphisch]

Re: Days Since Last Shooting II

But that's been my whole point. It's not effective because there are so many substitutes. Yeah, you've banned the guns that look really scary. But in reality all the guns that don't look really scary work the exact same way, so as a result, the ban doesn't reduce deaths. It just causes the deaths to occur by some other gun. Which, leading back to my initial response to Handy, is why to really solve the problem you're going to have to ban private ownership of guns, period. And if you're not willing to do what is necessary to get that done, then everything else is just noise.

I'm completely willing But I actually think that isn't true, incremental progress (that would be more likely to actually get legislated than a full ban) can be made. Here is a link to a study of studies that pretty much concludes progress can be made with meaningful changes (some of which are already supported by the general public in the US) but not complete bans. https://www.vox.com/2016/2/29/11120184/gun-control-study-international-evidence

 

[Handyman]

Re: Days Since Last Shooting II

No.

Did he think you were disagreeing with me? Maybe one of those bullets he dodged on 394 grazed him

 

[Handyman]

Re: Days Since Last Shooting II

Ok, let's look at it from a different angle:

Is there a "greater cause" behind the motives for these terrorist acts?

NYC, Boston, OKC, SC....you have extreme religious beliefs/groups, anti-government movement, and a racial war behind those acts.

LV and TX, you have someone with some personal issues going on, no real bigger cause behind the acts.

And trix, I don't watch Faux News, so you can stop that little narrative.

How do you know the terrorists dont have "personal issues"? Why does that matter anyways?

 

[The Rube]

Re: Days Since Last Shooting II

How do you know the terrorists dont have "personal issues"? Why does that matter anyways?

IMO, those "greater cause" people thought they had a higher purpose of some sort; to serve that bigger cause.

My point being, one cannot treat all these acts as the same, because they are not. One must go on a case by case basis.

And it matters in the sense that while it doesn't excuse the act nor actor, it might help to explain WHY they did it, and maybe give us a way to prevent future similar acts.

 

[alfablue]

Re: Days Since Last Shooting II

I'm not reading the Huff post for it's opinion, I'm looking at the data that has the # of deaths per year in "spree" shootings. It's not really hard to run data that shows for that 10 year period, the overall average during that span is lower than before it and lower than it is after it. And that includes on really high year.

The data in your WIKI page references the MotherJones data. You are saying that the HuffPost article is wrong because Wiki says so, but Wiki data shows the exact same trend (thanks to the MotherJones study. There is data in the effectiveness area that shows the data I'm talking about and you are dismissing. Here's the core data- http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data/

You are suggesting that the 10 year lull was all due to chance? IMHO, that's seems far more dubious, statistically, than suggesting that the ban was effective.

So I looked through the motherjones mass shootings data.

There were 14 shootings of more than 10 people. 7 of those used semi-auto rifles. And only ONE of those greater than 10 shootings took place during the assault weapons ban.

If we were going to try to keep the mass shootings less than 10, which certainly is bad, but not as bad as over 20, which is pretty common, keeping assault weapons from people does work.

 

[alfablue]

Re: Days Since Last Shooting II

But that's been my whole point. It's not effective because there are so many substitutes. Yeah, you've banned the guns that look really scary. But in reality all the guns that don't look really scary work the exact same way, so as a result, the ban doesn't reduce deaths. It just causes the deaths to occur by some other gun. Which, leading back to my initial response to Handy, is why to really solve the problem you're going to have to ban private ownership of guns, period. And if you're not willing to do what is necessary to get that done, then everything else is just noise.

No, less people were killed during that 10 year span relative to the after 10 year period.

If you can't conclude that the assault weapons ban is ineffective, you can equally not conclude that "it just causes deaths to occur by some other gun".

You can certainly say that assault weapons likely meant more than 10 people killed.

 

[alfablue]

Re: Days Since Last Shooting II

IMO, those "greater cause" people thought they had a higher purpose of some sort; to serve that bigger cause.

My point being, one cannot treat all these acts as the same, because they are not. One must go on a case by case basis.

And it matters in the sense that while it doesn't excuse the act nor actor, it might help to explain WHY they did it, and maybe give us a way to prevent future similar acts.

If that's your point, can you explain how your mental heath solution will work? How carefully do the 2 doctors need to be?

 

[The Rube]

Re: Days Since Last Shooting II

If that's your point, can you explain how your mental heath solution will work? How carefully do the 2 doctors need to be?

These are just suggestions, as I'm obviously not a doctor, but maybe start with if you need certain medicines to treat whatever mental condition you have (let's use an easy one: bi-polar disorder), I'd err on the side of caution and not issue a clearance. Reason being that if that person stops taking the meds...who knows what is going to happen?

This is also the reason to have 2 independent doctors; have some insurance that the diagnosis is correct.

Of course, much of this would have to be discussed with people smarter than you and me, including all the legalese that would have to be used, but it's a rough start to an idea that could help.

 

[SJHovey]

Re: Days Since Last Shooting II

No, less people were killed during that 10 year span relative to the after 10 year period.

If you can't conclude that the assault weapons ban is ineffective, you can equally not conclude that "it just causes deaths to occur by some other gun".

You can certainly say that assault weapons likely meant more than 10 people killed.

I believe the assault weapons ban was from about 1994-2004.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Ushomicidesbyweapon.svg

 

[alfablue]

Re: Days Since Last Shooting II

I believe the assault weapons ban was from about 1994-2004.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Ushomicidesbyweapon.svg

You realize that when you compare the overall gun deaths compared to the number of shootings greater than 5, you see an increase of the total number of shootings, but a decrease of the number of shootings greater than 5.

