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State laws that require gun purchasers to obtain a license contingent on passing a background check performed by state or local law enforcement are associated with a 14 percent reduction in firearm homicides in large, urban counties.
Studies have shown that these laws, which are sometimes called permit-to-purchase licensing laws, are associated with fewer firearm homicides at the state level. This is the first study to measure the impact of licensing laws on firearm homicides in large, urban counties, where close to two-thirds of all gun deaths in the U.S. occur.
The study was published online May 22 in the Journal of Urban Health and was written by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, based at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis.
Handgun licensing laws typically require prospective gun purchasers to apply directly to a state or local law enforcement agency to obtain a purchase permit, which is dependent on passing a background check, prior to approaching a seller. Many state licensing laws also require applicants to submit fingerprints.
The study also found that states that only required so-called comprehensive background checks (CBCs) -- that is, did not include other licensing requirements -- were associated with a 16 percent increase in firearm homicides in the large, urban counties. In states that only require a CBC the gun seller or dealer, not law enforcement, typically carries out the background check.
"Background checks are intended to screen out prohibited individuals, and serve as the foundation upon which other gun laws are built, but they may not be sufficient on their own to decrease gun homicides," said Cassandra Crifasi, PhD, MPH, assistant professor with the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research and the paper's lead author. "This study extends what we know about the beneficial effects of a licensing system on gun homicides to large, urban counties across the United States."
In addition to sending potential purchasers to law enforcement and requiring fingerprints, state licensing laws provide a longer period for law enforcement to conduct background checks. These checks may have access to more records, increasing the likelihood that law enforcement can identify and screen out those with a prohibiting condition. Surveys from the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research find that the majority of both gun owners and non-gun owners support this policy.
[...] For the study, a sample of 136 of the largest, urban counties in the U.S. was created for 1984-2015 and analyses were conducted to assess the effects of changes to the policies over time.
The study also examined the impact of right-to-carry (RTC) and stand- your-ground (SYG) laws. SYG laws give individuals expanded protections for use of lethal force in response to a perceived threat, and RTC laws make it easier for people to carry loaded, concealed firearms in public spaces.
The researchers found that counties in states that adopted SYG laws experienced a seven percent increase in firearm homicide, and counties in states with RTC laws experienced a four percent increase firearm homicide after the state's adoption of the RTC law.
"Our research finds that state laws that encourage more public gun carrying with fewer restrictions on who can carry experience more gun homicides in the state's large, urban counties than would have been expected had the law not been implemented," said Crifasi. "Similarly, stand-your-ground laws appear to make otherwise non-lethal encounters deadly if people who are carrying loaded weapons feel emboldened to use their weapons versus de-escalating a volatile situation."
(Score: 5, Interesting) by coolgopher on Wednesday June 06 2018, @04:45AM (10 children)
As someone who grew up in Sweden and now lives in Australia, my view is it's not the absence of guns that makes the difference. It's the mindset that makes the difference. In Sweden, if you own a firearm and aren't an active hunter/farmer (acceptable firearms being longarms, shotguns) or sports shooter (acceptable firearm being whatever you compete in), then you're considered weird, nonconforming, and probably dangerous. After all, in Sweden those are the only [socially] valid reasons for having guns. Oh, and heirlooms. Heirloom guns are fine and may be displayed in the home in a place of pride.
The thing about Sweden is that from the outside it seems to be this liberal haven. It's not until you're fully immersed that you discover the huge social pressures that exist. You do not rock the boat. You do not talk back. You do not talk yourself up. You do not draw attention to yourself by being different. You do not try to amass power in whatever form. Do any of those things and doors will close and you'll find yourself cast out further and further. Nobody sane would care more about gun ownership than their place in society. So, the system works quite well over there. I think the social cohesion is slowly coming apart, and what has worked in the past will cease to work, and what the new solution will be then I do not know. And to comment on the art side - my experience is that creativity is actively not valued, as it too easily steps into the no-go zones of societal norms.
In Australia, the story seems slightly different, but also quite similar. While there's a ridiculous strong sentiment of tall-poppy syndrome, the social aspects are a lot more chilled. It's just, you know, you'd be a bloody drongo to naff around with guns around people. Better to just have another pint. And if the choice between easier access to guns (and here in Victoria it's still _very_ easy to get a license), and having to put up with nutters like at Port Arthur, the collective sentiment is that Port Arthur is by far the greater evil. So, on the whole we have another pint instead. While I vehemently disagreed with many of Howard's political decisions, the strengthened gun laws I have to give him significant credit for. They have served the country very well.
The situation in the US appears very different. Not that I've ever actually been to the US (nor do I plan to now - I'd feel safer traveling to China ffs, and I'm not talking about the gun culture here). I honestly do not believe much can change in this generation on the gun front. Given all the mass shootings, my view is that things *should* change, but I don't think the mindset is there that would allow any effective change. It's going to take the young generation who've grown up with the terror of school shootings to achieve a change. Yet at the same time, seeing how the elites have entrenched themselves in the political system, that change could in fact be what prevents a correction to the political system. Which is what the older(?) generation seems to be concerned about, even if they don't express it too well when they voice their proponency of gun rights. I have no solution to propose for the US. I don't think copying Australia or Sweden would work - the circumstances are too different. Maybe stop treating guns as the problem, and address the deeper causes, such as social inequality and poverty? But that's a whole 'nother fraught topic...
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday June 06 2018, @09:22AM (4 children)
Reaching this point so fast, it should be already evident that you are better ordering the beer by the jug. Just saying...
