December 19, 2012
Posted by Jay Livingston
Both Chris Uggen and Ezra Klein have sensible things to say about guns – much more sensible than my rant of a few days ago. They both argue that no legislation can prevent mass killings like the one in Newtown, though restrictions on assault rifles and other weapons might reduce the number of deaths in such incidents. But these mass killings, although newsworthy, account for a small fraction of all gun deaths. What new laws might be able to do is reduce the far more frequent gun deaths – the less newsworthy street-crime and gang killings.
The Naked (Lunch) and the Dead
December 18, 2012
Posted by Jay Livingston
Glenn Reynolds has a USA Today op-ed scorning gun control laws (and really scorning people who want gun control). Here’s the lede:
Reynolds is a law professor and presumably knows a lot about the law and maybe a lot about guns, but apparently he doesn’t know a lot about Burroughs. If he did, he might not have given the naked lunchman pride of place in his argument.
As TBogg at FiredogLake reminds us, Burroughs is not exactly the poster child for loose gun laws. In fact, he is prime anecdotal evidence for why having easy access to guns might not be such a great idea.
When Burroughs was living in Mexico in 1951, he shot his wife in the forehead. He was playing a game they called “William Tell.” He was, of course, drunk.
That’s one version. In a second version, given after Burroughs’s lawyer arrived on the scene, Burroughs “claimed he misfired while showing the gun to a friend he was trying to sell it to.”
After two weeks in jail, Burroughs was released on bail and eventually went back to the US. Mexico tried him in absentia. He was convicted and given a two-year suspended sentence.
Posted by Jay Livingston
Glenn Reynolds has a USA Today op-ed scorning gun control laws (and really scorning people who want gun control). Here’s the lede:
“After a shooting spree,” author William Burroughs once said, “they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it.” Burroughs continued: “I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military.”
Reynolds is a law professor and presumably knows a lot about the law and maybe a lot about guns, but apparently he doesn’t know a lot about Burroughs. If he did, he might not have given the naked lunchman pride of place in his argument.
As TBogg at FiredogLake reminds us, Burroughs is not exactly the poster child for loose gun laws. In fact, he is prime anecdotal evidence for why having easy access to guns might not be such a great idea.
When Burroughs was living in Mexico in 1951, he shot his wife in the forehead. He was playing a game they called “William Tell.” He was, of course, drunk.
At first the killer declared that in the said gathering, after there had been a great consumption of gin, he tried to demonstrate his magnificent marksmanship, emulating William Tell, and to that end he placed a glass of liquor upon the head of his wife, and aiming over the glass, at a distance of two meters, he fired, but as a consequence and result of the state of drunkenness in which he found himself, he missed the shot lamentably and injured the forehead of his wife with a bullet.
That’s one version. In a second version, given after Burroughs’s lawyer arrived on the scene, Burroughs “claimed he misfired while showing the gun to a friend he was trying to sell it to.”
After two weeks in jail, Burroughs was released on bail and eventually went back to the US. Mexico tried him in absentia. He was convicted and given a two-year suspended sentence.
It is believed Bill’s wealthy parents dispensed thousands of dollars in legal fees and bribes to Mexican authorities. [More details are here.]As for the Norman Mailer allusion in the title of this post, it’s a good thing he only had a knife and not a gun.
Game Over - Guns Win
December 14, 2012
Posted by Jay Livingston
It’s still too early to know what went on in the Newton CT elementary school shooting. Right now, the report is that 25 are dead, at least 18 of them children.
I’m waiting for the reaction of the “gun rights” activists – if only third grade teachers (and maybe third graders too) carried guns in class every day, lives would be saved.
They’re right. Weaponized teachers and students might have killed the shooter before he had killed so many.
Let’s face it, the logic of the gun lobby has won – not just in court but in everyday life. If you create a world where every person, no matter how angry or demented, can easily get a gun it makes sense for everyone to be armed, the deadlier the weapon the better. And we have created that world.
So spare me the “terrible, terrible tragedy” version. How many terrible, terrible tragedies do we need before we see that starting decades ago, we began setting the stage for this drama? Why are we surprised each month, each week, when the scenario is played out?
How did we get to this world where there are so many guns around that it’s a fairly simple matter to buy one, legally or illegally, or steal one (as in the Oregon mall shooting earlier this week).
Blame the NRA? I do not know the history or the research on this, but a Marxist voice in my left ear is whispering, “Follow the money.” The NRA is merely the ideological superstructure built on the economic substructure of the the gun industry. It’s not the NRA that produces, sells, and makes a handsome profit from the millions of guns.
You can’t sell, of course, if nobody wants to buy. But gun economics may be a variant of Say’s law: supply creates its own demand. If you increase the supply of guns – especially if they fall into the hands of robbers, drug, dealers, and other bad guys – the more you will increase the demand from people who want guns for protection. The more guns that are out there, the less effective will be any attempts to restrict them.
