I Have a Question

Worth reading the abstract of this study
Greater law Legislation is linked to lower gun deaths... Cause and effect needs further research


JAMA Intern Med, 2013 vol. 173(9) pp. 732-40
Firearm legislation and firearm-related fatalities in the United States
Fleegler, EW; Lee, LK; Monuteaux, MC; Hemenway, D; Mannix, R
IMPORTANCE: Over 30,000 people die annually in the United States from injuries caused by firearms. Although most firearm laws are enacted by states, whether the laws are associated with rates of firearm deaths is uncertain.
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate whether more firearm laws in a state are associated with fewer firearm fatalities.
DESIGN: Using an ecological and cross-sectional method, we retrospectively analyzed all firearm-related deaths reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System from 2007 through 2010. We used state-level firearm legislation across 5 categories of laws to create a "legislative strength score," and measured the association of the score with state mortality rates using a clustered Poisson regression. States were divided into quartiles based on their score.
SETTING: Fifty US states.
PARTICIPANTS: Populations of all US states.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The outcome measures were state-level firearm-related fatalities per 100,000 individuals per year overall, for suicide, and for homicide. In various models, we controlled for age, sex, race/ethnicity, poverty, unemployment, college education, population density, nonfirearm violence-related deaths, and household firearm ownership.
RESULTS: Over the 4-year study period, there were 121,084 firearm fatalities. The average state-based firearm fatality rates varied from a high of 17.9 (Louisiana) to a low of 2.9 (Hawaii) per 100,000 individuals per year. Annual firearm legislative strength scores ranged from 0 (Utah) to 24 (Massachusetts) of 28 possible points. States in the highest quartile of legislative strength (scores of ≥9) had a lower overall firearm fatality rate than those in the lowest quartile (scores of ≤2) (absolute rate difference, 6.64 deaths/100,000/y; age-adjusted incident rate ratio [IRR], 0.58; 95% CI, 0.37-0.92). Compared with the quartile of states with the fewest laws, the quartile with the most laws had a lower firearm suicide rate (absolute rate difference, 6.25 deaths/100,000/y; IRR, 0.63; 95% CI, 0.48-0.83) and a lower firearm homicide rate (absolute rate difference, 0.40 deaths/100,000/y; IRR, 0.60; 95% CI, 0.38-0.95).
CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: A higher number of firearm laws in a state are associated with a lower rate of firearm fatalities in the state, overall and for suicides and homicides individually. As our study could not determine cause-and-effect relationships, further studies are necessary to define the nature of this association.
Type: Journal article

Honestly, I don't know. People will always find a way to get hold of these things, no matter what, but that's no reason to not make it harder for them. And they can just steal a civilians gun easily right now, so there's that too. I just feel frustrated that America is so in love with their guns, and i see no real reason to have them in the first place.

@buck ... wish I had bookmarked it, but one of the best proposals I saw/have seen would end sales and transport of weapons used by the military or modeled after the same. So yeah - AR15s, M16s and the like.

A 'buy-back' would be conducted by some level of government(federal most likely.). An owner could choose to keep his gun for home defense or display in a collection - but could not transport it or sell/give it to anyone else.

This wouldn't result in total elimination of civilian-owned military grade weapons. But it would result in getting a bunch of them off the 'street' and end the distribution/sale of more of them. A 'first step' if you would.

nah marvin great name
I think the buyback would be a nice option for a lot of people that bought a weapon and no longer feel the need to have it around.

I know people buy them for protection - I know that it works in some cases.

guns are merely tools - dangerous ones - and many people have no business having one in the house - I'm talking about the ones that leave them unsecured.

and really, if you have them secure - you may not have time to get it out of the safe and load it when you need it - I prefer to call 911 and have a bunch of uniformed gun carriers coming my way.

actually in my 61 years I haven't needed either - thank goodness.

first of all - I don't own a gun, haven't fired one since high school, and worked in a law enforcement support job that requires me to handle guns used in crimes and bloody clothing of people shot and/or killed by them - so please understand I am not advocating guns be sold in vending machines.

my point was that even with all the rules we have in florida - even with all the hoops he had to jump through - he killed 2 score and 9.

So by not making it easy...what do we do? (serious question)

Prohibition didn't work with booze in the 20s - and the war on drugs has only made criminals richer. So I can't see taking guns away as the answer - how do we make it harder for them?

