Does gun control work?

This is the kind of thing that you won't typically hear on the nightly news, or whichever left wing media news source you care to name.  However, a fascinating study on gun control was just published.  Here is a summary of that study, from Breitbart:

"HARVARD STUDY: NO CORRELATION BETWEEN GUN CONTROL AND LESS VIOLENT CRIME" by Awr Hawkins 

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/08/27/Harvard-Study-Shows-No-Correlation-Between-Strict-Gun-Control-And-Less-Crime-Violence

Quoting most of the article from Breitbart, because the Breitbart article picks out many of the best parts of the system:

Because the findings so clearly demonstrate that more gun laws may in fact increase death rates, the study says that "the mantra that more guns mean more deaths and that fewer guns, therefore, mean fewer deaths" is wrong.

For example, when the study shows numbers for Eastern European gun ownership and corresponding murder rates, it is readily apparent that less guns to do not mean less death. In Russia, where the rate of gun ownership is 4,000 per 100,000 inhabitants, the murder rate was 20.52 per 100,000 in 2002. That same year in Finland, where the rater of gun ownership is exceedingly higher--39,000 per 100,000--the murder rate was almost nill, at 1.98 per 100,000.

Looking at Western Europe, the study shows that Norway "has far and away Western Europe's highest household gun ownership rate (32%), but also its lowest murder rate."

The murder rate in Russia, where handguns are banned, is 30.6; the rate in the U.S. is 7.8.

The authors of the study conclude that the burden of proof rests on those who claim more guns equal more death and violent crime; such proponents should "at the very least [be able] to show a large number of nations with more guns have more death and that nations that impose stringent gun controls have achieved substantial reductions in criminal violence (or suicide)." But after intense study the authors conclude "those correlations are not observed when a large number of nations are compared around the world."

In fact, the numbers presented in the Harvard study support the contention that among the nations studied, those with more gun control tend toward higher death rates. 

And, of course, the study itself, from Harvard:

"WOULD BANNING FIREARMS REDUCE MURDER AND SUICIDE?
A REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL AND SOME DOMESTIC EVIDENCE"
by Don B. Kates and Gary Mauser
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

So much material in this report, I hardly know where to start.  I'll start at the beginning.

International evidence and comparisons have long been offered
as proof of the mantra that more guns mean more deaths and that
fewer guns, therefore, mean fewer deaths. Unfortunately,  such
discussions are all too often been afflicted by misconceptions and
factual error and focus on comparisons that are unrepresentative.
It may be useful to begin with a few examples. There is a com‐
pound assertion that (a) guns are uniquely available in the United
States compared with other modern developed nations, which is
why (b) the United  States has  by far the highest murder rate.
Though these assertions have been endlessly repeated, statement (b) is, in fact, false and statement (a) is substantially so. 

The study discusses the Soviet Union/Russia, and then England.

The same pattern appears when comparisons of violence to
gun ownership are made within nations. Indeed, “data on fire‐
arms ownership by  constabulary  area in England,” like data
from the United States, show “a negative correlation,” that is,
“where firearms are most dense violent crime rates are lowest,
and where guns are least dense violent crime rates are high‐
est.”

Stringent  gun  controls  were  not  adopted  in  England  and
Western Europe until after World War I. Consistent with the
outcomes of the recent American studies just mentioned, these
strict controls did not stem the general trend of ever‐growing
violent crime throughout the post‐WWII industrialized world
including the United  States  and Russia.

The authors are careful not to equate correlation with causation.  However, they do confidently state:

Although the reason is thus obscured, the undeniable result
is that  violent  crime,  and  homicide  in  particular,  has  plum‐
meted in the United States over the past 15 years. The fall in
the American crime rate is even more impressive when com‐
pared with the rest of the world. In 18 of the 25 countries sur‐
veyed  by  the  British  Home  Office,  violent  crime  increased
during  the  1990s.  This  contrast  should  induce  thoughtful
people  to  wonder  what  happened  in  those  nations,  and  to
question policies based on the notion that introducing increas‐
ingly more restrictive firearm ownership laws reduces violent
crime. Perhaps the United States is doing  something right in
promoting firearms for law‐abiding responsible adults. Or per‐
haps the United  States’  success in lowering its violent  crime
rate relates to increasing its prison population or its death sen‐
tences. Further research is required to identify more precisely
which  elements  of the United  States’  approach  are the most
important, or whether all three elements acting in concert were
necessary to reduce violent crimes.

