Gun Control & RKBA
Related: About this forumTo reduce gun violence, stop guns at the source
by Heather Martens ,
Mary Lewis Grow
January 18, 2012
Heather Martens is executive director and Mary Lewis Grow is a board member of Protect Minnesota: Working to End Gun Violence.
In Minneapolis, Duluth and 70 cities nationwide, community members gathered Jan. 8 in solemn commemorations of the one-year anniversary of the Tucson shootings. These events followed by less than a week the funeral of three-year-old Terrell Mayes Jr., killed by a bullet that went through the walls of his north Minneapolis house as the little boy and his brother were running for cover from the too-common sound of gunfire. Later in the same week, thousands attended the funeral of Officer Shawn Schneider of Lake City, shot in the line of duty as he responded to a domestic violence call.
Yet 2011 was a year with fewer gun homicides in Minnesota than the year before. About 32 people still die every day in this country from gun homicide about one a week in Minnesota. The toll is simply appalling. To grasp this in a way statistics cannot convey, watch the video below. It was taken at the Minneapolis event, as grieving relatives and friends read name after name.
The nationwide "Too Many Victims" vigils demanded that public officials commit to stopping these needless deaths. We must start with the source of the guns.
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The sad truth is that more guns in more hands doesn't lead to more public safety. The National Academy of Sciences, after an exhaustive review of the data, found in 2004 that making concealed carry permits available to more people does nothing to improve public safety. But interrupting gun trafficking does. Let's resolve this year to act where the common ground is.
More: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/01/18/martens-lewis-grow/
The 2004 NAS Study: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10881
SteveW
(754 posts)...to get an idea of how gun-controllers wish to operate. You will find them in OP's link.
If that isn't government by train wreck and chaos, I don't know what is.
ellisonz
(27,711 posts)I thought we liked social scientists, or is rather that we just like social scientists we agree with and wish to ignore conflicting data analyses?
How is it that "gun-controllers wish to operate?" Would you care to elaborate?
gejohnston
(17,502 posts)who are part of the advocacy group. It says nothing about them being social scientists. The only social scientist mentioned is economist David Hemenway, who depends on Joyce Foundation grants for much of his studies. The conflict of interest is that Joyce also provides about 90 percent of all Brady and VPC funding.
I noticed their lack of knowledge or dishonesty about the National Firearms Act and Stand Your Ground laws to be examples.
BTW, should our regulations on silencers be like Norway, France, Finland, and New Zealand? I think so.
ellisonz
(27,711 posts)...when anti-gun control organizations put their money behind pro-gun studies it's a good thing, but when pro-gun control studies but their money behind anti-gun studies it's a bad thing. Gotcha.
Damn philanthropists, always looking out for the poor and downtrodden with their social activism.
anti gun control organizations do not pay for studies. Kleck and others did not receive money from the NRA or anyone else. That is a false equivalency.
While Joyce does some good work, but the gun issue is not doing anything for the poor and downtrodden. In this case, Joyce is funding an echo chamber that is smaller and less sophisticated than the Kochs, but equally dishonest.
ellisonz
(27,711 posts)I'm going to be away for a few hours.
gejohnston
(17,502 posts)as getting grants for a pre determined outcome. I seriously doubt Kleck or Kates make much off the the books.
Glassunion
(10,201 posts)Speak of?
SteveW
(754 posts)"How is it that 'gun-controllers wish to operate'?"
By jumping into the air, legs spread like a scissors, and doing a Stan the Man: the "proposals" sums up the "social science" eructed in the article.
ellisonz
(27,711 posts)...but those aren't recommendations, that's why I was confused - the bold headings are the proposals by the gun lobby to the Minnesota State Legislature. I just saw "recommendations" and thought you were referring to the NAS study. My bad. Are the characterizations described in the bold inaccurate?
gejohnston
(17,502 posts)but the writers misrepresented the effects of those proposals. For example, the article was only half right about the NAS study. Basically, the NAS study said there is no evidence that favors restriction or liberalization.
Or, Lott and Hemenway are both full of shit.
ellisonz
(27,711 posts)...maybe we should have reasonable gun laws?
gejohnston
(17,502 posts)UK does not. Why should we assume your definition of reasonable is any more valid than mine? Europe had equally low murder rate even when they had Vermont and Arizona style gun laws.
