Gun-Violence Models

These models and simulations have been tagged “Gun-Violence”.

Experimental model to illustrate the problem of gun violence as a 'wicked problem'.  Basic idea: Guns exist. Murders exist. When people become aware of murders, they will tend to buy guns at a higher rate. Problem is, the more guns that are out there, the more likely it is that a gun will be used in
Experimental model to illustrate the problem of gun violence as a 'wicked problem'.

Basic idea: Guns exist. Murders exist. When people become aware of murders, they will tend to buy guns at a higher rate. Problem is, the more guns that are out there, the more likely it is that a gun will be used in a murder. People hear about increasing gun murder rates, they buy more guns. Problem feeds itself.

Now, accidents also happen, at some rate, as an inevitable consequence of gun ownership.

This model inter-relates gun supply as a function of purchases (with some attrition included), with purchases a function of replacing attrition, accidents (depress purchases), and murders (increase purchases).

Accidents tend not to be as visible, so they have a lower impact than murders on purchases. Further complication: the more murders, the greater odds that people hear about them, and buy guns to protect themselves at higher rates.

End result, even if you arbitrarily max out gun ownership at, say, 50% of the population, you've got an effect where murders are far more common than they were. Reversing the effect is not linear, due to the way I've set up the purchases logic: higher purchase rates with higher thresholds of murders (1,5,10+)

Idea of showing this logic: if you want to reduce gun purchases, murder rate needs to come down. But, to accomplish this, you need to get guns out of circulation. Problem: positive effects won't be immediately visible, because the interactions are non-linear.

I think this helps illustrate why the US gun problem is so severe. Inclusion of the accident effects may offer an explanation for differences between, say, Switzerland (high gun ownership) and the US: awareness of accident risk.

This is ENTIRELY ad-hoc, no real parameters were used. For illustration of the theoretical problem ONLY. Though if you can come up with better parameters rooted in the relevant science literature (I may do it someday, but not the time right now...), you might be able to turn this into a more 'real' simulation.
The succession of incidents of gun violence in the USA seem
to be set to continue. This CLD explores what might be the major drivers behind
these incidents and what could be leverage points of intervention. The deeply
rooted believe that guns offer protection against assault with firearms has
been i
The succession of incidents of gun violence in the USA seem to be set to continue. This CLD explores what might be the major drivers behind these incidents and what could be leverage points of intervention. The deeply rooted believe that guns offer protection against assault with firearms has been identified as a major factor perpetuating the current situation. This false belief impedes sensible legislation to introduce tougher measures to control gun purchases. Proof of the existence of this belief is that the purchases of guns reliably increase after every mass shooting.   There have now been a number of  research papers that have shown that an increase in the access of firearms leads to an increase in gun violence. Guns kept in the home lead to children being injured or killed by guns, more suicides and killings  - the opposite of increased security. Please see the article below. Successfully challenging this cultural belief would probably reduce opposition to effective control on the acquisition of guns and in all probability the number of gun victims.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0804-hemenway-defensive-gun-home-20150730-story.html

There have now been a number of scientific
research papers that confirm that an increase in the access to firearms leads
to an increase of gun violence. Here is what one research paper concluded:

  ''Results.  Gun
ownership was a significant predictor of firearm homicide rates (incidence rate
ratio
There have now been a number of scientific research papers that confirm that an increase in the access to firearms leads to an increase of gun violence. Here is what one research paper concluded:

''Results. Gun ownership was a significant predictor of firearm homicide rates (incidence rate ratio = 1.009; 95% confidence interval = 1.004, 1.014). This model indicated that for each percentage point increase in gun ownership, the firearm homicide rate increased by 0.9%.''

In 2011 there were 11, 101 people that died because of gun violence in the US. However, during the same period only 17 died from acts of terrorism. The Casual Loop Diagram tries to illustrate the process and dynamic that could be behind this unacceptably high number of victims. Is there not a moral dimension to this horrific number of victims that demands immediate action to disrupt this vicious reinforcing circle?

URL of the study:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3828709/

The succession of incidents of gun violence in the USA seems to be set to continue. This CLD explores what might be the major drivers behind
these incidents and what could be leverage points of intervention. The deeply
rooted believe that guns offer protection against assault with firearms has
been
The succession of incidents of gun violence in the USA seems to be set to continue. This CLD explores what might be the major drivers behind these incidents and what could be leverage points of intervention. The deeply rooted believe that guns offer protection against assault with firearms has been identified as a major factor perpetuating the current situation. This false belief impedes sensible legislation to introduce tougher measures to control gun purchases. Proof of the existence of this belief is that the purchases of guns reliably increase after every mass shooting.   There have now been a number of  research papers that have shown that an increase in the access of firearms leads to an increase in gun violence. Guns kept in the home lead to children being injured or killed by guns, more suicides and killings  - the opposite of increased security. Please see the article below. Successfully challenging this cultural belief would probably reduce opposition to effective control on the acquisition of guns and in all probability the number of gun victims.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0804-hemenway-defensive-gun-home-20150730-story.html