Gun Control - California Style
"Indiana fatal shooting renews questions about stand-your-ground laws and their limits. Here’s what to know"
Cleaning lady tries to enter wrong house and is murdered by the occupant. The man you killed her will likely be charged with manslaughter of some sort - good.
https://www.cnn.com/us/stand-your-groun … its-statesWhat information I've seen on this indicates that this man should never, ever held a gun in his hands. He has obviously never had any training and has no idea of what his rights are, or when he should pull the trigger.
On this one - put him behind bars. His action was unconscionable and exceedingly stupid - we don't need such people wandering the streets.Unlike some states, Indiana's gun safety laws do not require firearm training to buy or possess a weapon. Maybe they should.
I would agree...except that that would most definitely "infringe" on their right to own a gun. Cannot do.
You know as well as I that the literal meaning of the 2nd Amendment was changed by Scalia and Thomas years ago when they dug up British law to have it apply it to things other than state militias, As a literalist, I would think you recognize that.
To refresh -
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The current interpretation of those words by conservatives on the SCOTUS bears no resemblance to either the literal text or the intended meaning. So, my position is (and Scalia and Thomas agree) is that the word "infringe" doesn't mean what you think it means.
More specifically, SCOTUS, in its ruling, said "Case citation:
New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. ___ (2022).
Pin cite (slip opinion):
Look at Justice Thomas’s majority opinion, around the discussion distinguishing may-issue from shall-issue licensing. In the official slip opinion, this is in the section where he says that nothing in the Court’s holding should be taken to cast doubt on “shall-issue licensing regimes,” which often include things like:
background checks,
fingerprinting,
mental health records checks, and
“training in firearms handling and in laws regarding the use of force,”
so long as those systems are objective and not administered to deny ordinary citizens their rights.That you wish to make the first sentence of the amendment as important as the rest does not make it so. The judges made the right decision - the intended meaning was that government shall not infringe on the right to own weapons. Cannons were all right. mortars were all right. Automatic weapons were not that far away - certainly within the understanding and imagination of the writers - and were all right. We restrict all of these, and I find that all right. But you - you would restrict it to peashooters and BB guns and I do NOT find that all right. That you do it with the idea it will prevent deaths when you have examined that idea and KNOW better only makes it worse.
Another day and another mass shooting in America.
"Another campus, another night of terror: Brown University shooting traps students in a familiar nightmare" - The VOLUME of which is UNIQUE to America and its gun culture.
As an update, the guy they thought they caught for the Brown University killings apparently isn't and they started looking again.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/15/us/brown … -nightmareLooks like the NRA has a new enemy - Donald "the Felon" Trump.
"Gun rights groups and legal experts question Trump administration’s stance on the Second Amendment after shooting"
https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/26/politics … ooting-nraAnother day, another mass shooting; I have said that several times before. This time, as many are, it is in Texas.
"11 people shot, 1 killed in Texas mass shooting; suspect is found dead"
That makes AT LEAST 135 mass shootings (4 or more victims not counting the shooter) so far in 2026, almost one a day.
Texas, btw, has 14% of the shootings this year. If they were spread evenly among the states, it should be 2%.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/12/us/midla … ve-shooter
Only in America.Only in America. Only there will we steadfastly refuse to address the problem of violence in our country, preferring instead to pretend that an inanimate hunk of iron is the cause of all the deaths.
Sure - Texas should have the same number of violent deaths as Montana because, of course, the populations are about the same. Of that of Alaska or Wyoming. The logic is impeccable!Actually, you are right about my use of percentages based on number of states; it should have been based on population. That changes the magnitude a bit but not the conclusion. Instead of 14% vs 2%, it is 14% vs 9%.
Why do you refuse to understand that it isn't an "inanimate hunk of iron" that is the issue, it is the access to a hunk of iron whose ONLY purpose is to kill that is the problem; that is what sets America apart from most of the rest of developed nations.
It is impossible, try as you might, you can't get around the fact that when access to guns is taken out of the picture, then homicide rates become roughly comparable.
I'll use Canada as an example since it laws and customs are most similar to the US.
