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from the anthropogenic-population-change dept.
We have a recent report by the US government that climate change is almost certainly caused by humans. However, we don't have the same rigor in gun death statistics; instead policy debate can rely only on FBI crime statistics which aren't directly comparable year-over-year due to changing measurement methodology (see "Caution to users").
This is because the NRA put pressure on the CDC through a Republican Congress to halt this research, under the logic that it promotes the cause of gun control.
But how likely is it that this is intentional, to use the US Second Amendment as an ongoing lightning rod for public attention (in a "bread and circuses" sense) while political business continues as usual on the back end (e.g. Paradise Papers)? Obama and a Democratic congress had the opportunity to restart this, which would presumably be just as "common sense" as the actual reforms they have been promoting on this issue, since whoever was actually supported by the facts would presumably have a motivation to set the program back in motion to improve support for their proposals.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jb on Thursday November 09 2017, @04:26AM (5 children)
Imagine for a moment what the gun deaths equivalent would look like:
If that had actually happened, everyone would be jumping up & down complaining about the amount of taxpayer money wasted on such a study.
Because let's face it, that gun deaths are almost certainly caused by humans is a proposition that's far too obvious to bother studying.
Heck, perhaps in some tiny fraction of cases it might be a monkey (or some other creature with opposable thumbs) pulling the trigger by pure chance, but surely we all know that in pretty much every other case, it's a human pulling the trigger.
What would be the point of running a study to confirm that?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @04:57AM (3 children)
That's not what those studies were for. They were using epidemiology to demonstrate the effect that guns have on society. It's a perfectly sensible approach to take which is why the NRA was so angry about it.
We know that there's tens of thousands of gun deaths every hear in the US from suicide alone. We know from when coal stoves went away in the UK that failure to find a convenient method to kill oneself does somewhat reduce the number of suicides. We also know that cases where somebody leaves to get a gun and is still mad enough with poor enough judgment to kill are in the minority.
But, we can't adequately study those things because it would make the NRA look bad. Anybody with two braincells to rub together knows that the lion's share of the illegally purchased firearms started out being stolen or sold by unscrupulous sellers that didn't care who ended up with the guns. Many of these sellers are not legally required to run a background check because that would be inconvenient to the NRA and the gun manufacturers they are supported by.
Ultimately, if guns aren't a large part of the problem, then the NRA should support doing the studies and be cleared. They don't want to do it because they know the calls for regulation are based on facts and the calls against regulation are completely based in emotion.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @05:49AM (1 child)
There is a conflict of interest in studies done by the government about civilian gun ownership. The (US/shadow/elites) government has a vested interest in disarming its citizens. How can any study done with this conflict of interest be taken seriously?
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Thursday November 09 2017, @08:51AM
You publish the raw data and let anyone do the study. Then you peer-review all of them and let everybody discuss it, like science is normally done.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday November 09 2017, @06:47AM
Then we should start by banning bathtubs. Those things are lethal.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Insightful) by etherscythe on Thursday November 09 2017, @08:47AM
Ok, maybe the department I submitted under tried to be a little too clever, but do you really think that's what I was getting at? The metaphor certainly breaks down at that point, and that would be a silly conclusion to pursue, obviously. The debate is not that we need to prove that when someone dies by gunfire, that it was a human pulling the trigger; the issue is that we need to track the statistics closely enough and in sufficient detail to be sure that a meaningful discussion on the underlying dynamics, and effects of policy changes, can be held with accurate information. When the information available is so scattered that it is hard to assemble, or cannot be compared even to data from the same source (!), this leaves too much room for doubt on the subject to really establish consensus or confidence in the conclusions, much less suggest a course of action. You will continue to have both sides arguing their points using flawed justifications which are nevertheless hard enough to disprove that the point will be allowed to stand in the eyes of those who are open to being persuaded but are tired of Joe Schmoe cooking up his own questionable stats to make his counter argument.
You cannot have studies by reputable organizations with definite conclusions as things stand, because the data simply won't support it. I'm not a big fan of gun restriction for the average law-abiding citizen, but if there are policies that really do make sense to reduce criminal access to guns, or reduce the potential damage to communities from crazy people, I'd really like to know about it, and I'll bet a lot of families would, too. Making our schools and malls safer will have pretty good bipartisan support. I'm betting there are lots of people who want to do these studies because I keep hearing the word "epidemic" thrown around. Let's give them a chance to put that motivation to good use, rather than everybody fumbling around in the dark for solutions like blind fools.
I don't think taking all the guns away is a viable solution, but sticking our heads in the sand definitely isn't either. It's not like the only two options we have are "everybody owns a fully-automatic rifle by legal requirement " or "anyone suspected of possessing even an air rifle will be executed by drone." There's room for an in-between approach.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"