It's been 2 weeks since the Parkland shooting. A lot has been said about it and like after every tragedy of this type the liberal MSM and Democratic politicians have been pushing for increase of the gun control. I think there should be an honest debate on how to alleviate the crime levels and the cases of mass shooting, specifically.

The humor and criticism included in this article are addressed at some of the ideas on how should the problem be dealt with, not at the all ideas how to deal with it nor at the victims of the tragedy that happened.

AR-15 is bad

The Stoneman Douglas High School shooting was perpertrated by with a semi-automatic Colt AR-15 rifle by a school's ex-student. This gun has been a target for MSM for quite a while and painted as particularly evil. I have to say, it looks scary and is USA's most popular gun of that type, although is not more deadly than other semi-automatic rifles available for civilians. No, the AR-15 is not like described in Seamus Coughlin's cartoon from 2016 "Support Gun Control You Child Hating Bigot!!", although I reccomend this video as a healthy dose of sattire and a counter to common anti-gun arguments. In addition to that, Seamus made in the last year another cartoon, mocking the idea of selective banning and lack of expertise of talking heads:

For a more factual approach (and not without a dose of humor) I reccomend a Steven Crowder's video:

The Crowder's clip includes a part of a viral video in which a man cuts the AR-15's barrel off (in his view rendering it useless, although it looked like an illegal modification for Steven). Looked like a really radical modification to me and I was doubtful is it functional, although after seeing a more radical modification I think it might be. Changes the message of the man, quite a bit. The message itself, "There are so many of them out there, but now there is one less", reminded me of one of my acts when I was a kid.

Young me and cigarettes

When I was 7, maybe 9yo, I hated tobacco smoke. I knew it's unhealthy and that cancer is no joke. I still don't like the smell and I am not a smoker, but I have a bit more balanced and rational approach than back then.

My uncle was a chain smoker. I was telling him smoking is bad and ain't cheap, multiple times, but he wouldn't quit. I thought I should act. Once I got access to an opened pack of my uncle's cigarettes and teared the few cigarettes remaining apart. I don't have to tell You that didn't "save" my uncle. I considered doing that until my uncle is motivated to quit, but I was talked out that's not the best idea.

I'd have the same comment on the past me as on that guy from viral video: "goal, perhaps, noble, but the means retarded".

Let's ban over 150 different guns

I don't know if the Democrats watched the "GUN CONTROL W PIERS AND CENK | FREEDOMTOONS" and treated the promise of the cartoon guy in a brown hat seriously, but surely they came prepared, when introducing a bill proposal to ban over 150 different guns. The proposed bill is commented on by The Red Elephants YouTube video:

I'm not a gun owner nor American, so I'll not comment much on it. I'll just add the link to US Mass Shootings, 1982-2018: Data From Mother Jones’ Investigation and an ilustration to the demand for guns peaking when the gun control debates peaks (from a CNN article)

Example from Australia

When talking about introduction of gun control, an example of Australia is often given. Let me cite a Vox article praising Australian legislation introduced in 1996.

Australian lawmakers responded with legislation that, among other provisions, banned certain types of firearms, such as automatic and semiautomatic rifles and shotguns. The Australian government confiscated 650,000 of these guns through a gun buyback program, in which it purchased firearms from gun owners. It established a registry of all guns owned in the country and required a permit for all new firearm purchases. (This is much further than bills typically proposed in the US, which almost never make a serious attempt to immediately reduce the number of guns in the country.)

Australia’s firearm homicide rate dropped by about 42 percent in the seven years after the law passed, and its firearm suicide rate fell by 57 percent, according to a review of the evidence by Harvard researchers.

The Australian legislation was more drastic than one described in the Democrat's proposal. How well did the Australian legislation work?

the drop in homicides wasn’t statistically significant because Australia already had a pretty low number of murders. But the drop in suicides most definitely was — and the results are striking.

I found few problems with that statement from the Vox article.

1. The graph shows drop in firearm suicide rates, that needs to be specified.
2. The firearm suicide rate was falling since late 80s at a pretty steady rate. Surely, there is a sharp dive from 1996 lasting a bit over a year, but I think that's understandable. There must've been some people whose all guns were declared illegal and got confiscated through the gun buyback program. I'm sure not all of them bought the legal guns right away, plus obtaining a permit also takes some time. But is 1996-2006 trend much different from 1987? Doesn't look like to me.
3. How does the total Australian suicide rate look like? If there is a drop in gun deaths, but total deaths don't change, what's the gain?
4. Lastly, the claim "the drop in homicides wasn’t statistically significant" is conflicted with another claim in the Vox article (this one by another researchers: "Australia’s firearm homicide rate dropped by about 42 percent in the seven years after the law passed") and the header of that paragraph ("The research shows that gun control works"). I think it's also important to look at all the homicides, not just gun ones. What would be the gain if gun homicides dropped, but total homicides raised by the same rate?

I've found a research paper sheding some light on the 3rd and 4th point. I leave the link to the full paper and I'll comment on 2 graphs from there.

It's hard to see a clear trend in the non-gun suicide rate, but it's easy to see the sharpest rise is from the same period as the strongest drop in the gun suicide rate - a short period after introduction of the 1996 bill. In fact, total suicide rate in that short period increased and it started dropping in later years.

How did the homicide rate look like?

The graph is pretty self-explanatory. I don't see any gain of 1996 legislation there.

Conclusion

The gun violence rates in USA are very high. The mass shootings are especially tragic and understandably they invoke lot of emotions. But when it comes to legislation, it's good to work on good solutions. I don't think that the suggested Democrat's legislation is a good one. Mass shooting statistics show quite large usage of guns other than semi- and full-automatic. I think it's naive to expect measurable effects given that:

1. Other guns are also deadly. Heck, If You saw the "We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)" (fictional) movie, it's not hard to imagine not only guns are and that the crux of the problem likely lies somewhere else.
2. Example of Australia, often used as a model for introduction of guns regulations in USA, doesn't look very effective when inspected from the right perspective.

In the next article, I'll try to look at the crux of the problem, as mentioned in 1) above. Stay tuned!