Gun shot wounds vs. Stab Wounds - Chance of surviving an attack
One particular argument made is that because knives are less deadly than guns, if criminals switched over to guns, there would be less deaths. There is an inherent folly in this argument, as the criminal may actually switch to more lethal guns other than a gun. Examples include an explosive, a car, arson or poison, or a weapon on par with a gun, such as an axe, a sword, a bow and arrow, crossbow or other type of weapon. This is in the context of 67 people being killed in the worst mass shooting in the world, compared to just one example of 87 with a truck, 168 from an explosive, 173 with arson, and 900 with poison. The deadliest single attack in the world was 9/11, with 3,000 dead, and the next deadliest was an arson-bombing, where a bomb was used to light the surrounding environment on fire. It's a false dichotomy to merely assume that all criminals would switch over to knives, as there are simply other weapons in the world that do exist. And it's another fallacy to merely assume that knives are deadlier than guns.
Before we get in to the statistics themselves, it's important to note a few things. First, the statistics vary wildly in results, and this may be because of a number of factors that weren't considered such as the suicide prevalence or accidental injuries being separate from assault injuries. Secondly, the results of medical statistics often times reveal that guns are used far more often in certain scenarios which are more likely to lead to death, compared to knives. The most common form of knife injury is accidental, that is cutting oneself while chopping vegetables or opening a package, where as the most common form of gun death is suicide. Because self inflicted injuries to the head carry a much higher death rate (95%) compared to accidental injuries from knives (less than 2%), lumping these two statistics together will invariably lead to gunshot wounds appearing to be more lethal, even though the circumstances of how the wounds were inflicted is what determines the lethality rather than the object itself. It's also worth nothing that most statistics count all "stab wounds" as the same, even though they could be done with a variety of different weapons or objects (I.E. poking yourself with a needle would be a "stab wound", which would be lumped in to the same statistics as being stabbed repeatedly with a butcher's knife). While just 2% of suicides are committed using knives, approximately 65% of suicides are from guns. In fact, out of the approximately 30,000 gun deaths, 2/3rds or, 20,000, were from suicides, while only around 10,000 were from homicides. Looking at 2016 statistics for example, There is also the fact that if used for murder, a knife could be coated in poison, infectious materials, anticoagulants, acid, or used to stab someone multiple times, thus increasing the deadliness of the attack even if the knife by itself was not more deadly. Like guns, not all knives are the same, and a small pocket knife will have a lower mortality rate than a large butcher's knife, in the same way that a .22 rifle will be less deadly than a .50 caliber machine gun.
The studies which have founds guns to be more deadly may be scientifically correct, however if the argument is based on your chance of dying from assault, the results may be misleading if presented in the wrong light. It's worth noting as well that your chance of dying per stab wound isn't the same as dying per attack; if stabbed 50 times you're probably more likely to die from a murderer with a knife than a murder who only shoots you once, for example, or vice versa. As for guns being more likely to cause suicides, this has been disputed in another article of mine, and many studies have shown how banning guns did not result in less suicides, such as in Australia where hangings went up an equivalent amount by which gun suicides dropped. It's more or less the case that guns are not a cause of suicide, evidenced by many countries with low gun ownership and high suicide rates (such as Japan). Suicide methods tend to be more cultural, with some places favoring asphyxiation or poison, and some places favoring jumpings or knife wounds, and some places favoring guns. It's less so the chance of death, and more so the cultural elements of that society. A knife culture, such as the Philippines or Japan, tends to have most murders and suicides be by knives where as in America, they are by guns. The reality is that weapon choice is often more so a factor of culture and not legal availability, and that deadliness itself rarely factors in to the choice by the criminals. Rat poison is comparatively cheap and easy to obtain compared to a gun, and a bullet coated in poison could have a nearly 100% fatality rate and yet such actions are essentially very rare. Availability of poison and it's deadliness have rarely factored in to it's use. Acid attacks in the UK for example have only recently come on the rise, where as the chemicals to obtain the acid have been around for decades or even centuries.
Doing my own math
There are a number of different factors for determining how likely a gun or knife is in it's chance to kill you. The first is the type of weapon, with a butcher's knife or ice pick being more likely to kill you than a pocket knife, and a shotgun more likely to kill someone than a handgun. Even from sources which suggest that gunshot wounds are deadlier than knife wounds, these discrepancies are generally shown, as they typically tend to hold true in all cases. The second is how the weapon is used, as self inflicted injuries are substantially more likely to result in death than injuries inflicted by accident or by an assailant. While Suicide by firearms in the U.S. had an approximately 95% chance of death, assaults by guns only had about a 15% chance of death, and accidental injuries by guns only had a 2.5% chance of death. This can be derived largely by looking at the total number of injuries from the firearm's attempted use, and comparing it to the number of deaths, with x out x etc. The same is largely true with knives, Knives however are rarely used in suicides however, only approximately 2% of the times, compared to 65% with guns, with the vast majority of knife injuries being from accidents or x percent, and only x being from deliberate assaults. With nearly two-thirds of firearms deaths being from suicide, and the vast majority of wounds from knives being from accidental injuries, this is largely where the disparity between a statistical chance of dying from a type of wound comes from. With these two figures removed, that is suicides and accidental deaths, the parity between knife and firearm assault statistics becomes clear. x asdfsdf
While statistics suggesting that gunshot wounds are more deadly than knife wounds are often technically accurate, they rely on a correlation of how guns are more often used. It is correct to assert that medical records often show that gunshot wounds result in deaths more frequently than knife wounds, however it is incorrect to assert that a knife assault attack is significantly more or less deadly than a knife attack based on this data. When in the context of a murder, or a mass murder, a knife would theoretically kill nearly the same amount of people as a gun, that is in an assault. In other words, it's incorrect to say that if a mass shooter had a knife instead of a gun, he would kill less people, as it would be roughly around the same. Mass murders are different slightly in that medical personnel are often overwhelmed by the raw number of injuries or delayed by the attacker themselves, reducing their ability to treat wounds. This might make knives slightly more deadly in some circumstances than guns as they are more likely to cause excessive bleed-out, but this depends heavily on the knife and the type of gun used. This would be true with swords or butcher's knives in comparison to smaller pocket knives, or true with larger diameter bullets compared to smaller diameter bullets which create larger wound channels.
Various other people's math - Showing they are not equal
An interesting element of many statistics showing that gunshot wounds are more lethal than stab wounds, is that they often don't take in to account the other potential factors in the cases. For instance, a self inflicted gunshot wound from an attempted suicide has approximately a 95% chance of death, where as accidentally cutting a finger while preparing food or chopping vegetables has under a 1% chance of death. The type of injury and not just the method matters greatly, and more importantly reveals more about the essential question of the deadliness when used by murderers. The real question is not whether or not knives or guns are more or less deadly as a whole, as either are deadly in their respective scenarios, but if they are more deadly when used in similar ways. An accidental cut from a pair of scissors is not going to be the same as a deliberate, self inflicted gunshot wound to the head. The real question is, if a murderer had a knife, instead of a gun, would they kill less people?
The simple way to resolve this is to remove injuries and deaths from all accidents and suicides, and only look at the remaining injuries. From a reductionist stand point, the remaining injuries would have to be an intentional decision to harm someone with a knife or gun, and statistics about this do exist by itself. Self defense shootings and stabbings will be included as the intent was to harm others (even if for a good cause), and the data for self defense might reveal which weapons are better or worse for incapacitating your opponent.
For instance, a study often cited by gun control proponents was about the survival rates for individuals after they were put in to an ambulance. [1] This was not about measuring gun murders vs. knife murders, but rather about their chance of surviving based on which form of medical transportation they received which, automatically shows how circumstances and medical treatment is more important to survival than the weapon itself, but I digress. It should be noted that more stab wound victims than gunshot wounds are found DOA (Dead on Arrival), due to guns making a louder noise and a bright flash, and this alerting nearby individuals who are more inclined to call the police than the sound a knife wound makes. A third of patients with gunshot wounds (33.0 percent) died compared with 7.7 percent of patients with stab wounds. At first glance, this would make guns approximately 4 times more deadly than knives, or 4.28. However, this is for all injuries, and not for assault-style attacks. If we do the math, 2/3rds of the gunshot wounds were self inflicted suicides compare to just 2% by knives, which reduces the figure to 11% compared to 7.7%. And if accidents are accounted for on both sides and removed and only assaults are analyzed, the death rate increases for knives and guns, and puts them at roughly on par levels.
This is not the fault of the study or the scientists, but rather the fault of political advocates who have misinterpreted the results of the study. It's important to understand what a study means rather than making blanket assumptions based on a more vague concept. Another similar study which overtly made the claim that gunshot wounds were 8 times more deadly than knife wounds made similar mistakes (which is the fault of those who made the study). The immediate flaw was in excluding causes of deaths from knives that were, such as bleed out or infection, which automatically halved the difference between the two. When suicides and accidents are accounted for and only intentional assaults are analyzed, we find a similar plurality between the
Monday, July 3, 2017
Friday, January 20, 2017
Type of Firearm - Does it make a difference?
Type of Firearm - Does it make a difference?
A lot of gun control debates revolve around the concept of regulating a certain type of firearm. It's not that all firearms are deadly, only a very select few. While I certainly enjoy the sentiment and taken to the most extreme assertion is true (a 155mm howitzer is deadlier than a .22 LR for instance), for the most part civilian weapons are not that much deadlier than each other, given what's already illegal. The question of banning certain firearms is in regards to those that are not already illegal so, a better question would be; among legal firearms, is there a significance difference that the type of firearm makes in regards to deadliness, the amount of deaths in mass shootings, or the ease of killing other people in general? The short answer is, there is very little difference.
In mass shootings in the U.S. for example, only approximately 9.7% of all the weapons used could be considered "assault weapons". Among these, the actual death rate was about the same as weapons that did not qualify as assault weapons, and as a result indicates that the death toll between weapon types is almost irrelevant when used in the context of, murder. It didn't seem to make the killer any more effective (when compared to other commonly available firearms) or make their job any easier in the majority of circumstances. The deadliest single person mass shooting in the world was committed with a handgun in norway and killed 67 people [1], worse than the deadliest mass shooting in America which killed 49 people. The second worse mass shooting in America used two pocket pistols which killed 32 people, the fourth deadliest used a pistol and killed 23 people, the fifth deadliest used a pistol and killed 21 people, and the sixth deadliest used a bolt action hunting rifle and a pump action shotgun which killed 16 people. [2] As these weapons wouldn't be banned in an assault weapon ban and most consider hunting weapons to be far less harmful than the proposed "military style" weapons, it might come as a surprise to learn that in fact, these weapons are just as deadly, if not somewhat more deadly than their assault weapon counterparts.
The most recent deadliest mass shooting in America, the Orlando shooting, did in fact involve a firearm that many would consider to be, an "assault weapon". However, he also used a handgun, and committed many of his acts of violence with that weapon. While much of the autopsy information is unclear, it is the case that he fired nearly 200 rounds with both the handgun and assault weapon. It's unlikely then that, if he only had a handgun, that he couldn't have killed as many people. In fact, he may have killed even more. As awful as it is to go in to the details of the debate, these are the details in question, and without the truth we cannot ascertain what the best course of action is. the Aurora shooting for example, out of the 12 murders he committed, 3 were with the explosive device, 3 where with the shotgun, and 3 were with the handgun, while an additional 3 were with the AR-15 "assault weapon". Firing 68 rounds, he managed to kill at least 3 people, where as the shotgun managed to kill 3 people with just 6 rounds, and the pistol managed to kill 3 people with just 5 rounds. This paints a worrisome picture, as if the murderer had only been allowed to use a shotgun or handgun, and fired 68 rounds of shotgun or handgun ammunition instead, this would have been 34 kills, instead of just 3. If he had only been allowed to own the assault weapon, he would have killed just 4 people total, instead of 12. While it certainly isn't good that anyone actually died, if the argument being presented is that less people will die if assault weapons are banned, there not only isn't evidence to back it up, but overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
As it turns out, in the hands of most mass murderers, handguns and shotguns are actually the deadliest weapons available, most of which would have few regulations after an assault weapons ban. A magazine capacity under 10 rounds made little to no difference, and other so called "assault features" seem to contribute little, if any to the deadliness of the firearm in question.
