‘Control’ Is Not Bad, Especially When We Are Dealing With ‘Guns’!

By Avijit Roy|December 18th, 2012|International, Politics, Society, Terrorism|20 Comments

Just after the Shikh Temple massacre in Wisconsin a few months ago, Time Magazine published an article titled “The Case for Gun Control”, where the author Fareed Zakaria made a strong case in favor of stricter gun control laws. Although he offered valuable insight concerning the topic, the masses paid him little attention after the media revealed that he had plagiarized a portion of the article.

Since then, two more major massacres have taken place. Of them, the recent one was the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that occurred earlier this month in Newtown, Connecticut, where a man armed with two semiautomatic pistols killed 7 adults and 20 children, most of whom were only six years old. The adults were all women, including the principal of the school, Dawn Hochsprung, and some of the victims were shot as many as 11 times. But the most chilling fact of all this is, the Newtown shooting is no longer an exceptional case. I can cite at least five major mass shootings that have occurred in last few years — Binghamton, N.Y. (2009); Fort Hood, Texas (2009); Tucson, Ariz. (2011); Aurora, Colo. (2012); and Oak Creek, Wisc. (2012), just to name a few. And as time goes on, such incidents seem less like rare, notorious massacres and more like expected epidemics in this country. Despite this troubling observation, clear policies regarding “Gun Control” still fail to be put to use. It looks as if the reason for this pregnant standstill is because neither Republicans nor Democrats are “ready” to discuss the issue. Every time a tragic incident such as the Sandy Hook shooting occurs, the country concentrates more on prayer – saying, “this is not the time” to make decisions –and less on ways to resolve the issue through means of instilling proper gun laws. To claim that “this is not the time” simply ignores the horrific reality that current gun laws are inefficient at sustaining our society. If not now, when is the time to talk about gun control?

The US has serious problems with guns and homicide. There are 300 million weapons in the US – enough for nearly every citizen to use. The researchers found that US homicide rates are 6.9 times higher than rates in similar high-income countries; the largest contributor to these rates are cases of firearm homicide, which are 19.5 times higher in the US than in other highly-developed countries. Furthermore, firearm homicide rates in the 15-24 year age group in the United States are 42.7 times higher than in the other countries. These statistics alone support why most of the worst mass shootings in the past fifty years have taken place in the U.S. Evidently, increasing the number of guns in a country hardly ensures more safety; instead, it guarantees less protection among citizens. Although Republicans — and Extreme-Individualist Libertarian folks who live by the “Gun-does-not-kill” motto — will stand strong with their opinion, researchers provide reasons why this motto is not applicable to American society. The Harvard Injury Control Research Center analyzed compiled reports relating figures concerning guns and homicide, thus finding substantial evidence to show that more guns means more murders.

Fareed Zakaria mentioned in his article in Time that the Gun-homicide rate per capita in the US is almost 30 times that of Britain and Australia, 10 times that of India, and 4 times that of Switzerland. No sane biologist will argue in favor of a violent-gene mutation occurring in the area bordering the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Pacific Ocean, nor will any sociologist say that such an area simply contains 30 times more crazy people compared to Britain. However, what the US actually has is easy access to guns. There are 89 firearms per 100 people in the United States. No other country has a rate higher than 40, and the US handgun ownership rate is 70 percent higher than that of the next candidate in the list. The consequence?–fifteen of the worst twenty-five mass shootings in the past half century have occurred in the U.S.

Not to think that crime rate has increased in the US in recent past. On the contrary, the crime rate has actually decreased. For example, violent crimes have fallen by 20 percent, aggravated assault by 21pecent, motor vehicle theft by 44.5 percent, and even non-firearm homicides by 22 percent. Only one category is a misfit in the curve: firearm mass homicide. Since 1982, there have been at least 61 mass murder scenarios that were carried out with firearms across the country, and, in almost all cases, the killers had obtained their weapons legally–

Literally everywhere in the world, you will find crazy people like Adam Lanza, who was responsible for the Connecticut massacre; troubled or deranged attackers are not in fact unique American phenomena. I remember back in 2003, a similar incident occurred at the National University of Singapore, where I was studying for my PhD. One day a university technician suddenly went maniacal, threatening to kill all the teachers until he eventually killed one of the academics at the National University of Singapore campus. But here, the situation changes because the attacker could not commit any mass murder. The reason behind, he was using a knife–not a gun, which would have given the attacker the propensity to be much more lethal. Look at another very recent incident in China as well. Just several hours before Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 children and six adults Friday in Newtown, a 36-year-old man half-a-world away in China attacked 22 children at a primary school. None of the kids died. The reason? The man in China had only a knife.

