The three speeches of three presidents. They said more or less the same things after three different school shootings. Alas, no one banned the sale of guns!
After the tragic incident in Connecticut when the whole country is in mourning, Gun Control is still not a Top Priority for the American government.
I kind of like this Generic Gun Massacre cartoon. Let’s play fill in the blank.
About 100 years ago the Americans were on the verge of eliminating malaria carrying mosquitoes in the Panama Canal Zone. This Civilian-Military program was a landmark in the elimination of epidemics.
Gunshot deaths/wounds are a modern epidemic with sources and vectors.
In the days of RFID and implants it should be possible to make guns that would only fire for a particular owner.
The gun cannot work, unless the firer has a particular ID as a surgical implant. The necessity for a compulsory medical implant would be a good disincentive for gun ownership.
In the end guns are used to protect the rich against the poor. Go to Malaysia and the ‘Trespassers will be prosecuted’ notices show a man with a gun pointing it at men who are on private property.
In modern societies the homeless are particularly vulnerable, and they are liable to be attacked and beaten up, but there are few people who would say that vulnerable groups have a particular right to bear arms.
No one can make excuses about 300 million guns in America. Malaria eradication worked, even though we know there were hidden costs.
The next stage after gun control is detonator control. Forensic tagging should be applied not only to guns
and bullets but components of bombs and landmines. There needs to be an audit trail from victim to manufacturer, and this would be easy to do with the right sort of arms control treaties.
If we outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns
15,000 Medicare beneficiaries die every year as the result of medical errors in the US. That’s 180,000 a year.
http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/pressroomredirect.cfm?ID=3217
Why should gun control be a top priority when the appalling death toll in American hospitals is ignored? Mexico has strict gun controls laws yet the non-gun murder rate in 2004 was twice the total murder rate from all causes in the US. You don’t need a gun to kill someone and gun control doesn’t keep guns out of the hands of criminals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Mexico
If you want to reduce killings by American psychopaths a good place to start would be with our teary-eyed president, who has killed more people including children with the drone attacks he authorized than have been killed in all the school shootings in the last decade.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_attacks_in_Pakistan
What’s your point, Sean. I want to hear why you put up those stats, and I want to hear why.
After I get back, I will talk about drug deaths in Mexico, and I will talk about the ‘but this is worse’ fallacy.
I’m going to shred your numbers. So, why did you post those stats, exclusively?
Sean, I too would like to hear why you put up those stats and how they relate to the issue of gun control and gun violence in the United States.
“15,000 Medicare beneficiaries die every year as the result of medical errors in the US. That’s 180,000 a year.”
“Why should gun control be a top priority when the appalling death toll in American hospitals is ignored? “
Who said it should be a top priority? And anyways, if you want to talk about private, for profit medical care, I’ll take that on any time. Finally, re:medical error deaths, you do the math:
That’s from rightdiagnosis[dot]com/mistakes/common.html
What about your numbers now?
The idea that we shouldn’t do anything about gun control because something else causes more deathsis facetious and ludicrous. It is, in no particular order, appeal to worse problems, false dilemma, red herring, confirmation bias, special pleading….
– – – – –
NEXT:
“Mexico has strict gun controls laws yet the non-gun murder rate in 2004 was twice the total murder rate from all causes in the US. You don’t need a gun to kill someone and gun control doesn’t keep guns out of the hands of criminals.”
Mexico Population: 112,322,757
U.S. Population: 311,800,000 in mid-2011
This is from Time
Non gun deaths?
Bloomberg:
Politifact:
Wikipedia:
So, US Weapons that are mostly obtained legally are responsible for drug related deaths due to gunshot in Mexico, of which 70% come from the U.S. That places 10’s of thousands more deaths on the death count due to lack of US gun control.
Washington Post:
Fuck your lax gun laws in the U.S. Fuck your lamebrain arguments and deceptions.
So, given that a high percentage of deaths in Mexico are from drugs, what was your point again?
Fuck your lax gun laws. And it isn’t even about homicides exclusively. As I pointed out yesterday, spousal abuse, accidental deaths, and suicide, fear levels, and others, are never talked about by gun wingnuts.
“Mexico has strict gun controls laws yet the non-gun murder rate in 2004 was twice the total murder rate from all causes in the US. You don’t need a gun to kill someone and gun control doesn’t keep guns out of the hands of criminals.”
non-sequitor
That’s it!!!!!!!!!!!
We solved the fiscal debt cliff crisis!