A lot of gun control debates revolve around the concept of regulating a certain type of firearm. It's not that all firearms are deadly, only a very select few. While I certainly enjoy the sentiment and taken to the most extreme assertion is true (a 155mm howitzer is deadlier than a .22 LR for instance), for the most part civilian weapons are not that much deadlier than each other, given what's already illegal. The question of banning certain firearms is in regards to those that are not already illegal so, a better question would be; among legal firearms, is there a significance difference that the type of firearm makes in regards to deadliness, the amount of deaths in mass shootings, or the ease of killing other people in general? The short answer is, there is very little difference.
In mass shootings in the U.S. for example, only approximately 9.7% of all the weapons used could be considered "assault weapons". Among these, the actual death rate was about the same as weapons that did not qualify as assault weapons, and as a result indicates that the death toll between weapon types is almost irrelevant when used in the context of, murder. It didn't seem to make the killer any more effective (when compared to other commonly available firearms) or make their job any easier in the majority of circumstances. The deadliest single person mass shooting in the world was committed with a handgun in norway and killed 67 people [1], worse than the deadliest mass shooting in America which killed 49 people. The second worse mass shooting in America used two pocket pistols which killed 32 people, the fourth deadliest used a pistol and killed 23 people, the fifth deadliest used a pistol and killed 21 people, and the sixth deadliest used a bolt action hunting rifle and a pump action shotgun which killed 16 people. [2] As these weapons wouldn't be banned in an assault weapon ban and most consider hunting weapons to be far less harmful than the proposed "military style" weapons, it might come as a surprise to learn that in fact, these weapons are just as deadly, if not somewhat more deadly than their assault weapon counterparts.
The most recent deadliest mass shooting in America, the Orlando shooting, did in fact involve a firearm that many would consider to be, an "assault weapon". However, he also used a handgun, and committed many of his acts of violence with that weapon. While much of the autopsy information is unclear, it is the case that he fired nearly 200 rounds with both the handgun and assault weapon. It's unlikely then that, if he only had a handgun, that he couldn't have killed as many people. In fact, he may have killed even more. As awful as it is to go in to the details of the debate, these are the details in question, and without the truth we cannot ascertain what the best course of action is. the Aurora shooting for example, out of the 12 murders he committed, 3 were with the explosive device, 3 where with the shotgun, and 3 were with the handgun, while an additional 3 were with the AR-15 "assault weapon". Firing 68 rounds, he managed to kill at least 3 people, where as the shotgun managed to kill 3 people with just 6 rounds, and the pistol managed to kill 3 people with just 5 rounds. This paints a worrisome picture, as if the murderer had only been allowed to use a shotgun or handgun, and fired 68 rounds of shotgun or handgun ammunition instead, this would have been 34 kills, instead of just 3. If he had only been allowed to own the assault weapon, he would have killed just 4 people total, instead of 12. While it certainly isn't good that anyone actually died, if the argument being presented is that less people will die if assault weapons are banned, there not only isn't evidence to back it up, but overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
As it turns out, in the hands of most mass murderers, handguns and shotguns are actually the deadliest weapons available, most of which would have few regulations after an assault weapons ban. A magazine capacity under 10 rounds made little to no difference, and other so called "assault features" seem to contribute little, if any to the deadliness of the firearm in question.
Friday, January 6, 2017
Political Lobbying - A comprehensive review
Tuesday, January 3, 2017
Military weapons - Should they be illegal?
Military weapons - Should they be illegal?
A common phrase I hear is that "military weapons", somehow distinguished from other weapons not used by the military, should be banned. That it's not the average person's firearm that should be banned, but just, those super-deadly weapons used by the military that no civilian should have! While I certainly enjoy the sentiment, the argument unfortunately falls flat when it tries to call out weapons such as the AR-15 or Ak-47, being unaware that the weapons aren't necessarily more lethal, even in a mass shooting, than many other firearms. To put things shortly, something should not be banned because it's in use by the military or conversely, shouldn't be legal just because the military doesn't use it. What determines whether or not something should be legal is entirely dependent on the level of danger it presents to society. Something may only remain available to the military if it's considered too dangerous, but something shouldn't be only relegated to the military, because it's only relegated to the military. This is known as circular reasoning, where a person uses the justification of something existing to justify it's existence. The argument essentially goes that because the weapon is banned, it's justified to being banned. Hopefully, when determining the laws for hundreds of millions of people, more substance will be present in an argument that does so, making this one usually not very effective. Furthermore, there are knives, hunting rifles, brass knuckles, even non-lethal weapons such as tear gas or pepper spray in use by the military, which don't present a tremendous danger simply by virtue of them being a military weapon, and that shouldn't necessarily be illegal. You would need to prove the danger of the weapon itself irregardless of who else used it, which. To say that use by the military should make it illegal by itself, is another common type of fallacy, known as an association fallacy, where simply being associated with something makes it bad (which obviously, isn't true).
For example, nuclear weapons are not needed by civilians and have no practical purpose for self defense. They can destroy an entire city in a single go and can irradiate the land for many years to come. The collateral damage is too immense and if terrorists or North Korea got ahold of good nuclear weapons, they could literally bring about the end to the world as we know it. There's also the fact that anything nuclear is producing nuclear radiation at all times in any case so, it's even dangerous to own and never use as it's constantly leaking out nuclear radiation at all times and just by owning one, you or even your neighbors could die. So, nuclear weapons ought to be banned. Only the military should be allowed to have them because there's no use in every day society or in self defense, and their danger is so great as to limit ownership. Now, in this same argument when someone presents another "military weapon" you'd expect them to explain why it's dangerous. Instead, all they say is that "it's used by the military", and that's the end of their argument. This is an argument without substance, an appeal to association or circular reasoning logic which, unfortunately in most cases a fallacy.
So, why should these weapons be illegal? While I may be able to infer what you mean, if you can't actually prove it, it likely isn't an issue that actually exists. In fact if you can't even name the features that should make it illegal, you have absolutely nothing to your entire argument which is predicated on vague, meaningless rhetoric and quite frankly nothing else. Things should only be made illegal if they've been demonstrated to disproportionately harm society and have no tangible benefit to potentially offset it. If you have failed to do so, it shouldn't be illegal, irregardless of what the subject is. Plenty of military weapons exist that aren't particularly deadly or designed for mass murder, so, simply saying it's a military weapon doesn't hold much water. However, generally speaking I know what people are referring to when they say "military weapon". They actually mean an assault rifle, which is actually already illegal as fully automatic weapons are already illegal. However, they likely believe that a weapon that looks like said assault rifle should be illegal as well, and aren't aware what's in the assault weapon bill or what the actual details contain.
So, not all weapons in use by the military are designed to kill lots of random, unarmed innocent people; in fact, few if any weapons have this stated objective. What of the U.S. military's primary assault rifle; surely, that was designed as "powerful" death machine with an arbitrary power level over 9,000 that can certainly be used not only to defeat something with a weapon of equal power (whatever that means), but that consequently must have the ability to kill lots and lots of people. The simple reality is that the military doesn't design it's weapons for mass murder. Not only is mass murder illegal and immoral, and so the military seeks to avoid it focusing on precision guided weapons such as cruise missiles or heat-seeking missiles etc., but firearms are not particularly well suited for mass murder when compared to other weapons such as say, explosives.With guns, you have to fire one shot at a time, at a single target, and can at best kill one person at a time. It's rather large and loud, and you have to be there in person which gives away your presence immediately and gives the police a chance to kill you in return. Comparatively an explosive can be detonated why you are not even there, such as with a wireless detonator or a timer, and thus you can be out of the country before the bomb even goes off and kills people. It goes off in a matter of seconds, giving no time to mount a defense (unlike a shooter who can be shot) and can kill far more people in that time. The deadliest mass shooting in America, while tragic, killed approximately 50 people, and injured another 50. The deadliest mass bombing, known as 9/11, killed 3,000 people, and injured another 3,000. Looking at the death tolls, explosives not only are on average much more likely to kill far more people, but in the most extreme cases could literally kill over 60 times as many as the deadliest mass shooting, ever, in the U.S. They didn't even use a bomb like a fertilizer bomb or pressure cooker, they literally just hijacked a plane which is a flying bomb in and of itself. So, if a mass murderer used another weapon other than a gun, far more people could die. Particularly, explosives are perhaps the deadliest weapons of choice, but arson, poison, or vehicles tend to be more deadlier than guns. There's no guarantee that a murderer might switch to a less deadly weapon instead, and may instead switch to another weapon entirely, which are generally easier to obtain than a gun. In wars, it's generally explosives which are the biggest killer, not guns, as the power of an artillery shell or 500 pound bomb is far greater than that of a single firearm.
So if the military wants to eliminate 500 enemy targets in a 400 square yard area, do they send in a bunch of men with rifles and shoot one person at a time with their own soldiers having a chance of being shot and killed in the process or, do they simply drop a bomb and annihilate the entire area? The simple reality is they more often than not choose the bomb. Regulations on explosives seem reasonable, as after all it's hard to imagine how a weapon that would blow up me, my family, and my neighbors would have a tangible benefit for home defense, but guns which can be used to take down just one person at a time do not seem very reasonable. So, what are firearms designed for, by the military? Well, the primary purpose of firearms in use with the military tends to be precision and self defense. When a hostage situation occurs, they send in the Navy Seals not because they are the deadliest unit in the U.S. military- quite frankly, a single pilot with one bomb would likely kill more than any navy seal in their lifetime- but due to their precision. A bomb that effects too wide of an area, such as an explosive, would kill everyone in the area, including the hostages, making the weapon ineffective. Instead, they send in soldiers who risk their lives to take down each of the bad guys one by one, person by person, to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties. A bullet is generally less than an inch wide, and thus will only impact an area about this size. When it hits a person, it creates a small hole in them, which gets down to the internal organs, and usually is enough to incapacitate or stun someone when combined with the secondary shock effects of the energy transfer. The military doesn't send in infantry for mass murder, they send them in primarily to specifically target individuals, as explosives could kill too many people. Infantry make good occupying forces as you can take territory without killing everyone in the region, and therefore liberate or save the local people you're trying to protect.
The weapons in use by the military aren't designed to eliminate as many people as possible in as short an amount of time and especially not, firearms. The military generally speaking expects to face a relatively equal sized military in force. They almost never at least expect to be seriously outnumbered in a fight; if anything, the U.S. military is perhaps among the largest military in the world, so we would actually likely be larger in size than our enemies. It's usually about a 1 to 1 ratio when fighting the enemy as even if you have less numbers in total, you wouldn't engage the enemy in an unequal setting. You won't choose to send 40 guys to fight 1,000, you'd call in back-up for reinforcements. The military weapons are designed to target specific, hardened targets not massacre as many innocent, unarmed people as possible. Our most expensive weapons, such as missiles, are precision guided bombs to prevent collateral damage. It is cheaper and easier to drop 100 2,500 dollar bombs and just blow everything up than it is to send in a much smaller 500,000 missile to target just the bad guys and have just enough explosive to blow up their compound. Certain particular features are designed by military weapons over simple mass murder; in fact this is something that would be completely useless for the military in most firearms. For instance, there was an emphasis on armor penetration in the military for the development of the M16. They liked the maneuverability that submachine guns afforded, but didn't like the short range and lack of armor penetration. At long ranges they were failing to penetrate even thick clothing, and common barriers such as a brick wall or a tree that soldiers could take cover behind weren't being penetrated, as well. By WWII, most soldiers were wearing body armor of some kind, such as a combat helmet, and given that the head was often only what was exposed to the enemy, a much harder target to take down with a pistol. At the same time, even though submachine guns did remarkably well in close quarters combat due to the allowed maneuverability of the weapons, they did rather poor at long ranges. Pistol rounds simply don't have the range of a rifle, and even with the new fancy faster shooting guns, they were completely helpless against a guy with a good bolt action rifle. Even when you had a guy in your unit with such a rifle, it was usually just one guy, and him taking on 50 guys was generally seen as being generally unexpected.
