Gun Master Debate
- Thread starter King Richard
- Start date
Einherjar86
Active Member
These are great points, and are really the issue that everyone's ignoring. This is the dilemma in the midst of anti-gun legislation; because, at their core, guns themselves aren't evil.
Now, I have a few things to add that aren't particularly opposed to anything Dak's said; but they've been mentioned throughout this discussion, and I think they need to be elaborated.
Occasionally we see the evidence showing (apparently) that increased gun ownership leads to less crime. Dak has cited that gun ownership has trended up while crime has trended down; other people cite Switzerland, which has very high gun ownership per capita and very little crime.
What we have to acknowledge is that this suggests that higher gun ownership does not necessarily lead to an increase in crime. While I do believe that more guns will inevitably mean more gun incidents, we cannot unequivocally say that more guns means there will be more gun crime.
However, we also cannot make the claim that more guns causes less crime, which is what the regulation argument should focus on. The claim that "more guns = less crime" is an unabashed instance of misleading that ignores countless other factors/variables. The fact remains that crime is motivated and/or prevented by various factors, many of which are far more influential than gun possession. There is very little ground for making the claim that guns deter crime.
This does not automatically mean that we now have a path to rampant gun regulation; all we've established is that guns don't prevent crime. We haven't proved that guns cause crime. If gun regulation wants to be taken seriously it has to propose itself in conjunction with reforms to other areas that have far more influence on crime; regulation itself won't solve anything. People get very enthusiastic about gun regulation when it isn't, and shouldn't be, the primary motivating issue. The primary motivating issue is crime itself.
We need to start a petition to get UA and Summerian banned. Those two are complete fucking tools and don't deserve to be around here anymore.
EffigyForgotten
New Metal Member
I cant count how many times I've said this, yet as far as I know, nobody cares enough to even reply. Then again all of you want me gone too probably so...
I don't really understand this argument, owning a gun does not mean someone is going to go on a mass murder spree out of nowhere, there are crazy people in this world that want certain people dead no matter what, just fucking accept it. UltimateApathy needs to buy a gun and shoot himself in the face before someone else does it.
UltimateApathy
Infinite Idiocy
*Yawn* Still beating the same tired old dead horse I see. Apparently what I said earlier about this dead-in-the-water object-based ridiculous concept was missed earlier, so allow me to repeat myself:
This object-based argument has got to be one of the most idiotic things I've ever heard. It's completely myopic and ignorant of what objects are most likely to be used for: a gun is MADE FOR KILLING, so doesn't logic follow that it will likely be used for exactly that? By the (non) logic of your argument everyone should, for example, also be allowed to own a bomb factory in their backyard or drive a tank around, or every single country in the world should be allowed to own nuclear warheads because we can't blame bombs, tanks or nukes for what people might do with with them, right?
Now if you will excuse me, I am off to petition my government to allow me to own bombs, nuclear weapons, biological/chemical weapons in vials, and of course my very own tank to cruise around the neighbourhood looking cool in. I'll also throw in a request to be able to buy cocaine, crystal meth, ecstasy, LSD, and other random poison legally at my local pharmacy. I should be allowed to own alllllll of these things because of the supremely-logical argument that "you can't blame objects for what people do with them", of course
This object-based argument has got to be one of the most idiotic things I've ever heard. It's completely myopic and ignorant of what objects are most likely to be used for: a gun is MADE FOR KILLING, so doesn't logic follow that it will likely be used for exactly that? By the (non) logic of your argument everyone should, for example, also be allowed to own a bomb factory in their backyard or drive a tank around, or every single country in the world should be allowed to own nuclear warheads because we can't blame bombs, tanks or nukes for what people might do with with them, right?
Now if you will excuse me, I am off to petition my government to allow me to own bombs, nuclear weapons, biological/chemical weapons in vials, and of course my very own tank to cruise around the neighbourhood looking cool in. I'll also throw in a request to be able to buy cocaine, crystal meth, ecstasy, LSD, and other random poison legally at my local pharmacy. I should be allowed to own alllllll of these things because of the supremely-logical argument that "you can't blame objects for what people do with them", of course
UltimateApathy
Infinite Idiocy
Now THIS is both really funny and really pathetic - I'm not sure whether to laugh or feel pity for him now. Poor kid feels rump-hurt that we don't agree with him about gun control so starts whining that we should banned - what a perfectly lovely example of the myopic, head-in-the-sand denial act that mindless muppets perform when confronted by evidence that doesn't agree with their little delicately-constructed world views
Dak
mentat
Guns are designed for one purpose: delivering a projectile at high speeds toward a target. That target doesn't have to be a person. If it is, that could still be a good thing, dependent on the situation. Running around yelling with your hands in the air doesn't change that.
Most of the bullshit in your local pharmacy is as bad as any of the other drugs you listed, when used like those other drugs are. Most of the drugs in the pharmacy have no net health benefit. Your comparison is poor. Your hysteria is unwarranted. Your mockery is bereft of meaning.
Most of the bullshit in your local pharmacy is as bad as any of the other drugs you listed, when used like those other drugs are. Most of the drugs in the pharmacy have no net health benefit. Your comparison is poor. Your hysteria is unwarranted. Your mockery is bereft of meaning.
UltimateApathy
Infinite Idiocy
And since it is overly-clear, as I demonstrated above, that some people have not been reading this topic very clearly yet still feel inclined to comment here, I think it's time for a re-cap here. I have thoroughly out-debated and out-argued you in this topic, so let's go back and have a look at some of the highlights of it:
* the sole purpose of guns is to kill people in a split second
* guns can easily escalate drunken brawls to murder
* guns can easily escalate arguments and fist fights into slayings
* guns can easily escalate road rage incidents into slaughter
* guns can easily escalate situation of a child innocently exploring their home into a situation of shooting themselves in the face
* guns can easily escalate a brief momentary lack of care into death/or a lifetime of tragedy
* if there are no guns in a society, people don't need them for protection
* even if you are actually able to defend yourself with a gun (which is far more unlikely than any of the above scenarios) you would still have killed or seriously injured another person, when non-lethal methods would get the job done just as well in most cases.
* the idea of keeping guns in order to wage a guerilla war against the evil government in the future is pathetically and laughably ridiculous.
* the real reason "gun nuts" wanna keep their guns is because they spent thousands of dollars on them and they think they are "real men" who are "so cool/macho/powerful/etc" if they have a good-looking gun. They just use N.R.A. propoganda as a convenient crutch for their ego-stroking yet deadly hobby.
The point is that guns (and all other modern weaponry) act as an enabler to more extreme violence. Human nature may remain relatively consistent over time but social norms DO change. If we had the same kind of approach to life these days as they had back in the medievil times, which involved consistant and perpetual warfare ALL the time and winning at all costs (no Geneva convention or whatever back then) this world would undoubtedly have been reduced to mostly total ruin and devastation. For example, picking up your gun and blowing off someone's head in a neighboring town for whatever random reason you choose would be a daily occurrence for many, maybe most, people. Human society has moved beyond that stage of our existance where warfare is a daily occurrence, and the idea of carrying a deadly weapon on your hip is decidely outdated and medievil.
Enablers are a commonly-known fact in psychology. For example a drug addict can't be one without drugs (note to all: drugs ARE illegal) etc, and a mass shooter - or even one of the gung-ho types that pull out their guns at the slightest provocation - can't shoot scores of people (or even one) without a gun.
It seems you would be in favour of fully disarming all levels of society which would be a noble goal for humanity eventually, but even though human society in general has moved beyond the phase where everyone is perpetually at war with everyone else (I don't deny that wars are still being fought, but they are far, far less prevalent than in the medievil times), we certainly aren't ready for a completely weaponless society either. Governments DO still need weapons for self-defence against other countries to deter war, but there is no justification for random civillians strolling around with guns strapped to their hip just so they can boast about the size of their "piece".
They don't enable people with regard to defense at all, the chances of a criminal using a gun for crime are far higher than someone being able to use a gun for successful self-defense, this is a perfectly logical and reasonable observation for anyone who actually follows current events. If someone sticks you up with a gun you won't have time to draw your own weapon and fire, and the same goes for if someone puts a knife to your throat. And guns locked up in a safe in the situation of a rapid home invasion are about as much use as a pink towel.
Now if you're trying to equate someone with a sword or someone with a bow and arrow to someone with an assault rifle, your prostration of your mental abillity in favor of illogical ideals brainwashed into you has truly reached new heights of idiocy.
Use your brain, think about the logistics of the situation, how much easier is it to get away from or even counter-attack (for example, a large wooden chair to the head) some with a knife, sword, or bow than someone with an assualt rifle. This is shown in evidence from the numerous kindergarten attacks in gun-less China in recent years where some crazy guy goes into a kindergarten with a knife in hand and an intention to kill as many kids as possible. The death toll in those events only tends to be perhaps 2-3 but put an assault weapon in his hands and that toll easily becomes 20-30 or higher. A gun like that gives them a "god-like" power to determine who lives and dies, and of course the "power aspect" one of the main appeals of guns to the gun nuts out there.
Hilariously pathetic how your brainwashed mind chooses to pass over the obvious fact that if someone sticks you up with a gun, you're simply not going to be able to reach into your concealed compartment and fire back at them without getting a bullet in the face. And if your gun isn't concealed they'll most likely just shoot you directly instead of sticking you up, and then probably steal your gun for good measure. You really love ignoring simple logistics, don't you?
Also, you're proposing that people simply leave unsecured firearms lying around their homes like any regular item on the off-chance that they're (a) going to have a rapid home invasion and (b) actually going to be get to their gun in time and be able win a firefight with burgulars that will most likely also be armed due to the freely available nature of firearms in American society - both idiotic claims, especially when little Johnny finds your gun under a pillow and blows his brains out by mistake.
Guns in the hands of civilians don't deter crime at all, but it does result in the criminals (who are in fact civilians too) being able to get guns MUCH easier, which in turn emboldens them to commit more brazen crimes. Furthermore, criminals aren't going to be "deterred" from doing crime at all if they know that civilians might be packing heat, it just means they're going to up the ante and carry the largest most powerful guns they can get their hands on, and be willing to fire said guns much more readily in any situation.
And let us not get forget that these psycopaths who commit mass murders are also "civilians" whose sick fantasies are so readily realized by the freely-available American guns far more effectively and terribly than knives etc ever could.
And let's also not forget the civilians who combine "gunplay" with substance abuse or a very short temper and are enabled by the guns to escalate relatively minor situations into murder - it's easy to kill someone with a guy in a split second moment or rage or ill-judgement, but killing someone with a knife generally requires extensive and methodical stabbing to actually fatally wound someone.
You're talking about how there are supposedly more deaths from gun suicide than gun homicide (and as was mentioned earlier in the topic, statistics certainly aren't infallible) but there's still a very significant number of homicides in there, and I'll guarantee you anything you like via the routes of common sense and a decent knowledge of current events that the number of times people have been able to successfully defend themselves with guns from crmininals is far, far lower than the amount of homicides and other crimes committed with guns (let us not forget that homicides are only the tip of the iceberg of crime committed with guns). I challenge you to show me any evidence that my above statement is incorrect - and in the absence of your beloved statistics, you need to rely on logic and common sense.
There are plenty of democratic countries out there (I can methodically list them if you like) where the police and military can carry guns but the civilian population can't and the over-all crime rates (not to mention the non-existant gun crime rate) are fractionally tiny and the socities are very safe and peaceful. That's your theory of guns in civilian hands deterring crime thrown totally out the window right there, numerous times. You should actually take your own advice and look at what the bigger global picture says (guns in civilians hands is not a normal or good idea) and stop allowing yourself to be mind-controlling by localized rightwing political propaganda.
Furthermore, it's not so much that guns in the hands of police deters crime rather than that police NOT having guns emboldens criminals to commit both violent and non-violent crimes on the street with knowledge that they won't be shot or even caught. Without the guns, criminals lose their fear of the police.
Also, the militaries of countries possessing weapons to deter war is an entirely different scenario from civilians possessing weapons to deter crime, and to try paint them as one and the same situation is purely idiotic. The necessity of possessing a weaponized military to preserve the security of the state is something you can study in numerous academic university courses, but you sure as hell won't find any academic courses referring to the necessity of civilians possessing guns to deter crime bwecause it's a sheer and utterly fallacy. Face it, son, you've been trolled by culturally-specific poilitical propoganda that has no logic or relevance with relation to modern human society in general.
* the sole purpose of guns is to kill people in a split second
* guns can easily escalate drunken brawls to murder
* guns can easily escalate arguments and fist fights into slayings
* guns can easily escalate road rage incidents into slaughter
* guns can easily escalate situation of a child innocently exploring their home into a situation of shooting themselves in the face
* guns can easily escalate a brief momentary lack of care into death/or a lifetime of tragedy
* if there are no guns in a society, people don't need them for protection
* even if you are actually able to defend yourself with a gun (which is far more unlikely than any of the above scenarios) you would still have killed or seriously injured another person, when non-lethal methods would get the job done just as well in most cases.
* the idea of keeping guns in order to wage a guerilla war against the evil government in the future is pathetically and laughably ridiculous.
* the real reason "gun nuts" wanna keep their guns is because they spent thousands of dollars on them and they think they are "real men" who are "so cool/macho/powerful/etc" if they have a good-looking gun. They just use N.R.A. propoganda as a convenient crutch for their ego-stroking yet deadly hobby.
The point is that guns (and all other modern weaponry) act as an enabler to more extreme violence. Human nature may remain relatively consistent over time but social norms DO change. If we had the same kind of approach to life these days as they had back in the medievil times, which involved consistant and perpetual warfare ALL the time and winning at all costs (no Geneva convention or whatever back then) this world would undoubtedly have been reduced to mostly total ruin and devastation. For example, picking up your gun and blowing off someone's head in a neighboring town for whatever random reason you choose would be a daily occurrence for many, maybe most, people. Human society has moved beyond that stage of our existance where warfare is a daily occurrence, and the idea of carrying a deadly weapon on your hip is decidely outdated and medievil.
Enablers are a commonly-known fact in psychology. For example a drug addict can't be one without drugs (note to all: drugs ARE illegal) etc, and a mass shooter - or even one of the gung-ho types that pull out their guns at the slightest provocation - can't shoot scores of people (or even one) without a gun.
It seems you would be in favour of fully disarming all levels of society which would be a noble goal for humanity eventually, but even though human society in general has moved beyond the phase where everyone is perpetually at war with everyone else (I don't deny that wars are still being fought, but they are far, far less prevalent than in the medievil times), we certainly aren't ready for a completely weaponless society either. Governments DO still need weapons for self-defence against other countries to deter war, but there is no justification for random civillians strolling around with guns strapped to their hip just so they can boast about the size of their "piece".
They don't enable people with regard to defense at all, the chances of a criminal using a gun for crime are far higher than someone being able to use a gun for successful self-defense, this is a perfectly logical and reasonable observation for anyone who actually follows current events. If someone sticks you up with a gun you won't have time to draw your own weapon and fire, and the same goes for if someone puts a knife to your throat. And guns locked up in a safe in the situation of a rapid home invasion are about as much use as a pink towel.
Now if you're trying to equate someone with a sword or someone with a bow and arrow to someone with an assault rifle, your prostration of your mental abillity in favor of illogical ideals brainwashed into you has truly reached new heights of idiocy.
Use your brain, think about the logistics of the situation, how much easier is it to get away from or even counter-attack (for example, a large wooden chair to the head) some with a knife, sword, or bow than someone with an assualt rifle. This is shown in evidence from the numerous kindergarten attacks in gun-less China in recent years where some crazy guy goes into a kindergarten with a knife in hand and an intention to kill as many kids as possible. The death toll in those events only tends to be perhaps 2-3 but put an assault weapon in his hands and that toll easily becomes 20-30 or higher. A gun like that gives them a "god-like" power to determine who lives and dies, and of course the "power aspect" one of the main appeals of guns to the gun nuts out there.
Hilariously pathetic how your brainwashed mind chooses to pass over the obvious fact that if someone sticks you up with a gun, you're simply not going to be able to reach into your concealed compartment and fire back at them without getting a bullet in the face. And if your gun isn't concealed they'll most likely just shoot you directly instead of sticking you up, and then probably steal your gun for good measure. You really love ignoring simple logistics, don't you?
Also, you're proposing that people simply leave unsecured firearms lying around their homes like any regular item on the off-chance that they're (a) going to have a rapid home invasion and (b) actually going to be get to their gun in time and be able win a firefight with burgulars that will most likely also be armed due to the freely available nature of firearms in American society - both idiotic claims, especially when little Johnny finds your gun under a pillow and blows his brains out by mistake.
Guns in the hands of civilians don't deter crime at all, but it does result in the criminals (who are in fact civilians too) being able to get guns MUCH easier, which in turn emboldens them to commit more brazen crimes. Furthermore, criminals aren't going to be "deterred" from doing crime at all if they know that civilians might be packing heat, it just means they're going to up the ante and carry the largest most powerful guns they can get their hands on, and be willing to fire said guns much more readily in any situation.
And let us not get forget that these psycopaths who commit mass murders are also "civilians" whose sick fantasies are so readily realized by the freely-available American guns far more effectively and terribly than knives etc ever could.
And let's also not forget the civilians who combine "gunplay" with substance abuse or a very short temper and are enabled by the guns to escalate relatively minor situations into murder - it's easy to kill someone with a guy in a split second moment or rage or ill-judgement, but killing someone with a knife generally requires extensive and methodical stabbing to actually fatally wound someone.
You're talking about how there are supposedly more deaths from gun suicide than gun homicide (and as was mentioned earlier in the topic, statistics certainly aren't infallible) but there's still a very significant number of homicides in there, and I'll guarantee you anything you like via the routes of common sense and a decent knowledge of current events that the number of times people have been able to successfully defend themselves with guns from crmininals is far, far lower than the amount of homicides and other crimes committed with guns (let us not forget that homicides are only the tip of the iceberg of crime committed with guns). I challenge you to show me any evidence that my above statement is incorrect - and in the absence of your beloved statistics, you need to rely on logic and common sense.
There are plenty of democratic countries out there (I can methodically list them if you like) where the police and military can carry guns but the civilian population can't and the over-all crime rates (not to mention the non-existant gun crime rate) are fractionally tiny and the socities are very safe and peaceful. That's your theory of guns in civilian hands deterring crime thrown totally out the window right there, numerous times. You should actually take your own advice and look at what the bigger global picture says (guns in civilians hands is not a normal or good idea) and stop allowing yourself to be mind-controlling by localized rightwing political propaganda.
Furthermore, it's not so much that guns in the hands of police deters crime rather than that police NOT having guns emboldens criminals to commit both violent and non-violent crimes on the street with knowledge that they won't be shot or even caught. Without the guns, criminals lose their fear of the police.
Also, the militaries of countries possessing weapons to deter war is an entirely different scenario from civilians possessing weapons to deter crime, and to try paint them as one and the same situation is purely idiotic. The necessity of possessing a weaponized military to preserve the security of the state is something you can study in numerous academic university courses, but you sure as hell won't find any academic courses referring to the necessity of civilians possessing guns to deter crime bwecause it's a sheer and utterly fallacy. Face it, son, you've been trolled by culturally-specific poilitical propoganda that has no logic or relevance with relation to modern human society in general.
UltimateApathy
Infinite Idiocy
The point is that, like I said a million times but your little mind seems to conveniently ignore, is that a gun is far more likely to be used in a crime than in successful self-defense. Now of course they don't actually keep records of how many people manage to use guns successfully in self-defense and most crimes committed with guns are simple "stick ups" that don't actually get recorded as "gun crime" (which also means that any gun crime statistics are also seriously skewed) - a gun cows civillians into fearful resistance far more than any knife or whatever could. So when we don't have any solid reliable statistics about a situation we just need to use our logic and common sense to figure out what is most likely true. If I were tell you that there are more ants than people in the world, would you demand to see statistics to prove it even though it is obviously true? Even in many situations where statistics could be provided the answer if often very clear and obvious - for example, if I were to say that men are more inclined to commit violence than woman, would you really ask to see evidence to support such an obviously true claim? If you try it, I'm sure that you will see that you can correctly determine things with sound logical deductive reasoning when your mind is unpolluted by rightwing redneck propoganda. Things such as:
* the likelihood of a gun being used in a crime as opposed to a successful self-defence
* the very small chance of a successful self-defence with a gun in almost any situation when the criminals are alert and prepared, as they usually are
* the likelihood of the U.S. government becoming a dictatorship and the gun carriers of America waging a successful guerilla war against them (lol, what a joke).
* the "power effect" that guns have on criminals which encourages them to commit crime more brazenly
In the USA 65% OF ALL MURDERS are committed by people with guns, according to this chart
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_crime
You've only provided one set of statistics so far, and I already pointed out how it doesn't even support your case in any way at all. Furthermore, it only recorded actual shootings and made no mentions of the uncounted thousands upon thousands of additional gun-related crimes such as stick-ups etc.
India, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, are just a few of the MANY examples of democratic countries that have very few guns and also very little violent crime. Even non-democratic countries like China and Vietnam have very few guns and very little violent crime. We're talking about vast portions of the Earth's population here, and furthermore Wikipedia also shows that most countries in the world have fewer than 10 guns per every 100 people, but in the U.S.A. people have 88 guns per 100 people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_...ita_by_country
Having a society that awash with guns is not normal or healthy, as is evidenced by the endless string of mass shootings and other gun crime. I've lived in a country that had gun problems almost as severe as the US and I've also lived in a country that basically has no guns, and the difference between the two is absolute night and day in terms of safety and crime levels. You should go out and see the world to decipher the truth rather than relying on propoganda fed to you by political groups with obvious profit incentives.
Not "prohibition" so much as "control". If you study such things, you will see that there are not many countries that entirely ban firearms for any reason whatsoever, but there ARE many countries that have very stringent requirements in order to be able to purchase guns, such as providing specific documentation regarding exactly why you need a gun - a simple "I want a gun for self-defense" simply won't be sufficient.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics
* the likelihood of a gun being used in a crime as opposed to a successful self-defence
* the very small chance of a successful self-defence with a gun in almost any situation when the criminals are alert and prepared, as they usually are
* the likelihood of the U.S. government becoming a dictatorship and the gun carriers of America waging a successful guerilla war against them (lol, what a joke).
* the "power effect" that guns have on criminals which encourages them to commit crime more brazenly
In the USA 65% OF ALL MURDERS are committed by people with guns, according to this chart
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_crime
You've only provided one set of statistics so far, and I already pointed out how it doesn't even support your case in any way at all. Furthermore, it only recorded actual shootings and made no mentions of the uncounted thousands upon thousands of additional gun-related crimes such as stick-ups etc.
India, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, are just a few of the MANY examples of democratic countries that have very few guns and also very little violent crime. Even non-democratic countries like China and Vietnam have very few guns and very little violent crime. We're talking about vast portions of the Earth's population here, and furthermore Wikipedia also shows that most countries in the world have fewer than 10 guns per every 100 people, but in the U.S.A. people have 88 guns per 100 people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_...ita_by_country
Having a society that awash with guns is not normal or healthy, as is evidenced by the endless string of mass shootings and other gun crime. I've lived in a country that had gun problems almost as severe as the US and I've also lived in a country that basically has no guns, and the difference between the two is absolute night and day in terms of safety and crime levels. You should go out and see the world to decipher the truth rather than relying on propoganda fed to you by political groups with obvious profit incentives.
Not "prohibition" so much as "control". If you study such things, you will see that there are not many countries that entirely ban firearms for any reason whatsoever, but there ARE many countries that have very stringent requirements in order to be able to purchase guns, such as providing specific documentation regarding exactly why you need a gun - a simple "I want a gun for self-defense" simply won't be sufficient.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics
UltimateApathy
Infinite Idiocy
And how about this modernized chart that shows how the USA has far more gun-related crimes than other developed country in the world. It's very telling indeed, especially the SIZE of the American spike. How do you mindless muppets not see the truth behind the statistics? http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...loped-country/
"The Sandy Hook Elementary shooting that killed 27, including 20 children, is already generating the same conversation that every mass shooting in America generates: Why are there so many shootings?
One piece of this puzzle is the national rate of firearm-related murders, which is charted above. The United States has by far the highest per capita rate of all developed countries. According to data compiled by the United Nations, the United States has four times as many gun-related homicides per capita as do Turkey and Switzerland, which are tied for third. The U.S. gun murder rate is about 20 times the average for all other countries on this chart. That means that Americans are 20 times as likely to be killed by a gun than is someone from another developed country.
The above chart measures data for the nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which includes all Western countries plus Turkey, Israel, Chile, Japan, and South Korea. I did not include Mexico, which has about triple the U.S. rate due in large part to the ongoing drug war.
The rate in several developing countries, particularly in Latin America, is significantly higher. Honduras, which has been called the murder capital of the world, has an average firearm murder rate that’s about 20 times America’s. But make no mistake: For a rich, developed country, the U.S. gun-related homicide rate is very, very high."