Some think that gun control is unconstitutional in the US because it supposedly undermines freedoms that were spelled out during the founding of the United States of America. I, however, find the opposite to be true. Adam Winkler, a professor of constitutional law at UCLA, documents the actual history of the US in his book Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America, where he argues that,contrary to popular belief, guns were regulated in the U.S. from the earliest years of the Republic. Laws to ban the carrying of concealed weapons were passed in Kentucky and Louisiana in even the early days of 1813. The same thing happened in Indiana in 1820; Tennessee and Virginia in 1838, Alabama in 1839, and Ohio in 1859. Similar laws were passed in Florida, Oklahoma, and even in Texas, the state that is often associated withan image of a “Gun-carrying” cowboy. The governor of Texas at that time (1893) explained that the “mission of the concealed deadly weapon is murder. To check it is the duty of every self-respecting, law-abiding man.” Here is an article of Zack Beauchamp where he systematically debunked the five myths that Gun lobbying propagates, including “The Second Amendment prohibits strict gun control”.

It was probably during the seventies when the right-wingers started to campaign in favor of carrying guns, wrongly-citing the second amendment to show that the unchecked right to bear guns was their “constitutional right”. But let us remember that the Second Amendment was originally intended to allow people to fight against a tyrannical federal government of the late eighteenth century. In today’s changed world, I don’t think that an assault rifle will be of any help to the ordinary citizen if the government wishes to play the tyrant. Moreover, nobody thinks that a democratically elected government is something tyrannical that they will have to worry about, much less, fight against. Rather, US citizens are facing a different, more relevant problem — mentally unstable, gun-carrying fanatics who are going into public settings, like movie theaters and elementary schools, and shooting innocent people, including children on a regular basis. One can easily argue, James Madison never meant Second Amendment to allow guns of Sandy Hook shooting. The mantra needs to be changed, as one Commenter suggested in one of the CNN articles, from the “right to bear arms” to the “privilege to bear arms.” –

“Let’s change the mantra from ‘the right to bear arms’ to ‘the privilege to bear arms’. Privileges have to be earned, they aren’t a given. Prove that you are mentally stable and have a reasonable need to own a gun. Make gun owners undergo mandatory training; locking up your gun, loading and unloading safely, storing bullets separately, practices that make gun ownership safer. Give police powers of inspection – checking gun safes, safe storage, training. No-one can buy a gun without a training certificate in addition to background checks. No internet sales of guns or ammunition and no walking out with the gun the same day. Responsible owners will cherish their privileges. It will make it much more difficult for those that haven’t earned the privilege to get their hands on weapons”.

The Connecticut shooting incident touched the heart of the President as well. President Obama wiped his tears in mourning, calling the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting a “heinous crime”. He uttered, “we have endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years”, and stated that “we’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this regardless of the politics.”

But how such “meaningful action” promises have been thwarted in the past, largely because of the power and wealth of the National Rifle Association (NRA)! The NRA and similar special-interest groups have agendas that help protect and expand the firearms-market and weapons companies that bankroll the groups’ multi-million dollar lobbying and influence operations. As a result, the NRA has not only been advocating for a more violent society, but is passing its favorite laws in the congress. Of course, the NRA is not the only one to blame when rightwing, Fox-loving nuts are also playing their roles. A few weeks ago, Jovan Belcher, an American football player for the Kansas City Chiefs, shot and killed the mother of his 3-month-old daughter, then drove to Arrowhead Stadium and committed suicide in the parking lot of the team’s practice facility. NBC broadcaster Bob Costas used his halftime segment on “Sunday Night Football” to say,

“In the coming days, Jovan Belcher’s actions and their possible connection to football will be analyzed. Who knows? But here, wrote Jason Whitlock, is what I believe. If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.”