The authors then go on to make a statement that, while blindingly obvious, seems to elude the clueless among us [emphasis mine]:

One reason the extent of gun ownership in a society does not
spur the murder rate is that murderers are not spread evenly
throughout  the  population.  Analysis  of  perpetrator  studies
shows  that  violent  criminals—especially  murderers—“almost
uniformly have a long history of involvement in criminal behav‐
ior.”  So  it  would  not  appreciably raise  violence  if  all  law‐
abiding, responsible people had firearms because they are not
the ones who rape, rob, or murder. By the same token, violent
crime would not fall if guns were totally banned to civilians. As
the respective examples of Luxembourg and Russia suggest,
individuals who  commit violent  crimes will  either find guns
despite severe controls or will find other weapons to use.   

Startling as the foregoing may seem, it represents the cross‐
national norm, not some bizarre departure from it. If the man‐
tra “more guns  equal more death and fewer guns  equal less
death”  were  true,  broad  based  cross‐national  comparisons
should show that nations with higher gun ownership per cap‐
ita  consistently  have  more  death.  Nations  with  higher  gun
ownership rates, however, do not have higher murder or sui‐
cide rates than those with lower gun ownership. Indeed many
high gun ownership nations have much lower murder rates.
Consider, for  example, the  wide divergence  in murder rates
among  Continental  European  nations  with  widely  divergent
gun ownership rates.  

The non‐correlation between gun ownership and murder
is reinforced by  examination of  statistics from larger num‐
bers of nations across the developed world. Comparison of
“homicide  and  suicide mortality data for thirty‐six nations
(including the United  States) for the  period  1990–1995” to
gun  ownership  levels  showed  “no  significant  (at  the  5%
level) association between gun ownership levels and the to‐
tal homicide rate.” Consistent with this is a later European
study of data from 21 nations in which “no significant corre‐
lations [of gun ownership levels] with total suicide or homi‐
cide rates were found.”

More obviousness [again, emphasis mine]:

However  unintentionally,  the  irrelevance  of  focusing  on
weaponry is highlighted by the most common theme in the
more  guns  equal  more  death  argument.  Epitomizing  this
theme is a World Health Organization (WHO) report assert‐
ing,  “The  easy  availability  of firearms has  been  associated
with higher firearm mortality rates.” The authors, in noting
that the presence of a gun in a home corresponds to a higher
risk  of  suicide,  apparently  assume that  if denied firearms,
potential  suicides will decide to live rather than turning to
the numerous alternative suicide mechanisms. The evidence,
however,  indicates  that  denying  one  particular  means  to
people who are motivated to commit suicide by social, eco‐
nomic, cultural, or other circumstances simply pushes them
to some other means. Thus, it is not just the murder rate in
gun‐less Russia that is four times higher than the American
rate; the Russian suicide rate is also about four times higher
than the American rate.

There is no social benefit in decreasing the availability of
guns if the result is only to increase the use of other means of
suicide  and  murder,  resulting  in  more  or  less  the  same
amount of death. Elementary as this point is, proponents of
the more guns equal more death mantra seem oblivious to it.

Table 2 on page 16, which compares murder rates in neighboring countries with and without gun control, is enlightening [again, emphasis mine].

Once  again,  we  are  not  arguing  that  the  data  in  Table  2
shows  that  gun  control  causes  nations  to  have  much  higher
murder rates than neighboring nations that permit handgun
ownership. Rather, we assert a political causation for the ob‐
served correlation that nations with stringent gun controls tend
to  have  much  higher  murder rates  than  nations  that  allow
guns. The political  causation is that nations which have vio‐
lence problems tend to adopt severe gun controls, but these do
not  reduce  violence,  which  is  determined  by  basic  socio‐
cultural and economic factors.

