We The People USA

Citizens Dedicated To Preserving Our Constitutional Republic

Interesting Article that debunks Gun Grabber Rhetoric

Source; http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/gun-ownership-rates-and-gun-contr...

Gun ownership rates and gun control laws still don't have much bearing on your state's gun homicide rate

by David Freddoso | 

I spent part of my holiday going back over the (relatively) new 2016 FBI crime numbers for a few minutes. There is one data set that I've been following for several years now — the number of gun homicides in each of the 50 states. It continues to confound most people's assumptions about guns and gun crime.

I looked a few years ago at the absence of a correlation between gun ownership and gun crime in.... As surprising as it might sound, neither higher gun ownership rates in a state nor varied attitudes toward gun policy seem to correspond with more gun murders (or even with more gun robberies). This was still true in 2015 and now in 2016 as well. In the graph that follows, each dot is a state, plotted for gun homicide rate and gun ownership rate in 2016. The correlation here is too small to be statistically significant.

Then again, gun ownership survey data are not necessarily known for being reliable or up-to-date. If we don't want to lean too heavily on the data from Injury Prevention magazine (which I chose because it had been used by others to make various arguments), we can still get a ballpark confirmation of this concept by looking just at how the states rank.

On the chart below, you'll notice a number of states with little in common in terms of gun policy are neighbors when it comes to gun murder rates. (Note also that Florida and Alabama are omitted from all of these charts — those two states seem to flout FBI reporting perennially.)

Here's an example of what I mean: It really says something that in 2015, Texas, where any sane non-felon can attend church on Sunday with a rifle strapped to his body and then carry it across the street into his local Starbucks without a permit (please don't do this), had a nearly identical gun homicide rate as California, where such behavior would get you arrested instantly and perhaps sent to Gitmo or worse. Similar pairings of disparate states can be found between restrictive Maryland and permissive Georgia, restrictive Massachusetts and permissive Utah, and others.

In 2016, the numbers varied a bit, but the story was similar. States with extremely permissive gun laws like Idaho, North Dakota, and Vermont shared similar low rates of gun murder with very restrictive states like Massachusetts and Rhode Island. At the other end of the chart, restrictive Illinois and permissive South Carolina; restrictive Maryland and permissive Tennessee shared similar and disturbingly high rates of gun homicide. New Jersey, where out-of-state drivers are sometimes arrested for having their guns anywhere in their own cars, is roughly comparable to Wisconsin, a permissive concealed-carry state where you can carry your gun on the city bus and no one can tell yo....

Beyond just the idea that criminals don't follow gun control laws, the main problem is that the law is rarely a good preventative. Gun laws are primarily used after the fact to pile up longer sentences upon known (or suspected) criminals who get caught with guns. They are rarely used in a way that prevents mass shootings or common gun crime. Even when it comes to illegal purchases — one area of the law that should serve as a clear preventative — the federal government has been famously loath to prosecute known violators.

One thing that actually does correlate with higher gun ownership is a higher gun suicide rate. It would be interesting to have a debate over gun control that centers on suicide, but we never do that. And unfortunately, a lot of statistics are tossed around carelessly about "gun deaths" that deliberately try to conflate gun crime and gun suicide in the cause of making the case for gun control seem stronger than it really is.

Even if the "more guns, less crime" hypothesis vastly overstates the case, there's no evidence that a more permissive legal regimen invites more gun crime, or that any peculiar set of gun laws represents an ideal for minimizing crime. If you want to figure out why Maryland has so many more shootings per capita than Texas, or Alaska than Massachusetts, you're going to have to look at other differences that take you beyond a myopic focus on gun policy.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Considering the article above, I feel it is necessary for everyone regardless if they are Pro or Anti Gun and gun ownership to revisit actual facts and figures so we as a nation can come up with rational laws that honor the intent of the Second amendment and will help prevent gun deaths while stripping old laws that do nothing to prevent the violence and actually tend to enhance the ability of the Criminal Element and Mentally Unsound to commit such violence.

What say you all?

Views: 66

Reply to This

Badge

Loading…

Online Magazines

Accuracy In Media
American Spectator
American Thinker
American Conservative
Amer Conservative Daily
The American Prospect
Atlanta Const Journal
The Atlantic Monthly
Boston Review
Blacklisted News
The Bulletin
Canada Free Press
Capitalism Magazine
Chronicles Magazine
City Journal
CNS News
CNIN Truth
Conservative Economist
Consortium News
Commentary Magazine
The Conservative Edge
Conservative Outpost
Corruption Chronicals (JW)
The Corzine Times
CounterPunch
The Daily Caller
Daily Mail UK
Deep Journal
Digital Journal
Dissent Magazine
The Economist
Examiner
Florida Pundit
Foreign Affairs
Foreign Policy
The Freemen Institute
The Gouverneur Times NY
The Guardian UK
The Foundry (Heritage)
Free Market News
FrontPage Magazine
Gateway Pundit
The Guardian UK
The Globalist
Harper's Magazine
Harvard Inter Review
The Hill
Human Events
In These Times
The Land of the Free
Liberty Unbound
Mission America
Mother Jones
Monthly Review
The Nation
National Interest
National Ledger
National Review
New Internationalist
The New American
The New Ledger
New Left Review
New Media Journal
News Hounds
Newstin
The New Republic
News Busters
News Fifty
NewsMax
Newsweek
News Daily
News With Views
Online Journal
Oohja.com
The Palestine Chronicle
Planet Daily
Policy Review
Poligazette
Politics Daily
The Post Chronicle
Pravda
The Progressive
Reality Check
The Real News Network
Reason
Real Clear Markets
Real Clear Politics
Red Pepper
Roll Call
Russia Today
Salon
Slate
Spectator Magazine
Spiked
Telegraph UK
Time
Toward Freedom
Townhall
U.S. News & World Report
Utne Reader
Wall Street Journal Magazine
Washington Examiner
The Washington Independent
Washington Monthly
The Weekly Standard
World Net Daily
World Magazine
World Press Review
World Reports
World Tribune
Vanity Fair

© 2024   Created by WTPUSA.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service