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PostPosted: Sun Dec 28, 2003 4:20 pm 
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Chaos_Descending wrote:
Hmm... Hard to argue with that. I think that drops his credibility to zero... can you do the same for Jello Biafra. He does the same things as Moore, but in speech form.


I haven't heard about Jello Biafra. I'll look into it, though.

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Oh, and while Moore's movie was only half true, that does leave half of the stuff in it


Let's see...here's a man who has proven himself to be a liar and one who uses misdirection...half of his stuff is verifyably untrue, so does that mean that the remainder of his material can be trusted? Hmm...

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Do you deny that Amerca has the highest gun fatality rate in the world?


Of course I deny it. That dubious distinction belongs to Columbia, according to the U.N. survey displayed here. Brazil and South Africa also have gun homocide rates far higher than the U.S.

Also, if you want to compare homocide and violent crime rates, I suggest you take a look at this study (the full publication .pdf is free). Pay attention to the graphs on pages 11, 14, and 16; it takes a bit of the stuffing out of your "The U.S. has a higher gun-crime rate" argument to point out that England and Wales, Canada, and Australia all have overall higher homocide rates than the U.S.

Now, the U.S. does lead in per-capita numbers of gun suicides, but that is an entirely different category of action than violent crime commited against another person. Also, in per-capita numbers of overall suicides it ranks slightly lower than Canada and Australia, and much lower than France, Germany, Finland, Belgium, or Denmark, although higher than England and Wales.


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PostPosted: Sun Dec 28, 2003 5:27 pm 
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Kylaer wrote:
I haven't heard about Jello Biafra. I'll look into it, though.


he's the Dead Kennedys ex-singer, legal disputes keep popping up with th bandm, so best not to go into it any further than that, you'll not ethe somewhat overtly political nature of much of their lyrics and see how he's taken to public speaking in the same vein, even givng himself a silly political name

Kylaer wrote:
Also, if you want to compare homocide and violent crime rates, I suggest you take a look at this study (the full publication .pdf is free). Pay attention to the graphs on pages 11, 14, and 16; it takes a bit of the stuffing out of your "The U.S. has a higher gun-crime rate" argument to point out that England and Wales, Canada, and Australia all have overall higher homocide rates than the U.S.


anyone can make any stats say anything, it's an inherent problem with numbers is that they are data, not information, to quote an un-named US Army Intel specialist in CENTCOM, Qatar earlier this year: "information is something you can do something with. Data is something that just makes officers feel good! I keep telling them but no one listens to me"

i mean some of that data's already 2nd or 3rd hand, writing books/report by referancing other books/reports takes you furtehr away from the actual source information and through a few layers of bias and direction, not going back to raw figures, while cleaner and quicker, isnt' very excusable for a real piece of research

still, 3 police officers were shot the other day by a 'professional gunman' who seems to have shot at prehaps not more than 5 rounds, all of which hit , one fatally, 2 (on the same officer) causing serious injury and 2 (on the 3rd officer) hitting only equipment and causing no physical harm... the 2 officers not killed were hit as they ran for thier lives, not being armed as they were

police officers being shot at christmas is a little more of an issue than data to most people, tho as we've banned almost all guns they'll have to find somethign else to do, i'm guessing a ban on the word gun is about due, it'll do about as much good as the previous ban did anyway

so, that world trade tower replacement eh?

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PostPosted: Sun Dec 28, 2003 5:42 pm 
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i mean some of that data's already 2nd or 3rd hand, writing books/report by referancing other books/reports takes you furtehr away from the actual source information and through a few layers of bias and direction, not going back to raw figures, while cleaner and quicker, isnt' very excusable for a real piece of research


The data I cited is listed in the graphs on pages 11, 14, and 16, and is a very simple comparison of homocide rates per 100,000 citizens. While you may find reasons to disagree with the premise and conclusion of the report, I don't think you can realistically argue against these actual statistics.