 

They go on to debunk the myth that a gun in the house is more likely to be used against the owner than to stop a crime.  First, they make yet another obvious point [emphasis mine].

The “more guns equal more death” mantra seems plausible
only when viewed through the rubric that murders mostly in‐
volve ordinary people who kill because they have access to a
firearm when they get angry. If this were true, murder might
well increase where people have ready access to firearms, but
the  available data provides no  such  correlation. Nations and
areas with more guns per capita do not have higher murder
rates than those with fewer guns per capita.

This is the fallacious argument made by gun control proponents:

Nevertheless,  critics  of  gun  ownership  often  argue  that  a
“gun in the closet to protect against burglars will most likely be
used to shoot a spouse in a moment of rage . . . . The problem is
you and me—law‐abiding folks;” that banning handgun posses‐
sion only for those with criminal records will “fail to protect us
from the most likely source of handgun murder: ordinary citi‐
zens;” that “most gun‐related homicides . . . are the result of
impulsive  actions  taken  by  individuals  who  have  little  or  no
criminal  background  or  who  are  known to the victims;” that
“the majority of firearm homicide[s occur] . . . not as the result
of criminal activity, but because of arguments between people
who know each other;” that each year there are thousands of
gun murders “by law‐abiding citizens who might have stayed
law‐abiding if they had not possessed firearms.”

The authors' response:

These comments appear to rest on no evidence and actually con‐
tradict facts that have so uniformly been established by homicide
studies dating back to the 1890s that they have become “crimino‐
logical  axioms.” Insofar  as  studies focus  on  perpetrators, they
show that neither a majority, nor many, nor virtually any murder‐
ers are ordinary “law‐abiding citizens.” Rather, almost all mur‐
derers  are  extremely  aberrant  individuals  with  life  histories  of
violence, psychopathology, substance abuse, and other dangerous
behaviors.  “The  vast  majority  of  persons  involved  in  life‐
threatening violence have a long criminal record with many prior
contacts with the justice system.” “Thus homicide—[whether] of a
stranger or[of] someone known to the offender—‘is usually part of
a pattern of violence, engaged in by people who are known . . . as
violence prone.’” Though only 15% of Americans over the age of
15 have arrest records, approximately 90 percent of “adult mur‐
derers have  adult records, with an average adult  criminal  career
[involving crimes committed as an adult rather than a child] of six
or more years, including four major adult felony arrests.” These
national  statistics  dovetail  with  data  from  local  nineteenth  and
twentieth century studies. For example: victims as well as offenders
[in 1950s and 1960s Philadelphia murders] . . . tended to be people
with prior police records, usually for violent  crimes  such  as  as‐
sault.” “The great majority of both perpetrators and victims of
[1970s Harlem] assaults and murders had previous [adult] arrests,
probably over 80% or more.”

They point out that the term "acquaintance homicide" is misleading.

Thus the term “acquaintance homicide” does not refer solely
to murders between ordinary acquaintances. Rather it encom‐
passes, for example: drug dealers killed by competitors or cus‐
tomers, gang members killed by members of the same or rival
gangs, and women killed by stalkers or abusers who have bru‐
talized them on earlier occasions, all individuals for whom fed‐
eral and state laws already prohibit gun possession.

More exploration of the relationship between guns and crime.  The authors appear to believe that sociological factors drive the crime rate, not gun ownership in and of itself [emphasis mine].

In sum, though many nations with widespread gun ownership
have much lower murder rates than nations that severely restrict
gun ownership, it would be simplistic to assume that at all times
and in all places widespread gun ownership depresses violence by
deterring  many  criminals  into  nonconfrontation  crime.  There  is
evidence that it does so in the United States, where defensive gun
ownership  is  a  substantial  socio‐cultural  phenomenon.  But  the
more plausible explanation for many nations having widespread
gun ownership with low violence is that these nations never had
high murder and violence rates and so never had occasion to enact
severe anti‐gun laws. On the other hand, in nations that have ex‐
perienced high and rising violent crime rates, the legislative reac‐
tion has generally been to enact increasingly severe antigun laws.
This is futile, for reducing gun ownership by the law‐abiding citi‐
zenry—the only ones who obey gun laws—does not reduce vio‐
lence or murder. The result is that high crime nations that ban guns
to reduce crime end up having both high crime and stringent gun
laws, while it appears that low crime nations that do not signifi‐
cantly restrict guns continue to have low violence rates.

