mandatory indefinite quarantine for H1N1 Swine Flu. WTF?

[Spats]

Huh? Where is the evidence of this alleged predilection? In fact, Obama's adminstration is adding back many of the due process protections stripped by GWB's admin

What planet do you live on? He has done the opposite, supporting Bush's unconstitutional power grabs, at every opportunity.

"The Obama administration fell in line with the Bush administration Thursday when it urged a federal judge to set aside a ruling in a closely watched spy case weighing whether a U.S. president may bypass Congress and establish a program of eavesdropping on Americans without warrants."
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/200...ama-sides-wit/
(Which doesn't work.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/11/us/11nsa.html?_r=1&hp

Obama supports INDEFINITE PREVENTATIVE DETENTION. This should scare the hell out of you:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwa...ion/index.html

Obama supports telecom immunity (i.e. preventing Big Telecom from being sued for unconstitutionally spying on Americans):
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/wo...1755.html?_r=1

"The Obama administration disclosed on August 27 that it will carry on Bush administration policies that allowed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to seize and search international travelers' laptop computers, cellular phones, cameras, and other electronic devices, even in the absence of suspicion of criminal activity."
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/se...digi-s01.shtml

Obama administration wants to be able to turn off or censor the Internet at will:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10320096-38.html

And here's a great article on "Obama's trail of broken promises" from that horrible right-wing rag, Salon.com:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature...ota/index.html

Shit, just read Glenn Greenwald's column in Harper's and you'll have your illusions punctured in short order.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
This is another great source for Obama's trail of broken promises to the Left:
http://obamaletdownwatch.wordpress.com/

[Spats]

So it's the governments fault for not stepping in after Katrina but it would also be the governments fault for not doing what they could to stop an epidemic. gotcha, I get it now.

No, it's the government's fault for doing, during Katrina, EXACTLY what they will probably do with quarantine regulations:

1) Go door-to-door taking away everyone's guns, even beating up grandmothers when they admitted to owning an old Colt revolver.
http://www.examiner.com/x-4525-Seatt...play-into-case

2) Force everyone to leave their homes and possessions (which are promptly taken by looters) and go to government "evacuation centers", like the Superdome, from which the government had no ability to actually evacuate anyone, much less feed or even provide toilets for those present -- and which rapidly turned into disgusting, rape-ridden hellholes in which many people died.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4213214.stm
"There is rapes going on here. Women cannot go to the bathroom without men. They are raping them and slitting their throats," she told Reuters.

3) Simultaneously prevent people from leaving the city in any other way, with guns, helicopters, and dogs. See this thread, posted right here on TGR:
[ame="http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34771"]Fort Apache: N'Awlins - Teton Gravity Research Forums[/ame]

Recent history and public policy clearly show that if you think the government has your interests at heart, you're the one wearing the tinfoil hat.

[Hugh Conway]

No, it's the government's fault for doing, during Katrina, EXACTLY what they will probably do with quarantine regulations:

1) Go door-to-door taking away everyone's guns, even beating up grandmothers when they admitted to owning an old Colt revolver.
http://www.examiner.com/x-4525-Seatt...play-into-case

2) Force everyone to leave their homes and possessions (which are promptly taken by looters) and go to government "evacuation centers", like the Superdome, from which the government had no ability to actually evacuate anyone, much less feed or even provide toilets for those present -- and which rapidly turned into disgusting, rape-ridden hellholes in which many people died.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4213214.stm
"There is rapes going on here. Women cannot go to the bathroom without men. They are raping them and slitting their throats," she told Reuters.

3) Simultaneously prevent people from leaving the city in any other way, with guns, helicopters, and dogs. See this thread, posted right here on TGR:
Fort Apache: N'Awlins - Teton Gravity Research Forums

Recent history and public policy clearly show that if you think the government has your interests at heart, you're the one wearing the tinfoil hat.

You are worried the government will take your government away your guns because of the flu?

[Spats]

You are worried the government will take your government away your guns because of the flu?

Are you seizing on one tiny part of what I posted, just so that you can classify me as a "gun nut" and therefore ignore the rest of the incontrovertible evidence? Because it sure looks like it.

