I know your not gonna believe this

[Plane]

http://pandagon.net/2005/05/27/there-is-almost-surely-some-gun-manufacturer-money-behind-this-one/

[sirs]

laxed?  he failed

I was referring to how easy the apparent range requirements are, as you seem to have implied

[Plane]

May I see the studies?

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/guns.htm



According to the 1997 Survey of State Prison Inmates, among those possessing a gun, the source of the gun was from -

a flea market or gun show for fewer than 2%
a retail store or pawnshop for about 12%
family, friends, a street buy, or an illegal source for 80%

...
http://www.neahin.org/programs/schoolsafety/gunsafety/statistics.htm

Americans for Gun Safety produced a 2003 report that reveals that 20 of the nation’s 22 national gun laws are not enforced. According to U.S. Department of Justice data (FY 2000-2002), only 2% of federal gun crimes were actually prosecuted. Eighty-five percent of cases prosecuted relate to street criminals in possession of firearms.


...
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/guns.htm
Incidents involving a firearm represented 9% of the 4.7 million violent crimes of rape and sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated and simple assault in 2005.
(Violent Crimes only)
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/crime-victims/reducing-crime/gun-crime/
Contrary to public perception, the overall level of gun crime in the UK is very low – less than 0.5% of all crime recorded by the police.
(includes non violent crimes)

...
http://www.connected.gov.uk/facts/guncrime/index.html
In 2004/05 there were a provisional 10,979 firearm offences, an increase of 6% since 2003/04. The number of offences has risen each year since 1997/98

...
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/guic.pdf
Although most crime is not committed
with guns, most gun crime is committed
with handguns.

By definition, stolen guns are available
to criminals. The FBI's National
Crime Information Center (NCIC)
stolen gun file contains over 2 million
reports; 60% are reports of stolen
handguns.

Little information exists about the
use of assault weapons in crime. The
information that does exist uses varying
definitions of assault weapons that
were developed before the Federal
assault weapons ban was enacted.


...
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdguse.html
There are approximately two million defensive gun uses (DGU's) per year by law abiding citizens. That was one of the findings in a national survey conducted by Gary Kleck, a Florida State University criminologist


Department of Justice sponsored a survey in 1994 titled, Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms (text, PDF). Using a smaller sample size than Kleck's, this survey estimated 1.5 million DGU's annually.

...
http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/KleckAndGertz2.htm

(This one is a fuss between professors who do not accept each others statistical methods)

H's political intentions and strong feelings are also evident in his overstatements and in the grandiose conclusions he draws from weak or irrelevant evidence and fallacious reasoning. He does not get past his title before making his first overstatement, claiming that he had established, without benefit of any new empirical evidence, that our estimates are too high and that they are "extreme overestimates."[3] He states in his first paragraph that "it is clear that [the Kleck and Gertz] results cannot be accepted as valid."[4] He incorrectly claims that "all checks for external validity of the Kleck-Gertz finding confirm that their estimate is highly exaggerated,"[5] when in fact these checks have repeatedly confirmed our estimates.

DGUs usually involve unlawful possession of a gun by the gun-wielding victim, and sometimes other illegalities as well,[6] a point H does not dispute. Yet, in making the extraordinary and counterintuitive claim that there is a social desirability bias to people reporting their own illegal behavior,[7] H insists that such a desirability bias is not [Page 1448] only plausible, but that it is likely.[8] By the end, without having provided a scintilla of credible supporting evidence, H concludes that our research was afflicted by an "enormous problem of false positives" (persons claiming a DGU who did not have one) and "massive overestimation," flatly stating that "the Kleck and Gertz survey results do not provide reasonable estimates about the total amount of self-defense gun use in the United States."[9] It is an impressive achievement to be able to arrive at such high-powered conclusions without the inconvenience of gathering or even citing any new empirical evidence.


I. THE ILLEGITIMACY OF ONE-SIDED SPECULATION: AN OUNCE OF EVIDENCE OUTWEIGHS A TON OF SPECULATION

[sirs]

"THE ILLEGITIMACY OF ONE-SIDED SPECULATION: AN OUNCE OF EVIDENCE OUTWEIGHS A TON OF SPECULATION"

Words you could practically live by

[Plane]

"THE ILLEGITIMACY OF ONE-SIDED SPECULATION: AN OUNCE OF EVIDENCE OUTWEIGHS A TON OF SPECULATION"

Words you could practically live by

Yea , but the issue is so emotionally loaded that it is seriousy had to find the real numbers , almost  everyone inolved is invested too much to be trusted not to skew their study.

