Politics 2: Electric Boogaloo — Page 627

JEDIT: Probably not worth it.

Yep. It’s an American problem.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/us-gun-violence-statistics-maps-charts

yhwx said:

Yep. It’s an American problem.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/us-gun-violence-statistics-maps-charts

The US aside, the other two main factors seem to be:

1. Being from a Nordic country
2. Being from a country that speaks French but isn’t France

https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1823016659?utm_content=Main&utm_campaign=SF&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=SocialMarketing

https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/611943312401002496

In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.

What is wrong with the FBI?

Their investigative techniques seem lacking.

Rask40 said:

yhwx said:

Yep. It’s an American problem.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/us-gun-violence-statistics-maps-charts

I think it’s wrong to generalize such a huge country with very varying local legistlation and people. Would be nice to see a state by state comparison.

The Netherlands would fit into my small state 3x, so I have to agree that these kinds of stats are wonky.

Most gun deaths are suicides. The US has a lower suicide rate than some of those countries.

Rask40 said:

yhwx said:

Yep. It’s an American problem.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/us-gun-violence-statistics-maps-charts

I think it’s wrong to generalize such a huge country with very varying local legistlation and people. Would be nice to see a state by state comparison.

Last major state-by-state analysis (Household Gun Ownership Gun Death Rate Per 100,000) gives these top five and bottom five states (first number is gun ownership percent, second is death rate, they are ranked by the latter):

1 Louisiana 45.6 percent 18.91
2 Mississippi 54.3 percent 17.80
3 Alaska 60.6 percent 17.41
4 Wyoming 62.8 percent 16.92
5 Montana 61.4 percent 16.74

50 Rhode Island 13.3 percent 3.14
49 Hawaii 9.7 percent 3.56
48 Massachusetts 12.8 percent 3.84
47 New York 18.1 percent 5.11
46 New Jersey 11.3 percent 5.46

The problem with doing per-state analysis in the US is that while each state sets its own laws, all states have open borders with each other. So gun availability in California is directly affected by laws in Nevada, etc. Not to mention city ordinances, where the restrictions are so localized that there can’t be any significant effect. Alaska and Hawaii may be the only two states without this issue clouding the stats. But then all of these statistics include suicides (which I think is appropriate, but you have to be aware of this), and Alaska and Wyoming have rather obscene suicide rates (27 and 28 per 100,000, while the national average is 12.6).

EDIT: Finland, with the highest suicide rate of all those listed countries, sits at 14.2, Sweden is at 12.7, and the rest have lower suicide rates than the US. The US is really not so great in the suicide department.

TV’s Frink said:

Mrebo said:

Most gun deaths are suicides. The US has a lower suicide rate than some of those countries.

Yeah ok but we’re talking about homicides.

On the topic of gun deaths, I wanted emphasize that fact since the discussion revolves around gun control. To be clear, the chart addresses gun homicides. And as stated in the link:

The Australian study found that buying back 3,500 guns per 100,000 people correlated with up to a 50 percent drop in firearm homicides, and a 74 percent drop in gun suicides. As Dylan Matthews noted for Vox, the drop in homicides wasn’t statistically significant. But the drop in suicides most definitely was — and the results are striking.

Australia’s homicide rate was already so low (see chart above) it would have been difficult to pull a statistically significant reduction out of any policy, due to small sample size alone. However, their suicide rate, while ALSO miles better than ours, was a big enough sample size to analyze. Yes, I realize mass shootings and other rare events* trigger such laws, but suicide & domestic violence are the most affected by them, simply because the numbers are higher. (And I support most of the restrictions I’ve seen suggested, and some I haven’t seen suggested).

* “Rare” is relative. In the US, there’s currently one shooting at or near a school every 60 hours. Sometimes rare in a statistical sense is still not rare enough.

So Steve Bannon came before the House Intelligence Committee for the first time since he refused to answer any questions the first time, and… he presented the committee with a list of 25 questions he would answer, but only if they were asked verbatim exactly as written. The answer to all of these pre-approved questions was a simple one-word answer: No. He refused to answer any other questions, including follow-ups on the 25, or variations on the 25 with slightly different wording. (i.e. if the answer to “did you meet with X” was No, the answer to “did you talk with X” was invoking Executive Privilege). And of course, as before, the claim of Executive Privilege was invoked for events for which there was no Executive Privilege to invoke.

Usually I admire chutzpah, but I don’t really think it qualifies as chutzpah when you know the committee chair has your back.

SilverWook said:

They should get this guy to query Bannon.

Q: What… is your name?

A: Steve Bannon.

Q: What… is your quest?

A: To stay out of prison.

Q: What… is your favorite color?

A: Red. No… White! aaaaaaargh

ray_afraid said:

Rask40 said:

yhwx said:

Yep. It’s an American problem.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/us-gun-violence-statistics-maps-charts

I think it’s wrong to generalize such a huge country with very varying local legistlation and people. Would be nice to see a state by state comparison.

The Netherlands would fit into my small state 3x, so I have to agree that these kinds of stats are wonky.

Moot point. Big countries like Canada and Germany sre still much better than us at this.

https://twitter.com/ashleyn1cole/status/964078993661186048

Teens have been eating tide pods for like a month and legislators in multiple states have already introduced bills designed to make it harder for teens to get tide pods.

https://twitter.com/markpopham/status/964157761427787777

Every time another one of these mass shootings happen - right when the Republicans start telling us that the answer is more guns, guns for everyone, guns for teachers, guns for students - I think about Chris Kyle.

https://twitter.com/markpopham/status/964157915056803840

Chris Kyle was the American Sniper guy - a highly decorated Navy Seal sniper with 150 confirmed kills in the Iraq War. Whatever else is true about him, he definitely was very good at shooting guns and used to being in combat environments.

https://twitter.com/markpopham/status/964158367697723392

Kyle knew that the man he was with was dangerous. He knew he was armed - he armed him! To the degree that anyone could be forewarned and prepared for a situation, Kyle was. And yet the other guy shot two armed and trained men dead, got in a car and drove away.

https://twitter.com/markpopham/status/964158835043774470

Today a bunch of men are going to go to a gun store and they’re going to buy their third or 10th or 25th gun, because this scares them, and they think the gun is going to keep them safe.