No. What I am asking is that you take note that the lack of causality between number of guns owned and crime has been debunked by validated studies. All it takes is one or two instances where a town had a significant increase in gun ownership and/or passed laws allowing for Constitutional Carry (which 26 states now have) but has not experienced a rise in crime. The FACT is, many, if not most, of those areas saw a significant drop in the crime rate. That destroys the "fact" you posted: Higher firearm ownership rates mean higher rates of firearms violence.
Cont...
Link to the academic peer-reviewed studies. When I say "more guns means more gun violence" I'm referencing a publicized, nationwide statistic by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. It is not "cherry picking" data from a rural town and comparing it to a metropolis.
Q: The pitfall of arguing about gun control, crime rates, or most other societal issues is that statistics are often incomplete and biased (cherry-picked data). What you left out, IMO, is that more people are protected each year using a firearm than are shot or killed with one during a crime. That also includes suicide by firearm.
A: I'll come back to "cherry-picking" later, but I am very well aware of the number of firearms used in self-defense statistics. If you know these stats, then you also know that there is a very, very large variance. Last I remember, the number of times a firearm was used in self-defense ranged from 500k, to 3m. Why? Simply because that number is impossible to quantify given one significant variable: The number of a times a firearm was used in self-defense, but was NOT FIRED. This data is not officially collected and is a well-know gap in this particular data set.
Q: Any argument that includes the phrase "gun violence" has predetermined the cause of that violence. To ignore all other factors other than the existence of guns is dishonest and biased. Nobody talks about knife violence, automobile violence (aka road rage, alcohol-related, intentional injury via a motor vehicle, etc), or blunt force violence. That's because the agenda is to blame the gun.
A: "Gun violence" has become a common term in lay-speak, and academics spar over its use all the time. I'm very well aware that other types of violence occurs and I've also said that more firearms does not mean more overall violence (which includes stabbings, clubbing's, strangling's, etc.) but more firearms does mean more death or injury by firearm and this is very clear.
Q: All that, and you didn't even try to answer the question I proposed: Do gun crimes rise because more people own guns, or do people buy guns in response to a rise in crime? Hint: More first time gun owners in the last 3 years than ever before. Also record crime in many cities.
A: As I said before, you pose an unanswerable question, and it appears to be by design. For the same reason we cannot academically determine how many times a gun was used to prevent a crime, we cannot determine how many times a crime was committed because of a gun. We only know approximately how many guns are owned and approximately how many crimes are committed, and only sometimes when there's a firearm involved. I don't know why people buy guns, nor do I care. It's a right to own a gun, and I don't make it my business to figure out why a person may or may not choose to exercise a constitutional right.
Q: In 1994, the Federal Assault Weapons Ban was enacted. April 20, 1999, just 5 years later, the Columbine High School Massacre took place. The killers used guns labeled "Assault Weapons". Do we draw the conclusion that banning these weapons, thus reducing their numbers in the hands of gun owners, means more such events?
A: "Mass school shootings", "school shootings", and "mass shootings" are three different things, and they should be studied independently, at least in my opinion. I consider mass school shootings like Columbine to be statistical anomalies, because the amount of death would be normally considered statistical outliers when compared to "school shootings". School shootings are mostly perpetuated by adults, after school hours, and commonly at sporting events. The definition of a "school shooting" is anytime, anyone is injured by a firearm while on school property. I disagree with this definition, and it's a point I argue on a regular basis. "Mass shootings" are yet another separate category. This definition is not clearly defined by anyone, and like "mass school shootings", events like Mandalay Bay are clearly outliers when compared to, say, your average mass shooting where "four people are injured". Bottom line is, the AWB is likely the product of a "moral panic", as is much of legislation these days. Most gun violence is perpetuated with a handgun, not a rifle, so it doesn't make sense to ban rifles or limit magazine capacity. I suspect adding suppressors to the NFA list is also the result of a "moral panic".