[_JS]

Words you could practically live by

So why don't you?

Plane, I appreciate the stats, but those have little relevance on the sociological conclusion drawn by Sirs. For example, where prison inmates obtained a weapon has nothing to do with it.

Y'all seem to be under the impression that I'm some left wing nutter out to take your guns. I just dislike seeing conclusions drawn through logical fallacy, which is exactly what Sirs did.

This is the issue of the stork and babies. Just because there is a correlation does not necesarily equate to causation. In the example we are given, we are told that:

1. Loose gun laws occur in correlation with less violent crime,
2. Therefore less violent crime is caused by looser gun laws and;
3. criminals migrate to areas with more restrictive gun laws.

#1 can easily be proved or disproved with simple statistics. The correlation is either significant or not (though it would perhaps have to be phrased more specifically). International comparisons are far more difficult because laws are not always comparable across international boundaries.

#2 is no longer correlation, but instead causation. That takes a much more intense and scientific sociological study. Other variables (of which there are many) have to be accounted for or controlled. Other theories have to be addressed. True causation is almost impossible to prove, with the exception of the medical field (and only then after years of use), but general consensus on causation is probably feasible. I'm not talking politics, but social science.

#3 is also causation and would need studies of criminal habits. Criminals migrate for many reasons. including following money, finding sympathetic family or friends, finding work, hiding from law enforcement, and all of those variables will once again have to be accounted for to show that they are migrating specifically for the purpose of finding areas of strongly restricted gun laws.

I'm not attacking anyone personally, just the argument. So you can kindly drop the "one-sided speculation" unless you are posting it as a reminder for yourselves.

[The_Professor]

I remember the range requirements
pretty sad
I`ve always been a decent shot but some of my co-workers
uhhh
some people really shouldn`t have guns
it really does require some minimul ability.
broadside of the barn is the term I believe

I remember when I was around 10 years old. I was sitting next to my grandfather, who was pretty old at the time, and he was using a hacksaw to saw off some of the end of his 10 gauge shotgun. I remember I asked him why he was doing this. He responded: "Son, I'm getting purdy old I reckon and I can't see very good, so if I hear a noise in the middle of the night, some varmint or another who is in my home and shouldn't be, I figure all I gotta do is just aim in that there general direction." (he was born and raised in rural Kentucky).

I still have that shotgun. I fired it once when I was 16 and severely bruised my shoulder. The buckshot spread from Kentucky to Maine. :-)

[sirs]

Words you could practically live by

So why don't you?

Getting a little judgemental there, Js?

Plane, I appreciate the stats, but those have little relevance on the sociological conclusion drawn by Sirs. For example, where prison inmates obtained a weapon has nothing to do with it.  Y'all seem to be under the impression that I'm some left wing nutter out to take your guns. I just dislike seeing conclusions drawn through logical fallacy, which is exactly what Sirs did.

A) no one's claiming you're some lunatic leftist
B) no one's claiming specifically that ONLY A leads to B.  There are likely some minor causitive factors that helped influence the results
C) it appears you're going to completely ignore the studies that Ami & Plane referenced, that took into account multiple variables, that demonstrated a logical correlation, between decreased violent crime rates & more permissive CCW laws.  Why would that be, I wonder?

[Plane]

The error is as sirs infers.


Singleing out gun ownership as a causitive factor in  crime prevention and ignoreing the plethera of other factors is a mistake .


Singleing out gun ownership as a causitive factor in  crime  and ignoreing the plethera of other factors is a mistake also.


This doesn't make discussion impossible , but you get to pick your facts from a shelf full of opinion slanted studys .



Did you attempt to wade thru the work of Gary Keck?

In the process of correcting for all errors and accounting for all mitigateing factors his studys become exaustive and exausting.

[_JS]

it appears you're going to completely ignore the studies that Ami & Plane referenced, that took into account multiple variables, that demonstrated a logical correlation, between decreased violent crime rates & more permissive CCW laws

Not at all. Actually, I find Plane's last two studies rather fascinating. Kleck especially as he challenges some generally accepted criminology standard models (which is the mark of a thinking scholar, even if his own approaches are not entirely without flaw themselves).

no one's claiming specifically that ONLY A leads to B.  There are likely some minor causitive factors that helped influence the results

Again you make an assumption that you honestly are not certain about. Are the other factors minor? Do you know?

