Surgeon General Nominee Decidedly Anit-Gun

[Sam1911]

...and you can buy a gun in a private sale while not being allowed possession but there are legal repercussions, so what exactly is your point? Your right is intact, just comes with legal repercussions, correct?

No, that would be a violation of the law.

I was speaking of rights, exercised without breaking the law. You may yell fire in the theater, especially if there IS a fire in the theater and you need people to get out.

However, passing laws that prohibit people from being allowed to even have a weapon or a certain kind of weapon does indeed violate their rights, separate from any function of having broken the law or harmed someone.

 

[Ed N.]

1) Public health and safety considerations curb your 1A right to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater.

This old canard is becoming rather tiresome, but I'll address it anyway.

It's only a problem to yell "FIRE!" in a theatre if there's no fire. If there is, yelling may help sound the alarm and get people out and summon help.

Similarly, shooting someone without a need for self-defense is already illegal, but using a gun to stop a violent crime may save lives.

Restricting the right to possess a firearm would be akin to gagging all theatre goers to deprive them of the ability to yell "FIRE!" based on the presumtion that they might do so improperly.

IOW, the old "shouting FIRE" argument is silly.

BTW, I hope you're aware that violence, including so-called "gun violence" has been decreasing in the US even as gun ownership has been increasing. One could therefore make the argument that the "cure" to the "health problem of gun violence" is to ensure that more people have guns.

Alcoholism is another serious health problem. Do we study it by concerning ourselves with the easy availability of liquor? Do we suggest psych evaluations and background checks before we allow someone to purchase a bottle of Jack Daniels? Do we seek legislation to limit the number of beers in a case?

 

[Sam1911]

Do we study it by concerning ourselves with the easy availability of liquor? Do we suggest psych evaluations and background checks before we allow someone to purchase a bottle of Jack Daniels? Do we seek legislation to limit the number of beers in a case?

Prohibition tends to work out ever so well...

 

[DT Guy]

3) I don't claim to have an answer but I'd trust that trained psych experts and ethics commissions (and yes, our legislative bodies, colorful as they are) to come up with a workable solution that would stand up to our court system scrutiny.

Unless I flat out wasted six years of college studying psychology, I can completely, absolutely state that it is not possible to do so.

And you trust our legislature to achieve this miracle of pure science....how? They have an agenda, just like you do.

As I suspected, just an anti looking to troll; if I wanted to have these sorts of conversations, I'd go to Democratic Underground, or talk to my beagle.

Larry

 

[ugaarguy]

Climbskirun, you wanted data. All the data you want is available from the FBI in the form of their Uniform Crime Reports.

However, I'll give you an article which was published by the very left leaning Slate magazine last year after the post Sandy Hook, Obama mandated, CDC report on so-called "gun violence" was released. Slate's talking points are:

1. The United States has an indisputable gun violence problem. According to the report, “the U.S. rate of firearm-related homicide is higher than that of any other industrialized country: 19.5 times higher than the rates in other high-income countries.”

However, this ignores that some other developed countries have higher overall homicide rates. It also ignores that the overall violent crime rates are higher in many other countries, including the UK.

2. Most indices of crime and gun violence are getting better, not worse. “Overall crime rates have declined in the past decade, and violent crimes, including homicides specifically, have declined in the past 5 years,” the report notes. “Between 2005 and 2010, the percentage of firearm-related violent victimizations remained generally stable.” Meanwhile, “firearm-related death rates for youth ages 15 to 19 declined from 1994 to 2009.” Accidents are down, too: “Unintentional firearm-related deaths have steadily declined during the past century. The number of unintentional deaths due to firearm-related incidents accounted for less than 1 percent of all unintentional fatalities in 2010.”

The FBI UCR trends show that all violent crime, including murders, and including all violent crimes, have been steadily and significantly decreasing for at least the past decade. How do you explain this drastic decrease in violent crime, and drastic decrease in violent crimes committed with guns despite the fact that gun laws have become far more lenient in most states over the past decade? How do you explain that cities like Chicago have the highest murder rates in the US, and the highest rates of crimes committed with firearms despite having the most restrictive state and local gun laws in the US?

#3. Pretty much irrelevant.

#4. We'll skip this one for a moment because it ties in with #7.

