General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAmerica’s Path to Fewer Gun Deaths
How did we do it? We didnt ban cars or alcohol. No, we:
increased the drinking age from 18 to 21,
increased legal standards for sober driving,
increased the odds of being arrested and the penalties for drunk driving,
we held people accountable if they sold alcohol to an underage youth, especially if t contributed to injuries or deaths;
and we required more advanced safety technology like air bags.
These policies worked because they promoted higher standards, greater accountability, and the best available technology. Similar approaches can work to curb gun violence.
http://www.jhsph.edu/research/centers-and-institutes/johns-hopkins-center-for-gun-policy-and-research/daniel-webster-tedmed-talk.html
aikoaiko
(34,127 posts)And promised no federal registration outside of NFA.
Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)...I think you have to be very, very careful indeed about assuming that the steps taken to produce a reduction in one will produce a reduction in the other. Moreover, gun-related homicide in the US has also dropped considerably over the same period. The single greatest factor for both is very likely improvements in emergency medical care.
All that said, though, it's interesting to note that with the exception of requiring airbags, the steps listed as factoring into the decline shown aren't "car control." They're people control (and booze control).
libodem
(19,288 posts)[img][/img]
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)ON EDIT: I see you termed your reference as "Shit." On that we can agree.
Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)The study, with which I'm rather familiar, came out in 1993, and is entitled "Gun Ownership as a Risk Factor for Homicide in the Home." It was published in Issue 329, pp.1084-1091, if you're interested in reading it. As a published article in this generally excellent journal, it would have been peer-reviewed.
That said, the study also has some significant methodological question marks (I'm being generous here). One of the largest is that it counts only homicides as valid defensive usages. Not woundings (only about one in five persons intentionally shot with a firearm, excluding suicides, dies). Not situations in which the potential attacker flees at the sight of an armed victim. Thus the actual ratio would be far, far less one-sided if all defensive usages were accounted for.
There are also issues with the study's case/control selection methodologies, its exclusion of some age categories, its categorization of factors, and even the basic application of reduction for confounding factors...given that "controlled security access" to the property actually produced a worse risk factor than guns in the home...which makes zero sense.
Guns in the home may well increase risk for homicide, but almost certainly not at the ratio this rather sloppy study claims.
libodem
(19,288 posts)Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)discntnt_irny_srcsm
(18,470 posts)Dr. Arthur Kellermann, stated: If youve got to resist, youre chances of being hurt are less the more lethal your weapon. If that were my wife, would I want her to have a .38 Special in her hand? Yeah. (Health Magazine, March/April 1994)
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,085 posts)Not outright ban it, mind you, but made it harder to legally obtain.
And sure, it didn't solve all the problems--people still drink and drive, and as any college campus will attest, there's still plenty of underaged drinking to be had and many sellers who have lax compliance with the laws--but if the argument is that for those who did comply with the laws, it still contributed to a decline in car crashes, that pretty much sums it up.
So tell me again why making tighter regulations of who can own and be sold a gun is somehow a bad thing?