Posted on 05/29/2014 6:23:56 PM PDT by servo1969
I’m in a very polite discussion with someone about gun safety. I’ve managed to use data to convince this person that America is not home to exceptional gun rampages, that they occur in other countries, and that those denied guns go on rampages with other things. I’ve also shown that gun control laws in England have seen increased violent crime in, while gun control laws in Australia did nothing to affect gun crime statistics, which were dropping anyway. The next line of discussion is whether guns in the home are so dangerous to family members that they have no merit for self-defense purposes.
The obvious argument is that you cannot insulate yourself entirely from risk. If you banish guns, you get crime; you have guns, you get self-defense with an increased risk to family. But what I’m wondering about is the credibility of the data she politely offered. Do any of you know whether the following is correct and, if it’s not, do you know what accurate information is about gun-safety in the home. (And I wonder, off hand, whether it’s greater or less than pool safety, or falling out of window safety, or eating poison safety, or getting beaten to death safety, etc.).
This, from a “firearms tutorial” out of Utah:
"The issue of “home defense” or protection against intruders or assailants may well be misrepresented. A study of 626 shootings in or around a residence in three U.S. cities revealed that, for every time a gun in the home was used in a self-defense or legally justifiable shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides (Kellermann et al, 1998). Over 50% of all households in the U.S. admit to having firearms (Nelson et al, 1987). In another study, regardless of storage practice, type of gun, or number of firearms in the home, having a gun in the home was associated with an increased risk of firearm homicide and suicide in the home (Dahlberg, Ikeda and Kresnow, 2004). Persons who own a gun and who engage in abuse of intimate partners such as a spouse are more likely to use a gun to threaten their intimate partner. (Rothman et al, 2005). Individuals in possession of a gun at the time of an assault are 4.46 times more likely to be shot in the assault than persons not in possession (Branas et al, 2009). It would appear that, rather than being used for defense, most of these weapons inflict injuries on the owners and their families."
and this, from the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence:
"Of the 13,636 Americans who were murdered in 2009, only 215 were killed by firearms (165 by handguns) in homicides by private citizens that law enforcement determined were justifiable."
The Kellerman “study” has been debunked numerous times.
Start with the basics; John Lott, Gary Kleck, or even the CDC report Obama just had done after Sandy Hook but buried it along with the media after the results didn’t match the narrative.
Don’t have a clue. My own experience is that I grew up in a home with guns and a Dad who taught us about gun safety and responsibility. I’m 62 yrs old and never had a mishap in the home and neither did my Dad before he and Mom hooked up. My Uncle has had guns since the mid ‘50s and he hasn’t had any problems. I think, that if you could take the numbers representing person-years with guns in a household and derive bad mishaps to factor in, you would find that we are a very safe Nation when it comes to households that have always had firearms and the whole family knew how to treat them, the record would be very good - probably better than most OSHA-monitored construction sites and police departments....
Overlooked and horribly understated.
Many get sucked into statistics, such as happened after some yahoo org distributed a ‘study’ that showed no correlation between gun ownership and reduction in crime.
Getting sucked into the debate on maleable statistics is ‘taking the bait’. It really is a simple argument.
But emotions grab headlines and the stupid eat it up...hence the drama of the past week & ongoing.
But note how the media is carefully treading around Elliot Rogers mental state; that’s a BIG tell...
Strong vs. weak; Predator vs. prey.
The rest of it is really an argument of hyperbole & abject servitude to the State vs. freedom. While written sparsely & simply, there really is a good reason the 2nd Amendment didn’t come 3rd, 4th or otherwise...
And the nut of the argument...one I LOVE to broach: If the argument that a lack of guns (and other weapons, for that matter), coupled with State Control, creates a Utopian society free of violence, is not the ultimate expression of that concept a ‘state-run prison’?
Take it from there and have fun.
Thank you so much for doing this. I’ve found the information here very useful.
The study that shows the presence of a gun facilitated suicide with a gun is pretty funny. It takes a scientific study to conclude that a person who lacks a gun doesn't commit suicide with a gun?
Individuals in possession of a gun at the time of an assault are 4.46 times more likely to be shot in the assault than persons not in possession (Branas et al, 2009). It would appear that, rather than being used for defense, most of these weapons inflict injuries on the owners and their families."This type of lie makes me laugh too, because it is common and because many people fall for it. The leap of logic that people are invited to make is that a "rate of increase" is equivalent to greater numbers.
Aside from the statistical error, the action bias the writer is attempting to instill is to not defend yourself or present any resistance, because doing so is risky. By all means, if you have no intention to defend yourself, I concur with the conclusion, don't carry means to defend yourself.
To all those who helped, thank you so much. And our hard work paid off. One of my reliably Leftist friends said “I hate to say it, but your point are good. I need to think about this now.”
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