Is the Brady Campaign saying fewer gun laws, fewer homicides?

[jazzhound]

Not exactly breaking news, but once again an article underlines the inconvenient truth that many states which receive high marks from the Brady Bunch have higher homicide rates than those who get (extremly) poor scores:

http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/9563

You would think that with all of the cold hard facts like these staring them in the face the resident hysterics would be a tad embarrassed with themselves for all of their hyperbole.......but of course they're not, nor will they ever be.

[TheWraith]

1. The fact is there's no provable correlation of any kind.

The level of violent crime is proportional to the level of gang activity, fueled by the drug trade, and to a lesser extent subsistence crime driven by poverty. That's true for cities like Phoenix which have comparatively minimal gun laws, and cities like Chicago which have total bans. The only rational way to drop crime and end the gang problem is getting rid of the drug war.

[benEzra]

7. Exactly. (n/t)

[sui generis]

2. resident hysterics?

really?

So the ONLY factors in this study are guns, gun laws and the percent of homicides caused by guns. Sounds a bit myopic to me - as if there are no other factors involved in homicide, including population density, average income and unemployment in high homicide areas, and other hysteria.

Excuse me I need smelling salts for the OP.

[jazzhound]

3. For the record

I used the term hysterics to describe the persons who have shown no interest in honest dialogue, but who's posts consist exclusively of cut-and-paste incidents of gun violence, and dismissive one sentence (sniping) posts. Guess I could have made that clear, but I didn't think I needed to. The fact that the darling of the gun control movement (Phillip Cook) has very publicly stated that the Brady Bill has been an abject failure should tell you something. I would submit that the vast majority of the pro-control folks weren't even aware of that fact since they haven't done their homework. Granted, you could argue that the reason the Brady Bill has failed is that it hasn't gone far enough, but good luck trying to ramp up gun control when public opinion is moving strongly away from that notion.

And yes, the subject of gun control is extremely nuanced. But I stand by my belief that the vast majority of evidence points to the fact that restricting the number of guns in this country does not, and will not reduce violent crime. And I base that belief on the research
and opinions of highly educated NON-CONSERVATIVES who earned their PhD's in sociology rather than medicine or economics. The genie is already out of the bottle. What is there to *control*? And if you could actually restrict firearms how oblivious to history do you have to be in failing to recognize that demand produces it's own supply --- and that you'd only be empowering the Russian mob (or fill-in-the-blank mob) by attempting to choke supply?

[sui generis]

4. yes, if one takes the argument to the natural conclusion

or at least further down the road, then if there is no link between gun control and gun related homicide, then there are clearly other factors at play if one's driver is to reduce gun related homicide. If it's to reduce gun ownership then gun related homicide is a red herring. But we both know that.

There ARE other reasons for wanting to have "gun control" (I'm not sure exactly what that means to you) than reducing homicide, so the whole thrust of the blog this came from is a "have you stopped beating your wife" loop.

Regarding your last paragraph: both sides make the simple minded assumption that change breeds instant results. Take away all the guns (is that what you mean by gun control?) and the people who don't comply will end up ruling the streets.

If I were a gun grabber, and I'm not, I'd go a lot further in that fantasy world: if in that bizarre, nonexistent world I was the king of everything and I managed to go house to house and seize, find or otherwise destroy every firearm I found, the few that remained would be subject to the same per capita reduction in service quality and ammo quality and availability that you would expect barring new manufacturing entering the system.

So in that bizarre world I'd have people found to have a gun skinned alive and dipped in lemon juice, plus all their blood relatives to generations in either direction. Effective, but unlikely to happen or rather, as likely as anyone's fantasy or nightmare of wild eyed hysterical liberals grabbing all the guns.

:P

The deterrent in that case happens over time, not instantly.

[divideandconquer]

6. Japan has almost no guns and almost no murders with guns

Ireland the same way.

[TheWraith]

8. Yes, which is why in Japan they use knives and swords.

Also, Japan has next to no drug trade compared to the US. They have white collar crime instead.