‘Guns-don’t kill’ right-wingers did not like Bob’s statement at that time. He was severely criticized by right wing media, who had forgotten that he actually quoted extensively from a piece by ‘Fox Sports columnist’ Jason Whitlock.

I think it will be different this time — at least I hope it will be. Obviously, simply calling for ‘meaningful action’ is not enough. Obama needs to turn his tears to action. The actions already being talked about are as follows:–

Fresh attempts to ban assault weapons.
Changes to the mental health system to help identify and prevent those with violent inclinations from acting
Further attempt to beef up school security, etc.

Think for a moment. You can’t enter a CVS store and purchase half-a-dozen packages of Advil even though there is no official restriction on the drugs, and they are readily available over the counter; however, you can probably walk into a gun dealership and purchase a .50 caliber rifle as long as you have an easily-obtainable license. In fact, anyone can buy five, ten, fifteen of such killing weapons —there is no limit imposed by the law. This insanity has to be changed. But politicians should also be careful while making new laws. To revise the old saying, guns, all by themselves, don’t kill people; people, who are often mentally-disturbed, kill people. Seung-Hui Cho (Virginia Tech shooting), Jared Lee Loughner (Tucson, Ariz. massacre), James Eagen Holmes (Aurora, Colorado Theater shooting), and now Adam Lanza all had significant mental health issues. Robert Lieder, a fellow at University of Pennsylvania School of Law, opined in a column in Wall Street Journal that, “as part of this conversation, we need to update federal firearm laws as they relate to persons with mental illness—laws that currently are primitive and rooted in stereotypes”.

“Can we honestly say we are doing enough to keep our children safe?” President Obama said to the mourners in Newtown on Sunday night, “we can’t accept this as routine”. True. Michael R. Bloomberg, the current mayor of New York, who endorsed Mr. Obama in the last election, said during an appearance on “Meet the Press” on NBC “this should be his No. 1 agenda. He’s president of the United States. And if he does nothing during his second term, something like 48,000 Americans will be killed with illegal guns in the next year.”

No sane person would like to see this happen.

I would like to draw a parallel here to the 1996 shooting in Scotland, in which a 43 year old man first killed 16 kindergarteners and their teacher before proceeding to kill himself. That shooting forced official government enquiry and eventually led to the banning of private ownership of handguns in the United Kingdom. If such a similar occurrence in the United Kingdom can completely alter gun policy laws, then why should the same reformation ideas be dismissed in the United States?

To conclude, let us remember and learn from Bob Dylan’s compelling message in his song “Blowing in the wind”:

How many times can a man turn his head
Pretending he just doesn’t see ?

Yes, how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died ? …

The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.

Dorine

I needed to thank you for this great read!! I certainly enjoyed every
little bit of it. I have you bookmarked to look at new things you post…
Lewis

It’s going to be finish of mine day, however before ending I am reading this enormous post to improve my knowledge.
avijit

@Jiten Roy,

I am also for gun-control, and most of the gun-owners should be.

Since two of us agree with the basic premise of controlling guns, I do not have much to say this time. Only few points I would like to state –
Americans own 35% to 50% of the world’s civilian guns, and the nation gun laws are among the most lax in the developed world. This is way beyond acceptable. If you look at the death toll of 30 years of Mass shootings around the world, you will find most of the massacres took place in the USA.

I am not sure why you said,

The bottom line is – legal gun-owner did not cause most of those mass murders,

Yes may be. Most legal gun-owner did not cause most of those mass murders, but as I mentioned in my article, most killers possessed the weapon legally. In fact, Of the 142 guns possessed by the killers, more than three quarters were obtained legally –

[img]http://enblog.mukto-mona.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/mass_shotting_graph.jpg[/img]

After port Arthur rampage in 1996, the govt tightened the gun control in Australia. Same in Norway in the wake of 2011 mass shooting. From Norway, Britain to Australia – the reactions to mass shootings usually include tighter gun laws. But in the USA its opposite. NRA is advocating more guns. This mentality has to be changed.
Jiten Roy

@Avijit Roy

I am also for gun-control, and most of the gun-owners should be. Gun owners cannot be willy-nilly about gun-control. If they do, their guns will end up with the unauthorized users with little or no training or education about gun usages. That’s what happened in Connecticut, and the owner paid for it with her life. Mass killing in the society are not caused by authorized gun-owners, they are committed by their unauthorized users. This is a matter of gun-control education, and awareness, not a matter of seeking a new law. New law can make it harder to own gun, meaning it will control gun-ownership, which is not the issue. Some people may say – by controlling gun-ownership one can reduce access to arms. That’s true, but – it is being achieved at the cost of our basic right of ownership, and I am not ready to root for it. I am for gun-control education and awareness, which no one is talking about.

