How to go about bringing anti-2A folks around

This is a meaningless response that only describes that you don't know what you are talking about. The whole analysis is based on methodological individualism. There is no notion of a "societal norm" (which you've thrown in for no apparent reason). There is only an appreciation that, by ignoring externalities, we will- by definition- have a result that destroys overall well-being because of ignored coercion. As I said, you play lip service to liberty but openly support coercive relationships because of your ideology

 

I have already described to you how seeking to correct externalities only creates more problems and is the antithesis to liberty. I cannot help that you do not understand.

 

Don't fib now. You made an unsupportable comment as illustrated by my unanswered request for you to provide pertinent examples of created perverse incentives. You're hiding from externalities as you have no answer to them

 

I don't need an answer for them, the correction of externalities is not the goal....externalities are merely a fact of life.

 

Get it right now. Externalities are a blight on the market. You have no response for them and therefore you tacitly support coercion. Shame on you

 

For every externality that you "fix" you create 10 more. Attempting to correct externalities is a much larger blight on the market.

 

This is just nonsense

Attempting to react to the ultimate coercion, the denial of life, is a basic characteristic for the defence of liberty. As I said, you're no friend of freedom

 

We've been through a number of studies on this board.

One thing I will note is that there are two entirely different ways in which one can take demographics into account.

One is to account for the odds of certain demographics being more likely to commit murder. Anti-gun rights studies have to include this factor in their controls, otherwise they'd generally get a strong "more guns equals less crime" result due to the high crime rates and low gun ownership rates of urban areas. Also controls in general provide flexibility to regression based analysis.

The second, which they very interestingly do analyze, but do not consider in their conclusion sections, is who these "externalities" are affecting.

For example, various studies have made what I would consider a decent case that the availibility of a guns increases the odds that a conflict between gang members will escalate into mutually agreed upon mortal combat, and that the outcome of that combat will be the death of one or both of the combatants.

When the study shifts to their conclusion section, they will equate those deaths with someone breaking into a home and murdering the defenseless occupant to eliminate a potential witness, as they are both indeed classified as a murder in our legal system.

Most gun rights advocates do not consider those the same at all.

Give the frequently mutually agreed upon nature of the combat, I'm not sure what a libertarian would think of such a lethal occurance.

Actually, I'm not sure if you've ever actually referred to what your stances are as far as gun legislation.

 

This is a deliberate misrepresentation. Studies will control for factors in order to avoid problems such as omitted variable bias. The gun herd may want to suggest that a simple 'more guns=less crime' relationship exists but that would actually just be an exercise in tabloidism (where they choose convenient cases, rather than undertaking even the most basic form of regression analysis).

This is just a fib. We have the scientific process followed and a realisation that the 'higher homicide' hypothesis cannot be rejected. Studies will of course also burrow down to look at specific features of that higher crime rate, such as the focus on children within gun ownership households.

 

Studies control for the factors they wish to and model them in the manner they wish to.

This could be to avoid variable bias...or to indulge personal bias.

I do not believe you actually disagree with me on this, you simply believe only those who disagree with you engage in the latter and those who agree with you engage in the former.

Researchers who come to pro-gun rights conclusions tend to be liberals who have simply cracked under the pressures of reality. Kleck in particular goes to pains to distance himself from gun rights groups and maintain his liberal credentials, lest he be dismissed out of hand.

It is for this reason that I believe relatively little effort is expended by pro-gun rights groups in research. Though I'm not sure if this is wise on their part. I imagine they are correct about being dismissed as biased. However the studies would still be there for reference and the weight of them might eventually make a difference in policy. I fear their focus on litigation and lobbying may be short sighted. Wondering if you could be swayed at all by an NRA funded study conducted in any manner is part of what I'm curious about in this thread.

The higher homicide part is far from always true, particularily in the context of specific laws.

But beyond that your reply if anything agrees with my point, which was that the anti gun rights studies tend toward eventually equating all homicides, because your reply equates all homicides in the first sentence.

Perhaps you thought you were disagreeing with the second . But if the children study you're refering to here is the one I think you are, it considered children to include people who should be well out of high school, and again had that feature of controlling for mathmatically but then equating in the conclusions homicides among gang members, who often are in the "children" age range the study used.