[visigoth]

18. Japan is a poor comparison for anything.

The US NON firearms related murder rate is still much higher than in Japan. They're just not as violent a society as we are outside of their very peculiar type of organized crime. Also, consider that their suicide rate if far higher than ours, again without guns.

You can't make much out of trying to compare our two countries.

[PavePusher]

9. Japan has never allowed commoners to have guns.

It's also not the most liberty-ridden nation I've lived in...

[jgraz]

10. Just curious: what country do you consider "liberty-ridden"?

Last I checked, Japan's prime minister wasn't allowed to issue kill orders on his citizens.

[PavePusher]

13. If you think that is the only criteria for liberty, well...

I foresee interesting times for you.

[jgraz]

14. Says the guy with only one criteria for liberty

[X_Digger]

15. Says who? You?

I've seen PavePusher stand up for the first amendment, the fourth, and recently the fifth.

Or were you trying to smear more than PavePusher with that snipe?

[jgraz]

16. It certainly seems to be his criteria for judging other countries

Since he declined to give any other examples, I'll have to assume that it's all about Teh Guns.

[X_Digger]

17. In this forum?

Perhaps you should search his name in other topics / subforums here at DU.

If I recall correctly, he was a prolific poster in one of the numerous 'bong hits for jesus' threads.

[PavePusher]

20. I have considerably more than one criteria for liberty...

which you would know had you asked politely, instead of pulling low-grade bovine excrement out of your rectal orifice.

Good day to you.

[Euromutt]

19. That's because that's the justice minister's job

I'm not kidding; the justice minister signs the death warrants on criminals who have been sentenced to death.

The existence of the death penalty is pretty disturbing in a country where suspects can be held for up to 23 days without being charged; can be questioned during that time without a lawyer present and without the "interview" being recorded; where a suspiciously large number of detainees die in custody; and where, not coincidentally, 95% of persons arrested end up signing a confession, and 99.9% of criminal defendants are convicted, very often mostly (or even entirely) on the basis of their confession.

It is extremely disturbing in a country where Kunio Hatoyama--at the time the justice minister--stated that the notion of innocent till proven guilty is "an idea which I want to constrain." Especially since the carrying out of the death penalty is entirely occurs entirely under the auspices of the Justice Ministry, which shrouds the process in so much secrecy that most Japanese people don't know when executions occur, or what method Japan uses (hanging).

In addition, much of the push by police to reduce the influence of the yakuza turns out to have been motivated by profit: yakuza protection rackets have, in effect, been replaced by a police protection racket. Business owners are "encouraged" to donate money to the National Center for the Elimination of Crime Syndicates, and to hire the service of private security companies and consultancies that are invariably staffed entirely by retired cops.

[virginia mountainman]

5. We should know by now..

That people that use faith, to make decisions, like many gun control advocates, cannot be swayed by fact, no matter what the facts say.

The Brady Scorecards, put their faith, on full display....Much like Birthers, and Religious abortion foes, they are completely immune to any facts.

Actually, religious Abortion foes, and gun control advocates have much in common.

[slackmaster]

11. The Brady Campaign doesn't care about reducing homicide rates

They only want to eliminate private ownership of guns.

[jazzhound]

12. Exactly. And neither do the rest of the "public health advocates".

In his great dissertation "Epidemic of Violence or Pandemic of Propaganda" Don Kates comments on the mysterious silence of the anti-gun lobby w/regard to a conspicuous drop in gun related accidents while the nation's firearm supply was steadily rising. The anti-gun lobby is MOST CERTAINLY NOT concerned with public safety:

"This total disinterest has an interesting implication of its own. Without denying that health advocates do care about reducing gun death, their disinterest in the twenty-year decline in accidental death implies that their concern is severely compromised by their hatred of guns. Though avowing a deep and single-minded concern to save lives, they seem interested only in ways of doing so which involve reducing access to guns. At least we can think of no other reason for their total lack of interest in finding out how and why accidental gun death could decline by two thirds over a period when the handgunstock was increasing by 173%."