Which part of "Gun Control" needs to have "Empirical Evidence?" Honest, sincere question. That it's needed or not needed; necessary or unnecessary? That it works or doesn't work? Stricter buying, selling, and trading, and background checks or less strict? Longer or shorter time to receive a firearm(guess that falls under background checks)? That everyone who purchases a firearm, no matter if from an actual store or gun show, MUST pass a background check and psychological evaluation, or not? 2nd Amendment should NEVER be infringed, or should it? Should firearms be confiscated, or not? The fact that the u.n. wants to disarm U.S., which is why they had their small arms treaty / arms trade treaty that lasted almost the entire month of July, 2012, then shot down at the last minute, only to pick it back up again in the very near future. OR, All of the above?
Its empirical evidence that allows us to entertain rationality. If gun control has significantly reduced homicides,for example, then we have evidence that the gun control has supported the basic features of individualism. And try not to abuse the 2nd Amendment stuff (the US has always had gun control) and come out with the 'its about disarming' binary nonsense. If you know of no empirical evidence then just say so.
Guns will always end up in the hands of the wrong people. With stricter gun control or less strict, criminals and the unstable will always have access to firearms. True, they can certainly make it harder for them(criminals and the unstable) to acquire firearms, even though it may be a little more inconvenience for law abiding American Citizens to acquire them. Stricter background checks, and psychological evaluations...that could be going into bad territory as well, because if liberals happen to win about banning firearms, all someone has to do is label someone to be mentally unstable / unfit, thus, hardly anyone would be able to acquire one. Libs will do anything and everything to try to make sure U.S. Citizens are no longer allowed to have firearms. Should they choose to confiscate legally and lawfully owned firearms from American Citizens, criminals will continue to get firearms, even more so. But the good, law abiding Citizen would then fall victim to even more tragedy. I'm NOT mocking you or being sarcastic in any way. Here is one, HUGE piece of "Empirical Evidence" concerning gun control and gun confiscation. The Hurricane Katrina example. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-taU9d26wT4 This form of gun control is the WORST, and doesn't solve ANYTHING, or HELP ANYONE.
Happy to consider any evidence that shows gun control is, at best, ineffective. Make sure its a quality source and not just opinion or cliche driven. Not a liberal, but neither am interested in political ideological ranting. Tabloidism isn't empirical evidence. Why do you think that stricter gun control is found to significantly reduce homicide rates? If you want to question the validity of that finding please make sure you have objective empirical evidence in support (which, given the nature of criminology and the multiple crime-impacting variables, will tend to use regression methodogies)
Empirical Evidence... vs...Empire Evidence? We all know how the British Empire treats evidence. Everything is "Our Policy." Doctors vs. Gun Owners Doctors (A) The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000. (B) Accidental deaths caused by Physicians per year are 120,000. (C) Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171 Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Now think about this: Guns (A) The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000. (Yes, that's 80 million) (B) The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500. (C) The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is .0000188 Statistics courtesy of FBI >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> So, statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Therefore , 'Guns don't kill people, doctors do.' >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> FACT: NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN, BUT Almost everyone has at least one doctor. This means you are over 9,000 times more likely to be killed by a doctor as by a gun owner!!! >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Please alert your friends to this alarming threat. We must ban doctors before this gets completely out of hand!!!!! >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Out of concern for the public at large, We withheld the statistics on lawyers for fear the shock would cause people to panic and seek medical attention!
I have plagiarized some of this from a couple of places just to abbreviate what I contend. As Zimring argues, there not an academic home for firearms research. Others argue that most of the evidence is either poorly researched or thin in areas that cannot be measured, like the number of guns people own. Another problem with most research for or against gun control uses body counts to make their conclusions yet you would not measure the effectiveness of a police force using body counts but how effective they were preventing crime. If you could effectively prove that more guns equal more crime then you would have to explain how from 1973 and 1992, the rate of gun ownership in the U.S. increased by 45 percent (from 610 guns per 1,000 people to 887). The homicide rate during that period fell by nearly 10 percent (from 9.4 homicides per 100,000 people to 8.5). You would also have to prove a relationship between gun control laws reducing crime. The problem with "empirical studies" is that they are approached with a theory and that theory is often proven by the study. What gun control advocates try to prove is that firearms facilitate the infliction of death or great bodily harm because they inflict more dangerous wounds than weapons that might be substituted for them; and second, that many killings or grave woundings are not the product of a literal intention to inflict death or great bodily harm, but are merely the byproduct of the fact that a gun was handy and was used. Colin Loftin and his colleagues have called this latter proposition the "Zimring-Cook" effect, referring to the work of researchers Frank Zimring and Philip Cook. The National Academy of Sciences issued a 328-page report based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, a survey of 80 different gun-control laws and some of its own independent study. In short, the panel could find no link between restrictions on gun ownership and lower rates of crime, firearms violence or even accidents with guns. The panel was established during the Clinton administration and all but one of its members were known to favor gun control. The preponderance of statistical evidence contradicts the notion that more gun control laws will reduce crime. If they could, we would have a simple solution to the crime problem. But they do not, and thus we do not. Believing that gun control will reduce crime is wishful thinking.
This doesn't make sense. The use of theory is used to construct hypothesis test and therefore to avoid data mining. That isn't a problem. That is a means to ensure robust econometric methodologies are applied.
