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This means there a weakly positive effect on homicide rate with increased gun ownership. Not nearly as much as the anti-gun argument would have us believe and opposite the effect the pro-gun argument would have us believe.
Something like homicide rate has far more factors affecting it than simple access to guns. In order to tease out the effect guns may or may not have, we would have to control for other contributing factors. Poverty and economic effects would be a major one. Ethnic diversity might be another. Use of illicit drugs probably has an effect. It'd be hard to tease out.

We might also consider unintentional discharges of firearms. In my state, every hunting season sees at least a couple incidents where hunters wind up in the hospital after a gun goes off unexpectedly. (safeties, people!) And while data is collected on injuries and deaths to people, nobody keeps track of the number of times an unintentional discharge misses anybody in range or only damages property. I think it's safe to say that for every unintentional discharge that hits a person, there are several where through dumb luck, no one is hurt. Most of us can probably count on one had the number of automobile collisions we've been in, but have lost track of the number of close calls we've had out there on the road (good thing the insurance companies can't find out about those!).

I bring that up because I've been thinking about gun accidents a lot this year. My brother's best friend since elementary school accidentally shot himself in the knee this year and based on the description of his wound, I doubt that joint will ever function correctly again. This guy has been shooting guns since he could walk and I would consider him the most competent non-military gun owner I know. But he's still human and guns a very unforgiving of mistakes. And he did this just a couple months after Wisconsin passed it's conceal-carry law.

So it has me very concerned about all the people who are toting handguns around in increasing numbers. The idea that any Tom, Dick and Harry can carry around deadly force after just a couple hour training course is unnerving. What takes the police years of training to be able to do with any public confidence, now thousands of people less competent than my brother's friend can do too. That seems like it's adding unnecessary risk to everyone's life.

If I'm out in public and notice somebody is packing heat, I'm going to call the fucking cops. I don't care if they have their little Cracker-Jack Box permit; I don't know their intentions. They don't have that permit tattooed on their forehead. I can't tell if they are about to commit a crime or are just a scared little pussy. Just like they assume they'd actually be able to thwart an attack, I have to assume they're up to no good.

Current events warrant a double post.

Here we go again! This time, the spree killing is right in my backyard, goddammit. Today some sick fuck started blowing away people inside a Sikh temple in one of Milwaukee's suburbs. (Sikhs [pronounced "seeks"] are the Indian dudes that wear the turbans and all the retard racists mistake them for Muslims.) He killed six people (so far) before the cops ended the carnage.

Being a fairly large and fairly segregated city, both racially and economically, Milwaukee is no stranger to gun violence. But this is a whole new level of insanity. Nothing is known about the shooter at this point (other than it's a white guy), but like most spree killings, I'm sure he was some mentally disturbed reject who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a gun.

Even though the media won't say so at this point, everyone knows exactly what happened. Some Islama-phobic ass bite thinks he needs to kill some Muslims, so like a total retard, he sees the guys in the turbans and his hateful, pee-wee brain assumes they must be Muslims and the rest is blood and death. Unless you're robbing a convenience store, no one has an excuse to ever be shooting at Sikhs. (Not like that's a good reason.) That is unless you're a total racist dumbass who doesn't even know who you hate. These are like totally non-violent people. They have no extremists, they have no hate, they are probably the most charitable religion in these parts. The only beef anyone could possibly have with them is seeing a brown person in a turban and assume it's Osama.

Having one of these spree killings in the media market you live in is an interesting experience. Seeing your local affiliates in wall-to-wall national media coverage is weird. Not to mention depressing. Because it's so obvious what the motivation was behind this latest slaughter, that makes my town look really shitty. Hell, I've driven by that temple many times in the years I've lived around here. Now it's just another American town smeared with the stain of senseless spree killing violence.

That's one possability but it's best to wait until the evidence comes in before we blame the media for not reporting it. When all we know is that it was a white guy, we can't say what the motive was. Hell people are still unsure what motivated the Columbine killers over a decade on. People said muslims probably did the Finland murder to start with! It's the same kind of logic.

The Young Turks "the point" did an episode on gun control.

Local news choppers are now buzzing around the area of suspect's dwelling in an adjacent suburb. Apparently he drove his red pick up truck to the crime scene.

Hmm, white guy, kinda heavy, in his 30's, drives a red pick-up truck...
Shit, I think I might've done it!

I mean I'm not 30 but if you saw me you'd probably assume I was. And I'm not as thin as a was a couple years ago. And I do definitely drive a red pick up.