By which I mean that controlling for drug use, gang affiliation, etc could be used to show that gang members do indeed kill each other more if they have more guns . But should those homicides be bundled with those prevented through guns used in self defense by law abiding citizens to show a net increase in homicides?

 

To manage to get through peer review they will choose factors that enable robust hypothesis testing. Deliberately taking advantage of empirical bias is easily spotted, given knowledge of criminology and the test statistics demanded.

I don't agree with you at all as you're deliberately misrepresenting empirical analysis to fit with your agenda.

Its more likely that an educated person is going to be a liberal. Note of course that you're again pursuing nonsense claims of bias when even you could run a regression.

The scientific process isn't comfortable for the ideological. They also know that spurious conclusion is sufficient to maintain their support base.

I would peruse any peer reviewed study and adopt appropriate literature review methods.

That the higher homicide hypothesis cannot be rejected is a fact.

Nonsense. I don't agree with your misrepresentation at all. Each study (and its not 'anti- gun rights', its about rational policy and therefore the support of rights) will adopt the methodology required to meet their research objective. If that means a general analysis into homicide rates then so be it. However, as already noted, its also quite common to refer to more specific aspects such as the impact of gun prevalence on child crime rates.

You make claims that you cannot support, further demonstrating your keenness to misrepresent. Regression analysis is employed which, by definition, will ensure multiple controls and therefore the isolation of gun prevalence effects. You of course know that, but you're keen to pretend otherwise out of convenience

 

Please further explain your definition of "coercion" in the context of firearms because your analogy does not make much sense (comparing cars with guns). Pollution is a negative externality due to automobile ownership/usage(e.g. even those that do not own cars are negatively affected by pollution, hence I would agree that "coersion" exists in this example). However, there is no valid analogy to firearms here: Guns do not produce any harmful biproduct, and legal/proper gun usage does not harm ANYONE. Hence, there is no existing analogy of "coersion" when comparing firearms to automobiles.

You reference "crime," but this applies to only a small fraction of firearm usage (rather than pollution being the result of usage of ANY car). Criminal usage of an item is (obviously) not the intended use of the item, and, using your example, I can find similar examples of negative externalities of any item, such as knives. The point that I am trying to make is that your analogy does not hold up, since you compare negative externalities that are common in every automobile to negative externalities that only involve a small percentage of firearm usage (and this usage is illegal).

All freedoms have coexisting externalities. Take the freedom of mobility for example. Each year, thousands of elderly will fall, resulting in hip fractures. This alone costs nearly $30 billion. Just because of this astoundling costly externality of mobility, should the government somehow attempt to limit the mobility of its population? How about just limiting mobility of the elderly? Is freedom more or less important than limiting societal costs?

 

They actually do have some controls for demographics. However, what these studies fail to do is distinguish between legal and illegal firearm ownership. Additionally, they fail to perform a comparative analysis of areas with strict gun control with areas of limited gun control (e.g. we do not know if the "social costs" of guns are actually increased in areas of strict gun control).

This is the main problem with anti-gun articles, like the Cook & Ludwig article that was shown as an example: The authors often start with a biased conclusion, and then manipulate the data-collecting-process and analysis to support this preconceived conclusion. The scientific method is not something that these folk value.

Agree 100%.

 

Basic error. The legal and illegal gun markets cannot be separated, with the former feeding the other. The only issue is the relative importance of the different sources (from gun prevalence increasing the likelihood of burglary to the secondary gun market).

You've put your foot in it here! We know that such comparisons are made, where the research question shifts from estimation of the elasticity of homicide with respect to gun prevalence to estimation of the effects of gun control. Despite the lack of optimal gun control, that comparison shows significant reductions in deaths.