This amused me as I'm the only one that has referred directly to empirical studies that test gun control effects. Fancy putting that right?
Blah, blah, blah. I realize that nothing could sway you from your preconceived notions about gun control but the evidence is just not there. Cherry picking only the studies that back up your prejudices is intellectually dishonest.
This is a childish response. Can you dispute the validity of my post? Yes or no (with suitable rationale provided)? Try again: This doesn't make sense. The use of theory is used to construct hypothesis test and therefore to avoid data mining. That isn't a problem. That is a means to ensure robust econometric methodologies are applied.
Switzerland is the favourite poster country for the anti-gun control lobby. But what does the evidence say on the subject? Try Rosenbaum (2012, Gun utopias? Firearm access and ownership in Israel and Switzerland, Journal of Public Health Policy, Vol. 33, pp. 46-58 ): The 2011 attempted assassination of a US representative renewed the national gun control debate. Gun advocates claim mass-casualty events are mitigated and deterred with three policies: (a) permissive gun laws, (b) widespread gun ownership, (c) and encouragement of armed civilians who can intercept shooters. They cite Switzerland and Israel as exemplars. We evaluate these claims with analysis of International Crime Victimization Survey (ICVS) data and translation of laws and original source material. Swiss and Israeli laws limit firearm ownership and require permit renewal one to four times annually. ICVS analysis finds the United States has more firearms per capita and per household than either country. Switzerland and Israel curtail off-duty soldiers' firearm access to prevent firearm deaths. Suicide among soldiers decreased by 40 per cent after the Israeli army's 2006 reforms. Compared with the United States, Switzerland and Israel have lower gun ownership and stricter gun laws, and their policies discourage personal gun ownership Does anyone have any empirical evidence on Switzerland to counter this conclusion?
there is a reason I keep posting the same thing after each of your posts............. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/pal/jphp/2012/00000033/00000001/art00004 stop providing "studies" nobody can access, and stop making studies up.
You've got to be kidding me, Reiver. I never said that I thought "that stricter gun control is found to significantly reduce homicide rates?" Maybe you're asking me that question, "Why do you think that stricter gun control is found to significantly reduce homicide rates?" If this is your question to me, my answer is, stricter gun control does NOT necessarily significantly reduce homicide rates. In some places it may reduce homicide, in other places, where crime is rampant like gang and drug violence, stricter gun control laws won't help. It will only make it more difficult for law abiding citizens to buy them, in order to defend themselves. "Tabloidism isn't empirical evidence." News from the NRA and FOX about what occurred during Hurricane Katrina is tabloidism? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-taU9d26wT4 Also, go to www.oathkeepers.org. Watch their 9 minute video. FOX gives news about what goes on in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Guns are confiscated from EVERYONE in that city. The New Orleans Police Chief says, "No one will be allowed to be armed." "We're going to take all gun." But, that's tabloidism. How about you post some links, articles, videos, proving your point. By the way, when I said libs, that was a general statement. Wasn't calling you one, unless you are one. As far as ranting goes, anti-gun libs are some of the biggest reasons why we have gun control issues to begin with. Just saying.
The evidence into concealed carry tends to suggest locational effects. This is probably because important variables interact. We don't find such effects, however, in the standard 'more guns=more crime' hypothesis testing. For example, hypothesis testing is robust to changes in the level of aggregation (i.e. going from state time series analysis to cross-sectional or panel county level analysis) I don't want videos and other such low brow offering. I want reference to the primary research. That will involve author, title, journal, volume and page numbers. By referring to that research one can undertake the first lesson in objective analysis: literature reviewing
Some news and cases are better than literature. They give better and more facts and statistics. That would be the "Empirical Evidence" you are looking for. Books / Literature can be wrong. Yes, news and cases can be wrong, too, except for documented and/or archived facts and statistics. Big difference between book knowledge and what is actually going on(facts / statistics).
Utter garbage! Empirical analysis allows for us to avoid spurious relationship and to isolate gun effects. A preference for tabloidism? Don't expect answers except cobblers to feed your bias
There is a BIG, HUGE difference between book / head knowledge, and experience, pertaining to facts and statistics about what is actually happening; what has happened in the past, what is happening presently, and the trends that are pointing to what will happen in the future. You don't get that from books, unless it's history. To completely disregard news and information giving facts and statistics, how does one, then, come up with "Empirical Evidence?" One cannot. Current events and understanding them are HUGE in seeking and pursuing "Empirical Evidence."
This doesn't make sense. I'm not referring to some exercise in ivory tower thought. I'm referring to the only way of ensuring robust hypothesis testing that avoid problems such as spurious conclusions. Its easy for either extreme to use raw data to further their claims. It is difficult, however, to use valid empirical methodology to support specific bias. When such bias does motivate paper it isn't surprising that its torn apart in subsequent empirical analysis. By ignoring the empirical evidence you essentially ensure that you have nothing of interest to say. Can you influence by talking bobbins? Indeed! But let's try not to be so crass
Its used within a context of tabloidism, feeding political bias rather than providing objective analysis. The lack of objectivity shown by the gun fiends is of course the main explanation for their failure to engage the available empirical literature. Scientific approaches just aren't convenient enough!
