chess online
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 Harvard Law: Gun control is useless and harmful I posted this link in one of the gun control threads before and it was totally ignored. I don't know if people can't read or if they can't focus for 50 pages or I don't really know. But nevertheless, it's time to post it again. Harvard Law School is Barack Obama's alma mater. Not only have they concluded that gun control would not work in this country, they have demonstrated that a lack of firearms causes murder rates to go UP, not down. They provide statistics that clearly show countries with high amounts of firearms have the lowest murder rates in the world. The fifty or so page report: www.law.harvard.edu Considering the authors of this study, the fact that Harvard University is one of the most liberal institutions in the country located in the most liberal state in the country, I think it's safe to say that the gun control debate is over. |
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tat Fourth, I perused the article itself, and there is precious little "data" there, all in the form of tables, with no statistical analyses. Fifth, commentators have pointed out at least one glaring mistake: the murder rate in Luxembourg is overstated by an order of magnitude, and since that country plays a major role in the argument based on their Table 2..." rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com saying the debate is over is just... um... well... not true. it is over in your mind. |
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Not at all. The "gun control debate" is about who should have the right to possess a firearm and where. That debate will continue to intensify. |
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Oh please. So your defense is to ignore the entire study and all of the points it makes, and go straight for attacking the integrity of a Harvard Law School journals? The criticism leveled here against the journal I referenced is being applied to all HLS journals. It's impossible to criticize one in this manner and not the others. What the blog doesn't tell you is that editorial staff at all journals like this change because they are student run. But this blogger is saying this as though its a bad thing. The fact that this journal is run by conservatives means that Harvard Law admits a lot of conservatives. Which they actually do- in fact, Ann Coulter was admitted because of her essay challenging affirmative action as completely racist and discriminatory. The data in the study is more than credible. Give me a break. |
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tat my point is that the debate is not over and i am confused as to why a seemingly intelligent person is willing to believe the debate is over based on a study that does indeed have some problems. here are two peer reviewed studies that show that gun control reduces injury and death: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov bjp.rcpsych.org tell me again how the debate is over.... |
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The Second Amendment puts severe restrictions on the Federal Government's ability to regulate and control firearms. The Second Amendment does not place as severe a restriction on the ability of State and Local Authorities to regulate the possession and ownership of firearms. If you look through the Laws contained within any State's Legislation you will find voluminous sections of Law regulating the possession and ownership of firearms. And there is a reason for that. FIREARMS ARE DANGEROUS. And you don't want just any old a**hole to be carrying one anywhere they want to. |
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illinaweek There is absolutely no evidence to support that gun control of any kind would have prevented any of the shootings that have ever happened. There are 100 million firearms in this country and only a very small percentage of them are ever used to hurt someone. Oh and also, there's that 2nd amendment thing. And studies like the one I posted that I am guessing judges and justices read in the law journals they receive. Then there's also the fact that any kind of buy-back would be totally taken advantage of by shrewd Americans who will buy cheap and fake chinese made "guns" for 15 dollars and then turn them in for $100. I have no doubt that someone has already thought of this and is just waiting for an opportunity to do it. Then there's the people who will turn in that gun they never use and don't like for some cash, keeping the other ones. Cars kill more people every year than guns. So do blunt, club like objects, knives, and axe type of things. 9/11 killed thousands of people and no one is labeling skyscrapers as dangerous or outlawing commercial air travel on large aircraft. The only reason why guns are targeted is because it's easy. That's it. It's also easy to be scared of guns considering that they can be used as a deadly weapon. It's just so incredibly easy to draw superficial and vague connections between firearms and crime. Finally, has it occurred to anyone how many jobs would be lost by banning firearms or even reducing the purchase of them? |
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illinaweek Politicians use this all the time to rally support and get votes. For example, someone running for office in the district of columbia could use gun control as a means to get elected. They could even pass gun control legislature, which will then be overturned by the Supreme Court if someone challenges it. So basically that politician fooled everyone into voting for them. I'm dead serious when I say that you cannot assume that anything a single politician (republican or democrat) supports is constitutional or would ever be upheld by the supreme court. |
