Every day, 20 US Children Hospitalized w/Gun Injury (6% Die)

[StringJunky]

To refocus on the issue of child death (rather than solely the constitutional right to bear arms)

 

• Name: unreleased Age: 11 Age Group: Child 0-11 Gender: Male Status: Killed
• Name: Madeline Recktenwald Age: 7 Age Group: Child 0-11 Gender: Female Status: Killed
• Name: unreleased Age: 3 Group: Child 0-11 Gender: Male Status: Killed
• Name: Lily Coats-Nichols Age: 5 Age Group: Child 0-11 Gender: Female Status: Killed
• Name: Amari Brown Age: 7 Age Group: Child 0-11 Gender: Male Status: Killed
• Name: Luis F. Lopez-Cruz Age: 3 Age Group: Child 0-11 Gender: Male Status: Killed
• Name: Chris L. Palmer Age: 4 Age Group: Child 0-11 Gender: Male Status: Killed
• Name: unreleased Age: 11 Age Group: Child 0-11 Gender: Male Status: Killed

This month so far. Tragically even for this 16 days that have already passed the numbers will rise as many reports are not yet in, injuries prove fatal, and the data is not yet fully collated.

 

Thank heavens it is a lower than average but it will get closer and if you look back through the reports the last two weeks have been relatively peaceful; just two 3y-olds, a 4y-old and a 5y-old, two 7y-olds, and two 11y-olds - a quiet two weeks...

Where'd you get those stories/statistics?

[iNow]

I agree it would be interesting to know, but does anyone doubt their validity? Isn't the larger point that we should be terrified of / outraged over / organizing to do something about stuff like this rather than far less impactful things like ISIS (whose numbers barely even come close)?

 

seriously... One guy one time tries to put a bomb in his shoe on a plane and totally failed and now I have to take my shoes off every few days at the airport when I travel, but scores of kids dying every month and many more adults than that every single day from guns and our response? "Well gosh, whatdya do? It is what is, can't be fixed."

[StringJunky]

As long as people talk about rose-tinted crap like "Our Founding Fathers....", it will persist. History is just twisted by the proponents to suit them. In the UK, we revere the Magna Carta, and yet only two things on it are still binding. One has to understand the times for which laws are made... doesn't one?

Edited July 17, 2015 by StringJunky

[imatfaal]

Where'd you get those stories/statistics?

 

Sorry I should have put a link but I was getting pretty down reading about 3 year olds killed by jealous inadequate fathers.

 

http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

 

You will note that again it is a website not affliliated nor funded by the government - these statistics make for painful reading and I think the authorities have decided to protect us from that trauma

[StringJunky]

 

Sorry I should have put a link but I was getting pretty down reading about 3 year olds killed by jealous inadequate fathers.

 

http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

 

You will note that again it is a website not affliliated nor funded by the government - these statistics make for painful reading and I think the authorities have decided to protect us from that trauma

Thanks. ...and set on fire as well. What can Obama et al do in the face of such religious-like fervour towards weapons?

Edited July 17, 2015 by StringJunky

[Ten oz]

The numbers are tragic. The arguments that the need outweighs the costs because we might need guns to wage a war against our own government someday or that the foundering fathers meant for it to be this way are weak ones. A more honest argument would probably include a statement acknowledging a lack of empathy for those who are impacted by gun violence. That the tragedy of a stranger isn't strong enough to press action.

[iNow]

The ideas of empathy and greater good get trumped time and again by the idea of personal liberties and freedom. I find myself sympathetic to that position, but in parallel find deep confidence in the idea that more practical paths forward are available to us; that we have numerous significantly better options to consider and implement beyond just the current status quo in which we seem so mired and ensnared.

 

That said, these quotes from the founders of the US go directly to the core of the pro-gun stance, IMO, and may be helpful in terms of increased understanding of the positions being taken: http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/gun-quotations-founding-fathers

 

Again, I'm sympathetic to the view that core freedoms and individual liberties are at play here, but I'm also sympathetic to the real world tragedies and suffering that firm adherence to this view is creating and I'm certain there's a better way forward that respects both appropriately. My sincere hope is that this stance is more median than marginal, but that remains to be seen.

