I accept your apologies, gun advocates. In quite a few posts on this blog, I've been stating the obvious: controlling the availability of guns produces fewer gun deaths.
After all, guns kill people. People don't kill people. (The number of bare-handed murders is hugely less than the number of murders by a gun.)
But I've gotten quite a few comments from defenders of unfettered gun availability who ignore research proving my point. Hopefully a new study will come closer to convincing them that while they're free to believe what they want to, they aren't free to make up their own facts.
Have a read: "States with more gun restrictions have fewer deaths, study says."
As Congress debates whether to toughen the nation’s gun laws, a study from Boston Children’s Hospital found that states with the highest number of gun laws have the lowest rates of gun deaths due to homicides and suicides.
The research, published online Wednesday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, analyzed gun laws in all 50 states as well as the total number of gun-related deaths in each state from 2007 through 2010. It found that fatality rates ranged from a high of 17.9 per 100,000 people in Louisiana — a state among those with the fewest gun laws — to a low of 2.9 per 100,000 in Hawaii, which ranks sixth for its number of gun restrictions.
Massachusetts, which the researchers said has the most gun restrictions, had a gun fatality rate of 3.4 per 100,000.
“Critics of gun laws have said that gun laws don’t work, but our research indicates the opposite,” said study leader Dr. Eric Fleegler, a pediatric emergency medicine physician at Boston Children’s Hospital. “In states with the most laws, we found a dramatic decreased rate in firearm fatalities, though we can’t say for certain that these laws have led to fewer deaths.”
Cause and effect is difficult to prove when studying complicated real world social problems. Kudos to the researchers for not claiming more implications from the study than were claimable.
You can bet that if the NRA had conducted a study and found the opposite -- that fewer gun laws were correlated with fewer deaths -- they'd be shamelessly promoting the research as a solid basis for repealing gun regulations.
The online journal article describing this new research can be read here. Here's the conclusion:
In conclusion, we found an association between the legislative strength of a state's firearm laws—as measured by a higher number of laws—and a lower rate of firearm fatalities. The association was significant for firearm fatalities overall and for firearm suicide and firearm homicide deaths, individually. As our study could not determine a cause-and-effect relationship, further studies are necessary to define the nature of this association.
Absolutely. Do the research.
And let's also pass some nationwide gun control measures, such as universal background checks where the records are kept permanently -- just as they are currently for guns bought from licensed dealers.
Nothing is absolutely certain in life. Except death. It's horribly immoral and unethical to stand pat and shrug our societal shoulders while every year thousands upon thousands of people needlessly die from gun violence in these United States.
About 30,000 people a year are murdered by a gun, or commit suicide by using a gun. The study found a six-fold difference in deaths per 100,000 among the states. With the overall national rate about 10 deaths per 100,000, and the lowest state rate (Hawaii) being about 3 deaths per 100,000, arguably we could reduce gun deaths by two-thirds through stronger gun regulations.
This isn't guaranteed. But if we do nothing, we'll get more of the same: the most lax gun culture of any industrialized country in the world, and by far the highest rate of gun deaths.
Brian,
Have you considered
Denmark for the remainder of your retirement years? They have one of the few social-democracies that is actually solvent unlike the majority of Europe where entitlements and deficit spending have decimated the economies.
Denmark has gun control, extensive government regulation of everything, lots of free stuff and high taxes. People there don't rise too high but they don't sink too low, as a rule, and the people are said to be happy there on average. English is widely spoken and I don't think the weather would be a big adjustment as you are used to Oregon which is often cold and dreary. Maybe it would be a little boring in Denmark after the initial novelty wears off but that should not be a problem after living in Salem. Since your wife likes dogs she could raise Great Danes and you can blog from anywhere.
The U.S. seems to be too wild and wooly for your tastes. It's a beast that will be hard to tame in your lifetime. There is no money to make it into a euro-style socialist utopia with a $17 trillion debt growing out of control, possibly to $20 trillion by the time Ob*ma is done with us. Where will the money come from for the freebies?
Ob*ma is just making things worse and failing miserably as a leader in this debt crisis.
So, go east aging man to Denmark!!
As for this aging man I may head south for a Latin American country. I like it warm and I'm familiar with Spanish. I'm becoming too wimpy for cold weather. Mexico bans guns of which I like to have one or two for defense, but guns are ubiquitous in Mexico anyway(gun control sure isn't going well there and could put a kink in your gun control stats). Some Latin countries are laid back and leave you alone without a lot of regulation, taxes and interferrence. Ecuador might be nice. But I'll base my finances in the Caymans, Singapore and Switzerland.
Posted by: tucson | March 08, 2013 at 09:58 AM
tucson, thanks for the relocation suggestion. My wife and I have thought about where we'd prefer to live, but keep coming back to... right where we are: Oregon.
The United States is doing just fine. Have you noted that the stock market is really happy with "socialist" Obama? New highs, soaring corporate profits, improving unemployment, lower deficit predictions. Looks like voters made a good economic decision last November.
I'm not sure why you seem to think my views on gun control are atypical and are part of the reason why I'm better suited for another country.
Australia has banned assault weapons (maybe all semi-automatic weapons, not sure). Yet no one things of Australia as being anything other than "wild and wooly." I heard the conservative prime minister who led gun control efforts in Australia as being mystified by why gun control is a right vs. left thing in the United States.
He (John Howard) simply sees it as a public safety issue, which he said is how most people in Australia view it. If anything, he said, conservatives should be in favor of better public safety.
The gun culture in this country doesn't have anything to do with "doing your own thing."
