Sheepdog-ing and George Zimmerman

Recently read an article on the phenomenon of being a sheepdog, which apparently describes citizens who pack and patrol their neighborhood and the violence that eventually ensues.

The article is excellent, although it has an unfortunate title, "George Zimmerman's life is ruined because he thought he was a sheepdog."  Given what happened, it seems more important to say that Trayvon Martin was murdered because GZ thought he was a sheepdog. In other words, he's fucking dead, while GZ gets to abuse women stupid enough to spend time with him.

What is terribly frustrating, despite how clear and thoughtful and careful this essay was written, are the comments.  Gun Nuts Media is a very strange site, but it is very descriptive because these people are nuts about guns and there is a hella-lot of information about guns.  That said, I think the site owner, Caleb, is actually a very thoughtful guy.  I expect he and I wouldn't agree about too many things concerning guns, but he is not afraid to speak thoughtfully about issues, although he is continually derided by some of his readers for those suggestions.  It's actually quite courageous and inspiring.

So back to the comments: what amazes and angers me to no insignificant degree are the responses of many defending GZ. It is stunning and very saddening, because most of them have no regard at all, or little whatsoever, for the child who was killed by him.

As Caleb said at one point, GZ's action was legal, and yes, I think it was, given that a jury has acquitted him.  But it was not a "good kill," to quote an incredibly offensive sign borne by a Darren Wilson supporter after he murdered Michael Brown.  There is no such thing as a "good kill." If GZ eventually grows a conscience and asks for forgiveness, Trayvon will still be dead.  Can we just think about this kid who was walking home by himself when some murderous asshole decided to harrass him for being black and wearing a hoodie?

Black man dares to go insane, is killed

It's insane, pun intended, how black people are driven crazy by the fact that they are disproportionately killed by police officers. The answer law enforcement has crafted for this problem is to continue to kill black people.

Why does anyone need to ban RPGs?

Given that there are no cases of RPGs actually being used against police officers, why are they banned?

Now this may seem strange, but the same logic is at work in a recent gun right's opposition to the ATF's proposal to ban certain armor-piercing bullets:

"This appears to be a solution to a problem that doesn't exist," said David Workman, the Second Amendment Foundation's communications director. "I can't find -- nor can anybody else find -- any evidence that any of these bullets has ever been fired from a handgun that's harmed a police officer."

The Kates-Mauser investigation

An article from the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy has had a tremendous effect on my thinking about gun control. Don Kates and Gary Mauser examine the degree to which and in what manner complete firearm prohibition would affect murder and suicide rates. It reminded me a lot of some of the realizations that occurred after doing a basic amount of research on gun prohibitions and gun violence across the United States.  Then I concluded that most of the United States was no more violent than Switzerland, where all citizens have a firearm, and that gun violence is primarily a problem in urban areas.  Moreover, I also learned that gun related violence was by and far the result of handgun shootings and not assault weapons or rifles.

Personally, this has been fairly disturbing, as it has convinced me that many of my basic intuitions are incorrect, if not bordering on fanatical.  

Kates and Mauser provide a public service in examining the seeming prima facie truism that less guns result in less violence, and more guns result in more violence. They find no such correlation when examining a series of European nations (what most people might accept as a reasonable control group for comparison with the United States). In fact, they found that where gun prohibition was most strict, violence was very high.  

[B]oth 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. ... Rather, if firearms availability does matter, the data consistently show the way that it matters is more guns equal less crime.

This is a shocking revelation, at least for me.  For gun rights activists, a point of celebration. 

The mother of Martin Luther King was also assasinated by a madman with a gun.

Gun Rights Activist Threatens the Lives of State Legislators

From what I understand, Mr. Watkins is hardly representative of most gun rights activists, since, at least according to Gawker.com, he is shunned by even the NRA, the same institution I would like to see abolished and which I modestly think is a threat to public weal.

What interests me more is some of his rhetoric, which I find compelling in certain simplistic ways, but which also explains certain values.