5. Mass shootings aren’t the problem. “The number of public mass shootings of the type that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School accounted for a very small fraction of all firearm-related deaths,” says the report. “Since 1983 there have been 78 events in which 4 or more individuals were killed by a single perpetrator in 1 day in the United States, resulting in 547 victims and 476 injured persons.” Compare that with the 335,000 gun deaths between 2000 and 2010 alone.

That's pretty straight forward. Mass murders make the news because they're exceedingly uncommon. They're much like plane crashes making the news because plane crashes are exceedingly uncommon, and they likewise make up a very tiny percentage of transportation related deaths in the US each year.

6. Gun suicide is a bigger killer than gun homicide. From 2000 to 2010, “firearm-related suicides significantly outnumbered homicides for all age groups, annually accounting for 61 percent of the more than 335,600 people who died from firearm-related violence in the United States,” says the report. Firearm sales are often a warning: Two studies found that “a small but significant fraction of gun suicides are committed within days to weeks after the purchase of a handgun, and both also indicate that gun purchasers have an elevated risk of suicide for many years after the purchase of the gun.”

That's a fun little figure to throw out, but it's meaningless without comparison to the overall suicide rates in other countries. For example, Japan has the lowest rate of homicides committed by firearm of any developed country, and they have one of the lowest rates of suicides committed by firearm of any developed country. However, Japan has one of the highest rates of suicides by all means of any developed country. They have a far higher overall suicide rate than does the US.

Back to #4:

4. Handguns are the problem. Despite being outnumbered by long guns, “Handguns are used in more than 87 percent of violent crimes,” the report notes. In 2011, “handguns comprised 72.5 percent of the firearms used in murder and non-negligent manslaughter incidents.” Why do criminals prefer handguns? One reason, according to surveys of felons, is that they’re “easily concealable.”

Actually, handguns are the solution:

7. Guns are used for self-defense often and effectively. “Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year … in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008,” says the report. The three million figure is probably high, “based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys.” But a much lower estimate of 108,000 also seems fishy, “because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use.” Furthermore, “Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was 'used' by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.” (emphasis mine)

So, even Slate concedes that firearms are the most effective way of defending one self from a violent crime. Handguns are the firearms most likely to be used in self defense, because they're easy to carry. So, we should actually be making it easier for law abiding citizens to legally carry handguns.

8. Carrying guns for self-defense is an arms race. The prevalence of firearm violence near “drug markets … could be a consequence of drug dealers carrying guns for self-defense against thieves or other adversaries who are likely to be armed,” says the report. In these communities, “individuals not involved in the drug markets have similar incentives for possessing guns.” According to a Pew Foundation report, “the vast majority of gun owners say that having a gun makes them feel safer. And far more today than in 1999 cite protection—rather than hunting or other activities—as the major reason for why they own guns.”

"Arms race" is some nice inflammatory language. The guns in drug dealing areas aren't the problem. It's the drug dealing criminals, who also happen to be illegally carrying firearms, that are the problem. See the distinction?

9. Denying guns to people under restraining orders saves lives. “Two-thirds of homicides of ex- and current spouses were committed [with] firearms,” the report observes. “In locations where individuals under restraining orders to stay away from current or ex-partners are prohibited from access to firearms, female partner homicide is reduced by 7 percent.”

That's a nice conclusion to draw if you have an anti-gun agenda. However, what this statistic really shows is that barring those under retraining orders from having guns does little to help. What it really shows us that if you take away one tool a truly violent and determined person with simply use the next most effective tool to commit the violent assault or murder.

10. It isn’t true that most gun acquisitions by criminals can be blamed on a few bad dealers. The report concedes that in 1998, “1,020 of 83,272 federally licensed retailers (1.2 percent) accounted for 57.4 percent of all guns traced by the ATF.” However, “Gun sales are also relatively concentrated; approximately 15 percent of retailers request 80 percent of background checks on gun buyers conducted by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.” Researchers have found that “the share of crime gun traces attributed to these few dealers only slightly exceeded their share of handgun sales, which are almost equally concentrated among a few dealers.” Volume, not laxity, drives the number of ill-fated sales.

This is actually surprisingly neutral. Of course the dealers that sell the most guns will have the most by volume that eventually end up in the hands of criminals, but that the percentage is equal to the already low national average of such instances.