As I said before, I came from a gun-free society, and I saw how a society is kept hostage by godfathers. Political powers are controlled by those godfathers; in fact, politicians are the godfathers with all the power in the world. Law abiding citizens are slaves of those godfathers. I do not want to go back to that society. That was the very first difference I noticed when I came to USA.

Citizens can have power only when they hold the key to the real-power. If you guys want to surrender your powers, go ahead do it by all means. In fact, most politicians love gun-free society, which is easy to control and manipulate. We should remember, no politician will ever give up their arm-protection, but – they will love to see defenseless civilians, who will always be submissive to them for their protections. That’s the ultimate dream of a politician, and we are playing along with their propaganda campaign.

The bottom line is – legal gun-owner did not cause most of those mass murders, they were caused by either unauthorized users of those weapons or illegal gun-owners. It is a very legitimate issue to discuss, and society needs gun-control education and awareness. We need campaign for this issue, but -most politicians are not talking about that. They want to take guns off the street, meaning they want a gun-free society, like I have seen in my native country.

Jiten Roy
avijit

@Jiten Roy,
I have already answered in yahoo forum, but I did not see the same comment has been posted here too.

If anyone thinks we need more security and protection at schools not less, I am with him. But security in school does not have to be mutually exclusive idea of stricter gun laws for the country as a whole.

As I pointed out (in my article), the US homicide rates are 6.9 times higher than rates in similar countries. For example, Gun-homicide rate per capita in the US is almost 30 times that of Britain and Australia, 10 times that of India, and 4 times that of Switzerland. Nobody will say that the USA contains 30 times more crazy people compared to Britain. However, what the US actually has is easy access to guns.

when you see fifteen of the worst twenty-five mass shootings in the past half century have occurred in the U.S., then you should think twice before defending existing laws. We already know, something like 48,000 Americans will be killed with illegal guns in the next year if you do not change anything.

Well, I was dismayed by the response of NRA to last week’s slaughter in Newtown: “More guns in the schools. The NRA will never, ever admit that the problem is too many guns, not too few. You’ve already got 300-350 million weapons, why do you need another 25 military assault weapons which have one designated designed purpose, killing of human being, not for hunting. It looks like TWENTY-FIVE MILLION registered semi-auto military assault weapons are not enough, now some are advocating more guns in so-called gun free zones as well! Since Rupam has posted a picture, I also have to post a picture which summarizes the gloomy situation:

[img]http://enblog.mukto-mona.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/gun_control_god_bless_USA.png[/img]

if you want to advocate more guns as a solution, may god bless you too!
Dhrubo

@Jiten Roy,

Very good points. When the whole USA is rife with guns, making schools gun-free zones is a farce, probably best depicted by the following picture:

[img]http://www.marfdrat.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/no-guns-allowed.png[/img]

Now you have roughly two choices. You could allow people to carry guns in the schools, or systematically disarm the whole nation to avoid the mishaps in gun-free zones.

No matter how absurd the idea of a gun-carrying school principal may sound, many mass killings, including those of school children, were actually stopped in the past by gun-carrying civilians, stories of which are of course largely ignored or downplayed by the media.

Currently government might have been happy with the NRA money and too disinterested to disarm the nation, but in the future a more ambitious and power hungry one would love to systematically disarm the civilians. Have we forgotten already what Joseph Story once said? –

“One of the ordinary modes, by which tyrants accomplish their purposes without resistance, is, by disarming the people, and making it an offense to keep arms.”

Adolph Hitler certainly haven’t, when he said –

The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so.

And the second world war happened, by the way, not too far ago, and during a time when the modern warfare was already capable of making hand-held firearms look like toys.

