27 dead at Connecticut school, including 14 kids

[Seth]

Further to the idea that Seth loves, that concealed carry reduces crime.
This came from work by a guy called John Lott. However, further work has been done since that casts grave doubt on his conclusions. In particular, work at Yale University.
http://islandia.law.yale.edu/ayers/Ayre ... rticle.pdf

I quote, in relation to the John Lott work that Seth relies upon :

"we find that the statistical evidence that these laws have reduced
crime is limited, sporadic, and extraordinarily fragile."

They also said, in the sentence immediately preceding the one you cite that you mendaciously elided:

We conclude that Lott and Mustard have made an important
scholarly contribution in establishing that these laws have not led to the
massive bloodbath of death and injury that some of their opponents feared.

And here's the sort of irrelevant interjection that poisons this whole presentation:

The first rejoinder to this view is that shall-issue laws allow anyone of a
certain age without an officially documented problem of mental health or
criminal record to secure a permit to carry a concealed weapon; this is not a
particularly exacting standard. A moment’s reflection on one’s own
acquaintances would likely suggest the names of numerous angry or
intemperate individuals who could pass the “shall-issue” test even though the
prospect of their carrying a concealed weapon would not be likely to enhance
one’s sense of personal security.

That's not a statement of scientific fact or analysis, it's an editorial statement by the authors and has no place in a credible research paper.

Here's another:

But even if no one securing a concealed-carry permit ever used it to
commit a crime, there are still a number of avenues by which the passage of a
concealed-carry law could stimulate crime. First, even if the adoption of a
shall-issue law increased the riskiness of criminal activity and thereby
dampened the number of criminals, it might also increase the number of
criminals who decided to carry weapons themselves (by hypothesis, illegally)
and also might increase the speed at which a criminal decides to shoot or
disable potential victims (as the presence of armed victims increases the cost of
hesitation once a criminal engagement has been launched). Therefore, the
number of murders and aggravated assaults can rise if criminals respond to
shall-issue laws by packing more heat and shooting quicker. Arming the
citizenry can encourage an arms race, leading more criminals to carry even
higher-powered weapons and to discharge them more quickly when
threatened.18

This is pure speculation that is not supported with any credible data.

And then this:

Second, even when no criminal act is initially contemplated, the injection
of a gun into an angry dispute, perhaps in lawful defense, might escalate a
minor dispute into a criminal homicide or a serious wounding.19

Again, speculation without any supporting evidence that poisons the legitimacy of the article. Yes, the "injection" of a gun into a dispute in lawful self defense might indeed result in a homicide or wounding, but if it's lawful self-defense, then ipso facto the dispute was not "minor" but rather had been "escalated" by one of the participants to the level that authorized the other to use lawful lethal force. This is yet another deceptive and logically unsound assertion from these "researchers."

As an earlier
president of the Connecticut Chiefs of Police Association stated, “We are
concerned about the increasing availability of handguns and the ease with
which a person can get a pistol permit. . . . [A] permit is dangerous in the hands
of a neophyte who goes to a bar and shows off his phallic symbol to the boys.”20

And yet another idiotic statement from an idiot bureaucrat that's made without any supporting evidence. Besides, flashing your gun in a bar is a crime and therefore the possession of the firearm would not be lawful and would be in violation of the permit restrictions, which people who are licensed know and therefore by and large avoid doing so. The statement is particularly non sequitur because a permit is not "dangerous" under any circumstances, particularly not the one cited, because the situation given is a violation of the law with or without a permit.

It's actually far LESS likely that a person who has gone to the trouble to get a permit, which requires them to submit all sorts of identification, will do something stupid with a firearm than it is that Joe Average will stick his pistol in his belt illegally and show it off at the bar.

So we see yet again what sort of red herring and strawman arguments the authors stick in their article that have nothing whatever to do with science or statistics.

And then there's this massive fallacy:

Indeed, there was a bit of a scandal in Connecticut in 1977 when it
was revealed that Michael O’Brien—deemed by the federal organized crime
strike force special prosecutor as one of the “two most important criminals in
the Hartford area” and convicted for racketeering, extortion, and gambling—
had obtained a right to carry a concealed weapon with the support of letters of
recommendation from certain major political figures in the state.21 This
suggests that those who are able to secure handgun permits are not always
model citizens, and that at least some criminals find it useful to have the legal
right to carry weapons.

