Marxist ßastard Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 In 2007 there were 31,224 deaths in the US due to guns, including both homicides and accidents. And now you're telling me that there are 2.5 million attempted homicides every year thwarted by self-defense using a gun. Yeah, right – get a source for that and then get back to me. At least I'm glad that we can agree that there is no legitimate use for a gun other than self-defense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marharth Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 It seems like everyone ignored me, but let me say it again. You know that big massacre in Norway? IT WAY ON A KIDS SUMMER CAMP! How many people in the US carry guns in children's summer camps? How many people carry guns in school? More guns would have not stopped it, the same way more guns did not stop multiple college massacres or other school massacres in the US. I am going to go a bit more to the left now that I have read over this topic. Guns are not needed for self defense, they do not help in that case. The Norway shooting would not of been stopped unless you think its a good idea to supply kids with a bunch of firearms. The only reason guns should be legal is in the situation of a bloody revolution. Hunting as well. Any other reason is not valid in my opinion. Guns are not going to defend you as much as they are going to get you killed. Also did someone really mention Communism in relation to MBs name. Seriously? He is as much of a communist as Dark0ne is a evil demon. Just because you have a named you picked a long time ago does not mean it should be taken literally. This has been covered six times now I think. I am also pretty sure Aurielius is not a roman emperor. Or ginnyfizz is some kind of drink. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zegh8578 Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 (edited) the utøya massacre is hardly an example to bring up.to expect civilians to lethally arm themselves - specifically - to combat record-breaking massacres is just unrealistic. by that logic it makes more sense to wear kevlar vests at all times. shooting someone across a huge body of water is near* impossible. wearing a bullet proof vest would at least work by default. *i guess a veteran army marksman could - maybe - do it, with a tremendous ammount of luck. maybe if the onlookers were armed with something yet heavyer perhaps, like mortars Edited February 10, 2012 by zegh8578 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marxist ßastard Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 Hey Syco21, nevermind. I looked up the source of your statistic myself, since you didn't feel the need to bother with it. It turns out the number is derived from a telephone survey conducted by FSU professors Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz in 1993. These two guys called about 5000 people and asked if in the past year they had used a gun to protect people or property. Just 25 people (!) said yes – that's a response rate of 0.5% – and they extrapolated 2.5 million from that number. Now you probably know what else went wrong here: This was basically just someone calling random people and asking if they had a cool story to tell. Doubtless,Many reported incidents that happened two, five, ten years prior. (This is called "telescoping," and it's a major problem with phone surveys.)Others inserted guns to make for a better story, or because they wished they had used one. Some respondents were gun activists who may have wanted to inflate gun-use statistics.Others inflated the danger they were in: Trespassing becomes burglary, burglary robbery, robbery attempted murder. (Yet still, in 20% of cases the respondent couldn't say the person they threatened, maimed, or killed intended anything more than trespassing or theft.)Still others made up stories entirely. No respondents' stories were rejected because they were intoxicated, delusional, or obviously lying.Respondents reported many more attempted crimes in every category than the best source for that same year, the National Crime Victimization Survey. And if we also extrapolate the number of people shot in these cases, we come out with 200,000 – yet emergency rooms only see 100,000 gunshot victims each year from every cause, and the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports for that tear reported only 350 justifiable homicides. On examination, nearly half (!) of the incidents reported to the survey have some obvious inconsistency – i.e., they were physically impossible. With only 25 people reporting a positive result, it would've been quite feasible for Kleck and Gertz to have followed up with each person individually to make sure they weren't drunk, crazy, or lying. They could've asked for dates, places, and names. They could've even asked for police reports. Yet they did no such thing. Statisticians give this exact number as a canonical example of a "mystical number" with no basis in fact. In fact, back in 1997 the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management nominated it for an award as the "most outrageous number mentioned in a policy discussion by an elected official or agency head," since it has "no reasonable