If there were no assault rifles, then they could not be used. Why is a m16 needed by people? Why can a government control who drives a car, but not weapons of war? This is not about taking weapons for self defence. Its about putting limits on these weapons of war. So if the ar15 is your right to own, why not an RPG? A tank?, Serin gas?

Hi Uncle
They looked at five category of firearms laws and scored the laws based upon each state

The higher score meant higher law control
The abstract doesn't give the category determinants but I expect they are related to varying influencers such as sale, license etc

They linked more gun control to lower death rate (suicide and homocide)

They can't simply it's pure cause and effect
They did control for various factors though

More research is need

Legislation is imporatant, but of course but the only strategy

Guns were removed from Irish society (bar hunting weapons) after all the trouble this island saw... Revolutions, war of independence, civil war etc. We have very little gun crime... Mostly gangland

Guns are just not our culture
Gun laws are one thing culture is another

Much respect my friend

The guns and the culture I guess
Legislation and stricter state gun laws in the USA is linked to lower gun deaths (murder and suicide). Though cause and effect links need to be studied further
To lower gun crime the approach needs to be multi factorial

@Yeronlyman thanks for the translation :)

yeah I did get the gist- I suspect the full report goes into detail about the type of laws that were around.

I can't get the full paper
One study is an indicator
From the abstract it looks like relatively well run

Just I piece of the jigsaw I guess
Cheers
🍺🍺

@Yeronlyman what I could understand (it's written above my head I'll admit it in a second) is "more gun laws means lower firearm related deaths" - but I do have a question - just exactly what were those "more gun laws" - was it related to purchase? use in a crime/sentencing guidelines? carrying concealed weapons? required training? (I'm not arguing - just wondering what the nature of the legislation was)

Guns are a little different to alcohol and drugs. (I completely with the war on drugs, and think if we just legalised some of it, places like Mexico wouldnt be as ravaged by drug wars) See, while you raise this, and it sounds valid at first, when you compare the number of mass shootings, heck, shootings in general, within the US to the number of shootings in say the UK, where guns are basically illegal, its not even close. Tens of times bigger, its ridiculous!

And my main point is, why was he allowed to get an automatic rifle?! You dont shoot one person with those! Theres no way you can justify anyone that isnt a freaking SWAT team or the army possessing anything close to that. Unless "protection" means being able to murder everyone in a 100 yard radius!

@JaggedLittlePill

lol john oliver is the best

Everyone can trade their guns for a blunderbuss if they want! :P

Dude, giving civilians high powered sniper rifles makes even LESS sense than the semi-autos! "Yes, i will protect myself!...several miles away..." XD

I know. Its infuriating. To think how much grief and pain is caused by this simple thing, yet people still stand by it so stoically. Its heartbreaking.

They had 5 rounds

@LvChris

But you did bring them up. And hen called the question shallow.
Was this actually a post on how to be patronizing?

I would not change the constitution. We should have the write to bear and own arms. i am not even sure if/how we limit it.

True. Still, giving him access to an automatic rifle is excessive. Sure, security guard with a handgun, fine. Id rather just a taser maybe, but ill compromise. But he bought an automatic rifle! You dont use those to protect yourself!!

@Kindheartedguy

I'm not sure we should. In theory it allows you to protect yourself. In practice everyone having guns just results in more gun violence

@dick - it's funny (not funny, but you know what I mean) when people talk about using ar15 assault rifles for hunting - when most of the people I've talked to talk about using their bolt action 308 or 30-30s so they could take one clean shot and drop that animal quickly and cleanly.

I suspect if you took away all the semi-autos then you'd just have more snipers killing as many as possible from a secluded vantage point.

it is frustrating. and while the shootings like orlando make the news - they are really only a drop in the bucket - look at chicago's deaths for 2016 (to date)
58 deaths, 55 were homicides and 280 shot.

sure, the orlando deaths almost matched the number in a period of hours, but that was one city - add them up over the U.S. day by day and the number of grieving families is staggering

@marvin - all I can say is "let's get it on!"
:)

I'm totally ignorant of how they accomplished it - what did they do?