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PostPosted: Sun Dec 28, 2003 6:09 pm 
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Kylaer wrote:
Chaos_Descending wrote:
Oh, and while Moore's movie was only half true, that does leave half of the stuff in it


Let's see...here's a man who has proven himself to be a liar and one who uses misdirection...half of his stuff is verifyably untrue, so does that mean that the remainder of his material can be trusted? Hmm...


When did we start talking about George Bush?

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PostPosted: Sun Dec 28, 2003 6:40 pm 
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Kylaer wrote:
Of course I deny it. That dubious distinction belongs to Columbia, according to the U.N. survey displayed here. Brazil and South Africa also have gun homocide rates far higher than the U.S.


LOL

Of course, that's very heartening, because we don't want to emulate those nasty Brits or Canadians, no, we want to be just like our good buddies in Columbia and South America, why didn't I think of that before? Look, saying America has the highest murder by gun rates in the world is patently false, and everyone knows it (or at least, anyone who knows anything about South America does), but neither does any reasonable, intelligent person think we should be content not to be the worst. Come on, do you really think that fucking Columbia should be our standard? No? Maybe Britain and Canada are a better example? You shit me not? Wow.

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PostPosted: Sun Dec 28, 2003 7:02 pm 
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Problem: CD said a falsehood, Kylaer corrected him.

No conclusion was drawn from that other than the obvious, that the US did not have the worldwide number 1 gun crime ratio.

Oh, and read Kylaer's links Spei, before you spout off about how we should emulate Canada and the UK.

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PostPosted: Sun Dec 28, 2003 7:07 pm 
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Lucis Spei wrote:
Of course, that's very heartening, because we don't want to emulate those nasty Brits or Canadians, no, we want to be just like our good buddies in Columbia and South America, why didn't I think of that before? Look, saying America has the highest murder by gun rates in the world is patently false, and everyone knows it (or at least, anyone who knows anything about South America does), but neither does any reasonable, intelligent person think we should be content not to be the worst. Come on, do you really think that fucking Columbia should be our standard? No? Maybe Britain and Canada are a better example? You shit me not? Wow.


Except that, y'know, Britain and Canada have higher per-capita homocide rates than the U.S. Maybe it's not America that should be doing the emulating, hmm?


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PostPosted: Sun Dec 28, 2003 7:20 pm 
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Kylaer wrote:
The data I cited is listed in the graphs on pages 11, 14, and 16, and is a very simple comparison of homocide rates per 100,000 citizens. While you may find reasons to disagree with the premise and conclusion of the report, I don't think you can realistically argue against these actual statistics.


some of the data

it's talking about 'violent crime' in many of it's graphs for one thing, much of the data it referances, including homicide rates, are taken from other reports that, even if they are official government ones (prehaps especially if they are) are evidance designed to give a specific result, ie when does a crime count as violent? and homocides? a great spike hit UK homicide rates when Harold Shipman was convicted of, well, mass murder is more accurate than serial killing, all of those went on the books in one go, in a nation of only 60 odd milion a mass murderer can manage to tilt stats very easily, were they taken into account, cut out or just assumed to be absorbed into the normal per-capita or what? i doubt the report writer checked his sources too well, if indeed the sources themselves did

basicly, stats are only put into a report to support it, if another report then uses these stats they are at best 2nd hand, it gets to the stage (to repeat myself) that information is lost in a sea of data and false concusions can be drawn from getting away from the point stats

not to suggest that the report above is all lies, but it might just be that it is

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PostPosted: Sun Dec 28, 2003 8:01 pm 
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Did you know Columbia has the highest crossbow homicide rate in the world. My friend remembers seeing an arrow filled corpse floating down a river near the city he was visiting. Ahh, nostalgia.


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 Post subject: I suppose I could contribute meaningfully to this <strike>flamewar</strike> debate, but making stupid comments is so much more fun.
PostPosted: Sun Dec 28, 2003 8:21 pm 
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actor_au wrote:
Kylaer wrote:
Let's see...here's a man who has proven himself to be a liar and one who uses misdirection...half of his stuff is verifyably untrue, so does that mean that the remainder of his material can be trusted? Hmm...


When did we start talking about George Bush?


