Posted on 06/29/2008 10:28:09 AM PDT by Zakeet
This year, about 12,000 Americans will be shot to death. It's a staggering figure, and even though lawmakers have continued to pass gun-control laws to try to bring the number down, they have not significantly reduced the murder rate. Indeed, for the last decade, guns have steadily remained the cause of about two-thirds of all homicides.
Gun manufacturers insist that these deaths are not their fault, preferring to pin the blame on criminals and irresponsible dealers. They have fiercely resisted even minimal restrictions on sales and have simultaneously washed their hands of responsibility for this "collateral damage."
On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court made the problem a little more difficult to solve, ruling in District of Columbia vs. Heller that the individual's right to bear arms is indeed protected by the 2nd Amendment -- and making it clear that some laws banning guns would have a difficult time passing constitutional muster in the future.
What is to be done? The conventional regulatory approaches seem to be failing. A more recent strategy, in which victims or municipalities bring lawsuits against gun manufacturers or retailers, seems legally and politically unpromising since the 2005 passage of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which shields gun manufacturers from civil liability.
We propose a new way to prod gun makers to reduce gun deaths, one that would be unlikely to put them out of business or to prevent law-abiding citizens from obtaining guns. By using a strategy known as "performance-based regulation," we would deputize private actors -- the gun makers -- to deal with the negative effects of their products in ways that promote the public good.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Their grand idea: Rather than telling gun makers what to do, performance-based regulation would tell them what outcome they must achieve: Reduce deaths by guns. Companies that achieve the target outcomes might receive large financial bonuses; companies that don't would face severe financial penalties. Put simply, gun makers -- whose products kill even when used as directed -- would have to take responsibility for curbing the consequent public health toll.
I’d rather see performance based tenure for UC professors. Produce educated (not indoctrinated) college graduates or hit the bricks.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
It is at least interesting that they propose a market-based solution.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Only because it fits their agenda.
Fagan & Sugarman, huh? Way too easy...
And, almost 10,000 of them involve gangsters killing other gangsters (usually over drug turf wars).
This means that, non-gang related gun deaths amount to .0001% of the population. More people die choking on food.
So does this mean gun control advocates would happily go along if a gun manufacturer proposed that every citizen be required to own and carry a firearm? After all, that is an already proven way to reduce gun deaths.
With that sort of logic, airplanes caused 9/11, not the hijackers.
The truth (according to gun grabbers..): In 1999, there were 28,874 gun-related deaths in the United States - over 80 deaths every day. (Source: Hoyert DL, Arias E, Smith BL, Murphy SL, Kochanek, KD. Deaths: Final Data for 1999. National Vital Statistics Reports. 2001;49 (8).)
Between 1993-1999, gun deaths in the United States have declined 27%. (SOURCE: http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/wisqars/default.htm, WISQARS, National Center for Injury Control and Prevention, accessed March, 2002.) http://www.gun-control-network.org/GF01.htm -- yes, I used their own advocacy for the responsive data..
Both of the above numbers tear apart the presumptive argument. Since gun deaths have dropped a whopping 14,000, more than half, since 1999, one has to wonder if it was the DC Gun ban, or the Chicago gun ban... Nope, both predate this.
But what was happening to the criminals? Yes, the same whiners who continue to argue that guns are bad, punish the gun makers, are the same ones objecting to the 'huge population increase among inmates'.
Yes, wack-a-loons, blaming the criminal and punishing them, rather than blaming an inanimate object, works.
Good Lord, the idiots actually wrote that.
Hey, I have an idea:
Newspaper owner should apply the same performance-based criteria against members of the media: if you get x number of complaints against an article; or if the readership or subscription falls under a certain level; or if the editorial written is considered stupid (using a grading system), like this one....
Possibilities abound.
That's because gun control only disarms LAW ABIDING CITIZENS! No matter what the law says criminals will still get a hold of guns.
