Oh, look! Another US mass shooting.

[snyprrr]

"If... even ONE child gets left behind... I will murder ALL OF YOU!"

[The new erato]

So basically you will shoot each other to death whether you have guns or not?

[Karl Henning]

Did you read that article?  It does not actually "debunk" the argument (not mine, btw) it only says that the while right-to-carry laws do not increase the murder rate, as opponents feared, only that the data is murky that the right to carry cannot be exactly linked to lowering the rate. 

The study I linked deals with the reverse question of whether stringent gun regulation leads to lower gun crime, and the conclusion by the authors (who are not gun advocates) is that it does not.

Yes, all around.

[mc ukrneal]

The inconvenient truth is that more gun ownership and fewer gun control laws do not produce more murder, at least according to this Harvard study.

WOULD BANNING FIREARMS REDUCE MURDER AND SUICIDE?

In fact the reverse is generally true: those areas with the most restrictions on gun ownership have the highest rates of gun related crime.

And yet, here are other studies from this article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/07/23/six-facts-about-guns-violence-and-gun-control/) that do not entirely agree with your references. The sum of it here is: more guns=more homicide and States with tighter gun control laws appear to have fewer gun-related deaths.

[TheGSMoeller]

This was posted on the NRA Facebook page the day before the Conn. tragedy. The NRA FB page has now disappeared.

[Gurn Blanston]

Keep in mind that Connecticut has had no history of violent crime, and in fact is in the lower one-third of states as far as murder rates.  What is disturbing is that in all school shootings, including this one, the perpetrator has been on psychotropic medication. 

My point is that I wish more scrutiny were being given to this aspect and not so much on gun regulation.

The point I made at the beginning of the thread.

[Daverz]

Keep in mind that Connecticut has had no history of violent crime, and in fact is in the lower one-third of states as far as murder rates.  What is disturbing is that in all school shootings, including this one, the perpetrator has been on psychotropic medication. 

My point is that I wish more scrutiny were being given to this aspect and not so much on gun regulation.

All of them?  We know this?  And we already know this guy was on psychotropic medication? 

On Friday they were telling us his mother worked at the school, and that this was her class.  A lot of misinformation floats around in the aftermath of traumatic events like this. 

I smell a hobby horse.

[Dungeon Master]

Not taking sides here, but this, from the very selfsame article, in the viewer comments. I wish he had posted sources;

It has now been over 10 years since gun owners in Australia were forced by new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by their own Government, a program costing Australia taxpayers more than $500 million dollars. The statistics for the years following the ban are now in:
1. Accidental gun deaths are 300% higher than the pre-1997 ban rate
2. The assault rate has increased 800% since 1991, and increased 200% since the 1997 gun ban.
3. Robbery and armed robbery have increase 20% from the pre-97 ban rate.
4. From immediately after the ban was instituted in 1997 through 2002, the robbery and armed robbery rate was up 200% over the pre-ban rates.
5. In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now up 171 percent.

FWIW...

Most of those numbers are all incorrect or out of context. I'm not sure where you dredged that up from but they bear no resemblance to the real statistics. You can't just quote stuff from the internet to make a point without reliable references. I'm glad to see your subsequent post acknowledges its unreliability.

My original arguments were based on statistics from reliable sources.

Looking at statistics provided by the Australia Bureau of Statistics and the Australian Institute of Criminology:

• The buyback scheme did in fact costs $500 million. That is just $25 per person in Australia and resulted in the destruction of 640,000 banned weapons. In my opinion, and the opinion of the vast majority of Australians, that is $25 well spent. Even people who hated that particular Prime Minister (John Howard) applauded that particular law and its legacy. Americans seem to have an aversion of spending public money for the common good. I doubt that an Australian-style US buy-back scheme would or could ever be implemented both because of the sheer volume of guns (the Govmint would go broke) and the social attitudes prevailing. A country that can't even implement universal health care won't stand a chance of a gun buy-back scheme.
• Accidental firearm deaths have not increased by 300%. They have in fact remained steady at about 18 to 40 deaths per year. Makes sense because accidental deaths are often from people who legitimately own guns and the number of those people have not changed.


