LogFAQs > #896528092

darkknight109 posted...

I see a gun rate that was holding fairly steady for twenty odd years, experienced a drop between '87 and '95, which then started to climb again.

That is an oversimplification. The numbers went up and down for years before they began a downward trend prior to the enactment of gun control legislation.

darkknight109 posted...

Correlation does not imply causation doesn't mean what you think it does, judging by how you're using it. It means that if A & B are shown to be linked then that doesn't mean A causes B (B could cause A, for instance, or a third factor could lead to both A and B). You're not suggesting that gun laws are correlated with lower crime rates but aren't causing them (because there's not really a good explanation for that - decreased crime rates don't cause gun laws and there isn't any third factor I can think of that would lead to both a decrease in crime and an increase in gun laws happening concordantly).

What you're arguing is that gun laws and crime decreases AREN'T correlated - that it's just a coincidence that gun laws were passed at the same time that gun rates started dropping. And I'm sorry, but the amount of data suggesting otherwise simply does not lead me to support that conclusion. Not in the States and not globally.

I am sorry, but I think you are the one who doesn't understand this term. I have agreed there is a correlation. But just because there is a correlation between gun laws and gun homicides, that does not mean that the gun laws caused the gun homicides to drop. It is a complex issue with many factors in play besides gun control laws, as shown by the fact they were already declining by the time gun control laws were enacted. By assuming that the correlation does indeed mean causation, I'm afraid you are committing the very logical fallacy you are claiming I don't understand.

darkknight109 posted...

Was there? Firearm homicide rate for the 10 years prior to 1991 were 0.80, 0.99, 0.88, 0.89, 0.86, 0.67, 0.76, 0.63, 0.80, and 0.71. That's an average of 0.80 over that time frame (standard deviation of 0.1). In the 10 years after, we see rates of 0.87, 0.68, 0.68, 0.60, 0.71, 0.64, 0.50, 0.54, 0.60, and 0.55. Average is 0.64, SD is once again 0.1.

The average does not tell the whole story. If you look at your numbers, they were consistently dropping prior to gun control being enacted. Stating the numbers continued dropping after gun control was passed does not prove that gun control laws caused the drop.

darkknight109 posted...

and that compared to the US there was not a significant problem with gun violence.

Compared to the US nobody has a significant problem with gun violence. That's exactly the point.

If you're using that as your metric, you're going to have a difficult time doing much analysis because you're working with a sample size of one.

This discussion started because I stated that countries with successful gun laws did not have a significant problem with gun violence prior to enacting those laws. So yes, it is precisely the point that the US has far worse problems with gun homicides.