Grenades don’t kill people, people kill people. Make concealed grenades legal! Grenade launchers to!
I mean, in combat, soldiers might as well be armed with baseball bats and knives and rocks. Guns don’t make any difference, soldiers are gonna kill people anyways!
Use the grenades and rocket launchers to sell at Walmart, and give our troops slingshots and all the rocks they can carry!!
I want a flamethrower, and I want it now, it’s my right to bear arms, FFS, the 2nd amendment doesn’t say anything about background checks, FFS *hic* or protecting yourself *hic* from nag wives, or no-*hic*-nothin!
I usually don’t reply to foaming at the mouth strawman rants from people who lack reading comprehension and intellectual honesty, but there is some severe misinformation being presented here that bears debunking. I will also respond to Who Knows’ polite request for clarification.
1. Gun control advocates often cite the low murder rate in some countries that have strict gun control as evidence that gun control works. I cited the high murder rate in Mexico in 2004 for both gun and non-gun murders despite tight gun controls as evidence that it doesn’t. This is before the current wave of cartel-related violence so discussion of that issue in relation to my stats is irrelevant. Gun control laws do not keep military grade weapons out of the hands of Mexican drug cartels any more than it keeps them out of the hands of the Zapatistas.
2. Ms Nasreen stated that “Gun Control is still not a Top Priority for the American government” which strongly implies she thinks it should be. I questioned why this should be a top priority for our government or society when the deaths of thousands of Medicare beneficiaries every month is not, and gun control has not been proven to work.
3. On the study I cited showing the huge numbers of deaths among Medicare beneficiaries due to adverse events and medical errors: These are not “my numbers” but those of the department of Health and Human Services that did the study. A similar study by the Health Grades organization on the Medicare population produced near identical results:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/11856.php
These studies were for Medicare patients only and only for those who died in hospitals. They are therefore underestimates of the total number of patients who die from medical errors in hospitals, and completely exclude patients who die from medical errors in the outpatient setting, where a large percentage of medical care is delivered. Secondly they may underestimate medical errors due to the fact they are based on reviews of patient charts, where doctors and nurses have an incentive to hide or fail to report errors.
Previous studies which also showed an appallingly high rate of medical error but had lower estimates than these studies were due to the fact they were based on hospital self-reports, where medical errors are more likely to go unreported than patient charts.
People who try to deny and apologize for these figures are no better than Holocaust deniers. Worse, because these are people who are dying now, not 60 years ago.
The discussion on Cartel violence in Mexico is unrelated to the statistics I cited but there is some misinformation there that needs clarifying.
1. “So, US Weapons that are mostly obtained legally are responsible for drug related deaths due to gunshot in Mexico, of which 70% come from the U.S. That places 10 2s of thousands more deaths on the death count due to lack of US gun control.”
This is not true, as the following article by Stratfor makes clear:
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110209-mexicos-gun-supply-and-90-percent-myth
“In fact, the 3,480 guns positively traced to the United States equals less than 12 percent of the total arms seized in Mexico in 2008 and less than 48 percent of all those submitted by the Mexican government to the ATF for tracing. This means that almost 90 percent of the guns seized in Mexico in 2008 were not traced back to the United States…
But according to the figures presented by the GAO, there is no evidence to support the assertion that 90 percent of the guns used by the Mexican cartels come from the United States — especially when not even 50 percent of those that were submitted for tracing were ultimately found to be of U.S. origin.”
The report goes on to show the various sources of cartel guns in Mexico:
Type 1: Guns Legally Available in Mexico
“Indeed, guns in this category, such as .380 pistols and .22-caliber rifles and pistols, are among the guns most commonly traced back to the United States.”
Though the report shows .380 pistols to be favored in assassinations, it is hard to imagine the cartels using .22 rifles in any kind of combat.
Type 2: Guns Legally Available in the U.S. but Not in Mexico
“One can buy these types of weapons on the international arms market, but one pays a premium for such guns and it is cheaper and easier to simply buy them in the United States or South America and smuggle them into Mexico. In fact, there is an entire cottage industry that has developed to smuggle such weapons, and not all the customers are cartel hit men. There are many Mexican citizens who own guns in calibers such as .45, 9 mm, .40 and .44 magnum for self-defense — even though such guns are illegal in Mexico.”
Type 3: Guns Not Available for Civilian Purchase in Mexico or the U.S.
