"Actually, guns do kill people": Right-to-carry laws increase the rate of violent crime.

[sharedvalues]

The Nation

Link to tweet

[guillaumeb]

1. But the NRA contributes a lot of money to preserve the status quo.

And mass shooting follows mass shooting.

[sharedvalues]

2. Yes. Plus gun identity politics for votes

Money to the NRA is important— gun CEOs donate to the NRA to increase gun sales.

But the gun-issue voters are if anything more important. Republicans have figured out how to use gun identity politics to get votes for billionaires’ tax cuts.
This is why Fox and Limbaugh and Daily Caller talk about guns so much.


Ultimately, Republican billionaires get Americans killed for two reasons: to enrich gun CEOs and to get votes for billionaires’ tax cuts.

[guillaumeb]

3. My view on one factor:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/126213428

Weapons provide the illusion of safety.

Thus we have legalized bribery, called free speech, and the illusion of safety.

[mapol]

14. Very articulately put, guilliaumeb!

Your point is absolutely and totally spot-on, guilliaumeb! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

[guillaumeb]

17. Welcome to DU, and thank you.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

4. The GOP keeps preventing the CDC from studying gun violence as an epidemic.

If there are no facts, they can tell whatever fairy tales they want about mass shootings: it's mental health, it's video games, it's single moms, it's lack of prayer in school, it's the presence of a pool table, right here in River City:

Use any reason you can make up about mass shootings, just don't use the g-word.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

8. Not exactly

The Dickey Amendment is a provision first inserted as a rider into the 1996 United States federal government omnibus spending bill which mandated that "none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may be used to advocate or promote gun control." In the same spending bill, Congress earmarked $2.6 million from the CDC's budget, the exact amount that had previously been allocated to the agency for firearms research the previous year, for traumatic brain injury-related research.

In essence, congress directed that "advocacy" is not "study". Since then, the there have been to blocks, either of which could enable further research. One is that congress has failed to designate any CDC funding specifically for gun violence research and no one in the CDC's leadership has been unwilling to appropriate money from their general operating budget to fund that research.

The solutions are-
A: Republicans are now outnumbered in the House. Take back the Senate next year. Pass funding specifically for gun violence research by CDC.
B: Push 45 out and elect someone who will install CDC leadership with enough courage do go off the reservation and make a start by establishing a staffing committee for this research aimed at preventing anything that even smells like bias.

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/01/16/presidential-memorandum-engaging-public-health-research-causes-and-preve
Therefore, by the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby direct the following:
----
Section 1. Research. The Secretary of Health and Human Services (Secretary), through the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other scientific agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services, shall conduct or sponsor research into the causes of gun violence and the ways to prevent it. The Secretary shall begin by identifying the most pressing research questions with the greatest potential public health impact, and by assessing existing public health interventions being implemented across the Nation to prevent gun violence.
Sec. 2. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this memorandum shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This memorandum shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
Sec. 3. Publication. You are hereby authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.

Despite this direction:

Though President Obama formally directed the CDC to "the causes of gun violence and the ways to prevent it" shortly after the Newtown mass-murder in 2012, the chilling effect had already taken hold, and the CDC has consistently declined to allocate money to study the issue.
In fact, to this day, CDC policy states the agency "interprets" the language as a prohibition on using CDC funds to research gun issues that would be used in legislative arguments "intended to restrict or control the purchase or use of firearms." https://abcnews.go.com/US/federal-government-study-gun-violence/story?id=50300379

And some other news:

https://www.nbcnews.com/healthmain/obamas-unlocking-federal-funding-ban-gun-research-yields-little-upshot-2D11733547
In ending the federal-funding blockade in January, the White House issued an accompanying statement in which the president directed the "CDC and other research agencies to conduct research into the causes and prevention of gun violence."

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

9. CDC researchers aren't holding their breaths until money appears for the studies.

from The Verge:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now have the government’s permission to resume gun violence research, in writing: the massive omnibus spending bill that President Donald Trump signed today (Mar 23, 2018) clarifies that a 22-year-old ban on using federal funds to advocate or promote gun control doesn’t actually ban research.