Here's another realling telling chart that details "Number of victims of the worst mass shootings in western democratic countries from 1966 to 2012" Count them and notice that the US has as many serious mass killings (16) during that period as THE REST OF THE DEMOCRATIC WORLD COMBINED (16). Regardless of what your NRA puppet-masters tell you, the US does has a serious problem with mass shootings, and it's because of lax gun control laws.
http://www.statista.com/statistics/2...tic-countries/
Here goes your theories about the N.R.A. not being a powerful political force, as well as the gun-crime statistics claim.
http://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-n...esearch-2013-1
How The NRA Killed Federal Funding For Gun Violence Research
More than 100 scientists from universities in the United States lobbied Vice President Joe Biden, asking him to allow the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to once again fund research into the public health impacts of guns.
The scientists signed a letter to Biden last week, urging him to consider making "direct investments in unbiased, scientific research and data infrastructure" related to firearm safety.
The CDC isn't allowed to pursue many kinds of gun research due to the lobbying strength of the National Rifle Association.
As a result of the National Rifle Association's lobbying efforts, governmental research into gun mortality has shrunk by 96 percent since the mid-1990s, according to Reuters.
Prior to 1996, the Center for Disease Control funded research into the causes of firearm-related deaths. After a series of articles finding that increased prevalence of guns lead to increased incidents of gun violence, Republicans sought to remove all federal funding for research into gun deaths.
In 1996, Republican Rep. Jay Dickey removed $2.6 million from the CDC budget — the precise amount the CDC spent on gun research in 1995 — at a time when the center was conducting more studies into gun-related deaths as a "public health phenomenon," according to The New York Times. The NRA and some pro-gun Congressmen perceived this as more of an attack.
Here's an excerpt of a 1997 article in Reason about the fight to kill gun science:
Since 1985 the CDC has funded scores of firearm studies, all reaching conclusions that favor stricter gun control. But CDC officials insist they are not pursuing an anti-gun agenda. In a 1996 interview with the Times-Picayune, CDC spokeswoman Mary Fenley adamantly denied that the agency is "trying to eliminate guns."
At the behest of the NRA, Congressional Republicans successfully removed all federal funding to the Center for Disease Control that would have gone into researching the effect of guns and the root causes of gun violence.
That funding was eventually reinstated, but has been decreasing since, and the CDC re-designated the money to conduct research on traumatic brain injuries.
The current law reads: “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”
Because of the NRA's successful campaign to eliminate the scientific research into the public health effect of firearms, very few researchers specialize in the field anymore, University of California, Davis, professor Garen Wintemute told Reuters. He said there isn't enough money to sustain research.
Since there is a lack of funding for independent research, the gun debate has been lacking in unimpeachable statistics that could effect a change in the status quo.
As it stands, the main available statistics regarding the gun debate are raw gun homicide and suicide stats collected through the FBI, international data and data from groups with a direct stake in the gun debate — for instance, pro-gun stats from the NRA and pro-gun control stats from the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence.
The scientists writing the letter to Biden wrote that, effectively, the NRA has successfully hamstrung a credible gun control conversation. When the only statistics available are imperfect, it becomes that much easier to disregard them.
Here's an article and graph about gun crime in the US. The number of crimes committed by people with guns may be falling (it's falling in the UK too) but it still FAR and away outstrips other violent crime by a huge proportion. The same of goes for the murder-via-guns statistic:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datab...crime-us-state
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...n_2302590.html
Mass Murder Rate Still Rising, Experts Say
Mass killings, such as Friday's shooting in Newtown, Conn., have shocked the nation, but criminologists say to expect more.
Shooting sprees are on the rise and probably won't be subsiding any time soon.
"There's clearly been a major upswing," criminologist Gary LaFree of the University of Maryland told The Huffington Post on Friday.
How much of an increase is subject to debate. According to FBI statistics, the trend is inching upward. People killed in clusters of four or more averaged 163 annually between 2006 and 2008, just two more than back in the 1980s.
"Homicide trends don't look like EKGs," said LaFree, who is also director of the National Center for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. "They go up for a while and tail off for a while."
But, LaFree added, "What's interesting is that we're getting a specialized strain of violence when other forms are in decline."
One-on-one gun homicides have dropped more than 40 percent since 1980, according to 2010 FBI crime data. The firearm homicide rate sank from 10,000 in 2005 to 8,776 in 2010.
But shooting sprees are "not decreasing, because the motive in mass murder is so different from the motive for single-victim murders," Jack Levin, a criminology professor at Northeastern University and author of "Extreme Killing," told HuffPost in a previous report. "These are well-planned crimes ... Mass killings don't depend on any given time."
LaFree noted that one-on-one violence often erupts spontaneously and shows more of a correlation to economic conditions and drug circulation than mass murder.
Perpetrators behind large-scale homicides often choose assault weapons that fire multiple rounds for maximum carnage. "If those weren't available, it's hard for me to imagine that these mass killings wouldn't be reduced," criminologist Daniel Nagin of Carnegie Mellon told HuffPost on Friday. But, he quickly pointed out, whether stricter laws would be effective in doing so is a separate issue.
LaFree said gun control measures would probably have a greater effect on anger-ignited handgun violence than on killers hellbent on inflicting mass casualties.
According to a Scripps-Howard study of FBI statistics, 4,685 people died in 965 mass-murders between 1980 and 2008. A USA Today article put the yearly average of incidents at about about 20 a year.
A quick look at some of the more notable multiple slayings this year doesn't seem to point to a huge spike. Incidents in Aurora, Colo., Oak Creek, Wisc., Oakland, Calif., Portland, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and now Newtown add up to less than half of the average 163 annual victims noted above. But the quick tally does not account for every clustered killing, and data-collecting can vary (through the years and by agency, too).
Still, the numbers LaFree has seen moved him to offer a grim forecast.
"My guess is that we're witnessing a phenomenon that we're likely to see for the forseeable future," he said.
Here are 12 facts that all go to prove you mindless puppets wrong on just about every scenario you've tried to argue for or against in this topic:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...united-states/
Twelve facts about guns and mass shootings in the United States
"When we first collected much of this data, it was after the Aurora, Colo. shootings, and the air was thick with calls to avoid “politicizing” the tragedy. That is code, essentially, for “don’t talk about reforming our gun control laws.”
Let’s be clear: That is a form of politicization. When political actors construct a political argument that threatens political consequences if other political actors pursue a certain political outcome, that is, almost by definition, a politicization of the issue. It’s just a form of politicization favoring those who prefer the status quo to stricter gun control laws.
Since then, there have been more horrible, high-profile shootings. Jovan Belcher, a linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs, took his girlfriend’s life and then his own. In Oregon, Jacob Tyler Roberts entered a mall holding a semi-automatic rifle and yelling “I am the shooter.” And, in Connecticut, at least 27 are dead — including 18 children — after a man opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
If roads were collapsing all across the United States, killing dozens of drivers, we would surely see that as a moment to talk about what we could do to keep roads from collapsing. If terrorists were detonating bombs in port after port, you can be sure Congress would be working to upgrade the nation’s security measures. If a plague was ripping through communities, public-health officials would be working feverishly to contain it.
Only with gun violence do we respond to repeated tragedies by saying that mourning is acceptable but discussing how to prevent more tragedies is not. “Too soon,” howl supporters of loose gun laws. But as others have observed, talking about how to stop mass shootings in the aftermath of a string of mass shootings isn’t “too soon.” It’s much too late.
What follows here isn’t a policy agenda. It’s simply a set of facts — many of which complicate a search for easy answers — that should inform the discussion that we desperately need to have.
1. Shooting sprees are not rare in the United States.
Mother Jones has tracked and mapped every shooting spree in the last three decades. “Since 1982, there have been at least 61 mass murders carried out with firearms across the country, with the killings unfolding in 30 states from Massachusetts to Hawaii,” they found. And in most cases, the killers had obtained their weapons legally:
(graph)
2. 15 of the 25 worst mass shootings in the last 50 years took place in the United States.
Time has the full list here. In second place is Finland, with two entries.
3. Lots of guns don’t necessarily mean lots of shootings, as you can see in Israel and Switzerland.*
As David Lamp writes at Cato, “In Israel and Switzerland, for example, a license to possess guns is available on demand to every law-abiding adult, and guns are easily obtainable in both nations. Both countries also allow widespread carrying of concealed firearms, and yet, admits Dr. Arthur Kellerman, one of the foremost medical advocates of gun control, Switzerland and Israel ‘have rates of homicide that are low despite rates of home firearm ownership that are at least as high as those in the United States.’”
*Correction: The info is out-of-date, if not completely wrong. Israel and Switzerland have tightened their gun laws substantially, and now pursue an entirely different approach than the United States. More details here. I apologize for the error.
4. Of the 11 deadliest shootings in the US, five have happened from 2007 onward.
That doesn’t include Friday’s shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. The AP put the early reported death toll at 27, which would make it the second-deadliest mass shooting in US history.
5. America is an unusually violent country. But we’re not as violent as we used to be.
Kieran Healy, a sociologist at Duke University, made this graph of “deaths due to assault” in the United States and other developed countries. We are a clear outlier.
(graph)
As Healy writes, “The most striking features of the data are (1) how much more violent the U.S. is than other OECD countries (except possibly Estonia and Mexico, not shown here), and (2) the degree of change—and recently, decline—there has been in the U.S. time series considered by itself.”
6. The South is the most violent region in the United States.
In a subsequent post, Healy drilled further into the numbers and looked at deaths due to assault in different regions of the country. Just as the United States is a clear outlier in the international context, the South is a clear outlier in the national context:
(graph)
7. Gun ownership in the United States is declining overall.
“For all the attention given to America’s culture of guns, ownership of firearms is at or near all-time lows,” writes political scientist Patrick Egan. The decline is most evident on the General Social Survey, though it also shows up on polling from Gallup, as you can see on this graph:
The bottom line, Egan writes, is that “long-term trends suggest that we are in fact currently experiencing a waning culture of guns in the United States. “
8. More guns tend to mean more homicide.
The Harvard Injury Control Research Center assessed the literature on guns and homicide and found that there’s substantial evidence that indicates more guns means more murders. This holds true whether you’re looking at different countries or different states. Citations here.
9. States with stricter gun control laws have fewer deaths from gun-related violence.
Last year, economist Richard Florida dove deep into the correlations between gun deaths and other kinds of social indicators. Some of what he found was, perhaps, unexpected: Higher populations, more stress, more immigrants, and more mental illness were not correlated with more deaths from gun violence. But one thing he found was, perhaps, perfectly predictable: States with tighter gun control laws appear to have fewer gun-related deaths. The disclaimer here is that correlation is not causation. But correlations can be suggestive:
(map)
“The map overlays the map of firearm deaths above with gun control restrictions by state,” explains Florida. “It highlights states which have one of three gun control restrictions in place – assault weapons’ bans, trigger locks, or safe storage requirements. Firearm deaths are significantly lower in states with stricter gun control legislation. Though the sample sizes are small, we find substantial negative correlations between firearm deaths and states that ban assault weapons (-.45), require trigger locks (-.42), and mandate safe storage requirements for guns (-.48).”
10. Gun control, in general, has not been politically popular.
Since 1990, Gallup has been asking Americans whether they think gun control laws should be stricter. The answer, increasingly, is that they don’t. “The percentage in favor of making the laws governing the sale of firearms ‘more strict’ fell from 78% in 1990 to 62% in 1995, and 51% in 2007,” reports Gallup. “In the most recent reading, Gallup in 2010 found 44% in favor of stricter laws. In fact, in 2009 and again last year, the slight majority said gun laws should either remain the same or be made less strict.”
11. But particular policies to control guns often are.
An August CNN/ORC poll asked respondents whether they favor or oppose a number of specific policies to restrict gun ownership. And when you drill down to that level, many policies, including banning the manufacture and possession of semi-automatic rifles, are popular.
(graph)
12. Shootings don’t tend to substantially affect views on gun control.
That, at least, is what the Pew Research Center found:
(graph)
"The Sandy Hook Elementary shooting that killed 27, including 20 children, is already generating the same conversation that every mass shooting in America generates: Why are there so many shootings?
One piece of this puzzle is the national rate of firearm-related murders, which is charted above. The United States has by far the highest per capita rate of all developed countries. According to data compiled by the United Nations, the United States has four times as many gun-related homicides per capita as do Turkey and Switzerland, which are tied for third. The U.S. gun murder rate is about 20 times the average for all other countries on this chart. That means that Americans are 20 times as likely to be killed by a gun than is someone from another developed country.
The above chart measures data for the nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which includes all Western countries plus Turkey, Israel, Chile, Japan, and South Korea. I did not include Mexico, which has about triple the U.S. rate due in large part to the ongoing drug war.
The rate in several developing countries, particularly in Latin America, is significantly higher. Honduras, which has been called the murder capital of the world, has an average firearm murder rate that’s about 20 times America’s. But make no mistake: For a rich, developed country, the U.S. gun-related homicide rate is very, very high."
Here's another realling telling chart that details "Number of victims of the worst mass shootings in western democratic countries from 1966 to 2012" Count them and notice that the US has as many serious mass killings (16) during that period as THE REST OF THE DEMOCRATIC WORLD COMBINED (16). Regardless of what your NRA puppet-masters tell you, the US does has a serious problem with mass shootings, and it's because of lax gun control laws.
http://www.statista.com/statistics/2...tic-countries/
Here goes your theories about the N.R.A. not being a powerful political force, as well as the gun-crime statistics claim.
http://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-n...esearch-2013-1
How The NRA Killed Federal Funding For Gun Violence Research
More than 100 scientists from universities in the United States lobbied Vice President Joe Biden, asking him to allow the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to once again fund research into the public health impacts of guns.
The scientists signed a letter to Biden last week, urging him to consider making "direct investments in unbiased, scientific research and data infrastructure" related to firearm safety.
The CDC isn't allowed to pursue many kinds of gun research due to the lobbying strength of the National Rifle Association.
As a result of the National Rifle Association's lobbying efforts, governmental research into gun mortality has shrunk by 96 percent since the mid-1990s, according to Reuters.
Prior to 1996, the Center for Disease Control funded research into the causes of firearm-related deaths. After a series of articles finding that increased prevalence of guns lead to increased incidents of gun violence, Republicans sought to remove all federal funding for research into gun deaths.
In 1996, Republican Rep. Jay Dickey removed $2.6 million from the CDC budget — the precise amount the CDC spent on gun research in 1995 — at a time when the center was conducting more studies into gun-related deaths as a "public health phenomenon," according to The New York Times. The NRA and some pro-gun Congressmen perceived this as more of an attack.
Here's an excerpt of a 1997 article in Reason about the fight to kill gun science:
Since 1985 the CDC has funded scores of firearm studies, all reaching conclusions that favor stricter gun control. But CDC officials insist they are not pursuing an anti-gun agenda. In a 1996 interview with the Times-Picayune, CDC spokeswoman Mary Fenley adamantly denied that the agency is "trying to eliminate guns."
At the behest of the NRA, Congressional Republicans successfully removed all federal funding to the Center for Disease Control that would have gone into researching the effect of guns and the root causes of gun violence.
That funding was eventually reinstated, but has been decreasing since, and the CDC re-designated the money to conduct research on traumatic brain injuries.
The current law reads: “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”
Because of the NRA's successful campaign to eliminate the scientific research into the public health effect of firearms, very few researchers specialize in the field anymore, University of California, Davis, professor Garen Wintemute told Reuters. He said there isn't enough money to sustain research.
Since there is a lack of funding for independent research, the gun debate has been lacking in unimpeachable statistics that could effect a change in the status quo.
As it stands, the main available statistics regarding the gun debate are raw gun homicide and suicide stats collected through the FBI, international data and data from groups with a direct stake in the gun debate — for instance, pro-gun stats from the NRA and pro-gun control stats from the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence.
The scientists writing the letter to Biden wrote that, effectively, the NRA has successfully hamstrung a credible gun control conversation. When the only statistics available are imperfect, it becomes that much easier to disregard them.
Here's an article and graph about gun crime in the US. The number of crimes committed by people with guns may be falling (it's falling in the UK too) but it still FAR and away outstrips other violent crime by a huge proportion. The same of goes for the murder-via-guns statistic:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datab...crime-us-state
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...n_2302590.html
Mass Murder Rate Still Rising, Experts Say
Mass killings, such as Friday's shooting in Newtown, Conn., have shocked the nation, but criminologists say to expect more.
Shooting sprees are on the rise and probably won't be subsiding any time soon.
"There's clearly been a major upswing," criminologist Gary LaFree of the University of Maryland told The Huffington Post on Friday.
How much of an increase is subject to debate. According to FBI statistics, the trend is inching upward. People killed in clusters of four or more averaged 163 annually between 2006 and 2008, just two more than back in the 1980s.
"Homicide trends don't look like EKGs," said LaFree, who is also director of the National Center for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. "They go up for a while and tail off for a while."
But, LaFree added, "What's interesting is that we're getting a specialized strain of violence when other forms are in decline."
One-on-one gun homicides have dropped more than 40 percent since 1980, according to 2010 FBI crime data. The firearm homicide rate sank from 10,000 in 2005 to 8,776 in 2010.
But shooting sprees are "not decreasing, because the motive in mass murder is so different from the motive for single-victim murders," Jack Levin, a criminology professor at Northeastern University and author of "Extreme Killing," told HuffPost in a previous report. "These are well-planned crimes ... Mass killings don't depend on any given time."
LaFree noted that one-on-one violence often erupts spontaneously and shows more of a correlation to economic conditions and drug circulation than mass murder.
Perpetrators behind large-scale homicides often choose assault weapons that fire multiple rounds for maximum carnage. "If those weren't available, it's hard for me to imagine that these mass killings wouldn't be reduced," criminologist Daniel Nagin of Carnegie Mellon told HuffPost on Friday. But, he quickly pointed out, whether stricter laws would be effective in doing so is a separate issue.
LaFree said gun control measures would probably have a greater effect on anger-ignited handgun violence than on killers hellbent on inflicting mass casualties.
According to a Scripps-Howard study of FBI statistics, 4,685 people died in 965 mass-murders between 1980 and 2008. A USA Today article put the yearly average of incidents at about about 20 a year.
A quick look at some of the more notable multiple slayings this year doesn't seem to point to a huge spike. Incidents in Aurora, Colo., Oak Creek, Wisc., Oakland, Calif., Portland, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and now Newtown add up to less than half of the average 163 annual victims noted above. But the quick tally does not account for every clustered killing, and data-collecting can vary (through the years and by agency, too).
Still, the numbers LaFree has seen moved him to offer a grim forecast.
"My guess is that we're witnessing a phenomenon that we're likely to see for the forseeable future," he said.
Here are 12 facts that all go to prove you mindless puppets wrong on just about every scenario you've tried to argue for or against in this topic:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...united-states/
Twelve facts about guns and mass shootings in the United States
"When we first collected much of this data, it was after the Aurora, Colo. shootings, and the air was thick with calls to avoid “politicizing” the tragedy. That is code, essentially, for “don’t talk about reforming our gun control laws.”
Let’s be clear: That is a form of politicization. When political actors construct a political argument that threatens political consequences if other political actors pursue a certain political outcome, that is, almost by definition, a politicization of the issue. It’s just a form of politicization favoring those who prefer the status quo to stricter gun control laws.
Since then, there have been more horrible, high-profile shootings. Jovan Belcher, a linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs, took his girlfriend’s life and then his own. In Oregon, Jacob Tyler Roberts entered a mall holding a semi-automatic rifle and yelling “I am the shooter.” And, in Connecticut, at least 27 are dead — including 18 children — after a man opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
If roads were collapsing all across the United States, killing dozens of drivers, we would surely see that as a moment to talk about what we could do to keep roads from collapsing. If terrorists were detonating bombs in port after port, you can be sure Congress would be working to upgrade the nation’s security measures. If a plague was ripping through communities, public-health officials would be working feverishly to contain it.
Only with gun violence do we respond to repeated tragedies by saying that mourning is acceptable but discussing how to prevent more tragedies is not. “Too soon,” howl supporters of loose gun laws. But as others have observed, talking about how to stop mass shootings in the aftermath of a string of mass shootings isn’t “too soon.” It’s much too late.
What follows here isn’t a policy agenda. It’s simply a set of facts — many of which complicate a search for easy answers — that should inform the discussion that we desperately need to have.
1. Shooting sprees are not rare in the United States.
Mother Jones has tracked and mapped every shooting spree in the last three decades. “Since 1982, there have been at least 61 mass murders carried out with firearms across the country, with the killings unfolding in 30 states from Massachusetts to Hawaii,” they found. And in most cases, the killers had obtained their weapons legally:
(graph)
2. 15 of the 25 worst mass shootings in the last 50 years took place in the United States.
Time has the full list here. In second place is Finland, with two entries.
3. Lots of guns don’t necessarily mean lots of shootings, as you can see in Israel and Switzerland.*
As David Lamp writes at Cato, “In Israel and Switzerland, for example, a license to possess guns is available on demand to every law-abiding adult, and guns are easily obtainable in both nations. Both countries also allow widespread carrying of concealed firearms, and yet, admits Dr. Arthur Kellerman, one of the foremost medical advocates of gun control, Switzerland and Israel ‘have rates of homicide that are low despite rates of home firearm ownership that are at least as high as those in the United States.’”
*Correction: The info is out-of-date, if not completely wrong. Israel and Switzerland have tightened their gun laws substantially, and now pursue an entirely different approach than the United States. More details here. I apologize for the error.
4. Of the 11 deadliest shootings in the US, five have happened from 2007 onward.
That doesn’t include Friday’s shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. The AP put the early reported death toll at 27, which would make it the second-deadliest mass shooting in US history.
5. America is an unusually violent country. But we’re not as violent as we used to be.
Kieran Healy, a sociologist at Duke University, made this graph of “deaths due to assault” in the United States and other developed countries. We are a clear outlier.
(graph)
As Healy writes, “The most striking features of the data are (1) how much more violent the U.S. is than other OECD countries (except possibly Estonia and Mexico, not shown here), and (2) the degree of change—and recently, decline—there has been in the U.S. time series considered by itself.”
6. The South is the most violent region in the United States.
In a subsequent post, Healy drilled further into the numbers and looked at deaths due to assault in different regions of the country. Just as the United States is a clear outlier in the international context, the South is a clear outlier in the national context:
(graph)
7. Gun ownership in the United States is declining overall.
“For all the attention given to America’s culture of guns, ownership of firearms is at or near all-time lows,” writes political scientist Patrick Egan. The decline is most evident on the General Social Survey, though it also shows up on polling from Gallup, as you can see on this graph:
The bottom line, Egan writes, is that “long-term trends suggest that we are in fact currently experiencing a waning culture of guns in the United States. “
8. More guns tend to mean more homicide.
The Harvard Injury Control Research Center assessed the literature on guns and homicide and found that there’s substantial evidence that indicates more guns means more murders. This holds true whether you’re looking at different countries or different states. Citations here.
9. States with stricter gun control laws have fewer deaths from gun-related violence.
Last year, economist Richard Florida dove deep into the correlations between gun deaths and other kinds of social indicators. Some of what he found was, perhaps, unexpected: Higher populations, more stress, more immigrants, and more mental illness were not correlated with more deaths from gun violence. But one thing he found was, perhaps, perfectly predictable: States with tighter gun control laws appear to have fewer gun-related deaths. The disclaimer here is that correlation is not causation. But correlations can be suggestive:
(map)
“The map overlays the map of firearm deaths above with gun control restrictions by state,” explains Florida. “It highlights states which have one of three gun control restrictions in place – assault weapons’ bans, trigger locks, or safe storage requirements. Firearm deaths are significantly lower in states with stricter gun control legislation. Though the sample sizes are small, we find substantial negative correlations between firearm deaths and states that ban assault weapons (-.45), require trigger locks (-.42), and mandate safe storage requirements for guns (-.48).”
10. Gun control, in general, has not been politically popular.
Since 1990, Gallup has been asking Americans whether they think gun control laws should be stricter. The answer, increasingly, is that they don’t. “The percentage in favor of making the laws governing the sale of firearms ‘more strict’ fell from 78% in 1990 to 62% in 1995, and 51% in 2007,” reports Gallup. “In the most recent reading, Gallup in 2010 found 44% in favor of stricter laws. In fact, in 2009 and again last year, the slight majority said gun laws should either remain the same or be made less strict.”
11. But particular policies to control guns often are.
An August CNN/ORC poll asked respondents whether they favor or oppose a number of specific policies to restrict gun ownership. And when you drill down to that level, many policies, including banning the manufacture and possession of semi-automatic rifles, are popular.
(graph)
12. Shootings don’t tend to substantially affect views on gun control.
That, at least, is what the Pew Research Center found:
(graph)
UltimateApathy
Infinite Idiocy
http://rt.com/usa/news/mass-year-people-massacre-710/
Deadly count: US averages 20 mass shootings every year
All of the US has turned to Aurora, Colorado after a Friday morning shooting left more than a dozen movie-goers dead. But while the latest massacre has scarred millions of Americans, it's also just another item added to a list of gruesome sprees.
According to an ongoing tally kept by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the United States is experiencing an average of around 20 mass shootings each year. While Friday morning’s incident inside of a Aurora movie theater has perhaps the unfortunate distinction of being the most violent in recent memory — taking no fewer than 12 lives and injuring around 50 more — it is only yet only one example out of many that has marred society this year.
The Aurora massacre is believed to be one of the worst incident on American soil since a rampage at Virginia Tech in 2007 left 32 people dead. The Fort Hood, Texas massacre two years later also ended with massive bloodshed, as well, with 13 people losing their lives in that event.