“most of the military ordnance used by the Mexican cartels comes from other sources, such as the international arms market — increasingly from China via the same networks that furnish precursor chemicals for narcotics manufacturing — or from corrupt elements in the Mexican military or even deserters who take their weapons with them. Besides, items such as South Korean fragmentation grenades and RPG-7s, often used by the cartels, simply are not in the U.S. arsenal. This means that very few of the weapons in this category come from the United States.”
Fully automatic AK-47s, grenade launchers, fragmentation grenades, RPGs and shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles are not available for sale in the US. These military-grade weapons are only available through the international arms market. There are millions of such weapons in circulation worldwide which are a legacy of the Cold War and the arming of governments and insurgents by the US and other nations.
It is obvious the cartels favor these weapons over .22 rifles used to hunt squirrels, so many of these low calibre weapons that are allegedly smuggled to the cartels are really going to private Mexican citizens. Hysterical rants about the lack of gun control in the US leading to cartels having rocket launchers are flat out wrong.
“Even if it were somehow possible to hermetically seal the U.S.-Mexico border and shut off all the guns coming from the United States, the cartels would still be able to obtain weapons elsewhere — just as narcotics would continue to flow into the United States from other places. The United States does provide cheap and easy access to certain types of weapons and ammunition, but as demonstrated by groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, weapons can be easily obtained from other sources via the black arms market — albeit at a higher price.”
Gun control in the US or lack thereof is not the cause of firearms in Mexico. Completely eliminating guns in the US, which is impossible, will not dry up the supply of guns to Mexico and neither will tougher laws in Mexico. Military grade weapons come from elsewhere, and all other weapons can be purchased from the black market.
Nicely done cherry picking quotes. At least you linked to the (1) article you used.
First, my bit about the mid and heavy arms was to question if those killed by them were included in the gun homicides, or the ‘other’ category. I don’t care where they came from, that was not the point. I couldn’t find information on how many of the deaths in the drug wars(not to be confused with the war on drugs) came from guns, and therefore, what percentage of the overall gun homicides these comprised. You had misleadingly implied that it was just the general population that was represented in your elevated homicide rates.
What’s that called? Oh yeah, argument from opinion(it’s your opinion only, not established fact, that I am a foaming at the mouth strawman rant who lack reading comprehension and intellectual honesty. FYI, I read at a doctorate level, and have always read at twice my grade level(collegiate in gr7). Furthermore, I was tested at 400wpm @ >80% comprehension. I know I am apparently falling for a meaningless red herring, but I felt like bragging, while pointing out the obvious bias you have and your transparent attempt at discrediting me.
This, as we all know, is a red flag of a poor argument, right out of the gates. Never-the-less, I digress.
We – e – e -l -l -l! Lets put those “12%” into context:
According to the GAO report, some 30,000 firearms were seized from criminals by Mexican authorities in 2008. Of these 30,000 firearms, information pertaining to 7,200 of them (24 percent) was submitted to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for tracing. Of these 7,200 guns, only about 4,000 could be traced by the ATF, and of these 4,000, some 3,480 (87 percent) were shown to have come from the United States.
87% of the guns that could be traced came from the fucking U.S. THAT IS YOUR BENCHMARK. Again, as I have pointed out before, you use totals, without context, to misleadingly inflate your numbersw, and this time it shows a pattern. You are dishonest on purpose.
SFW! Of the ones that they could trace, 87% were traced to the U.S.
– – – –
At this moment, I would like to quote the source of these numbers in the ‘article.’
“For several years now, Stratfor has been closely watching developments in Mexico that relate to what we consider the three wars being waged there. Those three wars are the war between the various drug cartels, the war between the government and the cartels, and the war being waged against citizens and businesses by criminals.”
I followed the only link they give in this article you quote from, and it led to one of their own pages!
The article: As we discussed in a previous analysis, the 90 percent number was derived from a June 2009 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report to Congress on U.S. efforts to combat arms trafficking to Mexico (see external link). LOL, they are trying to refute, just barely doing so, US Government numbers for 2009! And you accuse me of being “people who lack reading comprehension and intellectual honesty”
Puts a different spin on the reliability of my numbers, especially because I used varied sources that substantiate further by referencing that information!
Let me give you a little lesson in credibility. Because you link to something that ‘looks good,’ means squat if that reference does not disclose their methodology and sources of their information, or citations of their work. Your has none, zero, zip. This doesn’t mean that it is unreliable, but it is another serious red flag.