* Overall Homicide Rates: US - 5 per 100,000; Canada - 1.91 per 100,000
* Gun Homicide Rates: US - 4 per 100,000; Canada - .69 per 100,000
* NON-Firearm Homicide Rates: US - 1.2 per 100,000; Canada - 1.22 per 100,000
How can it be any clearer than that that Access to Guns is the deciding factor?And what you refuse to understand is that the killing is not coming from that chunk of iron; it is coming from that pile of gray matter atop the shoulders of the killer. That if guns are removed another tool will be used; that the tool does NOT make the violence.
It can be made very clear by examining the homicide rate vs gun ownership of the countries of the world. There is NO correlation between the two, and without correlation there is no causation. Playing games with numbers to "prove" that in the US guns cause deaths while in Canada they do not is silly; if the US had the gun ownership rate that Canada does there would be just as many deaths in the US as there are now. Experience world wide shows this whether you wish to look at it or not, whether you deny it or not.
Do not forget that for every pair of countries you produce showing more guns = more homicides I can produce two more pairs that show the opposite, that more guns in a country (per capita) = fewer deaths (per capita). This, too, you can deny until blue in the face but that does not make it false.Actually, it is coming from that "chunk of iron". It works like this. A human picks up a gun, puts a bullet in it, points it at someone, and fires. You see, the bullet came out of that gun and went into a person. Pretty simple really.
The ACCESS to that gun is the problem and what sets America aside from the rest of the civilized world.
Try producing that data you claim you have. It fails the common sense test. I am waiting.You failed to include the very first step in the process. A human being decides to kill someone.
Without that it won't happen. But if it is there it won't matter if the gun is there or not, for there are other weapons down to and including hands and feet (did you know there are more homicides with personal weapons {hands/feet} than there are with long guns {such as the horrific "assault rifle"}?).
So access to a gun isn't what kills. It is the brain atop the body.
You want me to prove two countries showing more guns = fewer homicides compared to the one you produced...without you producing one at all? Do your part first.You are never going to get around what the data shows - If a nation increases access to guns, their homicide rate will go up. The Canada-US example is clear evidence of that. That is where the evidence leads.
Maybe this will help. I have ChatGPT run a regression for me. This is what it found:
"When you run a simple regression across Western-oriented nations, using civilian guns per 100 people as a rough measure of access to firearms, there is a very strong relationship between gun access and homicide rates when the United States is included. In the illustrative sample I looked at, the R² was about .83, meaning gun prevalence explained roughly 83% of the variation in homicide rates.
That relationship becomes even more revealing when the United States is removed. Without the U.S., the relationship drops to weak-to-moderate — around R² = .12. That does not mean guns stop mattering. It means that among countries with relatively normal levels of gun ownership, other factors also matter: poverty, inequality, organized crime, alcohol, policing, social trust, illegal gun trafficking, and local violence patterns.
But put the United States back in, and the picture changes dramatically. America is not merely a little more armed than its peers; it is massively more armed. Its level of gun saturation is so far outside the Western norm that it drives much of the homicide difference. In that comparison, access to guns does not explain everything, but it pushes the other variables into the background. The U.S. is the case that shows what happens when ordinary social problems exist inside an extraordinarily gun-saturated society."
Further -
The study most directly on point is Hemenway & Miller, “Firearm Availability and Homicide Rates across 26 High-Income Countries”. They examined 26 high-income nations and asked whether the U.S. was just an exception or whether gun availability related to homicide more generally. Their finding was that, across developed countries, where guns were more available, homicide rates were higher, and Harvard’s summary notes that the result often held even when the United States was excluded.
Another international study, Killias, van Kesteren & Rindlisbacher, found positive correlations between household gun ownership and national homicide and suicide rates. Importantly for the “people will just use other means” argument, they reported no negative correlation between gun ownership and homicide or suicide by other means, meaning lower-gun countries were not simply “making up” the difference with knives, poison, or other methods.