[dimreepr]

Nice post.

 

The founding fathers IMO set up an almost perfect system for that time and culture; we need to understand why and apply the wisdom to the modern world (a task beyond me but I’m sure it can be/needs to be done).

[overtone]

The term militia in the United States has been defined and modified by Congress several times throughout U.S. history. As a result, the meaning of "the militia" is complex and has transformed over time

Congress does not have the power to change the meanings of the words in the Constitution, in the US. That requires amendment.

 

Words change their meanings in English. That's one reason why one needs higher Courts, and a Supreme Court, whose members have acquired LIberal Arts educations - to prevent deception and dishonesty in local legislation, interpretation of laws written in the past, etc.

 

There is absolutely no ambiguity about its meaning to the people who wrote the 2nd Amendment, or the common use of the word in America since. A militia is assembled from the local private citizenry, who bring their own gear and even weapons etc. "The people" refers - at a bare minimum, to therm.

 

 

 

 

So without the silly attempt to alter the meaning, perhaps you could answer the question.

Will you still say that?

 

1) Yes, of course, honestly meant. However:

 

2) the only "alteration" I made was to take your reference to "rights" as referring to Constitutional rights, rather than a deceptive muddling of "rights" in general with Constitutional specifications. That is:

3) I think you are, if somehow honest, confused about the nature of the Constitution as well as my assertion. There were three parts to my response: that citizens of the US have a personal right to keep and bear arms, that this is a Constitutional fact, that I will vote for no politician who treats or even refers to the Constitution as if it were just somebody's opinion, (i.e. something one could set aside for the greater good of somebody else's better opinion).

Your query confused the role of the Constitution in restricting government and the role of legislation in restricting people, and it confused natural rights with Constitutional rights (see the 10th Amendment, my favorite, which any attempt to restrict any person's rights via the Constitution would likely run foul of). I chose to take it as honestly muddled, rather than intentional trolling, despite your provocative and insulting manner of presenting your confusion. Was I wrong?

 

A more honest argument would probably include a statement acknowledging a lack of empathy for those who are impacted by gun violence. That the tragedy of a stranger isn't strong enough to press action.

A more honest argument from you would include the acknowledgment that

 

1) there is almost complete consensus among Americans that gun violence is tragic, and broad - almost universal - agreement on the nature of some basic and likely effective approaches to greatly reducing the especially heartwrenching incidents involving children. You have the consensus you need, politically, to deal with the kinds of tragedy you demand empathy for.

2) your actual agenda, as presented and made visible in the arguments you use to advance it (which aims at disarming the American citizenry to a point that even prevents suicide, for example), involves abrogation of the 2nd Amendment among several others, and government oppression of gun owners.

 

Again, I'm sympathetic to the view that core freedoms and individual liberties are at play here, but I'm also sympathetic to the real world tragedies and suffering that firm adherence to this view is creating

No. Firm adherence to the basic principles of law and order in the US are not what's creating "the" real world tragedies and suffering.

And that argument is a serious problem. It's a threat. You are proposing we discard these basic principles for a hypothetical greater good. And if you ever want to pay serious attention to the nature of that threat, you have to start by recognizing that the entire purpose of the Bill of Rights was to prevent the kinds of "empathy" and "emotion" and "greater public good" arguments we see here from gaining the backing of governmental power in depriving US citizens of their rights.

If you set things up as a choice between upholding the Constitutional and saving children's lives, you lose either way. That's the tyrant's pitch, the NCS surveillance defense, the classic error no educated American should ever make.

Edited July 20, 2015 by overtone

[Ten oz]

Congress does not have the power to change the meanings of the words in the Constitution, in the US. That requires amendment.

 

Words change their meanings in English. That's one reason why one needs higher Courts, and a Supreme Court, whose members have acquired LIberal Arts educations - to prevent deception and dishonesty in local legislation, interpretation of laws written in the past, etc.