So, the military's idea was to specialize. Find a gun that's just good enough at long ranges to be competitive with the long range bolt actions and capable of piercing armor just well enough to be able to fight against the body armor at the time, and also be able to have the maneuverability and low-weight of a submachine gun. In comes the assault rifle, not the deadliest weapon or really the best at everything. In fact, it was designed deliberately to be a jack of all trades. A weapon that every soldier could be armed with, and if needed to shoot out to long ranges, close ranges or whatever, could fulfill every role. Not the best in every role; less accurate than a sniper rifle, less firepower than a machine gun or submachine gun, but just comparable enough to where an entire squad of soldiers wouldn't be wiped out by a squad that happened to have bolt actions or submachine guns while the squad had the opposite. It avoided a sort of rock-papers-scissors scenario where a squad armed with bolt actions was useless against a squad with submachine guns at close range, but a squad with submachine guns was useless against bolt actions at long range. Every soldier now could at least remain competitive with their firearms, even if it consumed more ammo or wasn't as efficient. These weapons are generally designed to defeat specific targets such as, body armor, which most civilians don't wear and therefore, the risk of weapons that can pierce body armor, to civilians, is generally non-existent. Specific, military targets isn't really the same, being able to kill lots of untrained, unequipped, defenseless people with no armor. The geneva convention requires that bullets used by the military not cause superfluous injuries and be more likely to maim than to kill, meaning that, they generally speaking are not designed to produce lots of deaths. It's actually was chosen for humanitarian reasons. Actual military bullets by law are regulated to prevent deaths, to not be as deadly as powerful. The idea was that bullets should cause injuries, and not deaths; while death is still common, it's far less common with actual military cartridges. So if a civilian used them in a mass murder, in actuality, less people would likely actually die.
Military rifles were designed as general purpose, jack-of-all trade weapons that weren't the best at anything but could be used in any situation. For someone in self defense who doesn't want to kill his whole family or even necessarily the bad guy, but who just wants to injure them enough not to be killed themselves (or have other innocent people killed), guns certainly look appealing. With a military "style" weapon, or perhaps more aptly an assault rifle, you can be ready for any circumstance, which as civilians simply don't know when they're going to be attacked or where, seems appealing to have a general-purpose rifle, like an assault rifle. Other features included are resistance to bad environments, reliability and being light weight, not exactly features that enhance lethality, but do increase usability. In short, even military assault rifles are not actually designed to commit mass murder. And weapons available to civilians are not actually real military rifles in any case. The idea that a weapon is inherently deadly because it's used by the military is a bit arbitrary. Other deadly things like say, chlorine or uranium, aren't currently used by the military and yet their natural toxicity means they should be illegal, irregardless of who uses them. Banning something because the military uses it isn't a very good rule of thumb to understand what's deadly or not, and can be banning both safe weapons, and not banning deadly substances that perhaps aren't weapons at all, but could be used like them.
A common phrase I hear is that "military weapons", somehow distinguished from other weapons not used by the military, should be banned. That it's not the average person's firearm that should be banned, but just, those super-deadly weapons used by the military that no civilian should have! While I certainly enjoy the sentiment, the argument unfortunately falls flat when it tries to call out weapons such as the AR-15 or Ak-47, being unaware that the weapons aren't necessarily more lethal, even in a mass shooting, than many other firearms. To put things shortly, something should not be banned because it's in use by the military or conversely, shouldn't be legal just because the military doesn't use it. What determines whether or not something should be legal is entirely dependent on the level of danger it presents to society. Something may only remain available to the military if it's considered too dangerous, but something shouldn't be only relegated to the military, because it's only relegated to the military. This is known as circular reasoning, where a person uses the justification of something existing to justify it's existence. The argument essentially goes that because the weapon is banned, it's justified to being banned. Hopefully, when determining the laws for hundreds of millions of people, more substance will be present in an argument that does so, making this one usually not very effective. Furthermore, there are knives, hunting rifles, brass knuckles, even non-lethal weapons such as tear gas or pepper spray in use by the military, which don't present a tremendous danger simply by virtue of them being a military weapon, and that shouldn't necessarily be illegal. You would need to prove the danger of the weapon itself irregardless of who else used it, which. To say that use by the military should make it illegal by itself, is another common type of fallacy, known as an association fallacy, where simply being associated with something makes it bad (which obviously, isn't true).
For example, nuclear weapons are not needed by civilians and have no practical purpose for self defense. They can destroy an entire city in a single go and can irradiate the land for many years to come. The collateral damage is too immense and if terrorists or North Korea got ahold of good nuclear weapons, they could literally bring about the end to the world as we know it. There's also the fact that anything nuclear is producing nuclear radiation at all times in any case so, it's even dangerous to own and never use as it's constantly leaking out nuclear radiation at all times and just by owning one, you or even your neighbors could die. So, nuclear weapons ought to be banned. Only the military should be allowed to have them because there's no use in every day society or in self defense, and their danger is so great as to limit ownership. Now, in this same argument when someone presents another "military weapon" you'd expect them to explain why it's dangerous. Instead, all they say is that "it's used by the military", and that's the end of their argument. This is an argument without substance, an appeal to association or circular reasoning logic which, unfortunately in most cases a fallacy.
So, why should these weapons be illegal? While I may be able to infer what you mean, if you can't actually prove it, it likely isn't an issue that actually exists. In fact if you can't even name the features that should make it illegal, you have absolutely nothing to your entire argument which is predicated on vague, meaningless rhetoric and quite frankly nothing else. Things should only be made illegal if they've been demonstrated to disproportionately harm society and have no tangible benefit to potentially offset it. If you have failed to do so, it shouldn't be illegal, irregardless of what the subject is. Plenty of military weapons exist that aren't particularly deadly or designed for mass murder, so, simply saying it's a military weapon doesn't hold much water. However, generally speaking I know what people are referring to when they say "military weapon". They actually mean an assault rifle, which is actually already illegal as fully automatic weapons are already illegal. However, they likely believe that a weapon that looks like said assault rifle should be illegal as well, and aren't aware what's in the assault weapon bill or what the actual details contain.
So, not all weapons in use by the military are designed to kill lots of random, unarmed innocent people; in fact, few if any weapons have this stated objective. What of the U.S. military's primary assault rifle; surely, that was designed as "powerful" death machine with an arbitrary power level over 9,000 that can certainly be used not only to defeat something with a weapon of equal power (whatever that means), but that consequently must have the ability to kill lots and lots of people. The simple reality is that the military doesn't design it's weapons for mass murder. Not only is mass murder illegal and immoral, and so the military seeks to avoid it focusing on precision guided weapons such as cruise missiles or heat-seeking missiles etc., but firearms are not particularly well suited for mass murder when compared to other weapons such as say, explosives.With guns, you have to fire one shot at a time, at a single target, and can at best kill one person at a time. It's rather large and loud, and you have to be there in person which gives away your presence immediately and gives the police a chance to kill you in return. Comparatively an explosive can be detonated why you are not even there, such as with a wireless detonator or a timer, and thus you can be out of the country before the bomb even goes off and kills people. It goes off in a matter of seconds, giving no time to mount a defense (unlike a shooter who can be shot) and can kill far more people in that time. The deadliest mass shooting in America, while tragic, killed approximately 50 people, and injured another 50. The deadliest mass bombing, known as 9/11, killed 3,000 people, and injured another 3,000. Looking at the death tolls, explosives not only are on average much more likely to kill far more people, but in the most extreme cases could literally kill over 60 times as many as the deadliest mass shooting, ever, in the U.S. They didn't even use a bomb like a fertilizer bomb or pressure cooker, they literally just hijacked a plane which is a flying bomb in and of itself. So, if a mass murderer used another weapon other than a gun, far more people could die. Particularly, explosives are perhaps the deadliest weapons of choice, but arson, poison, or vehicles tend to be more deadlier than guns. There's no guarantee that a murderer might switch to a less deadly weapon instead, and may instead switch to another weapon entirely, which are generally easier to obtain than a gun. In wars, it's generally explosives which are the biggest killer, not guns, as the power of an artillery shell or 500 pound bomb is far greater than that of a single firearm.
So if the military wants to eliminate 500 enemy targets in a 400 square yard area, do they send in a bunch of men with rifles and shoot one person at a time with their own soldiers having a chance of being shot and killed in the process or, do they simply drop a bomb and annihilate the entire area? The simple reality is they more often than not choose the bomb. Regulations on explosives seem reasonable, as after all it's hard to imagine how a weapon that would blow up me, my family, and my neighbors would have a tangible benefit for home defense, but guns which can be used to take down just one person at a time do not seem very reasonable. So, what are firearms designed for, by the military? Well, the primary purpose of firearms in use with the military tends to be precision and self defense. When a hostage situation occurs, they send in the Navy Seals not because they are the deadliest unit in the U.S. military- quite frankly, a single pilot with one bomb would likely kill more than any navy seal in their lifetime- but due to their precision. A bomb that effects too wide of an area, such as an explosive, would kill everyone in the area, including the hostages, making the weapon ineffective. Instead, they send in soldiers who risk their lives to take down each of the bad guys one by one, person by person, to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties. A bullet is generally less than an inch wide, and thus will only impact an area about this size. When it hits a person, it creates a small hole in them, which gets down to the internal organs, and usually is enough to incapacitate or stun someone when combined with the secondary shock effects of the energy transfer. The military doesn't send in infantry for mass murder, they send them in primarily to specifically target individuals, as explosives could kill too many people. Infantry make good occupying forces as you can take territory without killing everyone in the region, and therefore liberate or save the local people you're trying to protect.
The weapons in use by the military aren't designed to eliminate as many people as possible in as short an amount of time and especially not, firearms. The military generally speaking expects to face a relatively equal sized military in force. They almost never at least expect to be seriously outnumbered in a fight; if anything, the U.S. military is perhaps among the largest military in the world, so we would actually likely be larger in size than our enemies. It's usually about a 1 to 1 ratio when fighting the enemy as even if you have less numbers in total, you wouldn't engage the enemy in an unequal setting. You won't choose to send 40 guys to fight 1,000, you'd call in back-up for reinforcements. The military weapons are designed to target specific, hardened targets not massacre as many innocent, unarmed people as possible. Our most expensive weapons, such as missiles, are precision guided bombs to prevent collateral damage. It is cheaper and easier to drop 100 2,500 dollar bombs and just blow everything up than it is to send in a much smaller 500,000 missile to target just the bad guys and have just enough explosive to blow up their compound. Certain particular features are designed by military weapons over simple mass murder; in fact this is something that would be completely useless for the military in most firearms. For instance, there was an emphasis on armor penetration in the military for the development of the M16. They liked the maneuverability that submachine guns afforded, but didn't like the short range and lack of armor penetration. At long ranges they were failing to penetrate even thick clothing, and common barriers such as a brick wall or a tree that soldiers could take cover behind weren't being penetrated, as well. By WWII, most soldiers were wearing body armor of some kind, such as a combat helmet, and given that the head was often only what was exposed to the enemy, a much harder target to take down with a pistol. At the same time, even though submachine guns did remarkably well in close quarters combat due to the allowed maneuverability of the weapons, they did rather poor at long ranges. Pistol rounds simply don't have the range of a rifle, and even with the new fancy faster shooting guns, they were completely helpless against a guy with a good bolt action rifle. Even when you had a guy in your unit with such a rifle, it was usually just one guy, and him taking on 50 guys was generally seen as being generally unexpected.
