Jeremy [Iowa]

Actually, the data shows that the assault weapons ban of 1994 was associated with a decrease in mass shooting deaths and the number of incidents

Correlation from causation aside, for this to have any real significance, there would need to be a drop in mass shooting counts.

That aside, your own citation shows any change in deaths is questionable at best - it looks as if the average may have even increased, by the included graph.

It also seems to pretend that _merely banning the sales of more “assault weapons” would have nullified the impact of existing assault weapons.

However, after the ban expired in 2004, there was an almost immediate and steep rise in mass shooting deaths.

Again, correlation from causation aside, for this to have any real meaning there would have to be only one changing factor… and the trend would have had to been consistent with a near-elimination of the count of events.

Can you truly think of no other changes? No, say, incredible spike in the media glorifying and sensationalizing such events, inadvertently promoting them as a means of getting violent retribution as one commits suicide?

It boils down to this: was there any direct scaling of such values with the actual count of owned “assault weapons”? Of course not.

It is important to note that many additional factors may contribute to the shifting frequency of these shootings, such as changes in domestic violence rates, political extremism, psychiatric illness, firearm availability and a surge in sales, and the recent rise in hate groups

Wow. So, you dilute the value of your own correlation by highlighting factors known to be common underlying issues, yet double-down on “suggest” and “decrease”.

It’s almost entirely that.

When you have nearly no-one who wishes to commit such atrocities as a violent suicide, it doesn’t matter what tools are available for the job.

Have you considered any of the underlying factors to such and how Canada might differ?

It’s also unlikely the US Military, being citizens of the United States themselves, would have a high degree of adherence to such orders to bomb and destroy their fellow man.

That anyone thinks such is realistic is indicative of the depth of delusion.

“decent” seems to be doing some heavy lifting here. A linguistic analysis of writings of the Framers cross-referenced against era culture and stats highlights the depth of your misunderstanding.

right there in the text

Ah - I see we’re not only cherry-picking, but we’re depending on a preamble e.g. a preparatory or introductory statement as somehow limiting of scope or indicative of audience to which a right was granted.

That, and obviously the proliferation of weapons has made mass murder accessible, and in the minds of some people as described above.

Are you under the impression such things were ever not accessible?

At what point did we start regularly testing and proving out water? When did we start ensuring school bake sale food must be store-bought? You seem incredibly short-sighted.

I’m not sure what you’re referring to as a “fetish” or an “unregulated” lobby. If you were referring to nonsense like the NRA and their fundraising efforts, you’d be obligated to highlight Everytown etc. and their blue-aligned fundraising. You can’t point out a wedge issue and one side without recognizing the other side and its equivalent benefit.

If one has a clean criminal history, is a legal adult, and - in most states - has undergone some additional scrutiny or proof of proficiency, then sure - they can buy a firearm.

Given how Afghanistan turned out, I’m not sure how you think the concept of resisting the armed forces of a government as a distributed and well-armed populace is somehow unthinkable.

It’s fair to say we’ve a cesspool of stupidity - but only due to our politicians continued neglect of actual underlying issues in favor of partisan wedge-driving and profiteering of the ad revenue of sensationalized violence.

Hyper-sensationalism of the violence and its impact gave those seeking revenge and suicide a convenient two-in-one option.

In fact I’d argue they’re more free as they don’t have to worry about being involved in a massacre just because some white male incel fuckup is having a bad day.

Fortunately, the only reason to have such fear is media sensationalism and your personal failure to understand the statistics.

Despite the fearmongering, you’re still not even close to likely to experience one.

Conversely, anyone with an IQ above room temperature will understand the appropriate way to solve a problem is to address the underlying causes, e.g. actually addressing the reasons behind mass shootings instead of only caring because firearms are involved.

Yes you do enjoy high levels of ownership in the US. You also enjoy extreme numbers of firearm related homicide and spree killing all in the name of an antiquated and poorly grammarically construed piece of legislation made by paranoid rebels back before the average rifle had rifling much less high capacity magazines.

I see we’re going for most level-headed ex-Redditor - hit me up when you’ve got a point instead of a hyperbolic rant.

The option always exists to ditch it as a right.

Lol, good luck with that amendment.

Ah, falling back on the “dEaD cHiLdReN” parallel - neat.

