patrick.net

re the detention centres, check (google) the full connections between cheney and KBR and halliburton, and the numerous untendered contracts awarded to kbr/hallliburton since he became VP. it's the revolving door of politics and big business, and a clear conflict of interest. the media have done a number of stories on this. for instance, he left washington to become CEO of halliburton for 5 years, his only private sector service, then promptly went back as VP and received a $20 M payout from halliburton for his invaluable 5 years of service, and a large yearly pension on top of his VP salary. wish my severance pay was as generous...

It's too late for gun control. The bad people will have all the guns if the good people give their guns to the government. Criminals wont turn in their guns.
I'd rather be judged by twelve than carried by six.

Keep your guns people. Things are about to get bad. You saw what poor people did after Katrina. What if most of us become poor and then there's a disaster.

Different Sean Says:

"There are plenty of African people who have emigrated, legally or illegally, to Europe, and they don’t have problems to anywhere near the same extent with guns. Strenuous efforts are made by the police to remove guns from the community at every opportunity."

With few exceptions there are not many large communities of African decent except some in Britian (where there has been recent rioting) and France (where they recently burned a couple thousand cars).

"Easy access to guns and a celebration of gun culture of course is going to increase the number of incidents. Why not legislate to have them removed instead? Then there’s no problem, is there? "

What liberals don't understand is that "legislation" to remove guns will have no effect on "criminals". It is already illegal to kill someone or rob a bank and when I ask point blank "do you think that passing a law banning guns will get even a single gang banging criminal to drive to city hall and turn in his gun" the answer is always "no"

If Different Sean ever goes to rural Wisconsin or Eastern Oregon he will find an active "gun culture" where almost every man (and almost half of the women) is a gun owning hunter. There is almost no crime and many people never lock their doors.

HARM Says:

"Having some of my tax money used for “social safety nets” for poor citizens (and legal residents) and the disabled/mentally ill –as long as it does not completely dis-incentivize industry– doesn’t bother me."

I think it was Jack Kemp that said "Let's give the poor a safety net not a hammock". We should change all our crime filled housing projects in to job training centers where we get the poor off drugs and back in to the world. Right now many people stay on welfare and in the housing projects for their entire life...

pywiack Says:

"To me, pure libertarianism seems like a young, healthy person’s political philosophy. There are tons of libertarians on college campuses."

Unfortunately there have never been many libertarians/objectivists on college campus (or anywhere else). I met more republicans in college here in the Bay Area than libertarians.

Who is Kate Incontrera? The link to the author is broken. The "Gut Punch" article:

http://www.isecureonline.com/Reports/DRI/EDRIG105/

is not anything to be taken too seriously. I think that this is simply and indicator that the sharks are starting to move into the downside of the RE market. I don't need a crystal ball to predict that lots of self-promoting "experts" will make plenty of money claiming you can earn 700% returns in the RE downturn, all without risking any money. Seriously, this junk does serious discussion about the subject a disservice.

Regarding the ’statistics’ quoted from http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel051403.asp, I need to see those credibly verified - pro-gun types are known to heavily skew international positions to suit their domestic arguments.

@Different Sean,

Would you consider the BBC to be a "credible" source?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1440764.stm

How about the U.N.?
United Nations - International Crime Victim Surveys (ICVS):
http://www.unicri.it/wwd/analysis/icvs/publications.php
http://www.unicri.it/wwd/analysis/icvs/pdf_files/CriminalVictimisationUrbanEurope.pdf

PS,

I'll check Zip Realty, but I can't get squat out of Zillow for our area (Portland, OR Metro). The day it rolled out it was fantastic, now I'm getting zip from zillow. Weird huh?

@Different Sean,

the point is that in modern society, most people have handed over the legal use of force to the police as an institution - this is Sociology 101. you shoot someone in the street at high noon at your own peril - in fact, the early gun-toters of the Wild West were put in place by concerned townspeople who had law and order problems and not enough sanctioned officers to carry them out at that time, expanding westward at a furious pace as they were. That was a very temporary emergency arrangement.

I would not call the Second Amendment (part of the original Bill of Rights) a "temporary arrangement". I am far from advocating vigilante justice, nor do I wander the streets armed to the teeth, itching for an excuse to shoot someone (a common misconception/stereotype among the non gun-owning public).

Even so, the fact remains that the police cannot be EVERWHERE at ONCE. There is always a delay, no matter how efficient the 911 system is in your neighborhood --and that's assuming you're even able to get to a working phone in time. Minutes or even seconds can sometimes mean the difference between life and death in a dangerous situation. Why do you think First Aid is taught to non EMTs? Think of law-abiding citizen gun-ownership as "first aid for crime": you hope you never have to use it, but if you do, it's there.

Remember that the 2nd Amendment was insisted upon by the state of Massachusetts in forming the Union mostly to protect against recurrent attempted invasions by the British to get their old colony back, being keenly aware of that possibility. I think the time and necessity for that has passed now, don’t you?