There are now hundreds of millions of guns in circulation. Even if public opinion shifted to overwhelming support for gun control, even if laws were passed, attempts keep guns out of the hands of people with bad motives would be futile. That might have worked a few decades ago. Not any more.
The gun people have won. They always knew that guns were deadly and dangerous. That’s why they want them for protection – guns are far more effective than knives or other weapons. The gun people have also known that a relatively few people use them to commit horrible slaughter. But to the gun rights absolutists, these are acceptable losses.
If the the NRA, and other gun lovers thought that this loss of life were not acceptable, they would have taken a different position on proposed laws. The innocent victims are just so much collateral damage in the noble battle for freedom (and profits).
I wonder if the gun lovers will talk about their wonderful freedom to the parents in Newtown, Connecticut.
(An earlier post on policy and acceptable risks is here.)
Posted by Jay Livingston
It’s still too early to know what went on in the Newton CT elementary school shooting. Right now, the report is that 25 are dead, at least 18 of them children.
I’m waiting for the reaction of the “gun rights” activists – if only third grade teachers (and maybe third graders too) carried guns in class every day, lives would be saved.
They’re right. Weaponized teachers and students might have killed the shooter before he had killed so many.
Let’s face it, the logic of the gun lobby has won – not just in court but in everyday life. If you create a world where every person, no matter how angry or demented, can easily get a gun it makes sense for everyone to be armed, the deadlier the weapon the better. And we have created that world.
So spare me the “terrible, terrible tragedy” version. How many terrible, terrible tragedies do we need before we see that starting decades ago, we began setting the stage for this drama? Why are we surprised each month, each week, when the scenario is played out?
How did we get to this world where there are so many guns around that it’s a fairly simple matter to buy one, legally or illegally, or steal one (as in the Oregon mall shooting earlier this week).
Blame the NRA? I do not know the history or the research on this, but a Marxist voice in my left ear is whispering, “Follow the money.” The NRA is merely the ideological superstructure built on the economic substructure of the the gun industry. It’s not the NRA that produces, sells, and makes a handsome profit from the millions of guns.
You can’t sell, of course, if nobody wants to buy. But gun economics may be a variant of Say’s law: supply creates its own demand. If you increase the supply of guns – especially if they fall into the hands of robbers, drug, dealers, and other bad guys – the more you will increase the demand from people who want guns for protection. The more guns that are out there, the less effective will be any attempts to restrict them.
There are now hundreds of millions of guns in circulation. Even if public opinion shifted to overwhelming support for gun control, even if laws were passed, attempts keep guns out of the hands of people with bad motives would be futile. That might have worked a few decades ago. Not any more.
The gun people have won. They always knew that guns were deadly and dangerous. That’s why they want them for protection – guns are far more effective than knives or other weapons. The gun people have also known that a relatively few people use them to commit horrible slaughter. But to the gun rights absolutists, these are acceptable losses.
If the the NRA, and other gun lovers thought that this loss of life were not acceptable, they would have taken a different position on proposed laws. The innocent victims are just so much collateral damage in the noble battle for freedom (and profits).
I wonder if the gun lovers will talk about their wonderful freedom to the parents in Newtown, Connecticut.
(An earlier post on policy and acceptable risks is here.)
Surveys — Questions and Answers
December 10, 2012
Posted by Jay Livingston
Neil Caren at Scatterplot lifts up the rock that is the New Family Structure Study (NFSS) – the basis of Mark Regnerus’s controversial research on children of gay parents – and discovers some strange creatures wriggling about underneath:
We all rely on surveys – pollsters, social scientists, market researchers, government agencies, businesses. We try to make our questions straightforward. But the question we ask is not always the question people answer. And people’s answers – about what they think and what they did – are influenced by external factors we might not have considered. Especially if the survey is a one-off (unlike the GSS and other surveys with frequently asked questions), we have to be cautious about taking the results at face value.
(Previous posts on this problem are here and here.)
Posted by Jay Livingston
Neil Caren at Scatterplot lifts up the rock that is the New Family Structure Study (NFSS) – the basis of Mark Regnerus’s controversial research on children of gay parents – and discovers some strange creatures wriggling about underneath:
. . . 85 people reported living at least four months with their “mother’s girlfriend/partner.” However—and this is where it gets tricky—a different question (S8) asked, “Did you ever live with your mother while she was in a romantic relationship with another woman?” Eight people who reported in the calendar that they lived with their mother’s girlfriend answered no to this question.So ten percent of the people who said they lived with the mother’s girlfriend also said on a different question that they did not live with the mother’s girlfriend.
We all rely on surveys – pollsters, social scientists, market researchers, government agencies, businesses. We try to make our questions straightforward. But the question we ask is not always the question people answer. And people’s answers – about what they think and what they did – are influenced by external factors we might not have considered. Especially if the survey is a one-off (unlike the GSS and other surveys with frequently asked questions), we have to be cautious about taking the results at face value.
(Previous posts on this problem are here and here.)
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