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It's almost respectable just because of how shameless and shrewd it is. |
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Its more complicated than that That is sometimes true because of the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. However - The Supremacy Clause only allows the US Government supremacy over matters of Federal concern. e.g. The US Constitution, its Laws or Treaties. State Law is supreme in the matters of the health, welfare and police power of the individual who lives in the State. Now the 14th Amendment "incorporates" certain Federal Rights and makes them applicable to the States. Certain Federal Rights such as the right to Free Speech are incorporated and the States must follow it, and some rights such as your right to a jury trial in civil matter in a dispute worth more than $20, is not. The point is that the Federal Government has traditionally allowed the States to enforce their own Laws restricting firearms. The Second Amendment is not a right which is "incorporated" to the States via the 14th Amendment. Now recently there are limits and caveats to this, and right now the whole thing is a fuzzy gray area, that I don't pretend to understand. The point is that State do regulate firearms, the do it a lot, and they do it for a reason. |
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Err You got me so that I am typing faster than my brain allows. |
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Exactly. So, for example, the Supreme Court has overturned bans, as well as legislature dictating that people must store their guns in ways that interfere with use. Has a ban on "assault rifles" ever been formally challenged? (I don't know and am seriously asking. I've never checked). I am guessing that the Attorney General in a state like California isn't going to challenge a federal assault rifle ban. Whereas the Attorney General in Texas most certainly would, you know? Perhaps law simply regulating firearms at a federal level would stick- I don't know. I suspect that any gun control regulation that doesn't cause an uproar or lead to legal action isn't productive at all. Just because it hasn't bothered anyone enough to complain about it. Regardless, have you ever read transcripts of arguments at the Supreme Court website? Talk about being in front of a firing squad. I suppose this is why I am so opposed to gun control of any kind. I just don't see how any productive regulation would survive an argument with Alito, Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas (if he says anything) or Scalia. I see it being an epic fail of such crazy magnitude......I think that there is regulation that they would allow and is technically constitutional and within the rights of individual states- BUT- whether or not that regulation does anything productive, or anything period, is an entirely different matter. I do think that this will be brought up in arguments too, at least I've seen questions of that nature on transcripts. This has been my point all along......anything that is legal and upheld by the supreme court probably doesn't accomplish anything. Otherwise it would have been overturned. Know what I mean? If the true goal here is crime prevention, I think people are barking up the wrong tree by going after firearms. There is an insurmountable amount of evidence to support this too. |
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Odds are that no one from Harvard actually read it before it was published. Neither of the authors appear to be associated with Harvard itself, they have simply published in one of their journals. Incidentally, that particular journal has an impact factor in the 37th percentile (search for yourself if you don't believe me www.eigenfactor.org) which is hardly weighty. You might want to learn a little about the peer review process before you declare a subject to be over. |
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I said the gun control debate is over because absolutely no reasonable human being is going to go after bans on firearms or tight restriction on firearms given the epic amount of evidence available indicating that firearms aren't the problem. There is even evidence demonstrating that reducing firearms among a population actually puts people in danger. Not to mention all of the supreme court opinions, both state and federal, that basically squash gun control. In addition to all of that, it's obvious that gun control advocates haven't read Clinton's assault rifle ban. I just did. It was a ban that did nothing at all. Literally it's a piece of toilet paper. Even the NRA was like "yeah its superficial and....whatever." It also had a ten year expiration date. Why is that? Hmmm. Anyone who continues to think that gun control is even possible or reasonable is totally psychotic. I'm not kidding. I don't even own firearms. This has nothing to do with being conservative or liberal. It has everything to do with shooting oneself in the foot by even trying to waste time creating productive legislature that will be totally tossed out and overturned by the Supreme Court. This doesn't even touch the fact that firearms aren't even the problem. It's more than obvious that gun control supporters don't actually care about crime prevention. If they did, they wouldn't be wasting their time barking up this tree. It's especially infuriating because just recently in the news was the story about the 23 year old woman in India who was gang raped and died from the attack. India has strict gun control laws. Women have been trying to buy guns in India to protect themselves because apparently rape is common in New Delhi (where the horrific gang rape occurred). But they are unable to do so. I mean are you kidding me? What kind of jerk continues to support gun control when it's obvious that gun control has no effect at all on preventing gruesome and violent crime. |
