Fantasy And Reality In The Gun Debate

Greg Sargent of the WaPo plugs these Think Progress talking points on the gun debate:

Meanwhile, Igor Volsky has a useful guide to the background check debate that debunks each piece of conservative mythology about it.

All of my mythology are belong to them! The Volsky piece is a bit of a must-read, hafta laugh melange of stats. My fave is this:

Background checks have already contributed to violence reduction. In the 14 states and Washington D.C. that require background checks for private handgun sales (including Toomey’s home state of Pennsylvania): 38 percent fewer women are shot to death by intimate partners, 17 percent fewer firearms are involved in aggravated assaults, and 48 percent less gun trafficking.

Who can dispute it? And if Connecticut were demographically and culturally comparable to Georgia I would be even more impressed.

Ludwig and Cook (2000) attempted to work around the nutmeg to peaches comparison problem by looking at changes in gun violence in the thirty-two states where the new 1994 Brady restrictions actually took hold versus the eighteen states that already had similar background checks on the books. Their conclusion holds out a bit of hope for us older folks but not so much for the rest of you:

CONCLUSIONS:

Based on the assumption that the greatest reductions in fatal violence would be within states that were required to institute waiting periods and background checks, implementation of the Brady Act appears to have been associated with reductions in the firearm suicide rate for persons aged 55 years or older but not with reductions in homicide rates or overall suicide rates.

There is plenty of research cited in the National Academies Press "Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review", including a chapter on "Interventions Aimed at Illegal Firearm Acquisition".

FROM THE MEAN STREET OF ATLANTA: This is from the NY Times Sports Section, in a profile of Josh Jarboe, a young athlete/rapper trying to get his football career on track and into the NFL:

Yet for most of that time, rap was Jarboe’s first love. He joined a group called Black Mobb, and local high school students downloaded its raps to their phones. On weekends, Black Mobb performed at clubs for teenagers and fought rival groups.

Jarboe lost some teeth one night in a fight with Waka Flocka’s crew. That is how he wound up with a gold grill — “my golds,” he called them.

Some patrons would hide guns in bushes and garbage cans around the parking lot before entering, then race to retrieve them as soon as they exited. (Jarboe said that he did not carry a gun, but that others in his group did.)

“Winning the fight isn’t who wins,” he said. “It’s who gets out the door first.”

One night, by the time Jarboe and his friends left a club, another group had lined up in the parking lot, guns aimed at the door. Somebody pushed Jarboe down just as a bullet grazed his neck. One reason he never cuts his dreads is to hide the burn mark.

“I feel so lucky,” he said one afternoon in Atlanta, sitting in the parking lot of the now-deserted club. “There were so many shootouts. Lot of people died.

“That was supposed to be me. Dead.”

Expand background checks. These guys shouldn't be carrying. Oh, wait...

Comments

[Soylent Red]

Even if it weren't bullshit to start with, I wouldn't care if background checks reduced gun violence to zero.

Nazism would reduce domestic gun violence to zero as well. Anyone advocating for that?

"...shall not be infringed." Is English a second language to these people?

[Jack is Back (Again)!]

To me all this immaterial to my individual right to keep and bear arms. Now you can argue whether that is an individual right under the 2nd amendment but until the Supremes tell me other wise I will still be of the "your arguments don't matter to me for one reason: Its my right."

[narciso]

Hey Soylent how have you been, you do realixe TM, Ludwig and Cook's Joyce Fnd. 'money is no good here'

[matt]

Lovie! You've put sugar in my coffee instead of nutra-sweet for the last time! (opens up with scary assault weapon)

Is that what you mean, TM?

[Ignatz Ratzkywatzky]

--until the Supremes tell me other wise I will still be of the "your arguments don't matter to me for one reason: Its my right."--

It will still be our right even if the Supremes tell us otherwise.
It will be up to we the people at that point to secure our rights be whatever means are necessary.

[Rob Crawford]

Nazism would reduce domestic gun violence to zero as well. Anyone advocating for that?

Outside the Democrat party?

[NK]

JiB I'm curious-- does the "it's my right" assertion extend to a woman telling the abortionist to snip the brain stem if the child is breathing after the 'abortion' do 5th Amendment property rights extend to building a mosque in your home development, does the 1st Amendment assembly right extend to OWS blocking public streets so people can't enter office buildings or restaurants? Absolutism of one person's rights in the American Republic is almost always a dead end claim in my experience.

[Captain Hate]

Tammy Bruce is slattering the MFM over their lack of coverage of Gosnell and feminists for not empowering women to learn how to say "no".

[narciso]

Ludwig and Cook, are all about the gun registry, they are just slightly more ethical then Bellesiles, but only when measuring with calipers. It's like how can you tell Soufan has lied; his lips are moving.

[AliceH]

I'm working on learning to embrace my inner felon.

[henry]

My canoe has sudden instability problems, but I can't get an appointment to a canoe doctor...

[narciso]

A think a catamaran is the solution,

[NK]

"It will be up to we the people at that point to secure our rights be whatever means are necessary."

This is correct-- if you don't like the current Republic, revolution and overthrow is 'natural right' option. Course-- you have to make sure you win the war...

[AliceH]

--you have to make sure you win the war--

Or die trying.

[Ignatz Ratzkywatzky]

Course-- you have to make sure you win the war....

[Ignatz Ratzkywatzky]

Jeebus, but I hate Typepad.

[Ignatz Ratzkywatzky]

What the first 1:38 was supposed to say:

--Course-- you have to make sure you win the war...--

I trust you meant "we" not "you".

[NK]

Ig-- in truth, my reference to the 'you have to' was speaking in the Second Person, so I meant no implication of having chosen sides. No one has asked me to join a revolution, so I remain a Constitutionalist and Federalist. We'll see. Although if Andy Cuomo's storm trooper antics keep up, the choice may be made for me.

[NK]

'Second Person" -- Yikes! have I set off another grammar discussion!

[squaredance]

er, ah.. the SCOTUS will tell you "otherwise". Wait and see.

We would not be at this point of utilitarian arguments if the notion of actual rights were in any way a respected principle. It makes no difference if the arguments are flawed, irrational or outright lies.

They will destroy the 2nd amendment. The quoted articulate above proves it.

We hand over the country with little else but whining. We will most likely not get it back.

I really doubt that even a moderate gets elected again. Certainly, the GOP is never will win nationally now.

Another decade of this garbage and we will be lower than Mexico.

[gmax]

Locking up all black males over the age 15 would make a big dent in the crime rate. Sure there would be a few constitutional rights trampled but hey the important thing is reducing violence right, ignor the damn Constitution thingy its like a 100 year old already...

[maryrose]

I wonder if like the original brave colonists we will stand up for our country against this tyranny? I think we have enough people in flyover states to get the job done. The prog cities will never expect it to happen. They think we are all rubes and doormats.
I like what Heidi Heitkamp said about it being a way of life for North Dakotans. Big city progs will never understand this. They can't dictate to us and we will not adopt their wild and crazy ways of living.

[Brian]

LOL ^ *** crickets *** ^

What, nobody is with maryrose?

[hit and run]

I wholeheartedly stand with maryrose. But really...

[maryrose] made that comment hours ago, and now she is long gone. Why are you addressing it now? Weird. Crazy even. LOL