A worthless claim that, given you cannot support with evidence of empirical bias, only advertises your ideological-fed lack of objectivity. Note that its published in a highly respected academic journal who use referees that know what they are talking about

 

The analysis is exactly the same. Both refer to a market analysis into the distinction between personal and social costs. You have to argue that the distinction isn't significant. You of course also know that the evidence doesn't agree with you

Cars only produce externalities in a market context. Its the same with guns. We no longer face the true costs from our preferences and impose costs on others. That may be in the context of congestion (where its fellow road users), pollution (where its everyone, with some subtle differences according to consequences of health risks) or guns and crime (where its the social costs from higher crime rates). The social cost exists and therefore we have examples of 'coercion' market failure

The problem is that, given your ideological led urges, you're ignoring that we have the same dilemma: a market failure charactised by a non-optimal price. Does my car, on its own, cause externalities? Nope. Its only when we undertake a market analysis and test, for example, the elasticity of deaths with respect to car ownership rates.

This merely describes to me that you don't understand the concept. Can we argue that we overconsume mobility? Of course not. There's no such market failure. This is about a market failure that imposes cost on us all. Its about facing the true cost of your personal preferences. Anythiing else is an attack on freedom

 

There was a thread on this a while back.

It turns out that conservatives are more likely to attain both baccalaureate and advanced degrees.

However sociologists are massively more likely to be liberal. And I think this is the root of a loss of objectivity and standards in the peer review process.

You might I suppose. The infuriating thing is that you cannot bring yourself to do that for the studies giving results you like to see.

The pity is that usually their research objective isn't objective. Heh.

If this was my first time posting on this board that would be one thing. But I've been through those threads with you. Unless it's just to get your troll on, I don't know why you're playing dumb. I suspect you recall some studies equating gangers killing each other with people being murdered in their homes and so on.

 

I'm referring to people capable of undertaking empirical research. The perusal of the evidence will confirm the validity of my stance: economists are more likely to be liberal than conservative and its economists who are most likely to be trained in the required econometric approaches. That of course doesn't stop conservatives from using the empirical process...

Another misrepresentation! I'm from a gun owning background and I have no connections with gun lobby groups (except those focused on the problems generated by the illiberal arms trade). My stance is purely based on objective and sound literature review methods. Its the evidence-based approach of course that encourages mmisrepresentations as more highly powered critique isn't available

A subjective hypothesis? Golly, you do say strange things.

Again you go for misreprsentation. You deliberately ignore the regressioon methodologies employed. That includes tests for reverse causation, multiple control variables and tests for robustness. Given that you make claims that you cannot support. There's no debate in that and I do expect better from you

 

The concept of coersion makes no sense in the context of firearms. Whereas those who do not own cars will be "coerced" into dealing with the pollution that comes from my car (with proper usage), there is no similar "coercion" that those who choose not to own a gun will have to deal with regarding me and my firearm. Pollution is indeed a negative externality of car ownership that comes with an inherent "coersion" factor, but I do not see a fair analogy that can be made with firearms.

Congestion and pollution occur with everyday proper usage of cars. Gun-related crime only occurs from criminal usage of the gun. Hence, no analogy can be made here: There is no coersion when it comes to firearms. It is disingenuous to lump legal gun owners with those who have obtained their guns illegally, and this is why Cook and Ludwig's analysis is so horribly flawed.

I am trying to look at this with an open mind, but I sincerely fail to see your analogy of cars and guns as a valid comparison.

But any proper usage of a car does include certain negative externalities, such as congestion and pollution as we mentioned before. These negative externalities are independent of whoever drives the car. On the other hand, gun-related negative externalities, such as armed robbery or firearm-related shootings, are fully dependent on the person owning the gun. This is where the analogy does not hold up.

I'll admit, I am not an economist, but I still don't see how what you are saying is true. Going back to the automobile example, a market failure (e.g. inefficient allocation of goods/services in a free market) exists when congestion occurs, and pollution is a negative externalities where the social cost >> private cost, right? In the example of congestion, EVERYONE who drives a car is guily of contributing to congestion. In the example of pollution, EVERYONE who drives a fossil-fuel-consuming vehicle is responsible for pollution. It seems that some economists justify government intervention, with mechanisms like tolls or taxes, to make the driver include the social cost in the decision to drive.

When it comes to guns, only a tiny percentage of people (e.g. those who obtain and/or use guns illegally) are responsible for the social costs resulting in gun-related crime. Hence, it makes little sense to me how the average law-abiding gun-owner contributes to the social cost of guns at all. Also, whereas government intervention by taxes or tolls may decrease the likelihood of people to drive on certain roads, putting additional taxes on guns would not have any affect on gun crime, since the majority of gun-related crime involves gangs who obtain guns illegally. This is where your econometrics-based argument is flawed.

