gun control students moms demand action
(AP Photo/Phil Sears)

While the Democrats’ package came partially in response to last year’s mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs, researchers agree that it is difficult to measure policies’ effectiveness in reducing mass shootings. While highly visible, mass shootings are statistically rare, and policy solutions aimed at preventing them largely rely on anecdotal evidence or speculation on how a previous event could have been prevented.

“As you get to these really emotionally charged incidents and people are really groping for solutions, it’s hard to hear that the evidence is inconclusive,” said Rosanna Smart, the co-director of the RAND Corporation’s Gun Policy in America Initiative, which studies various firearm policies. “It may be that there is a lot of uncertainty about whether policies may be effective in preventing mass shootings specifically, but that doesn’t mean we should stop trying.”

“No strong evidence of effect is not the same as evidence of no effect,” Smart added. “Just because current evidence is inconclusive doesn’t mean that policies are ineffective and that you shouldn’t try them. Small changes in gun deaths are massive from a social cost perspective.”

Most of the research conducted on gun-control policies has focused on whether they reduce firearm-related suicides and homicides. Experts generally agree that there is low to moderate evidence that policies like waiting periods and minimum age purchasing requirements reduce mortality from gun violence, especially suicides. …

Mark Gius, an economics professor at Quinnipiac University who has studied minimum age laws, said that the policy’s effectiveness in reducing homicides and overall crime levels has not been the focus of robust research, which has instead been assessed for its potential to reduce youth suicide.

“The effect on overall crime may be minimal. For suicides, there may be a good effect,” he said. “Typically, a lot of suicides aren’t planned in advance. They are spur of the moment things. So if someone tries to go buy a gun and they are prevented because of an age restriction, it may help with that.”

At the same time, however, Gius noted that many young people between 18 and 21 years old who want to buy a gun probably grew up around firearm culture and might already have access to a gun without purchasing it themselves.

“I think the effects (on suicide) would be minimal, to be honest,” he said.

— Sara Wilson in Colorado Democrats Say Gun Bills Will Reduce Violence. Here’s What Experts Say.

51 COMMENTS

  1. It’s all part of the plan: Let criminals run rampant, then tell the gullible that it’s all because of guns. No one said that disarming America would be painless!

    • Absolutely Paul. It’s the Owned Democratic Party acting in behalf of their Master Soros and Company. The DemonRats are attacking everything from Family values, Disarmament, Open Borders, Banking, Cloth Shots in order to bring America to its knee’s.

  2. So the party that releases violent repeat felons, discourages bail, wants to defund the police, refuses to enforce the nations border, promotes assisted suicide as healthcare and wishes to legalize self-medication into oblivion allegedly cares about crime and suicide.

    They obviously don’t care about crime or suicide. They just want the guns.

    • “promotes assisted suicide”

      Heck, they promote suicide in general. Their policies are squeezing people, and making them miserable. They promote LGBT∞ conversion therapy for straight children under the guise (LIE) that we have to affirm whatever the children want or they’ll commit suicide. That is a flat out lie and the opposite of reality. LGBT∞ youth are MUCH more likely to commit suicide than normal people. Yes, it’s normal vs. abnormal. Go read the definitions. Your coddling euphemisms aren’t helping. Maybe, just maybe, creating an alternate universe where reality doesn’t matter isn’t such a good idea after all. Maybe we shouldn’t be setting our children up for failure. Nah, it’ll be fine…

      Why are suicide rates up? Why is life expectancy dropping? Why aren’t they taking a serious look at these issues? They aren’t using their job to even attempt to make life better for citizens. They’re actively doing the opposite in every possible way. Firearm sales and ownership are nothing more than a convenient scapegoat.

      • @Dude They’re committing suicide at a higher rate because they believe they have no way to live in our society because of close-minded, bigoted, judgy assholes like you.

        • lol. Most will never encounter a close-minded, bigoted, judgy asshole IRL. Even if they did no amount of regs or laws can stop somebody from thinking what they think or feeling what they feel. Therefore it is on you to feel good about yourself.