Just like Dex, who has decided to support the ruling class of bankers as they rape him and the rest of the American poor and middle class -- because the first person he heard about those facts from was a supporter of R** P***, and of course, everything associated with him is EEEEEVIL. (He ignores the fact that Money as Debt, which makes almost all the same points I've made, is strongly endorsed by the left -- Elizabeth Kucinich, David Korten, Carolyn Baker, etc.)
http://www.moneyasdebt.net/

FREEDOM IS A BIPARTISAN ISSUE, and neither the Democrats nor the Republicans support it, because it doesn't make them any money. People like Russ Feingold, Dennis Kucinich, and Ron Paul are incredibly rare, and deserve our thanks and our support for defending our freedom.

[Mofro261]

QUARANTINE FOR FLU HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH TAKING YER GUNS or REMOVING YOUR FREEDOMS. Spreading a potentially deadly infectious disease is NOT a freedom guaranteed by the constitution.

Title 42 United States Code Section 264 (Section 361 of the Public Health Service [PHS] Act) gives the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) responsibility for preventing the introduction, transmission, and spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into the United States and within the United States and its territories/possessions. This statute is implemented through regulations found at 42 CFR Parts 70 and 71. Under its delegated authority, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is empowered to detain, medically examine, or conditionally release individuals reasonably believed to be carrying a communicable disease.
Why is an Executive Order necessary?

Under the procedures required under the PHS Act, the list of diseases for which quarantine is authorized must first be specified in an Executive Order of the President, on recommendation of the HHS Secretary. By amending the list to include types of influenza that either cause or have the potential to cause a pandemic, HHS is simply taking the pragmatic step of readying all options as it monitors the emergence of these viruses and makes plans to prevent their spread.

What does the Executive Order accomplish?

In the event a passenger infected with a novel influenza strain were to arrive in the United States on board an international conveyance (e.g., boat, airplane), the Executive Order provides HHS with clear legal authority to isolate an ill passenger to prevent the passenger from infecting others. This authority would be used only if someone posed a threat to public health and refused to cooperate with a voluntary request.

Were any other diseases added to the list?

No, this Executive Order added only influenza viruses that cause or have the potential to cause a pandemic to the list of communicable diseases for which quarantine is authorized. SARS was added to the list of quarantinable diseases by Executive Order in 2003. The other diseases (Cholera; Diphtheria; infectious Tuberculosis; Plague; Smallpox; Yellow fever; and Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers) have been on the list since 1983.
The President can revise this list by Executive Order.

[grrrr]

This has moved beyond the FULL BLOWN TINFOIL HAT!!! phase.

[Dexter Rutecki]

No, it's the government's fault for doing, during Katrina, EXACTLY what they will probably do with quarantine regulations:

1) Go door-to-door taking away everyone's guns,

Perfect example of why strong gun control is needed. If NO hadn't been flooded with handguns (due to lax regulation and generally dumb Southern state gun lust) to begin with, it wouldn't have been an issue. There's no other developed country in the world that has this as a problem when a disaster strikes. Just a pathetic, tragic joke that we have this so called gun 'culture.' Moronic to think the solution is more guns.

And it's because of states like LA and VA where they don't have sensible gun controls that we have trouble in places like NYC (less trouble since government starting cracking down and interdicting traffic from southern states, but still).

[Toadman]

Let's hope this flu mutates into H4N2 or something else and we won't have to worry about it.

[Spats]

QUARANTINE FOR FLU HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH TAKING YER GUNS or REMOVING YOUR FREEDOMS.

Prohibition had nothing to do with establishing the long, brutal reign of organized crime in the USA...officially.

Yet that was the effect. The nearly century-long reign of La Cosa Nostra is directly due to Prohibition, which has caused so much more death and suffering than it ever prevented, and whose reign of terror continues yet today, over 75 years after repeal.

Maybe if either political party had a track record of not abusing the power we've let them take, I'd be more accepting of laws that let people be detained indefinitely with no due process and no proof required, EVEN RETROACTIVELY.
See my previous post for just THIS YEAR'S examples: [ame="http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2519665&postcount=51"]Click here, or just scroll up[/ame]

Laws don't always have the effects you intend, or expect.

This has moved beyond the FULL BLOWN TINFOIL HAT!!! phase.

I've backed up everything I've said with direct links -- from "mainstream" news, even. And I repeat what I've said before: I don't believe that Iowa is anything but well-intentioned, as are the people posting in this thread.

