It just gets better and better for gun owners

[Seth]

To Collector

It is always going to be difficult determining exactly how many guns and how many gun owners there are in the USA, because the gun lobby has prevented anything like a national gun registry being set up. The gun lobby is, of course, driven by the gun makers, and their motive is clear.

Damned right it is, and that's a very good thing. But if you think the gun industry is the only thing that's opposing a national gun registry you're an idiot.

If there is clear cut data on gun ownership, then we will know exactly how many guns are in each state and in each city.

Yes, you would, which is exactly why we are not going to allow you to collect this data.

That knowledge, coupled with the same data for how many murders occur in each location, would nail down beyond any shred of a doubt that more guns means more murders.

More guns, less crime. Fact.

This is something the gun makers cannot tolerate, since it would lead to laws that would reduce gun availability, and hence cost them $$$$.

Very true, so what? They are in the business of supplying us with our 2nd Amendment equipment and accessories and they should be looking after their market by keeping fuckwit hoplophobes from meddling with something they have absolutely no authority to meddle with.

They are such assholes that they prefer to see more people killed than reduce their income.

Actually, they understand that more guns, less crime, so they supply us with the tools we need to defend ourselves and our nation. Its no more up to them to stop selling guns because a tiny fraction of one percent of them are used by criminals to commit crimes than alcohol manufacturers are obligated to stop selling alcohol because a small (but much larger than gun owners) fraction of people misuse alcohol.

However, the University of Chicago has been running what they call their General Social Survey on an annual basis, and they have been doing this since the 1970's. Included in this survey is national gun ownership. The data I posted on gun ownership comes from this survey.

And the University of Chicago is a well-known hotbed of anti-gun activism, so nobody with half a brain pays any attention to their propaganda.

Any survey, of course, is something we can exercise a little skepticism about, since they all have a degree of error built in.

In this case the margins of error subsume the entire population of the country, making their results worse than useless.

However, the University of Chicago is a reputable body, and should be doing this very competently.

No it's not. It's a well-known anti-gun organization that often works with other anti-gun organizations to put out propaganda.

The pattern of change in gun ownership is consistent, and there is no reason to assume it is incorrect.

Sure there is, but it's still completely irrelevant to your claim. More guns, less crime. Fact.

I do not believe for a moment that this data will change Seth's attitude.

Of course not, because it's an irrelevant red herring argument.

He has already called the reputable researchers of Harvard, and Boston University hoplophobes and liars,

Yup, and I'm not the only one by any stretch of the imagination.

and it is predictable that he will call the researchers of the University of Chicago the same thing.

Well, since that's the truth, there's no reason not to fall back on the truth.

Seth appears to fall back on accusations of lying when he has no rational response to something he does not like.

The rational response IS to say they are lying, because quite obviously they are lying. Their survey is utterly meaningless because it fails to correct for the fact that people aren't going to tell some random person asking intrusive questions the truth about gun ownership, particularly not in Chicago, where it's illegal to own a handgun (or was). None of the studies you cite even address the issue of people simply lying about owning guns, which everyone I know does, for the very good reason that it's nobody's damned business if we own guns or not, and it's incredibly dangerous to admit that you own one these days. It makes you a target, both for criminals and for harassment from fuckwits like you.

All your studies simply assume that people are telling the truth in denying they have guns, which given the number of guns being sold every year, is a preposterous notion.

[Seth]

There is a flaw in the stats, namely in the gathering of the data for the statistics, regarding the "less households with guns, but more guns in households which already have guns."

There is a problem with this. In order to collect the data they actually have to ask people, anonymously or not, if they own guns.

You have to take into consideration people who are surveyed, or whatever the data collection method is, are asked if they own guns, but answer "no" knowing full well they do own guns.

So, how many people do you think own guns, but never admit to owning guns, and therefore cannot be added to the statistics?

So, more gun owners now lie about owning guns than did a few years ago? You know that how?

Because the threat to law-abiding gun owners has never been greater. You'd have to be an idiot to admit you own guns, because that information can and will be used against you. Merely having a CCW permit in many places will mean that any interaction with the police at all will be performed by a SWAT team because the cops are often as paranoid as you are.

[Blind groper]

Seth

Since surveys inevitably carry an error factor. then it is appropriate to have a gun registry and find out what the situation really is. Of course, gun makers, the NRA, and gun nut cases do not want to know, because the result will inevitably show that more guns equals more murders.