So, the military's idea was to specialize. Find a gun that's just good enough at long ranges to be competitive with the long range bolt actions and capable of piercing armor just well enough to be able to fight against the body armor at the time, and also be able to have the maneuverability and low-weight of a submachine gun. In comes the assault rifle, not the deadliest weapon or really the best at everything. In fact, it was designed deliberately to be a jack of all trades. A weapon that every soldier could be armed with, and if needed to shoot out to long ranges, close ranges or whatever, could fulfill every role. Not the best in every role; less accurate than a sniper rifle, less firepower than a machine gun or submachine gun, but just comparable enough to where an entire squad of soldiers wouldn't be wiped out by a squad that happened to have bolt actions or submachine guns while the squad had the opposite. It avoided a sort of rock-papers-scissors scenario where a squad armed with bolt actions was useless against a squad with submachine guns at close range, but a squad with submachine guns was useless against bolt actions at long range. Every soldier now could at least remain competitive with their firearms, even if it consumed more ammo or wasn't as efficient. These weapons are generally designed to defeat specific targets such as, body armor, which most civilians don't wear and therefore, the risk of weapons that can pierce body armor, to civilians, is generally non-existent. Specific, military targets isn't really the same, being able to kill lots of untrained, unequipped, defenseless people with no armor. The geneva convention requires that bullets used by the military not cause superfluous injuries and be more likely to maim than to kill, meaning that, they generally speaking are not designed to produce lots of deaths. It's actually was chosen for humanitarian reasons. Actual military bullets by law are regulated to prevent deaths, to not be as deadly as powerful. The idea was that bullets should cause injuries, and not deaths; while death is still common, it's far less common with actual military cartridges. So if a civilian used them in a mass murder, in actuality, less people would likely actually die.
Military rifles were designed as general purpose, jack-of-all trade weapons that weren't the best at anything but could be used in any situation. For someone in self defense who doesn't want to kill his whole family or even necessarily the bad guy, but who just wants to injure them enough not to be killed themselves (or have other innocent people killed), guns certainly look appealing. With a military "style" weapon, or perhaps more aptly an assault rifle, you can be ready for any circumstance, which as civilians simply don't know when they're going to be attacked or where, seems appealing to have a general-purpose rifle, like an assault rifle. Other features included are resistance to bad environments, reliability and being light weight, not exactly features that enhance lethality, but do increase usability. In short, even military assault rifles are not actually designed to commit mass murder. And weapons available to civilians are not actually real military rifles in any case. The idea that a weapon is inherently deadly because it's used by the military is a bit arbitrary. Other deadly things like say, chlorine or uranium, aren't currently used by the military and yet their natural toxicity means they should be illegal, irregardless of who uses them. Banning something because the military uses it isn't a very good rule of thumb to understand what's deadly or not, and can be banning both safe weapons, and not banning deadly substances that perhaps aren't weapons at all, but could be used like them.
Monday, January 2, 2017
Gunshows and Crime - Do they really contribute to crime significantly?
There's unfortunately been a lot of talk about gun shows in the media recently, particularly in regard to how a supposed "gunshow loophole" is responsible for a sizeable contribution of firearms to criminals. Only a handful of states have these laws that allow for a private sale of a gun without a background check at gunshows, and it very rarely is done, as most gunshow sellers are registered dealers and thus must perform a background irregardless of being at a gunshow. Nonetheless, a lot has been said about it. While I personally wouldn't mind if this supposed loophole was closed, it likely would have little, if any real tangible benefit if it did.
The main issue is that very few guns, literally less than 1%, that are used in crimes, come from gunshows. A Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) report on "Firearms Use by Offenders" found that only 0.8% of prison inmates reported acquiring firearms used in their crimes "At a gun show," with repeat offenders less likely than first-time offenders to report acquiring firearms from a retail source, gun show or flea market. [1][2] Furthermore, of that .8% only a relatively small percentage of guns would have been bought because of the "loophole" which while the exact numbers are unknown (in part for being such a tiny fraction), is likely less than 1% of that .8%, as well. A study in 2008 examined the murder rate before and after gun shows were restricted in various states including Texas and California, and found almost no difference in crime rates either way.
The impact of gun shows on crime is either too small to be anything more than negligible or doesn't even exist. Even if criminals obtain some of their weapons from gunshows, it doesn't mean they couldn't have obtained firearms through other means. A person who can't go to one store, might opt to go to the other if the first store closes. A single retail center closing doesn't mean grocery shopping will decrease, it will just shift to alternative market, such as walmart, krogers or so on. In any case, closing this loophole may or may not be a good idea, depending on how easy it allows it for criminals to get guns, even if criminals simply don't use the method very often. But regardless, it is not some kind of quick fix to crime.
The main issue is that very few guns, literally less than 1%, that are used in crimes, come from gunshows. A Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) report on "Firearms Use by Offenders" found that only 0.8% of prison inmates reported acquiring firearms used in their crimes "At a gun show," with repeat offenders less likely than first-time offenders to report acquiring firearms from a retail source, gun show or flea market. [1][2] Furthermore, of that .8% only a relatively small percentage of guns would have been bought because of the "loophole" which while the exact numbers are unknown (in part for being such a tiny fraction), is likely less than 1% of that .8%, as well. A study in 2008 examined the murder rate before and after gun shows were restricted in various states including Texas and California, and found almost no difference in crime rates either way.
The impact of gun shows on crime is either too small to be anything more than negligible or doesn't even exist. Even if criminals obtain some of their weapons from gunshows, it doesn't mean they couldn't have obtained firearms through other means. A person who can't go to one store, might opt to go to the other if the first store closes. A single retail center closing doesn't mean grocery shopping will decrease, it will just shift to alternative market, such as walmart, krogers or so on. In any case, closing this loophole may or may not be a good idea, depending on how easy it allows it for criminals to get guns, even if criminals simply don't use the method very often. But regardless, it is not some kind of quick fix to crime.
Tuesday, December 27, 2016
Comprehensive Analysis of the Gun Control Debate
Comprehensive Analysis of the Gun Control Debate and violence in General
A lot can be said about the "common sense" nature of gun control. While it may seem intuitive and instinctive for some ,for others who lack an understanding about firearms or what firearms legislation would entail, they simply need cold hard facts to be convinced that many forms of gun control are bad. Even then, many more will need additional information and explanation as well as rigorous debate before they would even consider an alternative option to gun control measures, even if it's proven to be ineffective. Not all gun or weapon control is bad, such as mandatory background checks (which already exist), or the banning of nuclear weapons. But gun control, in general, is not the best idea, and is rarely supported by the facts. Gun control typically refers to laws aimed at restricting currently legal firearms, most of which are still far below what would be considered extremely deadly or dangerous. When it comes to that, very few pieces of legislation seem to have enough substance or target the right issues to do anything meaningful. We should not simply "do something" about gun violence as many politicians say, we should do something good about all forms of violence. And ultimately, stopping violence comes down to understanding and combating variety of different underlying social factors, as well as the raw physical prevent of it such as, the policing of the violence, or self defense to act as a way to stop or deter attacks.
There are far more prevalent factors to violence in any country, including the U.S., than the mere presence of firearms. Social issues, economics, poverty, the effectiveness of law enforcement, the presence of organized crime, and in general a certain element of randomness tend to be more important to determining a country's violent crime rate or murder rate, than the ownership of guns. Take Honduras for example; it has the highest homicide rate of any country in the world, at around 85-90 per year per 100,000 people. This compared to the U.S., at approximately 4-5 per year (depending on the year), despite the U.S. having the most guns in the world. Africa as a continent has some 30 million guns out of a population of 1 billion people, or a gun ownership rate lower than 3%, compared to the U.S.'s 300 million+ guns or more than 1 gun per person, yet the violence is 2-3 times higher on average in Africa than in the U.S., or is 12.5 per 100,000 people. Mexico, literally on the border of the U.S., has approximately 3 times the murder rate or, a murder rate of 15.7, compared to the U.S., and only has 3 million legally registered guns in the entire country, and 15 million guns, with a very low gun ownership rate of around 10%, and yet, has a much higher violent crime and murder rate. While this is according to self reported statistics (as reported by the U.N. [1][2]) as a rough comparison, countries with the least amount of guns, don't have the least amount of homicides, and countries with the most guns, don't have the most homicides. To truly solve the problem of crime, and violence, we have to understand that inherently it's a social issue, dependent on the people involved. Only by focusing on people, and not things, in this case guns, can we solve our problems.
Poverty is very clearly associated with increased crime. Poor people tend to be more desperate, have less ability to defend themselves, and generally can't pay as high taxes, which in turn weakens the government. Poverty exponentially increases crime by not only creating desperation which attracts bad elements of society to do bad things they may not have in a more comfortable environment, but also by weakening the citizen's own ability to respond to that crime. With these two factors conflated with each other, crime can become extremely rampant, going from around 1.0 to 2.0 murders per 100,000 people in the rest of the U.S., compared to 45.0 in detroit. The murder rate increases exponentially whenever gangs can essentially be seeded in to the environment, with the lawlessness essentially creating a breeding ground for large criminal groups. Despite making up less than .5% of the population, gangs and organized crime were responsible for approximately 48% of the violent crime in the U.S. (FBI), making groups of young violent men significantly more dangerous than they would be alone. When these poor environments become so inept at combating crime that entire organizations can form and people are so desperate they are willing to join the organizations for the chance at a decent life, crime inevitability sky rockets. This trend can be found in Mexico, Honduras, Eastern Europe and even Russia, where crime sky rockets after gangs and organized crime seed in to the environment. The Netherlands, Switzerland or other such places have low gang activity, and low crime, but places in Africa with various tribal leaders also have lower crime, despite being incredibly poor and living primitively, primarily due to the lack of a presence of such organizations. Poverty does not always lead to crime, but in many places it can, especially urban environments. Urban areas also tend to have much higher violent crime rates in general, and much higher stranger victimization rates. [1][2] Poor urban areas in the U.S. with heavy gang presences have the highest crime rates and even higher violence rates, and this trend holds true for the world. Making the issue about guns completely ignores the real issues, while wasting resources and needlessly punishing innocent civilians for the crime of owning a gun. What we need to do is focus on the people involved.
Better educations can help give people a better chance at life and a more likely chance to get a job, and thus help reduce poverty. The average gang initiate is 14 [1], and disparaged school systems are practically recruiting grounds for gangs. Kids with bad family lives, in part due to poverty, can see the schools as a safe haven and find a way to progress beyond their means, allowing them to escape the cycle of poverty and the resulting violence. Mental illness and drug abuse are also closely associated with violent crime. Approximately 46.7% of violent criminals are classified as drug dependent, compared to about 9.4% of the population in general. [1][2] The mentally ill are also more likely to commit crimes, with approximately 45-64% of all prisoner having some form of mental illness. [1] Treating mental illness and drug addictions is also beneficial to society as these people are often in desperate need of help; nearly 90% [1][2] of suicides are committed by the mentally ill, and a disproportionate amount of homeless people are drug addicts or mentally ill. Decriminalizing drug use (but not sale or trafficking) and court ordering mandatory rehabilitation for drug use can be a very effective way to reduce drug use, compared to the nearly revolving door of drug addiction our current prison system has. While 40-60% of the time drug rehabilitation is successful, imprisonment is only successful 10-25% of the time. Both for moral and practical reasons, this can be done to help people, and it would also put a sizable dent in our violent crime rate. It's also no secret that drug use fuels organized crime, such as drug cartels, and thus putting a dent in usage also hurts their profits, and subsequently in the long run can make them weaker.
While there are no magic beans that will make crime go away, putting tremendous dents in to the existing crime rate is possible with some very simple steps. Even more so, the money that's spent on incarceration (nearly 25,000 per prisoner a year [1]) can be better spent on rehabilitation and screening programs to catch people who have addictions or are mentally ill earlier before they become out of control, thus not costing us drastically more money than they would have already spent. Rehabilitation won't work on everyone and people will always slip through the cracks, but if mandatory psychological screening was required for all people and rehabilitation was required for all drug addicts instead of, or in concert with imprisonment, a reduction in the impact of one of the most prevalent causes of crime, and violence in general, could be achieved. Instead of spending hundred of billions of dollars on buyback programs and the policing of the mere ownership of a firearm, we could instead target factors that would prevent all violence, for the same or less money, without the removal of anyone's rights. Ignoring the potential backlash in hatred of riots over gun control laws, we still could reduce violence further with more effective means that would also impact suicides, homelessness, and all crimes in general, improving the quality of life of everyone. Better educations and mental health programs, including those directed at drug and alcohol abusers, could very easily lower the murder rate, as well as help with many other problems. There are more reasonable and easily implemented measures than gun control, that would have a superior impact. In a world of finite resources with a limited government budget, the best allocation of these resources, and the manpower needed to achieve the results, has to be considered. Because these measures are ultimately more effective, they should be used, instead of gun control. In Switzerland, nearly every citizen is required to own a fully automatic machine gun giving them a gun ownership rate rivaling the U.S., yet they have one of the lowest violent crime rates in the world, with a murder rate of .5, lower than the UK, Australia or Canada. Yet as every citizen is psychologically screened as a result of a mandatory military draft, their violent crime rate is very low. In Norway and Israel, we see a similar trend, where mandatory military service of all able-bodied and minded people and gun ownership lower crime, in large part because of the psychological screenings of all citizens to prove if they're able-minded for military service in the first place. While it will alway exist, crime can be reduced if targeted properly, which runs perhaps completely counter to the gun control argument all together. Than, the goal needs to shift away from gun control, and instead be placed on education, mental health, and drug addiction.