 

[David E]

I don't give a crap about (Feinstein) either....

Except that you do.

You said:

but the reality is that if *we* don't come up with a workable solution, likes of Sen Feinstein will.

So clearly you think that WE must find a middle ground that Fineswine and her ilk can live with, else they will find one that we cannot.

That's naive, wishful thinking on your part and needs to be pointed out. They do not care one big about our gunrights. What makes you think they do?

That you take such umbrage at me and others pointing out real historical gun control facts and counter them with more unworkable gun control rubbish verifies you're an antigun troll.

I dismiss thee.

 

[RetiredUSNChief]

All I can find is that he wants to look at gun violence as a public health issue, which is something I'm not entirely opposed to. I hope we can all agree that gun violence is bad, and taking a scientific approach to studying it can only produce good result as we're bound to better understand why it happens. Hopefully we can move away from stupid, irrational measures like magazine capacity restrictions or "assault" weapons ban, and towards measures that would actually be effective while not infringing on our constitutional rights.

Frankly, NRA has been counterproductive in this respect as they've lobbied heavily against funding more studies into true causes of gun violence. I'm not sure what exactly they're trying to achieve here.

I'm also unclear as to what a Surgeon General can possibly do to restrict RsKBA.

I haven't had time to go through everything here, but I'll chime in a little on this one. Ignore me if this has already been addressed.

The issue with funding studies into this, where it concerns policies that can be used to influence or create new gun laws, is that the government is funding these studies. The government has no business funding studies into things which can be used to restrict the right to keep and bear arms.

As to "gun violence"...gun violence is nothing more than violence plus guns. If there are any studies which need to be done, they should be done on causes of VIOLENCE, period. This is how we "move away from stupid, irrational measures" with respect to gun dontrol laws...we focus the government on the actual PROBLEMS and not the TOOLS that any given problem child in society may use.

 

[GEM]

The recent meta-analyses of violence prediction show that no current general measure exists that can predict violence. The only predictor is a history of past violence. Any mass screening measure would produce a tremendous wave of false positive. Clinical interviews have been shown to be useless except in an extremely small set of highly disturbed individuals.

Any funding of research would go through a paradigmatic bias that would only fund negatively oriented research. A positive finding would have a very hard time being published in the current peer reviewed journals.

If some measure of gun control was not found to work - the conclusion would be that the measure would not be strict enough.

I personally heard Koper and Roth report how the AWB did NOTHING on any known crime indices. Our conclusion - it was stupid. Their conclusion and that of the DOJ discussant was the ban wasn't strict enough.

We do know the ban was a joke. It did not confiscate existing weapons and allowed weapons of equal efficacy still to be made (so I don't have a bayonet lug). Thus, it was suggested (and proposed) that total bans of semi rifles and confiscation of existing types should be done.

That's what you would get from federally funded research (probably under any GOP or Democratic administration). The scientific community is clearly antifirerams at the high end decision makers.

 

[Jeff White]

We can't solve the problem of violence until we stop trying to use the problem to further someone's political agenda.

There is no such thing as gun violence, knife violence, blunt object violence or any other kind of violence you can think of. There is only violence. Guns. knives, axes, clubs....they are all inanimate objects and cannot hurt anyone.

There are many causes of violence, but the tools used are never the cause. The cause is always a person who decides to harm another person.

People who are prone to violence and societies that condone the use of violence (and yes there are many sub-societies here in the US that accept violence as a way to solve problems) will be violent if they don't have access to a gun, knife, club axe or anything else but their bare hands.

Our tradition of private ownership of firearms has no relationship to the level of violence in this country and removal of them from society (which is not physically possible) would not bring our violence level down to that of the European or Japanese society.

No one wants to talk about the measures that would be necessary to lower the level of violence among certain subsets of the American population because it would mean making some admissions about our society that would not be politically correct and would go against the doctrine of certain political beliefs that aren't on topic here at THR.

I spent 25 years of my life dealing with criminals from being a patrol officer to running the jail. There are cultural and economic factors that cause our rate of violent crime to be high. Those cultural things are not racial. There are just as many violent crimes in neighborhoods populated mostly by whites as there are in black and Hispanic neighborhoods. The common denominator is lack of a stable family structure, little or no economic opportunity and drugs (especially alcohol). You don't see so much violent crime in places where most of the residents have a strong family structure, economic opportunity (not a government program) and no need to be a drunk or an addict to deal with the lack of the other things. When violence does occur in those neighborhoods it's usually alcohol or drug related.

