Give up my guns?

[gwb-trading]

I think the defect in this reasoning is that criminals will, in general, not know ahead of time if their prey is armed. The number of exceptions is probably insignificant. If tsing tao believes he is significantly safer in his home than someone without a firearm, he is deluding himself. Only if all , or a very high percentage, of home owners were armed, would having a loaded gun at home ready to fire have a chance of making a person more secure in their home. And even then they might not be statistically safer. As a matter of statistics, the number of accidental shootings in homes with guns is higher than in homes without. The number of accidental shootings in homes without a firearm is statistically zero.

If criminals gave the probability of a proprietor or home owner being armed much consideration, one would expect that very few liquor stores would be robbed; yet liquor store robberies are common. Why? Because they are open late at night when few customers are around. This would seem to be a feature equally as important as the probability of the proprietor being armed, and probably far more important.

It seems the U.S. could learn much from studying countries in which firearm ownership is at a high rate; yet gun violence is a small fraction of what it is in the U.S. If firearm ownership were a deterrent of gun crime, the U.S. should have a very low incidence of gun violence; yet the incidence in the U.S. is high. There is definitely something very wrong with tsing tao's reasoning. It is not gun ownership that deters crime, but something else entirely. Good candidates for this something else is type of gun, uniformity and type of gun laws, registration and transfer of ownership requirements. The important factor is clearly not as simple as the rate of private gun ownership. Even so, there can be no question that if guns were distributed evenly in the population -- they are not -- reducing the number of guns uniformly in the population would reduce the probability of a gun being used to commit a crime.

If one were to correlate gun ownership with gun crime in different countries, I would guess there would not be a consistent correlation. Any correlation there is would likely be positive rather than negative. It doesn't seem that high rates of private gun ownership correlates at all well with lower incidence of gun crimes. There are countries with high incidence of gun ownership, and incidence of gun crime is low; there are countries with high incidence of gun ownership, and incidence of gun crimes is high. Obviously, there are factors more important than gun ownership, per se, that affect the level of gun crime incidence. Thinking you are any safer in your home because you bought a semiautomatic pistol is foolish. You may in fact be less safe.

For many years I lived in Cary, North Carolina. Cary is always listed as one of the safest cities/towns in the U.S. Many years it ranked number 1 on the list. There are two reasons for this:
1) The majority of people who live in Cary North Carolina are upper middle income people who work in Research Triangle Park.
2) Cary has one of the highest household gun ownership rates in the nation. The population includes many military veterans who are comfortable with firearms.

There is an obvious correlation with Cary being one of the safest cities/towns in the U.S. and the high household gun ownership rate. There are other cities that have similar income / size demographics and much higher crime rates because of restrictive gun ownership laws. and low household gun ownership rates -- which merely serves to embolden criminals since they know their victims are defenseless.

(Note: edited to add url links)

 

[Tsing Tao]

For many years I lived in Cary North Carolina. Cary is always listed as one of the safest cities/towns in the U.S. Usually it ranked number 1 on the list. There are two reasons for this:
1) The majority of people who live in Cary North Carolina are upper middle incoming people who work in Research Triangle Park.
2) Cary has one of the highest household gun ownership rates in the nation. The population includes many military veterans who are comfortable with firearms.

There is an obvious correlation with Cary being one of the safest cities/towns in the U.S. and the high household gun ownership rate. There are other cities that have similar income / size demographics and much higher crime rates because of restrictive gun ownership laws. and low household gun ownership rates -- which merely serves to embolden criminals since they know their victims are defenseless.

The part of Tampa I live in has extremely high military and law enforcement ownership. Anecdotal, of course, but when the wife and I were out walking, we saw a police car and asked him what happened, he said a house had been broken into. I said "in this neighborhood??" he said "yeah, very unusual. Usually (town down the road) has all the robberies." meaning that the bad guys didn't usually go for our neighborhood because of all the soldiers and ex-mil.

 

[El OchoCinco]

A
2) A large number of the state & locality gun laws infringe on the second amendment simply by being more restrictive than national law.

That is the point, Congress has not exclusively regulated it and allowed the States to also impose their own regulations. Just because there are some federal laws does not exclude state's rights to then develop their own regulations in their own legislatures. Same with alcohol and abortion.

So the State's various regulations are not infringing upon 2d amendment rights unless a law is challenged in the federal appellate courts and struck down as such. This creates the hodge podge of laws with no continuity on background checks, registration and other items.

