Where did this graph come from? And what are the units?
Well hell, why not let people have bazookas then, or nuclear bombs? After all, it’s not the weapons that kill people.
LOL, this.
From the numbers in the graph, I think it came from Estimated number of civilian guns per capita by country - Wikipedia and List of countries by intentional homicide rate - Wikipedia . Well, roughly, because in the second link the US is at 4.5 and on the graph it is shown around 5.
Cherrypicking much? Now obviously, the line drawn is a very rough approximation of the relationship. Cultural differences, laws, and other variables certainly add noise, but of all of the graphs I’ve ever seen or made, this is one where it’s pretty hard to deny that there is a correlation and what direction the correlation runs.
In your hypothesis, the correlation would be a line like y = x. That’s hypothesis is clearly busted.
Now you could say that comparing some of these countries is silly; putting Russia and Colombia on the same chart as modern Western nations isn’t comparing apples to apples. And I’ve graphed that. Any relationship goes away or, if there is any, the data set is too small to pull it out from the noise. The best guess line could change to any direction with the addition or removal of any one country. Don’t believe me? Graph it.
Why are all the countries with high homicide rates also low gun ownership? Well, at a guess, because tyrannical governments don’t want people to have guns, but they also tend to create fairly lawless states where people kill each other a lot. So the correlation is probably not causative. The graph is, to some extent, misleading.
But one thing that I will grant is that “gun homicides” may be more prevalent in places where guns are widely available (though that doesn’t seem to be very tightly correlated), but I’ll give it to you. But I give it to you because it’s stupid. When murdered, I don’t really care what you murdered me with, I just care that you murdered me. “Gun homicides” is just a stupid metric. Unless there’s a positive, causative correlation between gun prevalence and straight up murder, you’re just playing semantics.
And if you want to complain that the US has a lot of crime, let me point out that we enslaved and oppressed whole swathes of the population for a few hundred years. You see where South Africa is? Well maybe that’s the difference between starting on the path towards justice 150 years ago versus 20 years ago. Switzerland has nine times the number of guns floating around their streets as the UK and a lower homicide rate. Nine times the number of guns. You’re telling me that nine times more guns wouldn’t affect the homicide rate, assuming that guns make people kill people, but then eighteen times does? No. Maybe there’s something other than our history of slavery that drives up America’s homicide rate, but it certainly isn’t the availability of guns.
I graphed it, a few years ago, based on the numbers on the Wikipedia pages:
I doubt that the numbers are still the same but the units appear to line up still, so it’s # of guns per 100 population and number of intentional homicides per 100k population.
I have met people IRL who argue in total sincerity that the right should extend to any weapon a single soldier can carry. Machine guns, flamethrowers, grenade launchers.
You do realize that flamethrowers are legal to own in the US by federal law, and by most state laws, and you don’t need a license for them? And yet - no disasters…
So are grenade launchers.
Sadly, so have I.
Kids are usually on the sidewalk waiting for a bus, not on the road, and if a car came at them they would scatter.
I think you would really need to practice a few times to know for certain.
And surely this obviates the argument that guns are necessary for self defense. If someone came at you with a gun, all you would have to do would run them down with your car.
And the grenades they launch? If true, this is insane and just a *very *bad idea.
OK, all y’all have convinced me. All Americans will be safer if they pack a GAU 19B.
Well, yes, I have to agree with your conclusion about yourself.
Look, her father can’t save her. What he can do, out of love, grief and respect for his daughter, is work to save others from a similar fate.
Who the hell is anyone to disrespect him and the memory of his daughter by expecting him to be quiet about her murder?
Well, a sidewalk. That’s different. Somehow. Well not really. Warning graphic pictures of sheets on objects on sidewalk.
Our neighbor burns off weeds around a tree with one.
I can’t be trusted with one, I have a list of …NM
So “you’ve got a little list”?
Well, it’s not really “little”, and it depends upon circumstances…wait, doesn’t *everyone *have a list, small, medium or large?
Nope, just looking at what you posted. The land of the free and the home of the brave has a murder rate less than that of Russia, South Africa, Mexico and Colombia, so yay! Well done. Still more than Yemen in 2010 though.
That… Does… Not… Compute.
Bwahahahah.
As long as you’re committing a robot hijack, do you like Bender from Futurama?
p.s. http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/Bite_my_shiny,_metal_ass!
No. It suggests that the person, the human being, the shooter, the monster, the terrorist, the gangbanger, may not be able to operate the inanimate object properly.
You may have noticed that inanimate objects are unable to operate on their own. Maybe you haven’t?