Again, I have to reiterate: the state militia/invasion argument was NOT the only reason the Founding Fathers had for ratifying the Second Amendment. They had a deep distrust of centralized authority and desire to prevent our own government from becoming too powerful. If you go back and read the political tracts/letters from the time, you'll see that many believed citizen gun-ownership was a necessary counter-balance to government power.

Checks & balances and civil liberties --what could be more American than that?

The statistics show much higher deaths in the US due to gun ownership levels. If you’re happy with that arrangement, fine. However, a US-style gun culture is an export the civilised world doesn’t want…

According to the U.N. The overall violent crime rate in England-Wales was actually higher than in the US from 1992-2000 (data for the latest survey ends at 2000):
http://www.unicri.it/wwd/analysis/icvs/pdf_files/key2000i/app4.pdf

Sean, I would argue that the vast majority of Second Amendment supporters are not rabid trigger-happy gun wackos. We are NOT your enemy, nor the enemy of civil liberties. On the contrary, we're civil libertarians, against government secret spying, torture, corruption, monopolies, wasteful spending, fascism, military expansionism (excepting measures for self-defense & humanitarian aid) and pro-freedom of dissent, free speech and free press.

On the whole, we are some of your best friends.

oh, jeez. Now I have to rebut more skewed stuff and spurious cause-effect associations.

Re the BBC article, "The research, commissioned by the Countryside Alliance's Campaign for Shooting, ..."

The countryside alliance are the pro-gun people in the UK, for chrissakes - the BBC didn't conduct that study, they did. That's just a BBC report on a report. The Countryside people are pissed off because foxhunting is being banned, and they're being funded by the bluebloods. My social science training tells me never to trust a report backed by vested interests.

There are a few more coincidences taking place here - for one, the person stating that they felt safer in the US than the UK - the US has spent a fortune on building prisons and paying law enforcement officers in recent years - the incarceration rate is about 4 times higher in the US than the UK, and it is even higher than in Russia. It is the highest rate in the OECD. So not necessarily linked to gun ownership at all, but to a huge concerted campaign in policing. And, as I said before, there could be cultural or economic differences such as recession, police tolerance of petty crime, etc between countries. Levels of social capital are important - for instance, housing booms that marginalise increasing numbers of people and create a wealth apartheid could cause an increase in assaults and crimes against property.

If Britain spent the money to multiply its police force and jail sizes by 4, as the US did, and started locking people up, then perhaps we would see the crime rate come down to a much lower level - but without the hand-gun ownership issue. So there is a deterrence effect just on a would-be perpetrator's knowledge of the US law enforcement procedures and presence and likelihood of getting caught - and perhaps of having family members or friends already in jail - not to mention all the 'Cops'-syle shows on the air - you cannot measure the deterrence effect on young offenders of these influences.

There are any number of potential causes to get the effect of an increasing crime rate over time, e.g. recession, rising housing prices, drugs, lax policing, budget cuts to police, changes in the law, etc, etc.

The point is, and the fact is, that scarcely anyone in Britain or Australia ever owned a handgun or carried one or had one in the car, so there was never a deterrence effect there in the first place. The security methods are locks, bars on windows, being at home, and burglar alarms.

With the opening up of Russia, there has been a lot of importation of cheap Russian/East European handguns into Britain. Jamaican immigrants seem to love them. Hence, the Thames Police have started a campaign specifically targetting that problem.

'The Metropolitan Police's flagship and hugely successful Operation Trident is described as an initiative against black-on-black gun related crime in the capital.'

'much of the blame has fallen on trends in music and fashion, particularly within the black community, which have helped to glamourise weapons' - and the influence spread from the US, so it's a self-fulfilling prophecy - you (the US) glamourise weapons in movies etc and the rest of the world starts following suit. It's called saturation cultural imperialism.

'Most of the kids carry guns in order to protect themselves when they are dealing. They are going around with enough crack or heroin to ensure that they go away for 10 years if they get caught. Because of that, they feel they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by carrying a gun.'

So a vibrant drug-taking culture fosters the carrying of handguns.

Notorious underworld figure Joey Pyle agrees. 'In the old days, during the time of the Krays and the Richardsons, people didn't go around with guns on them all the time. You only got tooled up if you were out on a bit of work. That's all changed now. For a lot of people out there, having a gun is little more than a fashion accessory.'

Note that much of the handgun use is between gang members or drug couriers, etc, not 'home invasions' or situations where an ordinary citizen would even be able to access a handgun to protect themselves.

And, once again, the death rate and maiming rate in the US from firearms is much higher, and what are the ethics and legality of killing someone who enters your home, for instance? Are the rates of accidental discharges at a family member, suicides, theft of weapons by thieves, regular massacres by unhinged people with access to deadly weapons, the cost of buying weapons and ammunition, the grief of family members who have lost someone, and the cost to the health system of patching people up - many of whom are disabled for life - worth it?

Given that the US has already chosen to spend a large fortune toughening laws, incarcerating criminals and strengthening its police forces to unprecedented levels in order to reduce the overall crime rate through sanctioned, institutionalised means.

Sean, I would argue that the vast majority of Second Amendment supporters are not rabid trigger-happy gun wackos. We are NOT your enemy, nor the enemy of civil liberties. On the contrary, we’re civil libertarians, against government secret spying, torture, corruption, monopolies, wasteful spending, fascism, military expansionism (excepting measures for self-defense & humanitarian aid) and pro-freedom of dissent, free speech and free press.