Since 2005, however, the Brady Campaign says that these events are occurring, at least on some scale, in remarkable numbers.
According to the campaign, who brands itself with the slogan “sensible gun laws save lives,” the Aurora incident is already the sixth mass shooting in the month of July alone.
Only three days earlier, 17 people were injured in Tuscaloosa, Alabama after a gunman opened fire in a downtown bar. One week prior, three people were killed and two were injured after another rampage erupted during a Dover, Delaware soccer tournament.
In Chicago, Illinois, where the homicide rate for June 2012 was 50 percent higher than just a year earlier, three separate outbursts in only the last 20 days have left four people dead and at least another 13 seriously hurt. So far in 2012, more people have been killed in the metropolitan Midwest city than the number of US servicemen in Afghanistan.
Earlier this month, two suspects fired at least 61 bullets in an outburst in Queens, NY that, while yielded no fatalities, left several people injured — including children. At the time, the Wall Street Journal reported that the NYPD recorded 730 shooting incidents this year alone, showing a 12 percent increase from the same time in 2011.
"Children are becoming victims more and more in these communities," Rev. Taharka Robinson, founder of the Brooklyn Anti-Violence Coalition, told the Huffington Post after the NYC mass shooting weeks ago. "If you can have an individual spray bullets where children are playing nearby, there's something wrong. We need to get to the root of the problem."
It’s been a sentiment echoed countless times in recent years, especially after the 1999 Columbine, Colorado massacre reintroduced mass shootings as a mainstream issue. Despite continuing pleas, though, the Brady Campaign’s statistics seem to suggest that little is being done to curb the crime.
According to Brady, the number of homicides in America that occurred in 2012 as a result of mass shootings totaled 50, even before Friday’s massacre in Colorado.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/10/gun-crime-us-state
The FBI link:
Aggravated assaults accounted for the highest number of violent crimes reported to law enforcement at 62.4 percent. Robbery comprised 29.4 percent of violent crimes, forcible rape accounted for 6.9 percent, and murder accounted for 1.2 percent of estimated violent crimes in 2011.
Information collected regarding type of weapon showed that firearms were used in 67.7 percent of the nation’s murders, 41.3 percent of robberies, and 21.2 percent of aggravated assaults.
So 2/3 murders were committed by guns, and the simple act of stealing something from someone was accompanied almost half the time by a gun, and physical altercations between people were accompanied 1/5 of the time by use of a firearm. These kinda numbers are very telling indeed, they tell of a country with out-of-control gun problems.
I love it when ignorant brainwashed NRA puppets try to disregard all the facts/stuidies/statistics in a matter to try fit their illogical world view (bred in a tiny redneck corner of the world) into the broad global picture as if has some meaning. It's already been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt by numerous facts and statistics and logical reasoning that:
a) more guns don't make a society safer
b) more guns in a society mean that more criminals have guns, which means the violent crimes that are committed are even more heinous.
c) the possibly of ever actually defending yourself successfully with a gun are very low
d) a huge proportion of violent crimes in America are committed with the aid of guns
e) the more guns in a society, the more likely some psycopath is going to pick one up and slaughter a whole lot of innocent people.
f) an excess of guns also makes the job of the police more difficult and dangerous
g) America has a much much higher rate of gun-related murders/crimes/accidents compared to any other democratic first world country in the world because the society is so overflowing with guns.
h) some people (read "brainwashed puppets) genuinely believe that resisting the "evil tyrannical government" is a valid reason for owning guns.
i) most of the guns used in crimes in the USA are actually purchased legally
j) the NRA uses their political clout to avoid or skew gun violence studies
k) The NRA does a great job of brainwashing people with propaganda to be their talking monkey-puppets on strings as we have seen in this topic
l) States in the US with stricter gun control have lower levels of gun crime
m) I could go on and on with these, but it's obvious to anyone with a logical mind unclouded by political propaganda that very strict regulation og guns is favorable to a society as a whole as opposded to making deadly firearms widely available to the general public.
And now more fun stuff:
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/thinking-tech/study-carrying-a-gun-can-make-you-more-paranoid/10875
Study: Carrying a gun can make you more paranoid
I don’t own a gun. But if I did go around with one, I’d probably be very much on edge since I’ll quickly start to notice that a lot more people were packing heat too.
That’s what researchers at University of Notre Dame have concluded after conducting a study to determine whether the simple act of wielding a gun alters the way people see the world. Previous studies have already suggested that visual perception can be highly subjective, depending on your attributes. For instance, it’s been shown that people with broader shoulders tend to perceive doorways to be narrower, and softball players with higher batting averages perceive the ball to be bigger. However, can just picking up a gun suddenly make the world appear more violent?
To find out, the researchers subjected volunteers to a series of five experiments in which they were shown multiple images of people on a computer screen and determined whether the person was holding a gun or a neutral object such as a soda can or cell phone. Subjects did this while holding either a toy gun or a neutral object such as a foam ball.
The researchers varied the situation in each experiment — such as having the people in the images sometimes wear ski masks, changing the race of the person in the image or changing the reaction subjects were to have when they judged the person in the image to hold a gun. Regardless of the situation, the study showed that responding with a gun created a bias in which observers reported a gun being present more often than they did responding with a ball. Thus, by virtue of affording the subject the opportunity to use a gun, he or she was more likely to classify objects in a scene as a gun and, as a result, to engage in threat-induced behavior, such as raising a firearm to shoot.
“Beliefs, expectations and emotions can all influence an observer’s ability to detect and to categorize objects as guns,” said James Brockmole, a professor of Psychology and a co-author of the study . “Now we know that a person’s ability to act in certain ways can bias their recognition of objects as well, and in dramatic ways. It seems that people have a hard time separating their thoughts about what they perceive and their thoughts about how they can or should act.”
The researchers showed that the ability to act is a key factor in the effects by showing that while simply letting observers see a nearby gun didn’t influence their behavior, holding and using the gun did.
“One reason we supposed that wielding a firearm might influence object categorization stems from previous research in this area, which argues that people perceive the spatial properties of their surrounding environment in terms of their ability to perform an intended action,” Brockmole said.
The study is detailed in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.
http://www.psychwiki.com/wiki/Weapons
Does the presence of weapon increase aggression and aggressive thoughts? Does the trigger pull the finger? Is the individual born with aggressive behavior or is there anything else which makes the person start to think aggressive? In this research, I would like concentrate on the issue of weapons and its presence as an elicitor of human’s aggressive behavior. The weapon or gun by itself is well – established phenomena of aggression. Seeing a gun provokes in people’s mind some kind of violence, attack, hatred, or revenge. Hence, all fall under aggressive thoughts that can escalate into violent behavior. However, how do people know that they are acting aggressive? Individuals are not born with knowing and sensitizing of how aggression is displayed. Individuals have to learn what it means to be aggressive and how to distinguish between aggression and its processes. Aggression is a learned behavior, the same as learning how to pull the trigger, and also understand how action or words can be hurtful to the victim (Buss, A., et al, 1972, p.196). In this paper, I would like to discuss the correlation between guns and aggression, and its application into the real world and finally, apply the theory into the massacre in Columbine High School.
As mentioned above, weapons are known phenomena of aggression. The presence of guns facilitates the aggressive thoughts under certain conditions. If the individual is in any stage of arousal, sadness or anger, the presence of weapon increases the chances of thinking and acting aggressive. Because of the fact that aggressive behavior is the subject of examination for decades, researchers are trying to resolve the issue and find the exact conclusion of what makes people feel aggressive. In Berkowitz and LePage study, male college students were tested if the presence of a gun increases the hatred against the accomplice who provoked the students at the beginning of the test. The study shows that presence of violating objects, such as guns increase the anger and aggressive thoughts in angry students. On the other hand, the non angry participants did not feel any difference in a presence of gun. Even if the gun is not involved as a part of action in the study, just the presence of it increases the aggression in provoked subjects. Such findings could be an impulse for regulation of the sale of dangerous guns. However, in a study of Buss and his colleagues they try to oppose Berkowitz’s findings about gun-increasing aggression. In one part, they concluded that firing a gun had no effect upon aggression, other group of participants shows that if the individual is familiar with gun use and is experienced with it then it does not make any difference upon his behavior. The last part of the study was a very close replication of Berkowitz’s test and surprisingly showed that the presence of gun reduces aggression against the accomplice. The findings show that individuals who were aware of the hypothesis, or who were generally suspicious were not influenced by the presence of gun. (Buss, A., 1972, p.202) The ones who were unaware of the hypothesis produced more aggressive thoughts and behavior. The most important finding is that it significantly depends on type of the subjects. Also, other studies checked the hypothesis in naturalistic settings. Turner et all. , stalled a pickup truck at a traffic signal light for 12 seconds. There was a gun placed on the back window of the truck and half of the motorist saw a bumper sticker on the tailgate saying “vengeance”. The other half saw a bumper sticker saying “friend”. Motorist in the control group saw neither gun nor bumper sticker. The results showed the most horn honking group of motorist was among the ones who saw a gun and vengeance sticker. The following group was members of who saw the gun and sticker friend and the last one were the ones who saw just the truck. The comparison shows a positive relation between gun and aggressive behavior and the theory of gun presence-increase aggression is applied in this particular study. (Turner et all., 1975, Study 2).
The use of weapons and the feeling of power they give to a perpetrator, might be perfectly depicted in well-known massacre at Columbine High School. ”Weapons are used in a quarter of violent incidents in the US” (Rand and Catalano, 2007), and carrying a gun in schools is an important and politically salient topic. What makes adolescents want to carry a gun to school? According to researchers Wilkinson Deanna L. and Fagan Jeffrey, carrying a gun, among youths, is for the feeling of safety from physical danger or from other students. According to their study, “About one in seven (15%) reported carrying a handgun in the past 30 days, and 4% reported taking a handgun to school during the year. Nine percent of the students reported shooting a gun at someone else, whereas 11% had been shot at by someone else during the past year.” (Wilkinson, D., L., Fagan, J. 2001, p.111). The Columbine High School incident surely involves use of guns. Many researchers agree that aggressive thoughts among adolescents are closely related to media, the accessibility to violent video games and also violent music. Aggression is not perceived as dangerous act as it was before. Teens do not realize the potential menace of aggression because their surrounding and technology that influence them do not evaluate the danger they can cause. Shooting in Columbine was a cold blooded act which can cover all aspects of aggressive behavior from teens. According to Cullen, D., report published in USA Today News, one of the shooter, Harris, was described as a psychopath who was aware of his behavior. He was deep planning, knew how to be charming and at the same time fooling everyone around. Trebold had serious psychological problems as well. However, Trebold was in suicidal depression who was hating life day after day. In relation to the weapon effect – increasing aggression issue, the Columbine massacre is a different process. It is obvious that guns were used, although not as an elicitor of aggressive behavior. The event was planned for months by the pair and guns played a big part in this planning. After looking at the statistics of wounded and shot students, we can assume that there might have been some increase in violent behavior. Many students were not shot just once, but they usually had several shots in their bodies. Killers shot student’s in heads, neck and chest several times. Psychologist Cullen D. described Harris’s profile as a “cold-blooded, predatory psychopath — a smart, charming liar with "a preposterously grand superiority complex, a revulsion for authority and an excruciating need for control," (Cullen, D., USA Today). There might be some correlation between the number of shots against the students and their psychological profile. Nonetheless, operating a deadly weapon increase his desire of being superior to others and having the control is what influenced his behavior toward wounded students. At the end, they turned the gun against themselves and ended their lives after killing 13 people and seriously wounded 24.
Deadly count: US averages 20 mass shootings every year
All of the US has turned to Aurora, Colorado after a Friday morning shooting left more than a dozen movie-goers dead. But while the latest massacre has scarred millions of Americans, it's also just another item added to a list of gruesome sprees.
According to an ongoing tally kept by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the United States is experiencing an average of around 20 mass shootings each year. While Friday morning’s incident inside of a Aurora movie theater has perhaps the unfortunate distinction of being the most violent in recent memory — taking no fewer than 12 lives and injuring around 50 more — it is only yet only one example out of many that has marred society this year.
The Aurora massacre is believed to be one of the worst incident on American soil since a rampage at Virginia Tech in 2007 left 32 people dead. The Fort Hood, Texas massacre two years later also ended with massive bloodshed, as well, with 13 people losing their lives in that event.
Since 2005, however, the Brady Campaign says that these events are occurring, at least on some scale, in remarkable numbers.
According to the campaign, who brands itself with the slogan “sensible gun laws save lives,” the Aurora incident is already the sixth mass shooting in the month of July alone.
Only three days earlier, 17 people were injured in Tuscaloosa, Alabama after a gunman opened fire in a downtown bar. One week prior, three people were killed and two were injured after another rampage erupted during a Dover, Delaware soccer tournament.
In Chicago, Illinois, where the homicide rate for June 2012 was 50 percent higher than just a year earlier, three separate outbursts in only the last 20 days have left four people dead and at least another 13 seriously hurt. So far in 2012, more people have been killed in the metropolitan Midwest city than the number of US servicemen in Afghanistan.
Earlier this month, two suspects fired at least 61 bullets in an outburst in Queens, NY that, while yielded no fatalities, left several people injured — including children. At the time, the Wall Street Journal reported that the NYPD recorded 730 shooting incidents this year alone, showing a 12 percent increase from the same time in 2011.
"Children are becoming victims more and more in these communities," Rev. Taharka Robinson, founder of the Brooklyn Anti-Violence Coalition, told the Huffington Post after the NYC mass shooting weeks ago. "If you can have an individual spray bullets where children are playing nearby, there's something wrong. We need to get to the root of the problem."
It’s been a sentiment echoed countless times in recent years, especially after the 1999 Columbine, Colorado massacre reintroduced mass shootings as a mainstream issue. Despite continuing pleas, though, the Brady Campaign’s statistics seem to suggest that little is being done to curb the crime.
According to Brady, the number of homicides in America that occurred in 2012 as a result of mass shootings totaled 50, even before Friday’s massacre in Colorado.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/10/gun-crime-us-state
The FBI link:
Aggravated assaults accounted for the highest number of violent crimes reported to law enforcement at 62.4 percent. Robbery comprised 29.4 percent of violent crimes, forcible rape accounted for 6.9 percent, and murder accounted for 1.2 percent of estimated violent crimes in 2011.
Information collected regarding type of weapon showed that firearms were used in 67.7 percent of the nation’s murders, 41.3 percent of robberies, and 21.2 percent of aggravated assaults.
So 2/3 murders were committed by guns, and the simple act of stealing something from someone was accompanied almost half the time by a gun, and physical altercations between people were accompanied 1/5 of the time by use of a firearm. These kinda numbers are very telling indeed, they tell of a country with out-of-control gun problems.
I love it when ignorant brainwashed NRA puppets try to disregard all the facts/stuidies/statistics in a matter to try fit their illogical world view (bred in a tiny redneck corner of the world) into the broad global picture as if has some meaning. It's already been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt by numerous facts and statistics and logical reasoning that:
a) more guns don't make a society safer
b) more guns in a society mean that more criminals have guns, which means the violent crimes that are committed are even more heinous.
c) the possibly of ever actually defending yourself successfully with a gun are very low
d) a huge proportion of violent crimes in America are committed with the aid of guns
e) the more guns in a society, the more likely some psycopath is going to pick one up and slaughter a whole lot of innocent people.
f) an excess of guns also makes the job of the police more difficult and dangerous
g) America has a much much higher rate of gun-related murders/crimes/accidents compared to any other democratic first world country in the world because the society is so overflowing with guns.
h) some people (read "brainwashed puppets) genuinely believe that resisting the "evil tyrannical government" is a valid reason for owning guns.
i) most of the guns used in crimes in the USA are actually purchased legally
j) the NRA uses their political clout to avoid or skew gun violence studies
k) The NRA does a great job of brainwashing people with propaganda to be their talking monkey-puppets on strings as we have seen in this topic
l) States in the US with stricter gun control have lower levels of gun crime
m) I could go on and on with these, but it's obvious to anyone with a logical mind unclouded by political propaganda that very strict regulation og guns is favorable to a society as a whole as opposded to making deadly firearms widely available to the general public.
And now more fun stuff:
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/thinking-tech/study-carrying-a-gun-can-make-you-more-paranoid/10875
Study: Carrying a gun can make you more paranoid
I don’t own a gun. But if I did go around with one, I’d probably be very much on edge since I’ll quickly start to notice that a lot more people were packing heat too.
That’s what researchers at University of Notre Dame have concluded after conducting a study to determine whether the simple act of wielding a gun alters the way people see the world. Previous studies have already suggested that visual perception can be highly subjective, depending on your attributes. For instance, it’s been shown that people with broader shoulders tend to perceive doorways to be narrower, and softball players with higher batting averages perceive the ball to be bigger. However, can just picking up a gun suddenly make the world appear more violent?
To find out, the researchers subjected volunteers to a series of five experiments in which they were shown multiple images of people on a computer screen and determined whether the person was holding a gun or a neutral object such as a soda can or cell phone. Subjects did this while holding either a toy gun or a neutral object such as a foam ball.
The researchers varied the situation in each experiment — such as having the people in the images sometimes wear ski masks, changing the race of the person in the image or changing the reaction subjects were to have when they judged the person in the image to hold a gun. Regardless of the situation, the study showed that responding with a gun created a bias in which observers reported a gun being present more often than they did responding with a ball. Thus, by virtue of affording the subject the opportunity to use a gun, he or she was more likely to classify objects in a scene as a gun and, as a result, to engage in threat-induced behavior, such as raising a firearm to shoot.
“Beliefs, expectations and emotions can all influence an observer’s ability to detect and to categorize objects as guns,” said James Brockmole, a professor of Psychology and a co-author of the study . “Now we know that a person’s ability to act in certain ways can bias their recognition of objects as well, and in dramatic ways. It seems that people have a hard time separating their thoughts about what they perceive and their thoughts about how they can or should act.”
The researchers showed that the ability to act is a key factor in the effects by showing that while simply letting observers see a nearby gun didn’t influence their behavior, holding and using the gun did.
“One reason we supposed that wielding a firearm might influence object categorization stems from previous research in this area, which argues that people perceive the spatial properties of their surrounding environment in terms of their ability to perform an intended action,” Brockmole said.
The study is detailed in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.
http://www.psychwiki.com/wiki/Weapons
Does the presence of weapon increase aggression and aggressive thoughts? Does the trigger pull the finger? Is the individual born with aggressive behavior or is there anything else which makes the person start to think aggressive? In this research, I would like concentrate on the issue of weapons and its presence as an elicitor of human’s aggressive behavior. The weapon or gun by itself is well – established phenomena of aggression. Seeing a gun provokes in people’s mind some kind of violence, attack, hatred, or revenge. Hence, all fall under aggressive thoughts that can escalate into violent behavior. However, how do people know that they are acting aggressive? Individuals are not born with knowing and sensitizing of how aggression is displayed. Individuals have to learn what it means to be aggressive and how to distinguish between aggression and its processes. Aggression is a learned behavior, the same as learning how to pull the trigger, and also understand how action or words can be hurtful to the victim (Buss, A., et al, 1972, p.196). In this paper, I would like to discuss the correlation between guns and aggression, and its application into the real world and finally, apply the theory into the massacre in Columbine High School.
As mentioned above, weapons are known phenomena of aggression. The presence of guns facilitates the aggressive thoughts under certain conditions. If the individual is in any stage of arousal, sadness or anger, the presence of weapon increases the chances of thinking and acting aggressive. Because of the fact that aggressive behavior is the subject of examination for decades, researchers are trying to resolve the issue and find the exact conclusion of what makes people feel aggressive. In Berkowitz and LePage study, male college students were tested if the presence of a gun increases the hatred against the accomplice who provoked the students at the beginning of the test. The study shows that presence of violating objects, such as guns increase the anger and aggressive thoughts in angry students. On the other hand, the non angry participants did not feel any difference in a presence of gun. Even if the gun is not involved as a part of action in the study, just the presence of it increases the aggression in provoked subjects. Such findings could be an impulse for regulation of the sale of dangerous guns. However, in a study of Buss and his colleagues they try to oppose Berkowitz’s findings about gun-increasing aggression. In one part, they concluded that firing a gun had no effect upon aggression, other group of participants shows that if the individual is familiar with gun use and is experienced with it then it does not make any difference upon his behavior. The last part of the study was a very close replication of Berkowitz’s test and surprisingly showed that the presence of gun reduces aggression against the accomplice. The findings show that individuals who were aware of the hypothesis, or who were generally suspicious were not influenced by the presence of gun. (Buss, A., 1972, p.202) The ones who were unaware of the hypothesis produced more aggressive thoughts and behavior. The most important finding is that it significantly depends on type of the subjects. Also, other studies checked the hypothesis in naturalistic settings. Turner et all. , stalled a pickup truck at a traffic signal light for 12 seconds. There was a gun placed on the back window of the truck and half of the motorist saw a bumper sticker on the tailgate saying “vengeance”. The other half saw a bumper sticker saying “friend”. Motorist in the control group saw neither gun nor bumper sticker. The results showed the most horn honking group of motorist was among the ones who saw a gun and vengeance sticker. The following group was members of who saw the gun and sticker friend and the last one were the ones who saw just the truck. The comparison shows a positive relation between gun and aggressive behavior and the theory of gun presence-increase aggression is applied in this particular study. (Turner et all., 1975, Study 2).
The use of weapons and the feeling of power they give to a perpetrator, might be perfectly depicted in well-known massacre at Columbine High School. ”Weapons are used in a quarter of violent incidents in the US” (Rand and Catalano, 2007), and carrying a gun in schools is an important and politically salient topic. What makes adolescents want to carry a gun to school? According to researchers Wilkinson Deanna L. and Fagan Jeffrey, carrying a gun, among youths, is for the feeling of safety from physical danger or from other students. According to their study, “About one in seven (15%) reported carrying a handgun in the past 30 days, and 4% reported taking a handgun to school during the year. Nine percent of the students reported shooting a gun at someone else, whereas 11% had been shot at by someone else during the past year.” (Wilkinson, D., L., Fagan, J. 2001, p.111). The Columbine High School incident surely involves use of guns. Many researchers agree that aggressive thoughts among adolescents are closely related to media, the accessibility to violent video games and also violent music. Aggression is not perceived as dangerous act as it was before. Teens do not realize the potential menace of aggression because their surrounding and technology that influence them do not evaluate the danger they can cause. Shooting in Columbine was a cold blooded act which can cover all aspects of aggressive behavior from teens. According to Cullen, D., report published in USA Today News, one of the shooter, Harris, was described as a psychopath who was aware of his behavior. He was deep planning, knew how to be charming and at the same time fooling everyone around. Trebold had serious psychological problems as well. However, Trebold was in suicidal depression who was hating life day after day. In relation to the weapon effect – increasing aggression issue, the Columbine massacre is a different process. It is obvious that guns were used, although not as an elicitor of aggressive behavior. The event was planned for months by the pair and guns played a big part in this planning. After looking at the statistics of wounded and shot students, we can assume that there might have been some increase in violent behavior. Many students were not shot just once, but they usually had several shots in their bodies. Killers shot student’s in heads, neck and chest several times. Psychologist Cullen D. described Harris’s profile as a “cold-blooded, predatory psychopath — a smart, charming liar with "a preposterously grand superiority complex, a revulsion for authority and an excruciating need for control," (Cullen, D., USA Today). There might be some correlation between the number of shots against the students and their psychological profile. Nonetheless, operating a deadly weapon increase his desire of being superior to others and having the control is what influenced his behavior toward wounded students. At the end, they turned the gun against themselves and ended their lives after killing 13 people and seriously wounded 24.
UltimateApathy
Infinite Idiocy
http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/countries-with-highest-reported-crime-rates.html
World Top Ten Countries With Highest Reported Crime Rates
Country
Crime Rate
United States
11,877,218
United Kingdom
6,523,706
Germany
6,507,394
France
3,771,850
Russia
2,952,370
Japan
2,853,739
South Africa
2,683,849
Canada
2,516,918
Italy
2,231,550
India
1,764,630
The crime-rates map shows the world top ten countries with the highest reported crime rate.This map tells us about the number of crimes that took place per 100,000 people.
Data indicated on the map of countries with the highest reported crime rates is based on house hold surveys, hospital and insurance records, FIR recorded by police or by law enforcement agencies.
Map of countries with the highest reported crime rates clearly indicates that countries of Europe and America are the least safe countries in the world. Asia even though not that economically sound is far safer as compared to the ten countries listed on this map United States with 11,877,218 is the most unsafe country in this list while India, with 1,764,630 is the safest.
Here are two differing examples of how tighter gun control laws (regarding who gets them and why) can lead to safer societies.
http://news.yahoo.com/around-world-gun-rules-results-vary-wildly-075244259.html
JAPAN — THE NANNY STATE
Gunfire rings through the hills at a shooting range at the foot of Mount Fuji. There are few other places in Japan where you'll hear it.
In this country, guns are few and far between. And so is gun violence. Guns were used in only seven murders in Japan — a nation of about 130 million — in all of 2011, the most recent year for official statistics. According to police, more people — nine — were murdered with scissors.
Though its gun ownership rates are tiny compared to the United States, Japan has more than 120,000 registered gun owners and more than 400,000 registered firearms. So why is there so little gun violence?
