How to dramatically reduce gun violence in American cities

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Theo520 said:
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TK421:
There is internationally a pretty clear relationship between firearm restrictions and lower homicide.
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No there isn’t, that is a figment of your imagination.
No research supports this fantasy.
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That is an extremely insular perspective. Just because the NRA has managed to block research into gun violence in the US for the last 20 years does not mean that the rest of the world isn’t doing it.

The NRA has blocked gun violence research for 20 years. Let’s end its stranglehold on science.

Ten Lies Distort The Gun Control Debate

These four countries have nearly eliminated gun deaths - here’s what the US can learn
 
TK421 said:
It gets wacky in dramatically less developed places with a weak rule of law
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I agree with this. Everything gets “ wackier” without a rule of law.
But what is traceable and clear, are the amounts of US sourced guns recovered abroad in Central America and the Caribbean and submitted to be traced to ATF.
Weapons do not cease to be an issue if they can be trafficked to add to death rates and crime abroad.

“From 2014 to 2016, 50,133 guns that originated in the United States were recovered as part of criminal investigations in these 15 North American, Central American, and Caribbean countries,[30]
many of which receive more crime guns with origins in the United States than some U.S. states. For example, from 2014 to 2016, more than 33,000 U.S.-sourced guns were recovered in criminal investigations in Mexico. That exceeds the number of crime guns recovered and traced to a U.S. source in every U.S. state during the same period—except for California, Florida, and Texas.[31]
Similarly, from 2014 to 2016, both Canada and El Salvador recovered more U.S.-sourced crime guns than 20 U.S. states. 32

Here are the ATF reports by country to click
https://www.atf.gov/resource-center/data-statistics
under Firearms Trace Data.

Though slightly off topic, since the article in the OP is positive news and a creative approach with good results.
Unfortunately, guns that disappear from an area, appear somehow somewhere else…
 
otjm said:
I will repeat: the Center For Disease Control did a study/survey and estimated private citizens use a firearm to defend themselves approximately 2,000,000 times a year,. And the CFDC is by no means whatsoever a conservative organization. And that includes such use of a firearm as my brother reaching for his when threatened (he never drew - see above).
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That statistic is voided by the fact that the gun is used to intimidate and threaten just as many or more in the first place.

Recognising how the gun is used to threaten and intimidate females by male partners and stalkers, the States are doing their best to close loopholes and guess who wants to keep the right of violent spouses and stalkers to threaten, intimidate and kill women who tick them off? The good old NRA cult of men.

The bill to reauthorise the Violence Against Women Act includes a provision making it easier to take away guns from violent offenders even if they are not a spouse or domestic partner. The amendment closes the so-called “boyfriend loophole” by barring those convicted of abusing, assaulting or stalking a current or former dating partner from buying or owning a firearm.

“We’re closing dangerous loopholes in our laws that, right now, allow those who’ve been convicted of stalking or dating violence to obtain firearms,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat.

The National Rifle Association (NRA), a gun-rights lobbying organisation, opposed the House measure and urged Republicans to vote against it.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019...olence-bill-dispute-guns-190404211103366.html
 
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And this only compounds the need for a more responsible approach to guns because Americans are far from the only ones dying to American-made guns.
 
Yes, it concerns us all.
Crime, trafficking and the like is really an issue we are all worried about all over.

Anyway the article posted which this thread is about is very interesting as it has brought about good results. And that is good news to take into account and read carefully.
 
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TK421 said:
There is no such divinely given right in Christian history and there never was.
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Rights follow from responsibilities. You have the right to private property because it’s your responsibility to provide for you and yours. You have the right to arms because it’s your responsibility to defend you and yours.

Responsibility to defend your family and yourself from those who would do you harm is divinely given, and so therefore is the right which proceeds from it.
 
TK421 said:
I dont really need a definitive conclusion unless I’m the one making a bold claim, which I’m not. [emphases added]
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“You don’t have the right to defend yourself using firearms.” You don’t think that’s a pretty bold claim?
 
Not really…
If guns are banned where one lives, one cannot claim the “right “ to have a gun on Catholic grounds so as to defend ourselves.
We are neither more or less Catholic for that access.
We can though defend ourselves through any available proportionate means.
 
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Odilon said:
And acid attacks are widespread.
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I’d query the term ‘widespread’.

Most acid attack figures come from 2017 Freedom of Information Requests and show that the majority of acid attacks happened in London. The total amounted to 465 attacks in a city with a population of 8.8 million.
 
LilyM said:
In other words knife attacks overall went DOWN during the eighteen years between the ban on guns in 1996 and 2014 (given that 2014 was the low point). Then sharply back up for reasons undisclosed.
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The reasons behind the increase in knife crime is largely thought to be as a result of the austerity measures the government brought in in 2010 as a result of the financial crisis and have continued up until today.

The majority of knife crime takes place in the most deprived areas of London with known problems of youths getting sucked into gang activity. Cuts in public services, community outreach programmes, youth schemes etc etc have resulted in gang activity becoming more attractive in those places, which has gone hand in hand with knife crime.
 
Emeraldlady said:
ust because the NRA has managed to block research into gun violence in the US for the last 20 years
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My firs thought is, what are you smoking (legally, of course, and as a joke) to make such a wild claim.

