Here's one possible answer from the CDC

One thing that has been a pet peeve of mine ever since I was a teenager is lumping all gun deaths together and thinking that some one-size-fits-all solution is appropriate.

In order to have a chance of addressing things, you need to break things out among several non-exclusive categories, including: suicide, accidents involving children, accidents involving adults, incidents during the commission of another crime, accidents during firearms activities (such as shooting at the range or hunting), premeditated homicides, heat-of-the-moment homicides, self-defense, incidents involving legally-owned firearms, incidents involving illegally owned or obtained firearms. There's probably a few I'm missing.

 

Deep breaths... Deeeep.... Breaths... 1.2.3...

I'd like to interject and both remind the commenters on this thread that beliefs and emotions run strong on topics such as this one and commend all posters for a clean if spirited discussion on a difficult topic thus far. Despite some gripes to the staff and discussion by same about banned topics etc., the thread was allowed to continue because of the generally considerate nature of the posters and the acknowledgement of differing viewpoints. I've noticed the same lately in other threads on potentially incendiary topics and think that's a good thing, too.

AAC may just go down in history as the first place on the web that can accommodate such discussion while sharing and seeing each other's viewpoints on difficult topics and still remaining a worthwhile place to be.

Well done.

Oops, sorry.. let it out 3.2.1...

 

Here's one possible answer from the CDC

Yes, I like that one.
I think @nsaspook pointed that one out along with legalizing abortion for the reduction over the last 20 years.
But having said that it isn't a fact. Read on in your link.

 

That's my understanding -- the dealer is responsible for permanently maintaining the Form 4473. What I don't have much of a feel for is what happens to the 4473 when the dealer goes out of business -- neither what is supposed to happen nor what generally happens in practice.

I had a curio and relics FFL for a number of years mainly to buy some really nice Russian SKS and ME rifles from direct importers. For a non-NICS transaction the time period is 20 years. That reminds me to look to see if I can trash any old 4473 records today.

EDIT: Yes I can! Five less records on file, next stop the shredder.

 

I thought we had already been through all of that. There are LOTS and LOTS of factors other than the number of guns.

Don't take it personal. I'll just poke you with @tcmtech's stick once more and quit.
The other factors are what I'm interested in. @nsaspook came up with some.

Plus, as has been pointed out, that graph you keep posting is the result of cherry picking countries to fit an agenda. What does it mean to be a "developed country" and why aren't several other countries that have higher death rates and that are at least as "developed" as some of those in that list aren't included?

There is a definition of developed countries. They have similar GDP,GNP, income, etc.. I didn't choose them - they chose me. It just wouldn't be right to compare the US. to Liberia or the Congo.

And while you're at it, please tell me (not "again" because I don't recall you ever explaining it a first time) why some of the world's worst mass shootings have happened in countries that have very strict gun laws (including in some of the countries toward the left end of that chart you are so fond of)?

Perhaps you can explain why the frequency per capita of public mass shootings is much higher is some of those countries compared to the U.S.. The U.S., from 2009 through 2015, has an occurrence rate of 7.8 mass shooting per 100 million people over that period while France has 9.2, Austria had 11.9, Finland has 18.4, Norway had 19.7, and Switzerland had 24.9. The U.S. was #12 on that list. The country that is first was Macedonia with 47.1.

Perhaps you can explain how it is possible that the E.U., over that period had more than half again as many casualties per capita from mass shootings than the U.S..

How is it possible that, since 1970, considering mass public shootings in which more than fifteen people have been killed, none of the top 20 are in the U.S. (and only 10% of the top 44)?

I think the simple answer is that they have a higher population of disgruntled people that are angry at us/them. But as spectacular as those are and all the media attention they get they don't move the number much.

 

Deep breaths... Deeeep.... Breaths... 1.2.3...

I'd like to interject and both remind the commenters on this thread that beliefs and emotions run strong on topics such as this one and commend all posters for a clean if spirited discussion on a difficult topic thus far. Despite some gripes to the staff and discussion by same about banned topics etc., the thread was allowed to continue because of the generally considerate nature of the posters and the acknowledgement of differing viewpoints. I've noticed the same lately in other threads on potentially incendiary topics and think that's a good thing, too.

AAC may just go down in history as the first place on the web that can accommodate such discussion while sharing and seeing each other's viewpoints on difficult topics and still remaining a worthwhile place to be.

Well done.

Oops, sorry.. let it out 3.2.1...

Thanks John. I think you may be right. It may be a little touchy.
But it has been a spirited discussion and perhaps something has been learned. I know I got some new ideas.
Thanks for letting it run!

 

But having said that it isn't a fact.

Should we not believe the CDC ... probably not because they had their funding cut because they were attempting to drive a political agenda disguised as real research with respect to guns.

 

and thinking that some one-size-fits-all solution is appropriate.

The critters in DC only come up with "one size fits all" solutions.

Vehicle deaths still exceed gun deaths. I'm sure glad the government has a good handle on regulating vehicles. If cars were outlawed, only outlaws would have cars.

 

There is a definition of developed countries. They have similar GDP,GNP, income, etc.. I didn't choose them - they chose me. It just wouldn't be right to compare the US. to Liberia or the Congo.

Yes there is. The US is like 8th on the list, according to wiki. The metric on that one is Human Development Index.

For GDP, the US is 10th according to this wiki. GDP per capita is an interesting metric.

 

Should we not believe the CDC ... probably not because they had their funding cut because they were attempting to drive a political agenda disguised as real research with respect to guns.

From the link:

specifically: "80% of gun homicides are gang-related"

Can anyone else tell me if I've missing something? It seems like an excellent data point to bust out during debates.

Edit: The verdict is that it's 80% of homicides in CHICAGO, i.e. "gun-free" utopia. See here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/29/chicago-homicide-rate-new-york_n_2378073.html

Nothing in the CDC report about guns.

