Just shoot me
Writing in the New York Times, the Ole Perfesser argues:
Greenleaf (Idaho) is following in the footsteps of Kennesaw, Ga., which in 1982 passed a mandatory gun ownership law in response to a handgun ban passed in Morton Grove, Ill. Kennesaw’s crime dropped sharply, while Morton Grove’s did not. [Emphasis added]
Hmm, Sadly, No!?
Gee, this story gets better every time it is told. Next time it is repeated I suppose we will hear about how the the Kennesaw gun law caused the rate to become negative.
Here are the actual numbers (from Sociology & Social Research v74:1 p51)
Kennesaw Burglaries 1976-1986
76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 48 85 86
41 21 22 35 35 54 35 35 29 32 70
Yes indeed, Sadly, No!:
The burglary rate in Morton Grove fell significantly following their handgun ban. [Criminology 29:4 541-559 (1991)]
As one might have expected, this isn’t the first time the Ole Perfesser has peddled this garbage — and been caught. Back to Tim*:
[…] if you look at burglary rates over a ten year period (see the graph to the left) there is a lot of fluctuation. A statistical test shows that there was a statistically insignificant increase.
It’s not surprising that the ordinance had no effect. It was purely symbolic and was never enforced so is unlikely to have had any effect on gun ownership in Kennesaw.
* In an interesting twist, the Ole Perfesser notes at the end of his article:
Experts don’t think the Kennesaw ordinance, which has never actually been enforced, did much to change gun ownership rates among Kennesaw residents. […] But criminals are likely to suspect that towns with laws like these on the books will be unsympathetic to malefactors in general, and to conclude that they will do better elsewhere.
Right — because cities with laws with a ban on handguns are, as is well known, extremely sympathetic to malefactors in general.
[Link via noted Ole Perfesser expert, Roy Edroso.]
Look, as a criminal I do careful research into what laws different towns have on the books. I use a decision matrix to determine which areas have a pro-malefactor legal state and then act accordingly. My fear is that some town in Idaho will pass an Artillery Ordinance and reduce the murder rate to a negative.
Look, as a criminal
Er, excuse me there, fine sir, might you direct me to the nearest crack house in a town with liberal laws? This is a fine evening for going cross-eyed at the pipe and I don’t want to waste it. I’ll buy the first if you’ll buy the next.
Oh, and have you seen this Times article? I’m unlikely to fly to Kennesaw in the near future I must say!
That’s nothing. It has been statistically demonstrated that in those towns where crime suspects are waterboarded, murder victims come back from the dead and haunt them! You could look it up.
How many domestic shootings happened in Kennesaw after ’82? Was any change statistically significant? And either way, do we care, because Earl woulda stabbed his girlfriend, if he couldna shot her up?
Mandatory gun ownership? What if I don’t want a freaking gun? That seems just as bad as banning guns.
I’ve long believed that people don’t become criminals because of their super-intelligence. Perhaps it’s because, outside of the state of Tennessee, they don’t get to become law perfessers.
If there’s one thing we always know we can trust, it is information from the New York Times regarding weapons of any kind.
I actually live in Kennesaw, Ga and if I had a nickel for every time I heard this law brought up, I could probably afford to buy everyone here a (second?) gun.
Prior to 1982, your average crook would have either passed by this trailer-strewn city for more lucrative work closer to Atlanta or just assumed that everyone here was armed anyway and taken it as a hazard of the job. So, passing a law that requires a city full of likely gun owners to own a gun shouldn’t have any effect, anecdotally at least.
However, don’t forget that this is the same town that also passed a law officially condemning homosexuality. Of course, as you all know, immediately following this, homosexuality decreased worldwide by about 89%, so maybe there *is* something to this gun thing.
Also, just to be a bit of a devil’s advocate, for the numbers of burglaries that are cited above to be useful, you should also show the population of Kennesaw during those years, because burglary *rate* is more significant than the raw number of burglaries.
