Anyway, whenever a “controversial” topic is posted on BB, I rely on Steve Martin as The Jerk making an appearance or three.  Cheers.

Iqbal, said that he, too, tries to get young people to consider the futility of violence. “When I get in deeper conversations with young people, it usually boils into how pointless it is and how unnecessary it is and how really deep down people want it to stop,” Iqbal said.

This. Except I think the referent of “it” would be “their lives” because that’s really why they’re so damn violent.

We’ve been trying gun control for like 40 years

No, we haven’t. Implementing piecemeal gun control laws in places surrounded by areas without gun control laws is so pathetic that it doesn’t even count as “trying”. Countries that have actually “tried”, by having national laws, have “succeeded”.

In any case – guns are not going away in the US.  Many of the countries you listed have opted to implement gun control by literally stopping most people from owning guns and melting down the existing ones.  That isn’t going to happen in the US.  Literally, it won’t happen in legislatures and the courts will prevent it.  And if it somehow did miraculously happen, there would be widespread violence/resistance and “tragic boat accidents”.

Gun control can’t work like that in the US, it must happen in a different manner.  I also kind of cringe when I hear people say “we’d all be safer if only…”.  But I cringe pretty much no matter what they are advocating.  That statement is a recipe for reducing freedoms.

2) That article was written by my good friend John Osborn.  Great guy.  Great journalist.  He’s doing the “new media” thing pretty well.

Anyways, I certainly don’t have it all figured out and I have some thinking and reading to do about gang violence in the UK.  But consider this – they’ve always had low gun crime, even before the mid-80′s ban on handgun ownership.  And after the ban?  Handgun crime increased, and continues to do so today (year over year).

Definitely some different dynamics going on there, and I don’t think it’s a good analogue to the US, at least not for gun murders.  Certainly its valuable as a group of data points, but not in internet comment spaces like it is so commonly brought up.

Chicago, NY, Oakland, LA… strongest gun control and most gang violence – what does that tell you about gun control?  It’s totally ineffective to stop gang violence, which is where something like 85% of murders in the US come from.

Because as Maggie pointed out a few days ago not all gun control measures are equally effective. A city-wide ban on firearms doesn’t do much if you can still get all the semiautomatic assault weapons you want a short drive away.

I don’t blindly support all gun control legislation. I support the kinds of gun control legislation that has already been proven effective elsewhere, in cultures that are largely similar to our own. Canada, Australia, the UK: all have thriving communities of gun-owning sportsmen, but a small fraction of our homicide rates. Do they still have gang-related crime? Certainly. But they generally don’t have mass shootings, innocent bystanders killed in drive-bys, and other violent problems that America faces on a far-too-regular basis.

If you do social work for a living, then I’m assuming you really care about these kids who have no hope and a legacy of disenfranchisement.  If you care about them, then why would you ever support ineffective measures to help them?

I’m not even talking about pro gun stuff – I’m simply talking efficacy.  Gun control does not stop hopeless, disenfranchised youth (especially organized gangs) from killing each other with guns.

Look, I care about the victims too.  But they aren’t victims of “gun violence” their victims of a legacy of oppression and frankly, an identity of hopeless that continues to be spoken over them today!

We’ve been trying gun control for like 40 years to deal with gang violence and it hasn’t been working.  Let’s try something else.  Oh wait, that would mean getting people to actually deal with racism and admit historical oppression that occurred within my very young lifetime.  I guess that’s not going to happen.Sorry for my tone, I care deeply about this and have been accused of “supporting murders” left and right lately.  I don’t want to “go full retard”, I want to discuss.  I hope my words did not offend, I did not intend them to.

BUT—even when you control for economic and social disenfranchisement, you still get a lot more murders in communities where guns are abundant than in ones where they’re rare. There is simply no data to support the often-made claim that guns are likely to make people safer.

Your argument is essentially saying that “since people in Oakland walk around with guns, and there is high murder rates in Oakland, therefore guns = high murder rates”.  Logical fallacies abound.  Your logic follows, but forcing a conclusion to follow a premise does not mean you are correct.

You entirely fail to consider that those people walking around with guns – they are also people who are walking around already intending to murder somebody, whether or not they have a gun.

You deal with the legacy of oppression and hopeless that CA very intentionally created between ~1850 and ~1975, you deal with the “gun violence”.

It could be true that for some instances more guns does equal more safety. We need more data and/or a better sample.

I’d love to see more data, but there’s this pesky lobbying group that keeps shutting down any kind of research on the topic.

Population growth? There is a quote in the article that says the percentage is more or less steady.

As for the “more guns = safer society = bs” by another commenter. I won’t say that it is or isn’t true but it would be tough to get a universal-for-society truth out of Oakland’s (or any one community’s) demographic. It could be true that for some instances more guns does equal more safety. We need more data and/or a better sample.

Why such a strong correlation between coke and being murdered?

Probably the same reason that there was a strong correlation between alcohol and murder from 1920 to 1933.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv-arP2ZihI

One factor commonly ignored is cocaine use.  Statistically, 30-50% of murder victims test positive for cocaine (see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC181074/ and earlier studies in NYC showing +50% for male victims).

Why such a strong correlation between coke and being murdered?

Sigh.

I’ve felt terrible these past few days, but I’ve also thought more than once about the Missing White Girl Syndrome.