Friday, July 29, 2011

Are you YOUNG? Are you MALE? Can you supply your own ROCKS? Enlist with your local crack suicide squad NOW!

Kevin Baker has posted another reply on his own blog. In all honesty there isn't a huge amount to see - it follows his normal practice of saying all the things that have been comprehensively debunked many times before, but saying them LOUDER!!!! (For the uninitiated, that's an affectionate tribute to one of his many delightful catchphrases.) The main gist is that it doesn't matter a damn that the UK with its strict gun control regime has a much lower homicide rate than the US, because the gap used to be wider still, but has "converged" even as successive British governments have introduced progressively more stringent restrictions on gun ownership. But just one problem (the same one as usual) - where is the remotest rational basis for believing, as Baker does, that this "convergence" has actually been caused by the changes in the law? Let's not forget that Baker's first proposition is that the huge difference in murder rates between our two countries can't possibly have anything to do with gun laws or levels of gun ownership, but must have everything to do with the vague, all-purpose explanation "culture". But, by contrast, he simultaneously believes that increases in the British homicide rate over the years can't possibly have anything whatever to do with "cultural" changes (of which there have of course been plenty), but must have absolutely everything to do with the strengthening of the gun legislation. That, as I've now pointed out umpteen times, is magical thinking on an industrial scale.

This is the true position :

Gun control legislation was at one time minimal in the UK, for the very good reason that there wasn't really a gun problem. Rates of gun ownership were always a tiny fraction of what they were in some other countries, especially the US. To listen to Baker's account of what happened, you'd think there was once a US-style gun free-for-all in Britain which coincided with a golden age of peace and harmony. Then those dastardly socialist politicians took all the legal guns away, and all hell broke loose. 'Fraid not, Kevin. Gun control has been progressively strengthened in an attempt not to reverse a former prevalence of gun ownership, but to maintain as far as possible the status quo of a society that is largely unarmed, and in which gun violence is a rarity. It's been like swimming against the tide, unfortunately, and the increasing number of illegal weapons has meant that the legislation has at times felt like damage limitation rather than a comprehensive solution. But the idea that the damage has not in fact been significantly limited, and that the problem would not now be much, much worse if the legislation had not been in place, simply doesn't stand up to the remotest scrutiny.

Now briefly to a couple of Kevin's random jibes -

"But hey! At least they're not killing each other with GUNS! Because somehow that makes a difference."

Kevin, this is really not a hard concept to understand, so just for you, I will try one more time to explain. You're correct that the weapon typically used to commit violence in a society wouldn't matter if the same number of people were going to die anyway, but I'm afraid that isn't the case. Self-evidently there are murders in Scotland (as there are in every country in the world), and those murders are largely carried out with weapons other than firearms, but they are also dramatically fewer in number than would be the case if more violent offenders were armed with guns. That is the relevance of a comparison between the homicide statistics in Arizona and Scotland, two jurisdictions with broadly similar population sizes, but very different rates of gun ownership.

"Back when I wrote What We Got Here is ... Failure to Communicate, I noted that Thomas Sowell pointed out one major difference between those who believe humans are perfectible and those like me who believe human nature doesn't change. Those who believe in human perfectibility believe in solutions. Those like me see trade-offs."

And I pointed out to you at the time that you were ascribing to me a belief in "human perfectibility" that I do not hold, but it seems you had your fingers firmly stuck in your ears on that day as well.

"Hey, maybe he's right. Maybe if the Scots had guns they would kill each other at astronomical rates. Given their obviously hyper-violent culture ...."

Now, the truly frightening thing is that you honestly believe that's a joke. I doubt it would exceed the astronomical US levels of gun murder, but by European standards we could well be facing carnage. Many a true word spoken in jest, Kevin. Still, maybe it wouldn't be so bad - as long as we had crack suicide squads of "young men with rocks" on every street corner, what harm could guns do us?

14 comments:

  1. I repeat: Our worldviews are so divergent that we talk past each other.

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  2. Not at all. I've tackled head-on the main point you raised ("convergence") and it would be perfectly possible for you to engage seriously with my objections if you so chose. Always assuming that you actually have a credible answer to those objections, of course.