Actually the more I think about it the more I like this ‘free reign’ idea. How about bounties paid for the confirmed killer of someone caught in the act of committing a violent crime? Sure, gun deaths might spike at first, but chances are violent crime would become a bit less attractive career choice, reducing the number of deaths of both victims and perpetrators over the long run.
Probably not what liberals had in mind when they thought up this hairbrained idea, but it would be effective.
This year, about 300,000 Americans will die from obesity.
Shall we outlaw food?
Actually that's a Government Regulated Market Solution. (usta be called Socialism)
Hm.....is 0.0039% a “staggering” number of anything?
“guns have steadily remained the cause of about two-thirds of all homicides”
I love how they use the word “homicide” in these stories. They use the word to imply “murder”.Most public school educated folks don’t know the difference
Markets work just fine under government regulation, as long as they don’t change too frequently. They’re less efficient and often have uninteneded consequences, but they perform their function of allocating resources just as well.
Markets are a mechanism. Like any other mechanism they can be used for good or bad ends.
For instance, there was a very efficient market that for several centuries resulted in the transfer of millions of Africans to the New World against their will.
would have to take responsibility for curbing the consequent public health toll....
O.K. Expand concealed weapon carry permits. Stats prove crime goes down.
Guns are not the problem. The problem is those people whose moral code sees nothing wrong with killing someone. Banning guns won’t stop murders. What should be done is ban liberal policies that have let people grow up with a distorted moral code.
And neither one understands lack of direct or proximate causation as a defense to liability. Pathetic.
This is one of the more hair brained, convoluted logic, ass backwards ideas to date.
I think somebody is off their meds.
Don't be so harsh on the twits, They may have provided a solution to the problem: I suspect that if we tweak the idea just a bit, you may want to reconsider. Try this version:
Rather than telling gun makers what to do allowing elected officials to do as they please, performance-based regulation would tell them what outcome they must we expect them to achieve: Reduce deaths by guns. Companies elected officials that achieve the target outcomes might receive large financial bonuses be allowed by the electors to serve another term in office; companies Politicians that don't would face severe financial penalties be immediately removed from office. Put simply, gun makers Elected officials; -- whose products kill even when used as directed ordinances are useless in solving the problem -- would have to take Personal responsibility for curbing the consequent public health toll.
I would suggest that one of the things they might consider, is to gather all of the perpetrators together and remove them from society forever. They can determine the method that would most likely to be successful.
In other words, if you cannot lead, either follow or get out of the way!
Semper Fi
An Old Man
Take an equal number of Crips and Bloods;(take into account they really don't like each other) say, 50 each, and completely disarm them.
Now take an equal number of liberal intellectuals (100...nah....make it 125!)
Now lock them all in Dodger's Stadium for 24...no, make it 12 hours.
At the end of that time ask who might have thought it would be handy to be carrying a firearm on their person.
Semper Fi
An Old Man
they do kind of take one’s breath away with this article don’t they. unbelievable.
I LIKE this idea. Figure a $100K bounty to whoever kills a felon in the commission of a crime, plus paying any of their legal bills, would have pizza delivery guys and convenience store clerks being more likely to be armed
C’mon you guys. This is just the “bargaining” stage of grief. Fagan and Sugarman may be evil, or stupid, or misguided, or whatever, but this article is simply a product of the sort of process we all go through when we loose something. I disagree with them as much as anyone on this board, but the fact that they are trying to bargain reality away doesn’t mean they’re crazy — just human.
Conveniently leaving out the number of cases where homicides were committed by illegal possession of a handgun.
Reminds me of a comedy skit I heard 30 years ago:
Reporter to Police Inspector about bank robbery: “So, do you think criminals are responsible?”
Police Inspector: “No, I think criminals are totally irresponsible!”
This year, about 12,000 Americans will be shot to deathAnd of those 12,000 how many are committed by...
How many of those 12,000 were committed by..