I don’t have time for this shit tonight. I have work to do, so I’ll quote your quotes from the article, and then I will provide the context. BEFORE I GO ON, MY 70% FROM THE U.S. REFERENCE WAS FOR GUNS IN GENERAL, YET YOU SHOW THAT IN DRUG ACTIVITY, IT’S EVEN HIGHER @ 87%!! LOL.
Re your type 1 category:Type 1: Guns Legally Available in Mexico
The first category of weapons encountered in Mexico is weapons available legally for sale in Mexico through UCAM. These include handguns smaller than a .357 magnum such as .380 and .38 Special.
…
It must be noted, though, that because of the cost and hassle of purchasing guns in Mexico, many of the guns in this category are purchased in the United States and smuggled into the country. There are a lot of cheap guns available on the U.S. market, and they can be sold at a premium in Mexico. Indeed, guns in this category, such as .380 pistols and .22-caliber rifles and pistols, are among the guns most commonly traced back to the United States. Still, the numbers do not indicate that 90 percent of guns in this category come from the United States.
Then you say:
WTF??? You got a point?
First off, I don’t care where these weapons come from, they are not available in the U.S., and the only one relevant to this discussion is AK-47’s, and just because automatics aren’t available in the states, says NOTHING about how many of the weapons they use THAT ARE TRACEABLE BACK TO THE U.S., WHICH IS 87%.
Your words:
IRRELEVANT
I’m out of here. You post all you want, I doubt you are convincing anyone but yourself.
Have fun! 🙂
“To really understand Mexico’s gun problem, however, it is necessary to recognize that the same economic law of supply and demand that fuels drug smuggling into the United States also fuels gun smuggling into Mexico. Black market guns in Mexico can fetch up to 300 percent of their normal purchase price — a profit margin rivaling the narcotics the cartels sell. Even if it were somehow possible to hermetically seal the U.S.-Mexico border and shut off all the guns coming from the United States, the cartels would still be able to obtain weapons elsewhere — just as narcotics would continue to flow into the United States from other places. The United States does provide cheap and easy access to certain types of weapons and ammunition, but as demonstrated by groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, weapons can be easily obtained from other sources via the black arms market — albeit at a higher price.
I clearly stated:
“Mexico has strict gun controls laws yet the non-gun murder rate in 2004 was twice the total murder rate from all causes in the US. You don’t need a gun to kill someone and gun control doesn’t keep guns out of the hands of criminals.”
Then I gave a link where the stats for 2004 could be found. There was nothing “misleading” about this at all.
“According to the GAO report, some 30,000 firearms were seized from criminals by Mexican authorities in 2008. Of these 30,000 firearms, information pertaining to 7,200 of them (24 percent) was submitted to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for tracing. Of these 7,200 guns, only about 4,000 could be traced by the ATF, and of these 4,000, some 3,480 (87 percent) were shown to have come from the United States.
87% of the guns that could be traced came from the fucking U.S. THAT IS YOUR BENCHMARK. Again, as I have pointed out before, you use totals, without context, to misleadingly inflate your numbersw, and this time it shows a pattern. You are dishonest on purpose.”
Only 12 percent of the total weapons recovered by the Mexican government could be traced back to the US. As the article makes clear, the other weapons were not submitted for tracing because the Mexican government already knew they did not come from the US or due to other factors. These include fully auto AK-47s, rocket launchers and machine guns which are not sold in the US.
Only those that were “likely” to come from the US were submited for tracing. Of these, close to half were untraceable, and 87 percent of the other half (or 12 percent of all weapons recovered) were found to come from the US.
From Stratfor:
“This means that the 87 percent figure relates to the number of weapons submitted by the Mexican government to the ATF that could be successfully traced and not from the total number of weapons seized by Mexican authorities or even from the total number of weapons submitted to the ATF for tracing. In fact, the 3,480 guns positively traced to the United States equals less than 12 percent of the total arms seized in Mexico in 2008 and less than 48 percent of all those submitted by the Mexican government to the ATF for tracing. This means that almost 90 percent of the guns seized in Mexico in 2008 were not traced back to the United States.
The remaining 22,800 firearms seized by Mexican authorities in 2008 were not traced for a variety of reasons. In addition to factors such as bureaucratic barriers and negligence, many of the weapons seized by Mexican authorities either do not bear serial numbers or have had their serial numbers altered or obliterated. It is also important to understand that the Mexican authorities simply don’t bother to submit some classes of weapons to the ATF for tracing. Such weapons include firearms they identify as coming from their own military or police forces, or guns that they can trace back themselves as being sold through the Mexican Defense Department’s Arms and Ammunition Marketing Division (UCAM). Likewise, they do not ask ATF to trace military ordnance from third countries like the South Korean fragmentation grenades commonly used in cartel attacks.