Singleing out gun ownership as a causitive factor in  crime prevention and ignoreing the plethera of other factors is a mistake .

Singleing out gun ownership as a causitive factor in  crime  and ignoreing the plethera of other factors is a mistake also.

I think I am the one who inferred that error and not Sirs!

This doesn't make discussion impossible , but you get to pick your facts from a shelf full of opinion slanted studys.

That's fair and I probably have been a bit unduly harsh on you all to provide a reasonable amount of research on that point.

I think that some of it is because of my own experiences and let's face it there is a lot of anecdotal evidence in gun ownership arguments. I've been to some European cities and of course American cities. In Europe (and I'll grant that I have not been real recently) there is rarely a sense that one needs to be armed or that crime is an inevitability. Walking around Munich or Nuremberg late at night, looking for a nice beer hall offers no sense of impending fear. I think the same is true of many European cities from Rome to Munich to Madrid to London to Oslo.

I've never really felt terribly unsafe in most American cities, but I understand that many people do. I admit that parts of Saint Louis, Washington DC, Camden, and New York could certainly create some uneasiness in people.

So it has always fascinated me, someone who doesn't even lock his car and gives beggars change when I have it or even a buck when I have that, what the difference is between European cities and American cities and general differences on feeling safe and not.

I have shot weapons of many kinds, but I don't own one currently. I've been to gun shows, some of which were quite frankly worrisome (I can go into that if you wish), but most of the people there were OK. I've shot with rifles, handguns, and shotguns. My father-in-law makes his own bullets and is a card-carrying member of the NRA (actually he has a sticker on his truck - I have no idea if you get a card or not).

So I'm not really anti-gun, in fact I enjoy shooting targets and find it to be a lot of fun. Of course, around these parts you also have the people who get drunk and go out on their back deck and shoot into the woods at night folks. They worry me a little more.

[sirs]

it appears you're going to completely ignore the studies that Ami & Plane referenced, that took into account multiple variables, that demonstrated a logical correlation, between decreased violent crime rates & more permissive CCW laws

Not at all. Actually, I find Plane's last two studies rather fascinating. Kleck especially as he challenges some generally accepted criminology standard models (which is the mark of a thinking scholar, even if his own approaches are not entirely without flaw themselves).

Yet you seem to be pretty much "pffft"ing them, as Tee does so often when so many of his baseless accusations are debunked by facts and evidence, and instead continuing to imply there must be other factors involved (decreased violent crime rates in areas with more permissive CCW allowances), than what has already been researched.....because.....there must be?

no one's claiming specifically that ONLY A leads to B.  There are likely some minor causitive factors that helped influence the results

Again you make an assumption that you honestly are not certain about. Are the other factors minor? Do you know?

A) I referenced "likely" and B) most of the other major factors appear to have been addressed in the previous research references, leaving pretty much just the minor factors left

I think that some of it is because of my own experiences and let's face it there is a lot of anecdotal evidence in gun ownership arguments. I've been to some European cities and of course American cities. In Europe (and I'll grant that I have not been real recently) there is rarely a sense that one needs to be armed or that crime is an inevitability. Walking around Munich or Nuremberg late at night, looking for a nice beer hall offers no sense of impending fear. I think the same is true of many European cities from Rome to Munich to Madrid to London to Oslo.

And do all these other countries have a similar right to keep and bear arms, as the U.S.?  Or are their significant restrictions on firearm ownership?  That does play a part in all this  And I apparently have as much anectotal evidence as you do, but pretty much specific to the U.S. only.  For "evidence" outside of the U.S., I have to refer to stats and stories

[Plane]

The error is as sirs infers.
I think I am the one who inferred that error and not Sirs!

What _JS infers ,the same as sirs, is ,sans symmetry ,sentient consideration slips, sliding into self serving sophistry.

[Brassmask]

Jeez.

kimba's getting flak because people are bugging him about being asian and possibly having a gun and you guys advise him to GET ONE.

That's REAL smart.

[sirs]

Jeez.  kimba's getting flak because people are bugging him about being asian and possibly having a gun and you guys advise him to GET ONE.

Ummmm, no.  Care to cite even 1 sentence that has someone recommending that Kimba buy a gun?  Want-ta do-over?