 

We're referring to costs imposed on others. Clearly a case of coercion.

You need to put more effort in thinking is through. In both case we have a market result based on private benefits and private costs. We know that, given crime effects, there is a distinction between private costs and social costs. We therefore know that there will be a deadweight loss. The only way you can dispute the reasoning is to assume that externlities are nil (I.e. We reject the 'more guns=more crime' hypothesis. Of courser, to do so, you would have to give a biased outlook of the evidence (and ignore most econometric analysis)

The analysis between the two is exactly the same. Personal preferences leads to a market failure created by social costs. Indeed, in terms of the anysis involved we have the same dilemmas: I.e. Uncertainty created over how best to measure the costs from higher deaths. However, we can just take the accepted practice used in cost-benefit analysis.

The only flaw is in your understanding of externalities. Does the car owner intend to kill? No. Does the gun owner? Hopefully not. However, both have personal preferences that lead to a basic market failure. Its a coercion that you won't be able to dispute (with anything credible that is!)

Nonsense. I don't create congestion, for example, because I drive the car in the country. We can only understand both issues by referring to the market result. Crime effects are certainly an externality and therefore we would certainly have costs imposed on other

Perhaps you should have read up on it before typing then?

This is just a lack of appreciation of the nature of the market led problem. Do I create congestion? No. Is market demand such that externalities are generated? Yep. Does the price mechanism then fail? Assuredly! We only need social costs to exist for that to impact on the gun market. The price mechanism will then create loss associated with coercive relations

 

Lemmi try this again, as you aren't getting what I'm saying.

While I seriously question some particular studies control methods, lets say that if done properly one could indeed isolate the effects of some increase in gun prevalence in a particular area.

So hypothetically we could both read some paper and agree that total homicides increased as a result of that increase in guns.

The issue I am raising is that bundling of total homicides. For whatever reason, many of the studies do indeed split up the demographics of the homicides within the body of their work. For example one of the papers you'd presented split off the demographic of individuals that died during mutually agreed upon combat.

However in the conclusions sections, when they go about deciding on societal costs or homicide rates those are bundled together with all other sorts of homicides showing net societal losses even if gun availibility reduced homicides for other demographics.

I particularly mentioned this for our libertarian friend here, because I'm not sure if a libertarian would even consider a death in mutually sought out combat a societal cost, or even a homicide.

 

You're not saying anything of note, only hoping that vague accusations about aspects of the literature will look convincing. It won't. Multiple techniques are employed, necessarily leading to a wide range of data sources and empirical specifications.

 

hey drj90210, I think you're newer to this board so I thought I'd point out that this is what it looks like when Reiver cedes a point. A bit of hand waving followed by an appeal to authority, neither of which has any relation to the point being ceded and could be (and pretty much is) applied to pretty much anything.

I've got to run, but I might go back a couple pages and get in on this externalities discussion you two are having. Notice how he's actually replying with specifics relevant to the topic, that means he isn't backed into a corner yet.

 

You've been guilty of misrepresentation. I don't expect you to admit it, but I do expect you to improve on your tactics. Hopefully you'll learn from the exercise

 

But my owning a firearm does not yield any increased costs that are imposed on those who do not own firearms. Thus, there is no coercion. Hence, the analogy to cars and pollution is invalid.

So basically, your position that gun ownership causes coercion is based on the unsupported hypothesis that "more guns=more crime." Now I see where you are coming from: You are basing your whole argument of coercion on an unsubstantiated assumption. The literature has already failed to demonstrate any link of causation between more guns and more crime. Hence, to date, this debate is essentially over.

I disagree: The analysis beween the two is entirely different, as demonstrated by the reasons that I have already stated. If we substitute "knife ownership" for "gun ownership," would you be stating the same thing?

It seems that many assumptions and generalizations are made in your economic theory. For instance, since now we have shifted to the topic of death, there are many subgroups of car drivers, such as alcoholics, who are more likely to cause death than those of us who are sober. Similar subgroups exist within the gun-owning population, as I have already discussed. Thus, it is disingenuous to lump these subgroups together, when clearly the majority of deaths are linked to specific subgroups.