Focusing on the people, instead of on the tool, will likely yield greater successes on curbing violence and other social issues. However, if we were to continue the mental exercise, scurrying down the rabbit hole to address other gun control arguments, how would that argument go? Well, criminals would still get guns if gun laws were illegal, guns are not needed for murder and are not the deadliest weapons available to civilians, guns are used more defensively than for crimes meaning that you would need to save more than "just 1 life" as many have claimed, and removing rights to save just one life doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense on any issue, let alone with guns. There's no guarantee that criminals would use knives instead of guns, as they could use explosives or cars or other weapons instead, and there's no guarantee that knives are less deadly. Illegal manufacturing of guns, the theft of guns currently in circulation and even smuggling contribute to illegal firearms, and with the absolutely massive wealth of guns in this country, it seems unlikely that guns would suddenly be unavailable to criminals if they're simply illegal for commercial sale in local businesses. Many of the features of the supposed "assault weapons ban" are also easily replicable, such as the adjustable stock or pistol grip, meaning that these so-called assault features can be easily made on the street. A generally ineffective law would have, basically no reason to exist, other than to unnecessarily punish otherwise law-abiding civilians. So, what do we find?
There are weapons just as, if not more deadly than guns
The entire basis of gun control rests on the notion that, if criminals were to use other weapons, less people would die. It's not that criminals won't attack people or the rampant poverty or other social issues won't exist, but that guns are simply more effective at killing. The hope, the dream of gun control advocates is that, criminals will simply switch to less deadly weapons if guns are outlawed; that out of the thousands of weapons available, guns are the most deadly, and banning these will reduce violence. While it may seem a bit weird from the outside to ban one type of gun or one gun in hopes that all other weapons that are more deadly than guns aren't used, this is essentially the argument of gun control advocates. That they'd switch to knives or explosives, and this would kill less people. Not only is it a pretty strange hope that this would occur as there's no guarantee that criminals would use a less deadly weapon than a gun, but it's not even true that guns are more deadly.
While certainly not my favorite topic to discuss, in mass murderers more people have died from explosives, arson, poison and vehicle attacks than from guns. The deadliest single person mass shooting in the world occurred in Norway, and killed 67 people, which was done predominately with a handgun, with a magazine capacity lower than 10 rounds. [1] Automatically, the concept of an "assault weapons ban" is thrown out the window as, a handgun was used to commit the deadliest mass murder of all time. A handgun can kill just as many people as an "assault rifle" in a mass murder, so the type of firearm effectively makes very little difference. When an aggregate comparison is made, assault weapons killed slightly less people than non-assault weapons in mass shootings, making the type of gun virtually irrelevant for shootings. According to a congressional study by the government [2], around 27.3% of mass murderers use an assault weapon in public mass shootings (and 9.7% in all mass shootings) and less than 2% of all murderers use one. [3] It effectively makes no difference if someone uses a so-called "assault weapon", handgun, or other type of firearm. If civilians cannot mount an effective defense against the shooter, it could be a bolt-action hunting rifle, such as the texas tower shooting, or a handgun, such as in the Virginia tech shooting that is the second deadliest shooting in U.S. history. The type of weapon often makes little difference in the impact of the shooting.
So, what about other weapons? As sad as it is to talk about, guns are not the deadliest weapons to be used in mass shootings. To obtain a weapon in the U.S. you have to pass a background check, pay several hundred dollars and generally maintain good legal standing to be able to own one. Anyone with severe mental illnesses, felonies on record, domestic abuse or even just 1 year in prison are effectively barred from owning a gun, unless a judge overturns this decision. This means that few criminals or bad people can even obtain guns in the first place, making it very difficult to do legally (illegally is another matter, of course). Fertilizer, pressure cookers, gasoline, poison or cars on the other hand are extremely widely available, and cars are at least as easy to obtain as guns. Sadly, these can kill far more than guns ever can. The Oklahoma city bombing attack with a fertilizer bomb killed 168 people and injured approximately 680, in one of the deadliest attacks on U.S. soil in history. In India a train bombing killed 209 people and injured 714 people, using a pressure cooker bomb. In Australia, 173 people died and 414 more were injured in an arson attack, set off by a few gallons of gasoline. 87 people died and 434 were injured in the France Nice attack, and they perpetrator used a car. 918 people died in one of the worst mass poisonings in U.S. history, considered by many to be a mass murder as most people drank the poison under duress. The obvious pattern here is that many other forms of killing people, be it by explosives, arson, poison or vehicles not only exist, but are far more deadly than guns could ever be. The worst single person mass shooting killed 67 people in Norway by comparison, and most mass shootings kill far less. The point is that other just as easily available weapons can kill not only just as many people, but more people than guns. How do we stop killers by getting rid of guns if they switch to more deadly weapons? The issue here is not gun violence, but violence in general. There's no guarantee that a killer would use a butter knife or other less deadly weapon instead of a pressure cooker bomb if guns were illegal. For every killer stopped there would be just as many switching to even deadlier weapons, effectively making gun control moot. To truly stop the mass murders and murder in general, you need to go after people, criminals, and not guns. 9/11, perhaps one of the most infamous mass murders in history, was committed by using a box cutter and taking over a plane, which lead to at least 3,000 deaths and 3,000 additional injuries, deadlier than every single mass shooting in the last 10 years in the U.S. combined. If even a single killer switched over to use a weapon other than guns, more people would actually die. While keeping guns legal in the hope that criminals will use them instead of other methods is not exactly a good strategy, it's just as bad a strategy to ban guns in hope of the opposite. Ultimately, the person, not the tool, is the problem. People have been finding creative ways to kill each other since before guns even existed. Nearly every war in history is proof of that.
So, what about a knife? Just for the sake of the argument, let's just say killers switched to knives instead. As previously mentioned there are actually deadlier weapons, so there's no guarantee someone would choose to switch to a knife. But what if they did? Many mass murders have been committed with knives, blunt instruments and other edged weapons such as axes, and their death tolls are nearly as high on average as mass shootings, effectively making the difference in mass murders moot. Notable examples are Cairns child killings which killed 8 in Australia, 5 dead in the Calgary stabbings, 19 dead and 26 injured in the Japanese stabbing attacks, and 33 dead and 143 injured in the Chinese Kunming attack. At least 50 people died in a Chinese knife attack at a coalmine, with the numbers still uncertain. All of these examples illustrate one thing, that mass knifings are no less deadly than mass shootings, and are entirely possible. If everyone switched over to knives instead of guns, there likely wouldn't be less deaths. Most gun murder occur within close proximity to their victim, close enough to where a knife could have been used instead, and gunshot wounds do not tend to be significantly more deadly than knife wounds according to medical date (although based on how you compile it, there are discrepancies between various groups). Nonetheless, the most likely cause of death from a gunshot wound or knife wound is bleed-out or infection, meaning that the injury itself is not as important as the perforation of the vital organs by any means, which opens them up to bleed-out and contagions which can lead to an infection. There is a chance that a killer could put poison or other drugs on their knives, thus combining the effect of the injury with the poison, and effectively eliminating the difference in deadliness in general. Ultimately, the type of the weapon matters less than proximity and target choice, as an area with lots of people will result in more deaths, and an area far away from a hospital will result in the greatest amount of deaths as the wounds will be more difficult to treat. There is a certain randomness to the death toll as a result based on targets chosen, and methods used. But switching from a gun to another weapon, even a knife, would likely save few, if any lives.
Criminals will get gun anyways
Even if guns were somehow more deadly than other weapons, and by making guns illegal no-one would use these other deadly weapons, even more deadly and dangerous than guns, criminals could still get guns by illegal means. Illegal smuggling, illegal gun manufacturing, and simply the raw volume of the number of guns already in circulation, particularly in America, means that stopping the legal production of guns won't stop the illegal production of guns. Interestingly enough, these sorts of firearms already account for the majority of crimes committed by criminals anyways, suggesting that making them illegal won't make them go away. At least 79% of weapon used by criminals were obtained illegally, where as between 89-97% of guns are estimated to be illegally obtained. So, the vast majority of guns are not purchased legally, with a legal background check in the U.S.
Illegal smuggling of firearms is a huge issue, although no exact numbers are known for how many are smuggled in or out of the U.S. annually. Russia, eastern bloc countries and China are the biggest culprit of illegal weapons smuggling, haven given weapons directly or indirectly to Iran, Hezbollah, the cartels, the Taliban, the Russian mafia, and even to some extent their own enemies, such as Chechynians or the Afghanistan people. Their illegal arms trade is so prolific Russia most commonly fights against their own guns in their own wars. With nearly 100 million ak-47's in the worst, most going for 50-100 dollars, they are easily and frequently trafficked across borders of countries, most of which have little if any real means to stop smugglers. Only about 1-5% of land based traffickers are stopped in the U.S., meaning that the majority will get through our borders. Only half will be caught, ever, and that's mostly poor undocumented immigrants, rather than hardcore gun smugglers. [1] Given the ease of travel, the potential for gun smuggling is obviously huge, and already very prevalent. Although exact numbers are unknown, it's not unreasonable to think that the majority of illegal weapons used come from illegal smuggling.
Illegal manufacturing is also fairly easy. While "ghost guns" are a popular idea in the public mind, illegal manufacturing of gun has been occurring for decades, and with relative ease. There are no special machines designed to make guns, guns are made from the same machinery widely used by other industries, such as care manufacturing or machine shops. All that's needed is a mill, lathe or steel stamping device, and a polymer mold or wood carving device to make the accessories. It's actually not uncommon for people to make guns off the books just for fun, rather than any nefarious purpose, and this culture has allowed many darker elements to copy their methods in making their own guns. While home made guns may vary in quality, in general they are good enough to commit a crime, which only requires a handful of rounds and are mostly used at close range and for intimidation, rather than pushed to the limits typical factory made guns are. Criminals generally tend to prefer cheap, disposable guns over expensive guns that will last a lifetime, as evidence of a crime remaining for a lifetime is incriminating, rather than beneficial. Thus these untraceable, off-the-books guns made with no-one the wiser are preferred by criminals, which the statistics tend to show. Whatever percent do use legal guns likely would just switch over to illegal guns. And even if we somehow prevented all of these murders, whatever that small percentage of guns that are legally obtained by criminals, it would need to offset the number of cases where guns are used in self defense, which is nearly as common as violent crimes with guns themselves, or 300,000 cases a year, according to the CDC. [1][2] Saving "just 1 life" doesn't cut it if thousands of more lives are taken in return. Seatbelts kill a few hundred people everywhere as do vaccines, but this pails in comparison to the thousands saved. Saving "just one life" isn't worth it if far more lives are taken as a result of the new action. Because guns have a purpose for saving lives as well, you'd likely do more harm than good with gun control, assuming it worked to take guns out of the hands of criminals. Guns are used for self defense the majority of the time without anyone even getting killed, as merely brandishing a firearm or pointing it at someone is useful enough to stop a violent crime. So, the amount of defensive uses with guns in this country out numbers the violent crimes, and not every state has loose gun control or widely available guns (such as California or New York). So, guns do more good than harm, which is far more than the percentage of legal guns doing harm in any case.
But what if we could save just one life?