There is also a broader literature review by Hemenway & Hepburn concluding that empirical studies across individuals, households, cities, states, regions, and nations generally find a statistically significant association between gun prevalence and homicide. The review is careful that the studies do not prove causation by themselves, but says the evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that higher gun prevalence increases homicide.
And the high-income-country mortality comparison is devastating for the U.S. case. Harvard’s summary of studies using WHO mortality data says that among populous, high-income countries, the U.S. homicide rate was about 7 to 7.5 times higher than other high-income countries, driven by a gun-homicide rate more than 25 times higher. That is exactly the pattern your argument predicts: the U.S. is not merely somewhat more violent; it is far more lethally armed.
There is some contrary or cautionary literature. A later cross-national study using a broader 55-nation sample found that gun levels had a significant positive bivariate correlation with homicide, but that the association disappeared after controlling for “violence-related cultural differences.” That does not destroy your point, but it is a reminder that the wider the international sample gets, the more confounding variables enter the model.
So the careful version of your argument would be:
There is research behind this. Cross-national studies of high-income countries have found that where guns are more available, homicide rates tend to be higher. Hemenway and Miller examined 26 high-income nations and found a positive relationship between firearm availability and homicide; Harvard’s summary notes that the relationship often remains even when the United States is excluded. Other international research has also found positive correlations between household gun ownership and homicide, without evidence that low-gun countries simply substitute other killing methods.
That fits the regression point. Outside the United States, gun access still matters, but other variables also matter. Once the United States is put back into the comparison, its extraordinary gun saturation makes it the dominant fact. The U.S. is not just a little more armed than other Western countries. It is radically more armed, and its homicide rate is correspondingly much higher, driven overwhelmingly by firearm homicide.
These studies support the claim; the U.S. is the extreme case; guns are not the only variable, but they are the variable that makes American violence uniquely lethal.If all this is true, how do we explain actual real world experience showing otherwise? How do we explain Australia confiscating all the automatic rifles, millions of them...and watching the homicide rate continue the same slow slide it had been on for years? How do we explain the total lack of correlation between gun ownership rates and homicide rates (never, ever forget to ignore anyone talking of "gun homicide" rates)? How do we explain the much higher rate of homicide by knife in Canada, if it isn't simply because guns are not so available?
If guns are necessary, how is it that there are more personal weapon (hands/feet) homicides than there are long gun killings?
"Other international research has also found positive correlations between household gun ownership and homicide"
I flat out do not believe this. Show me. Show me the data, show me the calculations as well as conclusions. And make D*** sure the conversation is not about "gun homicides"! I have looked - hard - for such data and...every...single...time...I find what purports to be proof, it turns out to be a treatise about "gun homicides"."If all this is true, how do we explain actual real world experience showing otherwise?" - We don't need to explain it because it doesn't show otherwise.
"How do we explain Australia confiscating all the automatic rifles, millions of them...and watching the homicide rate continue the same slow slide it had been on for years?" - First, that is non-factual and misleading. Australia did not “confiscate all the automatic rifles, millions of them.” After the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, Australia’s reforms targeted mainly semi-automatic rifles, semi-automatic shotguns, and pump-action shotguns, along with tighter licensing, registration, storage, and “genuine reason” requirements.
Second, the mandatory compensated buyback did not remove “millions” of firearms. The number was roughly 650,000 to 660,000 newly prohibited firearms — a large number, but nowhere near your claim.
Third, the central purpose was not simply to move the ordinary homicide trend line. It was to reduce access to the kinds of firearms that make mass shootings easier and deadlier. On that point, the result was dramatic. Australia had repeated fatal mass shootings before Port Arthur, then went more than a decade without one after the reforms. Later research also found no evidence that people simply substituted other killing methods at a level that erased the benefit!! - Strike One.
