The Great Gun Control Debate

[Piece of Cake]

So it seems that this latest event could have been prevented.  And not because of a lack of gun control.  The FBI effed up.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/16/politics/parkland-shooting-fbi-tipster/index.html

Agreed.  Considering the tip and that Cruz was well known to police, the FBI has some explaining.

And documents obtained by CNN show that law enforcement officers responded to Cruz's house on 39 occasions over a seven-year period. No police reports were immediately available for those calls so it was not possible to determine whether Cruz was involved.

Same source as above

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/16/politics/parkland-shooting-fbi-tipster/index.html

 

[Loachman]

But, Ecole Polytechique was not prevented: 14 dead, more than a goodly number on that list. Nor was Mayerthorpe nor Moncton, in which armed police officers were gunned down.

That son of an Algerian wife-beater complied with all of the laws of the time. He obtained a FAC (Firearms Acquisition Certificate) to purchase his Mini 14. He would quite likely have been able to obtain a PAL (Possession and Acquisition Licence, not "Personal" as per the article) today.

Several of our other mass-murderers have been able to obtain FACs or PALs as well.

Firearms are not that hard to purchase through criminals either.

I believe in reasonable gun control laws: they are part of a civilized society. We control the sale and use of automobiles and dynamite, so why not guns? But I think it's a mistake to say that gun laws alone are the answer, or their absence the cause.

What is a "reasonable" law? Laws do not prevent crimes. Criminals ignore them. Only the naturally-law-abiding are affected, and they are extremely unlikely to harm anybody anyway. Current firearms legislation only burdens honest citizens and turns them into political paper criminals. Real criminals are unaffected by it. They don't take mandatory courses, don't get licences, don't register anything, don't care if something is restricted or prohibited, don't get ATTs, carry when and where they want, shoot whomever they want, and are seldom caught.

They merely give the general public a warm-and-fuzzy feeling.

And firearms owners are an easy target for politicians seeking votes. Homophobia and Islamophobia etcetera, but Hoplophobia is actively promoted. I, and many, many others, are tired of being scapegoats for failed Liberal policies.

The Chretien/Rock Firearms Act of 1995 made simple possession of a firearm a crime. a PAL is, in effect, government permission to commit that crime without sanction. It is heavy-handed and wrong. Possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime is an acceptable offence, as there is a clear criminal aspect to it, and a potential threat to people. Simple possession, which was perfectly lawful until that legislation came into effect, was never a problem.

-how well do we detect the signs of mental illness, and how much are we able to do about it?;

It is extremely difficult to predict future behaviour, unless an individual has exhibited a pattern in the past. Requiring all applicants to undergo a psychiatric assessment would be excessively intrusive, onerous, very expensive, and many people live in isolated areas with little access - and most of those intending, or likely to intend, harm would still slip through anyway.

-how well do we control our borders? (I've heard, for example, that the percentage of sea containers actually inspected at Canadian ports of entry is about 20%-what's in the other 80%?)

Drugs routinely cross, or circumvent, the border, in both directions. Some shipments are intercepted, but nobody knows what percentage remain undetected. Firearms are even easier to smuggle, and will last forever if properly maintained. And now, with the rise of 3D printers capable of printing metal, and further improvements to their capabilities coming, physical firearm smuggling will no longer be required.

-what is society's cultural view of lethal violence? Is it a terrible crime to shoot someone, or a casual action or "I'll shoot him if I bloody well feel like it"?; and

That depends: Normal people have no desire to harm anybody, and see murder, rape, robbery, assault etcetera as repugnant. An aberrant few can do it quite casually, either to protect their turf, exact revenge for even trivial slights, or even for pleasure.

It is the latter that needs to be controlled, not the former, and not the inanimate objects that they employ as tools of their trade.

The emphasis should be placed on criminal control, not gun control. Jail the crooks, and their firearms/knives/fentanyl etcetera can harm nobody.

As for the National Post article's claims, almost any firearm can be substituted for whichever one is actually used, and magazine limits can easily be circumvented. One of the very last firearms that will ever be banned will be the simple pump-action shotgun. There is no deadlier (hand-held) weapon at typical criminal ranges, the barrel and stock can be cut right back, and marksmanship is much less of a factor. Fewer rounds can be fired between reloading, but most victims will be in too much shock to interfere between reloadings, and back-up shotguns can be carried. Pins can be removed from five-round rifle magazines to return them to standard thirty-round capacity, and more magazines can be carried; mag changes are virtually instantaneous. This restriction is no more effective as prohibiting sale of beer in anything bigger than a six-pack would be as a means of reducing drunk driving; the drinker/driver would simply buy and open more six-packs.