So it's incumbent on YOU to prove: is the BBC a tinfoil hat organization? How about the New York Times? Wired? Salon?

[deliberate]

I had it last year, I hoping it means Im immune this year. I couldn't eat, every muscle was exhausted, frequent cycles of chills and sweating, I coulnd't watch movies, my eyes hurt, I couldn't stand to listen to the movies either. I went to get a drink of water and came to hours later on the floor in a puddle next to a broken glass.

[Spats]

Perfect example of why strong gun control is needed.

You're worse than the Republicans: apparently you believe that repeating a lie over and over makes it true. Instead of rehashing all the times I've refuted all your cut-and-pastes, I'll just post this:

"In 2004, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences released its evaluation from a review of 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some original empirical research. It failed to identify any gun control that had reduced violent crime, suicide, or gun accidents."
Kates and Mauser again:
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/...useronline.pdf
Referring to:
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10881

I eagerly await your response.

[Jax]

Perfect example of why strong gun control is needed. If NO hadn't been flooded with handguns (due to lax regulation and generally dumb Southern state gun lust) to begin with, it wouldn't have been an issue. There's no other developed country in the world that has this as a problem when a disaster strikes. Just a pathetic, tragic joke that we have this so called gun 'culture.' Moronic to think the solution is more guns.

And it's because of states like LA and VA where they don't have sensible gun controls that we have trouble in places like NYC (less trouble since government starting cracking down and interdicting traffic from southern states, but still).

^^^^^^^
That's tripe fuckery right there, folks!

[Mofro261]

Spats, did you read anything I posted about quarantine and how the regulations have been in place for OVER 25 years already? How the only news here is that pandemic flu was added to the list, with the last addition being SARS in 2003. If someone has whooping cough they can be quarantined and it's OK, but if it's just a flu strain added during the current administration what clearly means an expansion of wider plan to remove civil liberties is occurring?

But Hey! We've got the INTERNET so if H1N1 was a real problem, we'd know about it already! Sigh, I don't no why I bother, but here's a recent blurb for you on H1N1 (just a low grade hack publication of peer reviewed articles):

The Transmissibility and Control of Pandemic Influenza A (H1N1) Virus
Science. 2009 Sep 10


Pandemic influenza A (H1N1) 2009 (pandemic H1N1) is spreading throughout the planet. It has become the dominant strain in the southern hemisphere, where the influenza season is underway. Here, based on reported case clusters in the USA, we estimate the household secondary attack rate for pandemic H1N1 to be 27.3% [95% confidence interval (CI) 12.2%–50.5%]. From a school outbreak, we estimate a school child infects 2.4 (95% CI: 1.8–3.2) other children within the school. We estimate the basic reproductive number,

R0, to range from 1.3 to 1.7 and the generation interval to range from 2.6 to 3.2 days. We use a simulation model to evaluate the effectiveness of vaccination strategies in the USA for Fall 2009. If vaccine were available soon enough, vaccination of children, followed by adults, reaching 70% overall coverage, in addition to high risk and essential workforce groups, could mitigate a severe epidemic.

I can't post the the full pdf, but the transmission rate is 2-3 times higher than average seasonal flu (0.1-0.13).

[Jer]

Argueing with Dex = yelling at a wall. A really stupid yet smug wall.

You are worried the government will take your government away your guns because of the flu?

I'm worried what? The government will take away my government? My guns are gonna get the flu?

[Spats]

Spats, did you read anything I posted about quarantine and how the regulations have been in place for OVER 25 years already?

I saw that -- but since you didn't link it, I can't determine to what extent the existing regulations are different than the proposed Iowa regulations. Please link it and I'll take a look.

However, the Washington regulations posted earlier as an example are substantially different, containing a LEGAL RIGHT OF APPEAL:
http://www.doh.wa.gov/phepr/isoquar.htm
The "Order for Involuntary Isolation or Quarantine" ends with:
"NOTICE TO PERSONS DETAINED BY THIS ORDER
NOTICE: You have the right to petition the superior court for release from isolation or quarantine in accordance with WAC 246-100-055. You have the right to legal counsel. If you are unable to afford legal counsel, then counsel will be appointed for you at government expense and you should request the appointment of counsel at this time. If you currently have legal counsel, then you have an opportunity to contact that counsel for assistance."

