Name:	copperline -	Reply
Subject:	Dr. John Lott's research
Date:	1/11/2013 10:41:10 AM

Well, i haven’t read the book but i did look into some of Lott’s work.  He has an impressive set of academic credentials and makes his case strongly.  No doubt about it.  

i found some of his conclusions to be either incredibly different from what you would expect, so much so that i have to wonder about how he reached them.   But he is a whiz with statistical analysis, far beyond my ability to break down and undermine his assessments with my own flimsy knowledge of mathematical techniques.   i did find a number of published experts who disputed his methods and conclusions.

A couple of things stand out to me though.   1) He has concluded that gun user training has little to no effect on gun safety and crime.   To me, this suggests that an armed person with no training could be just as effective as a policeman.   How could that be true?   2) He concludes that criminals will be deterred by a sure and certain knowledge that their victim is armed.   This may apply to criminals who contemplate their actions, but probably wouldn’t have the same effect on the large number of impulsive criminal acts or violent reprisals over perceived slights, certainly no effect on someone who is psychotic.  

i have tried to imagine what the theatre in Aurora Colorado would have been like if several people in the audience had been armed.   in the darkness & confusion, shots fired would be impossible to distinguish from the real shooter….likely resulting in people ‘returning fire’ in any direction they heard or saw gunfire coming from.  it would have created a free for all with multiple shooters firing at each other.

But OK, let’s assume that Lott is right in all his conclusions about gun ownership reducing crime.  Does it follow then that the larger the weapon, the more lethal, the higher rate of fire & velocity, large magazines, etc proportionately increase the positive effects he is describing?     is there no limit to this reasoning at all?  is there any point where a reasonable person would conclude ‘you just don’t need a gun like that one’?

Name:	copperline -	Reply
Subject:	Dr. John Lott's research
Date:	1/11/2013 12:14:28 PM

it’s more complicated than that to me.   Training makes a policeman more effective at managing violence, a skill set not easily learned but critical to how they do their job… and whether they get to go home at the end of each shift.   One hopes that a cop has the experience & knowledge to de-escalate a situation far better than my Aunt Harriet & Uncle Barney.   Thinking that training has no effect on safety and outcomes is just beyond my belief.  if that were the case, then there would be no need for a 14 yr old to get gun safety instruction at the beginning of hunting season, because he is just as likely to shoot his little brother with or without the guidance.

My thinking is that this problem is so complicated that we will have to chip away with improvements in several areas… like mental health, violence in the culture… lots of different facets contribute to the destructiveness of gun violence.     Since impulsive behavior and poor judgment are strong contributors to the problem, you have to try to address them too.

i think about it this way:  if you were an alcoholic who was trying to stop drinking, would you be more or less likely to relapse if you kept a bottle of Bourbon in the kitchen?        People with anger management problems are like that, too.   Easy access to weapons makes them seem like a solution if your judgment is already compromised by emotion or intoxication.   Would the positive effects of having to delay use of a gun…giving me time cool off….. outweigh the rare event of a surprise attack by a home invader?

But i don’t want to broaden this to a discussion of ALL guns.  For purposes of continuing, i’ll concede Dr. Lott’s arguments (for now) and restate the question:   if gun ownership generally makes us more safe, then does increasing the lethality of weapons we own just keep adding to our safety & security?   Are there any limits to that reasoning?

Name:	copperline -	Reply
Subject:	Thanks once again for looking into it
Date:	1/11/2013 12:53:46 PM

i can appreciate what you are saying about the need to explore the trends in culture & various societies that contribute to increased violence.   When you move to that level of this discussion, however, we move toward abstract realms and farther away from concrete decisions.  Still, i'm all for understanding the broad context of a problem.

For my part, i would say that population density is probably contributing to the up-tick in global violence, along with the de-humanizing effects of media, and a growing sense of that each of us is disconnected from ( and suspicious of) people who don’t see things the same way we do.

But that’s just my POV on a really large & complicated problem.

i would add another category of politicians who are (or would be) concerned about gun violence though:   Gabby Giffords, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, George Wallace, Martin Luther King, John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Jim Brady.   interesting to note that they pretty well represent the whole political spectrum.

Are there any limits on guns that seem reasonable to you?

Name:	copperline -	Reply
Subject:	On Mental Disorders
Date:	1/11/2013 9:23:04 PM

i couldn’t agree with you more, a required mental health evaluation isn’t going to work very well in the real world.   For one thing, it would require some mental health professional or MD to sign off on each gun purchaser.  it would be foolhardy for one of those professionals to go on record testifying to your future mental health conditions, attorneys everywhere would be waiting to sue the clinician who approved a shooter…. So most  clinicians would probably have to refuse on the grounds that malpractice insurance companies will drop them if they did.      Your psychological record would become the property of the licensing state agency.  And past mental health history would become known, current conditions would become a red flag.   You could find yourself explaining to a stranger all those youthful indiscretions we wouldn’t want the kids to know about.

All that just to buy a gun for a dove hunt?  People won’t go for it, & i don’t think mental health evaluations are the tool we want to rely on to reduce gun violence.     Come to think about it, i bet we could ALL agree that government required psychological evaluations for licenses is probably not a good idea.    

BTW, i’d say it’s extremely unlikely that these psychological evaluations would be covered by ObamaCare.  Just guessing, because i can't be absolutely sure......   ;)