Most mass-murderers take a long time to plan their attacks, and do so in great detail. They tailor their attacks according to the nature of their targets, their own capabilities including imagination, and the money and resources available. If one means is not available, an alternative always is. We have had several attacks using cars and trucks here in Canada, successful and unsuccessful.

Picking easy targets is not hard. Identifying would-be killers and intercepting them in time is much, much harder.

Our laws do not affect our crime rates. They cannot, unless enforced to the maximum extent possible (again, criminals in jail can harm nobody). What, then, does? This is the difficult thing to determine. Cultural and historical differences? Better health care, especially mental? Better social support programmes?

I've studied this for decades, and still do not know.

There is no way to stop every determined attacker, even most. That is a simple, cold, hard, unfortunate fact.

 

[pbi]

Most of what you say makes sense, but the argument that since criminals will break gun laws anyway, there is no point in having such laws doesn't make any sense to me.

The logic underpinning this argument is self-defeating. If the fact that criminals will break a law  makes that law invalid or ineffective, then laws in general are useless because criminals will always break them. That''s what criminals do.

Following that logic, why have any law? Somebody will just break it.

I am fine with people owning firearms, but I am equally fine with requiring them to be registered, for background checks, and for restrictions by type. That should still allow people to sport shoot and hunt without too much difficulty. I have to do a bunch of paperwork to purchase, use or sell a motor vehicle. Fine.

Why should guns be exempt?

 

[Jarnhamar]

Pbi could you explain how you see restrictions by type working?

 

[Jarnhamar]

Agreed.  Considering the tip and that Cruz was well known to police, the FBI has some explaining.

I read elsewhere the FBI claimed they couldn't identify the user behind the YouTube threat that was tipped off. Only  Cruz used his real life name as his YouTube handle.  So I'm not sure how they can't cut and paste someone's first and last name.

 

[Eaglelord17]

Just a fun fact, long gun restrictions do next to nothing for crime rates. Canada and the USA have about the same long gun (which includes things such as the AR-15, rifles, and shotguns) death rate per capita even though the laws are different. Handgun deaths are where we separate, though that is also a large part due to the lack of violent gangs in Canada as opposed to the laws.

The problem with these school shootings is that the criminals who commit them tend to have it be there first offence and as such difficult to detect. Also the mass shooting stats are heavily inflated as they include gang violence in them (even though the media makes it seem like every mass shooting is a school shooting).

Since 1999 the rate of school shootings has gone up steadily in the USA. Firearm technology and firearm laws in the USA haven't really changed in any meaningful way. So if the tool hasn't advanced or changed, it isn't the tool which is at fault. Maybe it is the poor parenting and lack of discipline instilled in youth today. Maybe it is the fact that people have realized it is a way to get famous (maybe we should stop allowing the media to report on the shooter and also require them to do similar wordings as to when someone commits suicide). Maybe it is the internet allowing ideas like this to spread. I don't know, but unless you figure out what the thing that changed is your not going to solve the problem.

 

[Loachman]

Most of what you say makes sense, but the argument that since criminals will break gun laws anyway, there is no point in having such laws doesn't make any sense to me.

I did not say that there is no point in having such (some) laws. I said that they are ineffective in deterring crime. Their usefulness lies in their definition of what constitutes a crime, and the penalties that can be imposed for breaking them.

I would argue, however, that the use of a firearm or knife or other weapon in a crime is largely irrelevant. It is the crime itself that should be punished, regardless of any implement used in its commission. Somebody could be shot, stabbed, or beaten with equal severity of injury. Punishment should be applied depending upon the severity of the injury, and not more if an implement was used instead of bare hands.

Courts seem to be reluctant to apply mandatory minimum firearms sentences to overall sentences; they tend to reduce the sentence for the actual crime by the amount of the firearms sentence, so that the result is largely the same as it would have been before those mandatory sentences took effect.

I am not offended by laws that apply greater penalties for criminal misuse of a firearm, but that is because I view any measure that actually discourages criminal abuse of a firearm to be positive because that can result in firearms owners taking less collateral and unjust collective blame.

Plus, anything that puts violent criminals out of circulation for a longer period is also a Good Thing.

I am fine with people owning firearms, but I am equally fine with requiring them to be registered

What is the purpose of registering a firearm? There was no requirement, prior to the 1995 Chretien/Rock Firearms Act, to register non-restricted firearms. There was no discernible decrease in crime or increase in conviction rates based upon the registry (good, old-fashioned, solid police work is far more critical), and I have not seen any indication of a single conviction that hinged solely upon registry-provided information. Similarly, there was no increase in crime or decrease in conviction rates when the non-restricted portion of the registry was eliminated.

New Zealand also went through this with the same results.

Firearms registration, with any degree of accuracy, is extremely difficult. Vehicles have unique VINs that uniquely identify them and are indelibly stamped into several key components - although I have read about one known case of duplication. Make, model, and year of manufacture are easily determined.

