“Overregulation can be very stifling and expensive.”
I agree. But overregulation, like many things, is in the eye of the beholder and subject to views on public policy.
“Why would NYS need such a requirement when there is reported by the CDC to be such a low death rate??”
I believe instituting liability requirements, both civil and insurance-related, is likely to help reduce injuries and fatalities in NYS. I have no evidence of this, I’m just relying on common sense. What death rate in NYS do you think is acceptable?
“Would a requirement to buy add'l liab insurance invariably extend to people owning axes, baseball bats, sharp knives, etc???”
No, it wouldn’t. By definition, such a requirement would be centered on firearms.
“I believe longer waiting periods would be a better start.”
Let’s do the math for Mississippi vs NY. Gun ownership in MS is 55.8% of adults, total population is 2.94 million. Discounting the difference in adults vs children that makes 1.6 million gun owners. Gun death rate in MS is 29.6/100k = 870.24 of 2.94 million
Doing the same math for N.Y. , 5.3/100k = 1044 of 19.9 million.
So the rate is roughly 6.7% higher in MS.
Someone could do the math for every state, but I suspect the results would be similar.
It's not about gun ownership, it's about the death rate by guns, period. Why not turtle ownership? Throwing in irrelevant distractions doesn't change the facts: lax gun laws lead to more deaths.
Gun ownership is itself at least partly a function of gun laws -- the more lax the guns laws, the higher the gun ownership. In NY, for example, some parts of the population cannot own guns -- domestic abusers and others -- because of stricter gun laws.
NY has roughly 6 or 7 times more people than MS, but the number of deaths is very roughly equal. The number of gun owners in NY is roughly the same number of residents of MS.
Hello SP, so you want to remove non gun owners all thus that do not own a gun from the per capita or unit of population part of the equation. OK. Why? What are you looking to show?
Now the hard part. How to are you going to acquire the data?
It continues to amaze me how some people advocate for the right to be irresponsible with weapons. One measure NYS must take with regard to reckless and malicious use of firearms is the institution of liability insurance requirements for gun owners and the institution of stronger civil lawsuit laws. If we're going to own dangerous weapons, we need to take full responsibility for their misuse, including financial responsibility.
Hi Bob How would the liability insurance mandate work? Who would it protect? Would it protect the gun owner from civil lawsuit?
Liability insurance is an insurance product that provides protection against claims resulting from injuries and damage to other people or property. So a person who buys liability insurance buys it to protect themselves from financial loss.
I don’t think liability insurance necessarily "protects" the insured from a civil lawsuit. It would, presumably, limit the insured’s financial loss in the event of a successful lawsuit. My thinking with requiring liability insurance is that it would increase the chances of financial redress for someone harmed through negligent use of a firearm. I would also hope it would increase the likelihood of civil lawsuits with respect to firearm negligence, and give gun owners another reason to ensure safe use of firearms.. (Full disclosure: I’m neither an insurance agent nor an attorney, so I’m speaking more of aspirations than anything else.)
Another good gun law would criminalizing any firing of a gun while it is being cleaned. If someone was shot while the gun was being cleaned the consequences would be greater, if someone died consequences would escalate.
...yes, to sensible gun regulations- and, yes, to your refreshing nature photographs, replete with Latin identification: thank you for both / -but, no pictures of some of the dangerous wildlife hereabouts?- such as: homo sapiens who refuse to leash, and pick up after, their canines as the laws, and civility- & common[?] decency, require [even an occasional police presence (on mountain bike, say) in Cole's Woods would be welcome: crimes are committed out there every single day]...
I have friends who are gun owners and enthusiasts, and to a one, they all say they feel safer knowing they have a gun, and all have a story that goes something like my brother in law’s cousin was alone in his cabin and a guy broke in and if he hadn’t had a gun who knows what could have happened, it would have taken too long for the police to get there, by that time he would have been hurt or killed, but that guy saw the gun and high-tailed it out of there. And maybe that happened once…to someone…somewhere. Personally, I think it’s more of a “what if” story. Some of my friends have a business that often deals in cash and I can see how being a target for thieves would necessitate the need for protection. As law abiding and responsible people, I don’t think they are a major risk to anyone, but where it gets sticky to me is the, well, brainwashing is the term that comes to mind, done by the NRA to convince otherwise reasonable people that any gun regulation is a bad one. Guns can be extremely dangerous and harmful in the wrong hands. That is proven every day across the world. Yet the fear of the slippery slope is so ingrained in a lot of gun owners heads, the fear that if they take away a gun from one dangerous irresponsible person, they’ll come for your guns tomorrow so you have to prevent any regulation at all. I lay the blame for that entirely at the NRA’s door. They morphed from a gun safety group to a gun worship group, and elevated the 2nd amendment to exalted status in people’s minds, above all other rights, or so it seems to me. Often the phrase used to try to end debate is “shall not be infringed,” but they leave out the “well regulated militia” part. I think if you want to own guns, fine, do so as much as you want, but be willing to pass a gun safety course, and get a license and obey any other reasonable regulations like background checks and waiting periods. If one truly is law abiding, then abiding by the law shouldn’t be bothersome.