    For example, you've repeatedly assured us that (in contrast to me) you have irrefutable proof for your beliefs - OK, then, where is the hard proof that progressively tougher gun control legislation is causally linked to the "convergence" between the UK and US homicide rates?

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  3. To repeat myself once again: "I believe that statistics can disprove one philosophy, but not the other."

    The evidence says that "gun control" does not make you safer. LACK of "gun control" has not made the U.S. more dangerous. All of the statistical evidence gathered to date (three studies over multiple decades) has been unable to show ANY relationship between gun control laws and violent crime. The ONLY place where there has been ANY evidence that a gun control law has had a statistically significant effect on behavior was in the Brady Bill three-day waiting period. The statistics indicated that the law changed the method (but not the total number) of suicides among middle-aged men. In other words, it caused method substitution.

    Other than that, the statistics are moot.

    To repeat myself again: I cannot prove, nor have I tried, that "progressively tougher gun control legislation is causally linked to the 'convergence' between the UK and US homicide rates." What I can "prove" - and have to my satisfaction, but obviously not yours - is that "progressively tougher gun control legislation" hasn't made the UK safer, nor has the lack thereof made the US more dangerous. The UK implemented "gun control" until it has "the strictest laws in the world." Violent crime has gone UP. The US allows its citizens (almost all of us) to carry concealed weapons with minimal restrictions. Our violent crime has been declining for nearly two decades.

    Correlation is not causation, but one countering data point destroys a hypothesis.

    You see, your position has been that if such gun laws did not exist, the UK would be even more violent than it is, has it not? That "more guns equals more crime," no? By your "logic" the US should be the most violent nation on Earth, yet Scotland has taken the title of "the most violent country in the developed world" and England & Wales is currently #2.

    You just don't kill each other as often. You never have. But you run a three times higher likelihood of being a victim of violent crime than I do, simply by being a resident of Scotland.

    And you have voluntarily disarmed your fellow citizens in the face of that fact.

    But you haven't disarmed your criminals and you never will.

    Our first principles are divergent. This will not get through to you. It can't. You will once again misconstrue what I have said here. You have to. It doesn't fit the way your mind works.

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  4. Dammit. "moot" should be "mute."

    Proofread, proofread, proofread.

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  5. "The evidence says that "gun control" does not make you safer"

    It does not say any such thing. You use smoke and mirrors to make it appear that it does - ie. the homicide rate sometimes creeps up in the years after gun control is tightened, therefore it isn't working. But to demonstrate that it isn't working (ie. isn't making people "safer") what you actually have to demonstrate is that the homicide rate isn't lower than it would otherwise have been if the legislation wasn't in place. I think we can safely assume that you don't have any such evidence, because I've challenged you on that before. I believe the reaction of one your followers was something along the lines of "how the hell are we supposed to prove that?" - well, fair enough, but if you can't, you have quite simply failed to disprove what you repeatedly claim you have disproved.

    And I really must reiterate that it is utterly extraordinary that one of your articles of faith is that the mammoth disparity between homicide rates in the UK and US can be entirely explained away by "culture", but that you only ever look to gun legislation to explain any changes in the respective homicide rates of those countries over time, rather than, for example, "cultural" factors.

    A five-year-old could spot the gaping hole in that logic.

    "You just don't kill each other as often. You never have."

    And hasn't it occurred to you that this phenomenon could be partly explained by the fact that the UK and Scotland have never had US-style rates of gun ownership, even in the period when there was minimal gun control legislation? That was one of the points I made in the post above.

    "By your "logic" the US should be the most violent nation on Earth"

    By any logic the claim that Scotland is a more violent country than the US has very little meaning when you bear in mind the respective homicide rates. I trust the suggestion in your own post that an astronomic increase in the Scottish murder rate as a result of more guns would be a reasonable trade-off for fewer instances of lesser violence was intended as a joke - if not, words fail me. After all, I thought more guns didn't cause more deaths? You haven't gone and shot yourself in the foot there, have you Kevin?

    "But you haven't disarmed your criminals and you never will."

    If it wasn't at least partly true that we have disarmed our criminals, why such a comparatively low homicide rate? I'm not unsympathetic - I appreciate how problematical these figures are for you.

    "Our first principles are divergent. This will not get through to you. It can't. You will once again misconstrue what I have said here. You have to. It doesn't fit the way your mind works."

