Comments About Gun Violence

[kirisutogomen]

1. Mass shootings are rare. "Rare relative to what?", you should ask. Rare relative to other ways to die. Sure, we have more mass shootings than other rich countries, but that's still a drop in the bucket compared with other ways to get killed by guns. Fewer than 100 people died in mass shootings in the US in any year in our lifetimes, and in most years a lot less than 100. In comparison, there are 11,000 gun homicides and 18,000 gun suicides annually, followed by much smaller numbers of accidental shootings and criminals getting shot by cops. Mass shootings don't even make it as high as Miscellaneous.

Now, I'm not saying that 100 people's lives are unimportant. What I ought to say is that
we have salience detection optimized for societies of a few hundred people but news about a society of 3x10⁸ people. Every year about 31,000 people die by gunshot, approximately the same as die of accidental poisonings, and slightly below car collisions. (Incidentally, cars probably kill more people with emissions than by impacts.)

So really, any public firearm policy that is driven by mass murders is going to be very confused. 18,000 suicides is a much bigger problem. In case this needs pointing out, nobody uses "assault weapons" to commit suicide. Nobody needs high-capacity magazines to kill themselves. Murders similarly are almost always committed with handguns and use only a few bullets. Pushing bans on "assault weapons" or high-capacity magazines is just political theater. If people were serious they'd forget the AR-15s and ban handguns. Now, note, I am not saying that banning high-capacity magazines or restricting access to machine guns would be useless. I am saying that if that is the principal focus of your policy response, you are screwing up.

(Incidentally, what the hell is an "assault weapon"? All weapons are assault weapons. If they couldn't be used to assault, they wouldn't be weapons.)

2. If I don't have another numbered section then it'll be silly looking to have had a "1."

Mass shootings are increasing in frequency, but violence overall, including firearm violence, is down substantially. We are becoming a more peaceful, civilized society. It is nauseatingly common for media scaremongers to assert without evidence that we're turning into a gun-crazed society ruled by paranoia and chaos. We're not. If someone starts in on "the growing problem of gun violence", turn off your TV, because they don't know what they're talking about. Yeah, you're going to watch a lot less TV this way. Is that so bad?

3. I probably should have started with this one. Of course there is more violence with guns than without. They'd be the world's crappiest weapons if they didn't make violence easier and more destructive. That's what weapons are -- tools to make violence easier and more destructive.

Hopefully just as obviously, eliminating guns wouldn't eliminate all the violence currently committed with guns. The existence of the weapon makes the violence more likely and deadlier, but the weapon is not the sole cause of the violence. People wanting to injure and kill other people is the cause of violence, and that doesn't go away if all you do is focus on the hardware.

4. You know what, my final point is just too big to be a piece of a post. It's going to have to be its own thing.

Comments

[tirinian.livejournal.com]

Point three mostly summarizes my opinions on the issue.

[bakedweasels.livejournal.com]

Hmm...Point 3 basically just says, "Guns are helpful when you want to commit violent acts, but people may do violent things without them." Where does that mean you come down on gun control? I could substitute "fighter aircraft" or "brass knuckles" for "guns" in point 3 and I'd have an equally true point, but I'm not sure it would inform my views on whether the fill-in-the-blank should be legal.

But maybe this post isn't about guns and their prevalence/use/legality, but rather our over-fixation on a few horrific events each year? Maybe I'm reading too much into a simple post about interesting sociological biases and overly simplistic "fixes" for complex problems.

[tirinian.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure you can really substitute "fighter aircraft" in there very effectively, unless you substitute "go to war" for "commit violent acts," too, but brass knuckles, sure. I note brass knuckles are generally illegal. :-)

Mostly, it means that I think people who try to argue "guns don't increase violence" are idiots. It is possible that there are reasons why guns are ok even given they increase violence (level-the-playing-field for self defense being the most prominent one - I don't think the data supports this one in terms of actually making you safer, but I can appreciate it as a theoretical proposition; "revolution" being a historic one that I don't think makes sense anymore, given fighter aircraft), but "guns don't kill people, people kill people" is moronic.

So yeah, I lean towards "things that increase violence without redeeming purpose should be banned", but am willing to listen to people who claim there's a redeeming purpose. I'm not willing to listen to people who claim they don't increase violence.

[marcusmarcusrc.livejournal.com]

What counts as a redeeming purpose? People like guns for recreational purposes - is that redeeming? If it isn't, then what if some definitive study comes along that links violent video games to violence - is it then ok to ban those because they have no non-recreational redeeming purpose?

(mind you, I don't have a gut understanding of why people are so attached to their guns, whether for recreational or "they make me feel safer" purposes, but I recognize that people _do_ have that attachment, and that should be taken into account when determining regulations)

(I'd also be curious about your interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, regardless of whether you think the Amendment is a good idea - given that almost no one argues that it should cover machine-guns, it clearly doesn't mean "a right to any gun", but it seems like the Supremes in Heller say that it should cover handguns?)

[tirinian.livejournal.com]

I'm mostly ok with recreational purposes (hunting/skeet/target practice), sure. Keep them locked up at the facilities that provide for that, turn them in when you're done, woo.

