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Appears a young man was shot in the street near an elementary school in Denver metro. Without details or context the news is already airing the comments of freaked out parents & passersby.
Gnihcraes in no way is the following meant to diminish or dismiss what you just experienced with your child.
Honestly, I'm less concerned with the one off crazy & troubled far more by the climate of fear & precedence given to it by the media over fact & reason.
Thing is you can write all the laws to prevent "bad/dangerous people" from legally acquiring and/or possessing guns but that won't stop anyone.
The only government based solution to the problem is for government to get out of the way of the people being armed whenever and wherever they wish.
Yes, it's more guns that will make us safer. Not less (because the only "less guns" you get with the law is less guns in the hands of good people).
I don't think the amount of guns will have a significant effect on crime rates. It's a pretty argument, but I don't think it works in real life any more than more laws make people safe.
Well I know less guns will reduce the number of crimes committed. They will however increase the crime rate for unarmed victims.Quote:
Originally Posted by Irving
I don't think it would. Larger community = more crime. That metric alone will drive numbers so much that any other metric will be almost undetectable.
Dr Lott would disagree ... and he makes the case quite well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Irving
Explains increase in volume but not rate. It might make mass shootings more likely (volume of people) in cities.Quote:
Originally Posted by Irving
There are mass shootings level casualties every weekend in Chicago that get ignored.
Denver had 59 homicides last year and is on track for slightly more this year. Shocking in aggregate.
Homicide rate (100K) in 2016 for Denver was 8.22. Go into Westminster and it drops to 3.51. Why are you ~2.5x more likely to be murdered in Denver? Some cities aren't even in the data because they have zero homicides!
http://www.cpr.org/news/story/a-dive...ta-in-5-charts
Yeah, I'm struggling to understand how society could have identified this nutter and prevented him from getting a gun. You have more ridiculous cases like Holmes where he is screaming he's insane, making threats, and even his therapist knew it (contacted LE).Quote:
Originally Posted by Zundfolge
This one, I'm not sure. I'm worried any criteria other than we have now would infringe on the rights of people who aren't a problem and never will be.
There are probably a handful of reasons, but I'd really struggle to believe that the level of gun ownership was a significant factor.Quote:
Originally Posted by Skip
If gun ownership (respecting RKBA, values) is a part of culture, could that be a factor?Quote:
Originally Posted by Irving
Of course it could be a factor. I'm suggesting that ownership alone is not a significant factor. There is more to the story than just owning a gun. There are people who buy a gun at some point in their life and it just sits in a drawer forever. Those people aren't preventing any crime just by having a gun somewhere in their house.
Gun ownership is, for the most part, a hobby. One has to be at a certain level of financial/economic stability, to engage in and maintain any level of hobby. People with enough economic freedom also have the time and interest in maintaining the quality of the community in which they live. Not everyone is going to be involved, but enough people to make a difference.
You could basically make the same argument for piano ownership. People who own pianos aren't out actively preventing crime, or frightening criminals with the threat of having their fingers smashed by the fallboard anymore than gun owners are out actively preventing crimes. Criminals already live a life of constant risk, and I doubt that the presence of guns adds much perceived risk. Certainly not compared to just having a more involved and aware community to begin with.
I'm sure there is enough of a discussion here to run an entire years long survey. Just because I don't buy that argument anymore, doesn't mean others can't. Believe what you want, I just think that saying, "get more guns and people will behave," is just as tired of a cop-out as "make drugs and prostitution legal and tax the hell out of 'em!"
On a side note, I'm not at all against the state putting mass shooters/murders to death immediately, but I also don't see the death penalty as much of a deterrent, especially among mass shooters who regularly kill themselves anyway.
EDIT: With your emphasis on the culture, I suspect that we're saying similar things. I also suspect that you'd, correctly, point out that the culture of piano ownership and gun ownership are different.