Oh, come on. How does owning a handgun do anything to prevent the govt doing all those things? They are completely disconnected. How many times have you drawn a handgun on a govt worker? This is nonsense. What is the likelihood of you being tortured or spied upon by your own govt in all reality, unless you start a Branch Davidian sect and start collecting guns in earnest? Surely intelligent verbal lobbying and organisation into action groups to put a reasoned, justified case to the American people at large might have better effect to get your point across and effect change? Every country in the OECD has problems of wasteful spending and corruption, but, as I have pointed out elsewhere, it seems that Truman's initiatives of a militarised America seem to have brought on urges of military expansionism and Fascism. The hand-gun will not distinguish between left, right, fascist, totalitarian, communist or libertarian, only human reason and impassioned argument and action can. Countries in the EU, with a combined population of 450 million, don't have the socio-political problems of the US right now, they're an artifact of US culture.

@Different Sean,

It's pretty obvious at this point that neither of us is going to convince the other of the inherent "rightness" of the other's position on banning private gun ownership, so I'll just focus on a few points:

The countryside alliance are the pro-gun people in the UK, for chrissakes - the BBC didn’t conduct that study, they did. That’s just a BBC report on a report.

Aside from the Countryside Alliance study, the BBC article also quoted Scotland Yard and the London Metropolitan Police. Are they all "pro-gun" nuts too? And what about the U.N. studies that showed England having a higher overall crime rate than most of Central Europe and the U.S. --and one that's currently rising?

There are any number of potential causes to get the effect of an increasing crime rate over time, e.g. recession, rising housing prices, drugs, lax policing, budget cuts to police, changes in the law, etc, etc.

Yes - i.e., gun ownership itself is not a cause of gun violence, other systemic social/economic problems are. Gun-related violence is one manifestation of these underlying problems that needs to be dealt with. Poverty + gangs/criminals + guns = trouble. We are in agreement here, but let's not blame the symptoms for the problem.

The point is, and the fact is, that scarcely anyone in Britain or Australia ever owned a handgun or carried one or had one in the car, so there was never a deterrence effect there in the first place. The security methods are locks, bars on windows, being at home, and burglar alarms.

Well, I don't know for a fact that "scarcely" anyone in the UK or Oz ever owned a handgun --I'd like to see some stats on this-- but if you're solely relying on locks, bars on windows and burglar alarms for personal protection, you're in for a rude awakening. These are perfectly reasonable deterrents (though personally I think bars are ugly and say "bad neighborhood"). But what do you do for protection when you're not at home?

Again, nobody is forcing you to buy a gun. If you don't like 'em, don't buy one. Just don't take away MY right to make my own decision.

Given that the US has already chosen to spend a large fortune toughening laws, incarcerating criminals and strengthening its police forces to unprecedented levels in order to reduce the overall crime rate through sanctioned, institutionalised means.

We don't disagree that the vast expansion of the US prison population and criminalizing many "victimless" behaviors (adult recreational drug use, prostitution, gun ownership, etc.) is a bad thing. Again, this is a very classical Libertarian idea.

Guns are not neccessar for crime. Murder and other crimes were a serious problem for thousands of years before the gun was invented. There are plenty of other weapons that would be used if guns were removed from society.

well, your 'right' to make a decision depends upon what country you are in, under the law. a gun is an artifice, a manufactured piece of technology - there is no 'natural right' to own one at all.

you use false statistics, false arguments and spurious correlations, and when that doesn't work, want to overlook death and maiming rates, costs to the health system, etc etc. And now all the people in prison are there for prostitution rather than violent assaults and burglaries, apparently. Most people are in prison for drug-related offences, but that is the same in the UK and Australia. And much of it has been lead by US pressuring in a 'war on drugs'.

And how many people have been locked up in the US for gun ownership? apart from criminals who don't have a state-sanctioned license, or are unfit to possess one?

As I said, scarcely anyone in the UK or Australia ever owned a handgun, and certainly people don't carry them. Only security personnel and police carry them. You need to get out more. There's more to the world than the US and it's insular, blinkered, narrow-minded arguments.

People are in for no more of a rude shock than anywhere else. Are you saying they've been in a rude shock for 2 centuries of settlement now? You've seen the figures. There's more to social capital than using a gun as a deterrent. Having a kinder welfare system works, for one. People in Australia have universal access to free health care, and can stay on unemployment benefits for prolonged periods, for instance, thus reducing their motive to steal or rob for money.

Have a look at these statistics:
http://pearlyabraham.tripod.com/htmls/myth-guns2.html

Types of Firearm deaths - US - 1993 :

Type Number
Suicide 18,940
Firearm homicide 18,571
Handgun homicide 13,980
Justifiable homicide 251
Accidental 1,521
Undetermined 563
Total 39,595

13,980 handgun deaths in the US vs 33 in the UK in that year.