While the bill is a step in the right direction, researchers will only believe that the landscape of gun violence research is actually changing when they see money for it in the CDC’s budget. “It’s not bad news — it’s good news,” says Jeffrey Swanson, a professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University. “But I’m skeptical that it’s going to really turn things around without some money being made available.”
...
The omnibus bill that the president signed today could help thaw long-frozen investigations into the public health risks posed by firearms. But John Donohue III, a law professor at Stanford University, can think of two reasons to be wary of the change. One possibility might be that “if the CDC goes anywhere near this, they’ll get their funding cut back by Congress — which could hurt,” he says. Plus, Donohue says, “This could be a ploy to funnel money to some of the fringe researchers whose goal is to promote gun rights.”
" “There are bound to be political risks.”"

So the CDC might be cautious about venturing back into such a politically fraught arena, says Philip Cook, professor emeritus of public policy at Duke University. “There are bound to be political risks,” Cook told The Verge in an email. For example, if CDC-funded research were used to support calls for gun control, “there will be hell to pay with the NRA [the National Rifle Association] and their many friends in Congress,” Cook says. “So my guess is that we will not see such funding any time soon.”

-more-

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

11. As I quoted:

In fact, to this day, CDC policy states the agency "interprets" the language as a prohibition on using CDC funds to research gun issues that would be used in legislative arguments "intended to restrict or control the purchase or use of firearms."

You leave a researcher some data but you can't make them analyze.

[mapol]

16. How ridiculous can people be?!?

If there are no facts, they can tell whatever fairy tales they want about mass shootings: it's mental health, it's video games, it's single moms, it's lack of prayer in school, it's the presence of a pool table, right here in River City:

Use any reason you can make up about mass shootings, just don't use the g-word.

Sure, sure! Just how ludicrous can something be?

[RockRaven]

5. Data/evidence isn't going to convince enough people when it is an identity issue akin to

religion. And gun ownership is one of those religious-like identifiers, for many people anyhow. The cognitive dissonance is strong when it comes to self-identification characteristics of that sort.

[sharedvalues]

6. We just have to convince some. Data is one way.

We must take many approaches. Do them all at once. Including the data approach.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. Isn't that just so strange?

I mean, who could possibly imagine that guns really do kill people?

[mapol]

10. What's also rather unbelievable is that a lot of people don't realize the 2nd Amendment is void.

The 2nd Amendment of the United States Constitution is outdated--and irrelevant these days. The 2nd Amendment existed prior to freeing the slaves, and had the purpose of controlling slaves who rebelled in any way whatsoever. It's totally unfit for the times, if one gets the drift.

[hack89]

12. Don't they teach civics anymore? Nt

[yagotme]

13. Therefore, we repeal the 2d,

and the southern states can get their slaves back? After all, they won't be able to rebel, per your post.

The 2nd Amendment existed prior to freeing the slaves, and had the purpose of controlling slaves who rebelled in any way whatsoever. It's totally unfit for the times, if one gets the drift.

And, if we're talking about outdated rights, that pesky 4th and 5th amendment clauses probably need a good looking at, too. After all, if you ban guns, how are you going to round them up? Those amendments just get in the way. And if anyone argues, just toss the 1st on the trash heap, too. Void. Really. Show me the amendment that voids the 2d. That's how you do it, you know this, right???

[mapol]

15. Banning assault weapons is a good start, though obviously not an end in itself.

Unlike assault weapons, knives, hammers and other guns can't kill a whole mass of people quickly. I'll also add, yagotme, that, like many, if not most NRA members, you're spouting off non-sequiturs that are totally off the subject, and have nothing to do with what's being discussed here. I stand by my word that the 2nd Amendment is outdated, and of no use. Plenty of slaves rebelled by fleeing. Many were caught, dragged back to slavery and branded as Runaways, true, but then many slaves also managed to make the travel north to freedom without being caught, although they certainly had to be careful.

It's also not true that the slaves in the Southern States did not rebel after they were caught and re-instated into slavery. On the contrary, there were a great many uprisings, and, many slaves also found ways of resisting their white owners by satirizing them, as well.

