Posted: 12/22/2008 9:42:00 PM EDT
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Second or third one in a few weeks, they're pushing hard.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/opinion/23tue2.html?ref=opinion (I imagine it is best not to hot-link) For years, the gun lobby has defeated new gun control laws partly by arguing that stronger laws do not deter crime. A study prepared by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a bipartisan group headed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York and Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston, should finally put that myth to rest.
Skip to next paragraph The Board Blog The study analyzed trace data for guns used in connection with crimes during 2007. The data reveal a strong correlation between weak state gun laws and higher rates of in-state murders, police slayings and sales of guns used in crimes in other states. Many states have enacted strong gun laws to supplement inadequate federal ones, including mandatory background checks on gun show sales. States requiring the same background checks at gun shows as those required for store purchases show an export rate for guns used in crimes that’s nearly half the national average. This argues for Congressional action to end the gun-show loophole nationally. States with weak gun laws produce different outcomes. More than half the guns recovered in out-of-state crimes last year were supplied by Georgia, Florida, Texas, Virginia and six other states where weak laws make it easy for gun traffickers and other criminals to obtain weapons. Weak gun laws also put a state’s own citizens at risk. There were nearly 60 percent more gun murders in the 10 states where exports were highest than in the states with low export rates — and nearly three times as many fatal shootings of law enforcement officers. The study by the mayors’ group isn’t the first to document the link between weak gun laws and gun violence or the “iron pipeline” by which guns flow from states with weak gun laws into states with strong ones. Still, the numbers are startling. They explain why the gun lobby resisted their release, and they provide a powerful retort to those who claim tougher gun laws don’t work. I like the "coalition's" name. As if there are people out there that are pro-illegal guns. |
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Motherfuck whoever wrote that. "sales of guns used in crimes in other states"? So basically, if you buy a gun, sell it, it gets sold again, and then ends up in bad hands is somehow your home states' fault?
How about they talk about the states or cities with the LARGEST amount of violent gun crimes, and tightest gun restrictions? Chicago, DC, anyone? I hate this, and its only going to get worse. |
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I wonder if the "study" data will be released for peer review. We already know that private gun show sales are not a significant source of crime guns according to police data, and they didn't break down their three pieces of correlated outcomes with any numbers to demonstrate significance of each. Their reference to 60% more murders seems to imply a relative total instead of a more meaningful difference in RATE. Considering the consistently opposite or insignificant results from other studies of such things and a record of anti-gun municipalities reclassifying crimes to skew data, I smell a rat! "Bipartisan"=biased idiots from both parties. |
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Dude... they're fighting for their lives... championing a philosophy that becomes more and more irrelevant by the day.
Awhile back, I stopped hating them... and just starting feeling sorry for them. Read their front page... It's sad, isn't it? 
(I'd wipe my dog's ass with the Times... but, I have so much more respect for my dog's asshole than that.) |