As the other person highlighted that is a restriction on a thing which is quite the opposite of a constitutionally-protected right.

You might want to brush up on the difference between the two subjects.

This is a lot of splitting of hairs on your part.

I’m not sure I’d consider criticism of Johns Hopkins tendency to make assertions not supported by underlying sources and tendency to use sources with glaring methodological flaws and myriad biases to be merely splitting hairs - the distinctions highlighted are both substantial and serious.

Are you a social scientist and a statistician? If not, I will defer to the experts on this.

I am a software engineer. Analysis is my bread and butter.

You’ll note my criticism isn’t of their ability to compute statistics, but rather the methodology used for identifying data points for consideration having flaws skewing outputs and for their survey being an exercise in confirmation bias.

Feel free to defer to others - however, please understand you’re also waiving your right to reference or discuss this study when you decide you aren’t going to bother to understand it and what it’s actually stating. I’m not comfortable opting to skip the critical thinking phase, but you do you.

The amount of unreported domestic abuse dwarfs the amount that is reported.

Nifty. I’m not sure how the homicides would be under reported, though - given that’s the subject.

Also, solely focusing on deaths is a misnomer. Being threatened by an abuser with a gun is rather common and also detrimental to the mental health of the victim.

You may have meant methodological flaw.

Either way, given the subject was deaths as raised by Johns Hopkins, feel free to provide them such feedback.

I’m sure they’ll get right on it.

You use the word privilege here and firearm ownership should be a privilege.

It’s downright nifty to feel that way.

The reality is it’s a constitutionally-protected right.

There is nothing in the US Constitution that guarantees the ownership and free usage of a car.

I’m not sure you thought this through; they’re entirely unregulated in use on private property.

Taking someone’s ability to drive has way more of an effect on the daily quality of life of a person than taking their guns away yet people often do not quibble over someone this happens to

Lol - it’s okay because occasionally people don’t complain? Yikes.

Have you heard of the danger of the indifference of good men?

There are lots of democratic societies who apply this to guns. Iceland and Canada for instance still have a high level of gun ownership but it is a licencable privilege, not a right.

Canada, in particular, is doing its best to do away with even that - it’s not a great example. I’m also not sure you can find any example that even approaches the level of ownership we enjoy.

For everyone else:

Yea the thing this article puts in the fine print is he has not been convicted of any crimes, he has not had his bail revoked by the judge, and none of the alleged crimes were fellonius. If any of these three conditions had been met, he would not have his weapons. The case was not struck down due to a 2A violation, it was struck down because it’s unconstitutional under the due process clause, and pretty black and white at that. If he endangered the public after his arraignment the judge should have revoked his bail.

One of those conditions is being someone who is capable of responsible ownership.

Oh? Was that from the Lost Chapter of the Bill of Rights?

Threatening the safety of another person is a lack of that trait.

Then a person should have no difficulty with the assault and/or battery conviction or the significant evidence in support of an ERPO and proving it, justifying the infringement on a right.

Except where they were as shown by reference.

They don’t have to petition. POs have hearings. That IS due process.

I see we’re intentionally disregarding the civil part being insufficient and the lack of proof being required along with the inconsistencies.

Want to keep your guns? Stop being a dick and present as someone with the self-control that society has decided is required to own one.

Want to take away someone’s rights? Provide proof beyond reasonable doubt regarding the guilt of a crime.

It’s interesting that you support a Johns Hopkins piece with… a John Hopkins piece. That’s a bit like doubling down on Everytown.

That particular claim is built upon some incredibly sketch analysis. This is the most common backing source.

The methodology:

An 11-city case–control design was used; femicide victims were cases (n = 220), and randomly identified abused women residing in the same metropolitan area were control women (n = 343). Co-investigators at each site collaborated with domestic violence advocacy, law enforcement, and medical examiner offices in implementing the study. Sampling quotas for cases and control women in each city were proportionately calculated so that the cities with the highest annual femicide rates included the largest number of cases and control women.

There’s already a flaw here - bias in selection. By prioritizing 11 of the ~20k cities, towns, and villages in the US which has the highest counts of domestic violence murder of the female, they’re skewing away from instances where there’s… less murder. Of course your homicide rates are going to report higher, no matter what the risk factor.