Mr. Watkins says, passionately, at one point:

And these are our rights that they're playing with. Okay? And I don't know if they forgot what their duty is but it's to protect the Constitution. And lemme remind you. Going against the Constitution is treason.

So eloquent one might be well confused for thinking him the Shakespeare of Tarrant Co., Texas. Apparently he was in a state of inebriation. A video can be found in the connected site, but I did not watch it because I hate to see people make fools out of themselves.

I am interested in this discussion of whose rights and the basis for them. For according to Mr. Tarrant, the rights of individuals are enshrouded within the Constitution [of the United States, presumably] like the features of an organism are contained within its DNA. That is to say, they are there and they cannot be changed.

Yet, he is wrong. For if that were true, then slavery would have made the Constitution spontaneously combust, since the actions of American citizens were contrary to what was written within it.  Mr. Watkins's statement could have been made by an abolitionist, or even a civil rights activists ...

Instead, let's substitute a more accurate view of the Constitution for this clearly false one. What the Constitution actually says, apart from any explanation, is, in part, meaningless. Really, what makes the constitution meaningful in any way is the way that it is interpreted, by which I mean, not merely or even mostly explained, but executed.

If you have a view that is contrary to this, please let me know and explain why, but I am not sure that I can see how that could be possible.  Even my explanation bears some considerable unpacking, but I think it is a tremendously more accurate view than that of Mr. Watkins and most gun rights activists, which frequently argue for their rights based on this conceptualization.

Kid kills friend with 9mm and then takes a trophy selfie

Kid spends the rest of his youth in youth prison, and wishes every day that he hadn't had that gun. 

Gun rights activists proudly champion boy's right to kill his friend, note that the gun was not obtained legally, and cannot do anything about illegal gun actions.  Somehow sleep at night knowing that they are complicit in the murder of yet another child.

Responsible gun-owner kills two adults and two children, self

He killed two adults, one of which was his ex-wife. Then he shot four children, between the ages of 7 and 15; two died and the other two are in critical but stable condition.

Why do they kill themselves? Because they realized they have done something horrible, something that they could not live with for the rest of their lives. Something that, had they not had access to a firearm, perhaps they would have never have done.

Responsible gun-owner claims black person shot him.

Responsible gun-owner claims black person shot him. 

Gun rights = institutional racism.

3-year-old girl shoots her parents with a loaded gun.

The gun was purchased that day, and left on a dorm-room type refrigerator, in easy reach of the child ... loaded ... in a purse. After they were shot, the father put the weapon back into the purse back onto the refrigerator! And the gun was not confiscated?


 

Shooting at Pittsburgh Mall, Feb. 8th, 2015

Ohio open carry laws are restricted to whites

Man in Ohio Walmart picks up a pellet gun, is witnessed by someone who alerts police.  Police appear and shoot man dead.  Man was black.

When even the well-trained make mistakes

Have you heard of the tragic story of the 9-year-old girl on a trip with her family.  They stopped in to shoot some automatic weapons in Las Vegas at a shooting range called Last Stop, and it was then, when the girl was offered the opportunity to shoot a fully automatic Uzi machine gun, that she accidentally killed her instructor.

I have to wonder why, if automatic weapons are illegal, they are permitted to be fired in particular shooting ranges, but I imagine some state is somehow responsible.

Like the 8-year-old boy killed in 2008, this was completely avoidable.  Who is more responsible, the parents or the instructor?  Of course, I suppose we might say one horrible scarring accident every 6 years is to be expected.  Or we could just save everyone from their bad judgment.  The argument contrary is that we cannot legislate every problem to solution.  And it has some right.

Still, guns seem to be an area where sensible restrictions are easily available.  

Research: Guns in the Workplace Do Not Make You Safer

Given the conversations that I've put myself through on pro-gun rights sites, you'd think that all research led to the conclusion that everyone was safer with a gun in tow.

In fact, some research shows that this is not the case, and that, in the case of a workplace, policies that allow guns increase the probability of homicides, as opposed to those that forbid bearing firearms.

