Tornado Alley (PROG)

[blackhawks]

Your argument, as usual, is specious and consequently unsupported by data. I've posted this before, un-responded to by you and by other opposed to expanded background checks and assault weapons bans.

NO one who is in favor of those measures argues that they would prevent all mass shootings.

Also, NO one argues that because DUI laws do not prevent all drunk driving accidents and fatalities that those laws should be loosened much less eliminated.

The facts are not on your side.


Here Are 12 Facts We Know About Gun Violence, According to Science

MORGAN MCFALL-JOHNSEN & AYLIN WOODWARD, BUSINESS INSIDER

13 AUG 2019

https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-which-factors-are-and-aren-t-linked-with-gun-violence-according-to-science

6. Permissive gun policies are also associated with more shooting deaths, researchers have found.

For a study published in March in the medical journal BMJ, researchers assigned each of the 50 US states an aggregate "firearm laws score", ranging from zero (completely restrictive) to 100 (completely permissive). The scores accounted for 13 factors, including gun-permit requirements, whether and where guns can legally be carried and kept, and whether state laws ensure a right to self-defence.

The results suggested that a 10-unit increase in the permissiveness of state gun laws – according to the scoring system – was associated with an 11.5 percent higher rate of mass shootings.

What's more, every state's score shifted toward greater permissiveness from 1998 to 2014.

By contrast, Switzerland, which has high gun ownership but hasn't seen a mass shooting in 18 years, has strict gun policies including rigorous licensing procedures (including training) and restrictions on who can buy guns.

7. Studies have also found a link between more gun purchases and higher rates of accidental gun deaths.

In December 2012, a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. The tragedy gave rise to calls for gun-control regulation, which led to a now predictable phenomenon: People bought more guns.

With a sales spike of 3 million more guns in the months after the Sandy Hook shooting, the rate of accidental deaths related to firearms rose, especially among children, according to a study published in the journal Science. The researchers calculated that 40 adults and 20 children died as a result of those additional gun purchases.

9. There's also a clear link between assault weapons and gun-massacre deaths. After Congress let a 1994 ban on assault weapons expire in 2004, gun massacres increased by 183 percent, and associated deaths went up 239 percent.

The 1994 policy prohibited Americans from buying military-style firearms with high-capacity magazines, which enable shooters to discharge many rounds of ammunition in a short amount of time. After the assault-weapons ban went into effect, the number of deaths from gun massacres – defined as shootings in which at least six people die – decreased by 43 percent, as the researcher Louis Klarevas reported in his book "Rampage Nation".

When Congress let the ban expire, the opposite trend was observed.

Most gun deaths in the US are suicides and do not involve assault weapons. But most of the deadliest mass shootings in recent US history involved a military-style weapon with a high-capacity magazine.

10. Researchers and policy experts think a new ban on assault weapons could reduce mass-shooting deaths.

In 2016, The New York Times asked 32 gun-policy experts to rank the effectiveness of policy changes for reducing deaths from mass shootings on a scale from one to 10.

The experts gave an average score of 6.8 to an assault-weapons ban, a semiautomatic-gun ban, and a high-capacity-magazine ban – the highest score of the 27 policies surveyed.

"Nearly every mass shooting illustrates that large-capacity magazines can increase the death toll and that forcing a shooter to reload more frequently can provide opportunities for counterattack by those around," John Donohue, who researches mass shootings at Stanford University, previously told Business Insider.

He added: "Accordingly, a ban on high-capacity magazines is absolutely essential if one wants to reduce the loss of life from active-shooter scenarios."

11. A lack of background checks is also associated with higher rates gun violence.

States that have stricter background-check laws for gun purchases have fewer school shootings, and some show reduced gun-homicide rates overall.

A 2018 study published in BMJ looked at 154 school shootings from 2013 to 2015 and found that states with background-check policies had fewer such events. States that spent more money on education and mental-health care also had lower rates of school shootings.

Another study from 2015 found that a 1995 Connecticut law requiring gun buyers to get permits that involved background checks was associated with a 40 percent reduction in gun homicides.

By contrast, a study found that after Missouri repealed its permit-to-purchase law (which included a background-check requirement) in 2007, the change was associated with a 23 percent increase in gun homicides.

Research from the nonpartisan Rand Corporation estimates that universal background-check policies, which would mandate background checks for all firearm sales and transfers (including between private parties), could prevent 1,100 gun homicides a year.