"We have a very different way of looking at guns in Japan than people in the United States," said Tsutomu Uchida, who runs the Kanagawa Ohi Shooting Range, an Olympic-style training center for rifle enthusiasts. "In the U.S., people believe they have a right to own a gun. In Japan, we don't have that right. So our point of departure is completely different."
Treating gun ownership as a privilege and not a right leads to some important policy differences.
First, anyone who wants to get a gun must demonstrate a valid reason why they should be allowed to do so. Under longstanding Japanese policy, there is no good reason why any civilian should have a handgun, so — aside from a few dozen accomplished competitive shooters — they are completely banned.
Virtually all handgun-related crime is attributable to gangsters, who obtain them on the black market. But such crime is extremely rare and when it does occur, police crack down hard on whatever gang is involved, so even gangsters see it as a last-ditch option.
Rifle ownership is allowed for the general public, but tightly controlled.
Applicants first must go to their local police station and declare their intent. After a lecture and a written test comes range training, then a background check. Police likely will even talk to the applicant's neighbors to see if he or she is known to have a temper, financial troubles or an unstable household. A doctor must sign a form saying the applicant has not been institutionalized and is not epileptic, depressed, schizophrenic, alcoholic or addicted to drugs.
Gun owners must tell the police where in the home the gun will be stored. It must be kept under lock and key, must be kept separate from ammunition, and preferably chained down. It's legal to transport a gun in the trunk of a car to get to one of the country's few shooting ranges, but if the driver steps away from the vehicle and gets caught, that's a violation.
Uchida said Japan's gun laws are frustrating, overly complicated and can seem capricious.
"It would be great if we had an organization like the National Rifle Association to stand up for us," he said, though he acknowledged that there is no significant movement in Japan to ease gun restrictions.
Even so, dedicated shooters like Uchida say they do not want the kind of freedoms Americans have and do not think Japan's system would work in the United States, citing the tendency for Japanese to defer to authority and place a very high premium on an ordered, low-crime society.
"We have our way of doing things, and Americans have theirs," said Yasuharu Watabe, 67, who has owned a gun for 40 years. "But there need to be regulations. Put a gun in the wrong hands, and it's a weapon."
___
SWITZERLAND — GUNS AND PEACE
Gun-rights advocates in the United States often cite Switzerland as an example of relatively liberal regulation going hand-in-hand with low gun crime.
The country's 8 million people own about 2.3 million firearms. But firearms were used in just 24 Swiss homicides in 2009, a rate of about 0.3 per 100,000 inhabitants. The U.S. rate that year was about 11 times higher.
Unlike in the United States, where guns are used in the majority of murders, in Switzerland only a quarter of murders involve firearms. The most high-profile case in recent years occurred when a disgruntled petitioner shot dead 14 people at a city council meeting in 2001.
Experts say Switzerland's low gun-crime figures are influenced by the fact that most firearms are military rifles issued to men when they join the country's conscript army . Criminologist Martin Killias at the University of Zurich notes that as Switzerland cut the size of its army in recent decades, gun violence — particularly domestic killings and suicides — dropped too.
The key issue is how many people have access to a weapon, not the total number of weapons owned in a country, Killias said. "Switzerland's criminals, for example, aren't very well armed compared with street criminals in the United States."
Critics of gun ownership in Switzerland have pointed out that the country's rate of firearms suicide is higher than anywhere else in Europe. But efforts to tighten the law further and force conscripts to give their guns back after training have failed at the ballot box — most recently in a 2012 referendum.
Gun enthusiasts — many of whom are members of Switzerland's 3,000 gun clubs — argue that limiting the right to bear arms in the home of William Tell would destroy a cherished tradition and undermine the militia army's preparedness against possible invasion.
Your propaganda overlords are ignorant and psychotic, and rely on mindless pawns like you believe their ridiculous lies:
http://www.newrepublic.com/blog/plank/104975/nra-fast-and-furious-holder#
The NRA’s Shameless, Fact-Free Conspiracy Theorizing about the Obama Administration
Among the more curious aspects of Eric Holder’s standoff with Congress over Fast and Furious, a gun-walking operation conducted between 2009 and 2011, is the air of conspiracy theorizing that hangs about it. Especially curious is that some of the most paranoid theorizing finds its source not in far-off Internet chat rooms, but in a well-appointed office building in northern Virginia—the headquarters of the National Rifle Association, the country’s biggest firearm lobbying organization.
In June, the NRA’s Executive Vice President, Wayne LaPierre, posted a letter on the organization’s website accusing Obama of crafting a “grand strategy to use Mexican drug cartel crime as an excuse to advance their gun control agenda, shut down law-abiding gun stores and rip the Second Amendment right out of our Bill of Rights.” LaPierre even implied that the death of Brian Terry, the Border Patrol agent killed along the border in Dec. 2010, was a byproduct of Obama’s hidden anti-gun agenda, telling The New York Times, “There is a belief among a lot of people—and I believe it too—…that the Justice Department facilitated a crime to further their gun control political agenda.”
However feverish the NRA’s stance, it’s clear that it has made an impact—not least, on the 17 Democrats who voted in favor of holding Holder in criminal contempt of Congress on June 28. Each of those Congressmen faces competitive reelections in conservative districts, and none of them could afford to tempt the ire of the NRA. After all, the executive director of the NRA had warned in a June 20 letter to the House of Representatives that it was planning on “consider[ing] this vote in our future candidate evaluations.” I asked Andrew Arulanandam, the NRA’s Director of Public Affairs, what motivated this decision. “Two very good reasons,” Arulanandam replied. “Truth and justice.”
Arulanandam’s avowed idealism aside, there’s little to commend the NRA’s theory that Operation Fast and Furious was part of a grand “gun control agenda” directed from the White House. A January 2012 House Oversight report debunked any allegations that the Obama administration attempted a cover-up of a “politically motivated operation.”
And in point of fact, the Obama administration has actually loosened gun laws, even garnering criticism from anti-gun groups for legislation allowing people to carry concealed weapons in national parks and checked luggage on Amtrak trains.
When I asked Arulanandam regarding Obama’s gun control record, he responded: “It’s a misconception that this administration is gun-neutral. The gun/parks legislation was attached to bills this administration desperately wanted.” But it’s hard to see why evidence of political compromise is sufficient for existence of a criminal conspiracy.
But here lies the greatest flaw in the entire accusation: The gun-walking (a tactic in which ATF permitted the sale of firearms to known criminals in hopes that they would lead them to powerful cartels) that is the most controversial aspect of Operation Fast and Furious started under the Bush administration, during an operation dubbed Wide Receiver. Arulanandam distinguished between these two operations by asserting that unlike Fast and Furious, the firearms under Wide Receiver were installed with transmitters (allowing them to be traced).
According to Adam Winkler, professor of constitutional law at UCLA and author of Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America, however, the closest existing claim is that some, but certainly not all, of the guns in Wide Receiver had tracking devices. In an emailed response, Winkler wrote, “Apparently, the tracking devices had to be manipulated to fit into or onto the weapons, which often resulted in breakage or the devices otherwise rendered ineffective. They also revealed that the sources of the weapons couldn't be trusted.”
Robert J. Spitzer, Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at SUNY-Cortland and the author of four books on gun policy, also could not verify the existence of these transmitters. “I cannot find any confirmation that there were actual transmitters [in Wide Receiver],” Spitzer says. Instead, according to Spitzer, the closest evidence suggests that some firearms were tracked using serial numbers, erroneously labeled as electronic transmitters by right-wing websites.
Regardless, even if some firearms did contain electronic transmitters, a considerable number of weapons were still lost in Mexico during Wide Receiver. As Winkler added, “It only makes sense that law enforcement would stop using tracking devices that had proven ineffective.” Yet the NRA has made no suggestion that the Bush administration’s Justice Department set a grand anti-gun conspiracy into motion.
So why has the NRA argued so strongly, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the Obama administration is involved in a massive anti-gun conspiracy? The simplest answer would be that the NRA is desperate for an election-year issue, and they saw Holder’s contretemps with Congress as their best chance. “They need to pin the gun control conspiracy on something,” says Winkler. “The NRA thinks gun rights will be safer under Romney. So they use this claim that Obama’s refusal to push gun control is actually representative of a greater conspiracy to push gun control.”
In short, the NRA is accusing Obama, a remarkably gun-neutral president, of concealing a conspiracy using a gun walking strategy he didn’t even start. But what is most alarming is not that the NRA is engaging in such baseless conspiracy theories. It’s the fact that the organization’s flawed logic holds such powerful sway in Washington’s halls of power.
World Top Ten Countries With Highest Reported Crime Rates
Country
Crime Rate
United States
11,877,218
United Kingdom
6,523,706
Germany
6,507,394
France
3,771,850
Russia
2,952,370
Japan
2,853,739
South Africa
2,683,849
Canada
2,516,918
Italy
2,231,550
India
1,764,630
The crime-rates map shows the world top ten countries with the highest reported crime rate.This map tells us about the number of crimes that took place per 100,000 people.
Data indicated on the map of countries with the highest reported crime rates is based on house hold surveys, hospital and insurance records, FIR recorded by police or by law enforcement agencies.
Map of countries with the highest reported crime rates clearly indicates that countries of Europe and America are the least safe countries in the world. Asia even though not that economically sound is far safer as compared to the ten countries listed on this map United States with 11,877,218 is the most unsafe country in this list while India, with 1,764,630 is the safest.
Here are two differing examples of how tighter gun control laws (regarding who gets them and why) can lead to safer societies.
http://news.yahoo.com/around-world-gun-rules-results-vary-wildly-075244259.html
JAPAN — THE NANNY STATE
Gunfire rings through the hills at a shooting range at the foot of Mount Fuji. There are few other places in Japan where you'll hear it.
In this country, guns are few and far between. And so is gun violence. Guns were used in only seven murders in Japan — a nation of about 130 million — in all of 2011, the most recent year for official statistics. According to police, more people — nine — were murdered with scissors.
Though its gun ownership rates are tiny compared to the United States, Japan has more than 120,000 registered gun owners and more than 400,000 registered firearms. So why is there so little gun violence?
"We have a very different way of looking at guns in Japan than people in the United States," said Tsutomu Uchida, who runs the Kanagawa Ohi Shooting Range, an Olympic-style training center for rifle enthusiasts. "In the U.S., people believe they have a right to own a gun. In Japan, we don't have that right. So our point of departure is completely different."
Treating gun ownership as a privilege and not a right leads to some important policy differences.
First, anyone who wants to get a gun must demonstrate a valid reason why they should be allowed to do so. Under longstanding Japanese policy, there is no good reason why any civilian should have a handgun, so — aside from a few dozen accomplished competitive shooters — they are completely banned.
Virtually all handgun-related crime is attributable to gangsters, who obtain them on the black market. But such crime is extremely rare and when it does occur, police crack down hard on whatever gang is involved, so even gangsters see it as a last-ditch option.
Rifle ownership is allowed for the general public, but tightly controlled.
Applicants first must go to their local police station and declare their intent. After a lecture and a written test comes range training, then a background check. Police likely will even talk to the applicant's neighbors to see if he or she is known to have a temper, financial troubles or an unstable household. A doctor must sign a form saying the applicant has not been institutionalized and is not epileptic, depressed, schizophrenic, alcoholic or addicted to drugs.
Gun owners must tell the police where in the home the gun will be stored. It must be kept under lock and key, must be kept separate from ammunition, and preferably chained down. It's legal to transport a gun in the trunk of a car to get to one of the country's few shooting ranges, but if the driver steps away from the vehicle and gets caught, that's a violation.
Uchida said Japan's gun laws are frustrating, overly complicated and can seem capricious.
"It would be great if we had an organization like the National Rifle Association to stand up for us," he said, though he acknowledged that there is no significant movement in Japan to ease gun restrictions.
Even so, dedicated shooters like Uchida say they do not want the kind of freedoms Americans have and do not think Japan's system would work in the United States, citing the tendency for Japanese to defer to authority and place a very high premium on an ordered, low-crime society.
"We have our way of doing things, and Americans have theirs," said Yasuharu Watabe, 67, who has owned a gun for 40 years. "But there need to be regulations. Put a gun in the wrong hands, and it's a weapon."
___
SWITZERLAND — GUNS AND PEACE
Gun-rights advocates in the United States often cite Switzerland as an example of relatively liberal regulation going hand-in-hand with low gun crime.
The country's 8 million people own about 2.3 million firearms. But firearms were used in just 24 Swiss homicides in 2009, a rate of about 0.3 per 100,000 inhabitants. The U.S. rate that year was about 11 times higher.
Unlike in the United States, where guns are used in the majority of murders, in Switzerland only a quarter of murders involve firearms. The most high-profile case in recent years occurred when a disgruntled petitioner shot dead 14 people at a city council meeting in 2001.
Experts say Switzerland's low gun-crime figures are influenced by the fact that most firearms are military rifles issued to men when they join the country's conscript army . Criminologist Martin Killias at the University of Zurich notes that as Switzerland cut the size of its army in recent decades, gun violence — particularly domestic killings and suicides — dropped too.
The key issue is how many people have access to a weapon, not the total number of weapons owned in a country, Killias said. "Switzerland's criminals, for example, aren't very well armed compared with street criminals in the United States."
Critics of gun ownership in Switzerland have pointed out that the country's rate of firearms suicide is higher than anywhere else in Europe. But efforts to tighten the law further and force conscripts to give their guns back after training have failed at the ballot box — most recently in a 2012 referendum.
Gun enthusiasts — many of whom are members of Switzerland's 3,000 gun clubs — argue that limiting the right to bear arms in the home of William Tell would destroy a cherished tradition and undermine the militia army's preparedness against possible invasion.
Your propaganda overlords are ignorant and psychotic, and rely on mindless pawns like you believe their ridiculous lies:
http://www.newrepublic.com/blog/plank/104975/nra-fast-and-furious-holder#
The NRA’s Shameless, Fact-Free Conspiracy Theorizing about the Obama Administration
Among the more curious aspects of Eric Holder’s standoff with Congress over Fast and Furious, a gun-walking operation conducted between 2009 and 2011, is the air of conspiracy theorizing that hangs about it. Especially curious is that some of the most paranoid theorizing finds its source not in far-off Internet chat rooms, but in a well-appointed office building in northern Virginia—the headquarters of the National Rifle Association, the country’s biggest firearm lobbying organization.
In June, the NRA’s Executive Vice President, Wayne LaPierre, posted a letter on the organization’s website accusing Obama of crafting a “grand strategy to use Mexican drug cartel crime as an excuse to advance their gun control agenda, shut down law-abiding gun stores and rip the Second Amendment right out of our Bill of Rights.” LaPierre even implied that the death of Brian Terry, the Border Patrol agent killed along the border in Dec. 2010, was a byproduct of Obama’s hidden anti-gun agenda, telling The New York Times, “There is a belief among a lot of people—and I believe it too—…that the Justice Department facilitated a crime to further their gun control political agenda.”
However feverish the NRA’s stance, it’s clear that it has made an impact—not least, on the 17 Democrats who voted in favor of holding Holder in criminal contempt of Congress on June 28. Each of those Congressmen faces competitive reelections in conservative districts, and none of them could afford to tempt the ire of the NRA. After all, the executive director of the NRA had warned in a June 20 letter to the House of Representatives that it was planning on “consider[ing] this vote in our future candidate evaluations.” I asked Andrew Arulanandam, the NRA’s Director of Public Affairs, what motivated this decision. “Two very good reasons,” Arulanandam replied. “Truth and justice.”
Arulanandam’s avowed idealism aside, there’s little to commend the NRA’s theory that Operation Fast and Furious was part of a grand “gun control agenda” directed from the White House. A January 2012 House Oversight report debunked any allegations that the Obama administration attempted a cover-up of a “politically motivated operation.”
And in point of fact, the Obama administration has actually loosened gun laws, even garnering criticism from anti-gun groups for legislation allowing people to carry concealed weapons in national parks and checked luggage on Amtrak trains.
When I asked Arulanandam regarding Obama’s gun control record, he responded: “It’s a misconception that this administration is gun-neutral. The gun/parks legislation was attached to bills this administration desperately wanted.” But it’s hard to see why evidence of political compromise is sufficient for existence of a criminal conspiracy.
But here lies the greatest flaw in the entire accusation: The gun-walking (a tactic in which ATF permitted the sale of firearms to known criminals in hopes that they would lead them to powerful cartels) that is the most controversial aspect of Operation Fast and Furious started under the Bush administration, during an operation dubbed Wide Receiver. Arulanandam distinguished between these two operations by asserting that unlike Fast and Furious, the firearms under Wide Receiver were installed with transmitters (allowing them to be traced).
According to Adam Winkler, professor of constitutional law at UCLA and author of Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America, however, the closest existing claim is that some, but certainly not all, of the guns in Wide Receiver had tracking devices. In an emailed response, Winkler wrote, “Apparently, the tracking devices had to be manipulated to fit into or onto the weapons, which often resulted in breakage or the devices otherwise rendered ineffective. They also revealed that the sources of the weapons couldn't be trusted.”
Robert J. Spitzer, Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at SUNY-Cortland and the author of four books on gun policy, also could not verify the existence of these transmitters. “I cannot find any confirmation that there were actual transmitters [in Wide Receiver],” Spitzer says. Instead, according to Spitzer, the closest evidence suggests that some firearms were tracked using serial numbers, erroneously labeled as electronic transmitters by right-wing websites.
Regardless, even if some firearms did contain electronic transmitters, a considerable number of weapons were still lost in Mexico during Wide Receiver. As Winkler added, “It only makes sense that law enforcement would stop using tracking devices that had proven ineffective.” Yet the NRA has made no suggestion that the Bush administration’s Justice Department set a grand anti-gun conspiracy into motion.
So why has the NRA argued so strongly, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the Obama administration is involved in a massive anti-gun conspiracy? The simplest answer would be that the NRA is desperate for an election-year issue, and they saw Holder’s contretemps with Congress as their best chance. “They need to pin the gun control conspiracy on something,” says Winkler. “The NRA thinks gun rights will be safer under Romney. So they use this claim that Obama’s refusal to push gun control is actually representative of a greater conspiracy to push gun control.”
In short, the NRA is accusing Obama, a remarkably gun-neutral president, of concealing a conspiracy using a gun walking strategy he didn’t even start. But what is most alarming is not that the NRA is engaging in such baseless conspiracy theories. It’s the fact that the organization’s flawed logic holds such powerful sway in Washington’s halls of power.
UltimateApathy
Infinite Idiocy
http://www.globalissues.org/article/78/small-arms-they-cause-90-of-civilian-casualties
Small Armsthey cause 90% of civilian casualties
Author and Page information
by Anup Shah
This Page Last Updated Saturday, January 21, 2006
This page: http://www.globalissues.org/article/78/small-arms-they-cause-90-of-civilian-casualties.
To print all information e.g. expanded side notes, shows alternative links, use the print version:http://www.globalissues.org/print/article/78
The growing availability of small arms has been a major factor in the increase in the number of conflicts, and in hindering smoother rebuilding and development after a conflict has ended. It is estimated, for example, that:
There are around half a billion military small arms around the world;
Some 300,000 to half a million people around the world are killed by them each year;
They are the major cause of civilian casualties in modern conflicts.
This section attempts to look at some of the issues surrounding small arms.
This web page has the following sub-sections:
What are Small Arms?
Civilians Affected Most by Small ArmsSmall Arms are an Ever-Present Problem
Small Arms Linger Long After Conflicts are Over and Hinders Development and Rebuilding
Small Arms are Proliferated Through Both Legal and Illegal Trade
Small Arms Cause Mass Destruction
People and Governments are Trying to Address the IssuesUN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms, July 2001
United Nations Biennial Meeting of States on Small Arms and the Programme of Action, 7-11 July 2003
More Information
What are Small Arms?
© Panos Pictures
Small arms include weapons such as
hand guns
pistols
sub-machine guns
mortars
landmines
grenades
light missiles.
There are many more which are often not regarded officially as small weapons, as described by Philippe Riviere, in Small Arms Cover-up; The problem of proliferation, Le Monde diplomatique, January 2001
Back to top
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Civilians Affected Most by Small Arms
Consider, for example, the following:
Modern conflicts claim an estimated half a million people each year. 300,000 of these are from conflicts, and 200,000 are from homicides and suicides.
Over 80 percent of all these casualties have been civilian
90 percent of civilian casualties are caused by small arms. This is far higher than the casualty count from conventional weapons of war like tanks, bomber jets or warships.
Estimates of the black market trade in small arms range from US$2-10 billion a year.
Every minute, someone is killed by a gun
At least 1,134 companies in 98 countries worldwide are involved in some aspect of the production of small arms and/or ammunition.
Civilians purchase more than 80% of all the firearms that are currently manufactured worldwide each year.
There are at least 639 million firearms in the world today, of which 59% are legally held by civilians.
Small Arms are an Ever-Present Problem
Some of the factors include that small arms are often
Long-life;
Low maintenance;
Relatively cheap and easily available;
Highly portable and so easily concealable.
The above therefore makes it easy for things like:
Illicit trafficking;
Operation by young children. (There are an estimated 300,000 child soldiers in the world.)
Professor Robert Neild of Cambridge University is quite blunt about it, too:
It has been estimated that there are now about 500 million small arms and light weapons in circulation in the world, one for every twelve people. Gone long ago is the time when we Europeans could subdue other continents because we had firearms and the local peoples had not. In 1999 it was reported that an AK-47 assault rifle could be bought in Uganda for the price of a chicken.
Robert Neild, Public Corruption; The Dark Side of Social Evolution, (London: Anthem Press, 2002), p. 131
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Small Arms Linger Long After Conflicts are Over and Hinders Development and Rebuilding
As the United Nations Department for Disarmament Affairs describes, Small arms and light weapons destabilise regions. This is because they
Spark, fuel and prolong conflicts;
Obstruct relief programmes;
Undermine peace initiatives;
Exacerbate human rights abuses;
Hamper development; and
Foster a culture of violence.
The Control Arms Campaign also notes that
illicit drugs production thrives on territory outside the control of recognised governments, and 95 per cent of the worlds production of hard drugs takes place in contexts of armed conflict. Valuable natural resources are illegally exploited by armed groups and their state sponsors, ruining millions of lives and impeding local development, as has occurred in DRC. International trade suffers and illicit markets thrive, to the detriment of national economies.
Towards an Arms Trade Treaty; Next steps for the UN Programme of Action, Control Arms, July 2005, p.8
However, as the UN also adds, unlike nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, there are no international treaties or other legal instruments for dealing with these weapons, which States and also individual legal owners rely on for their defense needs.
During the cold war, many nations were flooded with small arms by powerful nations such as the USA and the former Soviet Union and their major allies. Even though the cold war has ended, the small arms still remain and help fuel political and ethnic differences into conflict.
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Small Arms are Proliferated Through Both Legal and Illegal Trade
For example, an extensive report from Oxfam in 1998 revealed that UK involvement in the small arms trade is much higher than previously acknowledged. Between 1995 and 1997, UK sold small arms to over 100 countries.
The five permanent members of the UN Security CouncilFrance, Russia, China, the UK, and the USAtogether account for 88 per cent of the worlds conventional arms exports; and these exports contribute regularly to gross abuses of human rights. as a report from the control arms campaign, Shattered Lives, mentions.
As the report notes further:
The lack of arms controls allows some to profit from the misery of others.
While international attention is focused on the need to control weapons of mass destruction, the trade in conventional weapons continues to operate in a legal and moral vacuum.
More and more countries are starting to produce small arms, many with little ability or will to regulate their use.
Permanent UN Security Council membersthe USA, UK, France, Russia, and Chinadominate the world trade in arms.
Most national arms controls are riddled with loopholes or barely enforced.
Key weaknesses are lax controls on the brokering, licensed production, and end use of arms.
Arms get into the wrong hands through weak controls on firearm ownership, weapons management, and misuse by authorised users of weapons.
The Arms Bazaar, Shattered Lives, Chapter 4, p. 54, Control Arms Campaign, October 2003
This presents a huge obstacle to development in some of these countries. Furthermore, Control Arms, in another paper in 2005 noted that many countries are invovled in this trade.
Measuring SALW [Small Arms and Light Weapons] transfers by financial value [alone] ignores the potentially huge impact of relatively small-value transfers. Assault rifles cost only a few hundred dollars eachbut only a few hundred such rifles can lead to major instability, with catastrophic effects for civilian populations.
The international arms trade is not based solely in the North. At least 92 countries have the capacity to produce small arms or ammunition, and around half of these are developing countries. Some of this is production licensed from manufacturers in rich industrialised countries
Countries which are not renowned for the manufacture of weapons often play an important role in the transit and transfer of arms. For example, Viet Nam has reportedly transferred weapons to Myanmar; Lebanon, Liberia, Burkina Faso, and Niger have transferred weapons to Sierra Leone; Namibia to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Angola; Burkina Faso to Benin.
Thus arms transfers involve all countries, whether they suffer the effects of arms or transfer weaponsnot only newly manufactured arms, but re-exported, second-hand, surplus, or collected weapons, and weapons in transit.
Towards an Arms Trade Treaty; Next steps for the UN Programme of Action, Control Arms, July 2005, p.8
A documentary back in 1998, from the Center for Defense Information, describes the problems of small arms as epidemic.
