8 years ago
23
Guns Don't Deter Crime, Study Finds
A new study throws cold water on the idea that a well-armed populace deters criminals or prevents murders. Instead, higher ownership of guns in a state is linked to more firearm robberies, more firearm assaults and more homicide in general. "We found no support for the hypothesis that owning more guns leads to a drop or a reduction in violent crime," said study researcher Michael Monuteaux, an epidemiologist and professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. "Instead, we found the opposite."
Continue Reading
http://news.yahoo.com
Join the Discussion
I have been increasingly concerned with the discussion surrounding guns I have heard recently.
I hear constantly that guns in the hands of everyone is the only way to keep people safe. I not only don't buy this, but also do not want to see this country further dive into the culture of fear, mistrust, and hate that constant universal weapon carry would cause around the country. I know some people enjoy guns, even though I do not, and I want them to have the right to use them for hunting, safe recreation, and other limited purposes.
However, I do not think guns are the solution to our problems of violence. I would the shooting in the theater in Colorado as an example, which occurred 15 minutes from me. Imagine several audience members HAD been armed when the shooting occurred. During this time there was also smoke, the shooter was in body armor, and there was generally mass confusion and poor eyesight. If, instead of police showing up within seconds to stop this guy, someone inspired by batman had decided to try to be a lone ranger, I can only imagine more people would have gotten hurt.
Everyone armed with guns without the proper training of military or police will only lead to more accidents, more fear, more distrust, and just an environment that I don't want to live in. As a young person who still remembers their time in high school, I couldn't possibly imagine a worse place to have firearms than a school, which is what some people propose. We are the only developed nation that has this much gun violence, and gun control may not be the answer to all of it, but we need to have a serious look at all our options because the way things are right now is unacceptable, and creates a terrifying culture for a lot of people living here.
I want to be able to go to the movie theater, to a school, to a grocery store or just generally live my life without feeling like I need to have a gun ready to kill someone at any point. It is the 21st century in one of the most prosperous nations on Earth, I shouldn't have to strap on kevlar and a gun to feel safe living my life.
Exactly. The idea of MAD (mutual assured destruction) only works if there isn't someone crazy enough to start shooting. If we can begin reducing the amounts of weapons in the hands of the public (that are deemed overly dangerous) the better.
You only have to look at other countries who tightened guns laws decades ago-and the murder rate dropped. Also accidental death and injury dropped. When you have populations with substance use, mental health issues, poverty, disaffection and guns you have disaster waiting to happen.
To be fair, when it comes to mental health and guns the major issue is attempts of suicide, very rarely homicide (and even then, only in the small group of people with mental health challenges that are suicidal). Still a major issue, and I fully support restricting gun ownership and use, but I just want to do my part to help prevent the "people with mental illnesses are dangerous" stereotype from spreading =)
In other news - porn found to not improve general respect of women and smoking not found to have net health benefits. Sorry to be facetious, but it's incredible that this even needs to be questioned, really...
Crime all stems from people wanting to grab additional power - be that money, possession or social power - by undermining social rules. And what are guns for? Giving people the ability to wield the most power you can have between two humans - the 99.9% chance of killing them through nothing much more than a thought. In the case of an actual crime, the immediate power is used to gain more sustainable power, and thus the cycle of always trying to fuck over your fellow man, as nurtured by capitalist ideology, continues to manifest itself successfully in various forms.
What's interesting though is why guns are loved so much by their owners. It relates to the same thing as above, but shows that just the knowledge that you own something that could terrify almost any living person and make them submit to your every will, gives a drug like effect of infinite godlike power; something which only goes up in premium as your actual level of power diminishes or your level of sadism increases. The punchline of it all being that the person who that gun is most likely to be used on is yourself...
Yup! Hearing the way people talk about their guns can be pretty chilling. I know one guy whose eyes light up when he talks about guns, like a small boy talking about toy trucks or video games. I've heard gun owners openly fantasize about gunning down an intruder, as if they were thirsting for the opportunity to kill another human being. Really creepy shit.
I'm not sure what kind of people you surround yourself with that even remotely talk about guns like that, but that is a vocal minority. I own several guns, but I own them for a purpose, naturally one of them is for self-defensive purposes, I intend on protecting my property since generally it would take a police officer roughly 30 minutes to respond to my area, and secondly, for hunting, I'm sure you've already made some snap judgments on my character for hunting, but I actually do my self/family good as well as encourage healthy populations among the animals I hunt. I also don't hunt for sport, you won't see me mounting any animals on my wall, it's strictly used as a means to provide food so I don't have to encourage the disgusting conditions chickens, cows, pigs are brought up in for food. There's valid reasons for owning guns, and valid purposes for those uses.
Self-defense is an especially valid reason for those living farther from town when it may take police a long time to respond. My old place would have been about 15 minutes from police response unless you're lucky enough to have a patrol car in the area. Not a common occurrence, but with the number of meth heads around here I'd rather not place bets on an officer being nearby to help me if someone breaks into my house.
Forget meth heads, if you're far enough away from town, you get a gun to protect yourself, your family, and your pets from cougars and wolves. At least that's why my family had a gun. It's 2am, the horse is freaking because there's a bobcat in the pasture with him, you're going to want a shotgun.
