Reply #88: oh look, it's a grapefruit [View All]

not to mention
that the CDC study was from 1982-85, and was completely
focused on 50 Ohio inmate interviewees ...

Yeah, well, except I did mention it; I deliberately copied and pasted lines expressing the caveat about the data and conclusions.

The fact is that the kind of homicide examined in the study is a very common kind of homicide, and was the kind of homicide I happened to be talking about.

No mention of assessing whether the firearm was legally owned.

Uh ... that would be because whether the firearm was legally owned was completely fucking irrelevant to the point I was making. Do you *try* to follow?

The issue was READY ACCESS TO a firearm.

Ready access to firearms is one thing that firearms control measures are meant to restrict, and those measures are virtually absent in the US.

The issue in the study was the ACCESS to firearms. Whether stricter firearms control measures would reduce access to firearms, and would have eliminated the firearm in the situations in the cases studied, is an entirely separate question from the question considered in the study.

The data examined in the study, and conclusions reached from it, might be useful in deciding whether access to firearms *should* be more restricted, and what measures might be useful for that purpose. But whether the firearms in those cases were legally owned simply had no more to do with the purpose of the study that, oh, the price of tea in China.

But I give up: how do YOU think it was relevant?

"Less than half the offenders reported owning the firearm; only 26% reported that the weapon was purchased from a licensed dealer."

So ... whatever firearms control there is in the US, it doesn't seem to be working to prevent people from getting hold of firearms illegally. Would that be a reasonable aim of firearms control measures?

But whoa; I thought there was "no mention of assessing whether the firearm was legally owned". Somebody seems to be flying off in all directions, and I just can't follow that lead.

And again, do let's remember: these weren't drug dealer homicides; these were household homicides. Good of you to quote all those selection criteria; did you have a point?

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