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Small Arms Cause Mass Destruction
The International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) describes that, in effect, small arms are weapons of mass destruction. Summarizing and quoting IANSA:
Small arms are a Big Problem
Small arms are Big Business
Small arms lead to Big Damage»
Small arms present a Global Challenge
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People and Governments are Trying to Address the Issues
A documentary from the Center for Defense Information in 1998 suggested that one step towards peace and stability in some regions can be taken by stopping the flow of small arms.
There have been a number of examples of governments and people trying to address the issues. For a small example:
There had been an increase in pressure to discuss disarmament issues and the United Nations was trying to seek a moratorium on small arms trade. The G8 (the worlds major economies plus Russiaalso the worlds major arms suppliers) met in Birmingham, UK, 1517 May, 1998, as part of their annual meetings. Small arms was a major topic of discussion.
In Oslo, Norway, July 1998, there was a meeting where representatives from a number of countries were present to tackle and control the spread of small arms. Although some major producers of small arms were not in attendance, this was still seen as a positive step forward.
South Africa started to take a positive step forward by attempting to tackle the problem that it has created in the past of availability of small arms in Africa and other parts of the world. Yet, as the section below on the UN conference on the illicit arms trade shows, they were against certain moves to tackle exporting of arms to troubled areas.
For the first time in the United Nations history, the issue of small arms was finally a topic of conversation at a UN Security Council meeting in 1999, where Kofi Annan also noted the efforts of NGOs in this. NGOs are often doing the hard work and are in the front line. When it comes to small arms, they have been working diligently to fight the effects of small arms. This is not an easy undertaking given the amount of small arms that are traded legally and illegally.
Also in 1999, the UN General Assembly voted to hold a Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects which was to occur two years after this conference:
UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms, July 2001
Since the beginning of the conference on 9 July [2001], an estimated 25,000 people worldwide will have been killed by small arms.
UN Conference on Small Arms on the brink of failure, Amnesty International, July 20, 2001
A UN conference was set up from 9th to 20th July, 2001, to try and address issues regarding the proliferation of small arms in conflict zones. Amongst the numerous issues at hand, some major gun-producing countries such as the United States, China, Russia, India, and others were against effective universal criteria against arms export. In fact, it is interesting to note the United Statess stance on this, as reported by the radio show, Democracy Now!:
John Bolton, the U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control, bluntly told the delegates that The United States will not join consensus on a final document that contains measures contrary to our constitutional right to keep and bear arms. He also said the United States, the largest supplier of arms worldwide, would not support moves to outlaw any arming of rebel groups, nor would it help fund a campaign by human rights groups to raise awareness of the trade. He also said the U.S. would not support a ban on private ownership of military weapons, including assault rifles and grenade launchers.
Amy Goodman, A Ban on Private Ownership of Military Weapons Including Assault Rifles and Grenade Launchers? Bush Administration Just Says No, Democracy Now!, July 11, 2001. (An interview with various activists and campaigners around the world on the UN Conference on small arms.)
This is a remarkable position, as one must note how much controversy and concern was raised in the U.S. when there were revelations about Chinese influences in previous elections. That led to such vehement statements by U.S. politicians. Yet, the above statement says that while others should not be involved in such political interference, it is ok for the U.S. to do this (and, historically, more) to others.
As the Guardian in Britain reported, the United Kingdom, a close ally of the U.S., offered £19.5m to UN efforts to curb the supply of small arms, and yet, the US is opposed to even a commitment to negotiations on a binding legal agreement. (emphasis added). A partial reason for this, as explained in the Guardian article, is due to the influential gun lobby in the U.S.
On a slightly lighter note, there was the following response to a comment from someone against the UN conference:
[Amy Goodman]: Phylis Schlafly founded the Eagle Forum, a conservative force in this country [the United States] and she says about the UN conference, that the purpose of conference is to demonize the private ownership of guns and get government to confiscate all privately owned guns. She says, dont be misled by the term of illicit trade. UN documents make it clear that since most illegal guns start out as legal purchases, illicit trade must be stopped by clamping down on legal gun owners. And adds, dont think this UN conference is just a talk fest. Its scheduled to produce a legally binding treaty to require governments to mark, number, register, record, license, confiscate and destroy all guns except those in the hands of the military and the police. Whats your response to that?
[Cesar Villaneuva]: I hope that, that will be true.
Amy Goodman, A Ban on Private Ownership of Military Weapons Including Assault Rifles and Grenade Launchers? Bush Administration Just Says No, Democracy Now!, July 11, 2001. (An interview with various activists and campaigners around the world on the UN Conference on small arms.)
As with the John Bolton comment, the above confuses the issue of of domestic gun control with the trade and transfer of small arms and light weapons across international borders, which is what the UN conference was about.
As with numerous other international issues, this issue has been putting the U.S. at odds with many of its other allies, such as various European nations.
As the session was nearing a close, Human Rights Watch was raising concerns that this conference would [fail] to produce a serious plan of action. They further pointed out that, Many delegates have tried to single out shadowy gunrunners as the chief culprits, while neglecting the governmental role in supplying the weapons used to commit atrocities.
Amnesty International also pointed out that when some countries tried to get committments that small arms wouldnt be sold where there was a high risk of human rights violations, or fueling tensions etc, the USA, China, many ASEAN countries, the Arab Group and South Africa, were amongst those governments that blocked moves to secure such commitments.
As the conference ended, the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) described the result as a squandered opportunity as the final agreement was watered down so much. The Washington D.C.-based Center for Defence Information also described how the United States repeatedly used its political capital to weaken the Programme of Action:
The Conference, held July 9-20, 2001, began on a rather sour tone with the statement of U.S. Under Secretary of State John Bolton, who expressed the U.S. position on the issue of small arms and the Conference in no uncertain terms. Bolton stressed that the Conference should address only the illicit transfer of military style weapons, excluding firearms and non-military rifles (the weapons responsible for terrible carnage and destruction around the world every year).
Bolton bluntly stated the position of the United States in front of the ministerial-level portion of the meeting, describing the U.S. redlines, items unacceptable for inclusion in the Conference plan. Bolton stated that the United States could not support a final Conference document that included:
restrictions on the legal trade and manufacture of small arms and light weapons;
promotion of international advocacy by NGOs and international organizations;
restrictions on the sale of small arms and light weapons to entities other than governments;
a mandatory review conference; and
a commitment to begin discussions on legally binding agreements.
Rachel Stohl, UN Conference on Small Arms Concludes With Consensus, Weekly Defense Monitor, Center for Defense Information, Volume 5, Issue #29, July 26, 2001
The final Programme of Action was created, but weakened:
The final debate centered on the U.S. refusal to allow any mention of restrictions on sales to non-state actors, with several African states taking the opposite position. In the end, the Africans relented and all paragraphs related to non-state actors and civilian possession were stricken from the action plan.
The United States repeatedly used its political capital to weaken the Programme of Action and block progress in the debate. While the United States had clearly defined the items that would receive no U.S. support, the United States did not publicly push U.S. best practices on export criteria or on export controls. In addition, the United States did not push for an international agreement on brokering (or the beginning of discussions of such an agreement).
Although many compromises could not be reached, the Conference document did succeed in establishing a comprehensive approach, and included recognition of the grave humanitarian consequences caused by the proliferation of small arms. In addition, states now have a document on which they can base their future work on small arms. The Conference also agreed on a follow-up conference no later than 2006 with the precise date to be determined by the General Assembly at its 58th session, and biennial conferences to gauge progress on the implementation of the Programme of Action.
Rachel Stohl, UN Conference on Small Arms Concludes With Consensus, Weekly Defense Monitor, Center for Defense Information, Volume 5, Issue #29, July 26, 2001
As IANSA summarized, the programme of action committs governments to:
Make illicit gun production/possession a criminal offence
Establish a national coordination agency on small arms
Identify and destroy stocks of surplus weapons
Keep track of officially-held guns
Issue end-user certificates for exports/transit
Notify the original supplier nation of re-export
Disarmament, Demobilisation & Re-integration (DDR) of ex-combatants, including collection and destruction of their weapons
Support regional agreements and encourage moratoria
Mark guns at point of manufacture for identification and tracing
Maintain records of gun manufacture
Engage in more information exchange
Ensure better enforcement of arms embargoes
Include civil society organisations in efforts to prevent small arms proliferation
However, as IANSA adds, the programme provides no international mechanism for monitoring compliance, and the UNs role has been limited to compiling information submitted by states on a voluntary basis.
I must express my disappointment over the Conferences inability to agree, due to the concerns of one State, on language recognizing the need to establish and maintain controls over private ownership of these deadly weapons and the need for preventing sales of such arms to non-State groups. The states of the region most afflicted by this global crisis, Africa, had agreed only with the greatest of reluctance to the deletion of proposed language addressing these vital issues They did so strictly in the interests of reaching a compromise that would permit the world community as a whole to proceed together with some first steps at the global level to alleviate this common threat.
Ambassador Reyes of Columbia, Conference President at the conclusion of the 2001 conference, quoted from UN Meeting on Small Arms July 7-11: A battle between rich and poor?, ID21, July 3, 2003
(The official UN web site for this conference also contains the full text of the Programme is available on the UN Department of Disarmament Affairs.)
A follow-up biennial conference to guage the progress of the programme was held in July 2003.
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United Nations Biennial Meeting of States on Small Arms and the Programme of Action, 7-11 July 2003
This follow-up meeting was to consider the national, regional and global implementation of the Programme of Action agreed at the 2001 UN Conference and for governments to report their progress and lessons learned in the first two years of implementing it.
Leading up to the meeting, IANSA noted how many states had progressed poorly so far on this issue, under their obligations to the Programme of Action.
Human Rights Watch detailed misuse of small arms by many governments and groups around the world.
Robert Muggah, senior researcher at the Small Arms Surveythe principle international source of public information on all aspects of small arms based in Genevadetailed that the issue also involves a difference between the rich and poor. The NGO, ID21, summarized Muggahs report noting that:
People living in poor countries in Africa and the Americas are more than twice as likely to die a violent death as those living in rich European countries.
Many of these deaths are due to the misuse of small arms, the ownership of which has spread throughout poor communities as a result of war and the insecurities of poverty.
The spread of small arms is both an effect and a cause of underdevelopment and poverty. Small arms misuse means that instead of making investments in improving their well-being and economic development, the already poor are burdened with the cost of nursing the injured and paying for informal forms of security such as vigilantism and para-militaries.
Yet much of the initiative to reduce and control small arms has been left to the poor communities themselves, with little help from international governments or agencies.
One of the causes behind the inaction of some of the worlds wealthiest states is domestic politics and economic self-interest. On the political front, not all governments in a position to donate funds towards small arms control recognise civilian ownership of arms as a problem.
In terms of economic self-interest, a number of governments are also reluctant to be involved in initiatives which seek to reduce armed violence by restraining local markets in small arms. The value of the legal global trade in small arms is estimated at 4 billion US dollars per year. The estimated value of the illegal global trade in small arms is an additional 1 billion US dollars. Yet the UNs current Programme of Action on arms control focuses only on illegal trade in small arms, despite the fact that most illegally sold arms initially come from legal sources.
IANSA summarized the outcome of the meeting as having some critical positives, and some negatives:
The UN Biennial Meeting of States on small arms produced a number of significant outcomes, including:
The UN Group of Experts on Marking and Tracing released a report indicating that it is feasible to have an instrument on weapons tracing, and a recommendation for such an implementation will be submitted to the General Assembly. It is clear that we need a legally binding instrument on tracing, which includes marking, record keeping and international cooperation. IANSA will support this measure and push for its adoption.
[An] EU statement on brokering, which calls for a registry of arms brokers, exchange of information between states and adequate sanctions to ensure effective enforcement of brokering controls.
A number of UN agencies, including UNDP, WHO, UNIFEM and UNIDIR, have made strong statements about the human costs of small arms proliferation, and clearly recognize that this process must be focussed on reducing the damage and destruction on individuals caused by small arms.
While less than half of all governmentsabout 80submitted reports to the conference, this is more than have previously ever done so.
Despite these achievements, a number of challenges remain:
Member states are still far away from achieving global legal standards, which would help keep small arms away from human rights abusers. This is particularly important as delegates and civil society from Africa, the Middle East and Central America, among other regions, are facing crises of armed conflict.
We need greater recognition that domestic laws and international policies are interdependent, and that each countrys national laws affect the small arms proliferation problems of its neighbours and even countries in other regions.
We need greater recognition that the legal and the illegal markets for small arms are inter-related, that many illicit transfers start out as legal ones, and that small arms are responsible for deaths and destruction whether they are technically held illegally or not.
The minimal requirement on governments to report to the UN on their small arms activities and efforts is woefully low and must be raised.
Small Arms now Firmly on Global Policy Agendas, Say NGOs, International Action Network on Small Arms, July 11, 2003
You can also find out more about this meeting from the official United Nations web site for this conference.
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Various efforts have resulted in codes of conducts and even a call for an Arms Trade Treaty. These are discussed in more depth in the next section on this site.
Small Armsthey cause 90% of civilian casualties
Author and Page information
by Anup Shah
This Page Last Updated Saturday, January 21, 2006
This page: http://www.globalissues.org/article/78/small-arms-they-cause-90-of-civilian-casualties.
To print all information e.g. expanded side notes, shows alternative links, use the print version:http://www.globalissues.org/print/article/78
The growing availability of small arms has been a major factor in the increase in the number of conflicts, and in hindering smoother rebuilding and development after a conflict has ended. It is estimated, for example, that:
There are around half a billion military small arms around the world;
Some 300,000 to half a million people around the world are killed by them each year;
They are the major cause of civilian casualties in modern conflicts.
This section attempts to look at some of the issues surrounding small arms.
This web page has the following sub-sections:
What are Small Arms?
Civilians Affected Most by Small ArmsSmall Arms are an Ever-Present Problem
Small Arms Linger Long After Conflicts are Over and Hinders Development and Rebuilding
Small Arms are Proliferated Through Both Legal and Illegal Trade
Small Arms Cause Mass Destruction
People and Governments are Trying to Address the IssuesUN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms, July 2001
United Nations Biennial Meeting of States on Small Arms and the Programme of Action, 7-11 July 2003
More Information
What are Small Arms?
© Panos Pictures
Small arms include weapons such as
hand guns
pistols
sub-machine guns
mortars
landmines
grenades
light missiles.
There are many more which are often not regarded officially as small weapons, as described by Philippe Riviere, in Small Arms Cover-up; The problem of proliferation, Le Monde diplomatique, January 2001
Back to top
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Civilians Affected Most by Small Arms
Consider, for example, the following:
Modern conflicts claim an estimated half a million people each year. 300,000 of these are from conflicts, and 200,000 are from homicides and suicides.
Over 80 percent of all these casualties have been civilian
90 percent of civilian casualties are caused by small arms. This is far higher than the casualty count from conventional weapons of war like tanks, bomber jets or warships.
Estimates of the black market trade in small arms range from US$2-10 billion a year.
Every minute, someone is killed by a gun
At least 1,134 companies in 98 countries worldwide are involved in some aspect of the production of small arms and/or ammunition.
Civilians purchase more than 80% of all the firearms that are currently manufactured worldwide each year.
There are at least 639 million firearms in the world today, of which 59% are legally held by civilians.
Small Arms are an Ever-Present Problem
Some of the factors include that small arms are often
Long-life;
Low maintenance;
Relatively cheap and easily available;
Highly portable and so easily concealable.
The above therefore makes it easy for things like:
Illicit trafficking;
Operation by young children. (There are an estimated 300,000 child soldiers in the world.)
Professor Robert Neild of Cambridge University is quite blunt about it, too:
It has been estimated that there are now about 500 million small arms and light weapons in circulation in the world, one for every twelve people. Gone long ago is the time when we Europeans could subdue other continents because we had firearms and the local peoples had not. In 1999 it was reported that an AK-47 assault rifle could be bought in Uganda for the price of a chicken.
Robert Neild, Public Corruption; The Dark Side of Social Evolution, (London: Anthem Press, 2002), p. 131
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Small Arms Linger Long After Conflicts are Over and Hinders Development and Rebuilding
As the United Nations Department for Disarmament Affairs describes, Small arms and light weapons destabilise regions. This is because they
Spark, fuel and prolong conflicts;
Obstruct relief programmes;
Undermine peace initiatives;
Exacerbate human rights abuses;
Hamper development; and
Foster a culture of violence.
The Control Arms Campaign also notes that
illicit drugs production thrives on territory outside the control of recognised governments, and 95 per cent of the worlds production of hard drugs takes place in contexts of armed conflict. Valuable natural resources are illegally exploited by armed groups and their state sponsors, ruining millions of lives and impeding local development, as has occurred in DRC. International trade suffers and illicit markets thrive, to the detriment of national economies.
Towards an Arms Trade Treaty; Next steps for the UN Programme of Action, Control Arms, July 2005, p.8
However, as the UN also adds, unlike nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, there are no international treaties or other legal instruments for dealing with these weapons, which States and also individual legal owners rely on for their defense needs.
During the cold war, many nations were flooded with small arms by powerful nations such as the USA and the former Soviet Union and their major allies. Even though the cold war has ended, the small arms still remain and help fuel political and ethnic differences into conflict.
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Small Arms are Proliferated Through Both Legal and Illegal Trade
For example, an extensive report from Oxfam in 1998 revealed that UK involvement in the small arms trade is much higher than previously acknowledged. Between 1995 and 1997, UK sold small arms to over 100 countries.
The five permanent members of the UN Security CouncilFrance, Russia, China, the UK, and the USAtogether account for 88 per cent of the worlds conventional arms exports; and these exports contribute regularly to gross abuses of human rights. as a report from the control arms campaign, Shattered Lives, mentions.
As the report notes further:
The lack of arms controls allows some to profit from the misery of others.
While international attention is focused on the need to control weapons of mass destruction, the trade in conventional weapons continues to operate in a legal and moral vacuum.
More and more countries are starting to produce small arms, many with little ability or will to regulate their use.
Permanent UN Security Council membersthe USA, UK, France, Russia, and Chinadominate the world trade in arms.
Most national arms controls are riddled with loopholes or barely enforced.
Key weaknesses are lax controls on the brokering, licensed production, and end use of arms.
Arms get into the wrong hands through weak controls on firearm ownership, weapons management, and misuse by authorised users of weapons.
The Arms Bazaar, Shattered Lives, Chapter 4, p. 54, Control Arms Campaign, October 2003
This presents a huge obstacle to development in some of these countries. Furthermore, Control Arms, in another paper in 2005 noted that many countries are invovled in this trade.
Measuring SALW [Small Arms and Light Weapons] transfers by financial value [alone] ignores the potentially huge impact of relatively small-value transfers. Assault rifles cost only a few hundred dollars eachbut only a few hundred such rifles can lead to major instability, with catastrophic effects for civilian populations.
The international arms trade is not based solely in the North. At least 92 countries have the capacity to produce small arms or ammunition, and around half of these are developing countries. Some of this is production licensed from manufacturers in rich industrialised countries
Countries which are not renowned for the manufacture of weapons often play an important role in the transit and transfer of arms. For example, Viet Nam has reportedly transferred weapons to Myanmar; Lebanon, Liberia, Burkina Faso, and Niger have transferred weapons to Sierra Leone; Namibia to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Angola; Burkina Faso to Benin.
Thus arms transfers involve all countries, whether they suffer the effects of arms or transfer weaponsnot only newly manufactured arms, but re-exported, second-hand, surplus, or collected weapons, and weapons in transit.
Towards an Arms Trade Treaty; Next steps for the UN Programme of Action, Control Arms, July 2005, p.8
A documentary back in 1998, from the Center for Defense Information, describes the problems of small arms as epidemic.
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Small Arms Cause Mass Destruction
The International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) describes that, in effect, small arms are weapons of mass destruction. Summarizing and quoting IANSA:
Small arms are a Big Problem
Small arms are Big Business
Small arms lead to Big Damage»
Small arms present a Global Challenge
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People and Governments are Trying to Address the Issues
A documentary from the Center for Defense Information in 1998 suggested that one step towards peace and stability in some regions can be taken by stopping the flow of small arms.
There have been a number of examples of governments and people trying to address the issues. For a small example:
There had been an increase in pressure to discuss disarmament issues and the United Nations was trying to seek a moratorium on small arms trade. The G8 (the worlds major economies plus Russiaalso the worlds major arms suppliers) met in Birmingham, UK, 1517 May, 1998, as part of their annual meetings. Small arms was a major topic of discussion.
In Oslo, Norway, July 1998, there was a meeting where representatives from a number of countries were present to tackle and control the spread of small arms. Although some major producers of small arms were not in attendance, this was still seen as a positive step forward.
South Africa started to take a positive step forward by attempting to tackle the problem that it has created in the past of availability of small arms in Africa and other parts of the world. Yet, as the section below on the UN conference on the illicit arms trade shows, they were against certain moves to tackle exporting of arms to troubled areas.
For the first time in the United Nations history, the issue of small arms was finally a topic of conversation at a UN Security Council meeting in 1999, where Kofi Annan also noted the efforts of NGOs in this. NGOs are often doing the hard work and are in the front line. When it comes to small arms, they have been working diligently to fight the effects of small arms. This is not an easy undertaking given the amount of small arms that are traded legally and illegally.
Also in 1999, the UN General Assembly voted to hold a Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects which was to occur two years after this conference:
UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms, July 2001
Since the beginning of the conference on 9 July [2001], an estimated 25,000 people worldwide will have been killed by small arms.
UN Conference on Small Arms on the brink of failure, Amnesty International, July 20, 2001
A UN conference was set up from 9th to 20th July, 2001, to try and address issues regarding the proliferation of small arms in conflict zones. Amongst the numerous issues at hand, some major gun-producing countries such as the United States, China, Russia, India, and others were against effective universal criteria against arms export. In fact, it is interesting to note the United Statess stance on this, as reported by the radio show, Democracy Now!:
John Bolton, the U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control, bluntly told the delegates that The United States will not join consensus on a final document that contains measures contrary to our constitutional right to keep and bear arms. He also said the United States, the largest supplier of arms worldwide, would not support moves to outlaw any arming of rebel groups, nor would it help fund a campaign by human rights groups to raise awareness of the trade. He also said the U.S. would not support a ban on private ownership of military weapons, including assault rifles and grenade launchers.
Amy Goodman, A Ban on Private Ownership of Military Weapons Including Assault Rifles and Grenade Launchers? Bush Administration Just Says No, Democracy Now!, July 11, 2001. (An interview with various activists and campaigners around the world on the UN Conference on small arms.)
This is a remarkable position, as one must note how much controversy and concern was raised in the U.S. when there were revelations about Chinese influences in previous elections. That led to such vehement statements by U.S. politicians. Yet, the above statement says that while others should not be involved in such political interference, it is ok for the U.S. to do this (and, historically, more) to others.
As the Guardian in Britain reported, the United Kingdom, a close ally of the U.S., offered £19.5m to UN efforts to curb the supply of small arms, and yet, the US is opposed to even a commitment to negotiations on a binding legal agreement. (emphasis added). A partial reason for this, as explained in the Guardian article, is due to the influential gun lobby in the U.S.
On a slightly lighter note, there was the following response to a comment from someone against the UN conference:
[Amy Goodman]: Phylis Schlafly founded the Eagle Forum, a conservative force in this country [the United States] and she says about the UN conference, that the purpose of conference is to demonize the private ownership of guns and get government to confiscate all privately owned guns. She says, dont be misled by the term of illicit trade. UN documents make it clear that since most illegal guns start out as legal purchases, illicit trade must be stopped by clamping down on legal gun owners. And adds, dont think this UN conference is just a talk fest. Its scheduled to produce a legally binding treaty to require governments to mark, number, register, record, license, confiscate and destroy all guns except those in the hands of the military and the police. Whats your response to that?
[Cesar Villaneuva]: I hope that, that will be true.
Amy Goodman, A Ban on Private Ownership of Military Weapons Including Assault Rifles and Grenade Launchers? Bush Administration Just Says No, Democracy Now!, July 11, 2001. (An interview with various activists and campaigners around the world on the UN Conference on small arms.)
As with the John Bolton comment, the above confuses the issue of of domestic gun control with the trade and transfer of small arms and light weapons across international borders, which is what the UN conference was about.
As with numerous other international issues, this issue has been putting the U.S. at odds with many of its other allies, such as various European nations.
As the session was nearing a close, Human Rights Watch was raising concerns that this conference would [fail] to produce a serious plan of action. They further pointed out that, Many delegates have tried to single out shadowy gunrunners as the chief culprits, while neglecting the governmental role in supplying the weapons used to commit atrocities.
Amnesty International also pointed out that when some countries tried to get committments that small arms wouldnt be sold where there was a high risk of human rights violations, or fueling tensions etc, the USA, China, many ASEAN countries, the Arab Group and South Africa, were amongst those governments that blocked moves to secure such commitments.
As the conference ended, the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) described the result as a squandered opportunity as the final agreement was watered down so much. The Washington D.C.-based Center for Defence Information also described how the United States repeatedly used its political capital to weaken the Programme of Action:
The Conference, held July 9-20, 2001, began on a rather sour tone with the statement of U.S. Under Secretary of State John Bolton, who expressed the U.S. position on the issue of small arms and the Conference in no uncertain terms. Bolton stressed that the Conference should address only the illicit transfer of military style weapons, excluding firearms and non-military rifles (the weapons responsible for terrible carnage and destruction around the world every year).