Unless you are the sole driver out in the country, then your presence on the road does indeed contribute to congestion. Why do you have to make this more difficult than it is?

But only a small amount of gun owners contribute to crime. I think we need a more apt analogy here:
Scenario 1): Let's say I buy a jar of peanut butter and make a dish which I later serve to guests of my party. Then, let's say one of my guests gets an allergic reaction to the peanut butter. Here, we have a case where the allergic reaction is a negative externality that is secondary to serving peanut butter to my guests.
Scenario 2): Let's say I live alone, have no friends, and buy a jar of peanut butter with a 100% intention to eat by myself. In contrast to scenario #1, there is no negative externality of allergic reaction by the actions of the person in scenario #2.

Thus, it is clear that examining subgroups of populations are essential when determining externalities. Otherwise, we would be making generalizations without addressing the focal concern.

I did, hence my correct usage and understanding of terminology.

If what you're saying is true, and, regarding gun ownership, market demand creates negative externalities that exacerbate social cost and lead to market failure, then basic economic theory dictates that there must be some form of government intervention that can at least partially remedy this problem. However, history has shown that areas of increased gun control most often have increased crime (hence increased social cost). Thus, if your contention was true, then why does it fail when theory is put into practice? I wonder what A.C. Pigou would say regarding all of this?

 

Your argument is akin to 'I don't like the conclusion so I'm going to say its wrong". For the market failure to exist we only need a distinction between private and social costs. There's no debate in that. I deliberately brought up cars as the market analysis is exactly the same. In both cases we have consumption according to personal preferences and a deadweight loss created through the failure to ensure that decision-making is based on 'true' costs. We also can go further and note that extra-market solutions aren't available. The Coase Theorem, for example, is not appliicable.

At least you've moved away from your invalid general remarks over externalities here. Unfortunately you've gone for the all-too-predictable skewing of the evidence. An objective study of the literature certainly leads to the conclusion that the 'more guns=more crime' hypothesis cannot be rejected. Playing pretend, out of ideological wimpishness, isn't going to be worth much.

I've referred consistently to market analysis. Its that analysis that ensures the appropriate comparison of firearm and car-orientated externalities. And how is that market analysis, in terms of understanding social 'crime' costs, understood? We have, for example, spillover effects generated by the secondary gun market. No such effects exist with knives so the substitution, in argument, would make no logical sense.

You mean an economic analysis based on supply and demand which is confirmed by the empirical evidence. Attack supply and demand if you want. That will always amuse!

Sorry but this is complete drivel. I referred to congestion and polliution; classic cases of externalities that produce the same results as analysis into the market failure for firearms. I haven't referred to the likes of death by dangerous driving, a completely different issue of illegality and attack on property rights. This is about problems in the price mechanism whereby we do not face the true costs from our choices. Would other law enforcement regulations be required, despite finding a means to internalise externalities? Well, yes. Golly!

The point is that you cannot understand the externality without reference to the market. For congestion its market demand. For firearms its quantity supplied and the associated spillover effects enabled. Same supply and demand analysis!

Its gun prevalence (be it through theft or the secondary gun market) that is the issue. This is demonstrated by the nature of the empirical approach: measurement of the elasticity of homicide with respect to gun ownership. We can expect homicide effects to be relatively low, at least in terms of comparison with general economic variables, but that just means the price correction will not be such that Joe Public are effectively denied choice.

You've already had the correct comparison: an analysis into market conditions and the distinction between private and social costs.

Your attempt was woeful as it ignored that this is an issue of market failure. We don't have overconsumption of peanuts because we don't face the true costs of our behaviour. Instead we have a general analysis into risk

A license fee to internalise externalities.

You're making stuff up now. History informs us of 2 things. First, gun control has been the norm. Second, as supported by the empirical evidence, it has been found to significantly reduce crimes and suicides.

Pigovian taxes are quite common. The argument against them is actually that, if bargaining is still available (as described in Coase's approach) a tax solution could actually generate underconsumption. Irrelevant here though! So we have, in conclusion, theory and empirical evidence that concludes that you support an irrational result characterised by coercive costs imposed on others.