There are many firearms manufactured well over a century ago, and some almost two centuries ago, that still function as well as they did fresh from the factory. Many thousands of different models with many modifications incorporated into more newly-manufactured versions, and post-manufacture modifications over their lifetimes, complicate identification of the model.

Earlier ones frequently lack serial numbers, or they are stamped into barrels, which, by law, are uncontrolled spare parts. Current law requires serial numbers on either the frame or receiver, as they legally constitute the firearm (ie possession of a bare receiver, lacking any other parts, while not holding a PAL will result in the same charge and conviction as would the complete firearm. There are, however, many firearms registered by the serial number on the barrel because there are none on the frame or receiver.

There are several older firearms that have no frame or receiver. I own one.

The brand stamped into a firearm may not indicate the actual manufacturer. There is no actual manufacturer information stamped into "branded" firearms, and no way for the average owner or even expert to determine the manufacturer, but "Manufacturer", not brand, is the field in the registration that is required by current law.

There is no common standard for serial numbers. These, if applied at all to older firearms, varied by nation, purchaser (ie military, as serial number ranges were frequently specified in the contract), manufacturer, and time.

Some have been over-stamped when firearms were transferred second-hand, in bulk, to other armed forces when the original owner replaced them with newer weapons.

Older German military firearms generally have plain four- or five-digit serial numbers. Each factory applied them, beginning each new year with "00001". Each factory had a two- or three-character code. One needs to know, then, the manufacturer that used each code (and some disappeared many, many years ago or merged with others) and the year of manufacture in addition to the serial number in order to uniquely identify each weapon. There are very few who can do that to the standard required in a court setting. As an additional complication, weapons were often built from parts from several different manufacturers, with different codes on each major part, towards the end of both World Wars.

Other military-surplus firearms are marked in different alphabets, principally Cyrillic, Chinese and Japanese characters.

Registries are rife with errors, and become corrupt over time. The older one had numerous "ghost guns", whereby the original registration was not cancelled when a new one was initiated upon transfer from one person to another, or the older registration could not be found because entry was made with subtle changes. One of my pistols was registered by the nice policeman with hyphens between every three digits, as was his personal custom. There were none in the actual serial number. Re-registration was required when the current law came into effect. I registered this pistol with the serial number as stamped on it, and then had some difficulty convincing the new registry that I did not have two of these pistols and was now trying to hide one.

Whenever I could not be certain of any of the eight required fields on the form, I inserted "Unknown", as did thousands of others, to avoid the possibility of legal penalty for honest mistakes - the wording before one's signature was slightly non-standard and left no out for such, as is the norm, and there was no understanding of what would ultimately be considered acceptable or unacceptable. That was based upon legal advice, from several lawyers, from the NFA.

"Barrel Length" is another field. That can change. "Shots" is another. What does one put? Five is the legal limit for centre-fire semi-automatic rifle magazines under most cases, so that is largely irrelevant.

This is why upwards of two billion dollars was wasted, including two complete computer systems that were inadequate fro the task.

Note that the current registry was set up in Miramichi, to compensate for jobs lost when CFB Chatham closed. None of the employees there knew anything about firearms or the actual law, or displayed any signs of competence. Many jobs were lost there when the last Conservative government cancelled the non-restricted part of the registry. Where was the Phoenix pay centre set up? Who needed jobs? Any surprises with the result?

Not that those people were entirely responsible for the failures of either, of course. Predictable as well as unforeseen weaknesses in both systems, and political denial, played bigger parts.

for background checks

We do not object to that concept, although it has little real effect, as long as such checks are reasonable. We also do not object to competency requirements, although they also have little effect and are generally redundant. Provinces have hunter safety requirements and ranges also have stringent safety practices - nobody wants to be shot while in the bush or on a range through somebody's incompetence. Requirements to understand laws and attendant regulations are also fine, although the current law is convoluted, confusing, and contradictory and defies proper understanding.

restrictions by type.

Please define that. The current classifications are arbitrary and inconsistent. A US M14 clone has exactly the same capabilities as an FN. The first is non-restricted, the latter prohibited. I am grandfathered and can continue to own it, but cannot take it to a range and shoot it, or pass it on to any of my children or sell it to anybody but a similarly-grandfathered person. None, to the best of my knowledge, have ever been used in a crime. What crook would lug a long, bulky, eleven-pound rifle into a bank when she could buy (legally or otherwise) or steal a shotgun and chop the barrel and butt?

AR-15s and variants are restricted by name (courtesy of Trudeau I) are restricted, yet there are many other rifles with identical characteristics and capabilities that are non-restricted. These are also seldom used in crimes. They are expensive, and criminals consider economic factors as well. AR-15 "variants" include a .22 calibre lookalike (not identical, and east to distinguish from the real thing) with a completely different mechanism that is also considered "restricted".