    Hmmm. A cynical person might suspect that you feel you have to issue an all-purpose disclaimer like that, just in case anything I say in response is too close to the knuckle. Well, we can't have that, can we?

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  6. "It does not say any such thing."

    Statisticians who have studied the data OVER DECADES say there is no statistical correspondence between gun control legislation and rates of violent crime - up or down - including homicide. That's not "smoke and mirrors." That's mathematics.

    Fact: The U.S. adds over four million new firearms to its privately-owned stock each and every year (significantly more the last few years) and this does not result in ever-increasing violent crime - including homicide.

    Fact: The UK has BANNED several classes of firearms, including handguns, and this has not resulted in a DECREASE or even a LEVELING of violent crime - including homicide.

    I rest my case. I can't get through to you. It's all "smoke and mirrors."

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  7. "Statisticians who have studied the data OVER DECADES"

    Whose statisticians are these? I only ask because I seem to recall referring you to a battery of statistical evidence showing a very clear correlation not only between gun control and lower homicide rates, but also between gun control and lower suicide rates. Those lines of research were not to your liking, therefore they didn't count. Forgive me if I treat your own statisticians with a similar degree of disdain, especially as you haven't provided a link.

    As for the rest, you've simply repeated your previous observations that are, as already noted, irrelevant to the point you claim to have "disproved". You've also ignored the specific questions that I asked. A few words of advice for future reference - "getting through to people" generally involves a degree of two-way communication (ie. listening as well as transmitting), and it may not actually be possible or even desirable for you to "get through to them" if you are demonstrably wrong in the first place. Oh, and if you ever find yourself in a real court of law, try not to "rest your case" at such a moment of obvious weakness, otherwise you might find yourself in line for a lethal injection, or whatever passes for justice in Arizona these days.

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  8. Pt. 1 of 2 (*sigh*)

    OK, James, ONE MORE TIME. There have been three (count 'em, THREE) meta-studies of gun control done, two here in the U.S. and one in the UK. They studied the data and conclusions of peer-reviewed papers available researching the effects of "gun control" in their respective nations.

    The first was performed by Chief Inspector Colin Greenwood of the West Yorkshire Constabulary when he was "Cropwood Short-Term Fellow at the Institute of Criminology, Cambridge." It was published in 1972 as Firearms Control.

    The second was commissioned by the U.S. National Institute of Justice by the Carter Administration and was performed by James Wright, Peter Rossi and Kathleen Daly. It was published in 1983 as Under the Gun: Weapons, Crime, and Violence in America.

    The third was performed by the National Academies of Science, commissioned by the Clinton Administration. It was published in 2004 under the title Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review.

    From the conclusion of Greenwood's book: A study of the development of firearms legislation through the years reveals a pattern which is repeated several times with slight variations. There is an absence of reliable research, (my emphasis) and in every case, except perhaps the Bodkin Committee Report, such statistics as have been presented have been vague and unreliable and have lacked any point of comparison. Legislation has frequently been related to relatively isolated incidents and has often reached beyond the scope of the incident to affect people in no way concerned with that type of event. In almost every case, the sponsors of Bills have expressed limited aims for the legislation. Yet, as soon as the Bill received the Royal Assent, it has been criticised for failing to achieve aims not set for it. (Again, my emphasis.)

    Later in the conclusion: No matter how one approaches the figures, one is forced to the rather startling conclusion that the use of firearms in crime was very much less when there were no controls of any sort and when anyone, convicted criminal or lunatic, could by any type of firearm without restriction. Half a century of strict controls on pistols has ended, perversely, with a far greater use of this class of weapon in crime than every before. (Again, my emphasis.)

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  9. Pt. 2 of 2

    Now, before you raise your standard objection, he continues: We do not know how much worse this would have been if there had been no controls, but it is possible to get some indication by looking at the position in relation to shotguns. Despite the fact that they were unrestricted until 1968, shotguns were used in only a relatively low proportion of robberies in the periods immediately before and after the implementation of controls.

    He then provides a table of statistics for types of firearms used in robberies in England and Wales, 1966-69. Shotgun usage went from 53 in 1966 to 59 in 1967 to 98 in 1968 and 100 in 1969. Remember, the legislation went into effect in '68.