The Iowa regulations, in contrast, contain no such possibility. They only allow you to appeal BY MAIL -- to the Director of the same Department of Public Health that put you in isolation.
Iowa 641 1.9(7): 1.9(7)
Appeal from order imposing isolation or quarantine.
a. Contested case. The subject of a department order imposing isolation or quarantine may appeal a written order and has the right to a contested case hearing regarding such appeal. The subject of a department order imposing isolation or quarantine may appeal the order by submitting a written appeal within ten days of receipt of the written order. The appeal shall be addressed to the Department of Public Health, Division of Epidemiology, Emergency Medical Services, and Disaster Operations, Lucas State Office Building, Des Moines, Iowa 50319-0075. Unless stayed by order of the director or a district court, the written order for quarantine or isolation shall remain in force and effect until the appeal is finally determined and disposed of upon its merits.
b. Presiding officer. The presiding officer in a contested case shall be the director or the director’s designee.

Yes...you have the "right" to appeal to the director of the organization that detained you -- BY MAIL.

I can't post the the full pdf, but the transmission rate is 2-3 times higher than average seasonal flu (0.1-0.13)

Is the transmission rate mentioned in the original paper? (The link you posted is broken, btw.) Because if it is, and if you have a source for the assertion that the transmission rate is out of the statistical range of typical yearly epidemics *AND* the fatality rate is comparable or worse, that would be the first piece of ACTUAL DATA anyone has posted, anywhere, that indicates H1N1 is more dangerous than an absolutely normal seasonal flu.

I am totally open to that possibility: facts are facts. The reason I have reacted so strongly before is that you're the first person to report an actual fact in context. Everything before this has been useless fearmongering.

[Rip'nStick]

Nothing to add other than this thread is ALL kinds of awesome. We have:

- OP calling out a contingency quarantine plan from Iowa (Iowa people!)
- Jce338 with swine flu ( a swino) who everyone ignores. And LSD pepper
- Jer telling everyone to run for the hills. And he is serious.
- Hutash with some reasoning and history which falls on deaf ears
- Spats jumping in on the government conspiracy theory
- Splat jumping in on the government conspiracy theory (not to be confused with Spats)
- Some sarcasm, mildly amusing (Rasputin ok, Dexter seriously step up your game)
- Advres sounding hung over and pissed at the general stupidity of this place
- OSECS with a funny pwning right wing conspiracy theorists
- LSD Twinkies and how much Tip like them
- More reasoning from Mofro and Big Steve followed by tin foil hats worn by Spat and Splat

I know, I’m a loser but I was definitely amused by this. Hope I don’t kill it because I think it has much more potential. But we need some more big guns out there.

jce, get better man, sounds like from deliberate this is not a fun thing to go through. Tell us how it is going when you get a chance please.
-Nick

[Dexter Rutecki]

You're worse than the Republicans: apparently you believe that repeating a lie over and over makes it true. Instead of rehashing all the times I've refuted all your cut-and-pastes, I'll just post this:

"In 2004, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences released its evaluation from a review of 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some original empirical research. It failed to identify any gun control that had reduced violent crime, suicide, or gun accidents."
Kates and Mauser again:
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/...useronline.pdf
Referring to:
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10881

I eagerly await your response.

Now Spats, at least be honest here. You know that it is disingenuous to suggest that the above study shows gun control to be ineffective. The conclusion was not that the laws do not work, but that it was impossible to prove what their effect is due to uncontrolled variables. We've been over this and over this, and you still don't accept what the facts (including FBI and CDC numbers) show. We did this somewhat recently and I think there was an earlier thread as well. And remember a few years ago how happy you were with the Lott study, until it was shown to rely on manipulated and selectively gathered data?

And then more recently we have the CDC asking for more funding to continue their study that would have shown how effective gun control laws are--result: funding blocked by the NRA and the congressmen they've bought. Want to guess why they blocked it? I would think you of all people would be able to see when a large lobbying group is overtly paying to keep information harmful to them from being gathered and released.