Handgun murders - 1992:

Country Handgun Murders Handgun Murder Rate
(per 100,000)
United States 13,429 5.28
Switzerland 97 1.42
Canada 128 0.47
Sweden 36 0.42
Australia 13 0.07
United Kingdom 33 0.06
Japan 60 0.05

whoops, these are the stats I wanted:

Types of Firearm deaths - 1993 :

Type Number
Suicide 18,940
Firearm homicide 18,571
Handgun homicide 13,980
Justifiable homicide 251
Accidental 1,521
Undetermined 563
Total 39,595

And now all the people in prison are there for prostitution rather than violent assaults and burglaries, apparently. Most people are in prison for drug-related offences..

Ummm.... Sean.... did you even stop to READ what I said above?

We don’t disagree that the vast expansion of the US prison population and criminalizing many “victimless” behaviors (adult recreational drug use, prostitution, gun ownership, etc.) is a bad thing. Again, this is a very classical Libertarian idea.

Again, we don't disagree on ALL points. Social Libertarian does not = fascist neocon.

you use false statistics, false arguments and spurious correlations, and when that doesn’t work, want to overlook death and maiming rates, costs to the health system, etc etc...

Have a look at these statistics:
http://pearlyabraham.tripod.com/htmls/myth-guns2.html

This site's extreme anti-gun bias is pretty evident, not does it disclose the source of many of its "facts". You criticized me for not using "credible" sources, and then I posted stats from the U.N. and the BBC, and that still wasn't good enough.

At this point, Sean, I don't know what else to say. We'll just have to agree to disagree on gun control and move on.

I don’t agree. You just don’t like the stats, arguments and correlations, so you label them false. Anyone on the other side of the fence could do the same to yours.

Thank you ;-)

Anyhoo... how's that housing market doing?

I'd weigh in with my strong views that responsible gun ownership rights are essential to the ideals of our Constitutional system. But that would contradict allegations made in this thread that I'm a leftist ideologue. Don't tell "The Futurist", whatever you do.

New thread: Favorite Realt-whore Cliches

I agree that 'gun control' is one aspect only of 'libertarianism', as commonly defined and debated in the US, but unfortunately I think defending this aspect is more 'theory driven' than 'data driven' as per the earlier critique of libertarianism as an attempt to fit all data around one monolithic idea.

Note that 'libertarianism' itself is something of a philosophical hangover from the Puritan, Irish and Scottish refugees from the British Empire who found some freedom in the newly independent US, and hence brought a mistrust of govt, etc with them, for obvious reasons. While I also believe govt should be transparent, accountable, democratic, consultative, and watched closely, I reject the attempt to create an overarching concept of 'libertarianism' as an attempt to pack all aspects of social life and interdependence into one simple concept. similarly, i've always mistrusted Marx's 'withering away of the state' as a feasible and achievable endpoint of Communism.

I'm more than happy to corroborate the stats on the gun myths website.

The stats that you put forward make no connection with gun ownership rates at all, so they don't actually mean anything in terms of backing up an argument. Every connection and argument you made was pure supposition. The figures I've provided are hard statistics and death rates from firearms. Not even counting maiming rates and the costs to the hospital system and the community in rehabilitation and disability. Many doctors in ER in the US had no idea that they would be predominantly treating gunshot wounds when they started.

as i've said, most expert commentators point to the huge renewed allocation of resources to the US police system and imprisonment rates to explain the lower crime rates over the last 10 years or so. clearly, if gun-toting criminals are locked up, there will be lower gun-related crime rates from those people, especially in a country where use of a gun in crime is much more likely for cultural reasons. there is no doubt that much crime is caused by the same small minority of criminals, this has been demonstrated over and over again in studies. further, the use of new DNA fingerprinting techniques shows that many previous unsolved crimes could be attributed to known criminals, many of already them in jail for other offences.

do you dispute 13,980 handgun deaths in the US vs 33 in the UK in 1993? these would be ongoing rates, mind you, year after year, that was only 1993.

once again, if you're happy with extremely high rates of suicide, accidental discharge, unintentional deaths and maimings, easy access to handguns for criminals, that's your business, but the rest of the world doesn't want to know about it. The facts speak for themselves: the greatest use of guns in America is in suicide, malicious homicide, and accidental discharges. A tiny minority (0.6%) are listed as 'justifiable homicide', and this in a country where guns and gun-based altercations are rife.

I don’t agree. You just don’t like the stats, arguments and correlations, so you label them false. Anyone on the other side of the fence could do the same to yours.

Not really. The cause-effect correlations put forward by pro-gun lobbyists are too simplistic. And the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of OECD countries are very low gun-owning countries, where handgun ownership is often effectively illegal. And they do not have anything like the death rates from firearms that the US and Canada has. If you're happy to live in a brutalised, militarised culture, that's fine. Maybe that explains why Amercicans very seldom travel. It may also explain many of your current foreign policy difficulties and lack of popularity in many parts of of the world, including amongst the mainstream public of supposed 'allies' such as Australia and the UK.