Cheers, mate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Thursday June 07 2018, @12:58AM (3 children)
Hah, 'strewth!
Do you disagree with my analysis though?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday June 07 2018, @01:28AM (2 children)
Not at all.
I guess I was only trying to improve on your approach to the traditional strategy of coping with the everyday life downunder.
You know? No matter how "joyful" those "strains", they do remain strains and that "toiling with hearth and hands" does ask an efficient strategy to unwind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by coolgopher on Thursday June 07 2018, @02:17AM (1 child)
Aye, "girt by beer" alright!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday June 07 2018, @03:16AM
Ah, I missed that one. So true! Thanks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday June 06 2018, @02:43PM (1 child)
Awesome post. You see past the bullshit. I touched on what you call "social cohesion" recently. Yes, China has it. I call it "conformity". Being the nonconformist that I am, I would consider China, and some other countries as well, to be a living hell. The fact that every neighbor within ten miles is doing $thing today, doesn't mean that I should do $thing as well. I'm gonna do whatever it is that I'm going to do, and I see zero reason to do the same thing that all of my neighbors are doing. But, your way of stating it is probably better. Social cohesion.
I'll have to disagree, though, that poverty causes crime. A poor person can have extremely high morals and ethics, if only he was raised by a moral and ethical parent. Being poor helps an unethical person to justify his crime, but being poor doesn't cause crime, in and of itself. Inequality? Hmmmm - yes, and no. We might agree that Whitey shoved Blacks into the mud, years ago. But, times have changed. Blacks need not stay in the mud, wallowing in self pity, any more.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by coolgopher on Thursday June 07 2018, @12:56AM
Fair call on my use of the word poverty. I agree that many who fall into the poor category are Really Good People(tm), often far kinder and more generous than those who have never known hardship.
A better word for what I was getting at is destitution, or hopelessness. When people see no other option for their survival, or they've been ground into the dirt so hard they see no way out, that's when people will resort to crime.
The equality I referenced was meant as social equality over all. Reducing the gap the top and the bottom of the social spectrum. Whether that genuinely reflects skin color divisions I have insufficient data to comment on.
And thanks for the response, I was hoping you'd chime in, because we're often at polar opposites on topics like this.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday June 06 2018, @02:46PM (2 children)
Its the people and culture, not the magic dirt. And they're replacing the people with extremely violent immigrants. Is the magic dirt making them behave? Seems not. That paragraph about culture in Sweden doesn't read at all like modern no-go zones and the dark and violent future of Sweden. Where's the the "huge social pressure" not to rape and kill today, LOL? It seems to be missing from some areas, kinda like the white people that used to live there, huh, its almost like people and culture are more tightly related than magic dirt and culture... nah that would be political incorrect thought, so must not be true, LOL?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by coolgopher on Thursday June 07 2018, @01:33AM (1 child)
I can't tell if you're trolling or have been drinking the Russian coolaid too much...
Ignoring the hyperbole (the only no-go zone for me would be way north in late summer, because of the mosquito swarms; most serious violence can be linked to the eastern mafia, which got the foot in when we gutted the police force), you are in many ways correct. The social pressures are still there, but the cohesion has been noticeably slipping for over a decade. The problem isn't immigration, it's integration, it rather the lack thereof. When I grew up, my best friend was of Spanish descent, the grand parents being the immigrants. They were as Swedish as any of us.
It's the recent unmanaged waves of immigration that have caused the creaking and cracking. The people see it, the politicians refuse to, because you have to be seen Doing The Good Thing. Which is why the Sweden Democrats are the third(?) largest party now and still rising, originally being the ultra nationalistic, neonazi flirting hard right, but having by now polished their image, policies and membership list into a serious political force. A decade ago I would not have been caught dead even thinking about voting for them. If I was living in Sweden now they'd have my vote. For all of their issues, past or present, they are the only ones who recognize the problem and are willing to speak and act on it.
There's no mercy in allowing everyone in, only to have the supposed sanctuary turn into locust ravaged wasteland (see, I can do hyperbole too). Provide as much help as you can without leaving yourself too short, then stop. That's basic advice that applies across life, and should be common sense. Alas, politics and common sense...
Denmark copped a lot of flak for closing their border when they did, but to my mind they did the only sane thing in an insane situation. And those who are so quick to judge Denmark fail to acknowledge that at the same time they're possibly the one country who successfully reintegrate jihadi fighters back into civilized society.
(Score: 1) by lars_stefan_axelsson on Thursday June 07 2018, @08:50AM
And this interesting in context in that it adds one point of data to the old adage that "If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns".
While the overall murder rate in Sweden has been in decline for a long time, and still is given even the current increase in gang related shootings, its the first time in Swedish discourse that no big squeeze has been put to legal gun ownership.
This is because no-one, even the most hard core hoplophobes, could argue that the AKs and com-bloc pistols (and F1 hand grenades...) that are being used were ever in Sweden lawfully. It is impossible to make the argument that restricting legal gun ownership would make one iota of difference in this case. Back in the day criminals used, mainly, stolen military weapons (as they were, for reasons of defence, easily accessible), or a stolen cut off double barrel. But these days its all, without exception, imports from the Balkans. Modern day criminals do not use Swedish supply channels to get their ordinance.
Now there is a cloud on the horizon in the EU "gun ban", but that seems to have been neutralised for the time being. We'll see.
Now, it should be pointed out that perceptions are misleading. Sweden actually has quite a lot of civilian firearms ownership, mainly for hunting. And I'm the last generation where every male underwent military training as a part of national service (some 50000 young men each year).
Stefan Axelsson