Thus both sides of the gun prohibition debate are likely
wrong in viewing the availability of guns as a major factor in
the  incidence  of murder  in  any particular  society. Though
many people may still cling to that belief, the historical, geo‐
graphic, and demographic evidence explored in this Article
provides a clear admonishment. Whether gun availability is
viewed as a  cause or as a mere  coincidence, the long term
macrocosmic evidence is that gun ownership spread widely
throughout  societies  consistently  correlates  with  stable  or
declining murder rates. Whether causative or not, the consis‐
tent international pattern is that more guns equal less mur‐
der and other violent crime. Even if one is inclined to think
that gun availability is an important factor, the available in‐
ternational  data  cannot  be  squared  with  the  mantra  that
more  guns  equal  more  death  and  fewer  guns  equal  less
death. Rather, if firearms availability does matter, the data
consistently show that the way it matters is that more guns
equal less violent crime. 

So what should we do?  At the very least, the burden of proof rests with the gun control proponents.

Those who assert the mantra, and urge that public policy be
based on it, bear the burden of proving that more guns do
equal more death and fewer guns equal less death. But they
cannot  bear that  burden  because there  simply is no large
number  of  cases  in  which  the  widespread  prevalence  of
guns among the general population has led to more mur‐
der. By the same token, but even more importantly, it can‐
not be shown consistently that a reduction in the number of
guns  available to the general population has led to fewer
deaths. Nor is the burden borne by speculating that the rea‐
son  such  cases do not  appear is that other factors  always
intervene.

The authors then state that gun control proponents also need to address the fact that their arguments are not plausible in light of the evidence presented in the study.

The study continues with a discussion about murder rates in periods without guns, and in periods where there was a glut of guns.  It shows that suicide rates are not dependent on gun ownership, "no statistical relationship."

The conclusion?

This Article has reviewed a significant amount of evidence
from a wide variety of international sources. Each individual
portion of evidence is subject to cavil—at the very least the
general objection that the persuasiveness of social scientific
evidence  cannot  remotely  approach  the  persuasiveness  of
conclusions in the physical  sciences. Nevertheless, the bur‐
den of proof rests on the proponents of the more guns equal
more death and fewer guns equal less death mantra, espe‐
cially  since they  argue public policy ought to be based on
that mantra. To bear that burden would at the very least
require  showing that a large number of nations with more
guns have more death and that nations that have imposed
stringent gun controls have achieved substantial reductions
in  criminal violence (or  suicide). But those  correlations are
not observed when a large number of nations are compared
across the world.

A different point of view of a space shuttle launch

Not much more to say about this next video, just sit back and enjoy.  The title sums it up well.  The audio is also fascinating.

From io9.com:

"Absolutely mindblowing video shot from the Space Shuttle during launch"

http://io9.com/5893615/absolutely-mindblowing-video-shot-from-the-space-shuttle-during-launch

From the article:

Try to let what you're witnessing sink in. See those numbers flying past in the upper right hand corner? That's the Shuttle's airspeed. See that gleam of light against the inky backdrop of space at 2:08 and 3:11? That's the Shuttle continuing on its flight path into low Earth orbit. Hear the eerie rattling, haunting moans, and weird dinosaur noises? That's what it sounds like to be a Solid Rocket Booster, falling to Earth from an altitude of 150,000 feet.

To declare war

Did you happen to catch all the leftist protests about potentially going to war in Syria for no good reason?  Here's one:

Interesting.  What do you think would be happening if President Bush had done the exact same things Obama is doing now?  The hypocrisy is deafening.  Proves once again that leftists have no principles, they're just cheerleaders.

Well, maybe that's not strictly true.  Obama and Biden both have clear points of view regarding taking these United States to war, following the Constitution and all that.

Remember the War Powers Clause in the Constitution?  Anyone?  Bueller?  It states:

[The Congress shall have Power...] To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

What?  You mean that the President is not authorized to declare war unilaterally?

