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Thousand oaks shooting

Altfish

Veteran Member
I agree that there would be less gun homocides if gun laws were similar to other countries. I do not necessarily agree that there would be substantially less homicides.

Generally, a person who wants to kill can find a way to kill. Certainly, there would be less murders based on the removal of more guns as guns increase the likelihood of death and decrease the effort needed to effect death.

But how much is this? How did the uk homicide rate compare by year before and after uk gun restriction? Did gun restriction really make that much of a difference?
I don't recall us ever having laws like yours.
After the Dunblane killings in the late 90's we tightened up on handguns and there haven't been many gun related since
 

Curious George

Veteran Member
I don't recall us ever having laws like yours.
After the Dunblane killings in the late 90's we tightened up on handguns and there haven't been many gun related since
I don't recall asking solely about your "gun related" killings. I am asking how the gun laws impacted the actual homicide rate.
 

ADigitalArtist

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
I think you are mistaken. Each murder is one count of homicide.
Actually apparently I was sort of on the right track. UK and some US statisticians treated multiple homicides as one incident until the late 90's, at which point they diverged into multiple incidents. So there won't be consistent graphs because of it. But since 1998 violent crime has gone down in the UK, with occasional spikes that are generally short lived.
 

Curious George

Veteran Member
Actually apparently I was sort of on the right track. UK and some US statisticians treated multiple homicides as one incident until the late 90's, at which point they diverged into multiple incidents. So there won't be consistent graphs because of it. But since 1998 violent crime has gone down in the UK, with occasional spikes that are generally short lived.
"Homicides generally increased from the 1960s up to the early 2000s (the peak in the year ending March 2003 includes 172 homicides committed by Dr Harold Shipman). There has been a general downward trend since the year ending March 2003."

Homicide - Office for National Statistics
 

Curious George

Veteran Member
Actually apparently I was sort of on the right track. UK and some US statisticians treated multiple homicides as one incident until the late 90's, at which point they diverged into multiple incidents. So there won't be consistent graphs because of it. But since 1998 violent crime has gone down in the UK, with occasional spikes that are generally short lived.
If that is correct then the homicide rate was even lower diring the previous years as generally more people are charged with homicide than people are killed.
 

Altfish

Veteran Member
I don't recall asking solely about your "gun related" killings. I am asking how the gun laws impacted the actual homicide rate.
I don't know.
It is certainly a 'touchy' topic for you. It seems obvious to the rest of the world what the problem is but not the US, you can't even talk about the subject.
 

Curious George

Veteran Member
I don't know.
It is certainly a 'touchy' topic for you. It seems obvious to the rest of the world what the problem is but not the US, you can't even talk about the subject.
Lol, no it os not a touchy topic. Just doing my best to keepya' honest.
 

ADigitalArtist

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Homicides generally increased from the 1960s up to the early 2000s (the peak in the year ending March 2003 includes 172 homicides committed by Dr Harold Shipman). There has been a general downward trend since the year ending March 2003.

Homicide - Office for National Statistics
Yeah, like I said, the peak is because the standards of counting homicides changed.
If that is correct then the homicide rate was even lower diring the previous years as generally more people are charged with homicide than people are killed.
It means that graphs from both times will create the false appearance of a rise in homicides because multiple people killed will count as multiple homicides when they weren't before.
 

Curious George

Veteran Member
Yeah, like I said, the peak is because the standards of counting homicides changed.
Is there somewhere where you see that note?
It means that graphs from both times will create the false appearance of a rise in homicides because multiple people killed will count as multiple homicides when they weren't before.
But multiple charges would them have previously counted as multiple homicides even when there was only one death.
 

Altfish

Veteran Member
Lol, no it os not a touchy topic. Just doing my best to keepya' honest.
Have I been lying???? Not that I'm aware of.

The UK currently has a problem with knife fatalities, but we are not blaming mental illness, we are looking at access to knives.
But at least knife crime rarely involves multiple causalities.
 

Curious George

Veteran Member
Have I been lying???? Not that I'm aware of.

The UK currently has a problem with knife fatalities, but we are not blaming mental illness, we are looking at access to knives.
But at least knife crime rarely involves multiple causalities.
Did I say lying?!? I meant that you were clearly demonstrating confirmation bias and trying to focus on an argument, that while important, completely sidestepped my reply to you. Now did you do this in order to lie? No, i don't think so at least. Rather, I think you were attempting to tout statistics that conformed to your opinion; the post to which you were replying be damned.
 

ADigitalArtist

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Is there somewhere where you see that note?

But multiple charges would them have previously counted as multiple homicides even when there was only one death.
No, multiple people killed would have been considered one incident of homicide by the past reports. I'm reading it in a book breakdown of a graph linking to this: Homicide - Office for National Statistics
Specifically this part:
This section presents analyses of homicide incidents, defined as incidents where the same person (or a group of persons) is suspected of committing one or more related homicides. The numbers therefore differ from the total number of recorded homicides presented above (the focus of analysis is on such incidents as it is not possible to statistically model multiple homicides that relate to one case and were recorded on the same day; for that reason the homicides attributed to Dr Harold Shipman and the 7 July London bombings are, for example, each treated in this analysis as one incident). Although each incident is highly related to socio-economic characteristics of the suspect and the victim and independent from other incidents, over a period of time, the probabilities of homicide incidents happening can be closely modelled by a Poisson distribution . This can be used to test whether any change in the numbers of incidents per year is statistically significant, or what can be termed within the range of expected ‘natural variation’ of the data.
But honestly reading this document is a huge slog.
 