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dmaestro 08-Jan-13, 16:42 |
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ace_kyi 08-Jan-13, 16:42 |
US should follow UK gun control ! |
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whatever maestro |
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ace Gun deaths per year: US = around 4 per 100.000 population Gun deaths per year: UK = around 1 per 100.000 population Some have said these figures are irrelevant because of population sizes. I would remind them that the UK (with around 60 million) is a much smaller country than the US (around 250+ million) with far less personal space and far fewer gun deaths. Then again the soft people in the UK (and elsewhere) will eventually be targeted by socialist governments, rounded up and shot in their thousands if not millions...........(LOL) In 2011 There were over 10,000 gun deaths recorded in the US. In the UK there was 8. This data was also dismissed by the gun advocates in here. Pretty hard figures to argue with. |
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Here are several areas where it's easy for anybody with a computer and a library to pick faults. Pg. 652, Table 1. The nations at the bottom of that table have some of the tighter gun controls in Europe. Having a gun for self-defence isn't permissable in any of these nations, this can be checked on relevant government websited. Germany, for example, requires a genuine reason to own a firearm and self-defence is not one of those. Handguns are permitted, but tightly controlled. Same with Norway. Pg. 664 Table 2. The table lists "allowed" or "banned" and doesn't bother to elaborate on how tightly controlled those handguns are. For people looking for self defence, handguns are basically banned in Norway, Germany, Belgium and France. Pg. 672 Yes, we do know German homes don't keep guns for self defence because they aren't allowed to and there are storage requirements in the home which must be met. Pg. 673 Attacks the argument that "more guns equals more death" except the argument being posed is actually less gun control equals more death. I've run out of time, but that's four reasonably big errors from basic glance at this journal. Credibility is really not looking good at this stage. There is no problem with the data they have, but how they're interpreting it is wrong and it doesn't take a genius to tell that. The fact they have posted untruths and hidden other factors behind gun ownership in other nations also doesn't help their cause. |
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changeling That's weird. Considering that the FBI compiles all crime data and issues a yearly report. The 2011 report indicates that there were about 14,000 homicides in the US and 60% of those were committed with firearms. Still, lets pretend that 10,000 people were murdered with firearms in the US in 2011. Considering that there are 320,000,000 people here and the number of firearms is conservatively estimated to be around 250,000,000......It's obvious that firearms are not the problem. If anything, the use of firearms in violent crime is astonishingly low considering that we have like 5 times as many firearms as any other country on Earth. Our overall crime rate is also extremely low. Eventually be targeted by socialist governments? Lol....um, you're already there. This is why it's so baffling to you why so many people in the US oppose gun control. This is a different country and many things that other governments do and control, the US government doesn't touch or care about. Just in looking at the Australian govt website and some UK websites trying to find some information, I saw several things that Americans would make a ton of noise about. It's just a different ideology and this is a totally different country. If you don't like it, don't come here and don't live here. |
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musket No one is going to actually make any kind of restrictive legislature in the United States regarding firearms. Seriously, I wish I had read clintons assault rifle ban earlier. No one is going to create legislature that will be so effective that it will result in injunctions and supreme court rulings that overturn it.....for a number of reasons. Most of which have to do with politics. It's like same sex marriage in the US. Democrats claim to support it but they don't really want it to be legal because they'd lose a huge part of their platform in the process. Same thing with gun control. People with firearms in the United States have all the power and no one can ever take it from them. Literally, any kind of ban can't apply to anything purchased before the ban is effective. A buy-back program would require congressional approval for funds. looool. |
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over it |
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tat You seem very abrasive and defensive: If you read you post again I did not say there were 10,000 'murders' related to guns, but 10,000 gun related deaths. I have also visited the US several times, enjoyed it immensely. Yes, I felt quite safe everywhere I went. None of my family own guns there, they have also stayed safe all these years (so far). You persist in having a dig at other nations as irrelevant, the facts and figures that are often produced (unless they suit your argument) on this issue, but cannot see that these other nations we actually mention do not have anywhere near the amount of gun related deaths the US endures. If one listens to the likes of thumper who would have us believe that the US government is attempting to take away all guns so they can murder you all in your beds and took it seriously, we would all be terrified of any US policy in regards to the rest of the world. Your ivory 'we know best because we are Americans' tower is beginning to look a little fractured. Oh I forgot, it's my turn for your vitriol, sorry, carry on. |
