Gun policy and associated lies

[snousle]

I cannot believe how much flap there has been over twenty murders in a country that experiences more than a thousand times that many every year. All because they were clustered in one place, with one perpetrator. All else being equal, is it not prereferable to have twenty children murdered by one madman, than twenty children murdered by twenty madmen? That, at least, is nineteen fewer madmen to contend with.

Unfortunately the media pile-on is not the result of any particular decision, its more like the weather, the confluence of many forces that are beyond human control. The story is not the murders; the story is the story, and the murders are incidental to that. As with 9-11, the reaction to the tragedy is far, far, far more tragic than the tragedy itself. It's like a national autoimmune disease, in which the whole country attacks and injures itself, in a way that is grossly disproportionate to the original assault.

What grates at me most, though, is the poor quality of reporting and discourse, which leaves me wondering whether to add to the manure pile or just ignore it. I think, though, that there is one thing worth saying, and saying very, very loudly:

Anyone who claims that there is a clear relationship between gun control policy and violence is a liar.

This applies to both the conventional liberal and conservative positions. This is a subject that has been studied out the wazoo, and the only consistent result has been that there is no consistent result. This applies not to imaginary scenarios, such as magically teleporting all guns into outer space, but to actions that can be plausibly and realistically carried out, such as mandating gun registration or passing concealed carry laws. Thanks to state level implementation of many different policies, there have been many natural experiments from which we can draw conclusions, and those conclusions are all over the map. Their inconsistency proves their unreliability. Unfortunately, discussion on the subject have been dominated by fabricated statistics that don't bear even a few minutes of scrutiny, and outright fantasies that don't even offer enough substance for critical analysis in the first place.

Never have I seen a subject that has revealed so much willful ignorance and cherry picking as this one. If there is a silver lining to all this, it's that nothing that is done in this area is really going to matter. Even if Obama makes it a priority, Congress has the opposite priority. Even if laws are passed, the demographics of gun ownership will change slowly, if at all. And if the demographics of gun ownership change, the effect on violent crime - which, incidentally, has been steeply decreasing for more than a decade - will probably not change in its unpredictable and always-surprising course. And if by some miracle it did, we would never even know it. The whole thing is just a giant waste of oxygen.

Comments

[danthered.livejournal.com]

I don't necessarily agree with you that nothing can practicably or effectively be done, but I do very much agree with you on the bizarre and tragic reflexive self-mutilation the US so reliably does. 9/11 was an unmitigated success for its perpetrators and their supporters; look at what the US has spent and sacrificed and done to itself in futile pursuit of "security"! 3,000 people died at the World Trade Center in 2001. More than an order of magnitude more than the WTC toll died that same year in American traffic, but that's just business as usual. More than two orders of magnitude more than the WTC toll died that same year in America from tobacco, but that's just freedom and libertee and adult choices.

Umwhut?!!

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

One can argue that the other industrialized nations that have both stricter gun laws and a tiny fraction of our per capita level of gun violence also have cultural factors that play into that - but it is unquestionably, irrefutably the case that we both have ridiculously lax gun laws AND the highest rate of civilian gun deaths and maimings in the industrialized world. I do not think these two facts are completely unrelated.

A conservative case for an assault weapons ban

[barbarian-rat.livejournal.com]

This was a very interesting exchange. Snousle, you make some very good points.

Some things come to mind that have not been addressed, because they are only indirectly connected to the point you made in your initial post.
So, it you have the energy, I'm wondering what you think of:

My understanding is that people who own assault weapons don't use them for hunting, but to be on more equal footing should a political revolution arise such as it did in 1776.

Addressing mental illness, not only in getting them more medical help, but their access to weapons.

My understanding is that currently vendors at gun shows do not have to follow the same reporting regulations as a retail gun shop does.

In the 80s much of the murder rate was connected with the cocaine wars and black people were the main victims. Recent mass murders involved mostly white people. That, I think, is one reason there is such a reaction to these mass murders. It similar to missing children, attractive white girls receive much more media attention, and probably police attention too, than a black girl, attractive or not.

[h0gwash.livejournal.com]

Ultimately, gun control is kind of an optional thing so I don't think there's much story there. Sir! May I remind you that discharging a weapon within the city limits is illegal!

I think the real staying power of the story is the actively nihilistic psychosis which has happened on both coasts and the midwest.

The New Economy of simultaneously prolonged high unemployment for some and very long work hours for many others has trapped most Americans in a prolonged state of heavy emotional stress. We don't know where the fulcrum between normalcy and psychosis lies and we are afraid we will or someone we are supporting will be driven mad.

[equinas.livejournal.com]

I love how you call it an auto-immune disorder for the country to attack itself when this kind of thing happens. That is a perfect analogy.