http://rowsdowerisms.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] rowsdowerisms.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] politicartoons2013-03-24 12:17 am
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry
Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[identity profile] madscience.livejournal.com 2013-03-24 05:13 pm (UTC)(link)
It appears that banning those weapons did increase the number of assaults.

Of course, correlation is not causation. But we can't run controlled experiments on real societies, so the best way to tease out causality is to observe what happens in one society when the variable we're interested in changes. And it doesn't look good for gun control.

[identity profile] perfica.livejournal.com 2013-03-24 06:31 pm (UTC)(link)
It appears that banning those weapons did increase the number of assaults.

Excellent. It appears you've made some connection between the ability of members of society to have semiautomatic rifles and semiautomatic and pump-action shotguns (which I assume members of the USA are allowed to have) and the increase/decrease in the number of assaults in a society.

Can you direct me to any instances that have been reported in the USA news media in the last five years where owning semiautomatic rifles and semiautomatic and pump-action shotguns (as opposed to owning a handgun) have prevented assaults? I'm not even restricting it to preventing massacres; any simple assault will do.

Edited to change icon. I like consistency.
Edited 2013-03-24 18:32 (UTC)

[identity profile] madscience.livejournal.com 2013-03-24 06:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Here's a large database. Not all of the entries specify whether the weapons were semiautomatic, but many do:
http://gunssavelives.net/gun/rifle/
http://gunssavelives.net/gun/shotgun/

This happened a couple months ago: http://occupywallst.org/forum/15-year-old-defends-home-against-burglars-shoots-o/

And this happened just a few days ago: http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-oklahoma-teens-shooting-texas-20130321,0,4015880.story The early reports said the home owner was armed with an AR-15; this was later amended to just "hunting rifle", so I'm not sure about the exact type of rifle.

[identity profile] perfica.livejournal.com 2013-03-25 09:40 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you. I'll give those links a read.

[identity profile] madscience.livejournal.com 2013-03-25 05:12 am (UTC)(link)
Anyway, the purpose of such weapons being in private hands is not for personal self defense. They're a vaccine against needing to overthrow the government.
Flat | Top-Level Comments Only