The Correlation Between State Gun Laws and Homicide Rates

Really? And how do you suppose law enforcement will respond to a potentially armed individual with mental health problems in this world of fear of yours?

And given that now menta health providers now must disclose medical records to law enforcement, who is going to willingly seek help?

 

This is not a new ethical debate on disclosure by any stretch.

 

The point would be to get to them before they're armed/violent. I'm not living in a world of fear, at all. You can say it, but it falls totally flat. Which one of us feels the need to carry?

 

And how would you do that? Right after the SATs, eveyone gets a psych exam?

You live in a world of fear. You fear that someone unstable might get a gun. Or that someone might kill another, or themselves. This is your fear. And you think you can eradicate this fear with a solution.

I don't fear these things. And I don't carry out of fear. I carry because I can.

If I feared I might walk into a gun fight, I'd wear body armor. In your fear of firearms, you can't even understand something as simple as that of actual bodily protection. Because you have no clue about it.

 

One of us walks around unarmed. One of us would rather arm everyone than even be inconvenienced from being armed. If one of us is afraid of something, its you. I'm going to be walking around unarmed either way.

 

You are again confused. I want to give the right to be armed.

I could care less if you are armed or not. It won't bother me one bit, because I don't fear it. You, or anyone. Makes no difference.

But clearly allowing people to be armed causes you great amounts of fear.

 

You must celebrate these shootings then. Folks were armed, that's what really matters. Not the deaths, not that the tragedy was avoidable. The most important thing is that people have the right to be armed at all times no matter what. What a thing to make a stand on.

Float, I'm not scared of guns or people carrying guns. You can say it, but it isn't true. It's a straw man.

 

Again, no. Still confused. Nobody present save law enforcement at the end were legally able to carry. I'll celebrate the day when adults who wish to carry, can. That wasn't allowed, then. So again, confused.

Um, you don't know what a straw man is, either, apparently. A straw man is when I put forth an argument that is easily beaten, as if it matters. See, this, is a straw man, pointing out that you don't know what one is.

Ok, you are fearless. What's the problem with everyone being armed if they so choose? Because you don't think it serves a purpose? So what?

 

1) I'm not arguing no one should ever be armed. (straw man)

2) I'm not saying I am fearless (straw man)

This is getting dumb.

 

You're right, this is getting dumb. Where did I say you were arguing that no one should be armed? You are correct, that is a straw man you are forming.

I am saying you are now fearless. This is called a scenario. You are fearless. What's your reason for not allowing everyone to be armed?

 

Because some people are mentally unwell or wish to do harm, steps should be taken to screen for them.

 

Clearly I don't understand what fear is, then. Because that sounds like fear.

 

It's not fear, it is reality. Do you think these shootings are staged, or do you think they are acceptable?

 

Wow.

If establishing that the number of hoops that the State makes you jump through to get guns has literally zero correlation with the frequency that guns are used to kill people is "debunked" by noting that DC has crazy gun restrictions and a shipload of gun violence then either:

1) you have no idea what the word "debunked" means, or
2) you have no idea what the term "premise" means.

Two options. Just those two.

 

Guns are objects with discrete weights such that they can be picked up by human beings and transported across state and municipal boundaries. It's a real mind **** for you, isn't it?

So far I've provided multiple sources and several reasonable arguments. You've got an opinion blog.

 

Yup. Still sounds like fear to me.

 

Fear and reality are not mutually exclusive.

No, IP, I don't think these are staged. And I don't think they are acceptable, either. What I do think is that there is a solution that doesn't involve the limiting of rights of any innocent party.

 

Point, KB. (unless you bring in other variables).

His point is that the "gun density" should be slightly higher (statistically noticable though) where gun laws are weaker. That there is a stickiness to guns but not a perfect stickiness. It's perfectly logical and reasonable whereas your binary (flow or no flow) way of looking at this is kind of clunky.

That said, I will say that the pot analogy was entertaining but not the best one since pot is perishable. Guns, on the other hand, can be used regularly and still last a really, really, really long time. So to compare guns to pot when many of the guns that people kill with were made 10, 25, 50 years ago (pot presumably doesn't sit around that long), doesn't work that well. The flow of guns from less restrictive to more restrictive states may not be automatic, but they have been flowing for a very long time. And if there are any other demographic, economic, cultural factors, etc. which serve as gun magnets that contribute to homicide rates, then, the exclusion of those variables makes the interpretation of the correlation between gun laws and homicide pretty useless. I'm guessing that the standardized coefficients for average age, race, and income are really large.

There is omitted variable bias when you can think of a third variable that is correlated with both the dependant variable (homicide) and indendent variable (gun laws) that is omitted from the analysis. In this case, I'm thinking there's a LOT of omitted variable bias.

So if we were looking at highly perishable pot, a simple correlation type study might be a bit more convincing. But with guns, you gotta have other variables.

 

Bunch of gun nuts.

 

What is your solution?