# Gun nuts threaten gun store owner for selling gun they don't like **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 3, 2014, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-nuts-threaten-gun-store-owner-for-selling-gun-they-dont-like/687584 "2014-05-03T15:31:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 412
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2014, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-nuts-threaten-gun-store-owner-for-selling-gun-they-dont-like/687584/412 "2014-05-20T05:17:48Z")
I feel I have way too much material to respond to without losing track of the bigger picture. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Are you taking issue with the notion that a gun levels the playing field between a small man and a large man? A woman and her assailant? My take is that guns by no means level the playing field: they give an edge to the person lying in ambush. That could be the homeowner or the crook. > [@](#): > > I think you are confusing people who accept guns as A method of self defense for people who accept guns as THE method of self defense. I’m asserting that I am the former and you are the latter. I’ve had discussions with gun enthusiasts who are in the former group though. > [@Bone](#): > > Which, after re-reading the post string, you did quote this section though I didn’t see a link so I couldn’t follow it back. Yeah, you gave me a one word request for a cite and I wasn’t sure what you were asking for. (I’ve quoted that article I think 3 times now in this thread. No worries: I think we’re on the same page now. > [@](#): > > Thirdly I’m unable to source the claim by the NYT. Well that makes 3 of us. I think I can apply their methodology though, if you will bear with me. Consider injury deaths of those 10-14. Unintentional firearm are listed as #10 (26 deaths in 2010). Among unintentional deaths it’s listed as number 7. Inflate that by 2x to take into account underreporting and it ranks about #6: say it’s tied with unintentional suffocation at 48 deaths. That’s what we can bracket. Set aside firearm suicide, firearm homicide and suicide via suffocation. Here’s the list that you, me and **Damuri** were interested in, adapted to the 10-14 age group: [ul] [1] Unintentional Motor Vehical Traffic 452 deaths [2] Unintentional Drowning 117 [3] Unintentional Suffocation 48 –\> About the same as adjusted figures for unintentional firearms [4] Unintentional Fire/Burn 46 [5] Unintentional Other Land Transport 42 [6] Unintentional Poisoning 40 [/ul] This bag is not a toy: suffocation. Kids learn about fire safety. Go carts are regulated. Child safety caps exist, though frankly I can’t see how they would apply to the 10-14 set. I wouldn’t call any of these negligible and all receive attention and regulation from the authorities. The Consumer Product Safety Commission regulated pool, toys and all-terrain vehicles. They are expressely prohibited from regulating guns and indeed IIRC a gun manufacturer is not liable if their product blows up in a customer’s hand. What I’m saying is that relative to other risks, unintentional firearm deaths appear to be underweighted by the authorities. You don’t find people poo-pooing childhood poisoning deaths, though they represent smaller risks than (adjusted) firearm deaths. > [@](#): > > Self defense is a combination of a number of actions. It’s a strawman to say that firearms are the only method of defense. It’s also ludicrous to say that a 12 year old can physically fend off a grown adult. They do it all the time. A seven year old runs to a teacher and tells her that there’s a creep hanging out at the edge of the playground. Adult fended off. And for the third? time, it’s not unusual for robbers to flee when they discovered, especially when told that the cops are on their way. In your anecdote, it wasn’t clear to me whether the perp was intent on robbery or whether he knew that there was a kid inside when he kicked the back door down. Don’t get me wrong: the child was certainly at risk. But you and Damuri seem to be defending the sorts of propositions that you just IDd as a straw man. It’s these sorts of interactions that lead me to doubt the gun enthusiast’s risk assessment practices. > [@Czarcasm](#): > > Let’s look at when it would be advantageous for a child to have access to a firearm. In the particular case we are currently discussing the parents weren’t home and the intruder came after the girl after she yelled at him. In this particular case having the gun readily available was to her advantage, _but this particular situation is a rarity compared to other situations where children might be in danger._ Should children carry guns to school because strangers might attempt to abduct them? Should children carry guns to playgrounds in case Chester The Molester is lying in wait? What about children in abusive households? These are the real dangers children face every day that far outnumber the story above, and I’m afraid that using rare examples like this one is akin to pointing out an example of someone not using a seatbelt and coming out better than if they had used one as a reason to never buckle up. Yes to all that. Earlier you asked what are the sort of private sector methods for reducing gun fatality and injury. My take is that gunnuts have been exposed to hours of NRA propaganda and that they couldn’t do proper risk assessment if their life depended on it, which of course it does. **Bone** : The proper figure really isn’t unintentional gun death/total death. If you want to compare risks you have to put exposure in the denominator. By way of analogy, the number of people who die from drinking paint thinner is miniscule. But that doesn’t imply that I should habitually add turpentine to my beer. In the above context you would want to calculate 10-14 gun accident deaths as a fraction of households with a) 10-14 year olds and b) guns inside. That gives you a rough idea of the risks of owning guns. Even better would be to break down homes with locked and unlocked guns. Also single guns and arsenals: 6% of all gun households own 75% of the nation’s guns. There are patterns to be explored. If the NRA was like [Consumer Reports](http://www.consumerreports.org) or the [Berkeley Wellness Letter](http://www.berkeleywellness.com/), 2 pro-consumer organizations, then such a study would have been done. That’s basically my private sector solution: support a gun study group that isn’t culturally averse to scholarly investigation and rational practice. Most NRA members wouldn’t support such an organization of course. But they wouldn’t have to. Readers of Consumer Reports benefit the wider market by encouraging shifts in manufacturing resources towards better design. Using the [Pareto rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_rule) as a rough guideline, there very may be a small number of bad practices that could use a brighter public spotlight. In the meantime I’ll ID NRA supporters as crackpots and crackpot enablers. It’s accurate and part of the plan. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-nuts-threaten-gun-store-owner-for-selling-gun-they-dont-like/687584)._