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 29, 2003 10:28 am 
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Kylaer wrote:
Also, if you want to compare homocide and violent crime rates, I suggest you take a look at this study (the full publication .pdf is free). Pay attention to the graphs on pages 11, 14, and 16; it takes a bit of the stuffing out of your "The U.S. has a higher gun-crime rate" argument to point out that England and Wales, Canada, and Australia all have overall higher homocide rates than the U.S.


How does the fact that this study indicates that England and Wales, Canada, and Australia all have overall higher homocide rates than the US take anything out of the argument that the US has a higher gun-crime rate? It seems to be another of those "your negative feature makes our completely different negative feature look nowhere near as bad, so until you sort out your problem don't talk to us" type of arguments. Useless. Apples and Oranges.

While I'm at it, I feel that Mauser, the author, left important questions unanswered, and in some cases asked the wrong questions entirely. He states that governments are introducing gun control to reduce criminal violence. However it's equally plausible that they intend specifically to reduce firearms crime and any overall reductions are a bonus. Mauser continues that gun laws causing a change in the level of firearms crime is not at issue and that of prime importance is that gun control should improve public safety. I would've thought that the major reason for *gun* control would be for prevention of *gun related* crime...

Furthermore, it is entirely possible that the data has been misinterpreted. He states that the US criminal justice system is unique, so perhaps its unique brand of high conviction rates and harsher sentences is what has caused the declines in US crime rates and so the British Commonwealth should perhaps be introducing multiple life sentences for every individual murder and so forth. It is also possible that there are entirely different issues occurring in the Commonwealth nations that are the cause of the rise in homocide rates, perhaps many in England feel the need to kill someone because they can't trust British beef any more and they have to eat something, or maybe it's due to England screwing up yet another chance to win the world cup. Any number of plausible reasons can be given ranging from economic to social issues for all the Commonwealth nations' increase in homicide rates.

Mauser wrote:
paper originally presented to the Symposium on the Legal, Economic and Human Rights Implications of Civilian Firearms Ownership and Regulation... sponsored by the World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities.

Looks like the study was possibly written with its initial audience in mind, and while it's most certainly an interesting study well worth reading just for a differing opinion I can't help but notice that Mauser, as the president of a rifle club, defintely has personal reasons for arguing as he does.


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 29, 2003 1:15 pm 
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one thing he really does have tho is th rise in gun crime here, or more accuratly 'firearm offences' in the last 5 years, i've actually got details of the top ten firearms crime police area stats here, so fyi I'll type them out (boring evening sitting around etc)

Police Force - offences in: 1997 - 2001/2

Metropolitan (London) - 2926 - 5675
Greater Manchester - 888 - 2175
West Yorkshire - 974 - 1759
West Midlands - 840 - 1636
Merseyside - 576 - 1211
Nottinghamshire - 532 - 870
South Yorkshire - 328 - 737
Essex - 269 - 541
Northumbria - 277 - 541
Humberside - 535 - 473

Overall - 8145 rising to 15618

National Total (including the above 10 Forces) - 11816 rising to 21659

thats' raw data right there showing how in around 5 years the number of firearms offences have almost doubled in England & Wales, and that hasen't taken into acount the last year or so of still rising crime figures, at that rate above giving (assuming linear progression) around another 2 thousand cases, if it's not a linear progression then it could be anything in the next official stats...

if gun crime actually doubles in a nation that has banned public ownership of everything but (basicly) shotguns and rifles for very limited and heavily taxed/licenced hunting and sporting reasons, then something's wrong, dare you even suggestthat banning those last few public ownership rights would improve the situation one tiny bit?

while even raw figures aren't 100% trustworthy (ie these were made by teh police, only the ppl they charges with firearms offences count etc, big numbers = more budget next year? small numbers = shows more effective policing? motives and bias etc) but they show a pretty stark example of what is hapening here at the moment

so, any ideas? or to quote PA's Tycho earlier today "I propose an indistinct alternate system with hazy details that I will never fully define."