"How do we explain the total lack of correlation between gun ownership rates and homicide rates (never, ever forget to ignore anyone talking of "gun homicide" rates)? " - I am not sure that even makes sense. Are you asking people to IGNORE Access to Guns when analyzing Access to Guns vs Homicide rates? - I think this counts as Strike Two
Knives: Are you seriously trying to mislead us by trying to compare the 4.5 per 100,000 gun homicide rate in the US with the 0.61 per 100,000 knife homicide rate in Canada? Note, that even with the huge gun homicide rate in the US, our knife homicide rate of 0.46 is pretty close to Canada's which doesn't have a gun problem - Strike Three
Gun Homicides - So, you are telling people to simply ignore people dying from gunshot wounds? That is not really a very serious position, is it?And you don't think reforms targeting " semi-automatic rifles, semi-automatic shotguns, and pump-action shotguns' is pretty much the same as "confiscating all the automatic rifles, millions of them" (I did make an error in that it should have been semiautomatic, not automatic)?
That took a great many guns out of the hands of Aussies: why was there no corresponding big drip in homicide rates? If there is a correlation, why did it not show up?
Are you being intentionally obtuse? When talking of gun homicide rates as if it were the same thing as Homicide rates you think they are one and the same? Of course GUN homicide rates drop with the number of guns; even a 3 year old could figure that one out. That's why any discussion of GUN homicide rates is worthless in concluding that guns cause homicides.
Nope on the Canada thing. You are the one comparing Canada to the US. I only point out that when guns are not there another tool (knives maybe) will be used; that the homicide rate is much lower in Canada indicates a difference in psychology, not in the number of guns. Were it not so, if the psych was not involved, there would be nearly as many murders in Canada (with guns or other tools) as the US. Again, this was plainly shown in Australia with a massive fast drop in gun ownership but no change in the rate of decline in homicide rates.“that the homicide rate is much lower in Canada indicates a difference in psychology, not in the number of guns.”
What difference in “psychology”’? Where did you get that from and why and how the psychology is so different as you say comparing the US with Canada? We live on the same continent, why are the two countries so different to allow you to dismiss evidence with a rationale that you have yet to provide and support?
Resolving to use a tool specifically designed to kill may well need to be regulated because of this “psychological” difference.Also, what is it that Occam's razor says? The right answer is most often the simplest.
Do you really think Canadians are extremely similar to Americans in their psychology make up?
With their universal health care, with their almost universal insistence that their Government play the part of a nanny state with modern socialism ruling over all?
Do Canadians virtually worship the violent sports like UFC fighting and football? The like Hockey, but that's the only one I can think of that takes violence to that level. We, on the other hand, now have UFC fights on the White House lawn.
No, Credence, I think there is a world of difference in how Canadians think and live compared to Americans.
Plus, of course it is as Eso says; Occam's razor is usually spot on. It is far easier to think that there is a difference in attitude between the US and Canada than to think Americans look at a piece of dead iron and the sight turns them into raging killers. Of all the nations on Earth, the US ranks near the top for violence. Violence of any kind, not just killing.Because everyone in the world is "somewhat" similar. We all have one head and nearly all have 4 limbs. We all have a tongue and ears sticking out. We all have DNA.
So...extremely. As in identical thought processes, emotions and attitudes. Identical reactions to stimuli. Etc.So, there is no adjective between "somewhat" (which is the better descriptor) and "extreme" that works for you?
That helps explain your black/white, all or nothing worldview.
Yes, much of their governing philosophy is different than that of the United States and different from Europe as well. How is that connected to the tendency for those other societies to be less violent than the US?
Could it be that easy access to that “piece of dead iron” which has been the foundation of American society in a way not imitated anywhere is why Americans are relatively more violent?
Does the greed and competitiveness of a capitalistic society put people under pressure and bring out their worst, could that be it?
Even though Hong Kong has a capitalistic foundation, they are not particularly known for violence, but again there is not the foundation of easy access to firearms.
Because of the greater harmony, the more socialist tendencies of these other societies is an advance over own, is that possible?
Figured that was an error, so I let it go. But, what isn't an error is your claim of "millions" when it is not even close and it is beside the point anyway.
Please carefully read my response. There might not have been a discernable change in slope because that wasn't the point of the law now was it. Since that wasn't why the law was made, I didn't check out your claim.