I thought the NYT was cracking down on ‘journalists’ who are too lazy to research and resort to making shit up.
You can’t be fucking seriome!
We get to the end and read that such laws are just “symbolic”– they just kind of give off a pungent, anti-malefactory essence that alights on the criminal’s nostrils right before they slip on a balaclava, rendering them as dazed and discouraged as the paint-striped cat undone by Pepe’s musk.
Now what if– bear with me here, folks– criminals figure out that laws are “symbolic”? Don’t you need something more to back up your little fantasy than a soundtrack of “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”? Why not just put up pictures of guns and nooses at your town borders? Another symbolic gesture that makes about as much sense, without involving actual guns in the least.
And how, in terms of social scientific method, does the Perfesser establish any causal correlation here? Maybe abortions went up after the Confederate battle flag was reintroduced in Georgia. How does one link a “symbolic” law with outcomes?
Another symbolic gesture that makes about as much sense, without involving actual guns in the least.
Actually, I think if the town fathers of Kennesaw commissioned a performance piece that symbolically renounced violent crime, they would see a huge reduction in the crime rate. Perhaps Cindy Sherman? Anna Devore Smith? Christos?
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28135
Rates of violent Pepsi dropped sharply.
I don’t get this whole “crime would stop if everyone had guns” thing. Wouldn’t it just mean that criminals would assume you haver a gun, and shoot you on sight, THEN take your stuff? It’s not like there was never crime in the “Olde Times Wild West”.
So, Kennesaw’s passed a law requiring gun ownership and another condemning homosexuality? I bet that makes for an interesting Pride week.
Well, there’s no law says you have to own bullets, I suppose. Although I believe in some places they’ve tried to pass laws saying you have to keep a loaded gun. Which is, of course, insane.
It does amount to an absurd tax on residents. The statistics I’d like to see involve accidental shootings in addition to domestic violence. If everybody’s got a gun, how often does Grandpa get shot for raiding the fridge in the middle of the night, or kids engage in impromptu russian roulette? Though again, none of this is especially relevant if the laws aren’t enforced.
Clearly we need to be the copyeditors to the Glenn Reynolds of the world. We should work for the same publications, and seek common ground… After all, can we not engage his reasoning?
i would suggest a law forcing residents of kennesaw to both have guns, keep them loaded, (and here is the key) to be forced to use them on other residents in anger at least once a week.
an armed and dangerous society of trigger happy retards is a polite society, or so i’m told.
“When anyone is held up he shall immediately telephone the details to a telephone operator. She will plug in every phone in the city and relate the details of the hold up. Near every telephone a shotgun is to be kept hanging on the wall. When the story of the hold up is spread throughout the phones every citizen will sieze his shotgun and rush to the street. All whistles will blow and at this signal all traffic, including pedestrians, will halt. Anyone besides Law officers who moves will be shot.”
The 365 Stupidest things ever said, Workman Publishing, quoting Reverend Goerge W. Durham on how to stop crime in Kansas City, as quoted in the Kansas City Journal, 1925
I remember a vogue for “Protected by Smith & Wesson” and similar quainte property markers springing up among middle-class suburbanites during the Reagan Regency. Local police departments in the upper midwest did their best to discourage this fad, since they had reason to believe that the criminal classes regarded these signs as invitations to break into the posted households in hopes of acquiring a better class of firearms than would otherwise be available to the economically marginalized. But then, the Ole Perfessor probably thinks that the ladies he accosts in the hotel lounge are impressed when tells them he drives a Porche, when they’re actually just adding 20% to their usual weekend rates…
Anne Laurie, I love you.
I didn’t even have to read Reynonld’s recycled bullshit to make me think “just shoot me”…the mere fact that Instahack enjoyed prime opinion page real estate is enough to make strong men weep.
A law that forces people to buy things they don’t want to own – how free market libertarian! The boys in the Chicago law school must by dying to get their hands on the Ole Perfesser. But he’s probably turned down hundreds of offers so he can remain in his good ole red state of… whatever butt-f*** state he lives in.