Political corruption in the issuing of concealed carry permits in Connecticut in 1977 can hardly be used to impeach the process of lawfully issuing concealed carry permits today. Sure, it was quite common for high-profile criminals to be in cahoots with corrupt law enforcement officials even back in the 1920s, but that has nothing whatever to do with today. Most alarmingly this is a clear example of the strawman and guilt by association fallacies.

Since it is a federal crime for a person convicted of "racketeering, extortion, and gambling" to possess so much as a single round of ammunition, much less a firearm, the fact that O'Brien had a permit (not a "right to carry a concealed weapon", a false statement all on its own) is irrelevant because that permit was invalid from the get-go because O'Brien was utterly disqualified from possessing ANY firearm at ANY time.

And yet more asinine gun-ban logic:

Third, with some estimates suggesting that as many as one million or more
guns are stolen each year, we know that putting more guns in the hands of the
law-abiding population necessarily means that more guns will end up in the
hands of criminals.22 In fact, with guns being a product that can be easily
carried away and quickly sold at a relatively high fraction of the initial cost, the
presence of more guns can actually serve as a stimulus to burglary and theft.23
Even if the gun owner had a permit to carry a concealed weapon and would
never use it in furtherance of a crime, is it likely that the same can be said for
the burglar who steals the gun?

What the fuck does this have to do with whether or not widespread concealed carry increases, decreases or does not affect crime rates? Absolutely nothing. It's just soapbox propaganda in a propaganda puff piece of dubious veracity, which is why it's been debunked by the experts a long, long time ago.

And then there's THIS ludicrous irrelevancy:

Fourth, allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons imposes burdens on
police in that they must ascertain whether the gun is being carried legally.
Officers of the Illinois State Police have indicated that their job would be
complicated if private citizens were permitted to carry guns as they would need
to spend time confirming whether the guns were being legally carried.24 As it
stands now in Illinois, anyone caught with a gun in public is violating state law
and can be immediately brought into custody without the need for further
investigation, which the state police believe has been a powerful tool for taking
criminals off the streets.25

Fuck the Officers of the Illinois State Police and their petty complaints. They are hired to enforce the laws passed by the legislature, not opine on the utility or how it will affect their jobs. If they don't like working as a cop in a society where law abiding citizens can lawfully carry concealed weapons, then they can fucking well resign and go collect garbage for a living.

We don't formulate laws restricting the rights of citizens to pander to the convenience of police officers. They do their job as we dictate they do it or they can eat shit and die.

The Constitution guarantees people that they cannot be arrested unless the officer has probable cause to believe that they are, are about to be, or have been committing a crime, and the argument that it makes Illinois State Police jobs easier because it's illegal for anyone to possess a gun in public is the worst sort of tautology. Of course it makes their job easier. So what? That's not the metric by which a citizen's rights may be infringed upon. If the law permits people in Illinois to get concealed carry permits (which it will within 180 days), then the police will just have to adapt to an armed citizenry, just as they have done now in 40 other states, where the police stay within their authorized boundaries and must respect a citizen's right to be armed.

According to James Jacobs, “[t]he possibility of
ratcheting up street-level policing to seize more unlawful guns [perhaps through new technologies that can allow police to detect guns from some distance away] is complicated by the passage of state ‘shall-issue’ laws . . . .”26

Cry me a river. Police convenience is not of the slightest concern to the law-abiding gun carrier. If it's complicated to use privacy-invading remote sensing technology, good. Let's make it completely impossible for the police do to so, because I find that sort of intrusion on my privacy to be beyond the pale and beyond the authority of the police.

And then this purile canard:

Finally, accidental deaths and suicides are obviously aided by the presence of
guns, and these costs could conceivably outweigh any benefits of shall-issue
laws in reducing crime.27 Extensive empirical study is needed to assess the
relative magnitudes of the likely conflicting effects of a state’s decision to
permit citizens to carry concealed weapons.

What the fuck? There is absolutely no correlation between suicide rates and shall-issue CCW permits.