We know this because reputable researchers have already discovered it. The fact that you call them all hoplophobes and liars simply reflects your own unwillingness to accept factual data on the topic. However, gun makers are totally aware that more people with guns mean more murders, and they use their money and their agents to stop any accurate data being collected.

Your much repeated assertion that more guns means less crime is unsupported by any data whatever, from any reputable source. The reputable researchers have clearly stated the opposite.

[mistermack]

Forget guns. The latest statistics clearly show that more Ipads results in less crime.

As IPad ownership has increased, so crime has decreased. Soon, Americans won't need guns at all.

They'll have to change the constitution to include a right to bear IPods.

[laklak]

Now you know 7, Seth, because I wouldn't tell some nosy pollster I owned guns. None of their goddamn business. Matter of fact, one comes on my property I'll feed them to the gator.

[AvtomatKalashnikova]

Now you know 7, Seth, because I wouldn't tell some nosy pollster I owned guns. None of their goddamn business. Matter of fact, one comes on my property I'll feed them to the gator.

Funny thing, Avtomat once have many gun until one day went for boat trip and tragically lost entire collection overboard.

[Seth]

Seth

Since surveys inevitably carry an error factor. then it is appropriate to have a gun registry and find out what the situation really is.

No it's not, because every time a gun registry has been implemented it has eventually been used to facilitate gun confiscations.

Of course, gun makers, the NRA, and gun nut cases do not want to know, because the result will inevitably show that more guns equals more murders.

More guns, less crime. Irrefutable fact. Get over it.

We know this because reputable researchers have already discovered it. The fact that you call them all hoplophobes and liars simply reflects your own unwillingness to accept factual data on the topic. However, gun makers are totally aware that more people with guns mean more murders, and they use their money and their agents to stop any accurate data being collected.

Except of course it doesn't mean anything of the kind and you're lying.

Your much repeated assertion that more guns means less crime is unsupported by any data whatever, from any reputable source. The reputable researchers have clearly stated the opposite.

You don't consider the federal government's crime and NICS check statistics to be "data" from a "reputable source?"

Interesting.

Fact: More guns, less crime.

[Blind groper]

Www.nber.org/papers/w9336

The above reference is to a detailed paper put together by two Professors of Law. Ian Ayres from Yale Law School, andJohn.J. Donohue from Stanford.

Published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The title of this paper is : "Shooting down the more guns. less crime hypothesis."

Now, I know that Seth will fall back on his puerile tactic of calling anyone who disagrees with him, regardless of their eminence, hoplophobes and liars. However, it is possible someone reading this will be a little smarter than that, so I will continue with two quotes from their abstract.

Quote One.

...more refined analysis of more recent state and county data undermine the more guns, less crime hypothesis. The most robust finding on the state data is that certain property crimes rise with the passage of shall-issue laws."

Quote two.
"...the passage of the shall-issue law in 24 jurisdictions has increased the annual cost of crime on the order of half a billion dollars."

[Blind groper]

Ayres and Donohue went further than just that one paper. In a later study, they looked at the work of Lott and his sidekick Mustard, in which they highlighted parts of the country where more right to carry had been given and crimes subsequently fell. The problem was that there were even more parts of the country where such rights were not given, and crimes rates fell just as much.

In other words, Lott and Mustard simply select the places that support their hypothesis. An action known as cherry picking data. Also known as scientific fraud. Or lying.

[Warren Dew]

Here's a footnote of supreme importance:

Accordingly, the Court finds that operating a business that provides Second Amendment services is generally protected by the Second Amendment, and prohibitions on firearms sales are subject to similar scrutiny. Source: Case 4:14-cv-00539-O Document 40 Filed 02/11/15 Page 17 of 28 PageID 471

What this means is that every state, municipal and local ordinance that regulates gun sales must pass the strict scrutiny test! This would include zoning laws, and may invalidate the GCA and BATFE requirements that a FFL gun dealer have a "storefront" with regular hours, which is a regulation used to eliminate "kitchen table" gun dealers who engage in occasional, part-time gun sales from their homes.

This is HUGE.

It's only one district court so far, though. Hopefully it's held up at the appellate level in all circuits (good luck with the 9th).

[Warren Dew]

http://Www.nber.org/papers/w9336

The above reference is to a detailed paper put together by two Professors of Law. Ian Ayres from Yale Law School, andJohn.J. Donohue from Stanford.

Published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The title of this paper is : "Shooting down the more guns. less crime hypothesis."

Ah yes, the "more refined" statistical model - also known as, "we kept manipulating the data using different algorithms until we came up with one that supported the conclusions we wanted".