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PostPosted: Mon Dec 29, 2003 8:30 pm 
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Vass wrote:
How does the fact that this study indicates that England and Wales, Canada, and Australia all have overall higher homocide rates than the US take anything out of the argument that the US has a higher gun-crime rate? It seems to be another of those "your negative feature makes our completely different negative feature look nowhere near as bad, so until you sort out your problem don't talk to us" type of arguments. Useless. Apples and Oranges.


It merely points out that, despite the amount of screaming that goes on about how crime-ridden and unsafe the U.S. is, you have a lower chance of being murdered here than in Canada, Australia, or Britain. Yes, you have a higher chance of being shot in the U.S., but saying "Hey, at least you weren't the victim of gun violence!" isn't of much comfort to someone who has been stabbed to death.

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While I'm at it, I feel that Mauser, the author, left important questions unanswered, and in some cases asked the wrong questions entirely. He states that governments are introducing gun control to reduce criminal violence. However it's equally plausible that they intend specifically to reduce firearms crime and any overall reductions are a bonus. Mauser continues that gun laws causing a change in the level of firearms crime is not at issue and that of prime importance is that gun control should improve public safety. I would've thought that the major reason for *gun* control would be for prevention of *gun related* crime...


But one of the major hypotheses of the entire gun control argument, used by the pro-gun side, is that guns in the hands of private citizens discourage criminals. There is significant evidence to support this. Thus, any legislation that removes guns from the possession of law-abiding people would have to demonstrate that it would cut crime in sufficient numbers to "make up" for the increase in crimes that would occur without the deterrence of guns.

As Britain and Australia are proving, whatever drop may be caused by stricter gun legislation is utterly wiped out by the crime-increasing effect of this lack of deterrence.

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Looks like the study was possibly written with its initial audience in mind, and while it's most certainly an interesting study well worth reading just for a differing opinion I can't help but notice that Mauser, as the president of a rifle club, defintely has personal reasons for arguing as he does.


Of course he does. But simply saying "He supports that argument for personal reasons" is not in and of itself a method of disproving that argument.

Finally, one bit of contention about American crime statistics is that they are not uniform across the board. From the FBI report of crime in the U.S. for 2002 (2003's full-year report is not available yet), here are some statistics:

Black murder victims: 6,730
White and Hispanic murder victims: 6,757
Black murderers: 5,579
White and Hispanic murderers: 5,356
Race-unknown murderers: 4,604

(Whites and Hispanics are lumped into one category, and Asians are placed into "other" alongside Native Americans and Pacific islanders. The "Other" category is very small and not of importance in this discussion)

These statistics may seem reasonable at first, and if they were per-capita then indeed they would be. But they are not per-capita; they are raw figures, and when a combined white/Hispanic population that comprises 75.1% of the total population has a murder count roughly equivalent to a black population that comprises 12.3% of the total, the disparity becomes very clear (population figures from the 2000 U.S. census).

Odd, isn't it, how Michael Moore managed to make an entire movie about murder and gun violence without ever mentioning this statistic. It's almost as if he has an axe to grind...


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 29, 2003 8:51 pm 
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Kylaer wrote:
Finally, one bit of contention about American crime statistics is that they are not uniform across the board. From the FBI report of crime in the U.S. for 2002 (2003's full-year report is not available yet), here are some statistics:

Black murder victims: 6,730
White and Hispanic murder victims: 6,757
Black murderers: 5,579
White and Hispanic murderers: 5,356
Race-unknown murderers: 4,604

(Whites and Hispanics are lumped into one category, and Asians are placed into "other" alongside Native Americans and Pacific islanders. The "Other" category is very small and not of importance in this discussion)

These statistics may seem reasonable at first, and if they were per-capita then indeed they would be. But they are not per-capita; they are raw figures, and when a combined white/Hispanic population that comprises 75.1% of the total population has a murder count roughly equivalent to a black population that comprises 12.3% of the total, the disparity becomes very clear (population figures from the 2000 U.S. census).

Odd, isn't it, how Michael Moore managed to make an entire movie about murder and gun violence without ever mentioning this statistic. It's almost as if he has an axe to grind...
Its true but people are probably going to call racism on you anyway.