• The claimed increase in assault rate of 800% is incorrect. It is true that the rates of assault (defined as any act of physical or sexual violence) has been rising. Population adjusted, assaults have increased by a factor of 2 in 10 years. Note that assault rates are completely unrelated to gun laws or the 1997 gun buy-back scheme.  Assaults have been rising steadily even before 1997, and the buy-back scheme had no effect on the rate. Factors thought to be behind the increase in assaults include greater reporting rates (people are now more likely to go to the police to report), increasing urbanisation with greater population densities, changing economic/social factors, and a changing demographic.


• The armed robbery claim is also fantasy. Total armed robberies have remained constant between 1996 and 207 at about 500 per month, with the armed robbery rate (robberies per head of population) has dropped by 20%. There  was an unusual peak in armed robberies in 2001, and your stats have probably cherry-picked that particular year. The proportion of armed robbery involving firearms has decreased from 28% in 1995 to just 14% in 2000.


• the claim about increased firearm homicide rates in Victoria is an example of cherry-picking data. Firearm homicide rates in Victoria in 1996 was 7 (i.e. 7 people killed with guns) and in 1997 was 19, an increase of 171%. Small sample size and statistically insignificant. This is the only state and the only time period that showed a blip of an increase. Every other time period and every other state showed a significant drop in firearm homicide rates. Overall, the firearm homicide rates in Australia has dropped by 50% and the firearm suicide rates have dropped from 22% of all suicides to just 7% of all suicides, with a drop in total suicides.

Note that it is interesting in what numbers your quote neglected to include.

• Since the gun buy-back scheme, total gun deaths have dropped from about 3.5 per 100,000 to just 1 per 100,000. About 600 deaths in 1992 to just 225 in 2008, in a rapidly growing population.
• Homicide rates from firearms in Australia had been pretty steady from 1915 to 1996, and then rapidly and significantly declined for the first time ever after the 1997 buy-back scheme.
• Number of mass shootings in Australia in the 16 years since 1996: zero. When deranged people do not have access to weapons of mass destruction, they will not be able to mass destruct.

Source:
Australian Institute of Criminology

So when you say FWIW at the end of your post, its worth zippo. Nada. Zilch. In fact its worth less that nothing. It confuses the issue and misleads legitimate debate.

[Gurn Blanston]

Most of those numbers are all incorrect or out of context. I'm not sure where you dredged that up from but they bear no resemblance to the real statistics. You can't just quote stuff from the internet to make a point without reliable references. I'm glad to see your subsequent post acknowledges its unreliability.

My original arguments were based on statistics from reliable sources.

Looking at statistics provided by the Australia Bureau of Statistics and the Australian Institute of Criminology:

• The buyback scheme did in fact costs $500 million. That is just $25 per person in Australia and resulted in the destruction of 640,000 banned weapons. In my opinion, and the opinion of the vast majority of Australians, that is $25 well spent. Even people who hated that particular Prime Minister (John Howard) applauded that particular law and its legacy. Americans seem to have an aversion of spending public money for the common good. I doubt that an Australian-style US buy-back scheme would or could ever be implemented both because of the sheer volume of guns (the Govmint would go broke) and the social attitudes prevailing. A country that can't even implement universal health care won't stand a chance of a gun buy-back scheme.
• Accidental firearm deaths have not increased by 300%. They have in fact remained steady at about 18 to 40 deaths per year. Makes sense because accidental deaths are often from people who legitimately own guns and the number of those people have not changed.


• The claimed increase in assault rate of 800% is incorrect. It is true that the rates of assault (defined as any act of physical or sexual violence) has been rising. Population adjusted, assaults have increased by a factor of 2 in 10 years. Note that assault rates are completely unrelated to gun laws or the 1997 gun buy-back scheme.  Assaults have been rising steadily even before 1997, and the buy-back scheme had no effect on the rate. Factors thought to be behind the increase in assaults include greater reporting rates (people are now more likely to go to the police to report), increasing urbanisation with greater population densities, changing economic/social factors, and a changing demographic.