Then again this is Wisconsin. There are a lot of pick up driving white guys still clinging to a waist size in the 30's. Still, that's an unsettling amount of characteristics to share with a terrorist. If that guy had gotten away and the police were looking for him, I would have fit the limited description pretty much perfectly.

Now the evidence is in and we know he was an idiotic neo-nazi the media are reporting that fact.

I see a lot of people suggesting the police are no help with crime so we need guns. Part of me would love a city or state to test that hypothesis, to get rid of the police and give everyone a gun.

People say we should all have guns so we can stop shooters but do we want to live in a coutnry where we're always on the lookout for shooters and carrying a gun just in case?

We tried that in America a while back in places like Dodge City, Deadwood, Virginia City, Dawson and so on. People didn't like it all that much. The story of the righteous lawman bringing law and order to the rough and tumble frontier boom town is an American cliche.

People have forgotten so need reminding.


People make arguments like this I know they don't really accept. If they went into a fight to the death and could choose to use a gun or a knife (or a pen) I know what they'd choose. If they could chose their opponent's weapon I know too. Why do people make arguments they know are BS? Same goes for the meaningless 'guns don't kill people' meme.
They're just copy pasting, they're not being challenged for it. It's an emotional, political, groupthink thing; it's not about evidence anymore.

People keep saying property crime goes up when gun ownership goes down. Not sure how true this is. If murder rates go down with increased gun ownership though, as the stats suggest, it doesn't really matter; lowering the murder rate by increasing the theft rate seems a fine deal.

I've also been told assaults go up when gun ownerhsip is low, which makes sense. The people who would commit crime will be the same assh*les and have to act on their violent impulses with different weapons. The lower murder rate comes in here though. If the people who would shoot instead assault, less harm will be done.
The DEA say alcohol prohibition decreased alcohol consumption by 30% - even if that were true the harm increased more than use dropped. If the crime rate in general goes up with lower guns but the type of crime shifts from 'murder' to 'assault' that would also be a worthy trade. Though I've not seen any data for this just claims made by gun rights types.

People say 'criminals don't obey the law' as if criminals are ALL smart enough to figure out how to get illegal guns on the black market. They say 'inanimate objects can't have moral responsability,' as if that is a counter to the evidence that guns mean more crime; no ammount of moral arguments will change the evidence.

I've seen "most gun owners don't commit crimes" as an argument against regulation a lot lately. Weather most people don't commit crimes doesn't alter what the general effect of gun ownership on crime is.

Once I heard about the Sikh shooting I had an inkling it would be some sort of ignorant racial thing. You will never see more confederate flag decals north of the Mason-Dixon line outside of Wisconsin. Get outside of Madison or Milwaukee and you will find a lot of communities with a token minority family at best express how they don't trust those *insert popular term for ethnic minority here*. Jews, black, mexicans, muslims (which means middle eastern or south asian). It's fun hearing bitching about Muslims from people who have never even interacted with one in their lives.

It seems amazing to me that there is less hate toward this guy than the shooter in Colorado. As much as both crimes repulse me, if someone is truly mentally ill or incapacitated, I hold far less contempt than someone who decided he hated an entire group enough to take out as many as he could. Getting the targeted group wrong just makes this even more disgusting. Yet the sad reality is that there is a vocal minority who support any action that gets rid of someone they deem a 'towelhead'.


As far as guns as a whole go... we have licenses to drive vehicles because there is a very real risk of hurting someone else. Why not require that for guns? A minimum level of competency to show you can operate the kind of firearm that one wishes to own is not unreasonable. Semi-automatics and automatics should require more stringent requirements just as we have difference classes for motorcycles and semi trucks for the safety of the public. If you screw up, you lose your right to own a gun until you show you're no longer a threat.

Require a course in gun safety. Cut down on the accidents that are often the result of carelessness or stupidity. I'm not a gun user by choice but have no problem with people who opt for one. But being born and raised in Wisconsin, I grew up hearing about every hunting season about idiots, often drunk, causing accidents while stalking deer in the woods. If you want a firearm, some responsibility and accountability needs to be in place.

Keep in mind that back at he founding of the nation guns were much more primitive. Each shot had to be loaded on its own and a fuse lit to set off the powder charge. Accuracy wasn't so good and if you missed your shot you had to spend a considerable amount of time reloading. Nobody in that time could ever imagine the weaponry we have today or the ease at which killing could take place. The second amendment needs to be considered in terms of what is reasonable in modern circumstances.

We can argue about gun control until time itself stops, but at the end of the day, the people who die in these killing sprees will still be dead. Doesn't that mean something to anyone on either side?