    It's a fascinating book.

    I've already quoted elsewhere extensively from the other two reports, which you obviously didn't bother to read or simply dismissed out of hand, but they report essentially the same thing - that the research is largely unreliable, and what research that does appear to be reliable is inconclusive. It was true in 1972, it was true in 1983, and it was still true in 2004. It's true because far too often the "researchers" know what they believe and are out to prove it, almost always with the money of groups that support their personal biases. Your example of Dr. David Hemenway is one.

    Surely if "gun control" did what you say it does, SOMEONE would have been able to prove it conclusively statistically by now, don't you think? After all, it's so logical. It's so obvious.

    I point you to look at the raw data whenever I can. That convergence chart is mine, drawn from the government statistics. I reference these three studies because they are all government-funded and all draw similar conclusions over three different decades on two different continents.

    Look, I know I'm never going to reach you, but if someone reading this picks up one of these books and reads it, I'll consider it a victory.

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  10. Kevin, we really can take the obligatory "nothing I can say will ever reach you" ending to every single comment as read by now. I appreciate that it's a piece of performance art for your devoted fans ("oh look, he's just like all the liberals we encounter, he's SO impossible, that's why we can ignore his arguments"), but I'm afraid the purpose of a meaningful debate (remember that word?) is to air all sides of the argument and illuminate the truth wherever it may lie, not for one person who has unilaterally appointed himself the sole Guardian of Truth to "reach" others with his irrefutable wisdom, and to tut indignantly at the failure of almost everyone he lectures to be obediently "reachable".

    "It's true because far too often the "researchers" know what they believe and are out to prove it, almost always with the money of groups that support their personal biases. Your example of Dr. David Hemenway is one."

    You'll really to have to forgive me - it may take me a moment to wipe the tears of laughter from my face. You're being brazen enough to criticise researchers for "personal biases" when one of the three meta-studies you have just prayed in aid (and are apparently inviting us to accept as irrefutable) was conducted by your personal favourite English policeman Colin Greenwood, author of 'The Historical English Right to Keep and Bear Arms' and passionate proponent of the liberalisation of gun laws? If this is the minimal level of objectivity and neutrality required for us to take a piece of academic research seriously, then I'm afraid you're going to have to work an awful lot harder to discredit the many studies I referred you to last year demonstrating the link between gun control and a reduction in the risk of both homicide and suicide.

    From your quote of Greenwood -

    "one is forced to the rather startling conclusion that the use of firearms in crime was very much less when there were no controls of any sort"

    As I've now noted three times, that's overwhelmingly likely to be because the rate of gun ownership was extraordinarily low in the UK when there were no controls in place. The purpose of the legislation over the years has been to retain as far as practicable the tradition of this country of having few firearms and a low rate of gun violence. Given that, in spite of the much-vaunted "convergence", the rate of both gun deaths and general homicide is still so different in our two countries, I'd say the effort has been successful to a very great degree.

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  11. Another two-parter.

    You're being brazen enough to criticise researchers for "personal biases" when one of the three meta-studies you have just prayed in aid (and are apparently inviting us to accept as irrefutable) was conducted by your personal favourite English policeman Colin Greenwood, author of 'The Historical English Right to Keep and Bear Arms' and passionate proponent of the liberalisation of gun laws?

    Yes. He wrote "Historical English Right" when?

    In 2000, some 28 years after publishing Firearms Control.

    It's amazing what happens when people look at the raw data themselves, and then dig into the history. Sometimes they learn something.

    I've seen it happen many times. I very seldom see it go the other way.

    Let me quote, once again, from the conclusion to Under the Gun to illustrate:

    The progressive's indictment of American firearms policy is well known and is one that both the senior authors of this study once shared. (My emphasis) This indictment includes the following particulars: (1) Guns are involved in an astonishing number of crimes in this country. (2) In other countries with stricter firearms laws and fewer guns in private hands, gun crime is rare. (3) Most of the firearms involved in crime are cheap Saturday Night Specials, for which no legitimate use or need exists. (4) Many families acquire such a gun because they feel the need to protect themselves; eventually they end up shooting one another. (5) If there were fewer guns around, there would obviously be less crime. [My emphasis] (6) Most of the public also believes this and has favored stricter gun control laws for as long as anyone has asked the question. (7) Only the gun lobby prevents us from embarking on the road to a safer and more civilized society.