This obvious political opinion is just as inappropriate as all the rest of the ridiculous excuses for scientific reasoning I've just debunked.

And here's their own admission of the weakness of their analysis:

At the end of the day, then, it is still possible that shall-issue laws have no
effect—positive or negative—on crime. This is particularly so if one credits
Willard Manning’s suggested correction for the presence of these multiple
comparisons and for autocorrelation in crime across years.112

And the most damning argument against this specious claptrap is that the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense is a constitutional right secured by the 2nd Amendment, and it's a right which accrues fully and completely to each and every individual, and that right is not subject to infringement based on statistical or politically motivated arguments.

And here's another rebuttal that drives the nail in the coffin of this piece of propaganda:

Rebutting “Why the Legislature should keep concealed weapons off Texas campuses”

By W. Scott Lewis

In a May 8, 2009, op-ed in the Austin American-Statesman, titled “Why the Legislature should keep concealed weapons off Texas campuses,” four gun control activists (anyone who is not familiar with Colin Goddard, Elita Habtu, Omar Samaha, and John Woods can confirm through a quick Internet search that their involvement with groups like The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and ProtestEasyGuns.com extend well beyond keeping guns off of college campuses) contend that Texas’s concealed handgun licensing laws actually lead to more crime. They back up this assertion with the lone supporting statement, “Professor John J. Donohue of Yale Law School found that, if anything, concealed carry laws like Texas’ ‘are associated with uniform increases in crime.’”

That statement by Professor Donahue refers to his efforts, along with Yale Law professor Ian Ayres[ii], to discredit studies[iii] by John Lott and David Mustard purporting to show that right-to-carry/shall-issue concealed handgun licensing laws lead to a decrease in crime. The study by Donahue and Ayres seeks to discredit the “more guns, less crime” assertion by extending the statistical model used in Lott and Mustard’s 1977-1992 study through 1997.

It’s important to note that the study by Donahue and Ayres focused on the nation as a whole, not on Texas. Even more significantly, it factors in only the first two years of Texas’s concealed handgun licensing program. Clearly, this study is not a scientific or mathematical analysis of the impact of Texas’s concealed handgun licensing laws.

Furthermore, Carlisle E. Moody, Professor of Economics at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, and Thomas B. Marvell, attorney-sociologist and director of Justec Research in Williamsburg, Virginia, thoroughly rebut the findings of Donahue and Ayres, in their article “The Debate on Shall-Issue Laws,” in volume 5, issue 3 (September 2008) of Econ Journal Watch. Moody and Marvell state:

While reading Ayres and Donohue’s 2003 article in the Stanford Law Review, we noticed that their analysis did not prove what they said it proved. They claimed that their model proved that shall-issue laws increased crime. Our conclusions are as follows.

Many articles have been published finding that shall-issue laws reduce crime. Only one article, by Ayres and Donohue who employ a model that combines a dummy variable with a post-law trend, claims to find that shall-issue laws increase crime. However, the only way that they can produce the result that shall-issue laws increase crime is to confine the span of analysis to five years. We show, using their own estimates, that if they had extended their analysis by one more year, they would have concluded that these laws reduce crime. Since most states with shall-issue laws have had these laws on the books for more than five years, and the law will presumably remain on the books for some time, the only relevant analysis extends beyond five years.

Though several analysts have credibly rebutted the “more guns, less crime” claims of Lott/Mustard and others, by using statistics to show that concealed carry laws have no statistically significant impact on crime rates, no peer-reviewed study[iv] has found that licensed concealed carry increases crime.

The fact remains that all credible evidence##vote on the issue suggests that Texas concealed handgun license holders are five times less likely than non-license holders to commit violent crimes. A person is twenty times more likely to be struck by lightning than to be murdered or negligently killed by a Texas concealed handgun license holder[vi].
Emphasis added##