I’ll break it again. Grammatically, the two clauses must go together because “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State” is a sentence fragment that has no meaning as a stand alone statement. It needs completion, that completion being “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Different copies of the Constitution, all handwritten, have different placement of the commas (and also capitalizations), some have no commas at all. When you read the whole amendment together and think about it’s historical context, it seems obvious to me that the founding fathers wanted people to have arms so a militia could be called upon if necessary for defense. There was no standing army at the time and no plans for one, and not a lot of money to equip one either.
Hello Tanya the logic is that it is incomplete and cannot stand alone and I can agree with that. Can “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” stand alone?
Always good to read statistics and facts about which states are most safe: the ones with most sensible regulations. Thanks again, Will...The truth....The misinformation is that all our cities are dangerous, filled with violence. That it is the immigrants, refugees committing crimes....The reality is that gun violence is down in cities (and minimal with those who are immigrants). Crime is up in states with almost no regulations saying who could and should (and who should not) possess weapons, where people use "standing your ground" as a defense to kill someone just standing by who happens to be black. The violence I am most afraid of are the direct threats to judges, jurors, election workers, women...actually anyone who speaks what Trump and Maga fear: honesty and truth....Their violent words follow their repeated script, most recently with the 12 person jury finding Trump guilty on 34 counts. The chorus screams: rigged, biased, fake, paid off, and sees as guilty Biden, Democrat socialists communists fascists...Blame everyone, threaten everyone, Predictable, tiresom...the question always is why people believe those idiots rather than reality, facts, truth.
Wonderful, wonderful article! And we can thank the former Governor, Mario Cuomo, for being one of the few people who stood up to the NRA and got some gun safety rules in effect.
Hello Will. The population of New York state in 2022 was approximately 19,700,000 / 100,000 = 197 deaths, Mississippi 2,940,000/ 100,000 = 30 deaths and Alabama 5,100,000 /100,000 = 51 deaths. Using the total deaths looks like someone is 4 to 6 times more likely to die by the gun if you live in New York State.
How does the data you link to support your claim that lax gun laws are the reason for increased gun deaths in those states?
When you wrote that you are about five times less likely to die from getting shot in New York than if you live in Mississippi. Your analysis is based more on your aim than on relative information. Some of the information lacking is the manner of death, was it a homicide, a suicide or an accident. For more information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States
"Statistics — the only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions." Evan Esar
You are figuring out the number of one hundred thousands in each state -- NY has 197 hundred thousands, Mississippi has 29.4, Alabama 51. But what we are talking about is the number of gunshot deaths -- all deaths by gunshot -- per 100,000 people in each state. that is the rate of death by gunshot, and that determines your likelihood of dying by gunshot. The total number of deaths is meaningless. For example, if State A has 100,000 people, and 10 deaths by gunshot a year (a rate of 10) and State B has 1 million people and 11 deaths by gunshot a year (a rate of 1.1), you are much safer living in State B.
“Overregulation can be very stifling and expensive.”
I agree. But overregulation, like many things, is in the eye of the beholder and subject to views on public policy.
“Why would NYS need such a requirement when there is reported by the CDC to be such a low death rate??”
I believe instituting liability requirements, both civil and insurance-related, is likely to help reduce injuries and fatalities in NYS. I have no evidence of this, I’m just relying on common sense. What death rate in NYS do you think is acceptable?
“Would a requirement to buy add'l liab insurance invariably extend to people owning axes, baseball bats, sharp knives, etc???”
No, it wouldn’t. By definition, such a requirement would be centered on firearms.
“I believe longer waiting periods would be a better start.”
I agree that longer waiting periods may help.
I’m with you - except for the “evil forces” bit, which sounds like some sort of hocus pocus.
“An ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure.” Said a wise man.
Let’s do the math for Mississippi vs NY. Gun ownership in MS is 55.8% of adults, total population is 2.94 million. Discounting the difference in adults vs children that makes 1.6 million gun owners. Gun death rate in MS is 29.6/100k = 870.24 of 2.94 million
Doing the same math for N.Y. , 5.3/100k = 1044 of 19.9 million.
