I'd love to hear why this is so uniquely different than banning alcohol.

The vast majority of people drink but do not drink and drive. Some people, however, do drink and drive and kill others (a crime).

The vast majority of people that own guns don't ever use them in a violent act toward another person. Some of them, however, do and kill others.

Let's forget the fact that 'banning' something doesn't just make the problem go away, but purely from a moral standpoint, how are these not the same principle? You can't just argue that an automatic gun has no 'utility' because some people enjoy them just like some people enjoy alcohol for their own reasons. I am one who likes alcohol and thinks it is really weird to love guns, but hey, everyone is different...

Please, purely from a moral and philosophical level, tell me how you can support legal alcohol but illegal guns? And do realize that such an argument can't consist of 'well guns kill more' because we are talking about principle here. Lives could be saved if you could somehow stop drinking by government action but people here for strong gun control haven't been advocating for prohibition 2.0.

So what gives? Do you have any moral/logical credibility?

RE: The pro gun statistics you posted. That appears to be one guy posting on a blogspot and he hasn't sourced any of his material. I would be hesitant to make a point for either side from that information. Suffice it to say, I haven't seen any peer reviewed studies from the pro gun camp.

I see Switzerland being bring up again and again without any deeper investigation. Let me explain why Switzerland cant be compared to the USA.

Statistics http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datab...hip-world-list
Your statement about Switzerland having more guns per capita is wrong, Swiss have 46 firearms per 100 people, while USA has 89 firearms per 100 people.

46/100 is still very high number, but lets look at the reason:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_pol...in_Switzerland
So basically all weapon owners in Switzerland are trained military conscripts, unlike America where any unprepared wacko can buy a gun. Counting those guns as "civilian" makes as much sense as counting US Army owned weapons into US civilian statistics.

But lets read further, those conscripts DON'T EVEN HAVE AMMO:
Now lets look at requirements for non-militia weapons:
I think most gun-opponents would be happy to have at least the same gun regulations that apply in Switzerland.

Why didn't they stop them forever?

Yeah, we don't know about the incidence of other types of guns being used in homicides whatsoever. Tricky, that author, hiding all that data!

Your curiosity can also be satisfied with, you know, Google:





Source

Sweet stuff, too bad the us experienced the same drop in homicide despite loosening gun laws.

LOL wat?

the study was done in 2006.

unfortunately though, firearms have been linked to greater risk for homicide.

So there's that..

Now realize that half of "gun deaths" are suicide. Now what?

Dont waste your breath, Ikes is better at epidemiology and public health than Harvard's faculty, which is to be expected because he majored in engineering which apparently means you know everything about all science and social sciences.

So the author didn't feel the need to point out that homicides were declining already. Cool. I didn't know you were on the pro-gun side.

Sure sure, now why has homicide more than halved despite more guns in the US?

What you fail to point out, of course, is that gun homicides have been trending upward. As we saw in Australia, as gun homicides trended downward so did overall homicide. Any inkling as to why we wouldn't expect similar results here?

we learned dozens of pages ago in this thread that you analyzing anything with numbers is not a good idea, maybe you should sit this one out

false

gun homicides were trending down before the ban, as were overall homicides

lol, sure sure.

Harvard eggheads. Whatta they know dagumit!

I have no idea... maybe because there are more factors at play for homicide than *just* guns. That's why its helpful to look at a study which directly measures the impact guns have on homicide.

Seriously, how is that difficult?

why confront what i say when you can freely attack me as a poster?

There are like 22 studies mentioned here, don't just find the 1 or two (or even 5) whose methodology you don't like. Look at the 15 others

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research...use/index.html

So the entirety of your argument is 'harvard did it', and you won't even address the point. The whole point is that their study isn't good.

If gun control was this super important thing to prevent violence, then you need to explain why the homicide rate has dropped so precipitously while gun control has been loosened in the US. The obvious answer is that gun control really isn't that important when compared to stuff like the drug war, yet here we are, focusing on the margins instead of the super obvious fix.

I already pointed out anyone can make booze, but a gun takes skill.

Guns harder to smuggle.

Guns do not cause physical addiction, reducing demand.

Guns are not ubiquitous on social occasions. The tradition is easier to kill.

Booze is cheaper.

The stats bear out the theory: Britain, Japan, successfully reduce gun numbers.

It needs to be pointed out that gun laws are not the only factor? All crime is down.

How do you explain our gun homicide rate 40x higher than Britain, while the total homicide rate is just 4x more? We are quite similar societies, but they don't have an epidemic of 20 year old paraplegics.

fwiw, saying Harvard did it is way more likely to yield correct conclusions than amateur analysis. (And by amateur I mean anyone without a PhD in a relevant field)

Thats not to say Harvard is infallible, but playing the probability its way more likely that your misunderstanding something than they are.

Then explain why homicide dropped so significantly if gun control is super important. This isn't an amateur analysis. It's a well duh question that would be asked by any sort of reviewer.

Are there any studies demonstrating the ratio of "self defense incidents" to "number of gun owners," or something like that? Serious question.

I haven't read the studies, so I don't know what they say. Another common error when amateurs look at analysis is they misinterpret the studies results. Sometimes (not that common) the expert will intentionally misrepresent what the study's conclusions show.