[kyp275]

Originally Posted by Kaijo

So, that's the only thing it will take with you? You need a comprehensive study, that should have absolutely zero flaws in it, in order to finally make any kind of judgment with respect to the situation?

No, don't misconstrue my word, I said comprehensive, not perfect. There's a big difference.

I hate to disappoint, but science doesn't work that way. Science is incremental. We take baby steps, measuring one thing, getting that down, moving on to something else, slowly building a picture, piece by piece.

There's taking baby steps, and then there's looking at only two factors out of dozens. How would you feel about a Global Warming study that only takes into account the temperature records of two locations?

You presume that if homicides by gun go down, other crime goes up. I'm sure you can probably find some statistic in one area that supports that notion, but there are other areas that would contradict it. I might also ask: "Keeping guns may very well protect people from killers and cause the crime rate to go down, but what's the point if the death rate is made up for when Godzilla attacks?"

Technically, you're also presuming that less private ownership of guns will lead to less deaths overall. That aside, I'm pretty sure gundamfan linked something earlier about how the UK's violent crime rate shot up after their ban, so there's that.

As for the Godzilla part, that's just you engaging in hyperbole

In short, we can't know the future. That is why we experiment. I would have called Prohibition a good idea, and at least something to try. Having tried it, and seeing the effect, I would now say it isn't a good idea.

Experiments are great in a lab, you can keep doing them over and over again until you figure out what works and what doesn't. Politics, laws, and constitution on the other hand is different. Not that I have anything particular against your sentiment, I just don't think it's a very realistic expectation. Few rights are ever returned after they've been taken away, and none easily, just look at the Patriot Act, the DMCA etc. Why do you think people was up in arms about SOPA? why wouldn't they accept SOPA as a temporary experiment to see if it'll only reduce illegal copyright violations?

Now, if we want to play the presumption game, what if someone is there with a gun, and decided to start shooting anyway, and hit innocent bystanders? Therefore, a good person with a gun can increase casualties as much as decrease them.

Then the person who did that would be charged with the appropriate crime. Us CCW holders are very much aware that we're responsible for what we shoot at, and what's beyond what we're shooting at. Someone that would blindly fire into a crowd would be completely irresponsible, and deserves every last bit of the punishment.

That said, I personally have never met any CCW holders that thinks as recklessly as the one in your scenario.

Originally Posted by Kaijo

Well, I did point out that Australia hasn't had any mass shootings since their gun laws. You're right to a degree about the correlation = causation fallacy, but you also refuse to look at the difference in gun laws as a factor. If I am reading too much into it, you aren't reading enough.

Again, just because I don't place as much weight only on those two statistics and consider them as the primary factor, doesn't mean I'm refusing to look at them. I obviously think you're placing too much on them, while you think I place too little, I've explained why I think the way I do, I'm not sure I've heard your reason for why you think the way you do.

as for those articles, the nieman article makes the same mistakes you do - nothing but gun ownership and gun deaths, have a small section at the end on the different social aspect between Australia and US, but makes no effort to integrate those information or to try to contextualize anything. The snopes article is great at showing how statistics can be skewed - but otherwise makes no meaningful comparisons of its own, as it was not the point of the article. The end of it though, is worth repeating here:

The main point to be learned here is that determining the effect of changes in Australia's gun ownership laws and the government's firearm buy-back program on crime rates requires a complex long-term analysis and can't be discerned from the small, mixed grab bag of short-term statistics offered here. And no matter what the outcome of that analysis, the results aren't necessarily applicable to the USA, where laws regarding gun ownership are (and always have been) much different than those in Australia.