 

[gwb-trading]

That is the point, Congress has not exclusively regulated it and allowed the States to also impose their own regulations. Just because there are some federal laws does not exclude state's rights to then develop their own regulations in their own legislatures. Same with alcohol and abortion.

So the State's various regulations are not infringing upon 2d amendment rights unless a law is challenged in the federal appellate courts and struck down as such. This creates the hodge podge of laws with no continuity on background checks, registration and other items.

"Same with alcohol and abortion" - No it is very different. Alcohol and abortion are not covered by a Constitutional Amendment. The regulation of guns is a very different matter. Extensions put forward by states and localities obviously infringe on the amendment -- gun owners should more aggressively take action in courts to eliminate these infringements and demand a national level set of gun ownership, background check, and carry laws.

 

[El OchoCinco]

I understand the distinction you made but the point is that although guns do fall under an amendment, the federal government has not undertaken to regulate it 100% exclusively. An amendment does not mean freedom from any regulation whatsoever. As repeated numerous times, this was treated by the Supreme Court more than 100 years ago.

The Federal government has passed general laws but has allowed State by State regulation of various items. The State by State regulation is not unconstitutional. Only if they directly contradict any federal law. This is the grey area which leads to the hodge podge I refer to. It is not for lack of constitutional challenges,

Coongress should take action to create a national level of ownership, background check, carry laws, etc. But they choose to stick their head in the sand and only send thoughts and prayers.

 

[piezoe]

For many years I lived in Cary, North Carolina. Cary is always listed as one of the safest cities/towns in the U.S. Many years it ranked number 1 on the list. There are two reasons for this:
1) The majority of people who live in Cary North Carolina are upper middle income people who work in Research Triangle Park.
2) Cary has one of the highest household gun ownership rates in the nation. The population includes many military veterans who are comfortable with firearms.

There is an obvious correlation with Cary being one of the safest cities/towns in the U.S. and the high household gun ownership rate. There are other cities that have similar income / size demographics and much higher crime rates because of restrictive gun ownership laws. and low household gun ownership rates -- which merely serves to embolden criminals since they know their victims are defenseless.

(Note: edited to add url links)

This is an interesting, and nearly irresistible anecdote. You are correct to point out at least two possible factors affecting the crime rate in Cary. I suspect the second reason you mention, household gun ownership, plays virtually no role in the low incidence of crime. But my intuition alone is useless in arriving at effective gun control. Sometimes correlation exists where it is due to cause and effect, and other times it is not. The problem with these simple anecdotes providing sound argument is that there is no control. Can you find a community in the U.S. where the gun ownership rate of firearms is atypically low and yet the crime rate is also atypically low? I'm sure you can.

My point, then, is that these anecdotes are useless when deciding whether crime rates can be reduced via gun control. There are two reasons. One is that anecdotes represent only one or a small number of observations, so they are unreliable in predicting what will be true on average. The other argument against an approach based on anecdote is that they assume correlation comes from cause and effect --otherwise why would we bother with anecdote -- while ignoring all the other factors that may be equally or more important in determining outcome. One has to use statistical arguments based on large numbers of observations to show what will be true on average. We should not rely on emotion and intuition attached to isolated examples in trying to predict what will be true, on average, for future observations.

We are not interested in any one particular observation, but rather what is true on average. Intuitively, one suspects that a major factor affecting the crime rate in Cary North Carolina is not the rate of gun ownership in households, but rather the poverty rate in Cary. Such intuition, however, is not reliable. It calls on us to assume the relative population of would be burglars/robbers in Cary is similar or lower than in some other community where the gun crime rate is similarly low but the rate of household gun ownership is significantly less. That is to say the low crime rate appears independent of the rate of household gun ownership and must be attributed to some other factor.

These anecdotal stories are of use by various factions on either side of the gun control argument, and even of some use in arriving at political accommodation, but useless in arriving at effective gun control measures that don't illegally and unnecessarily impinge on Constitutional rights.

 

[AAAintheBeltway]

Alcohol is covered by a Constitutional Amendment. The 21st, which repealed prohibition. It specifically gave states the right to regulate alcohol. The same approach should have been followed with abortion but the Supreme Court invented a constitutional right.

21st Amendment:

Section 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

Section 2. The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.

Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress

 

[gwb-trading]

This is an interesting, and nearly irresitable anecdote. Sometimes correlation exists where it is due to cause and effect and other times it is not. The problem with these simple anecdotes providing sound argument is that there is no control. Can you find a community in the U.S. where the gun ownership rate of firearms is atypically low and yet the crime rate is also atypically low. I'm sure you can.

My point then. is that these anecdotes are useless when deciding whether crime rates can be reduced via gun control. There are two reasons. One is that anecdotes represent only one or a small number of observations, so they are unreliable in predicting what will be true on average. The other argument against an approach based on anecdote is that they assume correlation comes from cause and effect while ignoring all the other factors that may be equally or more important in determining outcome. One has to use statistical arguments based on large numbers of observations to show what will be true on average. We should not rely on emotion and intuition attached to isolated examples in trying to predict ahead of time what will be true for any particular observation.

In gun control we desire to predict what will be true on average for future observations. We are not interested in any one particular observation, but rather what is true on average. Intuitively, one suspects that a major factor affecting the crime rate in Cary North Carolina is not the rate of gun ownership in households, but rather the poverty rate in Cary. Such intuition, however, is not reliable. It calls on us to assume the relative population of would be burglers/robbers in Cary is similar to that in some other community where the gun crime rate is significantly higher but the rate of household gun ownership is significantly less.

These anecdotal stories are of use by various factions on either side of the gun control argument, and even of some use in arriving at political accommodation, but useless in arriving at effective gun control measures that don't illegally and unnecessarily impinge on Constitutional rights.

So explain to us statistically why similar sized cities with similar income demographics have very different crime rates when the primary factor of household gun ownership rate is evaluated versus the crime rate. High household gun ownership rate equals low crime. It is not just an anecdote.

 

[AAAintheBeltway]

For many years I lived in Cary, North Carolina. Cary is always listed as one of the safest cities/towns in the U.S. Many years it ranked number 1 on the list. There are two reasons for this:
1) The majority of people who live in Cary North Carolina are upper middle income people who work in Research Triangle Park.
2) Cary has one of the highest household gun ownership rates in the nation. The population includes many military veterans who are comfortable with firearms.

There is an obvious correlation with Cary being one of the safest cities/towns in the U.S. and the high household gun ownership rate. There are other cities that have similar income / size demographics and much higher crime rates because of restrictive gun ownership laws. and low household gun ownership rates -- which merely serves to embolden criminals since they know their victims are defenseless.

(Note: edited to add url links)

Demographics of Cary:

According to the 2010 Census, there were 135,234 people and 55,303 households in the town. As of 2013[update], the population has increased to 151,088.[19] The population was 73.1% White, 13.1% Asian, 8.0% African American, 7.7% Hispanic or Latin of any race, 2.6% identified as having ancestry of two or more races, 0.4% Native American, and 0.0% Pacific Islander.

The median household income for Cary as of 2011[update] was $110,609.

Educational attainment[edit]
More than two-thirds (68.0%) of Cary residents (aged 25 and older) hold an associate degree or higher, and 60.7% of adults possess a bachelor's degree or higher. Cary has one of the lowest crime rates (79% less than North Carolina) in the state for municipalities of its size.[20][21] The home ownership rate (owner-occupied housing units to total units) is 72.8%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cary,_North_Carolina

I suspect Cary's crime rate is not unusual for towns with this demographic makeup, ie nearly 90% white and Asian with high educational and income levels.

 

[gwb-trading]

Demographics of Cary:

According to the 2010 Census, there were 135,234 people and 55,303 households in the town. As of 2013[update], the population has increased to 151,088.[19] The population was 73.1% White, 13.1% Asian, 8.0% African American, 7.7% Hispanic or Latin of any race, 2.6% identified as having ancestry of two or more races, 0.4% Native American, and 0.0% Pacific Islander.

The median household income for Cary as of 2011[update] was $110,609.

Educational attainment[edit]
More than two-thirds (68.0%) of Cary residents (aged 25 and older) hold an associate degree or higher, and 60.7% of adults possess a bachelor's degree or higher. Cary has one of the lowest crime rates (79% less than North Carolina) in the state for municipalities of its size.[20][21] The home ownership rate (owner-occupied housing units to total units) is 72.8%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cary,_North_Carolina

I suspect Cary's crime rate is not unusual for towns with this demographic makeup, ie nearly 90% white and Asian with high educational and income levels.

And yet --- why are there towns & cities with similar demographics with much higher crimes rates. What makes these other towns and cities have much higher crime rates?