    The more deeply we have explored the empirical implications of this indictment, the less plausible it has become.


    Again, my emphasis. Are you going to insist that the authors of that study were irretrievably biased when they wrote it? What about the third study? After all, all three studies conclude that the research done to date - 1972, 1983, and 2004 is "inconclusive." Once again, if "gun control" WORKS, why can't anybody prove it? You insist it's proven. I point to three studies that say it isn't.

    You continue to insist that the low historical incidence of firearms in crime in the UK is "because the rate of gun ownership was extraordinarily low in the UK when there were no controls in place."

    That's an empirical statement. Can you substantiate that claim? I don't know of a source one way or the other, but I find illustrative the Tottenham Outrage of 1909. Look it up. Check more than one source. I recommend you read six or seven. You might pay attention to the part where many civilians - armed and unarmed - joined the chase against two armed robbers who had proven more than willing to shoot to kill. You might also look for mention of police firing "borrowed revolvers" and other firearms. It appears that in 1909 civilians had better access to firearms than the police. Now only criminals do.

    You can go back and look at the historical record after gun control was implemented. Semi-automatic rifles, fully-automatic weapons and short-barreled rifles and shotguns were banned in 1937. Apparently there were a LOT of WWI "war trophies" brought back.

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  12. Part 2:

    Homicide in the UK in 1910 was 8.1 per million population. In 1920 it was 8.3. In 1930 it was 7.5 - a decrease, before passage of the Act. In 1950 it was 7.9. What effect did this law have? Apparently zero, zilch, nada.

    Because in July, 2009 a wine shop worker was murdered with a machine gun in Eccles. In April of 2010 a young woman was murdered with a machine gun in Hackney. Also in 2009 a young man in West Norwood was gunned down with a machine gun. And in 2003 a West Mercia firearm "amnesty" took in 200 firearms and "nearly 3,000 rounds of ammunition" - among which were sixteen (16!) WWII vintage Browning machine guns. I found those with just a few minutes of searching. Oh, also in 2003 a shipment of "30 Uzi guns, 29 silencers and 475 rounds of ammunition hidden in plastic bags in the spare tyre" of a truck carrying frozen pizzas which was on its way to North Yorkshire was stopped in Dover. I have to wonder how many shipments they missed.

    In 1996 the handgun ban was passed. 110,382 previously legally-owned registered handguns of larger than .22 caliber were turned in between July 1 and September 30 of that year. I don't have a complete count of the .22 handguns. In agreement with Colin Greenwood's observation from 1972 that strict controls on pistols has ended, perversely, with a far greater use of this class of weapon in crime than ever before held true after "strict control" became a complete ban. Violent crime involving handguns in the UK doubled between 1998 and 2008. Look it up.

    You keep claiming that "more guns = more crime," but what about here, where we keep adding millions of new firearms annually? Why is our violent crime level currently where it was forty years ago? Why isn't yours? Why do you avoid addressing that question? How do you feel justified claiming "success"? It's bizarre.

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  13. I won't have the time to reply to these latest comments in detail for several hours, but your final challenge is crying out for the obvious response -

    "Why is our violent crime level currently where it was forty years ago?"

    Cultural stasis!

    "Why isn't yours?"

    Cultural change!

    Such silly, throwaway, content-free references to "culture" are apparently all that is ever required for you to explain away why the still massively divergent homicide rates in our two countries have nothing whatever to do with gun control or gun ownership levels, so I presume they're also more than sufficient for me to explain any changes in the two countries' homicide rates over time?

    If not, why not?

    Oh, and while I'm thinking of it...

    "You keep claiming that "more guns = more crime""

    My actual main claim is more guns = more deaths than would otherwise have been the case. But your eager attempts to reinterpret that claim to avoid the statistical evidence being overwhelmingly in my favour have not gone unnoticed.

    "Why do you avoid addressing that question?"

    The PRIMARY PURPOSE of the post you are commenting on was to address the very point of "convergence" you raised in your own post. I fear I'm unable to take any responsibility for your inability to spot the contents of an 800-word blogpost.

    More later...

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  14. OK, I've responded to some more of your remarks in a new post here. It's still not complete, though.

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