Until we are ready to deal with those problems we won't solve the violence problem.

 

[RetiredUSNChief]

OK, I've finally had the time to catch up on things in this string. And, quite honestly, I'm not impressed at all. Not nearly so much as I was hoping to be, given the information that the original post could have elicited for me to research.

Despite claims, what I'm seeing here in nearly every instance of posting by the OP is classic anti-gun rhetoric. Whether the OP truely believes what he says about being "pro-gun" or not, I'll leave to the OP. But for the rest of us, as with all other factors in life, what we have to go by is what a person actually says and does.

I'm going to bow out of this, but before I do, I'd like to address this particular fallicy:

1) Public health and safety considerations curb your 1A right to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater.

The First Amendment does not come into play with this at all. The First Amendment, and all the other amendments as well as the body of the Constitution, is all about placing limitations on what the GOVERNMENT can do with respect to the citizens, for each particular topic.


With respect to the First Amendment, let's start with what it says:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

This has absolutely NOTHING to do with limiting what any citizen may say, much less yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theater, as the OP directly infers. It has EVERYTHING to do limiting what the GOVERNMENT may do with respect to suppression of speech and press.

It's a limit on the GOVERNMENT, not the CITIZENS. It's there to protect the PEOPLE from the GOVERNMENT, not the other way around; nor is it there to protect the citizens from other citizens.


This is a classic example of the meaningless tripe that is most often used by those who promote gun control. It is manipulative, it is deceiving (i.e. "lying"), and it is a fallacious ad hominem.


On that note, I bid the all a good day. Or night.

 

[Walkalong]

but the reality is that if *we* don't come up with a workable solution, likes of Sen Feinstein will.

That isn't a fact, and is a ruse antis use to try to scare gun owners into settling for more infringements on their rights, or as the antis like to do, chip chip away at the stone.

Gun violence results in over 11,000+ dead Americans each year.

Violence results in many more deaths than that. All of the violence is committed by people, mostly criminals. Do you care not for those deaths where people were pushed off of roofs, but only those where the criminal chose to use a gun?

There simply is no such thing as gun violence. That phrase is a favored weapon the hard core antis use to try to get anti gun support. They hate guns and they hate free men with guns even worse.

You can either understand these things and learn to fight back for your gun rights, or continue to assist, even if only unwittingly, the antis.

 

[climbskirun]

Not sure why I expected a rational discussion on this subject. Lots of folks seem to be in denial of what's going on outside the NRA echo chamber, and when a dissenting voice is introduced it's quickly shouted down with sloganeering, pithy quotes, strawmen, condescension, name calling, etc. Won't make that mistake again, I promise you that much.

Oh, and for those who laughably claim I'm anti-gun:

 

[zxcvbob]

I have no idea what the point of your last pic is supposed to be.

 

[ugaarguy]

Not sure why I expected a rational discussion on this subject. Lots of folks seem to be in denial of what's going on outside the NRA echo chamber, and when a dissenting voice is introduced it's quickly shouted down with sloganeering, pithy quotes, strawmen, condescension, name calling, etc. Won't make that mistake again, I promise you that much.

No one has called you names, and we don't tolerate that here. How have we been irrational? I've personally provided you with links to the data you requested.

 

[Fred Fuller]

At a gathering memorializing victims of "gun violence" in New Hampshire last summer, sponsored by the organization Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a list of names of people "killed by guns" was read aloud to the assembled crowd.

One of those names was Tamerlan Tsarnaev.*

If you don't recognize the name, he was one of the two brothers suspected of the Boston Marathon bombing, and was killed (at least in part) by police gunfire.

Among those thousands and thousands of Americans who died from "gun violence," how many others were killed in the line of duty by law enforcement officers? How many were killed in legal self defense by law abiding gun owners? How many were suicides?

*http://news.msn.com/us/gun-control-group-sorry-for-listing-boston-bomber-as-victim

 

[Spats McGee]

climbskirun, the fact that someone disagrees with your post doesn't necessarily mean that they're irrational, either.

