[jacquesm]

For this to make sense you have to look at statistics, not individuals. Statistically speaking your argument holds no water, but I'm happy for your friend. In her case it worked out well. But that's the exception, unfortunately.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20121216092406AA...

"People like me" like to judge things on a wider basis than the exceptions confirming the rule.

[glenra]

The anti-gun studies tend to be pretty terrible as a rule. Including that one. Have you looked into any of the studies on the other side?

Suppose a woman in an isolated place avoids a rape via one of these methods: - credibly yelling "go away - I've got a gun!" - brandishing a gun - aiming a gun at the attacker - firing a "warning shot" - firing at the attacker, but missing

...and the attacker runs away.

She's not likely to report this to the authorities. The attacker certainly isn't going to report it. So a study of "shooting incidents" won't include it. A study that starts by looking at cases where somebody was actually shot is counting most of the social costs but only some of the social benefits of gun ownership.

[jacquesm]

You can fantasize situations until the cows come home, but until you get some hard numbers involved it doesn't amount to anything. Are we going to count cases where people were wounded? Where guns were used but no shots were fired?

How many dead people is worth how many raped women? And so on.

And when you've done all that you're going to have to compare with countries that have gun control in place, look at the rape incidence before and after the change (if there was one) and do a plain comparison of rape incidence in countries with and without.

Those studies have been done, but since you're going to dismiss those with 'anti gun studies tend to be pretty terrible as a rule' it probably won't matter much.

Keep at it. How many dead will it take? Until one of your family is murdered? Or will you still stand by your claim even then?

[glenra]

In other words, you didn't even look at the details of your own study and whether it related to the post you were responding to, you just did a keyword match to see that it reached "the right conclusion". Got it.

If you never look at anything the other side is saying about your side, you're doomed to talk nonsense. Like Kellerman's "43-to-1" claim.

Pro-gun people consider it a win if a gun deters a murder, deters a rape, deters a theft or other nastiness. But anti-gun researcher often run studies that assume the only benefit of guns is if they actually kill a bad guy. (They also have been known to occasionally interpret "the victim knew the attacker" as "the person shot was a family member or loved one".) Given those sort of assumptions, it's trivial to generate "some hard numbers" that are useless, like a 4-to-1 or 12-to-1 or 43-to-1 ratio between "bad" things happening and "good" ones happening to those who own a gun.

The study you gave also assumed a dubious direction of causality - if people who know they are in danger of being attacked tend to go buy a gun, that alone could adequately explain the discovered correlation between being shot and carrying a gun.

(A nice orthogonal issue is that most murderers and most murder victims have multiple prior violent felony convictions, so this Philly study is probably telling us mainly what happens within and among the criminal class. If you aren't a violent felon and don't know any violent felons, the chance of you being killed goes waaaay down.)

[jacquesm]

In a dysfunctional society, one where there is no law and where you have to take matters into your own hands to get a modicum of safety guns have their place. That was America a few centuries ago. If you still feel that unsafe than you have another problem than the one you're trying to solve with your guns.

Try living in a country with gun control laws for a bit and see where you feel safer. And be sure to ask the women there too if they feel safe or not.

Fear is an incredibly powerful motor behind a lot of stupidity, if you're so afraid that you can't walk around for fear of being robbed or raped if you're not 'packing heat' then why don't you do something about that problem, rather than to go around and compound it by escalation?

And yes, I read those studies, and quite few besides. The consensus is very clear (outside the NRA and their stooges, that is): guns in large numbers in society make that society a more dangerous place. Period.

So you can talk until the cows come home, the facts simply don't support your conclusions.

[glenra]

> Try living in a country with gun control laws for a bit and see where you feel safer.

You mean like the UK? The UK has a horrendous violent crime rate - four times that of the US. So if people were "afraid" in proportion to actual risk, they should be more afraid there than in the US, no?

(random news story about that: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-... )

Or do you mean like Sweden? Sweden's reported rape rate is about twice that of the US.

I actually do live in a country with gun control laws. I live in New York City. And I don't own a gun. But that doesn't mean I have to accept unfounded claims about how bad guns are.

The truth is that the statistics are ambiguous. Every time gun laws change in the US, partisans claim it'll have a huge effect but the actual effect is hard to measure. Florida didn't become "the gunshine state" when they liberalized CCWs. (Rape rates did somewhat decrease there, but it's hard to connect that reliably to the change) On the margin, neither tightening NOR loosening gun laws is a panacea.