A common argument by gun control advocates is the notions that if removing our rights to own a gun could save "just one life!", it would be worth it. While for aforementioned reasons this won't be the case as said above as you'd need to save thousands of lives, what if you could save just one life by banning guns? Would it be worth sacrificing our freedoms for 1 life, or 100 lives, or 500? While I certainly enjoy the sentiment and find it very sad and tragic, the obvious answer is, well, no. Scissors kill approximately 100 people per year, are we going to ban scissors? Alcohol kills some 88,000 a year according to the CDC, mostly other people in car accidents, and it has no use to society. Literally none what so ever, that is drinkable ethanol. Are you willing to ban alcohol? If we want to legalize something that has no purpose to society, and that might create a black market, why does the logic make sense with guns, which kills less people, 10,000 homicides or less a year, and perhaps 20,000 suicides if we choose to include it. [1] For those that want to legalize pot or other drugs, how do you contend with the damage caused by it, in relation to value of these drugs which is functionally nothing to society other than instant gratification? Unlike cars or stairs, they serve no tangible benefit and the thousands of car accidents or falling deaths a year can't be justified for economic or practical reasons. It just makes your life more comfortable to have it.
In the name of freedom, most Americans are willing to take some risk. Slavery and oppression didn't kill people, but isn't it worth fighting for your rights even if it means you might die? Rape is rarely fatal, but shouldn't a woman be allowed to use lethal force to fight it? Alcohol kills way more than guns, and guns can be used in self defense, where as alcohol has no purpose, but alcohol should be legal where as guns are not? Where does the reasoning come from? No, I put it to you that few sane people would ever argue that "just one life" is worth our freedoms. While sad, even if you could save just a handful of people, isn't freedom worth it? The argument that something far deadlier shouldn't be banned for the sake of freedom but something less deadly should makes no sense. Unless you're willing to give up all your other freedoms which kill more people every year, pain medications and alcohol and the like, you are nothing more than a self righteous hypocrite grasping at the last straw you can because your argument lacks any real substance. It's an argument made from pure bias and hypocrisy that giving up a right you don't use at the expense of the another is okay to save a few people, but not your own freedoms that you exercise. While not my favorite subject, if it comes down to it, yes, civilians should be allowed to own guns. Unless it's been demonstrated to be so deadly that society cannot make it with guns, than they shouldn't be banned. And seeing all the far more deadly things that we allow in our society, that serve no purpose other than recreation, I don't see why guns shouldn't be allowed either.
Suicides
Some have argued that the suicide rate goes up with gun ownership. While the evidence is hard to dig through in general, for the most part, guns do not cause suicides, deeply seeded psychological issues do. It's not any harder to jump off of a bridge, swallow poison or asphyxiate yourself, and yet somehow guns are always targeted for this. In an international comparison with U.N. data, Countries with the lowest amount of suicides tended to have more guns, and countries with the highest amount of suicides tend to have less guns. With countries that had the highest suicide rates in the world, only 3 out of 25 (12%) had an above average rate for gun ownership, where as 1 out of 25 (4%) had an above average rate for gun ownership. Comparatively, countries with the lowest suicide rates tended to have more guns, 12 out of 25 (48%) had an above average gun ownership rate, 4 out of 25 (16%) had a gun ownership rate far above average (15.0), and 2 out of 25 (8%) had a gun ownership rate extremely above average (30.0). While this is a simple correlation argument, it does show that suicides as a whole is not correlated at all with more guns. In Australia for example after massive gun buy-back programs were implemented that dropped gun ownership rates from 54 per 100 people to around 15 per 100 people, the suicide rates by asphyxiation and hanging went up by an equal amount. Getting rid of guns didn't remove people's mental illnesses and depression, and thus their desire to commit suicide. As has been established there are other just as deadly methods to kill someone, including yourself, as guns. People when they have access to guns are more likely to use them to commit suicide since it is often perceived to be faster, but suicidal people will not choose to not commit suicide if guns are not available. The deeply seeded psychological issues need to be addressed, rather than the banning of firearms.
International Comparisons
While arguably the hardest and most intricate nature of gun control, that is comparing the entire world, it becomes very difficult to even be able to do such a comparison on an apples-to-apples basis. As stated before, poverty, education, law enforcement effectiveness, organized crime and even a sense of randomness all contribute to violence rates, and thus trying to determine if any one factor is really the major factor is difficult to consider. For instance, people are more likely to kill others when it's hot, meaning that climate is a literal factor when determining homicide and literally warmer countries will have more murders. [1][2] This is an uncontrollable factor that can't be tamed; where as Africa and South America have the highest murder rates in the world, Europe and Asia have the lowest, and their temperatures reflect that. One cannot simply control with laws how much crime will happen. Germany killed more people than will ever die from gun violence in America in 1,000 years in just 10 (10 million+ compared to 10,000 a year), but Germany is not a naturally violent place, only having gone through it's massive waves of genocide for a brief period. Crime and especially violence is dependent on a lot of factors, and so pretending you can control them all is rather ridiculous. Certainly, poverty, education and drug use are big factors, but even these cannot be remedied just by flicking a switch.
Even so, direct comparison with United Nations data, comparing countries with their self-reported homicide rates, compared to the gun ownership rate, in an apples-to-oranges comparison, still shows no correlation that more guns is equivalent to more crime. Not only does the U.S. not have the highest homicide rate (with over 100 countries with a higher homicide rate), but countries with the lowest homicide rates, owned more guns on average than the world average. If we compare the world average of gun ownership (8.9 guns per 100 people) [1] to each country and assess their homicide rates, 20 out of the 25 (80%) of countries with the lowest homicide rates in the world had a higher gun ownership rate higher than the world average. Of these, 15 had a gun ownership rate higher than 15 per person (60%), and 7 (28%) have a firearm ownership rate of 30 per 100. For country's with the highest homicide rates, 8 out of 25 (32%) had higher gun ownership rate than the world average. Only 2 out of 25 (8%) had a rate at or above 15.0, and zero had a rate higher than 30.0. Essentially, 80% of country's had more than the world average for gun ownership, and 60% had significantly more than the world average, compared to 32% and 8% for high homicides. This means that, country's with high homicides tend to have less guns, and country's with low homicides tend to have more guns, implying a positive benefit for owning more guns. While more guns likely won't reduce the homicide rate by themselves, it does show that focusing on people, rather than guns, likely has a positive benefit. Dumping 1,000 guns in to a field in Pennsylvania won't lower the murder rate, nor would giving those 1,000 guns to gang members. The social impact, where the guns go and what we do about violence in general, is likely more important than the type of gun, or guns in general.
In conclusion, gun control laws would have a marginal, if any impact on violent crime or homicides. The people need to be at the forefront of the violence equation, not guns. A maniac with a bomb is no less deadly than a maniac with a gun. And therefore, in order to solve the problems, we need to focus on the people, mental health, poverty, and addiction.
A lot can be said about the "common sense" nature of gun control. While it may seem intuitive and instinctive for some ,for others who lack an understanding about firearms or what firearms legislation would entail, they simply need cold hard facts to be convinced that many forms of gun control are bad. Even then, many more will need additional information and explanation as well as rigorous debate before they would even consider an alternative option to gun control measures, even if it's proven to be ineffective. Not all gun or weapon control is bad, such as mandatory background checks (which already exist), or the banning of nuclear weapons. But gun control, in general, is not the best idea, and is rarely supported by the facts. Gun control typically refers to laws aimed at restricting currently legal firearms, most of which are still far below what would be considered extremely deadly or dangerous. When it comes to that, very few pieces of legislation seem to have enough substance or target the right issues to do anything meaningful. We should not simply "do something" about gun violence as many politicians say, we should do something good about all forms of violence. And ultimately, stopping violence comes down to understanding and combating variety of different underlying social factors, as well as the raw physical prevent of it such as, the policing of the violence, or self defense to act as a way to stop or deter attacks.
There are far more prevalent factors to violence in any country, including the U.S., than the mere presence of firearms. Social issues, economics, poverty, the effectiveness of law enforcement, the presence of organized crime, and in general a certain element of randomness tend to be more important to determining a country's violent crime rate or murder rate, than the ownership of guns. Take Honduras for example; it has the highest homicide rate of any country in the world, at around 85-90 per year per 100,000 people. This compared to the U.S., at approximately 4-5 per year (depending on the year), despite the U.S. having the most guns in the world. Africa as a continent has some 30 million guns out of a population of 1 billion people, or a gun ownership rate lower than 3%, compared to the U.S.'s 300 million+ guns or more than 1 gun per person, yet the violence is 2-3 times higher on average in Africa than in the U.S., or is 12.5 per 100,000 people. Mexico, literally on the border of the U.S., has approximately 3 times the murder rate or, a murder rate of 15.7, compared to the U.S., and only has 3 million legally registered guns in the entire country, and 15 million guns, with a very low gun ownership rate of around 10%, and yet, has a much higher violent crime and murder rate. While this is according to self reported statistics (as reported by the U.N. [1][2]) as a rough comparison, countries with the least amount of guns, don't have the least amount of homicides, and countries with the most guns, don't have the most homicides. To truly solve the problem of crime, and violence, we have to understand that inherently it's a social issue, dependent on the people involved. Only by focusing on people, and not things, in this case guns, can we solve our problems.
Poverty is very clearly associated with increased crime. Poor people tend to be more desperate, have less ability to defend themselves, and generally can't pay as high taxes, which in turn weakens the government. Poverty exponentially increases crime by not only creating desperation which attracts bad elements of society to do bad things they may not have in a more comfortable environment, but also by weakening the citizen's own ability to respond to that crime. With these two factors conflated with each other, crime can become extremely rampant, going from around 1.0 to 2.0 murders per 100,000 people in the rest of the U.S., compared to 45.0 in detroit. The murder rate increases exponentially whenever gangs can essentially be seeded in to the environment, with the lawlessness essentially creating a breeding ground for large criminal groups. Despite making up less than .5% of the population, gangs and organized crime were responsible for approximately 48% of the violent crime in the U.S. (FBI), making groups of young violent men significantly more dangerous than they would be alone. When these poor environments become so inept at combating crime that entire organizations can form and people are so desperate they are willing to join the organizations for the chance at a decent life, crime inevitability sky rockets. This trend can be found in Mexico, Honduras, Eastern Europe and even Russia, where crime sky rockets after gangs and organized crime seed in to the environment. The Netherlands, Switzerland or other such places have low gang activity, and low crime, but places in Africa with various tribal leaders also have lower crime, despite being incredibly poor and living primitively, primarily due to the lack of a presence of such organizations. Poverty does not always lead to crime, but in many places it can, especially urban environments. Urban areas also tend to have much higher violent crime rates in general, and much higher stranger victimization rates. [1][2] Poor urban areas in the U.S. with heavy gang presences have the highest crime rates and even higher violence rates, and this trend holds true for the world. Making the issue about guns completely ignores the real issues, while wasting resources and needlessly punishing innocent civilians for the crime of owning a gun. What we need to do is focus on the people involved.
Better educations can help give people a better chance at life and a more likely chance to get a job, and thus help reduce poverty. The average gang initiate is 14 [1], and disparaged school systems are practically recruiting grounds for gangs. Kids with bad family lives, in part due to poverty, can see the schools as a safe haven and find a way to progress beyond their means, allowing them to escape the cycle of poverty and the resulting violence. Mental illness and drug abuse are also closely associated with violent crime. Approximately 46.7% of violent criminals are classified as drug dependent, compared to about 9.4% of the population in general. [1][2] The mentally ill are also more likely to commit crimes, with approximately 45-64% of all prisoner having some form of mental illness. [1] Treating mental illness and drug addictions is also beneficial to society as these people are often in desperate need of help; nearly 90% [1][2] of suicides are committed by the mentally ill, and a disproportionate amount of homeless people are drug addicts or mentally ill. Decriminalizing drug use (but not sale or trafficking) and court ordering mandatory rehabilitation for drug use can be a very effective way to reduce drug use, compared to the nearly revolving door of drug addiction our current prison system has. While 40-60% of the time drug rehabilitation is successful, imprisonment is only successful 10-25% of the time. Both for moral and practical reasons, this can be done to help people, and it would also put a sizable dent in our violent crime rate. It's also no secret that drug use fuels organized crime, such as drug cartels, and thus putting a dent in usage also hurts their profits, and subsequently in the long run can make them weaker.