One of the problem with just looking at those statistics is that there is no control group much less any way to test for outlying (dammit wrong word) variables. Economic status plays a huge part in the murder rate but there is really no way to do studies effectively on this with a controlled variable like economics.

In statistics those numbers would be considered to polluted to draw any definite conclusions from. Though that doesn't normally stop people like Michael Moore.


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 29, 2003 9:50 pm 
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There are certainly ways to do studies on it. Now, the numbers I cited obviously weren't from such a study, as they are raw data. But it is not impossible to compare murder rates across economic levels. Naturally, you find more crime at socio-economic levels; that still doesn't change the fact that the proportion of murders for the different ethnic groups is heavily unbalanced.

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Its true but people are probably going to call racism on you anyway.


And? Part of the problem with modern debate is that an accusation of racism (not requiring any proof, of course) can be powerful enough to get someone to back off. Yelling "racist!" substitutes for rebutting someone's actual point.

I'm not aiming that point at you. I'm aiming it at society in general and the "political correctness" ideology in particular.


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 Post subject: Ha. First post in a month or so.
PostPosted: Sun Jan 04, 2004 12:46 am 
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Kylaer wrote:
There are certainly ways to do studies on it. Now, the numbers I cited obviously weren't from such a study, as they are raw data. But it is not impossible to compare murder rates across economic levels. Naturally, you find more crime at socio-economic levels; that still doesn't change the fact that the proportion of murders for the different ethnic groups is heavily unbalanced.


It'd probably be a good idea to correlate your numbers with percentages of minorities in different socio-economic levels before you draw too many "racist" conclusions. Class could very well be the cause of the disparity.


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 04, 2004 12:57 pm 
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Your wish is my command. According to the poverty rates study of 2002, the poverty rate among whites (including Hispanics, because the murder rate study includes Hispanics) is 10.3 percent. Among blacks, the rate is 23.9 percent.

Now, let us go to the population statistics. 76.8% white/Hispanic, 12.6% black according to the U.S. 2000 census. Using the poverty statistics listed above (the corrolation is not perfect, because I couldn't find a population breakdown for 2002, but the difference should be minimal), that leaves 7.91% of population being poor whites/Hispanics, and 3.01% of the total population being poor blacks.

So, roughly an 8-to-3 ratio of poor whites/Hispanics to poor blacks. If socioeconomic standing is dominant factor in determining crime, one would expect this 8-to-3 ratio to be at least approximated by the murder statistics. As the statistics have shown, this is not the case, with the rates approaching 1-to-1.


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 04, 2004 11:14 pm 
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8:3 looks alot better than 6.25:1, but we still haven't quite arrived at the whole truth. To begin with, you've only analyzed those below poverty level. For the purposes of our discussion, it'd be a better idea to use data correlating race with all socio-economic classes, or at the very least the lower class.


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PostPosted: Mon Jan 05, 2004 8:11 am 
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Sako wrote:
8:3 looks alot better than 6.25:1, but we still haven't quite arrived at the whole truth. To begin with, you've only analyzed those below poverty level. For the purposes of our discussion, it'd be a better idea to use a conviently hazy criticia I have yet to define, so I can sidestep the issue.


Fixed it for you.

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 Post subject: I wonder how long I can draw this out...
PostPosted: Mon Jan 05, 2004 2:01 pm 
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The Man In Black wrote:
Sako wrote:
8:3 looks alot better than 6.25:1, but we still haven't quite arrived at the whole truth. To begin with, you've only analyzed those below poverty level. For the purposes of our discussion, it'd be a better idea to use a conviently hazy criticia I have yet to define, so I can sidestep the issue.


Fixed it for you.

-MiB


Seems clear enough to me, really. And to you as well, I'd think. You just sidestepped the issue by claiming that I was trying to sidestep the issue.

... So anyways, I decided to go ahead and use income quintiles. The top 20% will be the upper class, the next 40% will be the middle class, and the lowest 40% will be the lower class. So far, I haven't found any useful data.


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