I don't surround myself with people like that, but you can find them in many gun debates online. Gun owners will often let their guard down online and let you know how much they'd love to dust some punk. Personally, I don't want to have the weight of killing somebody on my conscience. If you want to steal my shit, I'll try to stop you if I can, but I'm not going to try to kill you. It's just not worth it. Surprisingly, a lot of gun owners don't feel this way, though. Killing somebody while protecting their property is completely justified!
I really don't have any problem with people who hunt for food, and I wonder why you would assume that.
I hope you understand that all gun owners are not like that. I don't even think it's a majority think like that. Yes, there are some sick people out there, but there is a very large population that likes just hitting the range, and doing it competitively.
"Yup! Hearing the way people talk about their guns can be pretty chilling. I know one guy whose eyes light up when he talks about guns, like a small boy talking about toy trucks or video games."
If it was just that and that person wasn't one of the people from the second half of your post then he just sounds like any other enthusiast to me. Maybe it would beore clear if I rephrase that sentence.
"Yup! Hearing the way people talk about their *cars can be pretty chilling. I know one guy whose eyes light up when he talks about cars, like a small boy talking about toy trucks or video games."*
Now I understand what is "chilling" to you about is probably that it is something that is lethal (not just capable of it but is its original intent). I can get why that might be scary but please try to remember that not everyone who is enthuastic about guns are like the second half of your post (dreaming of being able to gun someone down).
-----
NOTE:
-----
I am not trying to put words in your mouth, I just enjoy shooting skeet/trap and I've had perfectly reasonable friends who love collecting guns.
It's only a matter of time before somebody mentions cars... And yes, hearing somebody talk about guns as if they were toys is pretty creepy, no matter how "responsible" they are. Guns are deadly weapons. It's not like a sword or an axe or even a crossbow. It's a weapon that makes it so easy to kill people a lot of times it happens accidentally.
I think we have to be careful not to vilify all gun owners and people who like guns themselves. There's a difference between being a gun enthusiast who really enjoys collecting and learning about them and someone who genuinely wants to shoot someone.
Literally every gun owner I know is a responsible normal adult human who has gone their whole life never pointing any of their guns at another human nor do they fantasize about doing so. If you have friends that fantasize about killing 'an intruder' with their gun, you might look into getting new friends who aren't douche nozzles, because that person sounds like a dick.
Most of the gun owners I know grew up having guns as protection against wildlife like cougars, bobcats, and wolves (I grew up in the boondocks), and it's not something that they would ever think of using against another person.
These aren't friends. These are people online. On the Internet, people tend to let down their guard and tell you what they really think. So if you or I knew a gun owner like that personally, we probably wouldn't know, unless we were very close to that person.
Or they're scared WASPy folks in conservative neighborhoods. I lived in a suburb in Texas for a bit and once went to a local neighborhood crime watch meeting, mostly to get to know my neighbors. All I learned was they're all itching and willing to shoot a man they think is sneaking around dressed like the cable guy.
Soooo... when more people have guns you have more crimes involving guns. I would have never guessed that.
A new study by a Harvard professor and using 2001, 2002 and 2004 CDC studies. You see if you can pick and choose studies that support your goal at the start, it's easy to come to the same conclusions as those studies and find whatever you want. The ability to pick and choose your sources and study material leads to an almost always study that supports your own views.
While we can say more guns = more gun crime we can also say that less guns = less non-criminal gun violence, not less criminal violence.
I think it's a bad idea to accuse this researcher of cherry-picking his data without reading the paper. There may be legitimate reasons why he used those years and not others. Once the study is published and we can examine his methods, then we can criticize. I suggest withholding judgement on his possible biases until then.
Edit: I found a pre-press version of the paper. The authors use those years because those were the only years that state-wide firearm ownership levels were available.
Edit Edit: a link to the pre-press version. I don't know if it's public access, so people without access to an academic institution with a subscription may not be able to read it. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749379715000720
I read the article and not one of the studies they linked to sources of in the article showed any differing opinion though, that's why I am guessing cherry picking. Because there have been studies in the past that say the opposite. Obviously not everybody agrees with everybody. Perhaps it's Yahoo showing bias.
It's worded in a way that this study disproves Huckabee's quote, but if, in fact there had been someone with a gun in there, they could have, theoretically stopped the shooter. I feel that this quote is pretty lazy to use as a tie-in to the article.
Interesting article though. Too bad causation isn't determined yet.
I don't know, I think you're taking the link too literally. If you take a step back and look at what the attempted movement is - "more gun crime? we need more guns!", the link becomes a lot more apparent. Granted, the journalist didn't take the transition that elegantly.
I used to live in Singapore and they have very strict gun laws. They have 0 gun deaths most years, and in general is one of the safest countries to live in. See link: http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/singapore I've moved to the US now and feel extremely unsafe with all these crazy people caring guns. I can understand one car per person, but one gun per person is just insane.
Why is there such a lack in faith in the government and the assumption that bad guys will always get guns despite whatever the law might say?
Also had there been any study on number of deaths saved because of people carrying guns vs. Number of accidental deaths due to guns. My gut feeling is that even if bad guys had guns and good guys didn't, there would be a net positive impact of taking guns away from the good guys.