A reasoned assessment should be based on facts. Assuming that if MN residents would make a mad rush to buy legalized silencers without factoring NFA (or ignoring the fact NFA regulates silencers the same as machine guns) is not a reasoned assessment any more than misrepresenting the NAS study. It shows ignorance of the law or dishonesty.
fightthegoodfightnow
(7,042 posts)....and still we bury more dead per capita as a result of ineffective gun control laws.
We have 'reasonable' laws only for the gun lobby.
gejohnston
(17,502 posts)It is about culture and history and nothing to do with gun laws.
There is no evidence of any gun law lowering murder rates anywhere in the world. That discovery was made not only by respected criminologists like Gary Kleck, but also National Academy of Science. Europe had the same when their gun laws were non existent including CCW. UK has a high violent crime rate.
USVI has some of the strictest gun laws in the US and has no lax state next door (for those who ignore GCA-68 banning interstate sales) and a murder rate similar to UK style gun banning Jamaica, 30 times ours. The states that have the laxest laws are also as safe as Europe. If you include suicide as violence (as the anti gun lobby does) Europe, Japan, South Korea, and Canada is more violent than we are. All of the countries that have higher murder rates than the US, has very strict laws.
Japan also counts all murder/suicides (which are not uncommon) as suicides. Cold case murders tend to be written off as suicides also. Mom kills dad and three kids, it is counted as five suicides, instead of one suicide and four murders.
The anti gun lobby is made up of a couple of foundations and rich people funding a astro turf group or two not to mention shill studies, 50K members (mostly one percenters on the left and right, and who do nothing) and maybe the MSM.
The "gun lobby" is about 40 percent of the population, four million members of the NRA that put their money and time where their convictions are. That is grass roots. Either you believe in grass roots activism or not. Astro turf is bad or it is not. Bush's bogus list was just a list of names and no terrorists or it was for real. The anti gun lobby is not known for consistency or honesty. You figure it out.
In the mean time, cry me a fucking river about inbred rednecks and the gun lobby.
fightthegoodfightnow
(7,042 posts)........and guns only kill the bad guys.
gejohnston
(17,502 posts)didn't think so.
fightthegoodfightnow
(7,042 posts)Just because Virginia's impotent gun control laws aides criminals in New York, doesn't make New Yorks gun control laws ineffective ---afterall criminals now have to go further to buy guns ....to Virginia.
gejohnston
(17,502 posts)so says MAIG but I have never seen a ATF study actually saying that. how are those guns getting to New York? By violating federal laws that have been on the books since the 1930s. Any interstate transfer without an FFL violates the Federal Firearms Act of 1938 and Gun Control Act of 1968. According to the letter of the law Barbra Luisi committed a federal crime by "selling" the rifle to a "buy back" in Portland since neither have an FFL.
I saw the original article on the KPOJ website.
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2011/10/daniel-zimmerman/what-if-they-held-a-gun-buy-back-and-nobody-came/
Now compare VA's murder rate with NY, which begs and other question.
fightthegoodfightnow
(7,042 posts)Yep.
New York Democrats AND Republicans agree on that.
gejohnston
(17,502 posts)Does not matter if the Greens, Libertarians, Whigs all agree too.
Let's see a real study from the ATF or using real ATF/FBI/NY state police data.
If there was any truth to it, the ATF should be working with VA FFLs to deal with it.
E6-B
(153 posts)Just like all propaganda, it appeals to emotions.
fightthegoodfightnow
(7,042 posts)....and well said.
SteveW
(754 posts)No problem with posting errors. Thanks.
burf
(1,164 posts)constructive instead of standing around with a candle at a ceremony? How about going door to door in Minneapolis, one of the highest gun crime areas in Minnesota, and just convince them to hand in their guns? They could have gotten the MPR media to do a live broadcast and who know how much good this program would have accomplished. It could have served as a pilot program for the rest of the nation! Another plus would be the event could have taken place not far away from their organizational headquarters, so the logistics of the event would have been minimal.
Minneapolis doesn't have a gun problem, it has a hoodlum problem. It has for as long as I can remember. Until that is addressed, the number of killings will not be lessened.