So let's pass some Common Sense Car Control Laws. Before one can buy any motor vehicle an FBI background check is done and a four day 'cooling off period' mandated. And for sure we must close that Car Show Loophole. No more private sales, every purchase must go through a Federally Licensed Dealer. And dealers who are found to be selling too many cars to criminals people committing 'Car Crimes' get put in jail and sued into the next millennium. We must fight all these illegal cars on the street!
Put simply, gun makers -- whose products kill even when used as directed -- would have to take responsibility for curbing the consequent public health toll.
Even better, we apply this great idea to the big cities that produce criminals and murderers by the thousands every year.
If the cities drastically cut the numbers of criminals every year, the city will receive large financial bonuses; cities that don't, would face severe financial penalties. Put simply, cities -- whose criminals kill even when directed not to -- would have to take responsibility for curbing the consequent public health toll.
I like my version much better, and just think, the Mayors can then claim credit for cleaning up their cities and will coast the easy reelection for decades to come.
performance BS, outlaw crime.
You know what Einstein said. When something doesn't work, trying to do it over and over again is the sign of true genius. At least I think it was something along those lines.
Careful there, you’re starting to drift into the Logic Zone...
Actually it is specifically designed to do both. It is the demand of petulant children who cannot solve a problem for someone else to perform magic...or else.
It is an idea only an academic could love - I don't really believe they're that stupid, I think they think the rest of us are.
“It is at least interesting that they propose a market-based solution.”
No it is not. . .
“Under our plan, Congress might REQUIRE gun makers in the aggregate to reduce gun homicides from 12,000 to, say, 7,000 in 10 years”
“Either way, the REQUIRED decline would be substantial.”
“They might withdraw their semiautomatic weapons from the consumer market”. . . This is not a marketable position for the vast majority of gun manufacturers.
More of the same ‘back-door-liberalism’ under the guise of a ‘free market solution.’ Watch this big steamy pile grow and watch your backside.
No government has a monopoly on perpetuity. The 2nd is THE line we all man.
the Deets
It is interesting in that 20 or 40 years ago no liberal would have proposed any scheme involving the use of markets.
Markets have been generally accepted as efficient ways to accomplish things. Witness this proposal and the carbon trap and grade idea.
IOW, the long-held liberal/socialist idea that markets were in and of themselves a bad thing has largely gone away. Now they want to use markets to accomplish their goals.
I believe on some level this is a win for our side. I think it would be very difficult for anybody to seriously propose a genuine command economy as an anwer to our problems.
“It is at least interesting that they propose a market-based solution.”
“No it is not. . .” A m a r k e t - b a s e d s o l u t i o n.
Why am I spelling out this simple inference?
Nevertheless, allow me to clarify further. . .
It is neither a free-market based solution nor is it interesting as one. The interest only lies in defeating it as just another marxist drag upon capitol by legislating/implementing arcane govt. mandates, witness the present ethanol disaster and the foolish carbon credit market which is nothing more than income redistribution. If ‘liberals’ were so damned concerned about the environment, then we would never hear the end about the massive, pollution-filled brown cloud that is generated by China and ends up making the weather and pollution much worse in California. I wonder why China gets a ‘pass’ on this one?? Hmmmm
What I am saying is that marxists/liberals/democrats simply utilize the verbiage of markets in designing and ‘marketing’ tools for subjugation and income redistribution. Don’t believe d hype.
No government has a monopoly on perpetuity. The 2nd is THE line we all man.
the Deets
Hey LA Times, since even YOU recognize that gun-control laws don't prevent murders, how about an editorial advocating REPEAL of those ineffective gun control laws?
Yep...99% of them criminals and gang members we couldn't shoot the first time.
No, the fact they are Liberals means they are crazy.
Nerf guns. No problem.
How about performance based outcomes for journalists?
Say, improving accuracy and objectivity in their articles from 0% to 0.001% in ten years?
Probably not possible.
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