basis." And now you're not only using that number, but saying that it represents people who have defended themselves in a fatal situation by using a gun – even though many of the incidents comprised people deterring a nonviolent burglar by just waving a gun around. Oh, and in spite of 20 years of declining crime rates and declining gun ownership, you're saying that this number – which was made up in the first place, and which you've grossly misinterpreted – reflects present reality. http://www.thebeerspot.com/forum/Smileys/classic/slow.gif So on the one hand, we have 31,224 real, individual people with names and families, people whose death certificates were individually counted by the CDC, people who were alive one year and died the next due to gun violence. And on the other, we have "2.5 million" fake people, extrapolated from a telephone survey 20 years ago. Again, this is a statistic that was nominated as the "most outrageous number mentioned in a policy discussion by an elected official or agency head." But I guess if you're cynical enough to support rewriting the Constitution, a number's a number. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syco21 Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 In 2007 there were 31,224 deaths in the US due to guns, including both homicides and accidents. And now you're telling me that there are 2.5 million attempted homicides every year thwarted by self-defense using a gun. Yeah, right – get a source for that and then get back to me. At least I'm glad that we can agree that there is no legitimate use for a gun other than self-defense.Actually, we don't agree on that. I have three primary hobbies: videos, billiards and guns. I have video games I collect and video games I play. I have billiards equipment I collect and billiards equipment I use. Guns are no different. And just like with video games and billiards, there are different uses for my guns. Some I like to take out for target practice, some are for hunting, some for self defense. IDK what 2007 was like in terms of deaths by gun. But I know that in '09 there were 9,000 gun related homicides and 550 gun related accidental deaths. The greatest number of gun deaths comes from suicides. About 18,000. Suicides are irrelevant. It seems like everyone ignored me, but let me say it again.I didn't ignore you, I stated already that guns in the hands of citizens have helped in situations of school shootings. In the U.S., it is not unusual for a kid's summer camp to have guns. They are mostly used for target shooting, but they still have guns. I think that the adults should have guns, even in schools and summer camps. Again, I've already listed an example where a school vice principal was able to keep a school shooting from spilling over into another school because he had a gun. the utøya massacre is hardly an example to bring up.to expect civilians to lethally arm themselves - specifically - to combat record-breaking massacres is just unrealistic. It wouldn't have been a record breaking massacre if there were armed citizens present. No, it's not an unrealistic belief, it happens. And one or two civilians packing heat is more than enough to stop even a gang of criminals packing rifles.University of Texas, Austin Campus. Charles Whitman makes his way to the top of the clock tower and opens fire on students below. Students, rather than pissing themselves, run to their trucks, retrieve their rifles and return fire. Afterwards, they are credited by some of the officers responsible for apprehending the shooters as having helped save lives and made it possible for the officers to neutralize the gunman. Pearl High School, Luke Woodham kills his mother, steals her car and drives to the high school. Open arriving at the school, he opens fire, killing several students and wounding many more. The assistant principal, Joel Myrick, rushes to his car, retrieves his .45 pistol from his glove box and confronts Woodham as he is attempting to leave. Woodham had planned on heading straight for the local middle school to continue the shooting, had he not been stopped by Myrick. Player's Bar & Grill, Winnemucca, Arizona. Ernesto Villa Gomez entered a bar and began shooting, he killed three people and injured two others. As he was reloading an unidentified man seized the opportunity to shoot Gomez ending his killing spree long before the police could arrive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myrmaad Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 Thanks to MB for demonstrating that actually statistics can cannot be used to say anything you want them to. Anyone who claims that is trying to pull the wool over your eyes, I think, perhaps not intentionally, but still I think it's disingenuous to make such a claim. Many years ago before I worked in IT I worked in the finance office of a large charitable organization you would all likely recognize. The lecherous and morally bankrupt CFO would spend nights and weekends working on the numbers until finally a crisis brought the finance department under hard scrutiny. He was fired and the new CFO, hired away from DuPont, accurately described what had been going on as "smoke and mirrors" accounting. Statistics are either accurate and unbiased or