Bolton bluntly stated the position of the United States in front of the ministerial-level portion of the meeting, describing the U.S. redlines, items unacceptable for inclusion in the Conference plan. Bolton stated that the United States could not support a final Conference document that included:
restrictions on the legal trade and manufacture of small arms and light weapons;
promotion of international advocacy by NGOs and international organizations;
restrictions on the sale of small arms and light weapons to entities other than governments;
a mandatory review conference; and
a commitment to begin discussions on legally binding agreements.
Rachel Stohl, UN Conference on Small Arms Concludes With Consensus, Weekly Defense Monitor, Center for Defense Information, Volume 5, Issue #29, July 26, 2001
The final Programme of Action was created, but weakened:
The final debate centered on the U.S. refusal to allow any mention of restrictions on sales to non-state actors, with several African states taking the opposite position. In the end, the Africans relented and all paragraphs related to non-state actors and civilian possession were stricken from the action plan.
The United States repeatedly used its political capital to weaken the Programme of Action and block progress in the debate. While the United States had clearly defined the items that would receive no U.S. support, the United States did not publicly push U.S. best practices on export criteria or on export controls. In addition, the United States did not push for an international agreement on brokering (or the beginning of discussions of such an agreement).
Although many compromises could not be reached, the Conference document did succeed in establishing a comprehensive approach, and included recognition of the grave humanitarian consequences caused by the proliferation of small arms. In addition, states now have a document on which they can base their future work on small arms. The Conference also agreed on a follow-up conference no later than 2006 with the precise date to be determined by the General Assembly at its 58th session, and biennial conferences to gauge progress on the implementation of the Programme of Action.
Rachel Stohl, UN Conference on Small Arms Concludes With Consensus, Weekly Defense Monitor, Center for Defense Information, Volume 5, Issue #29, July 26, 2001
As IANSA summarized, the programme of action committs governments to:
Make illicit gun production/possession a criminal offence
Establish a national coordination agency on small arms
Identify and destroy stocks of surplus weapons
Keep track of officially-held guns
Issue end-user certificates for exports/transit
Notify the original supplier nation of re-export
Disarmament, Demobilisation & Re-integration (DDR) of ex-combatants, including collection and destruction of their weapons
Support regional agreements and encourage moratoria
Mark guns at point of manufacture for identification and tracing
Maintain records of gun manufacture
Engage in more information exchange
Ensure better enforcement of arms embargoes
Include civil society organisations in efforts to prevent small arms proliferation
However, as IANSA adds, the programme provides no international mechanism for monitoring compliance, and the UNs role has been limited to compiling information submitted by states on a voluntary basis.
I must express my disappointment over the Conferences inability to agree, due to the concerns of one State, on language recognizing the need to establish and maintain controls over private ownership of these deadly weapons and the need for preventing sales of such arms to non-State groups. The states of the region most afflicted by this global crisis, Africa, had agreed only with the greatest of reluctance to the deletion of proposed language addressing these vital issues They did so strictly in the interests of reaching a compromise that would permit the world community as a whole to proceed together with some first steps at the global level to alleviate this common threat.
Ambassador Reyes of Columbia, Conference President at the conclusion of the 2001 conference, quoted from UN Meeting on Small Arms July 7-11: A battle between rich and poor?, ID21, July 3, 2003
(The official UN web site for this conference also contains the full text of the Programme is available on the UN Department of Disarmament Affairs.)
A follow-up biennial conference to guage the progress of the programme was held in July 2003.
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United Nations Biennial Meeting of States on Small Arms and the Programme of Action, 7-11 July 2003
This follow-up meeting was to consider the national, regional and global implementation of the Programme of Action agreed at the 2001 UN Conference and for governments to report their progress and lessons learned in the first two years of implementing it.
Leading up to the meeting, IANSA noted how many states had progressed poorly so far on this issue, under their obligations to the Programme of Action.
Human Rights Watch detailed misuse of small arms by many governments and groups around the world.
Robert Muggah, senior researcher at the Small Arms Surveythe principle international source of public information on all aspects of small arms based in Genevadetailed that the issue also involves a difference between the rich and poor. The NGO, ID21, summarized Muggahs report noting that:
People living in poor countries in Africa and the Americas are more than twice as likely to die a violent death as those living in rich European countries.
Many of these deaths are due to the misuse of small arms, the ownership of which has spread throughout poor communities as a result of war and the insecurities of poverty.
The spread of small arms is both an effect and a cause of underdevelopment and poverty. Small arms misuse means that instead of making investments in improving their well-being and economic development, the already poor are burdened with the cost of nursing the injured and paying for informal forms of security such as vigilantism and para-militaries.
Yet much of the initiative to reduce and control small arms has been left to the poor communities themselves, with little help from international governments or agencies.
One of the causes behind the inaction of some of the worlds wealthiest states is domestic politics and economic self-interest. On the political front, not all governments in a position to donate funds towards small arms control recognise civilian ownership of arms as a problem.
In terms of economic self-interest, a number of governments are also reluctant to be involved in initiatives which seek to reduce armed violence by restraining local markets in small arms. The value of the legal global trade in small arms is estimated at 4 billion US dollars per year. The estimated value of the illegal global trade in small arms is an additional 1 billion US dollars. Yet the UNs current Programme of Action on arms control focuses only on illegal trade in small arms, despite the fact that most illegally sold arms initially come from legal sources.
IANSA summarized the outcome of the meeting as having some critical positives, and some negatives:
The UN Biennial Meeting of States on small arms produced a number of significant outcomes, including:
The UN Group of Experts on Marking and Tracing released a report indicating that it is feasible to have an instrument on weapons tracing, and a recommendation for such an implementation will be submitted to the General Assembly. It is clear that we need a legally binding instrument on tracing, which includes marking, record keeping and international cooperation. IANSA will support this measure and push for its adoption.
[An] EU statement on brokering, which calls for a registry of arms brokers, exchange of information between states and adequate sanctions to ensure effective enforcement of brokering controls.
A number of UN agencies, including UNDP, WHO, UNIFEM and UNIDIR, have made strong statements about the human costs of small arms proliferation, and clearly recognize that this process must be focussed on reducing the damage and destruction on individuals caused by small arms.
While less than half of all governmentsabout 80submitted reports to the conference, this is more than have previously ever done so.
Despite these achievements, a number of challenges remain:
Member states are still far away from achieving global legal standards, which would help keep small arms away from human rights abusers. This is particularly important as delegates and civil society from Africa, the Middle East and Central America, among other regions, are facing crises of armed conflict.
We need greater recognition that domestic laws and international policies are interdependent, and that each countrys national laws affect the small arms proliferation problems of its neighbours and even countries in other regions.
We need greater recognition that the legal and the illegal markets for small arms are inter-related, that many illicit transfers start out as legal ones, and that small arms are responsible for deaths and destruction whether they are technically held illegally or not.
The minimal requirement on governments to report to the UN on their small arms activities and efforts is woefully low and must be raised.
Small Arms now Firmly on Global Policy Agendas, Say NGOs, International Action Network on Small Arms, July 11, 2003
You can also find out more about this meeting from the official United Nations web site for this conference.
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Various efforts have resulted in codes of conducts and even a call for an Arms Trade Treaty. These are discussed in more depth in the next section on this site.
UltimateApathy
Infinite Idiocy
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/27/un-arms-trade-treaty-nra_n_1711578.html
WASHINGTON -- One week after the Aurora, Colo., mass murder brought gun-control back to the forefront of political discourse, the Obama administration found itself faced with its first test on the issue -- and blinked.
An arms control treaty to regulate the $60 billion global business of illicit small arms trading that had worked its way through United Nations negotiating channels for several years came up at the final day of a U.N. global conference in New York on Friday. The U.S. joined Russia in objecting to a final version, with some diplomats and human rights advocates blaming the U.S. for the defeat.
As the Colorado slaughter put guns back on the agenda this week, Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) and 50 fellow senators sent a letter to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday, saying that they would vote against ratifying the treaty if it "restricts the rights of law-abiding American gun owners."
Moran, in a press release, quoted a National Rifle Association leader, who said members would "never surrender our right to keep and bear arms to the United Nations." Treaty opponent John Bolton, ex-President George W. Bush's ambassador to the U.N., wrote that gun-control advocates "hope to use restrictions on international gun sales to control gun sales at home."
Both ignore the legal principle that says no treaty can override the Constitution or U.S. laws. The Associated Press fact-checked claims by the NRA and Bolton on Friday and concluded their assertions were false.
The NRA has been "spreading lies" about the treaty, said Amnesty International spokeswoman Suzanne Trimel in an interview. "Basically, what they're saying is that the arms trade treaty will have some impact on domestic, Second Amendment gun rights. And that is just false, completely false," she said.
Human rights activists have described the treaty as a monumental step toward preventing the illicit flow of weapons to conflict-torn regions. It "creates a global background check to prevent countries and arms exporters from selling guns and military hardware to ... human rights abusers," said Suzanne Nossel, executive director of Amnesty International, in a statement Friday. "It has been in the works for more than a decade -- the Obama administration should not make itself the obstacle just as it reaches the finish line," she added.
The treaty seemed to have a good shot in 2009, when the Obama administration broke from the Bush administration's opposition and showed support.
A version of the pact presented to U.S. negotiators late Thursday appeared to satisfy their concerns, according to Amnesty International.
But early Friday, according to Amnesty, Thomas Countryman, the deputy secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation, told the negotiators that the U.S. needed more time to review the treaty. Russia, Indonesia and India voiced similar concerns.
The U.S. Mission to the U.N. did not respond to requests for comment on Friday.
Reports late on Friday indicated that the treaty was unlikely to move for at least several months. While Friday was a setback for an agreement, there is still a possibility that a draft treaty could be brought before the U.N. General Assembly and passed with two-thirds majority vote in the 193-nation body.
Also, you say the U.S. does relatively well in violent crime rate statistics but you offer none up to validate your argument. And even if you were to find such statistics (although we do know via previous posts that the NRA does it best to stifle or falsify gun violence statistics), let's just consider the facts so far: (a) we've already seen via previous posts that the amount of gun-related crime has a very strong link to the availability of guns amongst civillians (b) via previous posts we've also seen that a great proportion of violent crime in U.S. does occur with guns involved (c) then if we follow this through logically (which I know you have trouble with), it's obviously clear that if countries with higher violent crime rates were as awash with guns as the U.S., the violent crimes committed there would be most likely involve guns and thus be both more numerous and more heinous. Also, how would you expect the over-all violent crime rate in a rotting third-world country to compare to a civillized first world country like the USA anyway? Your argument is so full of holes that I guess you must have been using it for target practice:
You reveal your supreme ignorance with regard to comprehension and general brainwashed-ness when you refer to an entire U.N. report about the deterimental effect of small arms on all levels to human society as a whole as being "based on war". The reports covers all the detrimental effects of gun ownership from crime-based aspects to their use by governments and other armed groups in third world countries. How do you think civil wars get started in the first place? Answer: an excess of guns in civillian society. I know you're going to whine about "justified resistance" here but let me ask you this: what percentage of civil wars in third world countries do you actually think are "justified"? Most of the time it's just obvious greed and hunger for power, replacing one dictatorship with another - read your history books. And none of it would happen without an excess of guns in society.
The statistics are all there regarding how severe and serious a blight guns are to human society in general, but I guess you didn't notice them because you clearly didn't read or understand any of those three reports because your puppet-like mental state won't allow you to, or else you would have noticed: The U.N. tried to introduced a bill to try halt this endless slaughter and carnage by curtailing to a degree the manufacture and ownership of small arms on a global, but the NRA was instrumental in blocking the most important and effective parts of the bill. That's right, some redneck association in America is enabling and empowering (among other things) civil wars in third world countries, many involving child soldiers, to give some hillbillies in their fat rich home country the right to say "I gotta haves me a gun to defends meself from criminals and the evil bad U.S. government". It truly is sick, and both the NRA and mindless puppets like you who support them have blood on their hands.
Stories like this are a dime a dozen in the U.S., but gun nuts don't care about anything as much as being able to admire the metallic sheen of their killing machine as they hold it lovingly in their arms.
http://news.yahoo.com/chicago-woman-loses-4th-child-gun-violence-050937554.html
Chicago woman loses 4th child to gun violence
CHICAGO (AP) — At least five people were gunned down Saturday in Chicago, including a 34-year-old man whose mother had already lost her three other children to shootings.
Ronnie Chambers, who was his mother Shirley's youngest child, was shot in the head while sitting in a parked car on the city's West Side. A 21-year-old man who was also in the car was wounded, police said.
Shirley Chambers, whose two other sons and daughter were shot in separate attacks more than a decade ago, was left grieving again on Saturday, WLS-TV reported (http://bit.ly/VCSh8i ).
"Right now, I'm totally lost because Ronnie was my only surviving son," Chambers said.
Shirley Chambers' first child, Carlos, was shot and killed by a high school classmate in 1995 after an argument. He was 18. Her daughter Latoya, then 15, and her other son Jerome were shot and killed within months of one another in 2000.
"What did I do wrong? I was there for them. We didn't have everything we wanted but we had what we needed," she asked Saturday.
Chambers said despite this latest tragic chapter in her life, she's not bitter or angry.
"They took my only child. I have nobody right now. That's my only baby," she said.
A few hours after Ronnie Chambers was killed, a gunman opened fire on three men near a South Side eatery, killing two of them and wounding the third, police said.
On Saturday afternoon, detectives were called to the scene of another shooting in which a man in his 30s and a teenager were shot to death. There had been no arrests.
Chicago's homicide count eclipsed 500 last year for the first time since 2008. As grim as it is, Chicago's homicide rate was almost double in the early 1990s — averaging around 900 — before violent crime began dropping in cities across America.
Last year's increase, though, stood in sharp contrast to New York, where homicides fell 21 percent from 2011, as of early December.
Also, you simply dismiss 3/5 of global gun deaths as being due to war but conveniently ignore the fact that most of those gun deaths are NOT governments fighting governments but rather civil wars in third world countries that occur precisely BECAUSE there are too many guns in civilian society (thanks largely to the US and others making guns so freely available on ther global market) which enables varies armed civilian groups to take up guns against the government. History has shown many times that these wars are often really bloody and protracted and hardly ever result in a stable government being established, with civil war generally re-occurring. Has a mindless puppet like you ever heard of the term "ethics"? I'm sure you could make a very ethically and morally convincing argument that even a gun-less and relatively peaceful society like China where the government controls all forms of media is preferable to the state of constant civil strife that occurs in many of these third world countries awash with guns. Even an oppressive government is better than having no government with a constant state of constant anarchy and war due to excessive gun ownership within civilian society (and if you can't justify war, then you sure as hell can't justify civilians carrying weapons of war within a peaceful "not-at-war" society, which happens to be your particular fetish).
This is EXACTLY why the U.N. wanted to introduce this bill to tackle these kind of recurring gun-based problems within the third world, but the NRA stepped in and was instrumental in blocking the bill because some rednecked buffoons in the backwoods of America wanted to cling to their pretty little guns while child soldiers fight wars with the same freely-available guns in third world countries. Do you really fail to see the sick and twisted sense of immorality here? To brainwashed puppets like you it's just all numbers on a page, the deaths of a few million civilians means nothing to you as long as you can keep your precious little guns. Maybe you would change your tune if someone close to you got gunned down - or maybe you'd just think "It was their fault because they weren't carrying a concealed gun that they would have had time to pull out and fight back with". Your heartless and mindless thinking is disgusting and despicable.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datab...hip-world-list
Country, Homicide by firearm rate per 100,000 pop, Average firearms per 100 people, Average total all civilian firearms
United States 2.97, 88.8, 270,000,000
Germany 0.19, 30.3, 25,000,000
France 0.06, 31.2, 19,000,000
Sweden 0.41, 31.6, 2,800,000
Denmark 0.27, 12, 650,000
Poland 0.09, 1.3, 510,000
Spain 0.2, 10.4, 4,500,000
SOURCES: UNODC & Small arms survey
2.97 as a gun homicide rate is only "low" when compared to the gangster-ridden, poverty-stricken 3rd world countries on that list, and still far higher than any other first world country there. And the very way that gangsters and other criminals use guns in those countries to assert their dominance is in itself a very effective example of why it's bad to have a society overflowing with civilian guns. For a gangster a gun is the Holy Graille that gives him a sense of power and control - no gangbanger feels like a "badass" with a knife tucked in his sock compared to 90% of the other gangster out there packing all manner of guns.
And back with a reference to those violent crime statistics that you posted earlier, you were making false statements about the U.S. having far lower violent crime rates than most other first world countries, but since the U.S. clocked in at 466 crimes per 100,000 residents it would be 11th or 12th on the last list which is still very much in the top tier of violent countries, and (as I mentioned earlier) we also need to remember that the U.S. has a far greater degree of serious violent crime (such as murders), with much of it centered around guns
WASHINGTON -- One week after the Aurora, Colo., mass murder brought gun-control back to the forefront of political discourse, the Obama administration found itself faced with its first test on the issue -- and blinked.
An arms control treaty to regulate the $60 billion global business of illicit small arms trading that had worked its way through United Nations negotiating channels for several years came up at the final day of a U.N. global conference in New York on Friday. The U.S. joined Russia in objecting to a final version, with some diplomats and human rights advocates blaming the U.S. for the defeat.
As the Colorado slaughter put guns back on the agenda this week, Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) and 50 fellow senators sent a letter to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday, saying that they would vote against ratifying the treaty if it "restricts the rights of law-abiding American gun owners."
Moran, in a press release, quoted a National Rifle Association leader, who said members would "never surrender our right to keep and bear arms to the United Nations." Treaty opponent John Bolton, ex-President George W. Bush's ambassador to the U.N., wrote that gun-control advocates "hope to use restrictions on international gun sales to control gun sales at home."
Both ignore the legal principle that says no treaty can override the Constitution or U.S. laws. The Associated Press fact-checked claims by the NRA and Bolton on Friday and concluded their assertions were false.
The NRA has been "spreading lies" about the treaty, said Amnesty International spokeswoman Suzanne Trimel in an interview. "Basically, what they're saying is that the arms trade treaty will have some impact on domestic, Second Amendment gun rights. And that is just false, completely false," she said.
Human rights activists have described the treaty as a monumental step toward preventing the illicit flow of weapons to conflict-torn regions. It "creates a global background check to prevent countries and arms exporters from selling guns and military hardware to ... human rights abusers," said Suzanne Nossel, executive director of Amnesty International, in a statement Friday. "It has been in the works for more than a decade -- the Obama administration should not make itself the obstacle just as it reaches the finish line," she added.
The treaty seemed to have a good shot in 2009, when the Obama administration broke from the Bush administration's opposition and showed support.
A version of the pact presented to U.S. negotiators late Thursday appeared to satisfy their concerns, according to Amnesty International.
But early Friday, according to Amnesty, Thomas Countryman, the deputy secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation, told the negotiators that the U.S. needed more time to review the treaty. Russia, Indonesia and India voiced similar concerns.
The U.S. Mission to the U.N. did not respond to requests for comment on Friday.
Reports late on Friday indicated that the treaty was unlikely to move for at least several months. While Friday was a setback for an agreement, there is still a possibility that a draft treaty could be brought before the U.N. General Assembly and passed with two-thirds majority vote in the 193-nation body.
Also, you say the U.S. does relatively well in violent crime rate statistics but you offer none up to validate your argument. And even if you were to find such statistics (although we do know via previous posts that the NRA does it best to stifle or falsify gun violence statistics), let's just consider the facts so far: (a) we've already seen via previous posts that the amount of gun-related crime has a very strong link to the availability of guns amongst civillians (b) via previous posts we've also seen that a great proportion of violent crime in U.S. does occur with guns involved (c) then if we follow this through logically (which I know you have trouble with), it's obviously clear that if countries with higher violent crime rates were as awash with guns as the U.S., the violent crimes committed there would be most likely involve guns and thus be both more numerous and more heinous. Also, how would you expect the over-all violent crime rate in a rotting third-world country to compare to a civillized first world country like the USA anyway? Your argument is so full of holes that I guess you must have been using it for target practice:
You reveal your supreme ignorance with regard to comprehension and general brainwashed-ness when you refer to an entire U.N. report about the deterimental effect of small arms on all levels to human society as a whole as being "based on war". The reports covers all the detrimental effects of gun ownership from crime-based aspects to their use by governments and other armed groups in third world countries. How do you think civil wars get started in the first place? Answer: an excess of guns in civillian society. I know you're going to whine about "justified resistance" here but let me ask you this: what percentage of civil wars in third world countries do you actually think are "justified"? Most of the time it's just obvious greed and hunger for power, replacing one dictatorship with another - read your history books. And none of it would happen without an excess of guns in society.
The statistics are all there regarding how severe and serious a blight guns are to human society in general, but I guess you didn't notice them because you clearly didn't read or understand any of those three reports because your puppet-like mental state won't allow you to, or else you would have noticed: The U.N. tried to introduced a bill to try halt this endless slaughter and carnage by curtailing to a degree the manufacture and ownership of small arms on a global, but the NRA was instrumental in blocking the most important and effective parts of the bill. That's right, some redneck association in America is enabling and empowering (among other things) civil wars in third world countries, many involving child soldiers, to give some hillbillies in their fat rich home country the right to say "I gotta haves me a gun to defends meself from criminals and the evil bad U.S. government". It truly is sick, and both the NRA and mindless puppets like you who support them have blood on their hands.
Stories like this are a dime a dozen in the U.S., but gun nuts don't care about anything as much as being able to admire the metallic sheen of their killing machine as they hold it lovingly in their arms.
http://news.yahoo.com/chicago-woman-loses-4th-child-gun-violence-050937554.html
Chicago woman loses 4th child to gun violence
CHICAGO (AP) — At least five people were gunned down Saturday in Chicago, including a 34-year-old man whose mother had already lost her three other children to shootings.
Ronnie Chambers, who was his mother Shirley's youngest child, was shot in the head while sitting in a parked car on the city's West Side. A 21-year-old man who was also in the car was wounded, police said.
Shirley Chambers, whose two other sons and daughter were shot in separate attacks more than a decade ago, was left grieving again on Saturday, WLS-TV reported (http://bit.ly/VCSh8i ).
"Right now, I'm totally lost because Ronnie was my only surviving son," Chambers said.
Shirley Chambers' first child, Carlos, was shot and killed by a high school classmate in 1995 after an argument. He was 18. Her daughter Latoya, then 15, and her other son Jerome were shot and killed within months of one another in 2000.
"What did I do wrong? I was there for them. We didn't have everything we wanted but we had what we needed," she asked Saturday.
Chambers said despite this latest tragic chapter in her life, she's not bitter or angry.
"They took my only child. I have nobody right now. That's my only baby," she said.
A few hours after Ronnie Chambers was killed, a gunman opened fire on three men near a South Side eatery, killing two of them and wounding the third, police said.
On Saturday afternoon, detectives were called to the scene of another shooting in which a man in his 30s and a teenager were shot to death. There had been no arrests.
Chicago's homicide count eclipsed 500 last year for the first time since 2008. As grim as it is, Chicago's homicide rate was almost double in the early 1990s — averaging around 900 — before violent crime began dropping in cities across America.
Last year's increase, though, stood in sharp contrast to New York, where homicides fell 21 percent from 2011, as of early December.
Also, you simply dismiss 3/5 of global gun deaths as being due to war but conveniently ignore the fact that most of those gun deaths are NOT governments fighting governments but rather civil wars in third world countries that occur precisely BECAUSE there are too many guns in civilian society (thanks largely to the US and others making guns so freely available on ther global market) which enables varies armed civilian groups to take up guns against the government. History has shown many times that these wars are often really bloody and protracted and hardly ever result in a stable government being established, with civil war generally re-occurring. Has a mindless puppet like you ever heard of the term "ethics"? I'm sure you could make a very ethically and morally convincing argument that even a gun-less and relatively peaceful society like China where the government controls all forms of media is preferable to the state of constant civil strife that occurs in many of these third world countries awash with guns. Even an oppressive government is better than having no government with a constant state of constant anarchy and war due to excessive gun ownership within civilian society (and if you can't justify war, then you sure as hell can't justify civilians carrying weapons of war within a peaceful "not-at-war" society, which happens to be your particular fetish).
This is EXACTLY why the U.N. wanted to introduce this bill to tackle these kind of recurring gun-based problems within the third world, but the NRA stepped in and was instrumental in blocking the bill because some rednecked buffoons in the backwoods of America wanted to cling to their pretty little guns while child soldiers fight wars with the same freely-available guns in third world countries. Do you really fail to see the sick and twisted sense of immorality here? To brainwashed puppets like you it's just all numbers on a page, the deaths of a few million civilians means nothing to you as long as you can keep your precious little guns. Maybe you would change your tune if someone close to you got gunned down - or maybe you'd just think "It was their fault because they weren't carrying a concealed gun that they would have had time to pull out and fight back with". Your heartless and mindless thinking is disgusting and despicable.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datab...hip-world-list
Country, Homicide by firearm rate per 100,000 pop, Average firearms per 100 people, Average total all civilian firearms
United States 2.97, 88.8, 270,000,000
Germany 0.19, 30.3, 25,000,000
France 0.06, 31.2, 19,000,000
Sweden 0.41, 31.6, 2,800,000
Denmark 0.27, 12, 650,000
Poland 0.09, 1.3, 510,000
Spain 0.2, 10.4, 4,500,000
SOURCES: UNODC & Small arms survey
2.97 as a gun homicide rate is only "low" when compared to the gangster-ridden, poverty-stricken 3rd world countries on that list, and still far higher than any other first world country there. And the very way that gangsters and other criminals use guns in those countries to assert their dominance is in itself a very effective example of why it's bad to have a society overflowing with civilian guns. For a gangster a gun is the Holy Graille that gives him a sense of power and control - no gangbanger feels like a "badass" with a knife tucked in his sock compared to 90% of the other gangster out there packing all manner of guns.