 

There is absolutely no ambiguity about its meaning to the people who wrote the 2nd Amendment, or the common use of the word in America since. A militia is assembled from the local private citizenry, who bring their own gear and even weapons etc. "The people" refers - at a bare minimum, to therm.

 

 

 

 

 

1) Yes, of course, honestly meant. However:

 

2) the only "alteration" I made was to take your reference to "rights" as referring to Constitutional rights, rather than a deceptive muddling of "rights" in general with Constitutional specifications. That is:

3) I think you are, if somehow honest, confused about the nature of the Constitution as well as my assertion. There were three parts to my response: that citizens of the US have a personal right to keep and bear arms, that this is a Constitutional fact, that I will vote for no politician who treats or even refers to the Constitution as if it were just somebody's opinion, (i.e. something one could set aside for the greater good of somebody else's better opinion).

Your query confused the role of the Constitution in restricting government and the role of legislation in restricting people, and it confused natural rights with Constitutional rights (see the 10th Amendment, my favorite, which any attempt to restrict any person's rights via the Constitution would likely run foul of). I chose to take it as honestly muddled, rather than intentional trolling, despite your provocative and insulting manner of presenting your confusion. Was I wrong?

 

A more honest argument from you would include the acknowledgment that

 

1) there is almost complete consensus among Americans that gun violence is tragic, and broad - almost universal - agreement on the nature of some basic and likely effective approaches to greatly reducing the especially heartwrenching incidents involving children. You have the consensus you need, politically, to deal with the kinds of tragedy you demand empathy for.

2) your actual agenda, as presented and made visible in the arguments you use to advance it (which aims at disarming the American citizenry to a point that even prevents suicide, for example), involves abrogation of the 2nd Amendment among several others, and government oppression of gun owners.

 

No. Firm adherence to the basic principles of law and order in the US are not what's creating "the" real world tragedies and suffering.

And that argument is a serious problem. It's a threat. You are proposing we discard these basic principles for a hypothetical greater good. And if you ever want to pay serious attention to the nature of that threat, you have to start by recognizing that the entire purpose of the Bill of Rights was to prevent the kinds of "empathy" and "emotion" and "greater public good" arguments we see here from gaining the backing of governmental power in depriving US citizens of their rights.

If you set things up as a choice between upholding the Constitutional and saving children's lives, you lose either way. That's the tyrant's pitch, the NCS surveillance defense, the classic error no educated American should ever make.

Please provide the post where I even loosely implied this. You are treating every possible position that isn't your own as equal to a door to door collection of all guns. The only policy I have advocated for in this thread was a requirement gun locks and gun safes. I have not called for disarming. With in what I have advocated in this thread everyone would be allowed to have all the guns they wanted they would just have to lock them up when not using them. To that you carry on about tryant's pitch, the Bill of Rights being disregarded, and depriving US citzens of the their right. It distorts the conversation.

[overtone]

Overlooked this, from inow last page:

 

In practice, communities in which most people keep guns handy in their homes have lower rates of burglary of occupied houses

If you're going to ignore my request to move the conversation forward on to something potentially more productive than an umpteenth rehash of already known talking points, at the very least perhaps you could do so without repeating obvious myths and empirically debunked falsehoods.

http://www.politico....ml#.VaO_tsGCOrU

Your link, and the quote from it, have nothing to do with my claim. You, and many other careless anti-gun crusaders, ignore the actual role of guns in self defense while making idiotic presumptions about other people's beliefs: the value of guns in personal protection is not measured in shootings of assailants, but in the deterrence of assault. Attempted assault is a form of failure of gun possession to deter, not a form of success. The absence of occupied house burglary I referred to has nothing to do with a high number of burglars getting shot, but instead rests on a low number of attempted burglaries of occupied dwellings. Your posting of statistics about criminals threatened or shot by gun owners reveals incomprehension.