People are powerful. Armed civilian always have been the fear of the tyrants, always will be. Court intellectuals of the tyrants will always find another reason to disarm them.
Subimal Chakrabarty

@Jiten Roy,
More security and protection in school will mean more gun sales. It is American Rifle Association’s pet idea. Total ban will be unconstitutional and probably undesirable at this time, but restriction of kinds of fire arms a private individual should be allowed to possess legally is not. All loopholes in the licensing, registration, and trades have not inly to be removed, the processes have to be made stricter also. The government should at least achieve this much in the near future.
Jiten Roy

Gun-culture in the USA is going to be hard for people, like me, to understand as I came to this country from a place, where civilians have no right to bear or own arms; only criminals in the society have arms. I do not understand why it is a sport to hunt animals or be a member of the shooting range. I do not understand why no one complains about violent video games and movies, which fill young impressionable minds with violent outbursts, and make them insensitive to violence and killing. I do not understand why people buy or own so many high power-firearms for personal protections. I do not understand why President cannot halt assault weapon sell to the public right away using his executive power, if he is so touched by the recent event in Connecticut. I do not understand why he is asking senators and congressmen, who are influenced by lobbyist, to do it. I do not understand the cowboy culture in America. So, it is easy for me to ask for the ban of these weapons.

I know President said when he was first elected to the office that he wanted to see a strong civilian force as powerful as military, if not more. Do we know what did he mean? He wanted to arm civilians for what, except to fight ideological battle or for personal protection? I know – he did not do it, but – that was the intent. I smelt Pol Pot or Stalin or Mao Tse Tung in the intent of the President, and millions of Americans do so.

I believe – banning firearm-ownership will only disarm civilians and empower culprits. Haven’t we banned drugs already? Why do we still see thousands of drug related deaths and violence on the street? Now we are begging for legalizing drug. Have we thought about it? I see civilians are ready to surrender their rights, but culprits are not. Have we thought about it?

I know – tragedy happened in Connecticut, but is gun control the solution? Don’t we have laws against access to firearms for mentally challenged people? That did not stop this psychopath to get access to the firearms. I think – we need more security and protection at schools, not less.

Jiten Roy
avijit

Slightly modified version of the same article appeared in News From Bangladesh (December 31, 2012) and The Financial Express (01 January 2013)

thanks
Dhrubo

@avijit,

Interesting.

If it is a survey, then I doubt whether the difference is significant. Statistical significance is more important at this point, as the two lines continued to overlap for the last few years. I am surprised that they did not mention about the statistical significance or the confidence interval of the results.

The graph is still of particular interest to me. The way the two lines crisscross for the last three years, it appears to me that both sides are almost even, while the variation is probably explained by the randomness of sampling and occurrence of important incidences.

The trend of the graph is the most important thing here. Over the last twenty years, gun-control support has actually decreased, and on the other hand gun ownership support has increased. If this trend is significant, and if we count that in, then it seems plausible that the trend may continue even further, allowing some temporary jitters every now and then.

The trend of decreasing support for gun control has also been consistent during the first term of Obama; quoting from the article –

support for gun control remains lower than before Obama took office. In April 2008, 58% said it was more important to control gun ownership; just 37% prioritized protecting gun rights.
avijit

It looks like More Americans are now choosing Gun Conrol over Second Amendment.

For the first time since Obama took office, more Americans are prioritizing gun control over second amendment rights two own guns by 49% to 42%, a Pew Research center poll published Thursday –

[img]http://www.people-press.org/files/2012/12/12-20-12-1.png[/img]

source here.
avijit

@songsaptaq,

Its a very good comment. It cleared a lot of things. I also found Obama already demeaning a gun plan, he said yesterday, “proposals that i then intend to push without a delay. “There is a big chunk of space between what the second amendment means and having no rules at all”, he said.

This Sandy Hook shooting incident may change a in the NRA’s policy towards gun control, I hope. They so far declined to comment after the shooting incident, and even turned there Facebook page down. They eventually set a news conference for Friday though. Let’s see.
songsaptaq

@avijit’,

Many readers confuse gun control with public disarmament and here exactly arises the issue of the 2nd amendment. While disarmament prevents public from possessing fire arms at all , gun control determines what sort of firearms should be left for public possession.