As to Heller, I think it's a ridiculous and poorly reasoned decision, driven by a determination to make the right to bear arms a personal rather than a militia based right, which there is no textual and minimal historical support for. Given that, I find it hard to guess what limits the Court is going to place on that right.

[marcusmarcusrc.livejournal.com]

As with many contentious debates, gun policy is complicated by emotions and lack of rigorous research.

1a) Yup. Mass murders deaths are very small compared to other causes of death (including just regular murders).
1b) But news about mass murders is disproportionately widespread.
1c) And dread about mass murders is similarly widespread.
1d) Does this mean that we should in fact pay disproportionate attention to preventing mass murders, because of this negative dread factor?
1e) Also, copycat crimes. Does this mean that the news should downplay mass murders, because focusing on them gives people a skewed vision of reality, makes people unhappy, and encourages more such events???
(I don't really believe that either d or e should be much of a factor, but can still be interesting to think about)

2) What are the actual optimal policies to reduce violent deaths? Proposals I've seen include:
a) more gun regulation
b) more video game regulation
c) more abortion
d) less lead
e) more mental health
f) more cameras
g) more police
g-2) better police interaction with at risk communities
h) less broken windows
i) putting more criminals in prison
i-2) improving rehabilitation in prisons
i-3) putting fewer non-violent criminals in prison
j) improving employment prospects for young males

I obviously have preferred options in the above list that meet my preconceptions... but there seems to be a lack of good research to really address these issues.

An additional question is what is the cost of a given policy (both monetary and freedom-related). I think this is where some people start from when thinking about magazine-size and rate-of-fire restrictions: the benefit of large magazines and rapid rate of fire seem small for self-defense or hunting purposes, and only moderate for recreation, whereas they do seem to make mass murders easier, and the ability to spray bullets would seem to make collateral damage more likely... and yet, as you point out, these are a small source of total deaths.


I have similar feelings about the disproportionate amount of resources devoted to anti-terrorist and post-9/11 actions. (not to mention, how much of those resources are spent in _ineffective_ actions, regardless of whether the actions would meet a rational cost-benefit analysis).

[arcanology.livejournal.com]

Mostly on the same page with you. Handguns are a much bigger problem than assault weapons, which is like legislating short buildings as an attempt to control lightning strikes.

As a sword guy, I find it an amusing insight on gun culture that if I were to walk around our country carrying a sword, I'm a nutjob (I can't argue with that actually) but if I walk around carring a handgun, that's totally sane. Either way you're carrying around something meant to kill other humans, one is just somewhat more efficient.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

Well, the two guys carrying assault rifles through downtown Portland "to educate people on the Second Amendment" did trigger a lot of people's reflexes for "scary nutjob", so there's clearly some sort of line based on how scary the gun looks.

Which, admittedly, is not the best of places to draw the line, though now that I think about it more, I think the amount of inconvenience it is to carry something is maybe a hint towards how likely you are to be planning to use it soon. I'm just as much of a nutjob (albeit a less dangerous one) if I'm carrying around one of those great big trash cans with me all the time, just in case I need to throw something away.

[nuclearpolymer.livejournal.com]

I am posting about games, culture, and violence as tomorrow's topic on my blog but mostly focusing on the cultural values and video games part. So not addressing the real, as opposed to virtual, guns.

As many debates, the gun control question probably comes down to people having different goals and priorities, and also assigning differing amounts of value to risks and benefits. If people would first argue about what their top goals are, before arguing about whether X action should or should not be taken, it would probably save trouble. Then, when some decision is made about what the goal is, the discussion can turn to assessing the probability that X, Y, and Z action will further than goal, and estimating the other likely effects of X, Y, and Z.

Is the goal is "more people feel safer" or "fewer people die" or "less violence happens"? Or perhaps cynically, "more of the people who matter more feel safer", "fewer of the people who matter more die", and "less violence impacts the people who matter more".

[arcanology.livejournal.com]

What most people in the debate have are not goals and priorities, it is handwringing and fantasies. You can't have a rational utility maximizing process involving "WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN / I WILL FIGHT OFF THE GUMMINT IN THE NEW ERA".

[mjperson.livejournal.com]

Is 2 even true? Are mass shootings actually increasing, or do we just hear about all of them now rather than only some of them before?

[psychohist.livejournal.com]

I don't think 2 is true, except maybe in the sense that the bar for "mass murder" is going down (e.g., shooting 2 people is now a mass shooting).

Of course, I don't think 3 is necessarily true either; there is some evidence that the deterrent effect from personal use of guns - e.g., pointing a gun at a home invader and telling him to get out - may prevent more violence than the presence of guns causes.

[kirisutogomen.livejournal.com]

This is a good question, and hard to answer definitively. As far as I can tell, we've had approximately 60 incidents in the last 30 years which seem to be considered mass shootings, about half of which occurred in the last ten years. There are a lot of different sorts of incidents mixed together there, though; workplace shootings, racially motivated attacks, school massacres, etc.

But my point stands either way; even if rampages are increasing, overall levels of violence are decreasing.