 

The rest of your post, about the alleged correlations between "gun prevalence" (my term) and "violent crime" (my term), would involve a very long and detailed rehash of stuff I'm pretty sure you've seen before - the lumping of data by State, the "corrections" for urbanization and poverty, the proxies used for gun ownership and "prevalence", the tautological "homicide by firearm", the focus on homicide itself as standing in for "violent crime", etc etc etc. Can I please simply refer you to your memory, say around post 71 and vicinity, and avoid the tedious labor of trashing this employment of all those links? A review of your post 75, after reading 74, might be especially enlightening in hindsight.

 

The legitimate takeaway from them all is more or less this: criminals obtain guns for the purpose of threatening victims and shooting their enemies. Domestic violence is more likely to end in shooting someone if there is a gun handy. Gunshot wounds are more often lethal than other violence injuries. There are too many guns floating around in the US, and it's a serious problem.

 

None of those facts seems like much of a revelation, to me. Nor do they conflict with any of my posts. Meanwhile, this earlier summary of mine remains relevant:

 

And after all that, the actual argument remains not even approached - the problems with that article were merely example, illustration, among several. The contention is that such misleading use of stats characterizes the authoritarian, and also characerizes a significant fraction of the gun curb promulgators - so that wariness of gun curb pushers becomes perfectly reasonable in the US, and not to be wondered at or unduluy maligned.

- - - - - - step

 

 

Please provide the post where I even loosely implied this.

The ones where you referred to the tragedy of all those gun deaths, sort of vaguely, rather than making appeals to compassion in the deaths of children in particular. But if you want to specifically draw the line against gun control measures aimed at the plurality of gun deaths in the US, I'll happily welcome you to the team.

 

 

 

 

You are treating every possible position that isn't your own as equal to a door to door collection of all guns

I'm dealing with the presented arguments, not the carefully claimed "positions". I think they are the problem, not the positions. I think there is considerable - large majority - agreement among Americans in their actual positions. They want gun ownership to be responsible and accountable to reasonable standards, basically. They want the phrase "responsible gun owner" to mean something.

 

The threat and division and mutual mistrust comes with the arguments presented, like this:

 

 

 

A more honest argument would probably include a statement acknowledging a lack of empathy for those who are impacted by gun violence.

- - -

Millions of guns bought with the intention of self protection or other innocent purposes end up in the hands of criminals. Which number do we assume is greater: the number of crimes prevented per year by average civilian gun owners or the number of crimes committed per year by criminals using these millions of stolen guns?

- - - -

I am addressing the notion that more guns equal safer communities. Millions of guns in the hands of criminals were purchased by well intented people.

Edited July 21, 2015 by overtone

[iNow]

You are treating every possible position that isn't your own as equal to a door to door collection of all guns. <snip> To that you carry on about tryant's pitch, the Bill of Rights being disregarded, and depriving US citzens of the their right. It distorts the conversation.

Pretty much par for the course, apparently.

.

 

 

You, and many other careless anti-gun crusaders <snip> [make] idiotic presumptions about other people's beliefs.

I cannot decide if it's my irony meter or my hypocrisy meter that just broke. Let's just go with both.

 

Your link, and the quote from it, have nothing to do with my claim.

Fine. Since you reject outright the evidence I supplied in response to your unsupported and seemingly baseless assertion, I'll go about this another way.

 

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur, or, "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

[Unity+]

We have to have guns to help the greys fight off the reptilians, get with the program dude.....

Didn't you know? Greys are immune. Gosh, you need to do your research.

[overtone]

Fine. Since you reject outright the evidence I supplied in response to your unsupported and seemingly baseless assertion, I'll go about this another way.

You have as yet presented no evidence relevant to my assertion. I don't think you read it, actually - I think you substituted what you wanted to have read.

 

Otherwise, why would you respond to my assertion with a rehashed pile of already debunked (see earlier posts around the 70s here, for starters) "evidence" for something else,

 

that would not have been a response to the quoted assertion if it had been valid?

 

 

 

" You are treating every possible position that isn't your own as equal to a door to door collection of all guns. <snip> To that you carry on about tryant's pitch, the Bill of Rights being disregarded, and depriving US citzens of the their right. It distorts the conversation.