          Their problem is they can’t escape the mirror. All the surgery’s and all the hormones in the world won’t turn you into anything but a freak. Physical manifestations of mental illness.

          So now we gotta fuck up all these kids fast. Before they figure out who they really are. Like recruiting Jehovahs Witnesses. The more you can convince to join up the better you feel about the choice you’ve made for yourself. Worst case scenario you can all be disfigured freaks together. Misery does love company.

          You will not pass. You will never pass no matter how often your Reddit buddies tell you you will. And that’s not the fault of any judgy bigot. That’s reality.

        • And of course you have just demonstrated your deep understanding of respecting other people’s opinions besides your own reverse bigotry. You folks are all alike, your way or the highway. Unfortunately, those of us who actually can still think for ourselves do.

        • Haha, I knew I would trigger some shallow lefty who’s too big of a coward to put up their name, and have a conversation beyond calling me names. Words have meaning. Look them up. No wonder you guys(?) are okay with surgical and chemical castration. You have no use for your own balls, so you project that feeling onto others. Oh the irony of the constant name calling. It’s no different than the illegal immigration conversation. You have to accept unlimited illegal immigration or you’re a [fill in various insults]. They’re incapable of having a conversation beyond regurgitating tired talking points.

          They’re committing suicide at a higher rate because they believe they have no way to live in our society because of close-minded, bigoted, judgy assholes like you.

          Except there is zero proof of that being the reason. It’s completely made up. It’s nothing more than emotional blackmail. Now there is proof of that particular demographic having a higher suicide rate, which I clearly stated. They aren’t just “accepted” more now than they used to be, they’re freaking celebrated! If they had it so tough, then why do they wear their official sexual deviancy badge and flag everywhere they go? It’s almost like they aren’t worried about not being “accepted.” Why is the White House spokesperson constantly bragging about how many alphabet crew members work there? Why is it everywhere you turn in pop culture? They’re actively recruiting new members into a demographic with a high suicide rate. Now why would you do that if you cared about the well-being of others? Of course you wouldn’t do that. They’re doing it because it increases their power. They’re trying to make it into another Democrat-supporting coalition. “If you don’t vote for me, then you ain’t gay!”

          Everyone deals with rejection, etc. If that was the only reason for suicide, then conservatives would be dropping like flies. Ask anyone living in a left wing environment if it’s easier to come out as gay, trans, etc. or as a conservative.

        • What, you mean a ” . . . close-minded, bigoted, judgy assholes like you . . . “???? Since you presume to judge Dude based on his comment, please highlight the SPECIFIC language that is “close- minded” (learn English, child, it is properly rendered “closed-minded”) and “bigoted”. Or, just STFU and go away; either works, you snowflake @$$clown.

      • Many of the drug laws have made it very hard on people with chronic pain to live normal lives. People that have survived for decades with opiates are being cut down to the point they do not function – like even be able to go to the store or bank.
        I wonder how many people in this situation have chosen suicide over pain?

        • My cousin’s wife has terminal cancer and she’s only 45. Probably has 3-6 months to live. She was able get permission for medical cannabis and says the pain relief is such she’s able to live mostly normally.

        • paul, And your solution is? Don’t you consider addiction to be a national problem?

  3. With regard to the cited comments from Rosanna Smart in the article , sounds like a lot of spin by someone attempting to validate their position/work.

    • Chiseled Historical Data shows Gun Control in any shape, matter or form is Rooted in racism and genocide.

      The above is the reason Gun Control zealots have Gun Owners chasing around everything but the History of Gun Control…

      If Gun Control zealots had nothing to hide you would not hear anything coming from Gun Control zealots but the SHOUTING about how Gun Control SAVED MILLIONS from slavery, genocide, etc. Of course it would be a cold day in hell before they could ever say anything like that.

      • Another point seldom mentioned is that it was black Africans who captured their own black people from different tribes and sold them to the European slave traders for money, goods and wealth. Funny how all those people telling everyone else they are racists never mention that? Just like today if you have enough money and wealth there are many people willing to compromise their ethical and moral values for it.