• The armed robbery claim is also fantasy. Total armed robberies have remained constant between 1996 and 207 at about 500 per month, with the armed robbery rate (robberies per head of population) has dropped by 20%. There  was an unusual peak in armed robberies in 2001, and your stats have probably cherry-picked that particular year. The proportion of armed robbery involving firearms has decreased from 28% in 1995 to just 14% in 2000.


• the claim about increased firearm homicide rates in Victoria is an example of cherry-picking data. Firearm homicide rates in Victoria in 1996 was 7 (i.e. 7 people killed with guns) and in 1997 was 19, an increase of 171%. Small sample size and statistically insignificant. This is the only state and the only time period that showed a blip of an increase. Every other time period and every other state showed a significant drop in firearm homicide rates. Overall, the firearm homicide rates in Australia has dropped by 50% and the firearm suicide rates have dropped from 22% of all suicides to just 7% of all suicides, with a drop in total suicides.

Note that it is interesting in what numbers your quote neglected to include.

• Since the gun buy-back scheme, total gun deaths have dropped from about 3.5 per 100,000 to just 1 per 100,000. About 600 deaths in 1992 to just 225 in 2008, in a rapidly growing population.
• Homicide rates from firearms in Australia had been pretty steady from 1915 to 1996, and then rapidly and significantly declined for the first time ever after the 1997 buy-back scheme.
• Number of mass shootings in Australia in the 16 years since 1996: zero. When deranged people do not have access to weapons of mass destruction, they will not be able to mass destruct.

Source:
Australian Institute of Criminology

So when you say FWIW at the end of your post, its worth zippo. Nada. Zilch. In fact its worth less that nothing. It confuses the issue and misleads legitimate debate.

But my sharing of the common wisdom that is going around gave you a wonderful opportunity to expand your points. So that is a value in itself. BTW, I knew already it was the bunk because I researched it before posting. Snopes.com have a fairly in-depth article about it. It claims to have originated from an Aussie cop, BTW. 

[Dungeon Master]

Note again that even in Australia we don't have a total blanket ban on guns.

To get a Firearms Licence in Australia you need:



• Genuine Reason - farmers, professional hunters, pest/feral animal controllers, sports/competition shooters
• 28 day cooling off period
• pass a Firearms Awareness Test
• prove you have secure storage
• prove your identity with 100 point verification
• criminal background check

Who could possibly argue with any of that?

What we do ban is automatic and semi-automatic weapons that can inflict so much death so quickly. Those weapons are useful in war. They have no place in any civilian civilised society.

[Dungeon Master]

But my sharing of the common wisdom that is going around gave you a wonderful opportunity to expand your points.   

You are my muse.   

[mc ukrneal]

In a case of dueling sources, speaking for myself, the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy has more credibility than a newspaper blog.

But YMMV.

Let's see, that link references multiple sources, one of which is a Harvard study as well. So it's Harvard 1 Harvard 1! Perhaps you'd like to try again?

[mc ukrneal]

But in fact states with the highest rates of gun ownership are not among the states with the highest rates of murder, except for Alabama -  

See this list

States with Extremely High Populations of Gun Owners(more than 50%)
1. Wyoming - 59.7%
2. Alaska - 57.8%
3. Montana - 57.7%
4. South Dakota - 56.6%
5. West Virginia - 55.4%
6. Mississippi - 55.3%
6. Arkansas - 55.3%
7. Idaho - 55.3%
9. Alabama - 51.7%
10. North Dakota - 50.7%

States with the highest murder rates
              2011   2010   
Louisiana         11.2   11.0   
Mississippi   8.0   6.9   
New Mexico   7.5   6.8   
Maryland   6.8   7.4   
South Carolina   6.8   5.7
Alabama   6.3   5.7   6.8
Michigan   6.2   5.9
Arizona   6.2   6.4   5.8
Missouri   6.1   7.0
Tennessee   5.8   5.6

And Mississippi. I'd have to sit down with both lists to fairly evaluate your conclusion, but I find it interesting that the murder rates are coming down pretty much in every state compared to 10-15 years ago. 