It gets better, though - they skew numbers further by eliminating those with a history of abuse and those just too old to care about:

Two exclusion criteria, age (18–50 years) and no previous abuse by the femicide perpetrator, resulted in the elimination of 87 additional cases (28.3% of 307 cases), with 59 (19.2% of 307 cases) eliminated solely as a result of the latter criterion.

It’s interesting they don’t actually note what those cities are - it would be good to know if there are other notable stats e.g. crime rate, poverty, safety nets, so on. Heck, they recognize such:

Another limitation was that we excluded women who did not reside in large urban areas (other than Wichita, Kan) and control group women who did not have telephones. We also failed to keep records of exactly which proxy interviews (estimated to be less than 10% of the total) were conducted in person rather than by telephone, and thus we cannot evaluate the effects of this source of bias. Finally, we have no way to compare the control women who participated with those who did not, and women living in the most dangerous situations may have been less likely to participate as control women. If so, true exposure to the risk factors of interest among women involved in abusive intimate relationships may be greater than our control data suggest, thus inflating our estimates of increased risks associated with these exposures.

I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest Wichita isn’t a model of prosperity and social safety nets.

That brings us to another flaw - this study isn’t interested in identifying the spread and impact of all risk factors but instead is only interested in confirming presence of an already-suspected risk factor - another problem they recognize:

The interview included previously tested instruments, such as the Danger Assessment,16,17 and gathered information on demographic and relationship characteristics, including type, frequency, and severity of violence, psychological abuse, and harassment; alcohol and drug use; and weapon availability. … Perhaps the most important limitation of the study is its necessary reliance on proxy respondents for data regarding hypothesized risk factors for intimate partner femicide cases.

This flaw entirely precludes consideration for the whether or not the presence of the firearm was material in the person’s decision to murder e.g. impulsivity, whether or not they’d have just used another implement, etc.

That brings us to the most egregious flaw - simple, classic misleading through emotional appeal. Setting aside the selection bias and risk of over-representation, what is the actual rate and actual factor? You’ll note none of the studies seem to actually address this. Going with Violence Policy Center’s analysis of 2019 data, they at least provide numbers:

In 2019, there were 1,795 females murdered by males in single victim/single offender incidents that were submitted to the FBI for its Supplementary Homicide Report.

So, in 2019, a given woman was subject to odds of five ten thousandths of a percent (1,795/~330 million) likely to be murdered in domestic violence. If we extrapolate up to an expected life span of, say, 80 years, a given woman has been exposed to an ~0.04% total likelihood of being murdered in domestic violence. Oh, but that would hypothetically only be ~0.009% without those firearms; clearly they’re the problem.

This source also provide a breakdown of implements:

Nationwide, for homicides in which the weapon could be determined (1,566), more female homicides were committed with firearms (58 percent) than with all other weapons combined. Knives and other cutting instruments accounted for 19 percent of all female murders, bodily force 10 percent, and murder by blunt object five percent. Of the homicides committed with firearms, 65 percent were committed with handguns.

Despite the arguments made regarding how firearms are the devil for making murder so easy, fists and knives gave an incredible showing of ~1/3 the murders. Notably, John Hopkins provides no hyperbole about knives. Weird, that. Notably absent is any implication of the presence of any of those items increasing risk.

This data also highlights clear skew toward some states regarding domestic violence homicide rates. Want to place a bet on where significant portions of the John Hopkins data came from?

For that year, Alaska ranked first as the state with the highest homicide rate among female victims killed by male offenders in single victim/single offender incidents. Its rate of 5.14 per 100,000 was more than four times the national rate. Alaska was followed by New Mexico (2.64 per 100,000) and Nevada (2.28 per 100,000). The remaining states with the 10 highest rates, all of which had female homicide victimization rates higher than the national rate, can be found in the chart below.

Ultimately, we’re left with not a lot of support for Johns Hopkins’ stance - which makes sense, as they can’t really seem to support it either.

I’m all for addressing domestic violence, but let’s not lie to ourselves and pretend it’s all sunshine and rainbows without firearms, and let’s not thoughtlessly share the conclusions of biased sources as if they’re meaningful - we’ve had enough erosion of sense over the last decade.