Since "assault" weapons are there to get MORE shots off quickly, it's pretty clear to me that trading off fast shooting, high capacity guns for just hand guns significantly decreased the relative number of deaths in mass shootings.

Here's the mass shooting chart- https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Mass_Shooting_Deaths_by_Year_1994-2017.jpg

We are not talking about eliminating gun deaths. We are talking about reducing the number of dead in an incident of 5 or more. Why are we not allowed to address that?

The whole point of the argument, especially the data in the assault weapons ban wiki- reduce the number killed in mass shootings.

Last I checked, the gross majority of people shot know the shooter. This is about the random people who are caught up in a crazy person's shooting rampage.

 

[aparch]

Re: Days Since Last Shooting II

According to "The Federalist:" "When The Saints Of First Baptist Church Were Murdered, God Was Answering Their Prayers."

But for those familiar with the Bible’s promises concerning prayer and violence, nothing could be further from the truth. When those saints of First Baptist Church were murdered yesterday, God wasn’t ignoring their prayers. He was answering them.

“Deliver us from evil.” Millions of Christians throughout the world pray these words every Sunday morning.

(Apologies if posted already)

 

[SJHovey]

Re: Days Since Last Shooting II

You realize that when you compare the overall gun deaths compared to the number of shootings greater than 5, you see an increase of the total number of shootings, but a decrease of the number of shootings greater than 5.

Since "assault" weapons are there to get MORE shots off quickly, it's pretty clear to me that trading off fast shooting, high capacity guns for just hand guns significantly decreased the relative number of deaths in mass shootings.

Here's the mass shooting chart- https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Mass_Shooting_Deaths_by_Year_1994-2017.jpg

We are not talking about eliminating gun deaths. We are talking about reducing the number of dead in an incident of 5 or more. Why are we not allowed to address that?

The whole point of the argument, especially the data in the assault weapons ban wiki- reduce the number killed in mass shootings.

Last I checked, the gross majority of people shot know the shooter. This is about the random people who are caught up in a crazy person's shooting rampage.

We are sitting here arguing about something that is statistically meaningless. I'm sure it's meaningful to any family member who had someone killed in one of these events, but honestly these mass shootings are statistically meaningless in the overall scheme of things, notwithstanding the incredible amounts of media coverage they receive.

I think it was 538 that did a study, although I can't be sure. They went back to the University of Texas clock tower shooting of 1966 and discovered that there have been something like 1000 deaths that resulted from a mass shooting incident, which I think they defined as something like 4 or 5 deaths. During that same time period there have probably been a half million gun homicides in the U.S., which means that these mass shooting events account for something like two one thousandths of the gun deaths during that time frame. If you compared it to the number of homicides as a whole, I have no idea how many zeros would follow the decimal point.

In other words, people are all up in arms (pun intended) about how we've got to somehow stop these mass shootings when we might as well be spending the time figuring out how to avoid asteroids.

 

[alfablue]

Re: Days Since Last Shooting II

We are sitting here arguing about something that is statistically meaningless. I'm sure it's meaningful to any family member who had someone killed in one of these events, but honestly these mass shootings are statistically meaningless in the overall scheme of things, notwithstanding the incredible amounts of media coverage they receive.

I think it was 538 that did a study, although I can't be sure. They went back to the University of Texas clock tower shooting of 1966 and discovered that there have been something like 1000 deaths that resulted from a mass shooting incident, which I think they defined as something like 4 or 5 deaths. During that same time period there have probably been a half million gun homicides in the U.S., which means that these mass shooting events account for something like two one thousandths of the gun deaths during that time frame. If you compared it to the number of homicides as a whole, I have no idea how many zeros would follow the decimal point.

In other words, people are all up in arms (pun intended) about how we've got to somehow stop these mass shootings when we might as well be spending the time figuring out how to avoid asteroids.

So we should just accept them as a part of living in the US???

These events happen a LOT less often in other countries.

I just don't understand that thinking. And if you want to just accept it, then get out of the discussion that wants to reduce the risk of randomly getting shot like that.

We go out of our way to pretend that the 8 deaths in New York are significant, but these 26 are not. What is up with that? Heck, based on your theory that gun deaths are so high, then we should not care what so ever about terrorist attacks, since the most they ever killed was a few thousand at once, and relative to the rest of the violent deaths in the US, that's a drop in the bucket.

But at least I know where you stand, and can pretty much ignore your opinion.

 

[SJHovey]

Re: Days Since Last Shooting II

So we should just accept them as a part of living in the US???

These events happen a LOT less often in other countries.

I just don't understand that thinking. And if you want to just accept it, then get out of the discussion that wants to reduce the risk of randomly getting shot like that.

We go out of our way to pretend that the 8 deaths in New York are significant, but these 26 are not. What is up with that? Heck, based on your theory that gun deaths are so high, then we should not care what so ever about terrorist attacks, since the most they ever killed was a few thousand at once, and relative to the rest of the violent deaths in the US, that's a drop in the bucket.

But at least I know where you stand, and can pretty much ignore your opinion.

You haven't seen me in here arguing that the NY deaths or any of the other ones are statistically significant either.

 

[alfablue]

Re: Days Since Last Shooting II

You haven't seen me in here arguing that the NY deaths or any of the other ones are statistically significant either.

But we should just accept these mass killings. You are 100% ok with them continuing on since they are statistically insignificant.