And back with a reference to those violent crime statistics that you posted earlier, you were making false statements about the U.S. having far lower violent crime rates than most other first world countries, but since the U.S. clocked in at 466 crimes per 100,000 residents it would be 11th or 12th on the last list which is still very much in the top tier of violent countries, and (as I mentioned earlier) we also need to remember that the U.S. has a far greater degree of serious violent crime (such as murders), with much of it centered around guns
UltimateApathy
Infinite Idiocy
http://www.popcenter.org/problems/gun_violence/2
Gun Violence Among Serious Young Offenders
Guide No.23 (2003)
by Anthony A. Braga
The Problem of Gun Violence Among Serious Young Offenders
This guide addresses serious youth gun violence, describing the problem and reviewing factors that increase the risks of it. It then identifies a series of questions that might help you analyze your local problem. Finally, it reviews responses to the problem, and what is known about them from evaluative research and police practice.
Criminal misuse of guns kills or injures tens of thousands of Americans every year. This violence imposes a heavy burden on our standard of living, not only on groups that have the highest victimization rates, but also on the community at large. By one estimate, this burden amounts to $80 billion per year. 1 Although overall U.S. homicide rates declined between the 1980s and 1990s, youth homicide, particularly gun homicide, increased dramatically. Between 1984 and 1994, juvenile (younger than 18) homicides committed with handguns increased by 418 percent, and juvenile homicides committed with other guns increased by 125 percent.2 During this time, adolescents (ages 14 to 17) had the largest proportional increase in homicide commission and victimization, young adults (ages 18 to 24) had the largest absolute increase, and there was much crossfire between the two age groups.3 Gun homicide accounted for all of the increase in youth homicide. The youth violence epidemic peaked in 1993 and was followed by a rapid, sustained drop over the rest of the 1990s.4 However, in 2000, more than 10,000 Americans were killed with guns, and guns are much more likely to be used in homicides of teens and young adults than in homicides of people of other ages.5
In urban areas, gun violence takes a particularly heavy toll, as vastly disproportionate numbers of young minority males are killed and injured, and increasing fear drives out businesses and disrupts community social life. Research has linked urban youth gun violence to gang conflicts, street drug markets, and gun availability.6 Youth gun violence is usually concentrated among groups of serious offenders and in very specific places.7
The police can prevent youth gun violence by focusing on identifiable risks. While gun violence seems to pervade our society, it is remarkably clustered among high-risk people, in high-risk places, at high-risk times. This concentration of violence provides an important opportunity for police to strategically address a seemingly intractable problem.
Related Problems
For police agencies, the most pressing concerns regarding youth gun violence are why offenders target particular people, at particular places, at particular times. However, it is also important to recognize that youth gun violence is often linked to a variety of risk factors beyond the scope of problem-oriented policing. For example, it has been linked to changing demographics, adverse economic conditions, family disruption, media violence, and poor parenting skills.8 These are sometimes considered the “root causes” of the problem. However, by the time gun violence problems come to police attention, the broader questions of why youth offend are no longer relevant. While police often help people access social services, they are best positioned to prevent youth gun crimes by focusing on the situational opportunities for offending rather than trying to change those socioeconomic conditions on which other government agencies primarily focus. Thinking about how likely offenders, potential victims, and others are to make decisions based on perceived opportunities is more useful in designing effective problem-oriented policing interventions.9
Youth gun violence is only one of many youth-related problems police must handle. The following require separate analysis and response:
•gang formation,
•gang intimidation,
•gang crime,
•youth drug dealing,
•youth drug use,
•underage drinking,
•gun availability to youth,
•gun possession by youth,
•illegal gun markets,
•street drug markets,
•disorderly youth in public places,
•assaults in and around bars,
•street cruising, and
•truancy.
Factors Contributing to Gun Violence Among Serious Young Offenders
Understanding the factors that contribute to your youth gun violence problem will help you frame your own local analysis questions, determine good effectiveness measures, recognize key intervention points, and select appropriate responses. Research has shown that crime problems tend to cluster among a few offenders, victims, and places. Youth gun violence is similarly concentrated among a few offenders in a few places. This section reviews what is known from criminal profiles of youth gun offenders and victims, addresses the importance of gangs and criminally active groups in youth gun violence, and discusses the clustering in location and time of youth gun violence. It is important to note that the problem frames vary across the studies described below. In many jurisdictions, an initial interest in “juvenile violence” or “gun violence” shifted, as the problem assessments proceeded, to a focus on understanding and controlling violence, regardless of age or weapon type. However, in all cities, youth gun violence was the most important component of the problem. For example, in Minneapolis, problem-oriented research conducted on an emergent total homicide problem found that homicide was largely committed by youth ages 24 and under, who used guns and were known to the criminal justice system.10
Previous Offenses
Youth gun violence is concentrated among serious offenders well known to police and other criminal justice agencies. In Boston, an interagency group of law enforcement personnel, youth workers, and researchers examined the criminal histories of youth ages 21 and under killed by gun or knife in the city between 1990 and 1994, and of the youth offenders responsible.11 Of the victims, 75 percent had been arraigned for at least one offense in Massachusetts courts, and 20 percent had served time in a youth or adult detention center. Nearly 50 percent had been on probation in the past, and many were on probation when they were killed. Of the offenders, a little over 75 percent had been arraigned for at least one offense in Massachusetts courts, 25 percent had served time, over 50 percent had been on probation in the past, and 25 percent were on probation when they committed the crime. Victims and offenders known to the criminal justice system had an average of nearly 10 prior arraignments, and nearly 50 percent had 10 or more arraignments. They had been arraigned for a wide variety of crimes, including armed violent offenses, disorder offenses, and drug offenses. In gang literature, this wide range of offending is described as “cafeteria-style” offending.12
A number of other jurisdictions have reported similar findings. In Minneapolis, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Indianapolis, and Stockton, Calif., gun violence was largely committed by and against youth with extensive criminal backgrounds.13
Gangs and Criminally Active Groups
Youth gun violence is concentrated among feuding gangs and criminally active groups. The Boston interagency group examined the circumstances of the youth gun and knife murders and found that nearly two-thirds were gang-related.14 Most of the murders were not linked to drug dealing or other “business” interests; instead, most resulted from relatively long-standing gang feuds. In Minneapolis, nearly two-thirds of youth murders between 1994 and 1997 were gang-related.15 In the Boyle Heights section of Los Angeles, slightly less than two-thirds of youth gun homicides were gang-related. Another 25 percent involved gang members as victims or offenders, but were motivated for reasons other than gang rivalries.16
Even in neighborhoods suffering from high rates of youth gun violence, most youth are not in gangs and criminally active groups. In addition, some gangs are more dangerous than others. To better understand the city’s gang problem, the Boston interagency group mapped gang turf and estimated gang size.17 They identified 61 different crews with around 1,300 members. Gang members represented less than 1 percent of all Boston youth, and less than 3 percent of youth in high-risk neighborhoods. The mapping also documented rivalries and alliances among gangs. Gangs had identifiable “beefs” with particular rival gangs, not all rivalries were active (i.e., shots were not currently being fired), and certain gangs were much more involved in conflicts than others. In Minneapolis, researchers identified some 2,650 people in 32 active street gangs as being central to youth gun violence; they represented less than 3.5 percent of Minneapolis residents between the ages of 14 and 24. The gangs tended not to be territorial; they operated fluidly across Minneapolis and nearby jurisdictions. In Boyle Heights, researchers identified 37 criminally active street gangs as being involved in youth gun violence.
However, gangs are not always behind youth gun violence. In some cities, criminally active groups who are not considered “gangs” are major gun offenders. In Baltimore, violent groups active in street drug markets were involved in numerous homicides in 1997.18 Most of the murders occurred in or near a street drug market, and many victims and suspects were part of a drug organization or a recognized neighborhood criminal network. Researchers identified 325 drug groups that ranged in nature from rather sophisticated organizations, to structured neighborhood groups, to loose neighborhood groups. While drug disputes and street drug robberies contributed to Baltimore’s gun violence problem, homicides often resulted from ongoing, non-drug-related disputes among people in drug-selling groups.
In thinking about the nature of your youth gun violence problem, it is important to recognize that the direct links between youth gangs, drugs, and violence are usually overstated.19 Even in Baltimore, where most youth gun violence occurs in a drug market setting, most youth gun homicide is not drug-related. Gang and group violence is usually retaliatory or expressive (defending gang honor, status, and members). Today’s offenders are often tomorrow’s victims, and vice versa. Youth gun violence victims treated in Boston emergency rooms often had scars from past gun and knife wounds.20 Youth gun violence in many cities appears to be a self-sustaining cycle among a relatively small number of criminally active youth. They are at high risk of being confronted by gun violence, so they tend to try to protect themselves by getting, carrying, and using guns; forming and joining gangs; acting tough; and so forth.21 This behavior adds to the cycle of street violence.
The research confirms a high degree of overlap between victim and offender populations. It is important that you determine whether this overlap exists in your jurisdiction.
Geographic and Temporal Distribution
Like most crime problems, youth gun violence is clustered in specific places. Between 1987 and 1990, half of Chicago’s gang-related homicides occurred in only 10 of its 77 communities.22 In Minneapolis, nearly two-thirds of homicides were clustered in only eight of its 95 neighborhoods. In Boston, gang turf covered only 3 percent of the city’s total area, but over 25 percent of the city’s youth homicides, gun assaults, weapons offenses, and shots-fired calls for service occurred there. In Boyle Heights, spatial analyses revealed that youth gun homicide was concentrated in specific hot spots, in and around gang hangouts. Most of the Boyle Heights youth gun homicides were considered to be predatory, as perpetrators invaded rival gang territory to commit them. 23
Youth gun violence often clusters in time. For example, in Boston, most youth gun violence occurred in the afternoon hours immediately following school release, as well as during weekend evenings. In Kansas City, Mo., computer analysis of gun crime hot spots within a beat revealed that most gun violence occurred between 7 p.m. and 1 a.m.
Understanding Your Local Problem
The information provided above is only a generalized description of youth gun violence. Research has shown that criminal and disorderly youth gangs and groups vary widely both within and across cities.25 (For example, Boston gangs were small, loosely organized, mostly neighborhood-based groups, unlike Chicago and Los Angeles gangs.) You must combine the basic facts with a more specific understanding of your local problem. Analyzing the local problem carefully will help you design a more effective response strategy.
Analyses of youth gun violence should combine official data with street-level knowledge to provide a dynamic, real-life picture of the problem. The experiences, observations, and historical perspectives of police officers, street workers, and others in routine contact with offenders, communities, and criminal networks are underused resources for describing, understanding, and crafting interventions aimed at crime problems. Collecting data through interviews and focus groups can help you refine existing practitioner knowledge.26 For example, you can greatly enhance official data on youth gun violence by systematically reviewing and recording the circumstances of each incident in a working-group setting. Crime mapping is also an important tool in assessing youth gun violence. It can provide important insights on the locations of gun crimes, gang turf, and drug markets.†[I]
† Interested readers should consult the National Institute of Justice Mapping and Analysis for Public Safety website, at www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/maps/.
One propaganda-possessed-puppet ignores all the facts, studies, and statistics arrayed against him and sticks his head into the ground like an ostrich in defiance of the cold hard truth. The gods of reason and logic nod their heads knowingly at his pathetic small-minded brainwashed condition.
This ignorant and blind wretch is now even ignoring statistics showing that gun violence amongst the youth in America is in fact increasing with regard to both gang-related shootings and non-gang-related shootings. But all these gun-related slaughters and injuries (even to youngsters) are all just numbers on a page to a numb-skulled heartless propaganda pawn like you as long as you still get to lovingly caress your metal killing machine at the end of the day, aren't they?
An overflow of civillian guns are what empower and enable gangsters to control and terrorise large swarths of territory in many third world countries, and the same goes for areas in many cities in the USA. We've already seen how violent gangsterism is very rare and subdued in countries like Japan where gangsters aren't able to get guns because of tight gun control laws. A gunless gangster is a disempowered gangster, and you sure as hell can't control entire areas of cities or make the lives of the citizens there a living hell if they are only carrying knives. This same concept regarding the "empowering and enabling" abillity of guns applies to the endless third world civil wars and the general abillity of criminals and psycopaths everywhere to commit more heinous and dangerous crimes.
You clearly lack the mental capacity to realize that the NRA is little more than a political arm of the gun manufacturers of America that exists purely to brainwash mindless muppets like you into believing that you actually have a very immediate and vital need to possess a killing machine that you can keep in your inner jacket pocket. The US manufactures more guns than any other country in the world, and is also the only country in the world that has a very powerful political group such as the NRA that exists purely to promote civillian gun ownership - there's a pretty clear correlation here. They don't give a flying fuck about the likelihood or abillity of you being able to use a gun to defend yourself from criminals or the evil authoritarian government, they just need want to sell you more guns and make more money - you're little more than a clown being conned by corporations into spending money and believing ridiculous propaganda.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...racing-anti-government-rhetoric-90943419.html
NRA Once Again Embracing Anti-Government Rhetoric
WASHINGTON, April 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Fifteen years ago former National Rifle Association (NRA) member Timothy McVeigh -- motivated by his fear and hatred of the federal government -- bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Today, the NRA and other members of the gun lobby are again embracing and validating anti-government rhetoric according to the new 21-page Violence Policy Center (VPC) study "Lessons Unlearned: The Gun Lobby and the Siren Song of Anti-Government Rhetoric" (http://www.vpc.org/studies/lessonsunlearned.pdf).
The study offers examples of the NRA's anti-government language, details NRA marketing to Tea Party supporters, and reveals links in nine states between NRA State Election Volunteer Coordinators, the Tea Party movement, and other factions of the "Patriot movement."
The study's release comes four days before the pro-gun "Second Amendment March" in Washington, D.C. The April 19th event, held on the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing and the federal government's siege at Waco that contributed to McVeigh's anti-government anger, has been publicized by the NRA and received financial support from the organization.
The study finds that, echoing the language of the resurgent Patriot movement, the NRA routinely presents the election of Barack Obama as a virtually apocalyptic threat not only to gun ownership, but to the future of the United States itself.
In a December 2009 direct-mail letter echoing the language of both the Tea Party movement and the Oath Keepers, the NRA urges the reader to join an "army whose highest allegiance is not to any individual or any political party but only to the cause of freedom."
In the letter, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre -- who, speaking at the 2009 CPAC convention, told cheering attendees that "our Founding Fathers understood that the guys with the guns make the rules" -- warns of "...massive armies of anti-gun, anti-freedom radicals marshaling against us for an attack that could make every other battle we've ever fought look like a walk in the park...an attack aimed at completely rewriting our nation's values and the future of our country in ways that you and I won't even recognize."
In the first four months of 2009, the NRA's flagship activist magazine, America's 1st Freedom, profiled key members of the Obama administration, likening them to a "'who's who' of gun-ban advocates."
A January 2009 article entitled "Beware the Rahm" asked, "Will Rahm Emanuel be able to stab a knife into the Constitution and scream that the Second Amendment is 'Dead! Dead! Dead!?'"
A February 2009 NRA profile of Attorney General Eric Holder attacked his record under "the infamous Janet Reno ," the Clinton Administration attorney general who is widely blamed in pro-gun circles for the Waco stand-off.
A March 2009 cover proclaimed, "The Whole World is Watching—Hillary Clinton Takes the Reins: Will the new secretary of state defend the U.S. constitution, or will she invite the global gun-ban movement into the corridors of power?"
An April 2009 cover featured Secretary of Education Arne Duncan with the headline: "What would this man teach your kids? Anti-gun extremist Arne Duncan takes over as Secretary of Education."
The organization now also markets NRA clothing products emblazoned with the Gadsden "Don't Tread on Me" flag, which has become the symbol of the Tea Party movement. The description for the NRA Gadsden tee shirt reads: "What goes around comes around. In the late 18th century, oppressed American patriots voiced their defiance of tyranny by exclaiming, 'Don't Tread on Me!' Perhaps it's time once again for Freedom-loving citizens to rally 'round the legendary slogan of the famous Gadsden flag."
The VPC study states that "the NRA incites its members and others, offering words that outside of the purported protective bubble of direct-mail and official publications would be chilling." It cites an August 2008 NRA direct-mail letter warning of the threat posed by a possible Obama administration: "Our Constitution and our system of government guarantee that every American has the opportunity to write his or her name in the history books of tomorrow -- to leave his or her imprint on the fabric of our nation. But in the end, history is always written only by a select few -- the few who sacrifice of themselves to fight for the causes in which they believe."
The study concludes, "Such language offers benediction to the most violent of acts...Based on past history, the overriding concern should be that the NRA's words may, in fact, once again be revealed as violent prophecy."
Gun Violence Among Serious Young Offenders
Guide No.23 (2003)
by Anthony A. Braga
The Problem of Gun Violence Among Serious Young Offenders
This guide addresses serious youth gun violence, describing the problem and reviewing factors that increase the risks of it. It then identifies a series of questions that might help you analyze your local problem. Finally, it reviews responses to the problem, and what is known about them from evaluative research and police practice.
Criminal misuse of guns kills or injures tens of thousands of Americans every year. This violence imposes a heavy burden on our standard of living, not only on groups that have the highest victimization rates, but also on the community at large. By one estimate, this burden amounts to $80 billion per year. 1 Although overall U.S. homicide rates declined between the 1980s and 1990s, youth homicide, particularly gun homicide, increased dramatically. Between 1984 and 1994, juvenile (younger than 18) homicides committed with handguns increased by 418 percent, and juvenile homicides committed with other guns increased by 125 percent.2 During this time, adolescents (ages 14 to 17) had the largest proportional increase in homicide commission and victimization, young adults (ages 18 to 24) had the largest absolute increase, and there was much crossfire between the two age groups.3 Gun homicide accounted for all of the increase in youth homicide. The youth violence epidemic peaked in 1993 and was followed by a rapid, sustained drop over the rest of the 1990s.4 However, in 2000, more than 10,000 Americans were killed with guns, and guns are much more likely to be used in homicides of teens and young adults than in homicides of people of other ages.5
In urban areas, gun violence takes a particularly heavy toll, as vastly disproportionate numbers of young minority males are killed and injured, and increasing fear drives out businesses and disrupts community social life. Research has linked urban youth gun violence to gang conflicts, street drug markets, and gun availability.6 Youth gun violence is usually concentrated among groups of serious offenders and in very specific places.7
The police can prevent youth gun violence by focusing on identifiable risks. While gun violence seems to pervade our society, it is remarkably clustered among high-risk people, in high-risk places, at high-risk times. This concentration of violence provides an important opportunity for police to strategically address a seemingly intractable problem.
Related Problems
For police agencies, the most pressing concerns regarding youth gun violence are why offenders target particular people, at particular places, at particular times. However, it is also important to recognize that youth gun violence is often linked to a variety of risk factors beyond the scope of problem-oriented policing. For example, it has been linked to changing demographics, adverse economic conditions, family disruption, media violence, and poor parenting skills.8 These are sometimes considered the “root causes” of the problem. However, by the time gun violence problems come to police attention, the broader questions of why youth offend are no longer relevant. While police often help people access social services, they are best positioned to prevent youth gun crimes by focusing on the situational opportunities for offending rather than trying to change those socioeconomic conditions on which other government agencies primarily focus. Thinking about how likely offenders, potential victims, and others are to make decisions based on perceived opportunities is more useful in designing effective problem-oriented policing interventions.9
Youth gun violence is only one of many youth-related problems police must handle. The following require separate analysis and response:
•gang formation,
•gang intimidation,
•gang crime,
•youth drug dealing,
•youth drug use,
•underage drinking,
•gun availability to youth,
•gun possession by youth,
•illegal gun markets,
•street drug markets,
•disorderly youth in public places,
•assaults in and around bars,
•street cruising, and
•truancy.
Factors Contributing to Gun Violence Among Serious Young Offenders
Understanding the factors that contribute to your youth gun violence problem will help you frame your own local analysis questions, determine good effectiveness measures, recognize key intervention points, and select appropriate responses. Research has shown that crime problems tend to cluster among a few offenders, victims, and places. Youth gun violence is similarly concentrated among a few offenders in a few places. This section reviews what is known from criminal profiles of youth gun offenders and victims, addresses the importance of gangs and criminally active groups in youth gun violence, and discusses the clustering in location and time of youth gun violence. It is important to note that the problem frames vary across the studies described below. In many jurisdictions, an initial interest in “juvenile violence” or “gun violence” shifted, as the problem assessments proceeded, to a focus on understanding and controlling violence, regardless of age or weapon type. However, in all cities, youth gun violence was the most important component of the problem. For example, in Minneapolis, problem-oriented research conducted on an emergent total homicide problem found that homicide was largely committed by youth ages 24 and under, who used guns and were known to the criminal justice system.10
Previous Offenses
Youth gun violence is concentrated among serious offenders well known to police and other criminal justice agencies. In Boston, an interagency group of law enforcement personnel, youth workers, and researchers examined the criminal histories of youth ages 21 and under killed by gun or knife in the city between 1990 and 1994, and of the youth offenders responsible.11 Of the victims, 75 percent had been arraigned for at least one offense in Massachusetts courts, and 20 percent had served time in a youth or adult detention center. Nearly 50 percent had been on probation in the past, and many were on probation when they were killed. Of the offenders, a little over 75 percent had been arraigned for at least one offense in Massachusetts courts, 25 percent had served time, over 50 percent had been on probation in the past, and 25 percent were on probation when they committed the crime. Victims and offenders known to the criminal justice system had an average of nearly 10 prior arraignments, and nearly 50 percent had 10 or more arraignments. They had been arraigned for a wide variety of crimes, including armed violent offenses, disorder offenses, and drug offenses. In gang literature, this wide range of offending is described as “cafeteria-style” offending.12
A number of other jurisdictions have reported similar findings. In Minneapolis, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Indianapolis, and Stockton, Calif., gun violence was largely committed by and against youth with extensive criminal backgrounds.13
Gangs and Criminally Active Groups
Youth gun violence is concentrated among feuding gangs and criminally active groups. The Boston interagency group examined the circumstances of the youth gun and knife murders and found that nearly two-thirds were gang-related.14 Most of the murders were not linked to drug dealing or other “business” interests; instead, most resulted from relatively long-standing gang feuds. In Minneapolis, nearly two-thirds of youth murders between 1994 and 1997 were gang-related.15 In the Boyle Heights section of Los Angeles, slightly less than two-thirds of youth gun homicides were gang-related. Another 25 percent involved gang members as victims or offenders, but were motivated for reasons other than gang rivalries.16
Even in neighborhoods suffering from high rates of youth gun violence, most youth are not in gangs and criminally active groups. In addition, some gangs are more dangerous than others. To better understand the city’s gang problem, the Boston interagency group mapped gang turf and estimated gang size.17 They identified 61 different crews with around 1,300 members. Gang members represented less than 1 percent of all Boston youth, and less than 3 percent of youth in high-risk neighborhoods. The mapping also documented rivalries and alliances among gangs. Gangs had identifiable “beefs” with particular rival gangs, not all rivalries were active (i.e., shots were not currently being fired), and certain gangs were much more involved in conflicts than others. In Minneapolis, researchers identified some 2,650 people in 32 active street gangs as being central to youth gun violence; they represented less than 3.5 percent of Minneapolis residents between the ages of 14 and 24. The gangs tended not to be territorial; they operated fluidly across Minneapolis and nearby jurisdictions. In Boyle Heights, researchers identified 37 criminally active street gangs as being involved in youth gun violence.
However, gangs are not always behind youth gun violence. In some cities, criminally active groups who are not considered “gangs” are major gun offenders. In Baltimore, violent groups active in street drug markets were involved in numerous homicides in 1997.18 Most of the murders occurred in or near a street drug market, and many victims and suspects were part of a drug organization or a recognized neighborhood criminal network. Researchers identified 325 drug groups that ranged in nature from rather sophisticated organizations, to structured neighborhood groups, to loose neighborhood groups. While drug disputes and street drug robberies contributed to Baltimore’s gun violence problem, homicides often resulted from ongoing, non-drug-related disputes among people in drug-selling groups.
In thinking about the nature of your youth gun violence problem, it is important to recognize that the direct links between youth gangs, drugs, and violence are usually overstated.19 Even in Baltimore, where most youth gun violence occurs in a drug market setting, most youth gun homicide is not drug-related. Gang and group violence is usually retaliatory or expressive (defending gang honor, status, and members). Today’s offenders are often tomorrow’s victims, and vice versa. Youth gun violence victims treated in Boston emergency rooms often had scars from past gun and knife wounds.20 Youth gun violence in many cities appears to be a self-sustaining cycle among a relatively small number of criminally active youth. They are at high risk of being confronted by gun violence, so they tend to try to protect themselves by getting, carrying, and using guns; forming and joining gangs; acting tough; and so forth.21 This behavior adds to the cycle of street violence.