So the rate is roughly 6.7% higher in MS.
Someone could do the math for every state, but I suspect the results would be similar.
It's not about gun ownership, it's about the death rate by guns, period. Why not turtle ownership? Throwing in irrelevant distractions doesn't change the facts: lax gun laws lead to more deaths.
Gun ownership is itself at least partly a function of gun laws -- the more lax the guns laws, the higher the gun ownership. In NY, for example, some parts of the population cannot own guns -- domestic abusers and others -- because of stricter gun laws.
“Simply Put”, did you fail math?
NY has roughly 6 or 7 times more people than MS, but the number of deaths is very roughly equal. The number of gun owners in NY is roughly the same number of residents of MS.
MS is clearly more dangerous.
I apologize for the comment about math. To be clear, I added the “Simply Put” to make it clear I wasn’t addressing Will’s comment.
I understand now that your question is not about the actual numbers, which are clear, but about a hypothetical about population decrease.
What you don’t seem to be factoring in is that the differential is not a matter of changes in population but about differences in gun laws.
It seems highly unlikely small shifts in population increase or decrease would have any major sort of effect on the crime with guns numbers.
I have to admit to getting all warm and happy reading the statistical analysis. Where’s my spreadsheet?!!
Hello SP, so you want to remove non gun owners all thus that do not own a gun from the per capita or unit of population part of the equation. OK. Why? What are you looking to show?
Now the hard part. How to are you going to acquire the data?
You wrote “I wonder if the death rate was based on the # of people that own guns would provide a more accurate picture of firearm mortality rates.”
So, when you use the word “wonder” do you mean “to be curious or in doubt about” or do you have a different meaning?
What in my questions suggests a course of action?
I would think the ones that complain about the time it takes to get a pistol permit, etc. would be glad for the hire of another asst. Clerk.
Excellent commentary on firearms.
It continues to amaze me how some people advocate for the right to be irresponsible with weapons. One measure NYS must take with regard to reckless and malicious use of firearms is the institution of liability insurance requirements for gun owners and the institution of stronger civil lawsuit laws. If we're going to own dangerous weapons, we need to take full responsibility for their misuse, including financial responsibility.
Hi Bob How would the liability insurance mandate work? Who would it protect? Would it protect the gun owner from civil lawsuit?
Liability insurance is an insurance product that provides protection against claims resulting from injuries and damage to other people or property. So a person who buys liability insurance buys it to protect themselves from financial loss.
I don’t think liability insurance necessarily "protects" the insured from a civil lawsuit. It would, presumably, limit the insured’s financial loss in the event of a successful lawsuit. My thinking with requiring liability insurance is that it would increase the chances of financial redress for someone harmed through negligent use of a firearm. I would also hope it would increase the likelihood of civil lawsuits with respect to firearm negligence, and give gun owners another reason to ensure safe use of firearms.. (Full disclosure: I’m neither an insurance agent nor an attorney, so I’m speaking more of aspirations than anything else.)
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/liability_insurance.asp
Should Gun Owners Have To Buy Liability Insurance?
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/01/31/170700177/should-gun-owners-have-to-buy-liability-insurance
Excellent post!
I'd take our gun laws one step further....they should be required to be insured.
I'm all for making it harder for someone to have a permit.
Another good gun law would criminalizing any firing of a gun while it is being cleaned. If someone was shot while the gun was being cleaned the consequences would be greater, if someone died consequences would escalate.
I’m referring to the seeming large percentage of guns that seem to go off while being cleaned.
...yes, to sensible gun regulations- and, yes, to your refreshing nature photographs, replete with Latin identification: thank you for both / -but, no pictures of some of the dangerous wildlife hereabouts?- such as: homo sapiens who refuse to leash, and pick up after, their canines as the laws, and civility- & common[?] decency, require [even an occasional police presence (on mountain bike, say) in Cole's Woods would be welcome: crimes are committed out there every single day]...
I don’t trust the judgement of anyone who thinks owning a gun makes them safer.
Great column, Will! May I add that automatic and semiautomatic weapons should be banned nationally!