Nobody who designed this law had any knowledge of firearms at all. When determining categories, they essentially looked through a catalogue and said "Ooohhh. That one looks scary." "That one looks kind of okay, I suppose."

And these designations can be, and have been, changed on whim, causing significant financial loss and feeling of violation. Government-decreed theft is still theft.

I have to do a bunch of paperwork to purchase, use or sell a motor vehicle. Fine.

Much of that pertains to the taxes involved, and registration and additional fees if one wishes to drive it on public roads. Farm-only vehicles do not require registration, nor do any others that do not leave private property under their own power. One does not face criminal charges if one's licence or registration expire, or if one fails to report a change of address to the police within thirty days.

If similar paperwork allowed me access to publicly-provided ranges and to take my firearm wherever I wished, I might not be so unhappy.

http://www.sfu.ca/~mauser/papers/letters/DrUSoped104.pdf

https://sencanada.ca/content/sen/committee/372/lega/witn/firearms1-e.htm

 

[Jed]

Most of what you say makes sense, but the argument that since criminals will break gun laws anyway, there is no point in having such laws doesn't make any sense to me.

The logic underpinning this argument is self-defeating. If the fact that criminals will break a law  makes that law invalid or ineffective, then laws in general are useless because criminals will always break them. That''s what criminals do.

Following that logic, why have any law? Somebody will just break it.

I am fine with people owning firearms, but I am equally fine with requiring them to be registered, for background checks, and for restrictions by type. That should still allow people to sport shoot and hunt without too much difficulty. I have to do a bunch of paperwork to purchase, use or sell a motor vehicle. Fine.

Why should guns be exempt?

It is not a criminal offence to own an automobile yet not have a driver’s licence,

 

[Jarnhamar]

It's illegal to own guns but for a little bit of money the government will let you break the law  ;D

 

[pbi]

I certainly agree that gun laws alone don't deter  crime. This is true of any of the instruments we deploy as a society to try to deal with crime: the courts, jails and prisons, the police, probation officers, social workers, social programs or the public education system. All of them have good intentions and some ability to contribute to the fight. None of them are wholly effective on their own.

But, acknowledging that fact, I would not abandon any of those instruments completely, just because it doesn't act as a panacea. So, I restate my support for reasonable restriction on firearms owners. And, yes, I agree that a properly registered owner should be able to transport.

Earlier, I believe it was pointed out that a firearm is just an inanimate object, harmless on its own. I agree totally with that because it is an indisputable fact. But I think it is also true that it is an inanimate object which has huge potential power to kill and injure people, and is a favourite choice of people who want to do that quickly and effectively, or at a distance, or at a rapid rate.

I also believe that, for some reason,  the whole question about owning firearms is much more emotionally and politically charged than any debate about any piece of inanimate metal. On the one hand, we have people who seem to believe that if you own a firearm you must be some kind of mouth breathing redneck idiot who is probably also a racist misogynist homophobe and drives a big pickup. Which is rubbish, of course, as you know.

On the other hand, screaming just as loudly, are those who apparently think that if you support some kind of gun control you must be an unpatriotic, latte-sipping, bicycle riding snowflake progressive who serves the Deep State and eats tofu. Also BS, as I know.

One more question: what are the relative rates of gun related homicides in countries which have more restrictive regulations such as Canada, the UK, Australia or some Western European  countries? And can gun control be credited with any effect on those figures, or are other factors involved?

 

[Brad Sallows]

Short summary: have some laws, but none that burden law-abiding people.

 

[pbi]

Short summary: have some laws, but none that burden law-abiding people.

I guess it depends on what we mean by "burden", but yeah, that's it  more or less.,

 

[Jed]

I guess it depends on what we mean by "burden", but yeah, that's it  more or less.,

Labeling law abiding people as criminals is every bit the same burden as obvious and systemic racism.

 

[George Wallace]

Three good short videos on the Gun debate showing a Washington Sheriff being interviewed by the Press:

https://www.facebook.com/nbcnightlynews/videos/10155875993533689/?hc_ref=ARSqszHuXs_FG2gBrXuaC-iucKlNZGlzonsFbXsv2-ZpehEZYRGBkcvFzMRdeKhWHEY

Guns didn't change.  We as a society changed.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Well, considering I live in Vancouver, it isn‘t some country dude with a shotgun I am worried about...its the punk gangster that shoots up a downtown bar (happened twice in the last few months...5 deaths)

My question is what is gun control, with the vast amount of resources being thrown into it, doing to stop these kinds of crimes...nothing, as it affects law-abiding gunowners only.