This article was published in the American Journal of Public Health in 2005.  The authors concluded that the risk of homicide was 7 times greater in workplaces that permitted firearms, than in those that prohibited all bearing of weapons. 

So let's be clear here: according to this study, the risk of being killed is higher where guns are allowed than in workplaces where they are not.  In other words, being allowed to bring guns to work does not make you safer, but in fact makes you less safe.

Now, for the partisans of doubt (i.e. guns rights advocates), the study examined only North Carolina and what's more, nearly 10 years ago (probably longer, considering that the research is usually done long before publication).

Thus, for the sake of guns rights advocates, I say, let's do more research! And for sane people, I say, I'm not terribly surprised, and I'm disappointed that state legislatures (like South Carolina) have ignored these kinds of studies.

Provisos: there are lots of things this type of research does not take into account.  First, people in NC are crazy.  Just kidding.  I'd say they are the highest IQ state of the South (although that's not saying a lot) (more seriously, I'd point out that Nascar, which is based in states like NC and Tennessee, has the fans with the highest IQs, of the fans of different sports, on average).

Second, this doesn't explain if the workplaces that permit firearms require licenses, or what kinds of businesses they are, etc.  And lots of other things that I simply am not going to take the time to think about right now.

Third, things can change a lot in 10 years time.  This is one of the reasons why research needs to continue.  The anti-scientism of some of my interlocutors will certain express itself as, don't spend my taxpayer dime for this (when instead you can defund the VA and let vets come back, without a support network, and kill themselves ...) and all scientists lie, yadda yadda yadda.

The worst thing about blogging on gun issues

I have had some very interesting, and passionate conversations with gun rights advocates on another site.  For example, BenEzra, Drifter, etc.

But for each of those interesting commenters, it seems like there are at least two from people who are afflicted by chemtrails.

The Slippery Slope Argument

No matter how angry you may be about the gun rights movement, if you actually start talking to them, you will quickly find that they are in fact a quite diverse, heterogenous group.  While it's easy for us to demonize them, and I for one, would prefer to be able to, that cannot be done. 

Given this diversity, it is remarkable how unified the gun rights movements is in its effects, which are mostly to deny any attempt, even the most modest, to enact gun control legislation. 

in their defense, their first line of argumentation is usually along the lines claiming how much the 2ndA has already been regulated.  And there is some truth to this, if you consider the history of simply federal legislation (merely during the 20th century, for example), as well as the diversity of state legislation.* 

To go back to my point, the gun rights movements employs what I would call a very slippery slope argument, in which almost any gun control advocacy is knocked down on account of the fact that it will lead to gun bans.  

Example #1: the NRA and Jack Kingston blocked legislation promoting research by the CDC on gun violence.  I mentioned this in an earlier post and in fact this is not really news.  The NRA has been doing this now for quite a while, such that the CDC or any governmental body has been prohibited from spending tax dollars on research into gun violence since 1996!  

If you consult the comments on that same post, you'll see that my interlocutor, GMC70 jumps on this slippery slope (slip-and-slide, if you will) riding it directly to the fact that all such research is the work of "liars" ... whose only purpose is to ban guns.

This example is interesting to me because of what I take to be the innocuousness of the program advocated: namely, it's just research!

Example #2: a federal registry of gun owners.  There are two arguments against this (that I've encountered). First, all of this information is already out there, although it is not organized on a federal level and exists differently in different states.  Here the paperwork for gun purchases is cited.  But of course, a gun purchase does not mean the owner will still have the original gun (guns are the kinds of things which are passed down through families, to take merely one example).  This is not a slippery slope argument.  

Second, a federal gun registry will assist gun confiscation.  Australia's confiscation of semi-automatics after its horrific Port Arthur massacre. Also cited, the Nazis (the usual suspects).  In brief, if we allow a federal gun registry, we will be violating the privacy of law abiding gun owners, and these violations are merely the stepping stone to greater violations (gun confiscations).

Example #3: the open carry movement.  Currently there is an open carry political movement, essentially trying to legalize OC across the country. The most visible proponents of this program are a bunch of fucking idiots in Texas (the Open Carry Texas "patriots") who invaded a Chiles not too long ago and then posted the video of their encounter online.  

