sonny88p
I tell you a problem and you find info relating to the cause of that problem and possible solutions
12 Replies
sonny88p
Problem: Guns kill people
further info: around 1985 the problem got worse in USA
Does anyone know what could have caused this rise in 1985?
Parks Ass To Ass
The Presidency of Ronald Reagan is one if not the biggest factor.
I disagree with the statement / opinion that "Guns kill people." I think the problem is people who are unfit to own guns.
sonny88p
@Parks:the problem and the source of the problem are 2 different statements
for example: if the problem is that the microwave is broken and the source is somebody put metal in it and turned it on
the somebody is also a problem yes, but the broken microwave is still a problem
Parks Ass To Ass
@sonny88p: I need to look more into it, but in High School there was an assignment about how the Reagan Administration changed the US socially and politically. I remember my teacher talking about guns being a significant part of that time. But that was five years ago, so it's a little faded in my mind.
sonny88p
After looking further into the chart it seems like every 4 years it either rises or falls
77-81 fall (Carter, Democrat)
81-85 fall (Reagan, Republican)
85-89 rise (Reagan, Republican)
89-93 rise (Bush, Republican)
93-01 falls (Clinton, Democrat)
01-04 rise (Bush, Republican)
sonny88p
extra info
side note: here handguns and other guns are combined while in the previous chart their were seperate
01-03 rise (Bush, Republican)
03-04 fall (Bush, Republican)
04-06 rise (Bush, Republican)
06-09 fall (Bush, Republican)
09-11 fall (Obama, Democrat)
But these changes are much smaller since 2001
Did Bush change some law that kept this amount stable?
mlp_midnaspet Homo-Queen*
@sonny88p: I need to think about that 1985 rise a bit more but I think its very interesting that the kills with things other than handguns dont seem that effected by the large changes to handgun kils
Eddie
Handguns are high because they currently are the best murder weapon. You take handguns away and then something else will take it's place. The handgun itself didn't instill the desire for murder.
Another interesting side argument: The fact that handguns are by far the highest helps demonstrate that the media's and politicians witch hunt against "assault weapons" is BS. Handguns are overwhelmingly the most used for murder. They can fit in a pocket and easily be concealed. It's a lot harder to conceal an AR-15.
sonny88p
@Eddie:this debate is not what this topic is for
Here we interpret the data to come to a solution "solve the problem", not to start that debate "dance around the problem, causing the problem to linger"
absolutezilch Hey Big Zam!
Different articles I'm reading are providing different justifications for it. Maybe it is a combination of the following effects (subject to my shit comprehension):
This nytimes article has a throwaway line explaining the rise of gun violence in juveniles in the 80s.
But Alfred Blumstein, a criminologist at Carnegie Mellon University, cautioned that this ignored the fact that homicides by juveniles remained higher than they were in the early 1980's, before the advent of crack cocaine, semiautomatic handguns and gangs sparked the surge in killings by teen-agers. .
So the theory here is due to increased availability of drugs and guns further fueled by gang violence in the 80s caused homicide rates to increase during that period. Increased education about drug use, advancement in technology that must have aided better police intervention, better medical care could have caused the reduction in gun violence since '93.
This Politifact article has a very interesting take on why violence surged in the 80s and it reminds me of another documentary I watched about a 'war on drugs'. A 'ban' causes exacerbation of an issue.
In 1976, D.C. had passed strict handgun control laws that was invalidated in 2008. For three decades, all guns had to be registered, new handguns were banned and guns at home had to be stored unloaded and disassembled. The article references another Wall Street Journal article which theorised:
The gun ban had an unintended effect: It emboldened criminals because they knew that law-abiding District residents were unarmed and powerless to defend themselves. Violent crime increased after the law was enacted, with homicides rising to 369 in 1988, from 188 in 1976 when the ban started. By 1993, annual homicides had reached 454.
However, the sourced article is quick and correct to point out that the reduction in gun violence started to reduce in 1994 and not 2008 when the ban was repealed.
There is a lot of information out there about this, analyzing trends in violence by race, region, gender etc. and it paints a very interesting picture. You could do an entire thesis on a topic like this but in the half an hour or so I dived into it, the above theories are what I could find. :)
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