While there are no magic beans that will make crime go away, putting tremendous dents in to the existing crime rate is possible with some very simple steps. Even more so, the money that's spent on incarceration (nearly 25,000 per prisoner a year [1]) can be better spent on rehabilitation and screening programs to catch people who have addictions or are mentally ill earlier before they become out of control, thus not costing us drastically more money than they would have already spent. Rehabilitation won't work on everyone and people will always slip through the cracks, but if mandatory psychological screening was required for all people and rehabilitation was required for all drug addicts instead of, or in concert with imprisonment, a reduction in the impact of one of the most prevalent causes of crime, and violence in general, could be achieved. Instead of spending hundred of billions of dollars on buyback programs and the policing of the mere ownership of a firearm, we could instead target factors that would prevent all violence, for the same or less money, without the removal of anyone's rights. Ignoring the potential backlash in hatred of riots over gun control laws, we still could reduce violence further with more effective means that would also impact suicides, homelessness, and all crimes in general, improving the quality of life of everyone. Better educations and mental health programs, including those directed at drug and alcohol abusers, could very easily lower the murder rate, as well as help with many other problems. There are more reasonable and easily implemented measures than gun control, that would have a superior impact. In a world of finite resources with a limited government budget, the best allocation of these resources, and the manpower needed to achieve the results, has to be considered. Because these measures are ultimately more effective, they should be used, instead of gun control. In Switzerland, nearly every citizen is required to own a fully automatic machine gun giving them a gun ownership rate rivaling the U.S., yet they have one of the lowest violent crime rates in the world, with a murder rate of .5, lower than the UK, Australia or Canada. Yet as every citizen is psychologically screened as a result of a mandatory military draft, their violent crime rate is very low. In Norway and Israel, we see a similar trend, where mandatory military service of all able-bodied and minded people and gun ownership lower crime, in large part because of the psychological screenings of all citizens to prove if they're able-minded for military service in the first place. While it will alway exist, crime can be reduced if targeted properly, which runs perhaps completely counter to the gun control argument all together. Than, the goal needs to shift away from gun control, and instead be placed on education, mental health, and drug addiction.
Focusing on the people, instead of on the tool, will likely yield greater successes on curbing violence and other social issues. However, if we were to continue the mental exercise, scurrying down the rabbit hole to address other gun control arguments, how would that argument go? Well, criminals would still get guns if gun laws were illegal, guns are not needed for murder and are not the deadliest weapons available to civilians, guns are used more defensively than for crimes meaning that you would need to save more than "just 1 life" as many have claimed, and removing rights to save just one life doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense on any issue, let alone with guns. There's no guarantee that criminals would use knives instead of guns, as they could use explosives or cars or other weapons instead, and there's no guarantee that knives are less deadly. Illegal manufacturing of guns, the theft of guns currently in circulation and even smuggling contribute to illegal firearms, and with the absolutely massive wealth of guns in this country, it seems unlikely that guns would suddenly be unavailable to criminals if they're simply illegal for commercial sale in local businesses. Many of the features of the supposed "assault weapons ban" are also easily replicable, such as the adjustable stock or pistol grip, meaning that these so-called assault features can be easily made on the street. A generally ineffective law would have, basically no reason to exist, other than to unnecessarily punish otherwise law-abiding civilians. So, what do we find?
There are weapons just as, if not more deadly than guns
The entire basis of gun control rests on the notion that, if criminals were to use other weapons, less people would die. It's not that criminals won't attack people or the rampant poverty or other social issues won't exist, but that guns are simply more effective at killing. The hope, the dream of gun control advocates is that, criminals will simply switch to less deadly weapons if guns are outlawed; that out of the thousands of weapons available, guns are the most deadly, and banning these will reduce violence. While it may seem a bit weird from the outside to ban one type of gun or one gun in hopes that all other weapons that are more deadly than guns aren't used, this is essentially the argument of gun control advocates. That they'd switch to knives or explosives, and this would kill less people. Not only is it a pretty strange hope that this would occur as there's no guarantee that criminals would use a less deadly weapon than a gun, but it's not even true that guns are more deadly.
While certainly not my favorite topic to discuss, in mass murderers more people have died from explosives, arson, poison and vehicle attacks than from guns. The deadliest single person mass shooting in the world occurred in Norway, and killed 67 people, which was done predominately with a handgun, with a magazine capacity lower than 10 rounds. [1] Automatically, the concept of an "assault weapons ban" is thrown out the window as, a handgun was used to commit the deadliest mass murder of all time. A handgun can kill just as many people as an "assault rifle" in a mass murder, so the type of firearm effectively makes very little difference. When an aggregate comparison is made, assault weapons killed slightly less people than non-assault weapons in mass shootings, making the type of gun virtually irrelevant for shootings. According to a congressional study by the government [2], around 27.3% of mass murderers use an assault weapon in public mass shootings (and 9.7% in all mass shootings) and less than 2% of all murderers use one. [3] It effectively makes no difference if someone uses a so-called "assault weapon", handgun, or other type of firearm. If civilians cannot mount an effective defense against the shooter, it could be a bolt-action hunting rifle, such as the texas tower shooting, or a handgun, such as in the Virginia tech shooting that is the second deadliest shooting in U.S. history. The type of weapon often makes little difference in the impact of the shooting.
So, what about other weapons? As sad as it is to talk about, guns are not the deadliest weapons to be used in mass shootings. To obtain a weapon in the U.S. you have to pass a background check, pay several hundred dollars and generally maintain good legal standing to be able to own one. Anyone with severe mental illnesses, felonies on record, domestic abuse or even just 1 year in prison are effectively barred from owning a gun, unless a judge overturns this decision. This means that few criminals or bad people can even obtain guns in the first place, making it very difficult to do legally (illegally is another matter, of course). Fertilizer, pressure cookers, gasoline, poison or cars on the other hand are extremely widely available, and cars are at least as easy to obtain as guns. Sadly, these can kill far more than guns ever can. The Oklahoma city bombing attack with a fertilizer bomb killed 168 people and injured approximately 680, in one of the deadliest attacks on U.S. soil in history. In India a train bombing killed 209 people and injured 714 people, using a pressure cooker bomb. In Australia, 173 people died and 414 more were injured in an arson attack, set off by a few gallons of gasoline. 87 people died and 434 were injured in the France Nice attack, and they perpetrator used a car. 918 people died in one of the worst mass poisonings in U.S. history, considered by many to be a mass murder as most people drank the poison under duress. The obvious pattern here is that many other forms of killing people, be it by explosives, arson, poison or vehicles not only exist, but are far more deadly than guns could ever be. The worst single person mass shooting killed 67 people in Norway by comparison, and most mass shootings kill far less. The point is that other just as easily available weapons can kill not only just as many people, but more people than guns. How do we stop killers by getting rid of guns if they switch to more deadly weapons? The issue here is not gun violence, but violence in general. There's no guarantee that a killer would use a butter knife or other less deadly weapon instead of a pressure cooker bomb if guns were illegal. For every killer stopped there would be just as many switching to even deadlier weapons, effectively making gun control moot. To truly stop the mass murders and murder in general, you need to go after people, criminals, and not guns. 9/11, perhaps one of the most infamous mass murders in history, was committed by using a box cutter and taking over a plane, which lead to at least 3,000 deaths and 3,000 additional injuries, deadlier than every single mass shooting in the last 10 years in the U.S. combined. If even a single killer switched over to use a weapon other than guns, more people would actually die. While keeping guns legal in the hope that criminals will use them instead of other methods is not exactly a good strategy, it's just as bad a strategy to ban guns in hope of the opposite. Ultimately, the person, not the tool, is the problem. People have been finding creative ways to kill each other since before guns even existed. Nearly every war in history is proof of that.
So, what about a knife? Just for the sake of the argument, let's just say killers switched to knives instead. As previously mentioned there are actually deadlier weapons, so there's no guarantee someone would choose to switch to a knife. But what if they did? Many mass murders have been committed with knives, blunt instruments and other edged weapons such as axes, and their death tolls are nearly as high on average as mass shootings, effectively making the difference in mass murders moot. Notable examples are Cairns child killings which killed 8 in Australia, 5 dead in the Calgary stabbings, 19 dead and 26 injured in the Japanese stabbing attacks, and 33 dead and 143 injured in the Chinese Kunming attack. At least 50 people died in a Chinese knife attack at a coalmine, with the numbers still uncertain. All of these examples illustrate one thing, that mass knifings are no less deadly than mass shootings, and are entirely possible. If everyone switched over to knives instead of guns, there likely wouldn't be less deaths. Most gun murder occur within close proximity to their victim, close enough to where a knife could have been used instead, and gunshot wounds do not tend to be significantly more deadly than knife wounds according to medical date (although based on how you compile it, there are discrepancies between various groups). Nonetheless, the most likely cause of death from a gunshot wound or knife wound is bleed-out or infection, meaning that the injury itself is not as important as the perforation of the vital organs by any means, which opens them up to bleed-out and contagions which can lead to an infection. There is a chance that a killer could put poison or other drugs on their knives, thus combining the effect of the injury with the poison, and effectively eliminating the difference in deadliness in general. Ultimately, the type of the weapon matters less than proximity and target choice, as an area with lots of people will result in more deaths, and an area far away from a hospital will result in the greatest amount of deaths as the wounds will be more difficult to treat. There is a certain randomness to the death toll as a result based on targets chosen, and methods used. But switching from a gun to another weapon, even a knife, would likely save few, if any lives.
Criminals will get gun anyways
Even if guns were somehow more deadly than other weapons, and by making guns illegal no-one would use these other deadly weapons, even more deadly and dangerous than guns, criminals could still get guns by illegal means. Illegal smuggling, illegal gun manufacturing, and simply the raw volume of the number of guns already in circulation, particularly in America, means that stopping the legal production of guns won't stop the illegal production of guns. Interestingly enough, these sorts of firearms already account for the majority of crimes committed by criminals anyways, suggesting that making them illegal won't make them go away. At least 79% of weapon used by criminals were obtained illegally, where as between 89-97% of guns are estimated to be illegally obtained. So, the vast majority of guns are not purchased legally, with a legal background check in the U.S.
Illegal smuggling of firearms is a huge issue, although no exact numbers are known for how many are smuggled in or out of the U.S. annually. Russia, eastern bloc countries and China are the biggest culprit of illegal weapons smuggling, haven given weapons directly or indirectly to Iran, Hezbollah, the cartels, the Taliban, the Russian mafia, and even to some extent their own enemies, such as Chechynians or the Afghanistan people. Their illegal arms trade is so prolific Russia most commonly fights against their own guns in their own wars. With nearly 100 million ak-47's in the worst, most going for 50-100 dollars, they are easily and frequently trafficked across borders of countries, most of which have little if any real means to stop smugglers. Only about 1-5% of land based traffickers are stopped in the U.S., meaning that the majority will get through our borders. Only half will be caught, ever, and that's mostly poor undocumented immigrants, rather than hardcore gun smugglers. [1] Given the ease of travel, the potential for gun smuggling is obviously huge, and already very prevalent. Although exact numbers are unknown, it's not unreasonable to think that the majority of illegal weapons used come from illegal smuggling.