From RightWisconsin.com:
"Obama and Biden's Own Words on War and Congressional Approval" by Collin Roth
http://www.rightwisconsin.com/dailytakes/221413341.html

The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.

As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch. It is always preferable to have the informed consent of Congress prior to any military action.

As for the specific question about bombing suspected nuclear sites, I recently introduced S.J. Res. 23, which states in part that "any offensive military action taken by the United States against Iran must be explicitly authorized by Congress." The recent NIE tells us that Iran in 2003 halted its effort to design a nuclear weapon. While this does not mean that Iran is no longer a threat to the United States or its allies, it does give us time to conduct aggressive and principled personal diplomacy aimed at preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

 

-Barack Obama in 2008

It is precisely because the consequences of war – intended or otherwise – can be so profound and complicated that our Founding Fathers vested in Congress, not the President, the power to initiate war, except to repel an imminent attack on the United States or its citizens. They reasoned that requiring the President to come to Congress first would slow things down… allow for more careful decision making before sending Americans to fight and die… and ensure broader public support.

The Founding Fathers were, as in most things, profoundly right. That’s why I want to be very clear: if the President takes us to war with Iran without Congressional approval, I will call for his impeachment.

I do not say this lightly or to be provocative. I am dead serious. I have chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee. I still teach constitutional law. I’ve consulted with some of our leading constitutional scholars. The Constitution is clear. And so am I.

I’m saying this now to put the administration on notice and hopefully to deter the President from taking unilateral action in the last year of his administration. If war is warranted with a nation of 70 million people, it warrants coming to Congress and the American people first.

-Joe Biden in 2008

So I'm confident that Obama and Biden will ask Congress for authority to use U.S. military power in Syria, or anywhere else.  They wouldn't change their position just because they're in power now, would they?


Interesting that this subject was also raised in 2011, regarding Libya.  From the Huffington Post:
"Joe Biden Warned In 2007 That He'd Impeach Bush For Waging War Without Congressional Approval"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/23/joe-biden-impeach-bush-war-2007_n_839497.html

Interesting thing to note in that article was the big government spineless Republican reaction, as illustrated by the weasel Lindsay Graham:

As Dave Weigel pointed out Tuesday, the prevailing attitude in Congress over the matter of congressional approval is best exemplified by the statements made by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.), who each basically said they'd simply rubber-stamp whatever Obama wanted to do. "I'd be glad to vote on it afterwards," said Graham, all but cementing Congress' ornamental role in military conflict.

More videos here, from DailyPaul.com:
"Joe Biden: War Without Congressional Authorization Should Warrant IMPEACHMENT"
http://www.dailypaul.com/160170/joe-biden-war-without-congressional-authorization-should-warrant-impeachment


My initial reaction to the situation in Syria is to not get involved.  Dictator versus rebels who may turn out to be nutjob Islamists?  This is like a game between the Vikings and the Bears--can't they both lose?  In all seriousness, though, I don't believe that we can police the world.  But if we do want to do so, why would we want the president to do so unilaterally?  Isn't this exactly why we want Congress to be involved, to come to a consensus decision?



In closing, I think this meme pretty much sums things up.  From the All That Spam blog:
"If I put the constitution in my emails would the government start reading it?"
http://allthatspam.blogspot.com/2013/08/if-i-put-constitution-in-my-emails.html

What I do

Sometimes people ask me what I do at work.  In the future I'm just going to tell him that I do this:

http://xkcd.com/1256/

I build the power systems that support the infrastructure that answers all those crazy questions, so I don't answer those questions directly, exactly, but close enough!

But back the cartoon itself.  Don't you just love Google Autocomplete?  It truly gives some insight into what we are searching for. As others have said, and I fully concur, the one place people never lie is when typing to their search engine.

Need a cell phone? Or three?

Did you ever wonder whether government programs are wasteful and inefficient?  Well don't.  That is the very nature of such programs.  Consider what is becoming known as the "Obamaphone" program.

