The Thread Where We Discuss Guns and Gun Control

[Sommerswerd]

i can say this about people who disagree with me too, but it doesn't contribute to the discussion.

That's part of my point. You can say anything, but one of the relevant issues is whether, on this particular issue being debated, you have the credibility-capital/moral-high-ground, etc., to support what you are saying. In this context it just comes off as more whataboutism and goalpost switching. Part of my point is that your prior constant goalpost switching on the topic makes your above "No you!" response less effective/persuasive in this particular context.

double standards are happening, and thus they are called out.

speaking of calling out, you're acting as if you believe i'm the topic of this thread, considering your post has no substance beyond insulting my credibility lol.

See this is a perfect example of what I am addressing. One undermines their own argument, when they first, attempt to wrap themself in the self-righteous mantle of "calling things out", then, in the very next sentence, go all pearl-clutchy-hand-me-my-smelling-salts-I'm-insulted!... at someone "calling them out" for their own double-standards, intellectual inconsistency and goalpoast switching.

As far as "the topic of this thread" goes... again... you undermine that stance, by first arguing your case/position of the Jan 6 folks in the Gun Control Thread in response to a post about a gun-control related protest... then trying to put on your thread-on-topic-police cap as soon as you get called out. Stay on topic yourself before you start trying extract straws from other's eyes. Just reading/responding to your comments, I actually thought this was the Jan 6 thread until your thread-policing comment made me double check, lol.

 

[Kyriakos]

Assuming most of those school shootings are done by minors, wouldn't the guns used already have been gotten illegally? (as in the minor took them from parents/other).

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

That's what I often like to ask, but realize must gun control discussions in the US try to preempt that by asking what if there were no guns to commit crimes with. Then we wouldn't have to worry about being responsible.

 

[Kyriakos]

Given the violence in the US, one has to assume that if guns were banned, violent crimes of other type would go rapidly up.
That a big percentage of the population seems to live in single-house suburbia doesn't help at all, of course - less safety there by default.
And then there's the continent-sized rural areas, where no one will help you in time anyway.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Given the violence in the US, one has to assume that if guns were banned, violent crimes of other type would go rapidly up.
That a big percentage of the population seems to live in single-house suburbia doesn't help at all, of course - less safety there by default.
And then there's the continent-sized rural areas, where no one will help you in time anyway.

This perspective is fascinating to me. I get why you say other types of crime would go up... the notion being that people will still commit crimes, they will just use other weapons... but the other stuff is a little puzzling.

Why do you think that suburbs with single family households would be less safe by default than urban environments with more multi-family dwellings. The conventional wisdom in the US is that the cities are more dangerous and the suburbs are safer.

On the same note, why do you think rural areas would be the least safe? Again, I think that the view here is that its the opposite. Rural areas are seen as the most safe/least violent... More people=more crime/violence/risk is the common belief in the US.

 

[Kyriakos]

This perspective is fascinating to me. I get why you say other types of crime would go up... the notion being that people will still commit crimes, they will just use other weapons... but the other stuff is a little puzzling.

Why do you think that suburbs with single family households would be less safe by default than urban environments with more multi-family dwellings. The conventional wisdom in the US is that the cities are more dangerous and the suburbs are safer.

On the same note, why do you think rural areas would be the least safe? Again, I think that the view here is that its the opposite. Rural areas are seen as the most safe/least violent... More people=more crime/violence/risk is the common belief in the US.

I was particularly thinking of break-in/house robberies, and there one would choose isolated targets. Of course it changes if you have something like a ghetto where violence is rampant already and police tend to keep away.
Also keeping in mind that if you are a criminal, you are less likely to care that the gun you have is now illegal.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Given the violence in the US, one has to assume that if guns were banned, violent crimes of other type would go rapidly up.

I don't think there's a lot to support this. For starters, we know that guns are a superior weapon. That's why they're popular in the first place. They're more effective, relatively easy to use, etc. It's just harder to kill someone with a knife or a baseball bat, or a chainsaw, or even a car.