        • At that time a white person going into the African interior would be dead from some disease in a matter of weeks to months at most. White people stayed on the coast and traded with those who enslaved their neighbors.

          Real history is inconvenient to certain narratives. Funny how nothing is said about the Arab slave trade in Africans which was still happening in the 20th century.

          And today their are more subtle forms of slavery such as the treatment of “guest workers” in Bahrain and the wage slavery of Philippinoes, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Indians, and others working in the middle east.

        • Comment awaiting moderation?

          Because I dared to mention inconvenient truths about historical and modern sl@very?

        • People enslaved others because they could. White people enslaving black people was a small sliver in time compared to historical enslavement, yet you would think that was all that ever happened if you listen to CRT, etc. Most of history involved people enslaving their same race simply because that’s who was nearby and available.

          Once slavery was abolished in the US, corporations had no issue essentially enslaving the poor, including children, to work for them. Why did they do it? Because they could. Racism didn’t factor into the equation.

        • “Funny how nothing is said about the Arab slave trade…”

          That’s because they can’t gain power by making white people feel guilty about that.

        • Southern,

          “Funny how nothing is said about the Arab slave trade in Africans which was still happening in the 20th century.”

          Uh, yeah, about that . . . while it is technically illegal, now, there is active slave trade occurring on most continents, today. Just like there is active trade in “illegal” guns. And “illegal” drugs. And prostitution. And, and, and. If there is a human need/desire, a market WILL develop to address it.

          Slavery has been practiced by literally every culture in history, including our own. The fundamental evil that leads to slavery is the evil lie that it is EVER permissible to compel another person to act at your direction against their will.

  4. So tired of listening to the bleating of the Democrat sheep who look at a dog and see a vicious wolf and then whine when someone tries to shove some vicious wolf into a cage. If you vote Democrat, I have no sympathy for whatever a vicious criminal does to you. You should have considered the consequences of your vote, or stayed home and let smarter people handle matters beyond your meager abilities.

  5. “Typically, a lot of suicides aren’t planned in advance. They are spur of the moment things. So if someone tries to go buy a gun and they are prevented because of an age restriction, it may help with that.”

    Well, its true that a lot are not planned in advance and may be spur of the moment things but its even more true that a lottttt are. There are literally multiple millions of people right now, and every day, participating in groups, and on the internet in forums, dedicated in some way to advancing suicide as a right of an individual to choose where these people purposely seek out the best way to end their lives and that is planning in advance even for those spur of the moment people that participate.

    And we already have age restrictions, yet, there is really no evidence it has helped with suicides. In fact, we have all sorts of restrictions in laws for not only gun stuff but other things that have not helped with suicides. For example, 100,000 people annually use drug overdose and over 80% of them procure their drug illegally – restrictions in law for procuring drugs did nothing to help.

    This thing about a person is ‘more likely to commit suicide and be at risk of suicide if there is a gun available’ is a myth created by anti-gun. People are driven to suicide by a mental health illness condition of some type caused by something, it could be despair or hopelessness or depression or a terminal disease or any number of things and it can be transitory or temporary or a longer term mental illness condition but a mental health illness condition it is.

    A person at risk of suicide is at risk of suicide if a gun is available or not, the risk does not suddenly appear because a gun is available like anti-gun wants people to believe. A person at risk of suicide is not less likely to not attempt to commit suicide simply because a gun is not available because a person at risk of suicide is at risk of suicide if a gun is available or not.

    The mental health community overall has been basically screaming this for years – A person at risk of suicide is at risk of suicide, period, no matter if a method is available or not.

    “At the same time, however, Gius noted that many young people between 18 and 21 years old who want to buy a gun probably grew up around firearm culture and might already have access to a gun without purchasing it themselves.”

    Well, “probably” might be a bit of a stretch in an ‘immersive culture’ sense unless you include movies and TV and video games in which case it could be said young people between 18 and 21 years old who want to buy a gun probably grew up around firearm culture as a result of those.

