Firearms: Gun Control

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

The primary question here is how this applies to gun control. does the decrease in weapons lead to an increase in crime? The Peltzman effect does not directly apply, but I think a similar effect will take place. Sure, there may be an increase in violent crime, but I expect it to be less significant than the number of lives saved by gun control.

But you've got to realize how ridiculously broad of a statement that is. Take a look at that phrase: "safety measure." That can be nearly anything. Posting signs saying "be safer, please, if you want" is a "safety measure," as is locking everyone in airtight lead coffins. If you were looking at this issue with no other information and no familiarity with humankind in general, there is no way you could say, "I don't even know what's being proposed, but it's relevant to safety, and therefore it can't possibly be counter-effective." I sincerely hope that you expect the net number of lives to be positive for some reason besides "it's a safety measure."
Similarly, you can't say that the Peltzman Effect dictates that all attempts, anywhere, to make something safer will be necessarily in lesser part counter-effective. It's something that happens sometimes, with different degrees of severity, and isn't meant to be applied so globally. The only mention of it I've made is that I think it's happening in this issue, obviously with the understanding that it doesn't happen consistently like some universal law.
"Here's something we need to watch out for, because I think it's happening in this specific instance" is the only point I've been making. Otherwise, I'd be radically opposed to all safety features on anything, since I'd believe that all of them result in more deaths. I'd have to be campaigning to make everything as dangerous as possible for your post to apply to my position.

The facts and figures I've seen lead me to believe that, for the most part, propositions from the gun control lobby are misguided, and they are unknowingly hurting themselves, like a panicked animal trying to force its way through a barbed wire fence instead of dealing with the issue properly.
You can see the same thoughtlessness in a kid with his finger in a Chinese finger trap.
Compare:
Kid: "Ow, this hurts! Get my finger out! Pull harder!"
Grown-up: "Hey, calm down now. You're just going to make it worse. You have to push your finger in a bit if you want to get it out."
Kid: "Push it back in? But it's hurting my finger! Pull harder! Pull harder!"
...with:
Gun Control: "Guns kill people! Make them illegal!"
Gun Rights: "Well hold on, now... Guns in the wrong hands kill people. Guns in the right hands are very good at saving lives and deterring crime altogether."
Gun Control: "You want more guns? Are you insane? They kill people!! Make guns illegal!"
This isn't to say that all conversations are like this, as both sides have their experts and their morons. But most of it is, and our laws are made by the decisions of "most."

[SlappyMcGee]

I'm not sure what the right hands are, though.

[jinxed_07]

I'm not sure what the right hands are, though.

That would be anybody without bad intentions, or any person who doesn't have the 'wrong hands'

[jean-luc]

The primary question here is how this applies to gun control. does the decrease in weapons lead to an increase in crime? The Peltzman effect does not directly apply, but I think a similar effect will take place. Sure, there may be an increase in violent crime, but I expect it to be less significant than the number of lives saved by gun control.

But you've got to realize how ridiculously broad of a statement that is. Take a look at that phrase: "safety measure." That can be nearly anything. Posting signs saying "be safer, please, if you want" is a "safety measure," as is locking everyone in airtight lead coffins. If you were looking at this issue with no other information and no familiarity with humankind in general, there is no way you could say, "I don't even know what's being proposed, but it's relevant to safety, and therefore it can't possibly be counter-effective." I sincerely hope that you expect the net number of lives to be positive for some reason besides "it's a safety measure."
Similarly, you can't say that the Peltzman Effect dictates that all attempts, anywhere, to make something safer will be necessarily in lesser part counter-effective. It's something that happens sometimes, with different degrees of severity, and isn't meant to be applied so globally. The only mention of it I've made is that I think it's happening in this issue, obviously with the understanding that it doesn't happen consistently like some universal law.
"Here's something we need to watch out for, because I think it's happening in this specific instance" is the only point I've been making. Otherwise, I'd be radically opposed to all safety features on anything, since I'd believe that all of them result in more deaths. I'd have to be campaigning to make everything as dangerous as possible for your post to apply to my position.

The facts and figures I've seen lead me to believe that, for the most part, propositions from the gun control lobby are misguided, and they are unknowingly hurting themselves, like a panicked animal trying to force its way through a barbed wire fence instead of dealing with the issue properly.
You can see the same thoughtlessness in a kid with his finger in a Chinese finger trap.
Compare:
Kid: "Ow, this hurts! Get my finger out! Pull harder!"
Grown-up: "Hey, calm down now. You're just going to make it worse. You have to push your finger in a bit if you want to get it out."
Kid: "Push it back in? But it's hurting my finger! Pull harder! Pull harder!"
...with:
Gun Control: "Guns kill people! Make them illegal!"
Gun Rights: "Well hold on, now... Guns in the wrong hands kill people. Guns in the right hands are very good at saving lives and deterring crime altogether."
Gun Control: "You want more guns? Are you insane? They kill people!! Make guns illegal!"
This isn't to say that all conversations are like this, as both sides have their experts and their morons. But most of it is, and our laws are made by the decisions of "most."

My opposition was to the handling of the Peltzman effect as 'fact' by certain posters. Doing so is dangerous in the wild world of Economics. The examples I cited were all related to vehicular safety measures, because they are the most cited example of the Peltzman Effect. I think the Peltzman Effect, and it's validity or invalidity, has broad implications. It is a fundamental question - do people use safety features as an excuse to be less safe? clearly this is a complicated issue, as there is a broad range of safety measures and human perceptions of them, but it nonetheless has a core factor.

Speaking of gun control measures, the study by Lindgren and Stuart raises an interesting issue. They discuss how measures such as a reduction in speed limits result in an increase of safety regardless of the peltzman effect, because they induce slower driving without encouraging more reckless behavior (at least, not significantly). On the other hand, measures like mandatory seatbelts could potentially create a tendency to drive more recklessly.

A similar differentiation exists with gun control. Measures that make people percieve guns as safer (gun safes, trigger/ammo locks, etc...) may induce the Peltzman effect while measures that reduce danger in a definite way (the elimination of guns) will not. That seems to leave the elimination of guns as the clear choice. There is, of course, the obvious response to that - if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. Let's realistically consider the number of lives that guns have saved vs. taken. I'm talking out of my ass here, but I'm confident that we'll find that guns have taken over twice as many lives as they have saved. I can't seem to find any data on this, so...

I'm also extremely skeptical of the "deterring crime" argument, especially since moves to keep gun license records out of the public eye seem to directly contradict this. but this aside, I seriously doubt violent (or any, really) criminals are seriously considering the potential of a victim possessing a weapon in the majority of cases. Once again, though, I have no data on this.

Can anyone find data on this? because the argument seems to hinge on it.