 

Pretty much par for the course, apparently. "

 

 

Yes. And a prime example of the striking feature of the gun debate in the US, shared by almost no other issue: it's polarized by the irrational and willfully obtuse on "both sides", twisting and misrepresenting anything said by the "other side", blind to even the most basic matters of logic and evidence and agreement and negotiation. Afaik it's the sole major issue to which that MSM canard actually applies.

 

Does the poster there even know what my "position" is? They haven't addressed it once yet, so I'd say no. Have I been treating other people's "positions" at all? Maybe one or two, tangentially, but I've been dealing almost entirely with arguments and their implications, not "positions". Were any of my scattered and context specific references to the tyrant's pitch, the Bill of Rights, or the role of the Constitution in protecting the rights of US citizens, addressed to anyone's "position"? Not that I can recall; it's possible, but not central or significant. And so forth.

Edited July 21, 2015 by overtone

[Ten oz]

Yes. And a prime example of the striking feature of the gun debate in the US, shared by almost no other issue: it's polarized by the irrational and willfully obtuse on "both sides", twisting and misrepresenting anything said by the "other side", blind to even the most basic matters of logic and evidence and agreement and negotiation. Afaik it's the sole major issue to which that MSM canard actually applies.

 

Does the poster there even know what my "position" is? They haven't addressed it once yet, so I'd say no. Have I been treating other people's "positions" at all? Maybe one or two, tangentially, but I've been dealing almost entirely with arguments and their implications, not "positions". Were any of my scattered and context specific references to the tyrant's pitch, the Bill of Rights, or the role of the Constitution in protecting the rights of US citizens, addressed to anyone's "position"? Not that I can recall; it's possible, but not central or significant. And so forth.

If your comments are not specifically directed or in response to a poster or their statements than perhaps you should not qoute them when making such ramblings. You can post an idea or opinion for discussion without the selective qoutes of other posters.

[MigL]

Never thought I'd be backing overtone, but...

 

From a Washington Post article 'Gun Homicides and Gun Ownership by Country', Switzerland is ranked No. 3 behind USA ( no. 1 ).

Gun ownership is aprox. half of what it is in the USA. The numbers are deceiving though because it ranks number of guns per capita ( skewed by multy-gun owners ), instead of number of homes where a gun is present. In the latter case The statistics are reversed because Swiss males are required to be part of their 'militia' and so, most homes have a gun present.

And although when a homicide is committed, the method of choice seems to be the gun both in the USA and Switzerland, the actual number of homicides per capita is way lower in Switzerland.

The conclusion I would draw is that gun possession is not an indicator of gun violence ( although a facilitator ), rather the inherent violence of a society is. There is just a different mindset between the Swiss and Americans.

 

Maybe its the 'wild west, cowboy' mentality which tries to solve all problems with violence ?

Edited July 21, 2015 by MigL

[imatfaal]

...

The conclusion I would draw is that gun possession is not an indicator of gun violence ( although a facilitator ), rather the inherent violence of a society is. There is just a different mindset between the Swiss and Americans.

 

Maybe its the 'wild west, cowboy' mentality which tries to solve all problems with violence ?

 

Or perhaps that a well regulated militia is not a danger but the American version is not a well regulated militia.

[iNow]

Maybe its the 'wild west, cowboy' mentality which tries to solve all problems with violence ?

My immediate response here is that I've already addressed (debunked?) this particular idea with data here: http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/81507-every-day-20-us-children-hospitalized-wgun-injury-6-die/?p=875861

 

[Edited to fix grammar mistake]

[Edit2: Interestingly, that data also addresses waitforufo's suggestion that gun control doesn't work/help in the post immediately following this one]

Edited July 21, 2015 by iNow

[waitforufo]

Why do all of you keep wasting your time on this issue. The second amendment exists. The supreme court has ruled. The people have the write to bear arms. No amount of blood, from children or adults, will change that. You don't have to like that.