Saying “I don’t care where they came from, that was not the point,” after you stated that “So, US Weapons that are mostly obtained legally are responsible for drug related deaths due to gunshot in Mexico, of which 70% come from the U.S.” is intellectual dishonesty. Your “point” was clearly that 70 percent of these guns come from the US and are “mostly” obtained legally.
As for the credibility of US government stats, those figures come from the ATF, an agency which was caught red-handed facilitating the smuggling of firearms procured in the US to Mexican Drug Cartels. See “Operation Fast and Furious.”
Over 3000 weapons were smuggled into Mexico under this program. They claim it was part of a “sting” operation whereby they would trace the weapons they allowed to be sold to the cartels…back to the cartels. Such tracing would of course require that the weapons be used in a crime and left at the scene, after which the ATF could deduce that the weapons sold to the cartels had in fact been used by them…or something. It was either the dumbest operation in US history or an amazingly incompetent cover-up for the willful arming of Mexican drug cartels by the US government. Take your pick.
You see, you list crime rates, and then from that youy make a conlusion about gun control not being effective! WTF ever, it is a non sequitor AND a bait and switch. I fucking care that your source backs up your statement, your statement is a disguised attempt to present your opinion as fact. Furthermore, you are using a reference that is 6 years old. I went to wikipedia, and looked up smuggling of firearms into mMexico:
“Mexicans have a constitutional right to own firearms,[1] but legal purchase from the single Mexican gun shop in Mexico City, controlled by the Army, is extremely difficult.[2] “According to [U.S.] Justice Department figures, in the past five years 94,000 weapons have been recovered from Mexican drug cartels, of which 64,000 — 70 percent — come from the United States.”[3] Once guns are obtained at gunshops in the United States, they are then smuggled into Mexico across the US-Mexico border.[4][5] In other cases the guns are obtained through Guatemalan borders[6] or stolen from the police or military.[7] Consequently, black market firearms are widely available. Many firearms are acquired in the U.S. by women with no criminal history, who transfer their purchases to smugglers through relatives, boyfriends and acquaintances and then smuggled to Mexico a few at a time.[8] The most common smuggled firearms include AR-15 and AK-47 type rifles, and FN 5.7 caliber semi-automatic pistols. Many firearms are purchased in the United States in a semi-automatic configuration before being converted to fire as select fire machine guns.[9] Mexico seized in 2009 a combined total of more than 4,400 firearms of the AK-47 and AR-15 type, and 30% of AK-47 type rifles seized have been modified to select fire weapons, effectively creating assault rifles.[10]
Also, there are multiple reports of grenade launchers being used against security forces,[11] and at least twelve M4 Carbines with M203 grenade launchers have been confiscated.[12] It was believed that some of these high powered weapons and related accessories may have been stolen from U.S. military bases.[13][14] However, most U.S. military grade weapons such as grenades and light anti-tank rockets are acquired by the cartels through the huge supply of arms left over from the wars in Central America and Asia. It has been reported that there have been 150,000 desertions from the Mexican army during 2003 to 2009. Stated another way, about one-eighth of the Mexican army deserts annually.[15] Many of these deserters take their government-issued automatic rifles with them while leaving. Some of those weapons originate from the USA.[16]
(And the conclusion to the wp entry)
Research has shown that most weapons and arms trafficked into Mexico are from gun dealers in the United States.[100] In response to a 2009 GAO report, the DHS pointed out that the “majority” were 3,480 U.S. origin guns of 4,000 successfully tracable by ATF. These were the arms investigated out a total of 30,000 firearms seized in Mexico 2004 to 2008.[101] Most of the weapons end up in the hands of cartels”
We were talking about non-firearms. THAT IS WHAT I REFERRED TO.
Here, let’s revisit:
Sean (I am not an imposter). I just want to say that I really enjoy debating/arguing with you. I’ve learned that my ideas and evidence is not nearly as cut and dried as I thought, and that I notice articles and points that verify what I believe more than I pay attention to anything that goes against what I want to think.
I’ve had to read a lot of stuff, and I learned that some of the numbers I’ve heard may be suspect, as you pointed out with ATF, for instance. You’ve made work, alright, and I like that.
Just so you know, Sean (I am not an imposter), I respect you.