I'll just give you two quick examples of how gun control works, as if we need them given the fact that gun murder/crime rates in countries with real gun control are small fractions of the rate we have (yet another fact I know you don't like, as it conflicts with your agenda). You're probably aware that since NYC started seriously going after guns already on the streets and those still being smuggled to the city the gun crime and shooting rate has dropped tremendously--NYC is now the safest large city in the country. Its gun crime rate has dropped much more than in other large cities that were unable to make the same anti-gun efforts. You might want to attribute this drop to other factors, but it strains credulity to claim that getting rid of the guns wasn't part of this. In fact, just this year the police commissioner credited a new campaign against guns with a 21% drop in murders (while overall crime only fell 12%). And looking back the first drops in gun crime coincided with the beginning of this effort.

And consider this: in Canada, since stronger controls were introduced in 1991, gun killings dropped by 40%, which is over 12% more than overall crime dropped. One of the most important things they have done is intercept guns coming from the U.S.--which they can do even more effectively than NYC can do with guns from other states. Give us nationwide gun control and you'd see the same results NYC and Canada have enjoyed.

Warren Silver. “Crime Statistics in Canada 2006,” Statistics Canada.
Juristat, vol. 27, no. 5, July 2007. Geoffrey Li. “Homicide in Canada 2006,” Statistics Canada.
Juristat, vol. 27, no. 8, October 2007.

[13]

Is the transmission rate mentioned in the original paper?

Yes.

The reason his link doesn't work is because you have to pay for access to the article.

[Hugh Conway]

Are you seizing on one tiny part of what I posted, just so that you can classify me as a "gun nut" and therefore ignore the rest of the incontrovertible evidence? Because it sure looks like it.

I'm calling you a whackjob, not just a gun nut.

[AKA]

Seriously: a LOLcat makes it around the entire Internet in about 24 hours. If there were a legitimate H1N1 outbreak (which there has not yet been), everyone would know within about half a day, and at that point, anyone not smart enough to self-quarantine probably deserves to be flushed out of the gene pool.

most of us would ignore it because we have been conditioned to ignore "news" that is fired at us 24/7 from every direction most of which is nothing but overhyped ratings driven garbage.

[powpig]

I bet we can really shift this into overdrive by adding a discussion of the rumors of mandatory flu vaccinations this winter.

[Spats]

I'm calling you a whackjob, not just a gun nut.

So far I've been called a whackjob and a tinfoil-hat wearer for suggesting that the government might do exactly the same things it did during Katrina, four years ago -- and posting links to mainstream news sites reminding everyone what happened then.



Then, I actually looked up the Iowa quarantine law, which no one else had bothered to do (it's available online...took me about five minutes) and found that it is very different than the Washington State law linked as an example -- containing, unlike Washington, NO RIGHT OF APPEAL.

Apparently, around here, bothering to do actual research is unfashionable. Instead I should be choosing my political views based on a vague underlying emotional neediness that is fully satisfied by talking heads on TV spouting the right catchphrases, defend my views with the same emotional groupthink, and pretend that they have no connection to real-world events, like loyalty to a sports team.

[dookeyXXX]

there's no guarantee against a quarantine...


...and i wonder what the BSL (Bio Safety Level) of Swine Flu is (and whatever happened to Mad Cow Disease and Bird Flu and come to think of it, those pesky Killer Bees?)





PS
ran into a neighbor yesterday who told me his youngest daughter just got over a bout of Swine Flu. neither he, his wife or their son caught it and he said the only symptons his daughter showed was extreme fatique.

[Spats]

Now Spats, at least be honest here. You know that it is disingenuous to suggest that the above study shows gun control to be ineffective.

Now Dex, you know being patronizing is a complete failure when you have no facts to back it up.

The conclusion was not that the laws do not work, but that it was impossible to prove what their effect is due to uncontrolled variables.

So the most powerful anti-gun argument is "Depending on how you jigger control variables, some anti-gun laws may be merely ineffective, as opposed to actively detrimental to our safety."



That is a long way from sufficient proof to abrogate a basic Constitutional right.

We've been over this and over this, and you still don't accept what the facts (including FBI and CDC numbers) show.