    But aside from that there is the internet. And on the internet are places where millions of young people between 18 and 21 years old participate every day to find the best method to end their lives and can by contacts through those various forums that advocate for suicide being the persons choice actually procure a gun if that’s the method they choose yet despite this “grew up around firearm culture” concept very few of these internet forum “young people between 18 and 21 years” actually use a gun as the method even though they could probably procure one (probably for free, or at very low cost) through contacts on those forums.

    ” ‘I think the effects (on suicide) would be minimal, to be honest,’ he said.”

    And he is correct, at the absolute very best it would be minimal but then only in the immediate sense because a person at risk of suicide is at risk of suicide if a gun is available or not.

  6. Rusty, people aren’t voting that way, not the majority, the votes are counted that way. We are in the middle of a coup. The commies are in no hurry, they have a traitor in as president. He is fowling up left and right, there is no rational reason to require citizens to get a jab, and let millions of illegal aliens in without it. There’s no rational reason a loyal president would allow a Chinese balloon to gather data on our missile defense. Makes perfect sense if he is a traitor. Minor, where is your head? Do you really hate whitey so much that you want illegal aliens to vote? Do you not realize they are taking away your rights? Remember everywhere they have taken over, they kill off the people who make it possible for them to take over. Don’t want to have you try to overturn them.

  7. What has been proven to effectively combat violent crime is the long term incarceration of the perpetrators.

    Of course that negatively impacts the the core constituents of the socialist-democrat party…so that won’t be happening.

  8. I hate these bastards turning Colorado into California East. Reps from Denver and Boulder of course.

  9. “While highly visible, mass shootings are statistically rare, and policy solutions aimed at preventing them largely rely on anecdotal evidence or speculation on how a previous event could have been prevented.”

    Yet, anti-gun continue to insist upon ‘Gun Free Zones’ that are especially attractive to mass shooters because of the, basically, guaranteed by law defenseless prey for the mass shooter predator (and other criminals as well) and anti-gun and MSM continues to give these mass shooters their desired time in the ‘spotlight of their infamy’ that spurs on other would-be mass shooters to achieve the same thing they desire for their ‘spotlight of their infamy’. All while blaming in on the gun and ignoring the obvious which has already been discovered…

    gun free zones, defined:

    “gun (gŭn) free (frē) zone (zōn)

    * Trap in which people congregate and are falsely promised safety by a make believe force field of a ‘No Guns” prohibition.

    * A place where people are disarmed and not permitted self-defense with firearms.

    * Hunting grounds for predator criminals and mass shooters where defenseless prey is guaranteed by law.

    * Place where existing laws against violent crimes do not work to prevent violent crimes the laws are touted to be able to prevent.

    * Places designed to attract violent mentally ill predators.

    * Places where police forces cease to operate to protect before the fact of a violent crime as they are touted to be able to do by politicians implying.

    In the Journal of Threat Assessment and Management, 7(3-4), 135–156. (Lankford, A., & Cowan, R. G. (2020)) ( https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Ftam0000151 )

    … Cowan writes of their research they “…closely analyzed public mass shooters who attacked in the United States from 1966 to 2019 and found that correlates of mental illness were approximately equally common among perpetrators, whether they had been coded as mentally ill or not.”

    Forensic psychiatrists James L. Knoll IV, MD, and George D. Annas, MD, MPH, of SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse New York, both leading authorities on the mental health aspects of mass shooters, summed it up for the issue for the mental health community various studies on various aspects in terms of mass shooters…. Although mass shooters may not meet DSM-5 criteria for a recognized disorder, “they do have an ill-defined trouble of the mind for which the mental health field has no immediate, quick-acting ‘treatment,’” – in other words, mass shooters do have mental illness driving them but not something clearly defined and for which the mental health community basically has no treatment.”

    (note: Although every mass shooting known has not taken place in a designated-by-law ‘gun free zone’ …. from the late 1950’s to present day (using today’s definitions of ‘mass shooting), 95% of them have taken place in either a designated-by-law ‘gun free zone’ or a ‘gun free zone’ designated by a policy or prohibition on guns either officially or by practice so essentially late 1950’s to present day 95% of mass shootings have taken place in ‘gun free zones’.)