 

[climbskirun]

No one has called you names, and we don't tolerate that here. How have we been irrational? I've personally provided you with links to the data you requested.

Calling me "anti" in this context is probably the worst slur, given what that represents to folks here. Save for a few exceptions (Sam comes to mind, perhaps you), all I got is vitriol.

 

[Arkansas Paul]

The fact that you own two firearms doesn't prove crap as to whether you're anti gun.
Feinstein has a concealed carry permit.
Michael Moore's bodyguard was arrested with an illegal gun in an airport.

You having guns actually makes it worse. You think you have the right to them, but others must prove their acceptable mental state before they should be allowed to do so.

I think I'm going to bow out now and stop feeding the troll.

 

[Spats McGee]

climbskirun, over the past year and a half or so, we've had quite a few anti-gun trolls come through here. Every one of them has tried to "educate" us on the "errors" of our ways. Every one has tried to explain to us how a little more "commonsense regulation" would benefit us all. Every one made posts that sounded an awful lot like yours. They've used the same language ("gun violence"), made the same proposals ("let's screen everyone before they can buy a gun"), and gotten bent of shape when we didn't jump on the bandwagon. It really shouldn't be that surprising that folks around here believe that you support gun control.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

Frankly, NRA has been counterproductive in this respect as they've lobbied heavily against funding more studies into true causes of gun violence. I'm not sure what exactly they're trying to achieve here.

In the 1990s there was a lot of talk about treating Gun Violence as a disease, treating the gun as the germ to be eliminated (remove the cause, cure the disease--Christoffel), even to the point of CDC advocates discussing the need to do research to prove that pre-assumed conclusion in order to lobby Congress for more gun control. That is not how research is supposed to be done.

There is also a federal law prohibiting the use of federal research funds (from the executive branch) to lobby Congress on specific legislation. The NRA called attention to that in the 1990s, and that is what has ended using research funds for junk science to prove an apriori assumption.

Honestly, tens of millions of citizens own guns and do not perpetrate gun violence. Gun violence therefore is more like an immune system failure, not at all like a virulent pathogen causing disease in a healthy individual.

But the claim that the NRA has blocked research into gun violence is BS. The NRA has blocked using federal research funds to lobby Congress. That has not prevented a large body of pure research into violence.

CDC, Funding Opportunity Announcements, Additional Requirements
http://www.cdc.gov/od/pgo/funding/grants/additional_req.shtm#ar13

AR-13: Prohibition on Use of CDC Funds for Certain Gun Control Activities

The Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act specifies that: "None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control."

Anti-Lobbying Act requirements prohibit lobbying Congress with appropriated Federal monies. Specifically, this Act prohibits the use of Federal funds for direct or indirect communications intended or designed to influence a member of Congress with regard to specific Federal legislation. This prohibition includes the funding and assistance of public grassroots campaigns intended or designed to influence members of Congress with regard to specific legislation or appropriation by Congress.

In addition to the restrictions in the Anti-Lobbying Act, CDC interprets the language in the CDC's Appropriations Act to mean that CDC's funds may not be spent on political action or other activities designed to affect the passage of specific Federal, State, or local legislation intended to restrict or control the purchase or use of firearms.

AR-12: Lobbying Restrictions (June 2012)

Applicants should be aware that award recipients are prohibited from using CDC/HHS funds to engage in any lobbying activity. Specifically, no part of the federal award shall be used to pay the salary or expenses of any grant recipient, subrecipient, or agent acting for such recipient or subrecipient, related to any activity designed to influence the enactment of legislation, appropriations, regulation, administrative action, or Executive order proposed or pending before the Congress or any state government, state legislature or local legislature or legislative body.

Restrictions on lobbying activities described above also specifically apply to lobbying related to any proposed, pending, or future Federal, state, or local tax increase, or any proposed, pending, or future requirement or restriction on any legal consumer product, including its sale or marketing, including but not limited to the advocacy or promotion of gun control.

This prohibition includes grass roots lobbying efforts by award recipients that are directed at inducing members of the public to contact their elected representatives to urge support of, or opposition to, proposed or pending legislation, appropriations, regulations, administrative actions, or Executive Orders (hereinafter referred to collectively as “legislation and other orders”). Further prohibited grass roots lobbying communications by award recipients using federal funds could also encompass any effort to influence legislation through an attempt to affect the opinions of the general public or any segment of the population if the communications refer to specific legislation and/or other orders, directly express a view on such legislation or other orders, and encourage the audience to take action with respect to the matter.