[piscator]

To be fair, it's not difficult to come up with a more refine statistical model than, "Gun ownership went up, crime rates went down, only one way to explain that!"

[Seth]

http://Www.nber.org/papers/w9336

The above reference is to a detailed paper put together by two Professors of Law. Ian Ayres from Yale Law School, andJohn.J. Donohue from Stanford.

Published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The title of this paper is : "Shooting down the more guns. less crime hypothesis."

Now, I know that Seth will fall back on his puerile tactic of calling anyone who disagrees with him, regardless of their eminence, hoplophobes and liars. However, it is possible someone reading this will be a little smarter than that, so I will continue with two quotes from their abstract.

Quote One.

...more refined analysis of more recent state and county data undermine the more guns, less crime hypothesis. The most robust finding on the state data is that certain property crimes rise with the passage of shall-issue laws."

A thirteen year old paper? That's the best you've got? Sheesh.

Here's the actual quote from the paper: "The most robust finding on the state data is that certain property crimes rise with passage of shall- issue laws, although the absence of any clear theory as to why this would be the case tends to undercut any strong conclusions. Emphasis added.

Quote two.
"...the passage of the shall-issue law in 24 jurisdictions has increased the annual cost of crime on the order of half a billion dollars."

This is directly from the conclusion of the paper cited:

No longer can any plausible case be made on statistical grounds that shall-issue laws are likely to reduce crime for all or even most states. How much farther one can go in arguing that shall-issue laws likely increase crime across the board or have heterogeneous effects across states (albeit most commonly pernicious) will be matters about which various analysts will differ. Emphasis added

So, the actual conclusion of the paper is ambiguous at best. Even if, arguendo I accept the conclusion that statistically speaking shall-issue laws do not reduce crime that's entirely irrelevant to your claim of "more guns, more crime." At best the paper makes a very tentative and highly qualified claim that shall-issue might increase some categories of property crime very slightly.

This makes sense when one realizes that criminals frightened away from violent physical crime to the less-risky property crime are doing so because they fear getting shot. So giving up on street muggings and taking to smash-and-grab burglaries or other forms of property crime where it's less likely they will encounter an armed citizen is a reasonable conclusion.

To your trumpeting of this potential as some sort of smoking-gun refutation of the "more guns, less crime" thesis, I can only say that I'd much rather have criminals busting out my car window to steal my stereo than have them busting heads to steal cash from the helplessly unarmed.

But once again I must point out that this is not a statistical issue to begin with. Unless you can show a serious increase in violent crime perpetrated by licensed persons your argument carries no water at all. And one thing that you cannot show is any significant degree of crime caused by such licensed persons, all 11 million or more of them, who are now carrying guns in public. The VPC tried hard to do exactly that and they came up with a grand total of about 165 cases nationwide of licensed persons committing serious crimes or murdering someone.

Out of eleven million people, 165 is an astonishingly small number of bad apples that hardly rises to the level of justifying the disarming of 11 million people, much less the disarming of 200 million gun owners in the US.

Your outdated and long-ago rebutted reference merely shows how weak your argument actually is.

[Seth]

Here's a footnote of supreme importance:

Accordingly, the Court finds that operating a business that provides Second Amendment services is generally protected by the Second Amendment, and prohibitions on firearms sales are subject to similar scrutiny. Source: Case 4:14-cv-00539-O Document 40 Filed 02/11/15 Page 17 of 28 PageID 471

What this means is that every state, municipal and local ordinance that regulates gun sales must pass the strict scrutiny test! This would include zoning laws, and may invalidate the GCA and BATFE requirements that a FFL gun dealer have a "storefront" with regular hours, which is a regulation used to eliminate "kitchen table" gun dealers who engage in occasional, part-time gun sales from their homes.

This is HUGE.

It's only one district court so far, though. Hopefully it's held up at the appellate level in all circuits (good luck with the 9th).

True enough, but like all the other cases, it starts somewhere, and the rationale in the decision is sound.

[Seth]

Ayres and Donohue went further than just that one paper. In a later study, they looked at the work of Lott and his sidekick Mustard, in which they highlighted parts of the country where more right to carry had been given and crimes subsequently fell. The problem was that there were even more parts of the country where such rights were not given, and crimes rates fell just as much.

In other words, Lott and Mustard simply select the places that support their hypothesis. An action known as cherry picking data. Also known as scientific fraud. Or lying.

And yet, thirteen years after that paper was published, there's more guns and less crime. QED.