[Politics_Observer]

@Tainari88

Thanks for sharing the videos. On the first video, I do not agree with the pro gun crowd in Puerto Rico. Here are the facts from Harvard University. More guns equal more homicides, no matter how you slice and dice it. Research proves this fact. Plus, gun owners are more likely to be killed by homicide than non-gun owners.

1. Where there are more guns there is more homicide (literature review)

Our review of the academic literature found that a broad array of evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for homicide, both in the United States and across high-income countries. Case-control studies, ecological time-series and cross-sectional studies indicate that in homes, cities, states and regions in the U.S., where there are more guns, both men and women are at a higher risk for homicide, particularly firearm homicide.

Hepburn, Lisa; Hemenway, David. Firearm availability and homicide: A review of the literature. Aggression and Violent Behavior: A Review Journal. 2004; 9:417-40.



2. Across high-income nations, more guns = more homicide

We analyzed the relationship between homicide and gun availability using data from 26 developed countries from the early 1990s. We found that across developed countries, where guns are more available, there are more homicides. These results often hold even when the United States is excluded.

Hemenway, David; Miller, Matthew. Firearm availability and homicide rates across 26 high income countries. Journal of Trauma. 2000; 49:985-88.



3. Across states, more guns = more homicide

Using a validated proxy for firearm ownership, we analyzed the relationship between firearm availability and homicide across 50 states over a ten-year period (1988-1997).

After controlling for poverty and urbanization, for every age group, people in states with many guns have elevated rates of homicide, particularly firearm homicide.

Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David. Household firearm ownership levels and homicide rates across U.S. regions and states, 1988-1997. American Journal of Public Health. 2002; 92:1988-1993.



4. Across states, more guns = more homicide (2)

Using survey data on rates of household gun ownership, we examined the association between gun availability and homicide across states, 2001-2003. We found that states with higher levels of household gun ownership had higher rates of firearm homicide and overall homicide. This relationship held for both genders and all age groups, after accounting for rates of aggravated assault, robbery, unemployment, urbanization, alcohol consumption, and resource deprivation (e.g., poverty). There was no association between gun prevalence and non-firearm homicide.

Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David. State-level homicide victimization rates in the U.S. in relation to survey measures of household firearm ownership, 2001-2003. Social Science and Medicine. 2007; 64:656-64.



5. A summary of the evidence on guns and violent death

This book chapter summarizes the scientific literature on the relationship between gun prevalence (levels of household gun ownership) and suicide, homicide and unintentional firearm death and concludes that where there are higher levels of gun ownership, there are more gun suicides and more total suicides, more gun homicides and more total homicides, and more accidental gun deaths.

This is the first chapter in the book and provides and up-to-date and readable summary of the literature on the relationship between guns and death. It also adds to the literature by using the National Violent Death Reporting System data to show where (home or away) the shootings occurred. Suicides for all age groups and homicides for children and aging adults most often occurred in their own home.

Miller M, Azrael D, Hemenway D. Firearms and violence death in the United States. In: Webster DW, Vernick JS, eds. Reducing Gun Violence in America. Baltimore MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013.



6. More guns = more homicides of police

This article examines homicide rates of Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs) from 1996 to 2010. Differences in rates of homicides of LEOs across states are best explained not by differences in crime, but by differences in household gun ownership. In high gun states, LEOs are 3 times more likely to be murdered than LEOs working in low-gun states.

This article was cited by President Obama in a speech to a police association. This article will hopefully bring police further into the camp of those pushing for sensible gun laws.

Swedler DI, Simmons MM, Dominici F, Hemenway D. Firearm prevalence and homicides of law enforcement officers in the United States. American Journal of Public Health. 2015; 105:2042-48.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/fire ... and-death/

If you loosen up gun laws in Puerto Rico, crime will not be lowered and could very well be increased from what it already is. Plus, the evidence above suggests that homicides will certainly increase if you loosen gun laws in Puerto Rico. I have no doubt that criminals in Mexico and Puerto Rico are getting their guns from the United States, given the wide availability of guns in the United States and the looser gun laws here in the United States. Another issue that needs to be addressed is that honest work for everyone has to pay. If honest work doesn't pay, then it incentivizes crime as people turn to crime to get paid since honest work does not pay. Here is a paper that discusses that correlation: https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cgi/view ... =parkplace

[SpecialOlympian]

Burlington, Vermont however, is not the South. So, what kind of role has the police played in the South?

Historically, slave catchers. Proud civil servants helping the victims of theft recover their rightful property.

[Tainari88]

@Tainari88

Thanks for sharing the videos. On the first video, I do not agree with the pro gun crowd in Puerto Rico. Here are the facts from Harvard University. More guns equal more homicides, no matter how you slice and dice it. Research proves this fact. Plus, gun owners are more likely to be killed by homicide than non-gun owners.



https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/fire ... and-death/

If you loosen up gun laws in Puerto Rico, crime will not be lowered and could very well be increased from what it already is. Plus, the evidence above suggests that homicides will certainly increase if you loosen gun laws in Puerto Rico. I have no doubt that criminals in Mexico and Puerto Rico are getting their guns from the United States, given the wide availability of guns in the United States and the looser gun laws here in the United States. Another issue that needs to be addressed is that honest work for everyone has to pay. If honest work doesn't pay, then it incentivizes crime as people turn to crime to get paid since honest work does not pay. Here is a paper that discusses that correlation: https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cgi/view ... =parkplace

Puerto Rico needs to deal with a lot of issues that are affecting the society on the island. There is corruption. Especially with the electricity situation through Lumen the private electricity company that sucks on the island. Second the lack of policies coping well with climate change and hurricanes coming and everything not allowed to be updated due to old and outdated regulations from the USA. Being overtaxed through the Jones Act. High unemployment for most Puerto Ricans. Being ruled by a an unelected Bank Panel called PROMESA. Old and obsolete setups from the turn of the 20th century Politics Observer.

We can't rule ourselves. Mexico can and does control guns in Mexico well. The issue is corruption in the Mexican system of justice and impunity for these Narcos. That is why the Mexicans who HATE drug dealers ruining their country with bloody violence are looking at Bukele. Nayib Bukele so closely in El Salvador.

I happen to think Mexico is not El Salvador. Mexico is a huge nation with tremendous corruption inside its law enforcement sector on the top level. The lower level of local police is fairly clean. The top leadership is rotten to the extreme and unless they clean both the judicial branch of Mexican legal systems and the top cops with the worst of the Right wing elitist politicians in Mexico? They won't be solving any drug dealer issues anytime soon. But? There is enormous improvements in Mexican life recently. I am hopeful.

My nation? Puerto Rico? It is getting worse. Because there is no way of electing our own leaders. We have no voice, no vote, no independence, and statehood is not likely due to the racists in the Republican party and also because the most corrupt of all the island politicians are the ones who want statehood.If you want statehood for Puerto Rico you had better be clean as the snow in your governing, because the Republicans do not want a state with billions in debts, who love speaking Spanish ONLY, and who have high unemployment and a large percentage of the population living on $24,000 dollars a year or less.

Again, get control of your own society. Fight for the improvement of your own society. You won't see improvement until you are willing to take full responsibility for what is wrong in your own nation.

The USA has to deal with gun control within the USA fifty states. It continues to have mass shootings galore, and school shootings galore. It needs to start tackling the NRA and its power and love of selling war and weapons to the general public. Not only within the USA, but those guns are being sold to Mexico, Puerto Rico, central American MS13 gangs in El Salvador, and the gun dealing that is illegal is coming from the USA.

Get a grip on your guns USA. Because it is not just your nation being affected. It is all of the world buying guns for wars all over the world.