As noted before, it takes no guts, skill, or bravery to pull out your VISA card and buy a scary looking gun. Every time I go longboarding I exhibit much more courage and free-spiritedness than "gun nuts." And I don't endanger or scare anyone else.
Well, maybe just a little, because skateboarders have sort of a bad rap. But I've never come close to getting in an accident with anyone, whereas guns kill thousands every month.
Oh, forgot to make my point about being in the mainstream. Polls show that most Americans, even most Republicans, favor almost all (maybe all) of the gun control proposals put forward by the Obama administration. So if anyone is out of touch with the American viewpoint on this issue, it sure isn't me.
Posted by: Brian Hines | March 08, 2013 at 12:50 PM
Brian,
I understand your concern about guns. There are a lot of them out there and a lot of crazy/bad people who can get their hands on them. That bothers me too.
But that's the problem. How do you control the estimated 300 million guns already circulating in the U.S.? How do you know when someone is going to flip out or go bad?
Sure, felons and documented loons should not be allowed to own guns. No brainer, but the felons will get them anyway.
The circulating 300 million guns is like the 10-20 million illegals. They're here. No way to get rid of them short of gestapo tactics, and besides, we want some guns for protection and many illegals are OK folks working hard that are good to have around.
I'm not sure banning semi-auto rifles will accomplish much. Most gun murders are committed with handguns. The Virginia Tech guy killed more people than the Newtown or Colorado guys and he used a pistol. In 2011 more people were murdered by blunt force trauma (hammers, pipes, clubs) than by rifles.
You wrote: "The United States is doing just fine. Have you noted that the stock market is really happy with "socialist" Obama? New highs, soaring corporate profits, improving unemployment, lower deficit predictions. Looks like voters made a good economic decision last November."
--As I said, the national debt is now $17 trillion and projected to be $20 trillion when O leaves. This is scary big. He is not running the place properly. Period. The stock market is a bubble inflated by monetetization of the debt by the FED. The country is running on fumes. The world economy is running on fumes. We're in for a rough ride when the chickens come home to roost. They can keep "kicking the can down the road" for awile longer but the road is a dead end and the can stops there. Can't you see that Ob*ma?
Posted by: tucson | March 08, 2013 at 06:09 PM
According to a University of Chicago Study the number of households owning guns has declined 15% since the 1970's when 50% of U.S households owned a gun. Now, that number is 35%.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/03/10/households_with_guns_declines_since_1970s.html
Posted by: tucson | March 12, 2013 at 06:15 PM
Citing a study doesn’t make one pro-science. It often reveals the opposite.
Especially when it's a gun violence study funded by the Joyce Foundation. “Since 2003, the Joyce Foundation has paid grants totaling over $12 million to gun control organizations. The largest single grantee has been the Violence Policy Center, which received $4,154,970 between 1996 and 2006, and calls for an outright ban on handguns, semi-automatic and other firearms, and substantial restrictions on gun owners.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_Foundation#Gun_violence_prevention_and_gun_control
Only an anti-science liberal gun grabber would cite the lack of causation demonstrated by a study while arguing the study PROVES something. Only an anti-science liberal gun grabber would pile onto the reactionary post-Sandy Hook gun regulation bandwagon with a study that shows Connecticut already among the most legislatively gun regulated states in America. And only an anti-liberty liberal gun grabber would view American exceptionalism for strong gun rights as nothing more than the world’s most lax gun culture.
Nothing new here really. The battle between liberty and tyranny, between individual rights and the collective, between the values of our founders and those they fled has been going on for 236+ years. It’s on display all around us at all times and even more often cleverly hiding in plain sight on blogs like the one we have here.
Posted by: Richard Windsor | March 15, 2013 at 09:06 PM
Richard, thanks for supporting my position. I guess you must have been overwhelmed by the facts and logic in what I wrote and linked to, because you failed to present any evidence to refute what is clearly true:
More guns equals more gun deaths; more gun regulations equals less gun deaths.
Most Americans favor the gun control position of Obama, Democrats, and me. You're in a minority. See:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/03/some-gun-measures-broadly-backed-but-the-politics-show-an-even-split/
That's good news. It shows that most people understand that reality isn't whatever we believe it to be. Facts are real. Evidence is real.
And tens of thousands of needless deaths caused by our way out-of-control gun culture are also real. Remember the dead children. Remember Sandy Hook. I'm proud to say that I remember. Do you?
Lastly, do you know anything about the scientific method? The source of funding for a study doesn't have anything to do with how valid the study is. There's nothing wrong with an organization that favors gun control funding a study about the effectiveness of gun control regulations.
That's how we learn: by studying issues and gathering evidence. Are you familiar with how the NRA is funded? In large part by money from gun manufacturers. By your logic, this means that anything Wayne La Pierre says can't be trusted.
(In case you do believe this, I agree with you.)
Next time you leave a comment on my blog about a study, please respond with cogent factual observations. Name calling is OK up to a point, but that point is reached very quickly.
Posted by: Brian Hines | March 15, 2013 at 11:25 PM
I guess we'll have to put controls on pressure cookers now that we know they were used to make the bombs in the recent Boston Massacre where 170 people were mutilated to varying degrees of severity and three dead.
I propose background checks on anyone purchasing a pressure cooker and a two week waiting period before taking delivery of it, pending FBI investigation of their premises for other bomb-making material.
Frankly, I prefer an all-out ban on pressure cookers, especially high capacity pressure cookers. I mean, if there were no pressure cookers no one could be blown up by them, right?
Posted by: tucson | April 17, 2013 at 10:15 AM