Much of the recent higher gun use in the UK could well come from the 'hollywood effect' on young, impressionable minds, the age group of 16-24 which is also the highest age for criminal activity, and generally not known for their rationality. so there could in actual fact be an unfortunate cultural leakage effect from the US that has taken britain by surprise.

of course http://pearlyabraham.tripod.com/htmls/myth-guns1.html is a biased site, but they are representing statistics accurately, and the site is well worth a read. there are plenty of other such sites with more up to date stats that all say the same thing.

"(1) In a 22-year study of 800 children from grade 2 to early adulthood, Leonard Eron and Rowell Huesmann found that the best predictor of later aggression was a heavy childhood diet of TV violence -- more so than poverty, grades, a single parent in the home or exposure to real violence.

(2) The second is income inequality. Although absolute poverty levels do not correlate too significantly with the crime rate, income inequality does (oddly enough). Two separate studies, one from Harvard, the other from Berkeley, compared state crime rates to their income inequality rates, and found that the states with the most inequality had the highest rates of homicide, violent crime and incarceration. This correlation holds internationally as well; Europe has much lower levels of inequality than the U.S., and much lower violent crime rates as well. In the U.S., the rising murder rate has accompanied a rising level of income inequality. In 1968, the Gini index of income inequality was a record low .348; by 1994, it had risen to .426, the highest level since the Great Depression. "

If we were to arm everyone in society, then the ability to [easily] commit murder would become universal. This is a serious step in the wrong direction.

In 1991, there were 211 million privately-owned firearms in the U.S., which then had a population of 252 million people. Of these firearms, about 71 million were handguns.

The long-term trend in both handgun production and criminal use has been away from manual revolvers and towards rapid-firing, semi-automatic pistols.

The domestic production of pistols has doubled since 1980, while domestic production of rifles has fallen 40 percent, and shotguns 14 percent. In 1980, pistols made up less than 15 percent of total firearm production in the U.S.; by 1993, they had climbed to 40 percent."

etc

Do you know the difference between “kill” and “murder”?

erm???

Good day.

oh well, that's it then...

SQT, the facts are borne out internationally by comparative statistics on gun death rates, are they not?

Would you care to show how they are not?

HARM Says:

"It’s pretty obvious at this point that neither of us is going to convince the other of the inherent “rightness” of the other’s position on banning private gun ownership"

Harm will have better luck convincing a priest or rabbi that there is no god than convincing a liberal gun hater like Different Sean that guns should be legal since the gun represents some evil force that the left wants to eliminate (even though down deep I have to feel that they know that it will be easier to “eliminate drugs” than "eliminate guns"). Drugs have been illegal for years. Is it hard for a criminal to find drugs? Does any sane person think that an illegal gun will be any harder to find than an illegal dime bag of pot?

Firearm injuries are the eighth leading cause of death in the United States. In addition, for every fatal shooting, there are roughly three nonfatal shootings.1 A teenager in the United States today is more likely to die of a gunshot wound than from all the "natural" causes of death combined.4 The impact of gun violence is especially pronounced among juveniles and adolescents. The firearm homicide rate for children under 15 years of age is 16 times higher in the United States than in 25 other industrialized countries combined. Among those ages 15 to 24, the U.S. firearm homicide rate is 5 times higher than in neighboring Canada and 30 times higher than in Japan, and the firearm homicide rate for the 15- to 24-year-old age group increased 158 percent during the 10-year period from 1984 to 1993.

Approximately 37,500 gun sales, including 17,800 handgun sales, are completed every day in the United States. The increasing number of gun owners has elevated the danger of guns being acquired illegally through robberies and burglaries. In 1994, more than a quarter-million households experienced the theft of one or more firearms; nearly 600,000 guns were stolen during these burglaries.8

The number of youth who report that they carry weapons is significant. In 1997, 14 percent, or 1 in 7 male juveniles, reported carrying a gun outside the home in the previous 30-day period.9 In the inner city, the problem is more severe. One study involving 800 inner-city high school students reported that 22 percent said they carried weapons.10 An even greater number of convicted juvenile offenders reported carrying guns -- 88 percent, according to another study.11

Firearms are readily available on the illegal gun market, and those who are most likely to possess guns are drug sellers and gang members -- overwhelmingly young and male.12 More than two-thirds of the respondents in one study of urban arrestees stated that the primary reason for owning and carrying a weapon is self-protection -- a small number also reported using the weapon for drug trafficking or other illegal activities.

Yes, Americans are often shot—and so are many others
Harvard Injury Control Research Centre, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Gun injury has been labelled a "disease" (American Medical Association, International Red Cross), a "public health emergency" (Centers for Disease Control), an "epidemic" (US Surgeon General), and a "scourge" (UN Secretary General, the Vatican).

In the United States, 4% of the world population possesses 50% of the planet's privately owned firearms1,2; America's gun death rate stands head and shoulders above those of 35 similar high and upper middle income nations.3 Of the 35, 29 suffer less than half the firearm related death rate in the United States.

Despite a recent spike in drug-related shootings in a handful of cities including London, a resident of England or Wales remains 26 times less likely to die by gunshot than an American. In Japan, the risk of gun death is at least 100 times lower than in the United States.