 

Nothing in the CDC report about guns.

Maybe I should have checked snoops.

 

There is a definition of developed countries. They have similar GDP,GNP, income, etc.. I didn't choose them - they chose me. It just wouldn't be right to compare the US. to Liberia or the Congo.

Yes, there is a definition of developed countries. But (1) what is magical about "developed countries" that makes using only them a reasonable basis for comparison and, (2) why do they leave out several countries that are on that very list of "developed countries" when making the comparison? Countries that meet the same criteria as the countries from the same list that they chose to include?

 

From the link:

specifically: "80% of gun homicides are gang-related"

Can anyone else tell me if I've missing something? It seems like an excellent data point to bust out during debates.

Edit: The verdict is that it's 80% of homicides in CHICAGO, i.e. "gun-free" utopia. See here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/29/chicago-homicide-rate-new-york_n_2378073.html

Nothing in the CDC report about guns.

I'm not sure what the bottom line here is.

My understanding is that gang-related homicides (regardless of weapon) account for somewhere around half of all homicides, particularly in large urban areas, which dominate the overall statistics (figure that Cook County, Illinois -- where Chicago is located -- has a higher population that Colorado, Montana, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming combined). So while I think that 80% figure is too high, I think if you cut it in half to about 40% you are probably in the ballpark.

 

Yes, there is a definition of developed countries. But (1) what is magical about "developed countries" that makes using only them a reasonable basis for comparison and, (2) why do they leave out several countries that are on that very list of "developed countries" when making the comparison? Countries that meet the same criteria as the countries from the same list that they chose to include?

Shall we use wiki to do the whole list?

 

49 dead in Orlando. Meh. We lose that many about every 25 days in Chicago. How much do you hear in the news about that?

 

Shall we use wiki to do the whole list?

I'd be interested in seeing the results. Getting the list itself is pretty trivial. Getting the necessary data is going to be harder, even leaving aside having to dig deep enough that you are confident that the data you find is at least oranges to tangerines in how it is compiled. But then again, I'm far from certain that the data for the countries that are always reported aren't apples to broccoli comparisons. I just don't know. I know that a lot of the data in other areas are completely incompatible and yet get reported as direct comparisons. One examples are things like infant mortality rates. The U.S. counts as an infant death any live birth even if the infant died immediately thereafter. But this gets compared directly to countries that don't count infant deaths that occur in the first day (or longer), or if the birth weight was less than a certain amount, or if the birth was premature by more than so many weeks. The U.S. counts all of those (it counts ANY birth, at any weight or any gestational age) and, not surprisingly, that is going to include a lot of high-risk births that have a very high mortality rate that simply don't get counted in the stats from some countries. The same is true for all kinds of statistics -- and it's merely the nature of the beast since every country defines things in a way that makes sense to them for their purposes.

 

This one includes suicides and accidental. Maybe tomorrow I'll do a stacked one so we can see some more detail.
Most of the Arab countries have no data.

 

Breaking out that data is really important, because there is a really big skewing factor at play in several places.

Take suicides. Is it really surprising that people that commit suicide are more likely to do so with a gun if they have access to it? No. So it should not be surprising that a higher fraction of suicides are committed with a gun among populations that have greater access. But the real question is whether significantly more people commit suicide BECAUSE they have access to a gun, or would they have committed suicide some other way had they not had access to a gun.

About 25 years ago Time magazine was on the anti-gun warpath and put out an issue that included a picture of every person in the country that had committed suicide during a particular week (which was around a bit over 500 people). They spent a great deal of time harping on the fact that right about half of those suicides were by gun (overwhelmingly handguns) and that most of those people would still be alive if guns weren't so freely available. Yet in that very same article they pointed out that half of Americans had easy access to a handgun. Hello! That means that half of the population didn't and since an equal portion of the population didn't commit suicide by gun, it's very hard to claim that any significant fraction of people that killed themselves with a gun wouldn't has simply chosen a different method if one weren't available -- just consider that for every person that didn't have easy access and went to the trouble to get one to kill themselves was someone that had easy access that chose some other method. To highlight that, studies done in several countries, including Canada and Australia, following the enactment of significantly stricter gun laws found that suicide by firearms declined but that suicides by other means, such as hanging, increased and that the overall suicide rate wasn't significantly impacted one way or the other.

 

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Breaking out that data is really important, because there is a really big skewing factor at play in several places.

Take suicides. Is it really surprising that people that commit suicide are more likely to do so with a gun if they have access to it? No. So it should not be surprising that a higher fraction of suicides are committed with a gun among populations that have greater access. But the real question is whether significantly more people commit suicide BECAUSE they have access to a gun, or would they have committed suicide some other way had they not had access to a gun.

About 25 years ago Time magazine was on the anti-gun warpath and put out an issue that included a picture of every person in the country that had committed suicide during a particular week (which was around a bit over 500 people). They spent a great deal of time harping on the fact that right about half of those suicides were by gun (overwhelmingly handguns) and that most of those people would still be alive if guns weren't so freely available. Yet in that very same article they pointed out that half of Americans had easy access to a handgun. Hello! That means that half of the population didn't and since an equal portion of the population didn't commit suicide by gun, it's very hard to claim that any significant fraction of people that killed themselves with a gun wouldn't has simply chosen a different method if one weren't available -- just consider that for every person that didn't have easy access and went to the trouble to get one to kill themselves was someone that had easy access that chose some other method. To highlight that, studies done in several countries, including Canada and Australia, following the enactment of significantly stricter gun laws found that suicide by firearms declined but that suicides by other means, such as hanging, increased and that the overall suicide rate wasn't significantly impacted one way or the other.

Good point. Homicides could work the same. Let me check that out.