Please show me where I said gun homicide rates were the same as total homicide rates (I assume that is what you mean by "homicide rates") I would think it would be obvious that death by gun is just one, albeit the most important, mechanism for homicides
Apparently you are the only one saying guns cause homicides, I certainly don't
"Of course GUN homicide rates drop with the number of guns; even a 3 year old could figure that one out."
As to Canadian psychology - you are going to have to prove that one because common sense says that would be the case to the extent you are claiming NOR DO studies that have compared psychologies.
I think you are simply grasping at straws throwing that one out there.
Bottom line, higher total homicide rates positively correlated with access to guns in a society. I have given you several studies that prove that while you have given me none to support your contention. Why is that? Because there aren't any."Bottom line, higher total homicide rates positively correlated with access to guns in a society."
And therein lies the problem. You are making a statement without truth in it, and refusing to back it up with hard data. I know it is not true, for I did a study myself...just as you did. And I found there was no correlation between gun ownership rates and homicide rates. You, too, found the same thing, but went on to say that you could not find that correlation, but you were sure it was there so the statement must be true. (This was from your hub, many years ago)
It was a startling conclusion to me, and one I had a hard time accepting, but I did. You did not, and have maintained the same thing ever since; that more guns results in more homicides even though you could not find a correlation between the two.
And so the discussion ends there, where it always has. I maintain that there is no correlation and offer to give two examples showing that more guns = FEWER homicides for every one you find that shows the opposite, and you back off and won't take me up on it. End of conversation, Eso, right where it always ends.Actually, if you read what is written with an open mind you would see the "hard data" that has been given you over the years. But you are so closed minded on the subject that you don't even recognize it when it is staring you in the face.
I have never seen a compilation of both homicide rates and, particularly, gun ownership rates, for countries worldwide except that which I did myself. Certainly you have never provide such.
It is true you tell us that data says this and data says that...but never provide the data. In addition, I have seen you insert GUN homicide data into a discussion of homicide rates; one of the reasons I am so hard on that particular "work around" to present false conclusions.
I saved the response to your very HYPOCRITICAL, and frankly lazy, "show me" demand for its own response since it is lengthy.
First, you should already know I don't purposefully share false data, I leave that to others. If you say I do - PROVE IT! Show me the data, show me the calculations as well as conclusions.
I had ChatGPT prepare this for you, since it is easy to do now.
The cleanest of MANY studies to cite is Hemenway & Miller, “Firearm Availability and Homicide Rates across 26 High-Income Countries.” Its dependent variable was total homicide rate, not gun homicide rate. The paper says it used homicide rates from 26 high-income / highly industrialized countries, and two gun-availability proxies: percentage of suicides committed with a firearm, and the “Cook index.” Its table lists total homicide rates by country, including the U.S., Canada, Australia, England/Wales, Japan, Germany, France, Switzerland, Finland, etc.
The calculations are right in their regression table:
Model Outcome variable Gun-availability measure Correlation Approx. R²
26 high-income countries Total homicide rate % of suicides with firearm 0.69 0.48
26 high-income countries Total homicide rate Cook index 0.74 0.55
Excluding U.S. Total homicide rate % of suicides with firearm 0.25 0.06
Excluding U.S. Total homicide rate Cook index 0.57 0.32
Those are not “gun homicide” outcomes. They are total homicide rates. Hemenway & Miller report that across the 26 developed countries, the correlation between the gun-availability proxy and total homicide rate was 0.69, and using the Cook index it was 0.74; when the U.S. was excluded, the Cook-index relationship remained significant with a correlation of 0.57
https://archive.org/stream/firearm-avai … _djvu.txt.
"Supreme Court limits power of federal government to disarm drug users"
Apparently the ruling is very narrow and limited to drugs that don't promote self-harm or harm to others. Pot doesn't fall into that category. Makes sense to me.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/18/politics … reme-courtDitto. If you are speaking of drugs that commonly promote violence or even theft it would seem different, but things like Pot, no.
Personally I would include those that include self harm but not any real potential harm to others as well. I detest the concept of a Nanny state, watching over all of us, making sure we act as the state thinks we should. Although I find Oregon to have an extremely pathetic attitude towards its citizenry, the assisted suicide law there is a step in the right direction.
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