If you consult the Gun Nuts Media blog, despite its humorous/scary title, you'll find there an interesting commentary on OC, based on the author's 30 day experiment doing OC.  His conclusions are valuable and compelling, regardless of your views.  But he is very critical of groups like OCT because he thinks they bring a lot of negative publicity to the movement.  His comments, however, frequently inspire umbrage among those who disagree with him and who---and here is my point, finally--think that critique is again effectively crypto-gun-control advocacy.  Thus, the slippery slope is from a refined commentary on OC to, being a shill for the gun control movement (and eventually, being for gun confiscation).

I will stop there, but as always welcome comments.  

I have another post on this issue coming up, which has to do with the relation between the gun rights movement and libertarianism and its concomitant suspicion of big government.  

*While I find these arguments somewhat compelling, I would still insist that guns are not a regulated as automobiles and pharmaceuticals, to take only two examples.  But one would need to invent a metric to measure this matter.

Gun violence in the US, Part 3: some surprises, some confirmations, some questions

Surprises that I learned about gun violence in the US:

More people die of firearm related suicides than firearm related homicides.  In fact, when indiscriminately people discuss "firearm related deaths", those usually include suicides.

Rifles and assault weapons are not responsible for even 20% of firearm related deaths. Firearm related deaths are primarily the result of handguns.

The Assault Weapons Ban of 1994--the last major piece federal legislation of gun control--did not address handgun violence.  If I was a 2ndA activist, this would piss me off, as it would seem completely superfluous to any problem of gun violence.

The majority of the victims of firearm related homicide violence are black males, between the ages of 18-30.  The majority of the firearm related suicides are white males (source, Washington Post).  The rates between homicide and suicide are relatively close, although they vary from year to year.

According to this chart, there are more homicides than suicides, gun-related.  

Not a surprise:
The NRA is not concerned about firearm related suicides.

Questions:
Are more men the victims of firearm related suicides? 

Gun violence in the US, Part 2: the bad states

First, as an aside I want to point out that discussion on another site (PAGunBlog) has suggested that some of the information I am using may be flawed.  Most of this is coming a Wikipedia chart from 2010.  I guess I'm interested in pursuing it at this time because the information seems conducive to the arguments of gun rights proponents and I want to see how this will develop.  But so at any rate, I know these conclusions are dubitable beyond heuristic value.*
In the last post I claimed that gun violence may not be that bad if considered against a reasonable analog (Switerzland) where guns ownership/possession and basic social-political conditions are comparable.  That is, around 40 states have gun violence levels below the levels in Switzerland (3.84 per capita).  Although the per capita level of violence in the US is 10 firearm related deaths, that figure is arrived at by considerable (percentage-wise) deviations in the other 10 states.  Most notably, D.C. had approximately 16 firearm related death per capita.  That is at least 500% increase over most of the US.

So what are the states where firearm related murders exceeded these levels?  They are:
DC: 16.5%
Louisiana: 7.7%
Missouri: 5.4%
Maryland: 5.1%
South Carolina: 4.5%
Delaware: 4.2%
Michigan: 4.2%
Mississippi: 4.0%
Florida: 3.9%
Georgia: 3.8%
Just to be clear, it's actually only 9 states that exceed the Switzerland bar. Georgia is equal to it.

Not for gun rights proponents, it is very important that DC is at the top of this list because this is a city that has enacted serious gun control and obviously it has failed.  I think this point is probably true.  Of course, the response to this, which I think is simply intuitively persuasive (although it may not be right), is that trafficking guns from states where gun control is limited to DC is practically unenforceable.  Are you going to stop every car and search for guns?  That's a 4thA violation.

If you look at the majority of these states, you'll probably anticipate where these gun murders occur, and that is in the major metropolitan areas located in those states.  New Orleans, St. Louis, Baltimore, Detroit, Miami?.