On a side note to what Old School said, I find it ironic that when to get a search warrant on a criminal, police have to go through a judicial process proving reasonable grounds, but as a registered gun owner, some guy has the right to walk into my house whenever he wants.

Just who are the bad guys these days?

Just devils advocate here.
Hypothisis: I think our (gun control) system is working- in a sense.

Talking about handguns, I think we can agree that handguns are the primary firearm used by criminals. 8000- or 9000 of the 11'000 or so murders in the US yearly are with handguns.
Where as getting handguns can be somewhat easy to get in the states they're pretty hard to get in Canada. In order to legally buy or sell a pistol it has to go through the RCMP (with the caveats of a valid license and gun club)

There have been a few cases of dirtbags legally buying handguns then illegally selling them whole or in parts.
[ https://www.mississauga.com/news-story/5640248-u-of-t-philosophy-student-convicted-of-23-firearms-offences-after-weapons-used-in-crimes-across-toronto/ ]

Cases like that are the exception rather than the norm.  Police I've spoken with tell me that more often than not the handguns criminals are caught with are shitty beat up pistols that jam frequently. They say that because the availability of guns is so low that these shitty pistols go for hundreds or thousands of dollars on the black market.  Ammunition is very expensive too. Where as everyone in a gang in the US might be carrying a pistol a gang of 15 - 20 people in Canada might have 2 or 3 guns they share and swap among themselves. They also stash guns in abandoned buildings, houses and other cashe spots to avoid getting caught with them in their possession.  The story of the Toronto 18 is a good example of criminals not being able to get guns on the black market, I think they ended up training or whatever with paintball guns.

We still see crime committed with handguns but we're not drowning in it like the US.

Magazine restrictions and the ATT/ only shoot restricted guns at a gun range is stupid and doesn't prevent crime or mass shootings. It's a barrier for law abiding citizens only.

Having certain long guns like all AR15 class guns or semi-autos with barrels shorter than 18.5" on the restricted list likewise doesn't prevent crime. Cost is more of a factor than what style of gun.  If black market guns are marked up 500% or 1000% then street thugs aren't going to be dicking around with $3300 (+500%)  XCR rifles.  And the thing is we don't often see those high end rifles in the news confiscated by low level criminals.


When it comes to handguns I think cost and the rules on buying and selling are part of the reason of low crime rates with handguns.

When it comes to long guns, which aren't very attractive to criminals, cost is the biggest detractor. Some guns being restricted doesn't seem to have an impact on anything.



If we want to look at addressing gun control in Canada we ought to do away with useless class restrictions, at least for rifles (though I'd personally like to see handguns legally allowed on crown land). Improve border security and bigger penalties for criminals caught with firearms.

For school and workplace shootings we need to look at how the police identify filter and track reports so we don't pull a stupid like the FBI did.

 

[Loachman]

But, acknowledging that fact, I would not abandon any of those instruments completely, just because it doesn't act as a panacea. So, I restate my support for reasonable restriction on firearms owners.

What do you consider to be a "reasonable restriction"?

But I think it is also true that it is an inanimate object which has huge potential power to kill and injure people, and is a favourite choice of people who want to do that quickly and effectively, or at a distance, or at a rapid rate.

Oklahoma City. 19 April 1995. Alfred P Murrah Federal Building. Rental truck, 7000 pounds of stolen and home-made explosive and acetylene tanks. 168 dead, 680 injured. 325 buildings destroyed or damaged. 86 cars destroyed or damaged, mainly burnt. Approx US$652 million total damage.

New York City, Washington DC, Shanksville Pennsylvania. 11 September 2001. World Trade Centre, Pentagon, and field. Boxcutters and four airliners. 2996 dead, over 6000 injured. Approx US$10 billion total damage.

Kunming, China. 1 March 2014. Kunming Railway Station. Eight attackers with knives. 31 dead (plus 4 attackers killed by police), over 140 injured.

Nice. 14 July 2016. Truck. 86 dead, not including the lowlife driver, and 458 injured over 1.7 kilometres.

No gun? No problem...

A determined and imaginative attacker will find a way, and will be hard to detect (or police will ignore signs and warnings), and hard to stop.

Many mass-murderers plan extensively and prepare in detail, often over a very long time.

On the other hand, screaming just as loudly, are those who apparently think that if you support some kind of gun control you must be an unpatriotic, latte-sipping, bicycle riding snowflake progressive who serves the Deep State and eats tofu. Also BS, as I know.

Extremists aside, people are tired of being scapegoated, attacked by self-serving/wilfully ignorant politicians, media, and "celebrities" and expected to suffer greater and greater restrictions and confiscations that benefit nobody, other than criminals whose jobs become safer.