Yet America is far from alone in suffering high rates of firearm related mortality. Close competitors include Mexico, South Africa, Colombia, Estonia, and Brazil3,4—nations with whom Americans rarely see themselves in the same league.

The global proliferation of small arms increases both the lethality of violent encounters and the number of victims. With 639 million firearms in circulation worldwide,9 guns increasingly transform minor disputes into shootings and make it easier for children to become killers. In Papua New Guinea, intertribal disputes once settled with bows, arrows, and machetes are now fought out with firearms. Across great swathes of Africa and South Asia, child soldiers are enabled with AK-47s, exploited by adult combatants, their lives ended or distorted, their weapons still available for banditry and domestic violence even if peace does arrive.

No community seems immune from this pandemic of gun violence. It overwhelms health services and undermines personal security, economic development, good governance, and human rights. [Emphasis mine]

The emergency room is no place for geopolitics or for blame. To a trauma surgeon delving into gunshot wounds in Pretoria, London or Islamabad, it matters little if the weapon was fired by a terrorist/freedom fighter, by a mobster, a soldier, or an angry husband. Nor does it matter if the gun was military in appearance or had previously been used only to shoot pigeons. Whether the gunshot is by accident, suicide, crime or conflict, the damage done to the victim, the family, and wider society is remarkably similar.

U.S. Leads Richest Nations In Gun Deaths
Friday, April 17, 1998
BY CHELSEA J. CARTER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ATLANTA -- The United States has by far the highest rate of gun deaths -- murders, suicides and accidents -- among the world's 36 richest nations, a government study found.
The U.S. rate for gun deaths in 1994 was 14.24 per 100,000 people. Japan had the lowest rate, at .05 per 100,000.
The study, done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is the first comprehensive international look at gun-related deaths. It was published Thursday in the International Journal of Epidemiology.
The CDC would not speculate why the death rates varied, but other researchers said easy access to guns and society's acceptance of violence are part of the problem in the United States.
``If you have a country saturated with guns -- available to people when they are intoxicated, angry or depressed -- it's not unusual guns will be used more often,'' said Rebecca Peters, a Johns Hopkins University fellow specializing in gun violence. ``This has to be treated as a public health emergency.''
The study used 1994 statistics supplied by the 36 countries. Of the 88,649 gun deaths reported by all the countries, the United States accounted for 45 percent, said Etienne Krug, a CDC researcher and co-author of the article.
Japan, where very few people own guns, averages 124 gun-related attacks a year, and less than 1 percent end in death. Police often raid the homes of those suspected of having weapons.
The study found that gun-related deaths were five to six times higher in the Americas than in Europe or Australia and New Zealand and 95 times higher than in Asia.
Here are gun-related deaths per 100,000 people in the world's 36 richest countries in 1994: United States 14.24; Brazil 12.95; Mexico 12.69; Estonia 12.26; Argentina 8.93; Northern Ireland 6.63; Finland 6.46; Switzerland 5.31; France 5.15; Canada 4.31; Norway 3.82; Austria 3.70; Portugal 3.20; Israel 2.91; Belgium 2.90; Australia 2.65; Slovenia 2.60; Italy 2.44; New Zealand 2.38; Denmark 2.09; Sweden 1.92; Kuwait 1.84; Greece 1.29; Germany 1.24; Hungary 1.11; Republic of Ireland 0.97; Spain 0.78; Netherlands 0.70; Scotland 0.54; England and Wales 0.41; Taiwan 0.37; Singapore 0.21; Mauritius 0.19; Hong Kong 0.14; South Korea 0.12; Japan 0.05.

So you're actually ahead of Brazil and Mexico in gun-related death rates - way to go. The main problem seems to be brainwashed people such as yourself living in a culture saturated in violence where you're encouraged not to think too hard.

it's interesting how, despite all the statistics on death rates, accidents, homicides, suicides, easy continual access by criminals, etc, the male protagonists of gun ownership never seem to have a moral or ethical problem with it. i wonder why that is? is it the streak of sociopathy that runs through the average male, given voice in a violent US culture? how many women, 50% of the electorate, are all for easy access to guns if they are presented with real statistics, both domestically and internationally, rather than being browbeaten by their male partners and steadily indoctrinated by their own strange culture?

if i felt that gun ownership actually somehow made a better society, and there was no ethical problem with killing people or threatening to kill people for whatever reason, and that the gun death statistics were not as they are, then i suppose i would be for it. e.g. let's replace handguns with electric shock guns that are keyed to the palmprint of every owner, with annual sanity tests on each owner, and let's assume the owners never get drunk, or depressed, or suicidal, or angry, or jealous, or accidentally misfire. all that sounds highly achievable to me, what do you think?

doesn't the bible say 'thou shalt not kill'? (whatever that distinction between killing and murder is...)

unfortunately, most american politicians are too chickenshit to do anything about it. this is truly 'the tyranny of the majority'...

The problem with country-wide statistics is that meaningful data is "averaged away". In order to compare the US to say "Germany", then you need to do comparative adjustments. In fact, even Germany is too large for gun death data to be relevant, given the huge differences between differing regions and cities.