The research confirms a high degree of overlap between victim and offender populations. It is important that you determine whether this overlap exists in your jurisdiction.
Geographic and Temporal Distribution
Like most crime problems, youth gun violence is clustered in specific places. Between 1987 and 1990, half of Chicago’s gang-related homicides occurred in only 10 of its 77 communities.22 In Minneapolis, nearly two-thirds of homicides were clustered in only eight of its 95 neighborhoods. In Boston, gang turf covered only 3 percent of the city’s total area, but over 25 percent of the city’s youth homicides, gun assaults, weapons offenses, and shots-fired calls for service occurred there. In Boyle Heights, spatial analyses revealed that youth gun homicide was concentrated in specific hot spots, in and around gang hangouts. Most of the Boyle Heights youth gun homicides were considered to be predatory, as perpetrators invaded rival gang territory to commit them. 23
Youth gun violence often clusters in time. For example, in Boston, most youth gun violence occurred in the afternoon hours immediately following school release, as well as during weekend evenings. In Kansas City, Mo., computer analysis of gun crime hot spots within a beat revealed that most gun violence occurred between 7 p.m. and 1 a.m.
Understanding Your Local Problem
The information provided above is only a generalized description of youth gun violence. Research has shown that criminal and disorderly youth gangs and groups vary widely both within and across cities.25 (For example, Boston gangs were small, loosely organized, mostly neighborhood-based groups, unlike Chicago and Los Angeles gangs.) You must combine the basic facts with a more specific understanding of your local problem. Analyzing the local problem carefully will help you design a more effective response strategy.
Analyses of youth gun violence should combine official data with street-level knowledge to provide a dynamic, real-life picture of the problem. The experiences, observations, and historical perspectives of police officers, street workers, and others in routine contact with offenders, communities, and criminal networks are underused resources for describing, understanding, and crafting interventions aimed at crime problems. Collecting data through interviews and focus groups can help you refine existing practitioner knowledge.26 For example, you can greatly enhance official data on youth gun violence by systematically reviewing and recording the circumstances of each incident in a working-group setting. Crime mapping is also an important tool in assessing youth gun violence. It can provide important insights on the locations of gun crimes, gang turf, and drug markets.†[I]
† Interested readers should consult the National Institute of Justice Mapping and Analysis for Public Safety website, at www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/maps/.
One propaganda-possessed-puppet ignores all the facts, studies, and statistics arrayed against him and sticks his head into the ground like an ostrich in defiance of the cold hard truth. The gods of reason and logic nod their heads knowingly at his pathetic small-minded brainwashed condition.
This ignorant and blind wretch is now even ignoring statistics showing that gun violence amongst the youth in America is in fact increasing with regard to both gang-related shootings and non-gang-related shootings. But all these gun-related slaughters and injuries (even to youngsters) are all just numbers on a page to a numb-skulled heartless propaganda pawn like you as long as you still get to lovingly caress your metal killing machine at the end of the day, aren't they?
An overflow of civillian guns are what empower and enable gangsters to control and terrorise large swarths of territory in many third world countries, and the same goes for areas in many cities in the USA. We've already seen how violent gangsterism is very rare and subdued in countries like Japan where gangsters aren't able to get guns because of tight gun control laws. A gunless gangster is a disempowered gangster, and you sure as hell can't control entire areas of cities or make the lives of the citizens there a living hell if they are only carrying knives. This same concept regarding the "empowering and enabling" abillity of guns applies to the endless third world civil wars and the general abillity of criminals and psycopaths everywhere to commit more heinous and dangerous crimes.
You clearly lack the mental capacity to realize that the NRA is little more than a political arm of the gun manufacturers of America that exists purely to brainwash mindless muppets like you into believing that you actually have a very immediate and vital need to possess a killing machine that you can keep in your inner jacket pocket. The US manufactures more guns than any other country in the world, and is also the only country in the world that has a very powerful political group such as the NRA that exists purely to promote civillian gun ownership - there's a pretty clear correlation here. They don't give a flying fuck about the likelihood or abillity of you being able to use a gun to defend yourself from criminals or the evil authoritarian government, they just need want to sell you more guns and make more money - you're little more than a clown being conned by corporations into spending money and believing ridiculous propaganda.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...racing-anti-government-rhetoric-90943419.html
NRA Once Again Embracing Anti-Government Rhetoric
WASHINGTON, April 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Fifteen years ago former National Rifle Association (NRA) member Timothy McVeigh -- motivated by his fear and hatred of the federal government -- bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Today, the NRA and other members of the gun lobby are again embracing and validating anti-government rhetoric according to the new 21-page Violence Policy Center (VPC) study "Lessons Unlearned: The Gun Lobby and the Siren Song of Anti-Government Rhetoric" (http://www.vpc.org/studies/lessonsunlearned.pdf).
The study offers examples of the NRA's anti-government language, details NRA marketing to Tea Party supporters, and reveals links in nine states between NRA State Election Volunteer Coordinators, the Tea Party movement, and other factions of the "Patriot movement."
The study's release comes four days before the pro-gun "Second Amendment March" in Washington, D.C. The April 19th event, held on the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing and the federal government's siege at Waco that contributed to McVeigh's anti-government anger, has been publicized by the NRA and received financial support from the organization.
The study finds that, echoing the language of the resurgent Patriot movement, the NRA routinely presents the election of Barack Obama as a virtually apocalyptic threat not only to gun ownership, but to the future of the United States itself.
In a December 2009 direct-mail letter echoing the language of both the Tea Party movement and the Oath Keepers, the NRA urges the reader to join an "army whose highest allegiance is not to any individual or any political party but only to the cause of freedom."
In the letter, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre -- who, speaking at the 2009 CPAC convention, told cheering attendees that "our Founding Fathers understood that the guys with the guns make the rules" -- warns of "...massive armies of anti-gun, anti-freedom radicals marshaling against us for an attack that could make every other battle we've ever fought look like a walk in the park...an attack aimed at completely rewriting our nation's values and the future of our country in ways that you and I won't even recognize."
In the first four months of 2009, the NRA's flagship activist magazine, America's 1st Freedom, profiled key members of the Obama administration, likening them to a "'who's who' of gun-ban advocates."
A January 2009 article entitled "Beware the Rahm" asked, "Will Rahm Emanuel be able to stab a knife into the Constitution and scream that the Second Amendment is 'Dead! Dead! Dead!?'"
A February 2009 NRA profile of Attorney General Eric Holder attacked his record under "the infamous Janet Reno ," the Clinton Administration attorney general who is widely blamed in pro-gun circles for the Waco stand-off.
A March 2009 cover proclaimed, "The Whole World is Watching—Hillary Clinton Takes the Reins: Will the new secretary of state defend the U.S. constitution, or will she invite the global gun-ban movement into the corridors of power?"
An April 2009 cover featured Secretary of Education Arne Duncan with the headline: "What would this man teach your kids? Anti-gun extremist Arne Duncan takes over as Secretary of Education."
The organization now also markets NRA clothing products emblazoned with the Gadsden "Don't Tread on Me" flag, which has become the symbol of the Tea Party movement. The description for the NRA Gadsden tee shirt reads: "What goes around comes around. In the late 18th century, oppressed American patriots voiced their defiance of tyranny by exclaiming, 'Don't Tread on Me!' Perhaps it's time once again for Freedom-loving citizens to rally 'round the legendary slogan of the famous Gadsden flag."
The VPC study states that "the NRA incites its members and others, offering words that outside of the purported protective bubble of direct-mail and official publications would be chilling." It cites an August 2008 NRA direct-mail letter warning of the threat posed by a possible Obama administration: "Our Constitution and our system of government guarantee that every American has the opportunity to write his or her name in the history books of tomorrow -- to leave his or her imprint on the fabric of our nation. But in the end, history is always written only by a select few -- the few who sacrifice of themselves to fight for the causes in which they believe."
The study concludes, "Such language offers benediction to the most violent of acts...Based on past history, the overriding concern should be that the NRA's words may, in fact, once again be revealed as violent prophecy."
UltimateApathy
Infinite Idiocy
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2...gnant_and_cowardly_antigun_control_video.html
NRA uses Barack Obama’s kids in ‘repugnant and cowardly’ anti-gun control ad
Are the president’s kids more important than yours?” a narrator says in the 35-second television and Internet spot. “Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools when his kids are protected by armed guards at their schools? Mr. Obama demands the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, but he’s just another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security.”
WASHINGTON- Hours before President Barack Obama was due to unveil proposals on Wednesday to prevent mass shootings like the one in Newtown, Conn., last month, the National Rifle Association released an advertisement that referred to his two school-aged daughters.
“Are the president’s kids more important than yours?” a narrator says in the 35-second television and Internet spot. “Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools when his kids are protected by armed guards at their schools? Mr. Obama demands the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, but he’s just another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security.”
Obama’s two children, who attend private school in Washington, D.C., receive Secret Service protection.
The White House condemned the ad.
“Most Americans agree that a president’s children should not be used as pawns in a political fight. But to go so far as to make the safety of the president’s children the subject of an attack ad is repugnant and cowardly,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
Former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs, speaking earlier on MSNBC’s Morning Joe program, said the ad was “disgusting on so many levels.”
Gun control activists and gun rights advocates have said in recent days that they could find common ground, particularly over the issue of expanding background checks for potential gun owners.
The NRA ad’s tone, however, and the personal nature of the attacks speaks to the cultural gulf that divides both sides.
The clip, called “Stand and Fight,” promotes the leading gun lobby’s proposal to put armed guards in schools. The idea has been at the centre of the NRA’s response to the Dec. 14 shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, in which 20 children and 6 adults were killed.
The ad is airing on the Sportsman Channel, a cable network, but will likely receive a much larger viewership on news stations and through the Internet.
The NRA, which says it has about 4 million members, also announced earlier this week that it would produce a nightly one-hour cable talk show hosted by gun advocate Cam Edwards on the Sportsman Channel.
“I am skeptical that the only answer is putting more guns in schools,” Obama said in a recent interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press. “And I think the vast majority of the American people are skeptical that that somehow is going to solve our problem.”
In a survey released on Monday, the Pew Research Center found that people favor putting armed guards or police officers in more schools by a two-to-one margin, 64 per cent to 32 per cent.
http://www.salon.com/2012/07/25/the_nras_war_on_gun_science/
The NRA’s war on gun science
As the tragic shooting in Colorado last week has reignited the debate over guns, one key public policy question — does gun control save lives? — is almost impossible to answer thanks to a dearth of research on the subject. That lack of research is no accident. It’s the product of a concerted campaign by the gun lobby and its allies on Capitol Hill to stymie and even explicitly outlaw scientific research into gun violence in what critics charge is an attempt to deceive the public about the dangers of guns.
Over the past two decades, the NRA has not only been able to stop gun control laws, but even debate on the subject. The Centers for Disease Control funds research into the causes of death in the United States, including firearms — or at least it used to. In 1996, after various studies funded by the agency found that guns can be dangerous, the gun lobby mobilized to punish the agency. First, Republicans tried to eliminate entirely the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, the bureau responsible for the research. When that failed, Rep. Jay Dickey, a Republican from Arkansas, successfully pushed through an amendment that stripped $2.6 million from the CDC’s budget (the amount it had spent on gun research in the previous year) and outlawed research on gun control with a provision that reads: “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”
David Satcher, the then-director of the CDC, wrote an Op-Ed in the Washington Post in November of 1995 warning that the NRA’s “shotgun assault” on the CDC was dangerous both for public health and for our democracy:
What ought to be of wider concern, is the second argument advanced by the NRA — that firearms research funded by the CDC is so biased against gun ownership that all such funding ought to cease. Here is a prescription for inaction on a major cause of death and disability. Here is a charge that not only casts doubt on the ability of scientists to conduct research involving controversial issues but also raises basic questions about the ability, fundamental to any democracy, to have honest, searching public discussions of such issues.
Dickey’s clause, which remains in effect today, has had a chilling effect on all scientific research into gun safety, as gun rights advocates view “advocacy” as any research that notices that guns are dangerous. Stephen Teret, who co-directs the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, told Salon: “They sent a message and the message was heard loud and clear. People [at the CDC], then and now, know that if they start going down that road, their budget is going to be vulnerable. And the way public agencies work, they know how this works and they’re not going to stick their necks out.”
In January, the New York Times reported that the CDC goes so far as to “ask researchers it finances to give it a heads-up anytime they are publishing studies that have anything to do with firearms. The agency, in turn, relays this information to the NRA as a courtesy.”
In response to the news, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence sent a letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius expressing concern that the agency was giving the NRA a “preferred position” and allowed to sway research.
Teret said that he’s noticed that the CDC appears to avoid using the word “firearms” when possible in research on homicide and suicide, using instead euphemisms like the “availability of lethal means.”
More recently, Republicans have gone after the National Institutes for Health, which has also funded research into the public health issues of guns. “It’s almost as if someone’s been looking for a way to get this study done ever since the Centers for Disease Control was banned from doing it 10 years ago,” Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, said in 2009 of the NIH.
“You’d think that after the CDC had their money revoked, we wouldn’t be dealing with this,” Erich Pratt, a spokesman for the Gun Owners Association of America, told the Washington Times at the time.
Last year, Rep. Denny Rehberg, a Republican from Montana, added a rider to the current government-funding bill, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012, based on the Dickey language, which targets the NIH. It states that no funds going to the NIH “may be used, in whole or part, to advocate or promote gun control.” In a press release from March, Rehberg touted the amendment and condemned President Obama’s “insidious … efforts to subvert the Second Amendment,” a reference to a signing statement Obama made pushing back (gently) on the provision.
Daniel Vice of the Brady Center told Salon that the stymieing of research at the CDC “is just one part of a broad campaign of secrecy to keep information from the public about how dangerous guns are.” He noted that the ATF used to release lots of gun crime data to the public, including a list of problem gun dealers providing firearms to criminals (almost 60 percent of firearms at crime scenes were traced back to just one percent of gun dealers, he said). But beginning in 2003, an amendment introduced by Rep. Todd Tiahrt, a Republican from Kansas, prevents the ATF from releasing all kinds of gun data. It’s been added as a rider to every spending bill since.
Dr. Arthur Kellermann, a prominent researcher whose 1993 CDC-funded study became a flashpoint in the debate over government funding of gun research, told Salon that the effects of the campaign against gun research have real consequences. “In a nation dedicated to personal freedom and responsibility, it is ironic that policymakers and the public have been denied access to timely and objective research on this issue for 15 years and counting,” he said in an email.
Indeed, gun violence is the second leading cause of death for young people after car accidents, but the federal agency responsible for researching ways to stop it has had its hands tied. No other research topic has been singled out in this way. “We’ve got a huge social problem that causes a very substantial amount of premature mortality and by and large, we have invested scant resources studying it. And the reason is politics,” Teret said.
NRA uses Barack Obama’s kids in ‘repugnant and cowardly’ anti-gun control ad
Are the president’s kids more important than yours?” a narrator says in the 35-second television and Internet spot. “Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools when his kids are protected by armed guards at their schools? Mr. Obama demands the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, but he’s just another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security.”
WASHINGTON- Hours before President Barack Obama was due to unveil proposals on Wednesday to prevent mass shootings like the one in Newtown, Conn., last month, the National Rifle Association released an advertisement that referred to his two school-aged daughters.
“Are the president’s kids more important than yours?” a narrator says in the 35-second television and Internet spot. “Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools when his kids are protected by armed guards at their schools? Mr. Obama demands the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, but he’s just another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security.”
Obama’s two children, who attend private school in Washington, D.C., receive Secret Service protection.
The White House condemned the ad.
“Most Americans agree that a president’s children should not be used as pawns in a political fight. But to go so far as to make the safety of the president’s children the subject of an attack ad is repugnant and cowardly,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
Former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs, speaking earlier on MSNBC’s Morning Joe program, said the ad was “disgusting on so many levels.”
Gun control activists and gun rights advocates have said in recent days that they could find common ground, particularly over the issue of expanding background checks for potential gun owners.
The NRA ad’s tone, however, and the personal nature of the attacks speaks to the cultural gulf that divides both sides.
The clip, called “Stand and Fight,” promotes the leading gun lobby’s proposal to put armed guards in schools. The idea has been at the centre of the NRA’s response to the Dec. 14 shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, in which 20 children and 6 adults were killed.
The ad is airing on the Sportsman Channel, a cable network, but will likely receive a much larger viewership on news stations and through the Internet.
The NRA, which says it has about 4 million members, also announced earlier this week that it would produce a nightly one-hour cable talk show hosted by gun advocate Cam Edwards on the Sportsman Channel.
“I am skeptical that the only answer is putting more guns in schools,” Obama said in a recent interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press. “And I think the vast majority of the American people are skeptical that that somehow is going to solve our problem.”
In a survey released on Monday, the Pew Research Center found that people favor putting armed guards or police officers in more schools by a two-to-one margin, 64 per cent to 32 per cent.
http://www.salon.com/2012/07/25/the_nras_war_on_gun_science/
The NRA’s war on gun science
As the tragic shooting in Colorado last week has reignited the debate over guns, one key public policy question — does gun control save lives? — is almost impossible to answer thanks to a dearth of research on the subject. That lack of research is no accident. It’s the product of a concerted campaign by the gun lobby and its allies on Capitol Hill to stymie and even explicitly outlaw scientific research into gun violence in what critics charge is an attempt to deceive the public about the dangers of guns.
Over the past two decades, the NRA has not only been able to stop gun control laws, but even debate on the subject. The Centers for Disease Control funds research into the causes of death in the United States, including firearms — or at least it used to. In 1996, after various studies funded by the agency found that guns can be dangerous, the gun lobby mobilized to punish the agency. First, Republicans tried to eliminate entirely the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, the bureau responsible for the research. When that failed, Rep. Jay Dickey, a Republican from Arkansas, successfully pushed through an amendment that stripped $2.6 million from the CDC’s budget (the amount it had spent on gun research in the previous year) and outlawed research on gun control with a provision that reads: “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”
David Satcher, the then-director of the CDC, wrote an Op-Ed in the Washington Post in November of 1995 warning that the NRA’s “shotgun assault” on the CDC was dangerous both for public health and for our democracy:
What ought to be of wider concern, is the second argument advanced by the NRA — that firearms research funded by the CDC is so biased against gun ownership that all such funding ought to cease. Here is a prescription for inaction on a major cause of death and disability. Here is a charge that not only casts doubt on the ability of scientists to conduct research involving controversial issues but also raises basic questions about the ability, fundamental to any democracy, to have honest, searching public discussions of such issues.
Dickey’s clause, which remains in effect today, has had a chilling effect on all scientific research into gun safety, as gun rights advocates view “advocacy” as any research that notices that guns are dangerous. Stephen Teret, who co-directs the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, told Salon: “They sent a message and the message was heard loud and clear. People [at the CDC], then and now, know that if they start going down that road, their budget is going to be vulnerable. And the way public agencies work, they know how this works and they’re not going to stick their necks out.”
In January, the New York Times reported that the CDC goes so far as to “ask researchers it finances to give it a heads-up anytime they are publishing studies that have anything to do with firearms. The agency, in turn, relays this information to the NRA as a courtesy.”
In response to the news, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence sent a letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius expressing concern that the agency was giving the NRA a “preferred position” and allowed to sway research.
Teret said that he’s noticed that the CDC appears to avoid using the word “firearms” when possible in research on homicide and suicide, using instead euphemisms like the “availability of lethal means.”
More recently, Republicans have gone after the National Institutes for Health, which has also funded research into the public health issues of guns. “It’s almost as if someone’s been looking for a way to get this study done ever since the Centers for Disease Control was banned from doing it 10 years ago,” Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, said in 2009 of the NIH.
“You’d think that after the CDC had their money revoked, we wouldn’t be dealing with this,” Erich Pratt, a spokesman for the Gun Owners Association of America, told the Washington Times at the time.
Last year, Rep. Denny Rehberg, a Republican from Montana, added a rider to the current government-funding bill, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012, based on the Dickey language, which targets the NIH. It states that no funds going to the NIH “may be used, in whole or part, to advocate or promote gun control.” In a press release from March, Rehberg touted the amendment and condemned President Obama’s “insidious … efforts to subvert the Second Amendment,” a reference to a signing statement Obama made pushing back (gently) on the provision.
Daniel Vice of the Brady Center told Salon that the stymieing of research at the CDC “is just one part of a broad campaign of secrecy to keep information from the public about how dangerous guns are.” He noted that the ATF used to release lots of gun crime data to the public, including a list of problem gun dealers providing firearms to criminals (almost 60 percent of firearms at crime scenes were traced back to just one percent of gun dealers, he said). But beginning in 2003, an amendment introduced by Rep. Todd Tiahrt, a Republican from Kansas, prevents the ATF from releasing all kinds of gun data. It’s been added as a rider to every spending bill since.
Dr. Arthur Kellermann, a prominent researcher whose 1993 CDC-funded study became a flashpoint in the debate over government funding of gun research, told Salon that the effects of the campaign against gun research have real consequences. “In a nation dedicated to personal freedom and responsibility, it is ironic that policymakers and the public have been denied access to timely and objective research on this issue for 15 years and counting,” he said in an email.
Indeed, gun violence is the second leading cause of death for young people after car accidents, but the federal agency responsible for researching ways to stop it has had its hands tied. No other research topic has been singled out in this way. “We’ve got a huge social problem that causes a very substantial amount of premature mortality and by and large, we have invested scant resources studying it. And the reason is politics,” Teret said.
UltimateApathy
Infinite Idiocy
Just as with violent crime, you seem unable to comprehend that fact that the world is not purely divided into black and white and that there are differing levels of both violent crime and how damaging various substances are top your body. You would have us believe that fistfight in a pub is as serious a violent crime as a shooting, just as presumably you would have us believe that eating Mcdonald's french fries (they're bad for you, right?) or taking a cold pill is as damaging to your body as taking cocaine or crystal meth. Your inabillity to see severity levels and to classify everything as black and white when in fact the world is composed of a million shades of gray is disturbingly similar to religious fanatics who would even have us believing that Harry Potter is a spawn of Satan that exists purely to lure innocent young minds into witchcraft and Satanism What you're saying kinda reminds me of something Summerian posted earlier:
Some have asked why I constantly refer to brainwashing and propaganda etc here, and I will answer that. As someone who has travelled extensively and also lived in several countries (one of which was inundated with a rash of civillian firearms and was one of the most dangerous non-war-zone places you could ever imagine, and another which had very strict gun control regulations and was so safe that it was almost laughable), I can tell you for a bona fide fact that to believe in the right for everyone (without a felony conviction) in a society to carry a gun with a religious-like fervour and passion is both highly unusual, bizarre, and (as the all the facts, studies and statistics shows) unhealthy. The U.S.A. is the only country in the world that has this ludicrous civillian-gun-ownership-cult going on, but what is the reason? Of course it is that the U.S.A. is also the only country in the world that has a political organization (the NRA) devoted entirely to promoting civillian gun ownership. At the end of the day you gun nuts are just spewing out propaganda fed to you by a political wing of the supremely-powerful gun manufacturing companies of America - you're just these corporation's bitches, basically. Why don't you also try to persuade us how "finger-licking good" KFC is or how Prada/Gucci/Nike will enhance the value of your existance - at least they aren't selling killing machines with a bunch of propaganda attached to them What the U.S. needs to do is follow the example of basically every other first world country out there and implement strict regulations as to who gets guns and why, and the society will become a lot safer and cease hovering around gun and violent crime rates similar to those of third world countries.
What you're saying kinda reminds me of something Summerian posted earlier:
Some have asked why I constantly refer to brainwashing and propaganda etc here, and I will answer that. As someone who has travelled extensively and also lived in several countries (one of which was inundated with a rash of civillian firearms and was one of the most dangerous non-war-zone places you could ever imagine, and another which had very strict gun control regulations and was so safe that it was almost laughable), I can tell you for a bona fide fact that to believe in the right for everyone (without a felony conviction) in a society to carry a gun with a religious-like fervour and passion is both highly unusual, bizarre, and (as the all the facts, studies and statistics shows) unhealthy. The U.S.A. is the only country in the world that has this ludicrous civillian-gun-ownership-cult going on, but what is the reason? Of course it is that the U.S.A. is also the only country in the world that has a political organization (the NRA) devoted entirely to promoting civillian gun ownership. At the end of the day you gun nuts are just spewing out propaganda fed to you by a political wing of the supremely-powerful gun manufacturing companies of America - you're just these corporation's bitches, basically. Why don't you also try to persuade us how "finger-licking good" KFC is or how Prada/Gucci/Nike will enhance the value of your existance - at least they aren't selling killing machines with a bunch of propaganda attached to them
What the U.S. needs to do is follow the example of basically every other first world country out there and implement strict regulations as to who gets guns and why, and the society will become a lot safer and cease hovering around gun and violent crime rates similar to those of third world countries.
Dak
mentat
EffigyForgotten
New Metal Member
Has he ever even noted the fact that guns are used for much bigger purposes than hunting and crime? Like the military? Or police? I haven't read a single thing about that, but I'm not going through his silly copy and paste 50 paragraph bullshit.
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