The people being scapegoated are the most law-abiding segment of society. The homicide rate for licensed firearms owners in Canada is one-third that of the overall rate, yet we are the principle target of the law. We must, among other things, report a change of address to the police within thirty days or face criminal charges (max two-year sentence, if I remember correctly). There are a couple of hundred people with firearms bans who are not so tracked.

https://crimeresearch.org/2015/02/comparing-conviction-rates-between-police-and-concealed-carry-permit-holders/ shows that, between 2005 and 2007, the Texan police conviction rate for felonies and misdemeanours was ten times that of Concealed Carry Permit holders, and the rate of convictions for firearms violations was seven times higher. There are some links down the left-hand side that are also worth reading.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/2016/01/28/comedian-goes-undercover-to-test-out-the-gun-show-loophole-watch-how-gun-sellers-react-to-requests

Comedian Goes Undercover to Test Out the ‘Gun Show Loophole’ - Watch How Gun Sellers React to Requests

"With the debate over gun control in America raging on fiercer than ever, conservative pundit and comedian Steven Crowder (Born in Montreal, by the way) decided he would conduct an experiment to see if it really is as easy to purchase automatic weapons as some liberal politicians and celebrities have claimed.

"Crowder visited several weapon vendors at a gun show and attempted to buy a gun without a license, resulting in a hilarious failure that he recorded on a hidden camera. He then featured the undercover stunt on his web-based series Louder With Crowder."

One more question: what are the relative rates of gun related homicides in countries which have more restrictive regulations such as Canada, the UK, Australia or some Western European  countries? And can gun control be credited with any effect on those figures, or are other factors involved?

Rates vary between countries for many reasons, generally societal/historical. "Gun control" is really not a factor. In some cases, homicide and other violence rates increase slightly when more restrictions are introduced. US experience shows that the introduction of concealed carry and "shall-issue" laws leads to reductions in all violent crime categories. John Lott's book "More Guns, Less Crime" represents the most thorough study into those effects and has been updated since its initial publication. There's a good interview with him at http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/493636.html that explains a lot about his research.

Many studies are bogus, either intentionally or through using flawed methods and/or data. Many are funded by antigun groups or conducted by people who just do not understand firearms and crime.

Be wary of studies that talk about "gun deaths" and "gun suicides", etcetera. Those terms are intentionally misleading. If a drop in "gun deaths" coincides with increased restrictions (and correlation does not equal causation; many other factors must be taken into account but are often not), other means of homicide or suicide may have been substituted. One must look at overall homicide and suicide rates. If those remain the same, then there has been no real effect. If all forms of homicide and suicide are following the same trend (which tends to be moving downward, with some blips, in most developed countries), then there has been no real effect. Dead is dead, regardless of the implement used.

Also beware of short timelines. One must look at trends over several decades. There have been graphs put out by antigun groups showing declines following impositions of restrictions, with the date of the imposition as the start of the graph. The several years of decline previous to the date of imposition are omitted. Were they included, it would be obvious that the post-imposition rate was simply following the same natural downwards trend that it would had nothing been done.

http://reason.com/blog/2015/12/08/for-gun-control-supporters-japans-high-s

For Gun Control Supporters, Japan's High Suicide Rate Is Much Less Interesting Than Its Low Homicide Rate

"Based on data from the World Health Organization, Japan's suicide rate last year was 18.8 per 100,000, compared to 12.4 per 100,000 for the United States. National government data show an even bigger gap: 20.1 vs. 12.6. If "there is good reason why gun restrictions would prevent suicides" (as opposed to merely encouraging the substitution of one method for another), why is Japan's suicide rate so high? It's the sort of question you'd expect a journalist to address (or at least mention) if he were honestly interested in exploring the consequences of gun control, as opposed to making a case for it by cherry-picking the most helpful data."

While this is a valid comparison, it is not quite that simple (nothing ever is when examining firearms legislation and its effects). Japanese police have some philosophical differences from their western counterparts. There is a resistance to conducting autopsies, and failure to identify and apprehend a murderer is dishonorable. Many homicides are, therefore, attributed to suicide, which does not have the same stigma in Japan as it does here. The Japanese suicide rate is indubitably much higher than the US one (and Canada's, which used to be slightly higher than the US one; I've not checked for a while, though), but it does not appear possible to determine the precise rate.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/02/swiss-guns/553448/

The Swiss Have Liberal Gun Laws, Too

But they also have fewer gun-related deaths than the U.S.

"The country’s cultural attachment to firearms resembles America’s in some ways, though it has no constitutional right to bear arms - it has the third-highest rate of private gun ownership in the world, behind the United States and Yemen. Yet Switzerland has a low rate of gun crime, and hasn't seen a mass shooting since 2001..."