I'm not sure whose "consensus" you're referring to, but it's not the consensus of criminologists. The gradual loosening of CCW restrictions nationwide came only after very careful study repeatedly determined there's no significant increase in violence when more people are carrying hidden guns. You're free to believe there's some sort of "threshold effect", that if we got gun ownership levels below some magic number X, that suddenly everything would be better then, but at this point that's just an article of faith - there's no math supporting it.

[jacquesm]

You pick the worst from a huge region and then use that to argue the case for the whole region (EU).

Just homicides:

http://chartsbin.com/view/1454

Intentional homicides:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...

Using Sweden as an example to argue high rape incidence is ridiculous because Sweden classes things as rape that are not counted as rape in any other country in the world. See also: Julian Assange, aka the trouble of travelling unprotected in Sweden.

Check out the statistics on Australia pre and post the gun laws.

And if you have nothing better to do, a nice bit of reading on the trouble with flatly comparing the crime figures from various countries:

http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/Compiling-an...

[abrown28]

Here is a non fantasy... You want to want to make the vulnerable defenseless. You are a despicable person.

[jacquesm]

What a ridiculous thing to say. Let's arm all the kids, they're defenceless. Let's arm all the old people too, they're defenceless. In fact, let's arm everybody because after all, when kids and old people have arms everybody else is defenceless.

And then we'll both sit back and watch the world burn while the defenceless people try to come to terms with their new-found power and slaughter each other.

What's despicable is that there is a country full of people that are so insecure and that have such little faith in their law enforcement that they feel the need to stockpile ammo and weapons as if there is going to be a shoot-out any moment. And guess what, they're all surprised when there is going to be the occasional shoot-out and when people that shouldn't have access to guns find it all too easy to get their hands on them.

The power to kill is bad enough when we pass it on to the state but that's a necessary evil. It isn't called the state monopoly on force for nothing.

If you're so insecure that you can't live without a chunk of iron under your pillow then you should look at how you can improve your society to the point where it is safe enough to live a normal life without having metal detectors at grade schools and armed shopkeepers.

Keep the poor as poor as they are, keep the insane living on the streets, give everybody access to as much hardware as they want and you will reap exactly what you sow.

[abrown28]

-What a ridiculous thing to say. Let's arm all the kids, they're defenceless. Let's arm all the old people too, they're defenceless. In fact, let's arm everybody because after all, when kids and old people have arms everybody else is defenceless.

I don't know what to make of this silly argument.

-And then we'll both sit back and watch the world burn while the defenceless people try to come to terms with their new-found power and slaughter each other.

So in your world view a populace given the responsibility or defending themselves from bad people will inevitably lead to wide spread slaughter. You are an idiot and apparently have no love of your fellow humans.

-What's despicable is that there is a country full of people that are so insecure and that have such little faith in their law enforcement that they feel the need to stockpile ammo and weapons as if there is going to be a shoot-out any moment. And guess what, they're all surprised when there is going to be the occasional shoot-out and when people that shouldn't have access to guns find it all too easy to get their hands on them.

People who shouldn't have guns will always have access to them because they don't care what law there is to prevent them. You can make it more difficult but you can't make it 100%. You can however make it 100% for those who are responsible and capable of owning a gun without going on a power induced rampage. Your goal seems to be to make the responsible law abiding person weaker in a confrontation with the law breakers. That is why I don't like you.

-The power to kill is bad enough when we pass it on to the state but that's a necessary evil. It isn't called the state monopoly on force for nothing.

It's a monopoly on the initiation of force. No one has the right to initiate force against others but they do have the right to fight back. Removing a persons ability to use force to defend themselves by law makes them a slave to those who do not care about following the law.

-If you're so insecure that you can't live without a chunk of iron under your pillow then you should look at how you can improve your society to the point where it is safe enough to live a normal life without having metal detectors at grade schools and armed shopkeepers.

I've tried and I'm still trying to improve the world around me but there are way too many people like you that think there is strength in making others weak.

-Keep the poor as poor as they are, keep the insane living on the streets, give everybody access to as much hardware as they want and you will reap exactly what you sow.

I think you are projecting on to me somehow. I don't believe in any of what you wrote. I believe the poor should not have impediments put int their way. I don't believe in giving them a hand out. I have no idea what to do about insane people. If they are violent and hurt others then lock them up but other than that I'm clueless about what to do. I don't believe the average person should have a howitzer in their garage.

I probably shouldn't have called you despicable because I'm sure you mean well. The end result of your ideas would be awful but you obviously don't see it.