  10. I suggest that Rosanna Smart amputate her ears and fingers as a method of reducing crime nationwide. As she points out, ““Just because current evidence is inconclusive doesn’t mean that policies are ineffective and that you shouldn’t try them.”

  11. “If it saves only one.”

    There is no effective counter-argument, and the feeble minded are growing in number, and intensity.

      • “the counter is the lack of “if.”

        Wish it were so.

        The implication of “if it saves only one” is, “If it saves the life of only one child. That resonates at the visceral level. The statement is supposed to trigger the mother/parental instinct to protect little children, ignoring that the same people claim the term “child” applies up to the age of at least 19.

        No matter how many lives are saved via DGU, the gun itself is the source of the death of little children, thus no amount of lives saved can balance one small child saved through elimination of guns throughout the nation (except high crime locations).

    • I think it is time for pro-firearm individuals and those anti folks to come to grip with a couple of realities. You can present all the facts you like but they have nothing whatsoever to do with the real two issues, power and control. All these laws have nothing to do with safety nor even the concern for safety, they simply want to disarm law abiding citizens in this Country so the radical leftist Democrats can have unfettered access to power and control over every facet of your life. So stop thinking that any amount of rationale thinking is going to persuade them not to do whatever it is they intend to do because it won’t. The only things that will deter them are the courts, total non-compliance and civil disobedience, and fighting back by whatever means it takes. That’s it folks, you are spinning your wheels trying to be logical, practical or ethical. They simply do not care.

      • dprato, “That’s it folks, you are spinning your wheels trying to be logical, practical or ethical. They simply do not care.”
        POTG that is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
        Arguing with someone/anyone who does not care is a waste of time.
        These people say and do things simply because the can and as Einstein said, ” Any fool can know, the trick is to understand”.
        They don’t ‘understand’ because they do not give a damn about the truth!

    • Yep! It’s just like the Covid measures. Sure our excess deaths skyrocketed, and our economy is complete Shiite, but remember that time we magically eradicated flu deaths for a season?

      • Dude,

        “. . . remember that time we magically eradicated flu deaths for a season?”

        Nah, we just called them all “COVID deaths”. Anything Fauxi wanted, Fauxi got. There is no punishment sufficient for the absolute EVIL that little egotist, fascist, s***weasel inflicted on us.

  12. paul, And your solution is? Don’t you consider addiction to be a national problem?

    • Walter,

      No, I don’t. Addiction is a problem of the individual addict. There are potential ‘national’ problems related to the “second order effects” of drug addiction that ARE societal . . . but, frankly, most of those are traceable to prohibition more than addiction. It is absolutely your issue is a junkie tries to rob your house to get his next fix. It is absolutely none of your damn business if the junkie wants to kill himself from drug use.

      Sorry; not sorry.

      • Lamp, Addiction is a NATIONAL problem and the problem for individuals. 99.999% of addicts are addiction prone. Prohibition is the ONLY way to try to keep the problem under the semblance of control. Yeah, it is my business if a junkie wants to kill himself on drugs. You see, drug addiction contributes DIRECTLY the the crime problem. Trying to claim that prohibition is the root os the problem is like saying that orange juice comes from apples or grapes. Please don’t equate alcohol with drugs. That dog don’t hunt.

  13. @dprato
    “And of course you have just demonstrated your deep understanding of respecting other people’s opinions besides your own…”

    Just stop, right there.

    Anyone who has an opinion that is not the same as mine is a Nudnick, and deserves no respect (including Rodney Dangerfield).

  14. Dems! Power mad socialist bent on fear mongering to gain control and power to take your rights away! Look at history!!!

  15. Dems are fear mongers to gain power to take more of your rights away!!! Look at every gun controlled dem run city, hell in action!!!

  16. Someone tries to take you food and water, your car, your house, your clothes, your guns. All are YOURS not theirs. No difference if it’s a legit criminal or govt. criminal, they aren’t getting s#!+. Molan Labe is for real and the only way they’re getting what’s mine is if they kill me, and that’s exactly what they’ll need to do!!!

Comments are closed.