Man, you would think this idiot could at least manage a basic grasp of the third grade level free market theology his ilk like to propagate.
If not owning guns is outlawed, only outlaws will not have guns.
I’m so tired. Isn’t the supply of Stupid(tm) about run out?
You still cannot refute the logic of this with facts, liberals. Reality has never been the strong suit of leftie morons.
Stupidity is fossilized, but in this case, it’s wholly renewable. So we’ll never have to face Peak Stupid.
Shorter Shoelimpy: I reject your reality and substitute my own.
(Apologies to Adam of the Mythbusters.)
Statistics are way over rated. The intersection of nano technology, bioengineering, fusion based space lasers, and large caliber ammunition will show that crime rates can be reduced asymptotically to infinitesimal values. Once the traitorous fifth column is eliminated, crime will be redefined so as not to exist.
Maybe he’s got a point. There’s lots of guns in Iraq and they don’t have much crime there, right?
Is this part of the Times’ “Give Equal Time to Right -Wing Lunatics” program?
So, in response to Kenneslaw’s response, is Morton Grove going to pass an ordinace requiring people to be homosexual? Because, I am so there!
Did The Limpster reallyjust argue that facts could not dent the logic used to arrive at this conclusion?
One doesn’t see that kind of honesty often enough.
Folks, thanks for the laughs. It is lovely to see a ridiculous article full of the kind of material one usually reserves for improving the growth of crops lampooned so well. The crack house comment was a gem.
I’m so tired. Isn’t the supply of Stupid(tm) about run out?
Stupid(tm) requires neither time nor refinement before use. As long as the supply of Mountain Dew and Cheetos holds out, our Reichtard neighbors will be able to produce an endless self-renewing supply of Stupid(tm). If only there were a way to run small machinery on the stuff, one could actually imagine a benevolent god having invented the Reichtwing blogoverse for a reason…
Stupid is actually one of the elements necessry to create the dark matter that balances the Universe.
As the Universe is currently in an expanding phase, the levels of dark matter must rise to balance it; hence the (apparently) unending source of stupid, feeding the dark matter.
The encouraging part is that eventually the Universe will stop expanding, so the stupid will level off. So eventually, progress, rationality, and justice will have less impediment.
As the Universe is currently in an expanding phase, the levels of dark matter must rise to balance it; hence the (apparently) unending source of stupid, feeding the dark matter.
As a side effect of this, Bush & co were able to conflate Iraq with Al Qaeda. It’s the Conflationary Universe scenario.
The inventor of Teh Stupid(tm) Engine is going to make a fortune in this country.
The inventor of Teh Stupid(tm) Engine is going to make a fortune in this country.
Some would argue that his name is Karl Rove, and he already has. Now we just need a version of the Engine that will do something productive!
[…] Originally Posted by 187sks Kennesaw, Georgia Virgin, Utah Greenleaf, Idaho Geuda Springs, Kansas <==Passed but Mayor vetoed kennesaw population is only 22k. crime was already lower than the majority of the country anyway. gangs? nonexistant. Sadly, No! » Just shoot me virgin utah. population….359 as of 2006. yeah, everyone knows each other so they aren’t likely to kill each other. crime rate before? almost nonexistant. crimerate now? same. this "city" is smaller than my college. va tech has 35k students and a low crime rate, including the tens of thousands of people in town anyway. greenleaf idaho. population 843. had no crime before, still has no crime. 0.74sq miles. harldy a city. half the population isn’t even old enough to drink. try a real city with gangs, coke heads, dealers, homeless and desperate. pick a place where people live in close quarters and where there is actually a crime situation. not a single one of these towns has enforced their gun laws, and not a single town can say the gun laws helped crime since all of them have actually had increases in crime this year. __________________ yay for maxim, beer, tiburons, and rabid mice of death and doom. […]
Bottom line… Kennesaw is still a very safe place to live, regardless.