In article <16BB8B194.R1328@vmcms.csuohio.edu> R1328@vmcms.csuohio.edu writes: >In article <1993Apr22.134330.9761@rti.rti.org> >jbs@rti.rti.org writes: >  >> >>In article <16BB7BA6A.R1328@vmcms.csuohio.edu> R1328@vmcms.csuohio.edu writes: >>>...Gun buyback programs will hopefully >>>have an impact on accidental shootings (especially youths), domestic >>>disputes where a gun is available in the heat of emotion and anger, and >>>maybe keep a few guns from being stolen and later used in street-level >>>crime. >> >>What gives you the idea that gun "buyback" programs will have an impact on >>any of these things?  Evidence, please? >> >> Please don't misinterret  what I was saying Joe.  I was making the point tha >there is NO evidence of effect of gun buyback programs but hopefully if >there is any effect it may prevent injuries or deaths in one of these types >of common incidents.  Saying "hopefully the effect of policy X will be Y" is *much* different from saying "hopefully if there is any effect of policy X it will be Y." Here you've made both statements. If the former describes a reasonably-likely outcome of policy X, then perhaps policy X is worthy of consideration - but the latter statement is not something to base policy decisions on!  > Firearms are the fifth-leading cause of unintentional deaths among children >ages 14 and under.  According to groups like the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence (formerly the National Coalition to Ban Handguns - interesting name change, don't you think?) who include murder and suicide by firearms in the "leading causes of unintentional death) figures but *don't* include murder and suicide by other means as causes of unintentional death.  Can't you see past the bullshit?  >  I don't understand how the ratio to other accidental >deaths is important.  So guns don't kill as many children as car accidents. >What is the difference in severity between 1,000 deaths and 10,000 deaths? >I am not trying to use accidental gun-related deaths among children as a >justification for gun control.  Who needs to be convinced that accidental >gun deaths of children is a serious problem?  I assumed that any humane >person would be concerned when any 10 year old got hold of their parents >gun from their bedroom drawer and accidently blew away one of their friends.  Certainly accidental deaths by any cause are serious things - but the anti-gun groups insist over and over again that accidental death by firearms is a *stastically serious problem*, and even if you don't use these deaths as a justification for gun control, these groups do.  I'm sorry if I jumped to conclusions about your reason for mentioning accidental deaths due to firearms being something that warranted concern, but in light of your statement that you are a staunch supporter of gun control measures, I think the conclusion was a reasonable one. The fact remains that tragic though individual accidental gun deaths may be, they are *not* a serious problem statistically speaking.  >>Please explain why you think "symbolic offerings" do good. >> > My point was, gun buyback programs which are almost always run by police >departments MIGHT (I stress might) do a LITTLE (I stress little) good by >giving people the impression that the police are attempting to respond >to interpersonal gun violence in a unique way.  Overall, I thought that I >had made it clear that I did not think that gun buyback programs were >useful.  Sorry if it wasn't clear to me.  I thought you were waffling on your view of buyback programs with the talk of symbolic offerings and hopefully preventing accidents and heat-of-passion shootings.  I have to disagree on all these counts; I can't understand how a buying guns from people who aren't intending to misuse them (obviously those who want to use guns to commit crimes aren't going to turn them in) could be construed as a positive way for police to respond to "interpersonal violence."  >>I suggest you go back and look at wherever you saw these "statistics" - I >>suspect you'll find if you look carefully that 135,000 is the number of >>students *estimated* to have carried *a weapon* (not necessarily a gun) >>to school at least once in the past year, and not the number of students >>who carry a gun to school daily. >> > Well Joe, I suggest that you talk to the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence  What, the people who publish figures saying that as many children commit suicide by HANDGUNS ALONE each year as the FBI says commit suicide by ALL METHODS per year?  Who do you think I should believe?  The people who call everyone up to age 24 "children" when they're screaming about the "carnage of our nation's children" being caused by handguns?  >or the Centers for Disease Control.  Ah, yes, the agency that considers accidental shootings of children to be such a statistical problem that a stated objective in the Healthy People 2000 document is to "enact laws in 50 states requiring manufacturers of handguns to make the handguns more difficult to fire, minimizing the likelihood of accidental or intentional dscharge by children?"  The agency that funded the "study" of DC which pronounced that the DC gun ban had saved X lives (yes, they actually gave us a number) on the basis of a look at the *number* of shootings rather than the *rate* of shootings? It wasn't their fault that the population of DC dropped in their "post law" period...   >  If YOU look carefully you will see >that YOU greatly underestimate the presence of guns in the lives of youths. >The CPHV reports that 135,000 youth bring GUNS to school DAILY and that >400,000 bring GUNS to school at least once a year.  The CDC estimates >that 1 out 0f 25 high school students carried a gun to school at least once >in 1990.  Okay, I'll concede I no longer have the numbers I once read on these.  I'll retract my dispute of your numbers.  However, I would be greatly interested in seeing how CPHV and CDC came up with these numbers.  >  The CDC also says that 1.2 million elementary-aged, latch-key >children (kids who come home from school to an empty house), have access >to guns in their home.  What's this got to do with anything?  Hell, when *I* was in elementary school I came home to an empty house with guns in it.  Why is this a problem?  I didn't touch the guns - I had been taught not to.  I had also been taught not to mess with the gasoline in the garage, the fuse box, the car, the knives, the oven, and the tools.  The problem is not the guns, it's the parents!!!  >  California schools reported a 200% increase in >student gun confiscations between 1986 and 1990, and a 40% increase between >1988 and 1990.  Florida reported a 61% percent increase in gun incidents in >schools between 1986/87 amd 1987/88.  These are the "statistics".  And what are these states doing with the kids they find with guns? NOTHING.  No criminal prosecution, no expulsion, in most cases not even suspension.  They take the gun, slap the kids on the wrist, say "ain't it awful," and go on as if everything's back to normal.  What's wrong with this picture?  > Okay, maybe I worded it wrong...DAD.  I meant that to put children in a >situation (fortified compound) where harm could come to them is not the >act of a Messiah in my opinion.  I'm not saying that Koresh had control over >these children directly, but I would hope that whatever Messiah there is >would not let innocent children die.  I don't think Koresh was the Messiah, either... but isn't it obvious that if he believed the forces of evil were come to destroy him, then he believed the children were much safer inside the compound?  I didn't say he was sane... just that he behaved in a pretty rational manner given what he thought was going on.  He thought he had them in the one place where harm *wouldn't* come to them.  >If as he claimed he was the Messiah and people followed him as such, why >did he not tell their parents to free the children instead of letting them >burn alive?  Let's see *you* try to find the exits, unbarricade them, and flee a fire when you've been kept awake for most of 50 days by loudspeakers and subjected to six hours of tanks knocking in your walls and tear gas assault.