In accordance with applicable law, direct lobbying communications by award recipients are also prohibited. Direct lobbying includes any attempt to influence legislative or other similar deliberations at all levels of government through communications that directly express a view on proposed or pending legislation and other orders and which are directed to members, staff, or other employees of a legislative body or to government officials or employees who participate in the formulation of legislation or other orders.

Lobbying prohibitions also extend to include CDC/HHS grants and cooperative agreements that, in whole or in part, involve conferences. Federal funds cannot be used directly or indirectly to encourage participants in such conferences to impermissibly lobby.

However, these prohibitions are not intended to prohibit all interaction with the legislative or executive branches of governments, or to prohibit educational efforts pertaining to public health that are within the scope of the CDC award. For state, local, and other governmental grantees, certain activities falling within the normal and recognized executive-legislative relationships or participation by an agency or officer of a state, local, or tribal government in policymaking and administrative processes within the executive branch of that government are permissible. There are circumstances for such grantees, in the course of such a normal and recognized executive-legislative relationship, when it is permissible to provide information to the legislative branch in order to foster implementation of prevention strategies to promote public health. However, such communications cannot directly urge the decision makers to act with respect to specific legislation or expressly solicit members of the public to contact the decision makers to urge such action.

Many non-profit grantees, in order to retain their tax-exempt status, have long operated under settled definitions of “lobbying” and “influencing legislation.” These definitions are a useful benchmark for all non-government grantees, regardless of tax status. Under these definitions, grantees are permitted to (1) prepare and disseminate certain nonpartisan analysis, study, or research reports; (2) engage in examinations and discussions of broad social, economic, and similar problems in reports and at conferences; and (3) provide technical advice or assistance upon a written request by a legislative body or committee.

Award recipients should also note that using CDC/HHS funds to develop and/or disseminate materials that exhibit all three of the following characteristics are prohibited: (1) refer to specific legislation or other order; (2) reflect a point of view on that legislation or other order; and (3) contain an overt call to action.

It remains permissible for CDC/HHS grantees to use CDC funds to engage in activities to enhance prevention; collect and analyze data; publish and disseminate results of research and surveillance data; implement prevention strategies; conduct community outreach services; foster coalition building and consensus on public health initiatives; provide leadership and training, and foster safe and healthful environments.

Note also that under the provisions of 31 U.S.C. Section 1352, recipients (and their sub-tier contractors and/or funded parties) are prohibited from using appropriated Federal funds to lobby in connection with the award, extension, continuation, renewal, amendment, or modification of the funding mechanism under which monetary assistance was received. In accordance with applicable regulations and law, certain covered entities must give assurances that they will not engage in prohibited activities.

CDC cautions recipients of CDC funds to be careful not to give the appearance that CDC funds are being used to carry out activities in a manner that is prohibited under Federal law. Recipients of CDC funds should give close attention to isolating and separating the appropriate use of CDC funds from non-CDC funds.

Use of federal funds inconsistent with these lobbying restrictions could result in disallowance of the cost of the activity or action found not to be in compliance as well as potentially other enforcement actions as outlined in applicable grants regulations.

 

[Ed N.]

...it's quickly shouted down with sloganeering, pithy quotes, strawmen, condescension, name calling, etc.

If you're an honest man, you'll admit that I did none of those things.

What I did do was to politely disagree with you, point out a flaw or two in your position, and ask you a few questions, all of which you've ignored.

Other posters have been similarly polite and have provided strong evidence against your arguments. Rather than discuss the matter, now you're crying "You guys are too mean! You're not being nice to me! MOMMY!"

Bah!

You're either unaware of, or unwilling to acknowledge, the mountain of research that's already been done regarding firearms over many years. The only possible reason anyone could insist we must do even more research is because he doesn't like the results and conclusions of the prior research.

This matter has been settled, academically by many studies from Lott to Kleck and others (even the FBI), and judicially by the US Supreme Court. I see absolutely zero need to waste taxpayer dollars on studying "gun violence."

 

[Carl N. Brown]

1) Public health and safety considerations curb your 1A right to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater.