The 2nd amendment indeed allows public to posses firearms but it does not clarify the nature of fire arms and accompanying ammunition permitted for the public possession and usage.

What we have witnessed so far in some recent abuse of fire arms in the united states , is the possession of military grade fire arms and ammunition which specifically are built for mass assault instead of serving defensive role. High velocity and larger calibre ammunitions are made to deter and strike at genuine military targets and these are not meant to serve general purpose security such as armed robbery or thugs’ attack or the right to self defence as a whole. The only lawful military body in the United States of America is the Untied States Armed Forces and I wonder why one should fear assault from US armed forces in homeland and endeavours in collecting assault weapons to deter against it.

We , therefore, need to extend our discussion to the core issue of gun control and disarmament while remaining within the framework of the 2nd amendment.
SONGBAADIKA

“Let’s change the mantra from ‘the right to bear arms’ to ‘the privilege to bear arms’. Privileges have to be earned, they aren’t a given. Prove that you are mentally stable and have a reasonable need to own a gun. Make gun owners undergo mandatory training; locking up your gun, loading and unloading safely, storing bullets separately, practices that make gun ownership safer. Give police powers of inspection – checking gun safes, safe storage, training. No-one can buy a gun without a training certificate in addition to background checks. No internet sales of guns or ammunition and no walking out with the gun the same day. Responsible owners will cherish their privileges. It will make it much more difficult for those that haven’t earned the privilege to get their hands on weapons”.

Yet, commentator cannot ponder upon a civil society without rifles and carbines. S/He proposes to change the mantra but doesn’t ask to ban. Some of “privilege” matters are already in action. At least in the half of all massacres, killers were not the licensed owner of the firearms used in the shooting. Either they stole it from its original owner or illegally purchased it. Fundamental problem is the universal availability of the dangerous firearms.

It should not be forgotten, during the inclusion of the second amendment in the constitution, there were no such weapons (automatic-semi automatic bla bla……) in the world. At that time firearms were so inaccurate, that it couldn’t make sword obsolete

American society is totally engulfed by gun culture; few people can think a society without it. It cannot be ceased in overnight by law. It must be slow but a steady process.
Irishad Ahmad

Control is a MUST, especially when we are dealing with guns. I simply do not understand when they will have their common sense back! How many more lives will have to be sacrificed for this odd liberty? Why some will have to give their lives for some lunatics’ freedom?
avijit

@Rezwan,
Thanks a lot for reading my article and your valuable comment!
avijit

On a side note, I found Gun-rights-defenders’ solution a bit baffling. For e.g, Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas. said after the Sandy Hook Elementary School – “Every mass killing of more than three people in recent history has been in a place where guns were prohibited, except for one”. Larry Pratt, the Executive Director of Gun Owners for America, suggested that these massacres might be avoided in the future, if only “more teachers were armed”.

I am not sure if it is a reasonable solution at all, let alone questioning its practicability or implacability. It looks like they are advocating the ‘rule of jungle’ being a citizen of civilized world. It’s like, since there are a lot of crazy people out there, you should act crazier to protect yourself. Huh?
avijit

@Dhrubo,

Thanks a lot for your opinion and response. I know it’s a delicate issue and nothing has been settled yet. If the issue were already been settled it would not be worth debating. I cited an example from Singapore where I lived for more than eight years and I have seen how the stricter gun-laws prohibited mass killings. I mentioned about an incident as well that just happened few hours ago when a 36-year-old man attacked 22 children at a primary school in China. None of the kids died from that incident since the man in China was only carrying a knife. Imagine what would have happened if he could get a semiautomatic rifle as easily as Adam Lanza could. I can give an example from Japan too –

A Land Without Guns: How Japan Has Virtually Eliminated Shooting Deaths

Some points to ponder from the article :

“what about the country at the other end of the spectrum? What is the role of guns in Japan, the developed world’s least firearm-filled nation and perhaps its strictest controller? In 2008, the U.S. had over 12 thousand firearm-related homicides. All of Japan experienced only 11, fewer than were killed at the Aurora shooting alone….

Almost no one in Japan owns a gun. Most kinds are illegal, with onerous restrictions on buying and maintaining the few that are allowed. Even the country’s infamous, mafia-like Yakuza tend to forgo guns; the few exceptions tend to become big national news stories.”