A good example is Chicago, which has (or had a few years ago) among the toughest handgun restriction laws in the US. The pro-control side was apt to jump on the rapidly shrinking gun-death stats in Chicago in the early-middle 90s as evidence of the success of gun control measures. However, this masked an overall trend of dropping violent crime per capita that occurred throughout that period. It also ignored the dynamic effects of restructuring that was happening simultaneously. Specifically, Chicago was demolishing the West-Side projects, relocating many of those people to the western burbs.

Later, when gun deaths started to rise again rapidly, the pro-gun side reversed the arguments. Again, conveniently ignoring other complicating factors.

The rational conclusion: the gun laws likely had some effect, however, it was small. Much smaller than perceived, reported, or spun by either camp.

Convicted murderers should be hung publicly in the center of town in the area they lived in as a teen ager.

I agree. Public hanging is an effective method. Death penalty should seek to maximize deterrence without inflicting excessive physical pain.

Hang them at noon and let them swing until noon the next day.

That is the idea.

I don’t have a passionate view about gun control. It’s just not something I feel strongly enough about to delve into statistics and argue the point. On a day to day basis I do not feel threatened by violence or particularly worry about being shot. I also know that age, gender and geographical location play a role in how likely I am to be a victim of gun violence.

Guns do not kill, people do. Only education can help us over the long term. On the other hand, the welfare (incentivization) system is probably making the situation worse every day.

I agree that people need help, but the idea is to make them productive again.

i agree, SQT - the whole culture and rates of high ownership, in purely pragmatic terms, mean that the US is too far gone to do much about it...

however, change would be possible over time if there was enough political and social will. similar to the anti-smoking lobby having effect over time, for similar reasons - if smoking wasn't lethal and raised health care costs, it would be tolerated more today. it seems some state govts are passing gun control laws, but there are unfortunately then leakage effects from other states where access to guns is still easy.

some of the problem would also be resistance from a lucrative gun-manufacturing industry, much like the tobacco lobby.

clearly america has grown up around a recreational shooting, gun-owning culture, for various historical reasons, including being a 'frontier society' for a time. it is unusual in the OECD in this regard. south africa under apartheid would perhaps be comparable in terms of need for self-protection.

it's understandable to be fairly indifferent if your own area is safe, and you can't back every cause, but it appears to be a national problem.

japan has cultural problems of its own - a highly chauvinistic society - and very militant and aggressive until recently - that goes back centuries. it is only pacification efforts since WWII that have changed them in that regard. but the chauvinism and various other quirks persist. i never said everywhere else was perfect...

japanese girls are raised to be very much under the thumb, and are not really expected to participate as economic or social equals in that society.

but that's really another cultural issue. once again, the world is not limited to the us and japan. there are different reasons for cultural norms in different societies - you would not be groped too much in Britain, for instance, or any of a host of other countries... perhaps in France... ; )

anyhow, which is better, getting groped or getting killed or maimed by gunshots? although i don't think the choice is a dichotomy between guns and being groped in this world, due to other cultural variables...

what do you think the total healthcare costs in the US economy due to gunshot wounds would be? including surgery, hospital time, rehabilitation, long-term disability, loss of quality of life, etc. either out of medicare/medicaid or health insurance funds...

my point is, we're not living in the 18th century as buckskin-wearing colonials in the backwoods any more with a low population, fighting wars of independence. the old threats are no longer present, and it is not necessary to invent new ones. there is a civic responsibility to 280 million citizens to try to maintain social cohesion and a decent, non-violent social settlement. that can be done through a New Deal arrangement, through cultural change, through confiscation of weapons, etc.

On the other hand, the welfare (incentivization) system is probably making the situation worse every day.

I would have thought good welfare would make the problem better - less incentive for the unemployed to rob and steal with menaces from people, for a start. at least, that's how it's worked out in every other OECD country that has a more benevolent welfare system than the US (which has a tougher system than most comparable countries already - it is always placed last in every list of welfare state features i have seen).

i really don't see how 'welfare' can be associated directly with the problem at all. rampant inequality, on the other hand, has been strongly associated with rising crime rates, as cited above.

remember 'welfare' means to 'fare well'.

what do you think the total healthcare costs in the US economy due to gunshot wounds would be? including surgery, hospital time, rehabilitation, long-term disability, loss of quality of life, etc. either out of medicare/medicaid or health insurance funds…

I would say the number is very high. On the other hand, what is the cost of running the correctional facilities? There is a problem when more money is spent on a inmate than a school child per year. That needs serious reform.

Now imagine a system in which prison-time is totally replaced with community service, caning, and hanging.

After a few gang-bangers get their necks stretched they will have trouble getting new recruits. (add this to you foot notes Sean)

I do think there is some deterence effect from capital punishment. But, unfortunatley, it's not with gang-bangers (at least the *real* gang-thugs). These guys don't generally expect to live to 30 and have already given up on life. Perhaps we should endeavor to figure out why that is while simultaneously punishing those we have now.

Similarly, the death penalty does not deter terrorists or other passionate psychotics. So long as we view most capital punishment circumstances for what they are: a solution to rid ourselves of undesirables, then I'm ok with it. Let's just be sure we get it right because it's not reversable. I lived in Illinios when our attorney general was putting guys on death row for political reasons. He's in jail for that now, but at least one guy is now dead due to withheld evidence, probably others that have yet to come to light.