##vote

And here's the coup de grace from Lott himself:##

##vote Confirming More Guns, Less Crime
John R. Lott, Jr.
American Enterprise Institute
Florenz Plassmann
Department of Economics, State University of New York at Binghamton
and
John Whitley
School of Economics, University of Adelaide
December 9, 2002
Corrected: January 9, 2003
Abstract
Analyzing county level data for the entire United States from 1977 to 2000, we find annual
reductions in murder rates between 1.5 and 2.3 percent for each additional year that a right-tocarry
law is in effect. For the first five years that such a law is in effect, the total benefit from
reduced crimes usually ranges between about $2 billion and $3 billion per year.
Ayres and Donohue have simply misread their own results. Their own most generalized
specification that breaks down the impact of the law on a year-by-year basis shows large crime
reducing benefits. Virtually none of their claims that their county level hybrid model implies
initial significant increases in crime are correct. Overall, the vast majority of their estimates
based on data up to 1997 actually demonstrate that right-to-carry laws produce substantial crime
reducing benefits. We show that their models also do an extremely poor job of predicting the
changes in crime rates after 1997.
emphasis added##

##vote

You lose, next contestant.##

[Blind groper]

Seth

I congratulate you on one thing. You proved you actually read the reference. Well done, sir!

You have, however, rather over-read the point. The point is simple. There is no credible evidence that concealed carry reduces crime.

The points you make are rather off the beam in relation to that.

[Jason]

Posts Groper from his ocean-side villa as half a dozen naked kiwi women give him a full body oil massage.

[Ian]

Seth has been typing his little head off, defensive as ever, as paranoid people do when their ideologies once again have an ugly head-on collision with reality.

That's OK, I guess somebody from the loony fringe has to. The NRA has been operating on radio silence all weekend. Not one of the 31 pro-gun Senators asked to appear on Meet the Press dared to go on. And that is to be expected. These people aren't dumb: they all know the sort of public reaction they will get if they actually open their mouths. Guys like Seth, though, are free come to the internet and rant about how those elementary school teachers should've been packing heat, or how us liberals are taking advantage of this situation to come and take his guns. Some people from that fringe have to rant, even if their leaders are prudently hiding and not answering the phone.

[SteveB]

Where's Charlton Heston when you need him?

Don't say the obvious.

[Ian]

The high school I went to didn't have metal detectors, it probably should have though as there were a lot of angry teens with easy access to hunting rifles.

Training teachers to identify warning signs and instituting a counselling system students who exhibit those signs would be referred to would certainly do a lot towards providing people who need help the treatment they need as early as possible and when it benefits them most.

I agree 100% I think this shouldn't be a gun only debate, but a debate about gun control and a debate about mental healthcare.

I agree also. Might as well post this cartoon which I've seen quite a few times this weekend:

60781_515225478511874_1412243819_n.jpg (46.24 KiB) Viewed 350 times

Not even a new cartoon. I first saw this one almost 2 years ago, after the Tucson shooting. And again a few more times after these random anomalies kept on occurring...

Odd that the same people who think our gun laws are too strict also rant and rave against expanding health care. But it's all part of of a very simple mindet: government = evil. A very childish and unrealistic way of thinking, IMO.

[Twoflower]

Most people I know are pro being able to oen guns and pro mental health changes.

[Seth]

Seth

I congratulate you on one thing. You proved you actually read the reference. Well done, sir!

You have, however, rather over-read the point. The point is simple. There is no credible evidence that concealed carry reduces crime.

The points you make are rather off the beam in relation to that.

And your source has been debunked by Lott himself, as I demonstrated.

It doesn't matter if there is no reduction in crime statistics, all that matters is that those who choose to carry lawfully have a better opportunity to avoid being victimized by criminals than those who don't. As you said, my gun protects me. And someone else's gun protects them. And it's up to each individual whether or not they choose to carry a gun for self protection.

That's the only really salient point here, not your biased, bogus and debunked hoplophobe "research."

[Seth]

The high school I went to didn't have metal detectors, it probably should have though as there were a lot of angry teens with easy access to hunting rifles.

Training teachers to identify warning signs and instituting a counselling system students who exhibit those signs would be referred to would certainly do a lot towards providing people who need help the treatment they need as early as possible and when it benefits them most.

I agree 100% I think this shouldn't be a gun only debate, but a debate about gun control and a debate about mental healthcare.

I agree also. Might as well post this cartoon which I've seen quite a few times this weekend:

60781_515225478511874_1412243819_n.jpg

Not even a new cartoon. I first saw this one almost 2 years ago, after the Tucson shooting. And again a few more times after these random anomalies kept on occurring...

