No matter how many times you use the word "rational", it doesn't make the argument for gun control rational.  Gun control is not about gun violence.  It is about people wanting to FEEL safer.  Even when the crime and self defense numbers prove stricter gun laws do not solve violence, the agenda stays the same.  Why?  Because FEELING SAFER is an EMOTIONAL OBJECTIVE, and gun control is all about "doing something so people feel safer."
Pure emotion.  Not rational.  Maybe you are confusing "rational" and "rationalized"

Gun control can take a dozen different forms. It can be purely irrational or it can be rational, it depends on the means in question. You cannot paint them all with a single brush.
Now to take one of the extreme arguments, we don't allow people to own nuclear weapons even though some interpret the 2nd amendment to mean that civilians can own any weapon that the government owns. We all draw the line somewhere but not necessarily in the same place.

Some forms of gun control do have a statistical basis. Places where guns are heavily regulated, such as the UK, have much lower gun death rates.  That is a rational argument used by some gun control advocates. A good debater has to realize when the opposing side makes a decent argument. Now I fully agree there is a lot of emotional knee jerk reaction in the gun control crowd that is not supported by data, but some of them do make rational arguments based on data.

Gun control can take a dozen different forms. It can be purely irrational or it can be rational, it depends on the means in question. You cannot paint them all with a single brush.
Now to take one of the extreme arguments, we don't allow people to own nuclear weapons even though some interpret the 2nd amendment to mean that civilians can own any weapon that the government owns. We all draw the line somewhere but not necessarily in the same place.

Some forms of gun control do have a statistical basis. Places where guns are heavily regulated, such as the UK, have much lower gun death rates.  That is a rational argument used by some gun control advocates. A good debater has to realize when the opposing side makes a decent argument. Now I fully agree there is a lot of emotional knee jerk reaction in the gun control crowd that is not supported by data, but some of them do make rational arguments based on data.

Please read, then re-read.....

http://www.forbes.com/sites/frankminiter/2014/09/25/how-bloombergs-million-dollar-desire-for-gun-control-is-backfiring/

I don't doubt that the homicide rate is dropping, I am just saying that I haven't seen proof that CCW played a significant role in that drop. It would be very interesting to see what happens to Hawaii's crime rate if CCW were allowed.

As for the claim in freakanomics being disproven I am not so sure the article does it for me. I am not saying they are wrong but the source does have a bias to them and the piece appears to be written as an editorial. On top of that one of the links citing another study that supposedly showed legalized abortion causing higher crime was not even working. Now it may be true that the science done by the freakanomics guys is flawed somehow but I wouldn't consider it disproven just because some other expert claims differently. It really would require a more in depth analysis of the freakanomics data and that used by those contesting the claim. Not something I feel like reading into at this moment so I think I will just leave that issue as unsure for now. To be clear I am not a pro-choicer.

How much proof do you need?

    The city of Chicago registered more homicides than any city in the nation in 2012, surpassing even New York — despite the fact that the Second City has only one third as many residents as the Big Apple.

    In new crime statistics released Monday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported 500 murders in Chicago in 2012, up sharply from the 431 recorded in 2011. New York reported 419 murders last year, compared with 515 in 2011.

On September 12, 2013, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled a law passed in Illinois which effectively banned carrying a loaded weapon violated the Second Amendment and struck it down. In January, the Illinois State Police began issuing concealed carry licenses.

When new crime statistics were released covering the first quarter of 2014 an amazing thing happened:

    Chicago’s first-quarter murder total this year hit its lowest number since 1958, police say.

    The first three months of the year saw 6 fewer murders than the same time frame in 2013–a 9 percent drop–and 55 fewer murders than 2012, according to a statement from Chicago Police.

Studying crime trends in every county in the U.S., economist John Lott and David Mustard concluded, “allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent crimes. . . . [W]hen state concealed handgun laws went into effect in a county, murders fell by 8.5 percent, and rapes and aggravated assaults fell by 5 and 7 percent.”

http://www.redstate.com/2014/04/04/chicagos-murder-rate-plummets-concealed-carry-law/

So, unless you have facts to dispute the statistics, data, and conclusions presented in this article and the studies it  refers to, you have to admit, this is PROOF that there is a causal relationship between CCW and lower crime rates.

You should also be aware that most self defense uses of guns don't involve actually discharging the weapon, and are therefore unreported and difficult to count.  So the figures presented are VERY conservative and err on the side of "known" data.

Please read, then re-read.....

http://www.forbes.com/sites/frankminiter/2014/09/25/how-bloombergs-million-dollar-desire-for-gun-control-is-backfiring/

Read it, very good article. Proves there is a lot of fluff and misinformation, I have never disagreed with this, I merely said that there are individuals who are in the middle in the gun control debate who do base their positions intelligently and not knee jerk reactions and misinformation. The article doesn't prove that such people don't exist.

How much proof do you need?
http://www.redstate.com/2014/04/04/chicagos-murder-rate-plummets-concealed-carry-law/
So, unless you have facts to dispute the statistics, data, and conclusions presented in this article and the studies it  refers to, you have to admit, this is PROOF that there is a causal relationship between CCW and lower crime rates.
You should also be aware that most self defense uses of guns don't involve actually discharging the weapon, and are therefore unreported and difficult to count.  So the figures presented are VERY conservative and err on the side of "known" data.

I agree there is no data showing CCW has caused an increase in crime, but the correlation of a decrease in crime and the increase in CCW does not prove causation. There are a number of other factors that may or may not be impacting those numbers such as economy, social changes, etc. You would need more in-depth study to determine what role an increase in CCW played and how much of a role it played to prove causation. I suspect that it does play at least some role and the data supports that theory but does not prove it.

Jdelacruz recognized that the correlation does not prove causation on the previous page.

Read it, very good article. Proves there is a lot of fluff and misinformation, I have never disagreed with this, I merely said that there are individuals who are in the middle in the gun control debate who do base their positions intelligently and not knee jerk reactions and misinformation. The article doesn't prove that such people don't exist.

You still don't get it.  Nobody is disputing the existence of the sheeple you refer to.  We are pointing out that these people fall into a category of misinformed and uniformed. 

Their positions are disproven by the actual facts.  A rational and sane person would no longer hold those views. 

If they decide to cling to their beliefs in the face of information to the contrary with no opposing information of their own, then they are deniers, and their positions are irrational.

I agree there is no data showing CCW has caused an increase in crime, but the correlation of a decrease in crime and the increase in CCW does not prove causation. There are a number of other factors that may or may not be impacting those numbers such as economy, social changes, etc. You would need more in-depth study to determine what role an increase in CCW played and how much of a role it played to prove causation. I suspect that it does play at least some role and the data supports that theory but does not prove it.

Jdelacruz recognized that the correlation does not prove causation on the previous page.

Your belief: the correlation of a decrease in crime and the increase in CCW does not prove causation.

The facts:  Studying crime trends in every county in the U.S., economist John Lott and David Mustard concluded, “allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent crimes"


If you're going to continue to challenge this fact, you better come up with something more than your words on a computer screen.

Yes, I think that there has been enough input from both sides, thank you for the impassioned debate.