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My addition to Scott’s post on this week’s topic, gun control. A few things that I happened on this morning.

The image below is a heat map of gun deaths _per capita_ by county.  I found it attached to this post on G+.  I’ve added some explanation below the image.

This is a link to an interactive map, on which the post is ultimately based.

The guy who made the post, Yonatan Zunger, is an engineering director at Google.  He’s an incredibly smart guy, with a PhD in physics from Stanford, and knowledgeable about a broad range of subjects. He’s one of the people I follow on G+ and I always look forward to his posts.

What’s interesting (beyond Yonatan’s post and the underlying article) is the discussion in the comments section. Like a lot of good creators of Internet content, he’d attracted a following of smart people who comment his post and add links to other, related information.  You can get quite an education on gun control reading and following the links in the comment section.

To precis some of the more interesting comments:

1. This is per-capita not, total deaths. So most cities are relatively safe, though there may be areas within any city that are not.
2. This is all gun deaths. Nationwide the ratio between suicide and homicide gun deaths is 65-35 (per this article)
3. Suicide by gun is about 80-85% effective. Suicide by non-gun is about 5-8% effective.
4. This is a link to a map showing locations with “mass shootings” I didn’t see a definition of “mass shootings” but clicking on the smaller dots, it seems to be >= 4 involved, though not all killed. Before you look at the article, guess how many such shootings occurred between the first of the year and Oct 2, the date of the article. Were you close?

Finally, no discussion of gun control can be complete without reference to  Ben Carson’s support of a theory so often cited, it’s been given a name: “Nazi Gun Control Theory.”

This is an kind of (and I love this term ) “Reducto ad Hitlerium” argument.

Geeks like me who frequent online discussion groups are familiar with “Godwin’s Law” which states: “”As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”

Yes, we will be meeting on Monday (Columbus Day), even though the Library is closed. Same time (10:30am), same place (the Howard Room).

There’s a lot of political rhetoric about gun control these days…from both sides…so this week we’ll try to parse through the issue in detail:

• How much of a problem is gun violence in the US?
  • Mike W. found an interesting Pew Research study about gun violence trends.
  • I’m sure someone can find a study comparing violent crime in the US to other developed countries.

• What does the Second Amendment really mean?
  • What sort of “arms” are protected? All? Only non-combat weapons? Only for state militias?
  • What has been the influence of the Supreme Court on the interpretation?

• So what can be done to reduce gun violence?
  • What exactly are President Obama’s “common sense reforms” and, if passed, would they really accomplish much?
  • Where do each the 2016 Presidential candidates stand?

• Here are the alternatives as I see them. (You’re invited to bring some more if you think I’ve missed something important.)
  • Do nothing
  • Adopt “common sense reform” (aka minor tweaks to existing law
  • Wait for Supreme Court turnover to reinterpret the Second Amendment
  • Go “whole hog” for repeal. Here’s another article (sort of) discussing How to Create a Gun-Free America in Five Easy Steps.

Lastly, here’s a Washington Post article from last week on How to Argue About Gun Control that provides some arguments, pro and con, on various subtopics related to the issue.

See you tomorrow!

This about this Pope is from 2013 but applies today

Teaser quotes:

Maybe Francis is just the first Pope who understands PR. The past two Popes were born in the 1920s; maybe they never really figured out the Age of Mass Media. I doubt future Popes will make that mistake.

For getting rid of the furniture made of solid gold that no sane person would even want, I can have the entire world talk about my humility. For two hours of my time and the cost of a foot-washing basin, I can be Time Person of the Year.