We know that success rates of suicide attempts go up dramatically when a gun is the chosen method. And we also know that most people who survive a suicide attempt don't attempt another one. The old canard that "someone who wants to die will find a way" is just pure hokum.

I think it's also been found that the risk of dying by gunshot wound goes up in households that have a gun, particularly for women. iirc, women who live in a household with a gun are in more danger than those who live in households without a gun. I don't know if it's been studied, but I suspect it's also much easier to kill someone impulsively with a gun than with other methods, for the same reason suicide rates increase when a gun is the method chosen. I think women who live with an abusive partner are dramatically more likely to be killed if that partner owns a gun.

Also keeping in mind that if you are a criminal, you are less likely to care that the gun you have is now illegal.

It's not about whether they care. It's about access. A lot of guns are bought legally, then stolen or resold. In some cities, the parking lots of sports stadiums are targeted by thieves: Legal gun owners leave their handguns in their cars because they have to go through a metal detector to get into the stadium. Criminals then go through the stadium parking lots looking for guns to steal. (I say "some cities." I think the article I read a few years ago was specifically about St. Louis, but unless there's something unique about St. Louis, I presume that's not the only place where this happens. But maybe it is.) I wonder how many home burglaries are specifically looking for guns to steal? I think I remember reading somewhere years ago that 1/4 or 1/3 of the guns in the U.S. were stolen from someone who bought it legally, but don't quote me on that. So, I guess... who cares if they care?

Center for American Progress, 4 March 2020 - "Gun Theft in the United States: A State-by-State Analysis"

Guns can also sometimes be purchased without a background check, at gun shows or other private sales, or using a stolen identity, and then driven across state lines and sold. There was a guy around here who was recently arrested with 4 handguns in his car that he'd bought in Arkansas.

 

[Farm Boy]

On the same note, why do you think rural areas would be the least safe? Again, I think that the view here is that its the opposite. Rural areas are seen as the most safe/least violent... More people=more crime/violence/risk is the common belief in the US.

Is it true?

I overwhelm in cities(suburbia too, but hey, know thyself eh?), things are clearer when you're outside and there aren't people around for the better part of a mile. Visitors drive, bike, or walk up the road/driveway/path. They announce themselves. If they don't, they're up to something fishy.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

That's part of my point.

it seems your "point" is that you disagree with me and you're willing to use indirect insults and character attacks instead of arguments to demonstrate that disagreement, lol

See this is a perfect example of what I am addressing.

i usually hold myself to higher standard than other posters doing this, but nothing says i have to. especially when someone is repeatedly doing it themselves first.

i sometimes get blamed for derailing threads when i respond to posts that derail threads. but that's typical of off topic. it was not unreasonable to point out that complaints about consequences for disrupting an official proceeding were inconsistent with previously accepting much harsher penalties for disrupting an official proceeding. the fact that posters agree with the reason for doing so this time shouldn't change that.

Why do you think that suburbs with single family households would be less safe by default than urban environments with more multi-family dwellings. The conventional wisdom in the US is that the cities are more dangerous and the suburbs are safer.

single parent households are predictive of a tremendous number of problems. that said, i'm not sure that it can overpower a higher concentration of population in terms of influencing crime statistics.

it's also not clear to me why suburbs will typically have more single parent households than urban environments. both have too many, but what processes would lead to suburbs having more?

Rural areas are seen as the most safe/least violent... More people=more crime/violence/risk is the common belief in the US.

on average this should be true. i think it even holds if you adjust for rate vs number of people. though my understanding is that a lot of the violence is concentrated into areas with gang/organized crime style activity.