I would have thought good welfare would make the problem better - less incentive for the unemployed to rob and steal with menaces from people, for a start. at least, that’s how it’s worked out in every other OECD country that has a more benevolent welfare system than the US

What went wrong then? Welfare also disincentivizes production, making a certain portion of the population more dependent on welfare in the future.

IMO, other countries have very different initial conditions that allow them welfare and relative stability at the same time, for now.

So long as we view most capital punishment circumstances for what they are: a solution to rid ourselves of undesirables, then I’m ok with it.

Yes. In addition to being a deterrence, capital punishment is also a way to dispose of "the undesirables".

Let’s just be sure we get it right because it’s not reversable.

Absolutely. The system should demand no less than moral certainty before a person is executed. That said, there is no such thing as absolute certainty. Innocent people may still be wrongfully killed. I guess we will just have to live with this fact. Bear in mind that innocent people die every day for various reasons. The possibility of a few wrongful executions is not a sufficient reason to oppose capital punishment.

Convicted murderers should be hung publicly in the center of town in the area they lived in as a teen ager.
I agree. Public hanging is an effective method. Death penalty should seek to maximize deterrence without inflicting excessive physical pain.
Hang them at noon and let them swing until noon the next day.
That is the idea.

That's right, that's the way to create the good society - go back to the Dark Ages. Good to see we've progressed a long way in moral evolution and thinking since then. I wonder why the death penalty has been banned in most OECD countries, and certainly not performed cruelly in the US any more. I would have thought that cruel murders of atonement would morally debase you to the same level as the person you were killing, and completely and hypocritically fails to set an example of good behaviour. I thought deeply spiritual people like bap33 were above base motives like revenge? or what is the other purpose of this thinking? and why is it that most people do not commit murders due to their upbringing, obviating the need for grisly public examples? apparently all the stuff in the gospels informing the judeo-christian legal system means naught... such as jesus forgiving the criminals on the cross - which is really rewarding them with a place in heaven, if you follow the logic through...

"Robert-François Damiens (1715-1757) was a Frenchman who attained notoriety by unsuccessfully attempting the assassination of Louis XV of France in 1757. He was the last person to be executed in France with the traditional and gruesome form of death penalty used for regicides.

Damiens was born in a village near Arras in 1715, and early enlisted in the army. After his discharge, he became a menial in the college of the Jesuits in Paris, and was dismissed from this as well as from other employments for misconduct, his conduct earning for him the name of Robert le Diable (Robert the Devil). During the disputes of Pope Clement XI with the parlement of Paris, Damiens' mind seems to have been excited by the ecclesiastical disorganization which followed the refusal of the clergy to grant the sacraments to the Jansenists and Convulsionnaires; and he appears to have thought that peace would be restored by the death of the king. He, however, asserted, perhaps with truth, that he only intended to frighten the king without wounding him severely.

On January 5, 1757, as the king was entering his carriage, Damiens rushed forward and stabbed him with a knife, inflicting only a slight wound. He made no attempt to escape, and was at once seized. He was then tortured so as to have him denounce his accomplices or those who had sent him, to no avail. He was condemned as a regicide by the Parlement of Paris, and sentenced to be torn in pieces by horses in the Place de Grève. He was first tortured with red-hot pincers; his hand, holding the knife used in the attempted murder, was burnt using sulphur; molten wax, lead, and boiling oil were poured into his wounds. Horses were then harnessed to his arms and legs for his dismemberment. Damiens' joints would not break; after some hours, representatives of the Parlement ordered the executioner and his aides to cut Damiens' joints. Damiens was then dismembered, to the applause of the crowd. His trunk, apparently still living, was then burnt at the stake.

After his death his house was razed to the ground, his brothers and sisters were ordered to change their names, and his father, wife, and daughter were banished from France."

Sigh, those were the days...

What went wrong then? Welfare also disincentivizes production, making a certain portion of the population more dependent on welfare in the future.

IMO, other countries have very different initial conditions that allow them welfare and relative stability at the same time, for now.

being shot and disabled for life by a desperate penniless thief would also disincentize production i would think. not to mention the costs of producing and selling all the guns out there, the economically unproductive costs of chasing down the criminal and bringing them to justice, etc. see, i can even keep the eco-rat bean-counters happy, with their pure economic arguments divorced from morality and broader social concerns...

what different initial conditions? america is the most affluent (and also the most unequal) country in the world - you just have a problem with decent redistribution of the wealth of the nation - i think it's called greed and disregard for the poor - and cultural fatalism and individualism - witness FEMA and New Orleans...

I believe hanging is a humane method of execution. It is still performed in Singapore. In fact, people were executed there for the possession of certain substances.

I thought deeply spiritual people like bap33 were above base motives like revenge?

It really is not about revenge. It is about deterrence and disposal.

what different initial conditions?

How about the amount of natural resources per capita? Most successful welfare countries have abundant natural resources like fishery, foresty, oil, and precious metals and they do not have large populations.