Examples of persistent Fed research
  • The U.S. Dept. of Justice National Institute of Justice performs analysis of records provided each year by every law enforcement agency in America as well as commissions studies by staff, campus researchers, think tanks, etc.
  • The FBI, Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, Drug Enforcement Agency, and other parts of US DoJ research guns used in crimes.
  • The National Institute of Health has been looking into violence and crime for decades. Neuroscience research reveals how criminal decision-making is done, and having a gun available has little effect on planning.
What the NRA has helped stop is Fed funded research with a clear political agenda. Back in the 90s the CDC published a number of “studies” that were thinly-veiled anti-gun propaganda pieces. They were junk science of the worst kind and the agency was going well beyond its normal authority by advocating public policy rather than merely publishing pure research. Congress warned the CDC that their funding would be cut if they did not stop advocating for gun control but no actual funding cut was made, and no ban was imposed. And even if it had been, it only would have banned them from political advocacy, not from doing research. The CDC responded to this warning by unilaterally ceasing all their gun violence research. No one forced them to do it, they just chose not to do any more research on gun violence.
 
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People dont have rights to do far less dangerous things than owning handguns, so I don’t think the idea is novel at all.

People by default are allowed to trade and sell and buy or do whatever unless there is a public safety concern and then legislation comes into play. Since handguns dont protect individuals or families or communities but do the opposite the government has a right to limit or remove their use.

The issue extends beyond individual families and their selfish interests. A person can’t (or shouldn’t) do something if it hurts or endangers somebody else.
 
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Prohibition of commonly available items has never worked.
Responsibility works.
Incarceration works.

It would be better to allow every citizen to pack heat than to try and control gun ownership.
If every citizen had a gun on the hip I guarantee that the spineless would think twice before committing a crime.
 
Having read article, which most here did not, I think most of the comments are off topic. The issue is whether policing should include social services, and use this collaboration to preemptively intervene with violent people.

As the nation of incarceration, anything we could do to further our civility would benefit all of society. We need to decide if we will continue on the path of North Korea, China, et al, or decide that jailing so much of our population might not be the greatest idea.
 
Again, demonstable realities trump hypotheticals. In countries where firearms have been weeded out, their presence among criminals is very minimal because there is no practical reason to have them, and criminals are almost always practical when breaking the law. They are self-interested.

Alcohol is difficult or almost impossible to control because A) it has thousands of years of precedent and use in society, B) it is addictive and C) it is delicious.

Excluding harvesting game, which doesnt usually apply to handguns, the main purpose for the widespread circulation of handguns is because of a confused belief that it makes people safer, and this belief is almost exclusive to the USA. The fact that there is widespread ignorance on the subject can make battles hard to win, like how a lot of people in China might think rhino horn serves a critical medicinal purpose.
 
TK421 said:
Again, demonstable realities trump hypotheticals. In countries where firearms have been weeded out, their presence among criminals is very minimal because there is no practical reason to have them, and criminals are almost always practical when breaking the law. They are self-interested.

Alcohol is difficult or almost impossible to control because A) it has thousands of years of precedent and use in society, B) it is addictive and C) it is delicious.

Excluding harvesting game, which doesnt usually apply to handguns, the main purpose for the widespread circulation of handguns is because of a confused belief that it makes people safer, and this belief is almost exclusive to the USA. The fact that there is widespread ignorance on the subject can make battles hard to win, like how a lot of people in China might think rhino horn serves a critical medicinal purpose.
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One word: Chicago. And just generally speaking gun control without increased responsibility and virtue never, or hardly ever, works.
 
A need for more virtue is ubiquitous to every time period: past, present, or future. It doesn’t really contribute to the topic because sin is bound to come into the world and there is never going to be a wholly virtuous society in this world.

Laws need to exist that recognize the reality of the human condition as it is. You can’t base something around a unicorn.
 
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The statistic is not “voided” - it is not made meaningless. And please provide the statistic from which you make the statement that “as many or more”. “As many as” from a news report is irrelevant unless it is backed by a study.

I am well aware of the NRA’s position; I practiced law and did divorce work, so I am not exactly ignorant of the use of restraining orders.

the point of the NRA objections has to do with hearings; the spouse can appear by themselves, make allegations and the judge can issue an order, whether or not therre is a lick of truth in it, and I am also well aware of “talk” - meaning, if the wife/girlfriend wants to devestate the other side, lack of truth is an extremely effective weapon.

A judge simply issuing an order where both sides have not had any opportunity to be heard leaves the other party to try to prove their innocence.

Pause a moment and read this: I am not suggesting that in cases of violence or threatened violence, that weapons should not be removed from the situation. One of my divorce cases had a restraining order against my client; they reconciled; and 6 months later her attorney called me requesting some information; she noted 3 things she wanted, and each time I said I would contact the husband, she suggested we both wait; he had left the family home, there was a restraining order, and they were working on their taxes.

My next call was from a deputy sheriff; my client had put three rounds in her back, turned the gun and put two rounds in his chest. So I am more aware of the issue than you may think.

Is it wise to remove weapons where there is a real issue of domestic abuse? I would agree.

Is it best done through an ex parte hearing? I don’t agree, as no evidence is required other than a sworn statement with no other evidence submitted. And given that the vast majority of restraining orders do not get contested, they are then presumed as “true” and that follows, never mind the extremely flimsy grounds upon which it is made. As exceedingly easy as it is to use a restraining order as nothing more than a tactical advantage, that is not the way to have a hearing which may result in someone losing rights, entirely possibly permanently, where truth was nowhere to be found.

I certainly would back a hearing designed to alleviate the possibility of the use of a weapon in anger. However, the right to a fair hearing needs to be part of the foundation of such orders.

The same applies to cases in which one party is suicidal (and the greater majority of cases, especially ptsd cases, are men). Removing the weapon makes sense. Doing it ex parte opens up the same can of worms.
 
Perhaps you should read and reflect on paragraphs 2263 - 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church; the right of self defense is a moral right, explicated by St Thomas Aquinas as part of moral law, given by God - so a divine right.
 
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