I was particularly thinking of break-in/house robberies, and there one would choose isolated targets. Of course it changes if you have something like a ghetto where violence is rampant already and police tend to keep away.

you don't want to be spotted by their neighbors, but aside from that, traveling to rural area to hit a house is inconvenient, and dangerous if you don't have knowledge of that home's security and patterns of people coming and going. unless the goal is to assault a person and not to steal, you really don't want people there if you're a criminal.

rural areas have the tradeoff that people are more likely to know each other, and recognize a potential criminal as not "one of them". this is much less likely in urban environments, where the presence of someone people don't recognize isn't unusual. thus there are tradeoffs, but ultimately more people around = more potential criminals in absolute terms + more convenient targets nearby.

Guns can also sometimes be purchased without a background check, at gun shows or other private sales

from what i understand, this is uncommon/non-trivial to do and broadly illegal.

the rest comes as a question of what tradeoffs we're willing to make regarding property rights and government control.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I was particularly thinking of break-in/house robberies, and there one would choose isolated targets.

From the burglar's perspective though... I'd think isolated targets means more difficulty in escaping and more ease of being captured... precisely because there are less places to run and less places to hide. Its also a lower chance of success, because its a lower target environment. You can drive around in rural areas for hours without encountering a single person. Driving way into the countryside to find an isolated house on the hope that it has the loot you are wanting to steal is more complicated than just breaking into a bunch of units in the same building, or houses/cars tightly clumped together on the same street or parking lot.

If you drive 40 miles into some remote town to burglarize houses and rob people, anyone who sees you or your getaway vehicle, including any random police that cross your path, are going to immediately recognize you as being a stranger form out of town. Its much more likely to get randomly pulled over by the police in a small rural town simply because they don't recognize your car/you and/or "you don't look like you're from around here"... I recognize that the odds of this happening to me are possibly(probably) significantly higher for me because I'm black, which is part of why I've experienced it so many times, but I tend to think that the principle still applies generally to everyone travelling through rural / suburban towns.

 

[Farm Boy]

Ah, but there are so many people to export that profession when they get a clever little idea in their heads. And there are relatively so few targets, which is a sort of common theme. Plus then, you have everyone from around there to begin with, and people are people.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Same website as above...

Center For American Progress, 26 Sept 2022 - "Gun Violence in Rural America"

As gun violence continues to fuel violent crime across the nation, some conservative politicians are not only refusing to support commonsense gun violence prevention measures but are also actively rolling back gun laws that help make our communities safer. Many of these same elected officials continue to perpetuate the narrative that gun violence is only a problem in urban, Democrat-led cities, and media outlets are skewing the public perspective by heavily focusing on gun violence in cities such as Chicago. The truth, however, is that rural communities—particularly in red states—have increasingly faced levels of gun violence that match or outpace urban areas.

Despite negative media attention, many large cities are proportionately safer from gun violence than their rural counterparts:

• Chicago is within Cook County, which ranks 79th for firearm homicide rates.
• Philadelphia County ranks 38th for firearm homicide rates.
• The five counties that encompass New York City rank between 360th and 521st for firearm homicide rates:
  • New York County (Manhattan) ranks 521st.
  • Kings County (Brooklyn) ranks 404th.
  • Bronx County (Bronx) ranks 360th.
  • Richmond County (Staten Island) ranks 488th.
  • Queens County (Queens) ranks 502nd.
• Los Angeles County ranks 316th for firearm homicide rates.

fwiw, I'm not 100% sure about the other New York City counties, but at least in one case, Bronx County=The Bronx. There's nothing in Bronx County other than The Boogie Down itself (well, there's a bunch of water, and some big parks). I don't know how much of Los Angeles County is taken up by the City of Los Angeles, how much of Cook County is just Chicago, or how much of Philadelphia County is Philadelphia.

Southern and Midwestern states—such as Arizona, Arkansas, and Missouri—have drastically contributed to the more than 100-fold relative increase in gun homicide rates from 2014 to 2019:

• Rural areas in Arizona and North Carolina have outpaced their large metropolitan counterparts; in fact, gun homicide rates in rural Arizona were 14 percent higher than they were in the state’s large metropolitan areas from 2016 to 2020. (see Figure 2)
• Gun homicide rates in rural North Carolina were 76 percent higher than they were in large North Carolina metropolitan areas from 2016 to 2020. (see Figure 3)

 

[Lexicus]

Same website as above...