I'm not calling out anyone here in particular, just expressing how I feel about the subject.

I guess the point is what can be done to prevent the next spree killing. In the wake of these things, this country tends just to argue about guns and gun control until something more interesting comes along and the whole issue is forgotten until the next spree killing.

But clearly something that's always at issue with mass murderers is access to mental health care. In a country where millions don't even have access to regular health care, you can forget about being able to talk to a professional about the weird shit going through your brain. Not unless you have the bankroll.

Just like society is stuck with the high financial cost of treating those without health care, so to is society stuck with the steep cost of some dude wigging out and slaughtering innocent people every few months. Preventing these 'costs' would be better for everyone, but because that involves a collective investment many are too short sighted to see the benefit of, nothing is done.

It can't be that hard to prevent people with mental problems from getting guns. I'm sure the UK, Japan, Germany and every other 1st World nation has their share of psychos, but you rarely see them committing mass murder. Europe gets like one a decade compared to the 5 or 6 a year we get in America.

The people who died in past sprees and more common shootings will still be dead, but weather as many future victims of potential crimes (spree or otherwise) will die (or be as injured) seems to be the main source of disagreement on this issue.

There seem to be as many types of potential gun law to discuss, as there are types of crime. Some kinds of law are more relevant to some kinds of crime than others. Handgun laws don't seem relevant to the harm done in spree killings, but it seems plausible assault weapon laws are.


It seems a public health issue, as the cost of giving these people care would be outweighed by the benefits of less crime?
Other factors like mental health are way more important than gun laws and should be discussed more. That doesn't make guns not an issue, that doesn't intersect with other factors (as in 'guns for mental patients'). Not all mental illnesses make people more likely to be violent and any law should be sensitive to this mind.


I'm pretty sure anyone who walks into a crowd of people and opens fire is mentally ill in some sense. If you hate 'towelheads' enough to kill them, you're crazy in a different way to if you think you're the Joker but still crazy. It's more a broadly shared social craziness though.

Given most spree killers i know of got their guns through loopholes like the gunshow one, closing those loopholes seems a good step.


An 18th century gun =/= a 21st century gun. The spirit of any old law like the constitution should be taken above it's letter but facts above even that.

It's important to talk about important issues after tragedies, because those are the only times anyone cares enough to do anything about it. Not like our discussion will get stuff done though it's pretty moot.

The 2nd Amendment uses the word "arms" not "guns" so a person could claim the right to own literally anything that can be used as a weapon since "arms" means everything from knives and swords to tanks, mortars and nuclear bombs. Yet we allow regulation of these other arms without any controversy. So it's not controversial to deny citizens access to grenades, but it is controversial to deny access to assault weapons? One can kill a lot more people with an assault rifle than with a grenade in most situations.

It's possible that tough laws against one type of 'arm' are good and weak laws against another type are good. The cost of tough laws must be outweighed by the benefit of less harm due to fewer arms, if tough laws are to be enacted. The ammount of harm done by different classes of arm differs so different weapons should have different laws.

The problem is that we're not going by how much harm different kinds of weapons do, or how costly the laws are. Most people are going on ideology, on both sides of this issue, seems to be the problem.

Makes me wish that the founding fathers could see the future and be more clear on the matter.
If you are into hunting or target shooting, fine by me. If you live in a rural area and deal with wild animals, fine by me. If you live in a dangerous area, ok. (I live just outside of St. Louis. Almost every night somebody in northern or East St. Louis has been shot on the news.) If you are worried about an intruder, ok. But why the hell would anyone need guns other than that? (Most of the time I think it's compensating for something.)

My dad owns a couple of simple shotguns he used for target practice back when he was younger. We haven't touched them in 3 years, when a crazy guy was hiding in the woods behind our house and the cops were all over the neighborhood. The only kind of guns I've ever been interested in are those Hello Kitty guns, because no criminal will want the embarrassment of being shot by it. (Bonus points if you paint the bullets pink.) But I guess my lack of interest in guns is why I don't see that much of a need for them.

For the people who think they can stop a spree killing, even trained professionals such as the armed forces and cops miss. Most citizens don't have that kind of training, so the chances of them succeeding are lower. Add that with being scared as hell, and your chances go down even more. It's like those people who play CoD and then think they're ready for Afghanistan.

Personally, I think we need to require some gun safety test or something, along with better background checks.

They did see the world was changing and made provisions for the constitution to be a living document (the vagary of "well regulated") so the living could be ruled by the living. Sadly we don't let SCOTUS interpret the f*ck out of it as was probably intended