I could comment on this article in some detail, as there are some imprecise statements within, but it is not a bad article. Note that it talks about "gun crime". Overall rates are much more important and indicative of reality. Switzerland has much lower rates of all violent crimes regardless of means. Rates differ between native Swiss and recent immigrants from certain areas as well.

http://reason.com/archives/2016/03/22/australias-gun-buyback-created-a-violent

Australia’s Gun 'Buyback' Created a Violent Firearms Black Market. Why Should the U.S. Do the Same?

"Clinton and Obama tout a 1996 "gun buyback" that was actually a compensated confiscation of self-loading rifles, self-loading shotguns, and pump-action shotguns in response to the Port Arthur mass shooting. The seizure took around 650,000 firearms out of civilian hands and tightened the rules on legal acquisition and ownership of weapons going forward.

"As a result, concluded one academic assessment, "Suicide rates did not fall, though there was a shift toward less use of guns, continuing a very long-term decline. Homicides continued a modest decline; taking into account the one-time effect of the Port Arthur massacre itself, the share of murders committed with firearms declined sharply. Other violent crime, such as armed robbery, continued to increase, but again with fewer incidents that involved firearms."

"A largely peaceful country remained peaceful, with alternative weapons sometimes adopted in place of guns by those who weren't so well-intentioned.

"What the law couldn't do - what prohibitions can never accomplish - was eliminate demand for what was forbidden. And demand has an inescapable habit of generating sources of supply. If that demand can't be legally satisfied, it will be met through black market channels."

"In Australia, part of the supply of banned firearms comes from defiance of the original prohibition. The Sporting Shooters' Association of Australia estimates compliance with the "buyback" at 19 percent."

"Other researchers agree. In a white paper on the results of gun control efforts around the world, Franz Csaszar, a professor of criminology at the University of Vienna, Austria, gives examples of large-scale non-compliance with the ban. He points out, "In Australia it is estimated that only about 20% of all banned self-loading rifles have been given up to the authorities."

"But that defiance was mostly on the part of peaceful civilians who just didn't want to bend their knees to politicians, and it was 20 years ago. What about the bad actors supposedly targeted for disarmament by the government?"

Australia has no adjoining country that has a high rate of firearms ownership, yet still has a smuggling problem. There was, and remains, a very high non-compliance rate with Canada's firearms legislation as well. Drug - especially marijuana - prohibitions may or may not be more ignored.

Prior to Trudeau I's legislation of 1978, there were several estimates, by varied means (import/export numbers, ratio of restricted to non-restricted firearms purchased compared to the number of restricted firearms in the registry), that put the number of privately-owned firearms somewhere between fifteen to twenty-five million and the number of owners between five and seven million. Those numbers would have been expected to increase between then and the Chretien/Rock legislation of 1995, yet only seven million firearms were entered into that registry, and there are just over two million licensed firearms owners today.

https://cssa-cila.org/rights/ten-myths-of-the-long-gun-registry/

A very thorough Australian study. Methods are all laid out:

http://melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/downloads/working_paper_series/wp2008n17.pdf

"The 1996-97 National Firearms Agreement (NFA) in Australia introduced strict gun laws, primarily as a reaction to the mass shooting in Port Arthur, Tasmania in 1996, where 35 people were killed. Despite the fact that several researchers using the same data have examined the impact of the NFA on firearm deaths, a consensus does not appear to have been reached. In this paper, we re-analyze the same data on firearm deaths used in previous research, using tests for unknown structural breaks as a means to identifying impacts of the NFA. The results of these tests suggest that the NFA did not have any large effects on reducing firearm homicide or suicide rates."

 

[Loachman]

On a happier note:

https://thegunblog.ca/2018/02/15/firearms-outlet-canada-plans-first-tactical-competitive-gun-show/?utm_source=TheGunBlog.ca&utm_campaign=7e4127f728-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_01_31&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_319a72f281-7e4127f728-24942059

Firearms Outlet Canada Plans First Tactical-Competitive Gun Show

"TheGunBlog.ca - Firearms Outlet Canada Inc. said today it’s organizing the country’s first Tactical & Competitive Shooting Sports Show for shooters and the general public to learn about guns and gear.

"About 10 people a minute were ordering the free tickets after the company e-mailed invitations this evening, said Fred Pellegrino, the owner of Firearms Outlet Canada in Ajax, Ontario, about 45 km east of downtown Toronto. He expects thousands of attendees at the March 24-25 event at the store.

"Canada is home to more than 2 million men, women and youth with gun licences required to legally buy or own firearms, and millions more unlicensed family, friends and guests who shoot under supervision. Last year, we bought more than 1,000 handguns, AR-15 rifles and other so-called “Restricted” firearms a week for recreation and sport shooting."

 

[pbi]

What do you consider to be a "reasonable restriction"?