[Straw Man]

18. Interesting.

Banning assault weapons is a good start, though obviously not an end in itself.

And yet we're told repeatedly that the "slippery slope" is fiction.

Unlike assault weapons, knives, hammers and other guns can't kill a whole mass of people quickly.

What "other guns"? Do you mean like this?



And I reiterate from another thread: The single deadliest mass murder in US history was accomplished with one of these:

[yagotme]

19. A good start.

A good start? Where do you see it ending? I mean, you're only reducing a small percentage of the weapons used in killings in the US. Handguns make up the primary instrument. Ban those too? How about evil sniper rifles? Like grandpa's scoped 1903 Springfield rifle. Drunk drivers kill thousands each year, sooo, lets ban Corvettes. That ought to fix the problem. No one needs one of those high capacity speedy death machines. They're only designed to drive on a track, not on your average city street, where children playing won't have time to get out of the way of such a dealer of mechanical carnage. Makes about as much sense as your argument.

And, you should check this out. Not the only one worldwide, BTW.

[link:https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/33-dead-130-injured-china-knife-wielding-spree-n41966|

And, in Britain, knife attacks are up 21%.

I wonder how many machete deaths in southern Africa have occurred in the last 10 years.

And, how about Japan. They're usually lifted up by the banners as having one of the "perfect" gun ban societies...

[link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagamihara_stabbings|

People that want to commit mass murder are going to do it, irregardless of whatever roadblock you think you have put in their way. It's a mental issue, not one of availability of hardware. IED's, knives, swords, bats, fire, whatever they can come up with, they will. Limiting things to the civilian populace does little or nothing to a determined criminal. Ask one sometime. I've talked to several (retired guard). The law doesn't mean much to them, as long as they don't think they'll get caught.

And, finally, the thread WAS about "guns do kill people", so my observations aren't exactly "off subject" of the thread. Unless I'm only supposed to agree with the OP and other posters, like the other topic section here. You were calling for the repeal of the 2d, without actually going through the proper procedure to remove it. I was merely pointing out the rough road that would entail, and if one amendment goes, the rest must surely follow.

[Marengo]

23. A man with a knife killed 8 children in Hubei province 9/2/2019. Is that not "mass" enough?

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

24. Unlike assault weapons, knives, hammers and other guns don't make the news.

fixed that for ya

[graeme_macquarrie]

20. This is an unpublished study

That has not been peer reviewed either.
It is seriously flawed and basically politically motivated bunk.
It hasn't been published because it would be ripped apart by serious academics amd researchers.

[sharedvalues]

21. It's a good study.

Serious climate scientist and researcher here. You’re wrong.

[friendly_iconoclast]

22. Confirmation bias, with an appeal to non-authority...

..which would be you:

It's a good study.

Serious climate scientist and researcher here. You’re wrong.

It's not peer-reviewed, and you are neither a law professor nor a criminologist

From page 1 of the study (*.pdf):

https://www.nber.org/papers/w23510.pdf

NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that affirms one's prior beliefs or hypotheses. It is a type of cognitive bias and a systematic error of inductive reasoning. People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for desired outcomes, for emotionally charged issues, and for deeply-entrenched beliefs.

People also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position. Biased search, interpretation and memory have been invoked to explain attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence), belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false), the irrational primacy effect (a greater reliance on information encountered early in a series) and illusory correlation (when people falsely perceive an association between two events or situations).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority#Appeal_to_non-authorities

http://www.skepdic.com/authorty.html

Appeal to authority

The appeal to authority is a fallacy of irrelevance when the authority being cited is not really an authority. E.g., to appeal to Einstein to support a point in religion would be to make an irrelevant appeal to authority. Einstein was an expert in physics, not religion. However, even if he had been a rabbi, to appeal to Rabbi Einstein as evidence that a god exists would still be an irrelevant appeal to authority because religion is by its very nature a controversial field. Not only do religious experts disagree about fundamental matters of religion, many people believe that religion itself is false. Appealing to non-experts as if they were experts, or appealing to experts in controversial fields, as evidence for a belief, are equally irrelevant to establishing the correctness of the belief.