{"id":742,"date":"2015-10-08T13:58:01","date_gmt":"2015-10-08T20:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/?p=742"},"modified":"2015-10-08T13:58:01","modified_gmt":"2015-10-08T20:58:01","slug":"guns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/?p=742","title":{"rendered":"Guns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alright, folks. \u00a0Buckles your seat belts. \u00a0I’m about to talk about gun control.<\/p>\n

This is a good follow-up to yesterdays post about mindless memes, and how easy it is to spread ignorance and misinformation through social media. \u00a0I mentioned that we don’t do sufficient fact checking, and I mentioned in passing that sometimes it’s because we don’t want our illusions destroyed. \u00a0Gun control is one of those subjects where\u00a0people like to maintain their illusions, so we tend to close our minds as soon as the subject comes up.<\/p>\n

I’m not going to reveal\u00a0my opinion yet. \u00a0I will later. \u00a0First, I want some facts, so that my opinion can be informed by reality.<\/p>\n

According to the FBI, violent crime declined steadily between 2009 and 2013.\"13violentcrimeoffensefigure\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here is a link to the FBI site<\/a> where I grabbed this graph.<\/p>\n

There are some other statistics on the site that aren’t shown in the graph. \u00a062.3% of the violent crimes in 2013 were assault. \u00a0Murder accounted for 1.2%. \u00a0Firearms were used in 69% of the murders, and 21.6% of the assaults.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Let’s look at another site. \u00a0The CDC has some quick stats<\/a> on causes of death. \u00a0In 2013, about 192,945 people died from injury related deaths. \u00a048,545 deaths were caused by poison. \u00a033,804 deaths\u00a0involved a motor vehicle. \u00a0And 33,636 deaths involved firearms.<\/p>\n

The CDC has another page dedicated to stats on homicides<\/a>. \u00a0In 2013, there were 16,121 total homicides, and 11,208 involved firearms.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That’s the data I’m going to use. \u00a0I’ve seen some images floating around about Australia. \u00a0There are comparisons made between the US and other countries. \u00a0I don’t have reliable source information for that, and I’m not even sure it’s applicable. \u00a0The culture is different in the US, so what may have worked in Australia might not work here.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What does the data we have from the FBI and the CDC tell us? \u00a0First, their numbers don’t quite match, so they’re probably using different sources, different definitions, or both. \u00a0The numbers not matching from the two sites is a tempting distraction. \u00a0Let’s not get wrapped up in that.<\/p>\n

The second thing we notice is the difference in numbers between assault and murder. \u00a0Multiplying out the FBI numbers, there were 724,640 assaults in 2013. \u00a0In the same year, there were 13,958 murders. \u00a0156,522\u00a0of the assaults involved firearms. \u00a09,631 of the murders involved firearms.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now that we have some actual numbers, let’s start thinking about the problem with unrealistic\u00a0fantasy. \u00a0Let’s assume that we pass effective gun control legislation, and the end result is that ALL of the firearm related assaults and murders are eliminated. \u00a0We’ll still be looking at 568,118 assaults, and 4,327 murders. \u00a0Looking at the CDC numbers, we’d have reduced the total number of injury deaths from 192,945 to 159,309.<\/p>\n

Did we solve the problem? \u00a0Remember, we’re applying fantasy to real numbers. \u00a0This fantasy has removed ALL guns from the equation, even though the reality would be that there would still be guns in the US. \u00a0Both legal and illegal.<\/p>\n

The reality is that if you manage to take away all of the guns,\u00a0some of those assaults and murders would still happen, only with fists or knives. \u00a0We can’t know how many, and I’m not going to make up numbers on that. \u00a0But I think it’s a reasonable assumption that someone angry enough to inflict bodily harm on another will find a way, with or without a firearm.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I saw some posts floating around, proposing that guns should be regulated the same way that cars are. \u00a0Then I saw some other people refuting that, saying that right now, guns are more regulated than cars. \u00a0I don’t have any data to support either side. \u00a0But I do have an opinion.<\/p>\n

Changing the way guns are regulated would not have saved that little girl that was killed by a boy, when they were arguing over a puppy. \u00a0The boy shouldn’t have had access to the shotgun. \u00a0And I wouldn’t blame the government, or the NRA, or anyone else, except the parents of that little boy.<\/p>\n

Hell, if I was a cold sonofoabitch, I might even point a finger at the little girl’s parents, too. \u00a0I don’t have all of the details of what happened, but it seems like two kids were unattended long enough that they could argue, leading to the boy retrieving a shotgun and bringing it to bear on the girl. \u00a0If either child had been under more supervision, then the disaster could have been prevented.<\/p>\n

But I’m not that cold. \u00a0I feel bad for the parents, of both kids. \u00a0One is dead, and the other’s life is ruined.<\/p>\n

This event, and the shooting in Oregon, and the shootings before that, bring out emotions and emotional responses. \u00a0And with the immediacy of these events, right in our faces, in our\u00a0news feeds and in our social feeds, we would be monsters not to respond. \u00a0If there is something that can be done to prevent this from happening in the future, we should do it.<\/p>\n

The argument is whether or not removing guns from the equation will solve the problem. \u00a0In the instances that are clear and present in front of us…\u00a0maybe. \u00a0Removing the guns may have helped.<\/p>\n

But looking at the numbers, it isn’t the full answer. \u00a0I would argue that it isn’t even the answering the right question. \u00a0It answers, “How do we stop people from shooting each other?” What we should be asking is, “How do we stop people from hurting each other?”<\/p>\n

I don’t know. \u00a0According to the five year trend from the FBI data, the number of violent crimes is decreasing. \u00a0What did we do to start that trend? \u00a0Is the trend continuing?<\/p>\n

I’m not saying we should do nothing, and wait it out. \u00a0I’m saying that we should do the right thing, and I’m not convinced that guns are the main problem.<\/p>\n

How do I feel about guns? \u00a0The same way I feel about abortions. \u00a0I encourage people\u00a0not to get them, but if you need one, I think it should be legal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alright, folks. \u00a0Buckles your seat belts. \u00a0I’m about to talk about gun control. This is a good follow-up to yesterdays post about mindless memes, and how easy it is to spread ignorance and misinformation through social media. \u00a0I mentioned that we don’t do sufficient fact checking, and I mentioned in passing that sometimes it’s because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=742"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":744,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742\/revisions\/744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}