From National Review Online:
"Me and My Obamaphones" by Jillian Kay Melchior
http://nationalreview.com/article/354867/me-and-my-obamaphones-jillian-kay-melchior

In the past month, I have received three shiny new cell phones, courtesy of American taxpayers, that should never have fallen into my hands.

The author was very clear that she was not on any other government program (required to be eligible for the Obamaphone) and in one case she was actually talking on her own phone while applying for her free phone!

And indeed, while doing research for another story, I had gone through the motions of applying for New York City welfare, which I also don’t qualify for. I showed him my Human Resources Administration paperwork packet and the case number assigned to me. I reiterated that though I had once applied, I had never been approved for any sort of benefit.

He brought out his electronic tablet immediately to sign me up for phone service. He asked if I had an insurance card, so I pulled out my trusty Blue Cross Blue Shield. He looked at it for a second, puzzled, then asked if I had Medicaid. No, I told him, just private insurance through my work plan.

“Private insurance? What’s that?” he asked, maybe not facetiously. My BCBS card was nevertheless photographed, as well as the first page of my Human Resources Administration paperwork. He asked for my name and my home address, and that was about it. The whole process took less than five minutes, and I had to provide no documentation verifying my income level or (nonexistent) welfare status.

The author also got referred to a competing cell phone provider, to get two phones, even though this is a violation of the program rules.

Schaefer also tells me that “consumers are, on their applications, required to certify under penalty of perjury that they will only be receiving one Lifeline discount.”

But when I went around New York signing up for multiple phones, I never even saw the applications; SafeLink and Assurance vendors filled out the necessary forms on their tablets on my behalf, clicking through so quickly that it must have been nearly muscle memory. And nobody mentioned perjury.

Granted, the first question the wireless reps asked was usually whether I was already enrolled in the Lifeline program. I told the truth: I had signed up recently, but the phone hadn’t arrived in the mail yet. Almost always, that got me re-entered into the system without hesitation.

And at one Lifeline location in East Harlem, I walked up to the wireless representative talking very loudly on my own smartphone. I hung up only to answer her questions. Now, keep in mind that the program is supposed to provide cell-phone service to people too poor to afford any phone whatsoever — but my application for a subsidized mobile was happily submitted, even as I dinked around very obviously on my existing smartphone.

So here’s the final count: I was able to apply on the street for one SafeLink phone and seven Assurance phones. I received one SafeLink phone and two Assurance phones, no questions asked. For several other applications, Assurance sent me requests for more financial information.

Why does this happen?  It's pretty easy to figure out, if you have half a brain.

And if you’ve been wondering why the companies are so eager to hand out free phones, the incentive is built into the program. As Griffin explains, “Of course, the way the program was set up, [wireless companies] were getting money for every one they could give out, so they gave out as many as they could.”

Song of the Day: Violent Femmes - Blister In The Sun

Here is a blast from the past.  The Violent Femmes.  Brings me right back to high school in Milwaukee.  As you might guess, the Femmes were very popular in Milwaukee since they are from that area.

Anyway, here is one of their best-known songs:
"Blister in the Sun - Violent Femmes - Lyrics"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YdQBkxf4kU

I saw these guys in concert, at Summerfest, in the early 90's I believe.  One of the BEST concerts I have ever seen.

Ah the memories!

40% of the Internet?

Did you hear about the Google outage last Friday?  There are lots of links, lots of stories, but I'd like to focus on one aspect of the story.

From Forbes:
"Analyzing Friday's Google Outage"
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/08/19/analysing-fridays-google-outage/

The aspect I'd like to focus on?  This:


When Google went down, worldwide internet traffic dropped by 40%.  40%!!!

Again, from Forbes:
"Fascinating Number: Google Is Now 40% Of The Internet"
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/08/17/fascinating-number-google-is-now-40-of-the-internet/

From the article:

Actually, there are two impressive and fascinating numbers here. The first is that Google does seem to be, in all its manifestations and forms, 40% of all internet traffic. The other is that while going down in its entirety wasn’t a particularly great advertisement for the firm, bringing it all back up in only 11 minutes was a great advertisement for them. After all, screw ups and mistakes happen it’s how quickly and effectively one cleans up afterwards that is the real test.

40%?!?!  Wow.