Beauchamp reports: "Even if you control for poverty levels, more people die from gun homicides in areas with higher rates of gun ownership."
Deaths caused by firearms are lower in states with more strict gun laws. (photo: unknown)
5 Lies the Gun Lobby Tells You
17 December 12
merica's seems to be in for another debate over gun regulation after the slaughter at Sandy Hook Elementary School left 27 (mostly children) dead. So it's worth reviewing five made against regulating gun ownership in the United States:
MYTH #1: More guns don't lead to more murders. A survey by researchers at the Harvard University School of Public Health found strong statistical support for the idea that, even if you control for poverty levels, more people die from gun homicides in areas with higher rates of gun ownership. And despite what gun advocates say, countries like Israel and Switzerland don't disprove the point.
MYTH #2: The Second Amendment prohibits strict gun control. While the Supreme Court ruled in D.C. v. Heller that bans on handgun ownership were unconstitutional, the ruling gives the state and federal governments a great deal of latitude to regulate that gun ownership as they choose. As the U.S. Second Court of Appeals put it in a recent ruling upholding a New York regulation, "The state's ability to regulate firearms and, for that matter, conduct, is qualitatively different in public than in the home. Heller reinforces this view. In striking D.C.'s handgun ban, the Court stressed that banning usable handguns in the home is a 'policy choice[]' that is 'off the table,' but that a variety of other regulatory options remain available, including categorical bans on firearm possession in certain public locations."
MYTH #3: State-level gun controls haven't worked. Scholars Richard Florida and Charlotta Mellander recently studied state-to-state variation in gun homicide levels. They found that "[f]irearm deaths are significantly lower in states with stricter gun control legislation." This is backed up by research on local gun control efforts and cross-border gun violence.
MYTH #4: We only need better enforcement of the laws we have, not new laws. In fact, Congress has passed several laws that cripple the ability for current gun regulations to be enforced the way that they're supposed to. According to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, a series of federal laws referred to as the Tiahrt amendments "limit public access to crime gun trace data, prohibit the use of gun trace data in hearings, pertaining to licensure of gun dealers and litigation against gun dealers, and restrict ATF's authority to require gun dealers to conduct a physical inventory of their firearms." Other federal laws "limited the ATF compliance inspections" and grant "broad protections from lawsuits against firearm manufacturers and retail sellers."
MYTH #5: Sensible gun regulation is prohibitively unpopular. Not necessarily. As the New Republic's Amy Sullivan reported after the series of mass shootings this summer, a majority of Americans would prefer both to enforce existing law more strictly and pass new regulations on guns when given the option to choose both rather than either/or. Specific gun regulations are also often more popular than the abstract idea.
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Springtime may come to the US after all.
Obama or Nobama.
-- we've already got a pack of pet dogs, they're called the EU
V.M.Mohanraj
It's possible that the real value of Snowdens leaks are the revelations during the political aftermath- and isn't it possible that he knows this?
The US, Canada, NATO & Israel Finance-Media-M ilitary-Industr ial Complex are arming dissidents in over 80 countries worldwide for the purposes of war & resource acquisition. 40% of our export economies are tied to arms, munitions & security. We are making a killing worldwide through a generally held religious belief in confrontation & biblical armageddon.
Russia, China & the world's non-aligned nations are becoming increasingly concerned about our death-spiral economy bringing the whole world to economic & ecological collapse. Libya is a point of horror, with mainstream media never inquiring or reporting about Libya's role as Africa's #1 development aid investor & donor as well as instigator of irrigation, satellite, universal health-care, employment & education.
Libya's leadership in implementing the African gold-based Dinar as a challenger to US Dollar dominance caused the FMMIC to bomb 40 years of popular Libyan development. 3 Nobel Peace Prize laureates gave their support to Muammar Gaddafi & Libya's Green Party's national & international labours, yet our FMMIC media was completely one sided & the popular mind carries lies unquestioned. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/structure/1-converting-social-media-from-mono-to-dialogue
agree - look at Libya now and see how the scenarios of New World Order will play out - destruction and civil war - of course mass media are now quiet when the destruction of Libya is completed ...
All the world's warmongers are the sons of the profits.
The key indicators of vicious populations are how much per capita is dependent upon war & death. My own analysis when components (eg. electronics / digital etc) & raw materials are properly calculated is that seemingly innocent Canadian corporations are the biggest players (per capita) in the world. I don't say this with pride, but with alarm because they are making a killing silently & no press is reporting on them. This includes Canadian workers who are making their killing & feeding their families on death. When Whistleblowers such as Manning, Snowden & Assange are risking their lives to save the world, Canadian war, mining, logging, depleted uranium, engineering firms, electronics (eg CAE), aircraft, component manufacturing etc corporations are making a killing as well as destroying the biosphere. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/relational-economy/7-canada-1-war-mongeror
Thank you Mr Putin
luvdoc
"You are mean! I'm taking my balls, and going home!"
these AIPAC drones like Scumer are looking more and more pathetic
Clearly, what Snowden did was a whistleblower action. The information released was of little consequence other than to expose the extent to which NSA is abusing its surveillance powers. That NSA is abusing its authority to spy on American citizens is beyond doubt. The exposure of this abuse is nothing more than an embarrassment to the administration that has no impact on national security. By any other name, government abuse is abuse. It is surprising that on the one hand, the government promotes whistleblowing on waste, fraud and abuse, but on the other hand goes to extremes to prosecute anyone who blows the whistle. Who is rewarded and who is punished for whistleblowing is primarily determined not by merit but by politics.
There is no doubt that Snowden could not receive a fair trial in the U.S. and that he would become a political victim if returned to the U.S. Many of us don't want to see that happen.
If I were Russian I would give up on the US and turn my interests to the SCO and BRICS. The SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) and the BRICS nations are the future of the world. They not only include most of the world's people, but they are nations that have left the old concepts of colonialism behind. Europe and the US are still stuck in the colonialism/imp erialism phase of national development. both of these are grounded in ideas of racial or national supremacy.
Cole is much too skeptical of Putin. Putin is smart and honest. He knows the US intends no good for any nation on earth, particularly Russia. He knows the US is run by pyschopaths like Obama, Cheney, and Bush. No one can deal with psychopaths.
Snowden has a human right to asylum in a nation which will protect him from the illegal punishment by the government of his home state. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that if the US can get its hands on Snowden, he will be tortured and subject to a kangaroo trial just like Manning. Snowden will spend the rest of his life in prison and will be tortured there.
Russia is categorically right to protect Snowden. All of the pissing and moaning from people like McCain or Graham should be ignored. That is what they always do. They are irrelevant. The law is on Putin's side.
The U.S. corporate-fasci st, "Fourth Reich" national "security", totalitarian militarized police state die is cast; and, as far as the psychopaths who run the U.S. government are concerned, Snowden has to be taken down completely, like Manning was. It's all almost over but the next kangaroo "espionage" trial of Snowden, and who knows who else next. A great many of us, it very much looks like. Certainly all those who seek to save the U.S., that's likely. And, in addition to opening up the "new" concentration camps they've built all over the fifty states, they'll get rid of all the real criminal prisoners, and lock up the dissenters in the maximum security "SHU" prisons as well.