You said Correlation is not causation. I agree, but I think it goes both ways. You can criticize the gun control advocates for doing this. I can also accuse the opponents who try to use Switzerland as an example to show “more guns = less crime”. This is also true for the research that has been cited in your response [More guns, less crime: Understanding crime and gun control laws]

Yes, Correlation is not causation, but one thing seems pretty clear that in the rate of mass murder from gun shootings is quite high in the US, the homicide rates are 6.9 times higher than rates in the other high-income countries; the largest contribution comes from the firearms, which are 19.5 times higher than in other highly-developed countries. Furthermore, firearm homicide rates in the 15-24 year age group in the United States are 42.7 times higher than in the other countries. Most of the worst mass shootings in the past half century have taken place in the U.S. These are simple facts, not a ‘correlation’, and the situation is gradually reaching a very alarming stage. Even NRA-backed legislators are also calling for New weapon laws, ‘Enough is enough’, they say.

Thanks for your comment again.
Dhrubo

Thanks a lot for writing on an important issue. It will hopefully bring some good discussions.

Gun politics is definitely a delicate issue. And both sides have their own arguments. So we rely on data for an objective understanding of the subject matter. That is what I am solely interested in here, not in its politics.

Now the question is whether we have an unanimity about the findings among researchers.

Your following statement seems to suggest that.

Although Republicans and Extreme-Individualist Libertarian folks who live by the “Gun-does-not-kill” motto will stand strong with their opinion, the researchers, on the other hand, provide reasons why this motto is not applicable in American society.

Did “the researchers” really agree on this ongoing research issue? Unfortunately not. Actually the opposite is seen, not only on this issue but, in many sciences and researches, in general. Many disciplines are divided among competing evidences and among many schools of thoughts, more so in social sciences.

A very weak but popular way, often used by media, to attempt to substantiate a conclusion, is to show a correlation between two things. Correlation by itself is of course interesting. But it is puzzling too. Researchers have found correlations between more guns with more murders. And researchers also found correlations that go against that. For example, according to a well-cited study – allowing law-abiding citizens to carry concealed firearms is correlated with less crime. According to another study, gun laws generally have no significant effect on violent crime rates or suicide rates.

Are these competing evidences surprising? Not at all. In social sciences, researchers are very careful about connecting correlations with causality. As opposed to folk tendency about jumping to a causal conclusion from reading a result on correlations, they know and understand what it means when scientists say that, “correlation does not imply causation.” Often there are other underlying or hidden variables that are responsible. An evidence in favor of that is Switzerland where all able-bodied men possess guns at home, but mass killings do not occur there. This hints that the relation between gun ownership and crime is not that straightforward. Other factors should be considered too.

I am not interested in jumping to a conclusion from any of these findings. I am only showing that neither researchers nor their evidences agree. A thorough discussion and analysis would, therefore, consider competing evidences and would be careful about conclusions taken from them.
Rezwan

Great article, Avijit da! Just the other day, one of my friends in facebook had this to say about gun control and I find it quite intriguing:

” When I’m out late, I sometimes feel a sense of dread when a creepy dude stares at me on the tram or tries to talk to me or when I think I’m being followed and there’s no one else around. It doesn’t help that I’ve been mugged before. During these moments, I often wish I had a gun. It’s visceral and irrational. Maybe if I flashed the gun (I don’t have to fire it), scary people will go away. But I also often sober up and remember that (a) at close range, my gun is likely to be wrestled from me and used against me, (b) the knowledge that I have a gun is likely to make criminals use more brutal and violent strategies, not necessarily get them to stop, (c) that I can carry a gun means there are way more people out there who can use guns against me as well as stats show that guns owned by civilians are more often used to attack rather than to defend (d) that even if there’s a wild chance I am very lucky and quick-thinking and succeed at warding off threats in one instance, there will be others who won’t be as lucky bec they get attacked under more dangerous circumstances (i.e. no time to pull out gun, did not notice threat, etc.). Even if I can’t have the (false) assurance of having a gun in my bag, the world is a safer place with fewer guns in total.”

December 2012
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‘Control’ Is Not Bad, Especially When We Are Dealing With ‘Guns’!

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