In that famous statement often misquoted, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. compared criticizing the draft in WWI to falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic, to justify government censorship of free speech during wartime. The analogy has nothing to do with "Public health and safety considerations" but everything to do with authoritarian government finding excuses to gut the Bill of Rights when it is convenient to the powers that be.

I think it ranks with his infamous statement in support of the Virginia Sterilization Act (three generations of imbeciles is enough) to justify sterilizing a woman, her mother and her daughter, in the case of Carrie Buck falsely committed to a mental institution as a promiscuous idiot in the coverup of a rape by the relative of her foster parents.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

No one needs a weapon used by soldiers...

The National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice to train citizens eligible for military service provided surplus military weapons as used by soldiers. NBPRP was set up about the time (1903) that the state militias were federalized as the National Guard creating a difference between National Guard, state militias, state guards, and the "unorganized militia" the rest of us capable of serving in some way in time of national emergency.

That still is carried on in the Civilian Marksmanship Program CMP. The local gun club affiliated with the CMP also holds Modern and Vintage Military Matches to encourage interest in miltary arms and history among participants and competitors of all ages. The CMP programs offer more range time and more varied gun handling than I got in Basic Training in 1966. And a weapon used by soldiers is required.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

There is some older research out there by a criminologist who hated guns,
Prof. Marvin E. Wolfgang:

I am as strong a gun-control advocate as can be found among
the criminologists in this country. If I were Mustapha Mond of
Brave New World, I would eliminate all guns from the civilian
population and maybe even from the police. I hate guns--ugly,
nasty instruments designed to kill people.

BUT he pointed out that violence is more a matter of motive and opportunity than specific means.

Marvin E. Wolfgang, Patterns in Criminal Homicide, U. of Pa. Press, 1958.
A study of 588 murders that occurred from 1948 to 1952 including
background and relationship of murderer and victim, and circumstances
of the murder:

Several students of homicide have tried to show that the high
number of, or easy access to, firearms in this country is
causally related to our relatively high homicide rate. Such a
conclusion cannot be drawn from the Philadelphia data. Material
subsequently reported in the present study regarding the place
were the homicide occurred, relationship between victim and
offender, motives and other factors suggest that many situations,
events and personalities that converge in particular ways and
that result in homicide do not depend primarily on the presence
or absence of firearms....

More than the availability of a shooting weapon is involved in
homicide. Pistols and revolvers are not difficult to purchase,
legally or illegally, in Philadelphia. Police interrogation of
defendants reveals that most frequently, these weapons are bought
from friends or acquaintances for such nominal sums as ten or
twenty dollars. A penknife or a butcher knife, of course, is much
cheaper and more easily obtained. Ready access to knives and
little reluctance to engage in physical combat without weapons,
or to fight it out, are as important as the availability of some
sort of gun. The type of weapon used appears to be, in part, the
culmination of assault intentions or events and is only
superficially related to causality.

To measure quanitatively the effect of the presence of firearms
on the homicide rate would require knowing the number and type
of homicides that would not have occurred had not the offender --
or in some cases, the victim -- possessed a gun. Research would
be required to determine the number of shootings which would have
been stabbings, beatings or some other method of inflicting death
had no gun been available. It is the contention of this observer
that few homicides due to shooting could be avoided merely if a
firearm were not immediately present, and that the offender would
select some other weapon to achieve the same destructive goal.
Probably only in those cases where a felon kills a police officer,
or vice versa, would the homicide be avoided in the absence of
a firearm.

 

[Pizzapinochle]

At a gathering memorializing victims of "gun violence" in New Hampshire last summer, sponsored by the organization Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a list of names of people "killed by guns" was read aloud to the assembled crowd.

One of those names was Tamerlan Tsarnaev.*

If you don't recognize the name, he was one of the two brothers suspected of the Boston Marathon bombing, and was killed (at least in part) by police gunfire.

Among those thousands and thousands of Americans who died from "gun violence," how many others were killed in the line of duty by law enforcement officers? How many were killed in legal self defense by law abiding gun owners? How many were suicides?

*http://news.msn.com/us/gun-control-group-sorry-for-listing-boston-bomber-as-victim

somewhere between 300-400 firearm deaths a year are ruled justifiable homicides. Out of 30,000+ deaths.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/uc....-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-14

What was your point?