I know that guns are built into the american psyche (I'm a yank by the way) and while most people abhor the gun violence they won't turn loose of their guns until it's pried from their cold dead fingers.

There are guns shops in many/most towns...so what did Australia do. Did they confiscate weapons or just make the penalty for using them high?

And if noone has guns, noone needs guns to protect themselves!

I get it. We could amend the constitution but to say what? You have the write to bear arms with a fire rate of less than 1 shot per minute?

Weapons of war, such as the ar15, and high capacity mags should be banned. After sandy hook, if we did not change as a nation. Then we are sick.

Hear, hear! *high fives*

The m1 was a high powered rifle, a weapon of war.

@dick - guns are indeed different in their effect on the population than booze or drugs - no question.

the point I was making is that trying to outlaw ANY of them is bound to fail. We have seen the failure of the attempt to outlaw booze and our current attempt to outlaw drugs.

the u.s. has many seaports and many of our firearms are already made outside the u.s.

and do we just outlaw semi-auto rifles?

remember the jerk that did the fort hood shooting in 2009 - only needed one semi auto pistol and he was among soldiers trained in combat.

(I'm not arguing - just thinking out loud - I know we won't solve it today - just discussing an important topic)

@LvChris

"why hasn't christianity taken off in a resolutely muslim region?" is a terrible comparison, dude.

Sure there are differences between the us and australia and that would account for some variance.
Not a zero to 70 score in mass shootings

Uncle, sure they can keep their shotgun. Farmers are allowed air rifles or whatever here, mainly for defending their livestock from foxes and such.

Why would you need a gun, to protect yourself from your government...? Does this mean trans people who want to use the right bathroom can now go shoot up Congress...?

@dick - I know in the state of florida (where I live and where 49 people were murdered in a dance club) you don't have to have a license but you do have to pass a background check to buy a firearm - the state agency that does the background check denies them on the basis of many factors - but that's only for licensed gun dealers - you can buy/sell to any moron at a gun show or on craigslist.

The scum that killed the 49 people actually purchased his stuff legally and was a security guard that carried a firearm.

Everything was by the book - he even knew how to use guns (as evidenced by the body count) and had held weapons for a decade more or less.

The problem is you simply can't predict what a person is going to do in the future.

@dick

The framers of the US constitution were thinking about protection of the country and the citizens from their own government.

Would you seriously take the rifle and shotgun away from rural citizens?

@jim - thanks for the correction! you are correct - I guess my point is that it didn't have the high capacity magazine that the current military weapons have but you're right - you could wipe a gnat's butt from a quarter mile if you were good enough

[media=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pOiOhxujsE]

If it is as easy to get a gun in the US as it is now then we will continue to zee this issue. Population has zero to do with it. Sorry. The results would be the same. Stricter laws ACROSS THE BOARD THROUGH ALL STATES would make it harder to get the guns AND LESS LIKELY to have a gun used in a MASS shooting. (Particularly automatic guns or semi automatic...any excuse for having those is null in my brain)

We of course, will not stop the crazies from shooting themselves, leaving their guns out for kids to get ahold of, suicide, or the man who decided to shoot his family or neighbors....you know, the "responsible" gun owners turned criminals....because they own a gun and that makes it easier and faster to solve their issues.

@buck ... Ima have to get rid of this damned handle. No one takes me seriously any more ;)

@unclebuckwasagenius



Exactly. Guns don't kill people. People kill people. So let's not make it so goddamn easy for them

Dude, when the constitution was written, you could maybe injure one person per ten minutes with a gun. Now you can kill 50 people in a matter of minutes. And the constituion is constantly changed! In fact that right was an ammendment! A fucking change!!

Wtf lives in Australia? Who wants to live in Australia?? You? Go there.

Dick they don't even have to be that high powered - the University of Texas sniper (many decades back) used an m-1 rifle as well as many others.

If I had my way you'd be restricted to rubber bands and paper clips - or maybe black powder muzzle loaders - try and do a mass shooting with one of those puppies :)

Maybe you require a fucking license for a gun instead of just walking into a shop and going "ill have the m4 and grenade launcher please! Diet coke too, if you dont mind!" Just make sure that people with mental issues and those who dont know how to use guns, dont have them! Easy! And guns dont protect anyone really. They just kill people. And if someones got a gun, theyll shoot you before you get yours!