Oh it’s this bullshit again
Guns as a matter of public health. This type of collectivist lunacy should be dismissed outright with no serious consideration given to it.
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
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August 12th, 2012 at 4:26 pm
Geez, crap like that is what was considered erudite scholarship back when I started reading about gun issues, back in the 1970s. It was quickly refuted as the crap it was then, and hopefully enough people remember that to flush it once again.
August 12th, 2012 at 5:15 pm
The thing that really caught my eye when I read this and sent the link to the Uncle (Yes, I’m taking credit. Sue me.) was the last bullet point (ironic, yes):
“Disease patterns: Observing how a problem spreads. Gun ownership – a precursor to gun violence – can spread “much like an infectious disease circulates,” said Daniel Webster, a health policy expert and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research in Baltimore. ”
The assumptions and bias are as obvious as a slap in the face:
First, that gun ownership is a precursor to violence. I will concede that you do have to be in possession of a firearm to use it, violently or not, but the sentence is structured to give an “A must lead to B” implication. Bullshit.
Second, the reference to firearm ownership as an “infectious disease.” Need I elaborate?
Third, the description of firearm ownership as a “problem.” No reasoning, no facts, no concession that firearms aren’t necessarily bad things, nothing. Just a “problem.” Some people.
August 12th, 2012 at 5:30 pm
I feel a strong urge to do some number-crunching, so pardon the double-post. I’m sorry.
The article states the following numbers. They sound pretty much correct:
260-300 million firearms owned
1/3 of households own a firearm
9% of violent crimes involve a firearm (338,000 cases)
2/3 of murders involve a firearm (After some FBI crime-stats research, I determined that to be around 8700 cases)
Therefore (using 280 million firearms owned as an average):
1 in 828 firearms, or 0.12%, are used in violent crimes (using the unreasonable assumption that each case uses a unique weapon)
1 in 32,183 firearms, or 0.0031%, of firearms are used in murders (same unique-weapon assumption)
1 in 276 households, or 0.36%, will commit a violent crime with a firearm (assuming no household is a repeat offender)
1 in 10,728, or 0.0093%, of households will commit a murder with a firearm, or (same no-repeat assumption)
Sounds like it’s not really a rampant problem.
August 12th, 2012 at 5:36 pm
I love how they tie us to binge drinking and a predilection for murder!
August 12th, 2012 at 8:36 pm
“The greater toll is not from these clusters but from endemic violence, the stuff that occurs every day and doesn’t make the headlines,” said Wintemute, the California researcher.
Wintemute is a grant whore…he’ll provide the “research” you need for your gun control bias if you’ll pay him for it. He’s been at it for at least two decades and has had his “research” shredded by honest researchers such as John Lott.
August 13th, 2012 at 12:50 am
I’d like to see “go fuck yourself” return as a valid, reasoned debate response. Imagine the time we’d save with that, instead of having to look honest numbers up, everytime these loonies pop up again.
August 13th, 2012 at 3:57 am
It’s going to be harder to fight this with the advance of government medicine. I’ve even seen a libertarian say something to the effect of “If my tax dollars are going to be spent on the consequences of activity X, I’m going to look favorably on regulating/banning activity X”.
Government medicine is *extremely* fertile for that sort of thing. See bike helmet laws.
August 13th, 2012 at 9:15 am
Seerak.
Exactly. A bit back I was talking with a lib that used that exact same logic
http://fivetensfourtens.blogspot.com/2012/05/seat-belts-justify-food-rationing.html
In his view seatbelt laws and helmet laws fully justifiy things like Bloomberg’s soda ban.
August 13th, 2012 at 12:17 pm
It can be argued that guns are a matter of public health.
If the odds for being the recipient of a violent assault are high, guns can increase the public health by allowing the infirm/unfit to defend their own health and safety. (And to convince the assaulter to desist.)
August 13th, 2012 at 2:12 pm
You know, I think it was on this site that I commented when ObamaCare passed two years ago that it set up the machinery of government to strip the 2A, without an outright firearms ban ever being passed in Congress.
They’ll start with the fatties, and obesity will be the model. Since obesity is a “public health concern”, progress towards reaching some predetermined BMI will be made mandatory…if you wish to continue receiving federal subsidies for your health insurance coverage. This is partially why the income threshold for subsidy was set so high — to hook as many people as possible on the incentive, and then threaten loss-of-subsidy unless you comply with federal directives in one or another health domain. (It’s similar to the way the FEDGOV threatens loss of transportation funds to force the states to do something the FEDGOV wants.)
In a few years, when “gun violence” has been firmly established as a “public health concern”, so-called safe-storage laws (a la Europe) will become mandatory, to “reduce the incidence and prevalence of accidental gun deaths and injuries”. You will be required to keep guns and ammunition separate, in locked cabinets, and will be subject to inspection. Failure to comply will entail loss of subsidy, or even loss of coverage altogether.
A few years after that, when “gun violence” morphs into a “public health emergency”, you will be required to store your firearms in a central repository (a licensed “gun club”, as is the case in the UK). Failure to do so will entail loss of health insurance coverage for yourself and your family.
And what will Americans do then? What would you choose: keep your firearms, or face the loss of health insurance for your family, with the increased risk of destitution? Remember, once those health insurance exchanges are firmly in place, they will be the only game in town. So, if one insurance carrier in the exchange rejects you, they ALL will reject you — because you are actively engaged in a “high risk health behavior”, as defined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
See how neatly it all works?
And calling Congress will do nothing. In the ACA, Congress delegated its law-making authority under the Constitution to the IPAB (the so-called “death panel”): IPAB decisions related to health care and delivery are final and not subject to either judicial or legislative review. It’s in the law: read it. Once IPAB or the Secretary rules, it is law (as far as you and I are concerned).
And not a single bill will ever be submitted or passed that will “ban” your guns. Yet, you will be just as thoroughly disarmed as if such a ban had been passed.
August 13th, 2012 at 5:55 pm
Over 50,000 people DIE each year on the roads. HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS injured. BILLIONS of dollars in lawsuits.
And yes, cops are killed there to.
So where is the outcry? Where is the ‘health issue’?
And do note, while drivers are licensed.. THEY CAN DRIVE IN ANY STATE! CCW holders should be able to do that to!
August 13th, 2012 at 8:31 pm
Markie Marxist sez: “Of course guns are a public health issue! So is free speech. Back in the good old days of the Soviet Union, if anyone criticized the government, they’d end up dead, which was very unhealthy for them. These days, in the US, we’re trying to do the same thing for gun owners. So you see, it really is a public health issue. You don’t want gun owners to have to end up dead, do you? It would be very unhealthy for them.”
August 13th, 2012 at 9:09 pm
I picked a fight with a forklift, once. I lost a lot of blood that day. If you pick a fight with a gun, there is a really good chance that, well, holes may appear. Out of nowhere. And no, I didn’t really pick the fight with the forklift. It was just sitting there. I guess my point is, DON’T DO STUPID THINGS. It can hurt. Really bad.
August 13th, 2012 at 10:08 pm
Paul, just stop that. Right now. Forty-leven years ago, I was one of the benighted fools who editorialized, “Pot’s hardly any worse than tobacco.”
See what happened? Pot’s still not legal. But now, neither is tobacco. That’s how they work, right there.