Center For American Progress, 26 Sept 2022 - "Gun Violence in Rural America"

• 
  

Factoring in the lower density of people in rural areas those stats are kind of insane

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I tend to think that the principle still applies generally to everyone travelling through rural / suburban towns.

per anecdotal experience, it applies generally. if you're perceived as "other" group, regardless of the source of that perception, it's going to attract attention.

if someone *actually intends* to do crime, that kind of attention is the last thing you want. rather than considering you normal, you *begin* under scrutiny. while i haven't tried it, "don't mind me, i'm just casing the area" probably doesn't work better in real life than it does in payday 2.

 

[JollyRoger]

"Don't mind me, I'm just driving through the area."

 

[TheMeInTeam]

^ nobody said the bias against outsiders was a good thing. but it's there nonetheless, and it's a selective pressure against doing robberies.

Center For American Progress, 26 Sept 2022 - "Gun Violence in Rural America"

what explains a 100fold increase over a 5 year period? i doubt the laws changed much.

 

[Farm Boy]

Factoring in the lower density of people in rural areas those stats are kind of insane

Rates factor that. That's why it's a rate.

If you want the flashiest homicide rate change charts, they're mostly capturing economic malaise and drug pandemic deaths of despair. Which seems relevant, but I know how you feel about actually bothering to categorize suicides.

 

[Lexicus]

Rates factor that. That's why it's a rate.

They factor by the number of people but not their spacial density/distribution - for that, we would need to get rates per person for standardized areas which we don't get - the political subdivisions for which the rates are reported are not all equal sizes.

Which seems relevant, but I know how you feel about actually bothering to categorize suicides.

I'm opposed to treating suicides as a category of gun violence which public policy should not/cannot address. You wanna count em, go right ahead.

 

[Sommerswerd]

on average this should be true. i think it even holds if you adjust for rate vs number of people. though my understanding is that a lot of the violence is concentrated into areas with gang/organized crime style activity.

That is kind of what I was expecting too, though now I am wondering about the links folks are posting, contradicting that conventional wisdom. This also raises an interesting question for me... do you think that "gang violence" should be discounted as a factor for calculating urban crime? In some ways, it would seem to be the kind of thing that could be treated as an outlier, possibly especially in the case of determining appropriate gun-control measures... but I am curious about your take on it.

you don't want to be spotted by their neighbors, but aside from that, traveling to rural area to hit a house is inconvenient, and dangerous if you don't have knowledge of that home's security and patterns of people coming and going. unless the goal is to assault a person and not to steal, you really don't want people there if you're a criminal.

rural areas have the tradeoff that people are more likely to know each other, and recognize a potential criminal as not "one of them". this is much less likely in urban environments, where the presence of someone people don't recognize isn't unusual. thus there are tradeoffs, but ultimately more people around = more potential criminals in absolute terms + more convenient targets nearby.

Yes these factors you list are the things that were making me lean towards expecting that the lower populated areas would be the ones having less crime, however, it looks like the sites folks are linking might tell a different story. I will have to check these articles out.

 

[Farm Boy]

They factor by the number of people but not their spacial density/distribution - for that, we would need to get rates per person for standardized areas which we don't get - the political subdivisions for which the rates are reported are not all equal sizes.



I'm opposed to treating suicides as a category of gun violence which public policy should not/cannot address. You wanna count em, go right ahead.

I guess the density rather than per head rate would matter if most homicide is simply an accident of location. Which doesn't seem like that'd be it. Unless, of course, the people are immobile. Like in wheelchairs, or women in the early 19th century. Or if suicide is spontaneous instead of culmination of factors over time.