 

Also gun control doesn't work. Ask those at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Ask those as Sandy Hook Elementary. Ask those at the shopping mall in Tennessee.

 

You gun control people have lost. Time to get over it.

[overtone]

Or perhaps that a well regulated militia is not a danger but the American version is not a well regulated militia.

All militias are hazardous to any existing system of governance, or even civilization, in principle. An militia raised in most US regions would be better regulated than the armies and guards of many countries - in the well educated person's meaning of the word (the writers of the Constitution were well educated, and writing for other well educated readers). One thing the US has in spades is military gear and military training in private hands.

 

 

 

 

Maybe its the 'wild west, cowboy' mentality which tries to solve all problems with violence ?

Remembering that the "west" was the entire country west of the Atlantic seaboard, and the "wild" extended at least a generation after WWII via the racial and Mexican conflicts. And that the key weapon that changed the game - the mass produced modern handgun - was invented in the US the middle of things.

 

 

 

My immediate response on that I've already address (debunked?) this particular idea with data here: http://www.sciencefo...6-die/?p=875861

When your links do not address the matter at hand, they are "data" for nothing but your own failure to pay attention. When they display garbage logic and crassly manipulated "data", as detailed in the 70s posts, they illustrate my observation: this is a "both sides" political issue.

 

 

 

Why do all of you keep wasting your time on this issue.

Because this civilization needs to get a handle on its use of lethal weaponry. The current situation is insane.

 

Also gun control doesn't work.

Yes it does - for good or for ill. And it's going to come. If you want it to work for good, best figure out how you want it to come. Edited July 21, 2015 by overtone

[waitforufo]

The Supreme Court has ruled. Read Heller. Read McDonald. Case closed.

[imatfaal]

 

All militias are hazardous to any existing system of governance, or even civilization, in principle. An militia raised in most US regions would be better regulated than the armies and guards of many countries - in the well educated person's meaning of the word (the writers of the Constitution were well educated, and writing for other well educated readers). One thing the US has in spades is military gear and military training in private hands.

 

Lovely bit of poisoning the well there...

 

I can assure you that "well educated" people know of more than one definition of regulated

 

Here is Webster's entry from a few years after 1791

 

REGULATED, pp. Adjusted by rule, method or forms; put in good order; subjected to rules or restrictions.

 

Just out of curiosity which one were you using again

[iNow]

When your links do not address the matter at hand, they are "data" for nothing but your own failure to pay attention. When they display garbage logic and crassly manipulated "data"...

So, which of the specific studies and meta-analyses I shared are you suggesting are garbage and crassly manipulated? Here they are again for reference:

 

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/

 

More evidence here (not that I suspect it will matter given the aforementioned recalcitrance):

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10619696

http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/6/4/263.full

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15066882

[imatfaal]

The Supreme Court has ruled. Read Heller. Read McDonald. Case closed.

 

Courts change their minds. SCOTUS will give great weight to its previous decisions but I am pretty sure tht whilst it does bind itself in some sort of horizontal stare decisis it also leaves a little wiggle room in case it really feels like it* - but I would love to see something to the contrary as I am no expert on SCOTUS. I think the rules of precedent and when to over-rule are recapped in Planned Parenthood of Pennsylvania v Casey but my memory is a bit hazy on this

 

*Brown v Board of Eduction

[overtone]

I can assure you that "well educated" people know of more than one definition of regulated

And they know which one applies, and even what "put in good order" means for a militia. Suitsble weapons in good working condition, for example, at minimum.

 

Give up on ignorant "interpretation". If you think you need the Constitution to say something different (you don't, unless your agenda is actually government enforced disarmament), amend it.

 

 

 

 

So, which of the specific studies and meta-analyses I shared are you suggesting are garbage and crassly manipulated?

Or irrelevant and evidence of incomprehension, or in reality conflicting with your claims? Been there, done that, right here on this thread. Life is short. Refer to the earlier posts, in the 70s and so forth, and read them this time. Edited July 21, 2015 by overtone