Jumi

Well-Known Member
The UK currently has a problem with knife fatalities, but we are not blaming mental illness, we are looking at access to knives.
But at least knife crime rarely involves multiple causalities.
Ban knives and you'll see all kinds of shivs. Better work hard to solve the underlying social and mental health issues.
 

Altfish

Veteran Member
Did I say lying?!? I meant that you were clearly demonstrating confirmation bias and trying to focus on an argument, that while important, completely sidestepped my reply to you. Now did you do this in order to lie? No, i don't think so at least. Rather, I think you were attempting to tout statistics that conformed to your opinion; the post to which you were replying be damned.
OK, keep your guns, good luck.
 

Jumi

Well-Known Member
Is there some reason why we keep producing mass murderers?
Look at how violence against children is allowed (corporal punishment) in your country and how it compares to increased violence statistics worldwide. Many mass shooters in your country are veterans with mental illnesses with access to guns. Less wars and you'll have less traumatized veterans. Better universal healthcare and less killings like this. Restriction for guns for people with some types of mental illness that relate to suicide or homicidal inclinations. Lots of things that could be done.
 

Altfish

Veteran Member
Ban knives and you'll see all kinds of shivs. Better work hard to solve the underlying social and mental health issues.
They are looking at social (not sure about health) issues, you will never manage to 'ban' anything; control is the idea that is being looked at.
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Again, you think Americans are more psycho than other nations?

What if???? You are correct that people are more "psycho" than previously? This should hold true for other nations beyond US, right? So, possibly the true solution is to still prevent people from obtaining guns. The data among nations that have banned guns has shown drastic improvement.

It's just another gun debate because of another massacre. I've gone through all my rhetoric from all the previous massacres. This will be no different.

You and other conservatives will continue to blame mental illness which is plausible but other nations have shown that is irrelevant given how they've dealt with it.

Of course mental illness is a key source. Rational intelligent people don't do what these people are doing.

The data is b******* when it comes to the cause. A politically motivated bandaid that does nothing more than remove protections from individuals at great risk to individual freedom and the right for a person to protect him or herself with a firearm.

I bet North Korea has a very low death rate from firearms. Gun control works there, so the statistics must be accurate in which there are no mass killings in North Korea.

Like I said governments don't practice gun control , but they sure do like to put it on their civilian populations.

But I agree with you this will just turn into another gun debate, .And I will continue to remind people that cars kill more people than guns and everybody goes into a circle again.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
Well, another mass shooting. Thousand Oaks, California. California has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation.

Is there some reason why we keep producing mass murderers?
We have laws against rape, too, but rapes still occur. However, they do occur far less often when we have laws against it, and we enforce them. And society does have some recourse for protecting ourselves when someone does commit rape. So the argument that if a law does not work 100% of the time, that it's useless and should be eliminated, is just foolish and illogical.

Also, gun laws, like any laws and regulations, don't work very well when they are not unilaterally applied or unilaterally enforced. Chicago also has strict gun laws but half the suburbs around the city will sell guns to anyone who'll pay. So the city ends up being awash in them, and gun deaths there are very high. California is surrounded by western states that worship the whole idea of guns and gun violence and have almost no gun regulation. So the laws in California are easily circumvented by an afternoon's drive.
 

Curious George

Veteran Member
No, multiple people killed would have been considered one incident of homicide by the past reports. I'm reading it in a book breakdown of a graph linking to this: Homicide - Office for National Statistics
Specifically this part:

But honestly reading this document is a huge slog.
My understanding of that quote is that it is dealing with a different data set that treats multiple killings as one incident, not that killings were in the past reported that way.
 

Curious George

Veteran Member
We have laws against rape, too, but rapes still occur. However, they do occur far less often when we have laws against it, and we enforce them. And society does have some recourse for protecting ourselves when someone does commit rape. So the argument that if a law does not work 100% of the time, that it's useless and should be eliminated, is just foolish and illogical.

Also, gun laws, like any laws and regulations, don't work very well when they are not unilaterally applied or unilaterally enforced. Chicago also has strict gun laws but half the suburbs around the city will sell guns to anyone who'll pay. So the city ends up being awash in them, and gun deaths there are very high. California is surrounded by western states that worship the whole idea of guns and gun violence and have almost no gun regulation. So the laws in California are easily circumvented by an afternoon's drive.
I see gun control as akin to banning or regulating sex to solve a rape problem (if we are going to use rape as an analogy).

And it sounds like you are just makimg excuses regarding the circumventing of "stricter gun laws." As far as that is concerned one can 3d print a gun.
 
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