they are worthless. Or in other words, the numbers don't lie, someone has to go to the trouble of making them lie. And before you freak out and think I'm talking smack about my friend Aurelius, let me tell you I mention this because people nowadays tend to fall back on that saying "damn lies and statistics" without thinking much about it. It has become part of "common knowledge". But it's simply not true. Instead of attacking statistics generally, you must attack statistics specifically in order to be truly credible. That's my point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marharth Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 Kids summer camps do not use real firearms, they commonly use pellet guns and other non lethal weapons for target practice. How could guns in the hands of citizens help in school shootings? Quite a few schools in the US have metal detectors. You are not legally allowed to carry guns on school campus. Not to mention you can't even carry a knife. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marxist ßastard Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 I have billiards equipment I collect and billiards equipment I use. Guns are no different.Okay, I think I've identified the problem here. You're living in a fantasy world. You're living in Kleck and Gertz's world, where 25 people turn into 2.5 million. You're living in Aurelius's world, where you can get rid of 31,224 individually hand-counted death certificates by cutting them up into a million pieces. Want to get back to the real world? Find the parents of someone who died from gun violence. It shouldn't be too hard. Call them and explain that their child had to die so you could collect more killing instruments. Tell them guns are just like pool cues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoofhearted4 Posted February 10, 2012 Author Share Posted February 10, 2012 (edited) I have billiards equipment I collect and billiards equipment I use. Guns are no different.Okay, I think I've identified the problem here. You're living in a fantasy world. You're living in Kleck and Gertz's world, where 25 people turn into 2.5 million. You're living in Aurelius's world, where you can get rid of 31,224 individually hand-counted death certificates by cutting them up into a million pieces. Want to get back to the real world? Find the parents of someone who died from gun violence. It shouldn't be too hard. Call them and explain that their child had to die so you could collect more killing instruments. Tell them guns are just like pool cues. my uncles two boys died from gun violence. they were robbing a house and the owner walked in on them, realized what happened, grabbed a gun and shot them. evidence showed, they fired first, he fired in self defense....my uncle is an avid gun supporter. had that guy not had a gun, his kids would be thieves and murderers. not to say my uncle isnt ashamed or deeply saddened. but he doesnt hate guns because of it. people who have been affected by something are the worst people to ask. they are emotionally changed by the event and usually have such strong opinions toward something, they dont have any rational thinking on the subject past the fact they they were somehow effected by it. as i say, gun crime wouldnt stop if only some people had guns. gun crime wont stop no matter what. but if everyone carried a gun, im still willing to bet there would be a lot less gun crime. anyone who is against guns is more then welcome to not carry again when everyone around them has one. its their choice. if guns were 100% legal and legal to carry in public and all that jazz, you would see a hell of a lot of people with guns, and all of you who are afraid of guns would either learn to like guns, or learn to live with the fact everyone around you has a gun, except you. a lot of people who dont like guns would own a gun in that scenario just for the simple fact that they would be at a glaringly obvious disadvantage. but its their right not to carry a gun. and for anyone making the argument that guns dont stop massacres. well even if thats true, how is that an argument not to own guns. so even if guns wont stop that one massacre that happens once in a blue moon, if guns can stop that corner store robbery, or that mugging in the alley or what have you, those thousands of other gun related crime, is that not a reason to own guns? guns arent the end all problems bring world piece solution. no one said that.. but i do believe they would help in a lot of areas. i do in fact believe more guns will bring about less gun crimes/violence/murders. Edited February 10, 2012 by hoofhearted4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marxist ßastard Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 (edited) Okay, perfect. Tell the uncle that whoever his sons were burglarizing could've called 911, and nobody in that situation should've had guns in the first place, but instead his sons had to die because you like to collect killing tools. Be sure to include the bit about guns being just like pool cues. It makes you super sympathetic. Edited February 10, 2012 by Marxist ßastard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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