Illegal manufacturing is also fairly easy. While "ghost guns" are a popular idea in the public mind, illegal manufacturing of gun has been occurring for decades, and with relative ease. There are no special machines designed to make guns, guns are made from the same machinery widely used by other industries, such as care manufacturing or machine shops. All that's needed is a mill, lathe or steel stamping device, and a polymer mold or wood carving device to make the accessories. It's actually not uncommon for people to make guns off the books just for fun, rather than any nefarious purpose, and this culture has allowed many darker elements to copy their methods in making their own guns. While home made guns may vary in quality, in general they are good enough to commit a crime, which only requires a handful of rounds and are mostly used at close range and for intimidation, rather than pushed to the limits typical factory made guns are. Criminals generally tend to prefer cheap, disposable guns over expensive guns that will last a lifetime, as evidence of a crime remaining for a lifetime is incriminating, rather than beneficial. Thus these untraceable, off-the-books guns made with no-one the wiser are preferred by criminals, which the statistics tend to show. Whatever percent do use legal guns likely would just switch over to illegal guns. And even if we somehow prevented all of these murders, whatever that small percentage of guns that are legally obtained by criminals, it would need to offset the number of cases where guns are used in self defense, which is nearly as common as violent crimes with guns themselves, or 300,000 cases a year, according to the CDC. [1][2] Saving "just 1 life" doesn't cut it if thousands of more lives are taken in return. Seatbelts kill a few hundred people everywhere as do vaccines, but this pails in comparison to the thousands saved. Saving "just one life" isn't worth it if far more lives are taken as a result of the new action. Because guns have a purpose for saving lives as well, you'd likely do more harm than good with gun control, assuming it worked to take guns out of the hands of criminals. Guns are used for self defense the majority of the time without anyone even getting killed, as merely brandishing a firearm or pointing it at someone is useful enough to stop a violent crime. So, the amount of defensive uses with guns in this country out numbers the violent crimes, and not every state has loose gun control or widely available guns (such as California or New York). So, guns do more good than harm, which is far more than the percentage of legal guns doing harm in any case.
But what if we could save just one life?
A common argument by gun control advocates is the notions that if removing our rights to own a gun could save "just one life!", it would be worth it. While for aforementioned reasons this won't be the case as said above as you'd need to save thousands of lives, what if you could save just one life by banning guns? Would it be worth sacrificing our freedoms for 1 life, or 100 lives, or 500? While I certainly enjoy the sentiment and find it very sad and tragic, the obvious answer is, well, no. Scissors kill approximately 100 people per year, are we going to ban scissors? Alcohol kills some 88,000 a year according to the CDC, mostly other people in car accidents, and it has no use to society. Literally none what so ever, that is drinkable ethanol. Are you willing to ban alcohol? If we want to legalize something that has no purpose to society, and that might create a black market, why does the logic make sense with guns, which kills less people, 10,000 homicides or less a year, and perhaps 20,000 suicides if we choose to include it. [1] For those that want to legalize pot or other drugs, how do you contend with the damage caused by it, in relation to value of these drugs which is functionally nothing to society other than instant gratification? Unlike cars or stairs, they serve no tangible benefit and the thousands of car accidents or falling deaths a year can't be justified for economic or practical reasons. It just makes your life more comfortable to have it.
In the name of freedom, most Americans are willing to take some risk. Slavery and oppression didn't kill people, but isn't it worth fighting for your rights even if it means you might die? Rape is rarely fatal, but shouldn't a woman be allowed to use lethal force to fight it? Alcohol kills way more than guns, and guns can be used in self defense, where as alcohol has no purpose, but alcohol should be legal where as guns are not? Where does the reasoning come from? No, I put it to you that few sane people would ever argue that "just one life" is worth our freedoms. While sad, even if you could save just a handful of people, isn't freedom worth it? The argument that something far deadlier shouldn't be banned for the sake of freedom but something less deadly should makes no sense. Unless you're willing to give up all your other freedoms which kill more people every year, pain medications and alcohol and the like, you are nothing more than a self righteous hypocrite grasping at the last straw you can because your argument lacks any real substance. It's an argument made from pure bias and hypocrisy that giving up a right you don't use at the expense of the another is okay to save a few people, but not your own freedoms that you exercise. While not my favorite subject, if it comes down to it, yes, civilians should be allowed to own guns. Unless it's been demonstrated to be so deadly that society cannot make it with guns, than they shouldn't be banned. And seeing all the far more deadly things that we allow in our society, that serve no purpose other than recreation, I don't see why guns shouldn't be allowed either.
Suicides
Some have argued that the suicide rate goes up with gun ownership. While the evidence is hard to dig through in general, for the most part, guns do not cause suicides, deeply seeded psychological issues do. It's not any harder to jump off of a bridge, swallow poison or asphyxiate yourself, and yet somehow guns are always targeted for this. In an international comparison with U.N. data, Countries with the lowest amount of suicides tended to have more guns, and countries with the highest amount of suicides tend to have less guns. With countries that had the highest suicide rates in the world, only 3 out of 25 (12%) had an above average rate for gun ownership, where as 1 out of 25 (4%) had an above average rate for gun ownership. Comparatively, countries with the lowest suicide rates tended to have more guns, 12 out of 25 (48%) had an above average gun ownership rate, 4 out of 25 (16%) had a gun ownership rate far above average (15.0), and 2 out of 25 (8%) had a gun ownership rate extremely above average (30.0). While this is a simple correlation argument, it does show that suicides as a whole is not correlated at all with more guns. In Australia for example after massive gun buy-back programs were implemented that dropped gun ownership rates from 54 per 100 people to around 15 per 100 people, the suicide rates by asphyxiation and hanging went up by an equal amount. Getting rid of guns didn't remove people's mental illnesses and depression, and thus their desire to commit suicide. As has been established there are other just as deadly methods to kill someone, including yourself, as guns. People when they have access to guns are more likely to use them to commit suicide since it is often perceived to be faster, but suicidal people will not choose to not commit suicide if guns are not available. The deeply seeded psychological issues need to be addressed, rather than the banning of firearms.
International Comparisons
While arguably the hardest and most intricate nature of gun control, that is comparing the entire world, it becomes very difficult to even be able to do such a comparison on an apples-to-apples basis. As stated before, poverty, education, law enforcement effectiveness, organized crime and even a sense of randomness all contribute to violence rates, and thus trying to determine if any one factor is really the major factor is difficult to consider. For instance, people are more likely to kill others when it's hot, meaning that climate is a literal factor when determining homicide and literally warmer countries will have more murders. [1][2] This is an uncontrollable factor that can't be tamed; where as Africa and South America have the highest murder rates in the world, Europe and Asia have the lowest, and their temperatures reflect that. One cannot simply control with laws how much crime will happen. Germany killed more people than will ever die from gun violence in America in 1,000 years in just 10 (10 million+ compared to 10,000 a year), but Germany is not a naturally violent place, only having gone through it's massive waves of genocide for a brief period. Crime and especially violence is dependent on a lot of factors, and so pretending you can control them all is rather ridiculous. Certainly, poverty, education and drug use are big factors, but even these cannot be remedied just by flicking a switch.
Even so, direct comparison with United Nations data, comparing countries with their self-reported homicide rates, compared to the gun ownership rate, in an apples-to-oranges comparison, still shows no correlation that more guns is equivalent to more crime. Not only does the U.S. not have the highest homicide rate (with over 100 countries with a higher homicide rate), but countries with the lowest homicide rates, owned more guns on average than the world average. If we compare the world average of gun ownership (8.9 guns per 100 people) [1] to each country and assess their homicide rates, 20 out of the 25 (80%) of countries with the lowest homicide rates in the world had a higher gun ownership rate higher than the world average. Of these, 15 had a gun ownership rate higher than 15 per person (60%), and 7 (28%) have a firearm ownership rate of 30 per 100. For country's with the highest homicide rates, 8 out of 25 (32%) had higher gun ownership rate than the world average. Only 2 out of 25 (8%) had a rate at or above 15.0, and zero had a rate higher than 30.0. Essentially, 80% of country's had more than the world average for gun ownership, and 60% had significantly more than the world average, compared to 32% and 8% for high homicides. This means that, country's with high homicides tend to have less guns, and country's with low homicides tend to have more guns, implying a positive benefit for owning more guns. While more guns likely won't reduce the homicide rate by themselves, it does show that focusing on people, rather than guns, likely has a positive benefit. Dumping 1,000 guns in to a field in Pennsylvania won't lower the murder rate, nor would giving those 1,000 guns to gang members. The social impact, where the guns go and what we do about violence in general, is likely more important than the type of gun, or guns in general.
In conclusion, gun control laws would have a marginal, if any impact on violent crime or homicides. The people need to be at the forefront of the violence equation, not guns. A maniac with a bomb is no less deadly than a maniac with a gun. And therefore, in order to solve the problems, we need to focus on the people, mental health, poverty, and addiction.
Monday, October 24, 2016
Global Suicide Rate compared to Gun Ownership
Global Suicide Rate compared to Gun Ownership
Global Correlation of Gun ownership and suicide rate
The following is a list of the country's with the highest suicide rates in the world, between 44.2 and 16.6 (compared to 12.1 for the U.S.) Compared to the average gun ownership rate of 8.9 per 100 people, how many of these country's have above average world gun ownership rates?
3 out of 25 (12%) had an above average rate for gun ownership. 1 out of 25 (4%) had an above average rate for gun ownership. 0 out of 25 had a significantly above average gun ownership rate. Country's above average are bolded, where country's above 15.0 are in red. Countries above 30.0 would be in green.
1 Guyana - 14.6
2 South Korea - 1.1
3 Sri Lanka - 1.5
4 Lithuania - .7
5 Suriname - 13.4
6 Mozambique - 5.1
7 Tanzania - 1.4
8. Nepal - .8
9 Kazakhstan - 1.3
10 Burundi- 1.2
11 India - 4.2
12 South Sudan - 5.5
13 Turkmenistan- 3.8
14 Russia - 8.9
15. Uganda - 1.4
16 Hungary- 5.5
17 Japan - .6
18 Belarus - 7.3
19 Zimbabwe - 4.6
20 Bhutan - 3.5
21 Sudan - 5.5
22 Comoros - 1.8
23 Ukraine - 6.6
24 Poland - 1.3
25. Equatorial Guinea - 19.9
Global Correlation of Gun ownership and suicide rate
The following is a list of the country's with the highest suicide rates in the world, between 44.2 and 16.6 (compared to 12.1 for the U.S.) Compared to the average gun ownership rate of 8.9 per 100 people, how many of these country's have above average world gun ownership rates?
3 out of 25 (12%) had an above average rate for gun ownership. 1 out of 25 (4%) had an above average rate for gun ownership. 0 out of 25 had a significantly above average gun ownership rate. Country's above average are bolded, where country's above 15.0 are in red. Countries above 30.0 would be in green.
1 Guyana - 14.6
2 South Korea - 1.1
3 Sri Lanka - 1.5
4 Lithuania - .7
5 Suriname - 13.4
6 Mozambique - 5.1
7 Tanzania - 1.4
8. Nepal - .8
9 Kazakhstan - 1.3
10 Burundi- 1.2
11 India - 4.2
12 South Sudan - 5.5
13 Turkmenistan- 3.8
14 Russia - 8.9
15. Uganda - 1.4
16 Hungary- 5.5
17 Japan - .6
18 Belarus - 7.3
19 Zimbabwe - 4.6
20 Bhutan - 3.5
21 Sudan - 5.5
22 Comoros - 1.8
23 Ukraine - 6.6
24 Poland - 1.3
25. Equatorial Guinea - 19.9
Country's with the lowest Suicide rates, compared to average gun ownership rate
The following is a list of the country's with the lowest rates of suicide in the world, between .4 and 3.5 (compared to 12.1 for the U.S.) Compared to the average gun ownership rate of 8.9 per 100 people, how many of these country's have above average world gun ownership rates? 12 out of 25 (48%) had an above average gun ownership rate. 4 out of 25 (16%) had a gun ownership rate far above average (15.0), and 2 out of 25 (8%) had a gun ownership rate extremely above average (30.0). It seems like there's very little chance that more guns = more suicides, at least according to the data at face value. 1. Syria - 3.9 2. Saudi Arabia - 35 3. Lebanon - 21 4. Kuwait- 24.8 5. Oman - 25.5 6. Jamaica - 8.1 7. Egypt - 3.5 8. Azerbaijan - 3.5 9. Iraq - 34.2 10. Libya - 15.5 11. Algeria - 7.6 12. Jordan - 11.5 13. Barbados - 7.8 14. Bahamas - 5.3 15. Tunisia - .1 16. Belize - 10 17. Venezuela- 10.7 18. Namibia- 12.6 19. Haiti - .6 20. Armenia - 12.5 21. Philippines - 4.7 22. Mauritania - 1.6 23. South Africa - 12.7 24. Malaysia - 1.5 25. Ghana - .4 |
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