Odd that the same people who think our gun laws are too strict also rant and rave against expanding health care. But it's all part of of a very simple mindet: government = evil. A very childish and unrealistic way of thinking, IMO.

Guess who let the nutbars out of the asylums and made it nearly impossible to commit someone involuntarily who hasn't actually killed someone...yet.

That would be the liberals in the ACLU.

I'm fine with expanding health care, I'm just not willing to pay for someone else's medical care. I've got my own health to look out for.

And I carry a gun, so I don't have to worry about ACLU-facilitated nutbars shooting me because I can shoot back. Y'all are on your own.

[Woodbutcher]

I used to hunt after school in the fall. I carried my 12-gauge to school and stored in my locker during the day. Nobody worried. Lot of other kids did the same, sometimes they'd even compare their rifles during breaks. I used to hitch-hike to a hunting area 5 miles away with two other gun carrying friends, and at times the guns were not in cases. We always got rides, nobody worried. But we never considered shooting people we did not like. Never blasted things for fun. Carrying and owning a gun is a privilege, not a fucking right. Only spineless shits think it is a right. When you think it's a right you cannot limit gun ownership to responsible people only, you get fucking twinkies packing heat. Also, concealed carry is good for the criminals as well. they'll just get you from behind without warning you. NRA is a fucking looney bin. Good luck with that. I prefer to live in a civilized country, US is OK but contains an excessively large amount of nuts.

[Blind groper]

And your source has been debunked by Lott himself, as I demonstrated.

What this shows is simply that the conclusion has descended now to an argument between academics.

Or, as I said : There is no credible evidence that concealed carry reduces crime.

[Blind groper]

Carrying and owning a gun is a privilege, not a fucking right.

Absolutely correct. I have no problem with people with a legitimate need owning an appropriate firearm. That includes sporting rifles for putting meat on the table, or a shotgun for other game. Having a firearm for the express purpose of killing other people, even for some paranoid perception of self defense, is not a legitimate need.

[Seth]

I used to hunt after school in the fall. I carried my 12-gauge to school and stored in my locker during the day. Nobody worried. Lot of other kids did the same, sometimes they'd even compare their rifles during breaks. I used to hitch-hike to a hunting area 5 miles away with two other gun carrying friends, and at times the guns were not in cases. We always got rides, nobody worried. But we never considered shooting people we did not like. Never blasted things for fun. Carrying and owning a gun is a privilege, not a fucking right. Only spineless shits think it is a right.

Only spineless shits think it's not, particularly in light of the pronouncements of the United States Supreme Court and the Constitution that it is.

When you think it's a right you cannot limit gun ownership to responsible people only, you get fucking twinkies packing heat.

Even "twinkies" have a right to keep and bear arms, right up until they're irresponsible with them. So do you.

Also, concealed carry is good for the criminals as well. they'll just get you from behind without warning you.

That's what "situational awareness" is for. Carrying a gun keeps you much more situationally aware than Joe Average wandering around in Condition White, oblivious to threats in his immediate vicinity.

Nobody comes up behind me without me knowing it.

NRA is a fucking looney bin.

Well, it's our loony bin, so you can fuck off and die.

Good luck with that. I prefer to live in a civilized country, US is OK but contains an excessively large amount of nuts.

Fine by me, but no bitching and complaining when some thug comes up and beats you to death with a hockey stick, okay?

[Seth]

And your source has been debunked by Lott himself, as I demonstrated.

What this shows is simply that the conclusion has descended now to an argument between academics.

Or, as I said : There is no credible evidence that concealed carry reduces crime.

What it shows is that your conclusions are faulty and your arguments failed.

All that matters is that MY concealed carry reduces crime around me, as you have admitted. And that same rationale applies to everyone else.

[Blind groper]

All that matters is that MY concealed carry reduces crime around me, as you have admitted.

I do not recall saying that. Nor could I reasonably come to that conclusion. If nothing else, I cannot judge that you will behave in a responsible way, since I know you only through your posts (which do not fill me with confidence). For all I know, you may be a serial killer who uses his concealed carry as a tool for killing innocent people. OK. That is probably not true, but I have no way of knowing.