Oklahoma City. 19 April 1995. Alfred P Murrah Federal Building. Rental truck, 7000 pounds of stolen and home-made explosive and acetylene tanks. 168 dead, 680 injured. 325 buildings destroyed or damaged. 86 cars destroyed or damaged, mainly burnt. Approx US$652 million total damage.

New York City, Washington DC, Shanksville Pennsylvania. 11 September 2001. World Trade Centre, Pentagon, and field. Boxcutters and four airliners. 2996 dead, over 6000 injured. Approx US$10 billion total damage.

Kunming, China. 1 March 2014. Kunming Railway Station. Eight attackers with knives. 31 dead (plus 4 attackers killed by police), over 140 injured.

Nice. 14 July 2016. Truck. 86 dead, not including the lowlife driver, and 458 injured over 1.7 kilometres.

No gun? No problem...

A determined and imaginative attacker will find a way, and will be hard to detect (or police will ignore signs and warnings), and hard to stop.

Many mass-murderers plan extensively and prepare in detail, often over a very long time.

Extremists aside, people are tired of being scapegoated, attacked by self-serving/wilfully ignorant politicians, media, and "celebrities" and expected to suffer greater and greater restrictions and confiscations that benefit nobody, other than criminals whose jobs.

A big post to try to reply to: I won't attempt a line-by-line response.

My views on what reasonable gun control laws are are pretty much what I said a few posts back. In other words, about what we have now, although I am ceetainly open to things such as transport, ownership of fully automatic weapons by registered and controlled collectors, and so on. I can't see agreeing to no laws at all for items like guns.  I would, though be interested in seeing a truly objective report on whether or not there is a causational (vice correlational) relationship between concealed carry rates and crime. By "objective" I mean not prepared or funded by lobbies from either side of the argument, nor State legislators who have political mileage tied up in such bills.

My concern here though, is the implication that society is now so dangerous that we must go armed to the grocery store, the mall or to school. That, to me, means civil society is degenerating at an alarming rate. (Again this needs objective statistics not partisan shrieking)If that is true, then the problem will not be solved by gun laws or no gun laws. We would have very deep and dangerous social problems.

And, as I alluded to earlier,  that  is a much bigger part of this whole business about gun crime. In general, who commits murder in Canada with firearms?And where are these crimes mostly committed? Knowing that,  then ask what is causing those people to turn to lethal violence? That, I think, is where you will most effectively fight crime: before it happens. But that approach, if done objectively will not satisfy the screamers on either side of the fence. It will be either "soft on crime" or " targeting marginalized groups".

Since the only real reason I can see for even worrying about guns at all is from the perspective of public safety, which means safety from crime, then we need to look at the combined roles of all those components and instruments  I listed in an earlier post. Gun control remains one of the instruments (for me at least) but certainly not the sole answer. Some other  issues affecting gun crime (and perhaps crime in general) would include:


-what does prison really do other than warehouse people and further destroy their ability to ever be anything other than a useless and potentially violent drag on society?;

-is there a case for the return of capital punishment as a deterrent?;

-should we reinstate a more restrictive regime on people who are mentally ill?;

-how truly proactive and community-based is policing in Canada today, as opposed to reactive, militarized and isolated from the community?; and

-do we have certain communities in which gun murders and shootings are disproportionately represented? Why? What responsibility do these communities then bear towards a solution?

And so on. Answers that may not be palatable to "left" or to 'right" but IMHO much more likely to get at the guts of gun violence than endless yelling at each other about gun laws alone.

 

[Jarnhamar]

[quote author=pbi]

-what does prison really do other than warehouse people and further destroy their ability to ever be anything other than a useless and potentially violent drag on society?
[/quote]

Prevents repeat offenders from getting out and destroying everyone elses lives.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-new-york-shooting/repeat-offender-who-killed-new-york-policeman-sentenced-to-life-idUSKBN17513U

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

I would, though be interested in seeing a truly objective report on whether or not there is a causational (vice correlational) relationship between concealed carry rates and crime. By "objective" I mean not prepared or funded by lobbies from either side of the argument, nor State legislators who have political mileage tied up in such bills.

Unfortunately., the one organization that could actually gather all the facts, pro and con, compile it and scientifically analyze in a dispassionate way and look at it, not from a political point of view, but from a clinical one based on epidemiological point of view has been barred BY LAW from doing so, or even to be funded in any way to do so, by the Republican congress in the US: It's called the CDC.

Those brave kids in Florida trying to start a campaign to get congress to move should, in my estimation, be hitting that button first: Get a major write in campaign to your Senators - every one in the US - to tell them: "You are talking through your hat - don't have a clue what you are talking about - because there is no research. Please start immediately to task and fund the CDC to research the subject and illuminate the debate on all sides."

BTW, when the Republican killed that initiative by the CDC, they did it, clearly, at the behest of the NRA.