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Thought for the day
The modern antis' theme of "commonsense gun control"....
Sometimes a theme comes upon a group or movement almost by accident. Decades ago I heard a statistician describing just how the pro-2A side must have read public opinion surveys and discovered that "enforce current laws instead" had more support than "enact more laws," and decided to make that a theme. One of those present, who played a major role in adopting that theme, afterward chuckled "if only he knew." Nobody had studied surveys, they'd come up with argument by instinct. Perhaps it's the same here. Anyway....
Back in the 60s and 70s there was essentially zero hard data on the gun control question. I seem to recall two attempts, one by Alan Krug that just compared crime rates to a rather arbitrary concept of strictness of gun control , and found no correlation, and one by somebody else. who crudely adjusted for a few items (using race as a surrogate for poverty and lack of education!) and found some correlation. Both sides were flying blind.
Things are quite different today. Back in the 70s and 80s there were several studies, now I forget the authors, of crime rates and gun ownership in Illinois' hundred or so counties, concluding that when other factors were compensated for there was no effect. There's Gary Kleck's detailed surveys on self defense, concluding several million incidents per year, and John Lott's elaborate studies of liberalized CCW, concluding that it lowers crime rates, and his critics (who to my knowledge dispute whether it lowers them, but do not contend that it increases them). There's even the meta-study, now I forget by whom, the study of all studies to date, that concluded there was no evidence that gun control in any form affected violent crime rates. And for details, the two surveys by the Bureau of Justice Statistics that found gun shows were the source of well under 1% of criminals' guns.
In face of all this hard data, the antis' theme has become "commonsense gun control." That, I think, is more than just "we only want a moderate amount of gun control." I think it also has a nuance of "don't expect us to cite hard data, just back whatever sounds like a good idea." Gun shows are "a loophole" that must be closed -- don't ask whether they're a source of criminal guns. Liberalized CCW is a terrible idea, will lead to street massacres -- don't expect us to show that it has ever had that result. Etc. "Commonsense gun control" thus equates to "we lost the battles over the hard data, and don't want to talk about them."
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I confess, until I saw this recent study of murder and suicide rates in California and Texas relative to gun shows, I would have assumed that there was probably some problem with guns being acquired at gun shows by criminals. But amazingly enough, that study, done by an anti-gunner, found NO increase in murder rates in California associated with gun shows, and only an increase in GUN suicides (not suicides in general). In Texas, gun shows were associated with a slight decline in murders.
Boy do I agree with you Dave. We need to fight off this idea of common sense gun control because it is not common sense.
"we lost the battles over the hard data, and don't want to talk about them."
It seems to me I've heard this in the context of another of today's issues..:-)
My summary is simply that we are winning the debate in the court of public opinion.
When the anti 2A folks fabricate something, or propose something, it becomes a public issue. Each time we have the debate, we win a few more souls than they do.
Of course, it seems to me to be common sense to believe the data, but maybe that's just me.
Dave:
That is sort of what has happened with the First Amendment. The First Amendment is very clear. However, a lot of "common sense" type crap has resulted.
Commercial speech is not protected as much as political speech.
Sexually obscene speech is not protected as much as sexually erotic speech.
I know p0rn0gr@phy when I see it.
Etc. and so on.
I agree with Denton, the more the arguments are held "in the public square", the more people we see joining the gun rights side of the argument. My opinion here, what we don't see are those that quietly leave the anti-gun rights side, whether they go neutral or change sides completely is not important, what is important is that the anti-gun side has lost support. Look at open carry protests, CCW protests, empty holster protests, as more of these demonstrations are held they are growing. From what I've seen the anti-gun right demonstrations are shrinking. All anecdotal, so make of it what you will.
In my experience, when somebody invokes "common sense", nine times out of ten it's a sign that you aren't having a serious conversation. "Common sense" generally means "it feels this way to me, and if it doesn't feel the same way to you you must be stupid".
The meta-data study you mention is probably "Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review (2004)". One can buy it, but The National Acadamies Press has an on-line version, a little clunky, here.
During the founding of our country, the debate was between two ideologies: Libertarianism and Divine-Rights Absolutism. At its core, Divine-Rights Absolutism depends on divine inspiration for "knowing" what is best.
"Common sense" is fine for personal judgment, but when it comes to a ruling class, any talk of common sense is just a substitute for divine inspiration.
Several years ago, I saw someone for HCI speak on C-SPAN at a John Lott presentation. He was Very Passionate when he said that he just KNEW that more guns caused more deaths. Without knowing it, he was restating the Tories position against the Libertarians.
The study you are looking for is the CDC Study:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwR/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5214a2.htm
After spending millions of dollars they were not able to identify a single instance where a gun control law had a positive effect.
I think we also need to start hitting back whenever the anti-gun types throw out the word "loophole". More and more it seems that wherever we see individual freedom and choice they see a "loophole". If they succeed with the gunshow "loophole, they they will want to close the "classified advertisement "loophole" and the individual sale "loophole". Then they will want to close some other "loophole", perhaps we will have to contend with a fight over a handloading "loophole" that permits criminals to get ammo despite bans and controls. And who knows in the future we might even have an antique gun "loophole" or a flintlock "loophole" that permits criminals to go armed despite bans on primers and percussion caps.
Saw a statistic from Gary 's sometime collaborator, Don Kates, the other day showing that 90% of murderers are already felons prohibited from owning guns. About 2/3 of murders each year of committed with firearms, 90% of which are already illegally owned. (And a large number of these victims are actively involved in the drug trade.)
So the CCW fears were never legitimate--expanded CCW couldn't have ever changed crime because the criminals already were willing to risk prison time for just owning the gun--carrying it for their jobs in a life a crime made no difference. The only people who weren't carrying already were those with a legitimate desire to protect themselves but not willing to violate the law to do so. I do hope we can push for a national concealed carry law again; there are simply places I won't go and states in which I won't live until I can exercise my rights there.
Exceptionally well put!