[kishnevi]

Note again that even in Australia we don't have a total blanket ban on guns.

To get a Firearms Licence in Australia you need:



• Genuine Reason - farmers, professional hunters, pest/feral animal controllers, sports/competition shooters
• 28 day cooling off period
• pass a Firearms Awareness Test
• prove you have secure storage
• prove your identity with 100 point verification
• criminal background check

Who could possibly argue with any of that?

What we do ban is automatic and semi-automatic weapons that can inflict so much death so quickly. Those weapons are useful in war. They have no place in any civilian civilised society.

The list of genuine reasons leaves out the most important, and only necessary, reason to own a gun:  to protect oneself against feral humans, ie, criminals who of course will possess a gun without bothering to comply with a background check they obviously can't pass.

It also means that Australians are forced to prostrate themselves before police and bureaucrats for the sake of whatever after the fact protection is available.

Two points to clarify for myself:
1) I don't see why making sure the mentally ill and criminals aren't able to buy guns (legally--of course there's not many ways to stop them if they are determined to buy them illegally), and banning of military style weapons should be seen as anything other than common sense provisions.  But the only real way to stop mass shootings is not to ban the guns, but to enforce existing laws that would make it much more difficult for people like Adam Lanza to own guns.
2) I don't own a gun myself, but that's for purely religious/theological reasons of my own.  As a political/legal matter,  I think every person should be able to buy whatever firearms they find necessary to defend themselves, unless they're proven to be dangers themselves because of a history of criminal acts or mental illness.

[Daverz]

My wife knows of a site with a list of school shootings and the specific SSRI the perpetrator was on; I will try to get it and post. 

And they got this information how, exactly?

But in the meantime, here is something from The Daily Kos, no NRA mouth piece there, about this aspect, and this specific case.
The drugging of our children and Adam Lanza

"According to a neighbor of Adam Lanza [...]".  I lost interest after that.

[Brahmsian]

Keep in mind that Connecticut has had no history of violent crime, and in fact is in the lower one-third of states as far as murder rates. What is disturbing is that in all school shootings, including this one, the perpetrator has been on psychotropic medication. 

My point is that I wish more scrutiny were being given to this aspect and not so much on gun regulation.

Oh, I see.  So let us not ban guns or have gun laws, but let us ban the anti-depressant and anti-psychotic meds.

I should be due pretty soon to go on a shooting spree. 

[Brahmsian]

We could go back to the dark ages and just put all the 'mentally ill' in institutions.  That would include yours truly (I have ha  d clinical depression and major anxiety for years).

Although, before you lock me up and throw away the key, do know that I have made several strides forward, landing a terrific job (best job I've ever had), fully functional.  Yes, I am on medications for my 'mental illnesses', but I manage OK, with trying to be 'on top of my illness', with counselling, positive thinking, and regular visits to psychologist/medical doctor, and I'm now more aware of any changes in my condition.

Right now, I feel as close to 100% as I have in decades. 

Hurry though......this offer will expire surely, and a Winnipeg shooting rampage of 200+ by ChamberNut will just be a matter of time.

[Geo Dude]

I can't help but think that insisting that psychotropic medications are connected with killing sprees is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.  We live in a time where the average person with psychological issues will make an attempt to get help for it and may very well end up on medicine.  It doesn't necessarily mean that the medicine is the trigger for the killing spree - just as likely (if not more likely) is that the medicine simply doesn't help enough to prevent it from happening.

[Brahmsian]

Quite frankly, there is no solution to this.  Whatsoever.  Gun laws or no gun laws, gun control or no gun control.

If a person is at the end of their rope, and decides selfishly to take other lives before taking his/her own, then there really isn't much one can do.  Even a 'normal' person could snap one day and 'lose it'.

Perhaps assisted suicide for those who've had enough with the hardships of life might help, although not sure that would help either?

[Brahmsian]

And I'm tired of people's USA bashing of gun control laws (and admittedly, I have been one of those bashers in the past).

This incident could have happened anywhere in the world, regardless of gun laws (or lack thereof).  Plain and simple.