You keep referring to these mysterious "facts", which you've never actually posted and somehow can never ever find the links to

Conversely, every time this subject comes up, I post my sources. Here are a few recent examples, easily found in two minutes with a search for posts by me containing "guns":

[ame="http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2379960&postcount=18"]Teton Gravity Research Forums - View Single Post - The Nuge On Gun Control[/ame]
(Sources: American Journal of Epidemiology, Harvard Law Review, Oxford Journals)

[ame="http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2379427&postcount=15"]Teton Gravity Research Forums - View Single Post - The Nuge On Gun Control[/ame]
(Source: USDOJ. Also contains links to many other prior threads where I debunk your "statistics" using real statistics.)

Seriously: I used to believe that gun bans worked and made us safer, too. I even gave speeches about it. But slowly, over time, I realized that it was a purely emotional reaction and there was absolutely no evidence that they worked -- and, if anything, there are correlations in the opposite direction.

As far as John Lott, the original link deals with his research, and concludes exactly what I said above: depending on how you jigger the variables, concealed carry laws either show a small positive effect (less crime) or no significant effect.

I'll just give you two quick examples of how gun control works,

Read: "Every piece of academic research fails to validate my biases, so I'll cherry-pick a couple examples and hope no one notices."

as if we need them given the fact that gun murder/crime rates in countries with real gun control are small fractions of the rate we have (yet another fact I know you don't like, as it conflicts with your agenda).

FALSE! You can't even cherry-pick an example that supports your views!

"Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide?" Don B. Kates and Gary Mauser, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Vol. 30
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/...useronline.pdf
"...To bear that burden would at the very least require showing that a large number of nations with more guns have more death and that nations that have imposed stringent gun controls have achieved substantial reductions in criminal violence (or suicide). But those correlations are not observed when a large number of nations are compared across the world."

You're probably aware that since NYC started seriously going after guns already on the streets and those still being smuggled to the city the gun crime and shooting rate has dropped tremendously

Unfortunately you're not aware that correlation does not equal causation, especially for one single cherry-picked example. It's astounding that you dismiss John Lott while pulling this sort of crap. I can point at Washington DC and Chicago as counterexamples, just for starters...not to mention the entire countries of Russia, Mexico, and Jamaica.

Please show me an ACTUAL SOURCE for your contention that NYC's gun laws are reducing crime -- as opposed to, for instance, the 1990s economic boom that gentrified entire slum neighborhoods, or Stephen Dubner's well-known crime/abortion link. Come on, Dex: tripling rents in the East Village and Hell's Kitchen has a lot more to do with lowering crime rates than gun control laws that haven't changed meaningfully in decades.

Note that Newark's crime rate INCREASED dramatically through 2006, which is exactly what you'd expect when the City gets gentrified.
[ame="http://www.newarkspeaks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3642"]Newark's Murder Rate Highest in Over a Decade - Newark Speaks[/ame]

And consider this: in Canada, since stronger controls were introduced in 1991, gun killings dropped by 40%, which is over 12% more than overall crime dropped.

These results disappear once you control for economic conditions: 1991 was the trough of the early 1990s recession. Please post an actual academic source that asserts a causal relationship.

Meanwhile, I offer this:

"Homicide and the Prevalence of Handguns: Canada and the United States, 1976 to 1980", Brandon S. Centerwall, American Journal of Epidemiology Vol. 134, No. 11: 1245-1260
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/co...ct/134/11/1245
From the Abstract: "Major differences in the prevalence of handguns have not resulted in differing total criminal homicide rates in Canadian provinces and adjoining US states. The similar rates of criminal homicide are primarily attributable to underlying similar rates of aggravated assault."
[...]
"If you are surprised by my findings, so are we. We did not begin this research with any intent to "exonerate" handguns, but there it is – a negative finding, to be sure, but a negative finding is nevertheless a positive contribution. It directs us where NOT to aim public health resources."

[dk_alaskan]

Perfect example of why strong gun control is needed. If NO hadn't been flooded with handguns (due to lax regulation and generally dumb Southern state gun lust) to begin with, it wouldn't have been an issue. There's no other developed country in the world that has this as a problem when a disaster strikes. Just a pathetic, tragic joke that we have this so called gun 'culture.' Moronic to think the solution is more guns.

And it's because of states like LA and VA where they don't have sensible gun controls that we have trouble in places like NYC (less trouble since government starting cracking down and interdicting traffic from southern states, but still).

examples? citations? ANYTHING to give credence to your point beyond pure speculation?