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No one is going to actually make any kind of restrictive legislature in the United States regarding firearms. Seriously, I wish I had read clintons assault rifle ban earlier. No one is going to create legislature that will be so effective that it will result in injunctions and supreme court rulings that overturn it.....for a number of reasons. Most of which have to do with politics. It's like same sex marriage in the US. Democrats claim to support it but they don't really want it to be legal because they'd lose a huge part of their platform in the process. Same thing with gun control. People with firearms in the United States have all the power and no one can ever take it from them. Literally, any kind of ban can't apply to anything purchased before the ban is effective. A buy-back program would require congressional approval for funds. looool. >> Restrictive legistlature has been made in the past and it has been defined as legal by the 2nd, yes I'm talking about the AWB. Now, anybody with a brain knows the AWB was a knee-jerk reaction designed to resonate with the truly paranoid concerned citizens who literally knew nothing about guns but were still scared sh**less all the same. The AWB was purely focuses on cosmetic appearance rather than form and functionality which is why it failed and was ridiculed by all. No, the AWB should never come back because it's pure dumbf***ery at the highest level. But next time, the ban won't be about cosmetics and they will actually make a concerted effort to restrict the availabilities of semi-automatic rifles. Canada runs a similar program already and this is precisely what the democrats will model their legislature off. You don't need to tell me that banning semi-automatics will make zero difference on crime because I already knew that. Semi-automatic rifles make up 9% of all guns and less than 5% of all gun crime; yes it's clear that banning them will do nothing. I still believe they should be restricted ownership; let hunters and sporting shooters learn to respect smaller, less potent arms first. Wait two years, if the democrats control the house then legislature will pass. Less than 40% of Americans own guns so it's not as if you can rely on the overwhelming opposition from the people. However the ban to properly affect crime, restricting handguns, will never come to fruition under the 2nd Amendment so I suppose you can relax on that one. |
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As someone who has lived in both countries, I don't believe it is. The only real, non-gun difference from the US in Australia is that you pay slightly higher taxes, don't have as many church goers and call everyone mate. |
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dmaestro 09-Jan-13, 00:45 |
Is that they stay a minority and never gain power, reasoning gets nowhere. |
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Well, since you asked...... When a researcher completes a study they write a paper and send it to a journal. The journal's editor then sends it to one or more external reviewers for their comments. These reviewers are supposed to be world leaders in their field, but smaller journals sometimes can't get the very best reviewers. The reviewer's job is to critique the paper and try to find flaws and suggest changes. Note though that they do not necessarily have to agree with the conclusions. Once the paper is acceptable to the reviewer they inform the editor and it is then published in the journal. No one involved with the publishing of the article has necessarily read it, and no one publishing the article necessarily agrees with the conclusions. Harvard in this case are only acting as a publisher, it does not necessarily make them the views of the publishers. Journals are not like newspapers. They in fact state on their website "Views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Society or of its officers, directors, editors, members, or staff." A bit of research into the Harvard journal of law and public policy shows that this particular journal is run by students, probably great and very intelligent students, but students nonetheless. Usually, it takes many years of experience within the academic community to become the editor of a large journal. These editors are, frankly, amateurs. They also commit a major crime in the academic world, they are not independent. Their own website plainly and proudly states that they are "the nation’s leading forum for conservative and libertarian legal scholarship." An independent journal of public policy should not be focusing on one side of the debate, it leaves their entire publication record open to accusations of bias. The relevance of this is that you are trying to conflate the reputation of Harvard University (undoubtedly one of the top 5 institutions in the world, no argument there) with the reputation of this journal. That is not at all a fair thing to do. Please don't misunderstand, I'm not accusing you of willful deception. I think it's a misunderstanding, which is reasonable, few people outside of academia know how peer review actually works. I hope reading my explanation has been helpful to you, so you can understand why I treat a paper such as this with more than my usual amount of scepticism. |
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So, lol. |
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I guess I must have been mistaken about that. |
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