I have friends who are gun owners and enthusiasts, and to a one, they all say they feel safer knowing they have a gun, and all have a story that goes something like my brother in law’s cousin was alone in his cabin and a guy broke in and if he hadn’t had a gun who knows what could have happened, it would have taken too long for the police to get there, by that time he would have been hurt or killed, but that guy saw the gun and high-tailed it out of there. And maybe that happened once…to someone…somewhere. Personally, I think it’s more of a “what if” story. Some of my friends have a business that often deals in cash and I can see how being a target for thieves would necessitate the need for protection. As law abiding and responsible people, I don’t think they are a major risk to anyone, but where it gets sticky to me is the, well, brainwashing is the term that comes to mind, done by the NRA to convince otherwise reasonable people that any gun regulation is a bad one. Guns can be extremely dangerous and harmful in the wrong hands. That is proven every day across the world. Yet the fear of the slippery slope is so ingrained in a lot of gun owners heads, the fear that if they take away a gun from one dangerous irresponsible person, they’ll come for your guns tomorrow so you have to prevent any regulation at all. I lay the blame for that entirely at the NRA’s door. They morphed from a gun safety group to a gun worship group, and elevated the 2nd amendment to exalted status in people’s minds, above all other rights, or so it seems to me. Often the phrase used to try to end debate is “shall not be infringed,” but they leave out the “well regulated militia” part. I think if you want to own guns, fine, do so as much as you want, but be willing to pass a gun safety course, and get a license and obey any other reasonable regulations like background checks and waiting periods. If one truly is law abiding, then abiding by the law shouldn’t be bothersome.
I’ll break it again. Grammatically, the two clauses must go together because “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State” is a sentence fragment that has no meaning as a stand alone statement. It needs completion, that completion being “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Different copies of the Constitution, all handwritten, have different placement of the commas (and also capitalizations), some have no commas at all. When you read the whole amendment together and think about it’s historical context, it seems obvious to me that the founding fathers wanted people to have arms so a militia could be called upon if necessary for defense. There was no standing army at the time and no plans for one, and not a lot of money to equip one either.
Hello Tanya the logic is that it is incomplete and cannot stand alone and I can agree with that. Can “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” stand alone?
Yes, but it is not alone in the Constitution.
Always good to read statistics and facts about which states are most safe: the ones with most sensible regulations. Thanks again, Will...The truth....The misinformation is that all our cities are dangerous, filled with violence. That it is the immigrants, refugees committing crimes....The reality is that gun violence is down in cities (and minimal with those who are immigrants). Crime is up in states with almost no regulations saying who could and should (and who should not) possess weapons, where people use "standing your ground" as a defense to kill someone just standing by who happens to be black. The violence I am most afraid of are the direct threats to judges, jurors, election workers, women...actually anyone who speaks what Trump and Maga fear: honesty and truth....Their violent words follow their repeated script, most recently with the 12 person jury finding Trump guilty on 34 counts. The chorus screams: rigged, biased, fake, paid off, and sees as guilty Biden, Democrat socialists communists fascists...Blame everyone, threaten everyone, Predictable, tiresom...the question always is why people believe those idiots rather than reality, facts, truth.
Wonderful post, as usual!
wonderful photos capturing what can only be seen with looking closely...
Wonderful, wonderful article! And we can thank the former Governor, Mario Cuomo, for being one of the few people who stood up to the NRA and got some gun safety rules in effect.
It was reported on the radio that gun violence has decreased in NYS by 31% since the 2019 changes to gun laws.
We know that Elise Stefanik is pretty relentless in her pro-criminal agenda. And Supervisor Thomas endorsed her re-election last year.
Hello Will. The population of New York state in 2022 was approximately 19,700,000 / 100,000 = 197 deaths, Mississippi 2,940,000/ 100,000 = 30 deaths and Alabama 5,100,000 /100,000 = 51 deaths. Using the total deaths looks like someone is 4 to 6 times more likely to die by the gun if you live in New York State.
How does the data you link to support your claim that lax gun laws are the reason for increased gun deaths in those states?
When you wrote that you are about five times less likely to die from getting shot in New York than if you live in Mississippi. Your analysis is based more on your aim than on relative information. Some of the information lacking is the manner of death, was it a homicide, a suicide or an accident. For more information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States
"Statistics — the only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions." Evan Esar
You are figuring out the number of one hundred thousands in each state -- NY has 197 hundred thousands, Mississippi has 29.4, Alabama 51. But what we are talking about is the number of gunshot deaths -- all deaths by gunshot -- per 100,000 people in each state. that is the rate of death by gunshot, and that determines your likelihood of dying by gunshot. The total number of deaths is meaningless. For example, if State A has 100,000 people, and 10 deaths by gunshot a year (a rate of 10) and State B has 1 million people and 11 deaths by gunshot a year (a rate of 1.1), you are much safer living in State B.