One of the things I think we can conclude in these respects is that, as onerous as some of the tragedies are that receive media attention, they are anomalous in respect of most of the US.  Most of the US doesn't have a problem with gun violence--again, assuming Switzerland is the bar for what is and is not acceptable.

Gun violence is primarily an urban problem and a problem in states with major urban areas.


* Also, I want to say that these reflections have changed some of my fundamental intuitions about both gun violence and gun control.  Before these reflections I was anti-2ndA, anti-CC and anti-OC (and then the title of this blog was Against the 2nd Amendment and the description was similar).  After these reflections I've decided that I am no longer against the 2ndA, for the most part, and do not think that gun violence in general requires its abolition.  Moreover, I'm not against CC anymore.  I don't like it, really, but I think that the licensing of CC is adequate.  I'm still against OC, but reading about the OC experiment of Caleb on Gun Nuts Media has actually given me faith that even it could be reasonable, given certain conditions.  

Gun violence in most of the US is not that bad, considered state by state

Because of my particular vocation, I've never been terribly impressed by the power of facts because I think that reason is capable of achieving many things by itself.  Moreover, science and knowledge are always produced by interested institutions and parties, who despite their best efforts cannot denude themselves of prejudices (what's more, were they able to, they would consequently be unable to know anything!).  And so I've always thought that while science and research were important, they needed to be treated very delicately, and submitted to the court of reason.

But we know, since Kant, that reason has its limits and therefore must allow empirical science to be an equal source of education for reason.

So then let's follow science and see where it leads (and then allow that reason might have questions of its own).  It has led to some disappointing outcomes at time: that humans are not the products of intelligent design; that we lack considerable knowledge about the actual nature of all that exists (i.e., dark energy and dark matter); that climate change is real and that humans are most probably the cause of it.

One of the things I'd been concerned about, in creating this blog and in engaging with others, was the prevalence of gun violence in the United States.  I had an intuition that greater regulation could do something about it.  And that intuition may not necessarily be wrong, but it needs to be examined to be determined to be so.

But first, is gun violence greater in the US than in other comparable nations?  Assuming this information I found on Wikipedia is correct (and it's taken from different sources), firearm related deaths in the US are much lower than in at least a dozen other countries, including Honduras, Columbia, South Africa and Mexico (Mexico's only slightly higher than the US). 

However, it's still much higher than most comparable nations, by which I means nations with similar political stability, standard of living, etc.--what we generally might call 1st world nations.  In the US, per capita (100,000 people) 10 people die of firearm related causes. In Honduras its 64; Mexico, 11; Switzerland (which has at least approachable levels of gun ownership and being nationally comparable (i.e. political stability, standard of living, etc.), nearly 4 persons.  

Let's say that Switzerland is actually a good base point for judgment: if that were the case, then we'd have to say that gun violence, for the most of the United States, is not extraordinary, or even especially high. In at least 40 of the U.S. states, gun violence is lower or equal per capita than in Switzerland.  That means that in the remaining 10 states gun violence is high enough that it has increased the US's per capital gun violence to levels above 2.5 times above Switzerland.  

That is a fascinating discovery and honestly one that I had not anticipated.  

In the next post I'll talk about the correlation between gun violence and gun ownership, gun laws.  There are some unexpected discoveries here as well to be had.

Jack Kingston and the NRA hate not only facts, but any research about gun violence

Facts are the life blood of the debate about gun rights and gun control.  In online sparring at several sites, I found myself presented by a lot of interesting information about guns.  What was uniform was the conviction that guns as forms of protection are important and that (mostly) no forms of regulation have ever had any effects on gun violence.  Most importantly (RP and others), gun violence primarily targets young black men.

While these individuals are convinced, the NRA is not, nor our different Congressional representatives who are blocking, and have blocked in 1996, appropriations to the CDC to study gun violence.  Pehaps some of my erstwhile online sparring partners will ask Jack Kingston of Georgia, among others, to stop and allow the research to be done.

As is a familiar refrain, Kingston justifies himself by claiming that this is research for the sake of gun confiscation.  Everything is about confiscation.