# Statistics and estimating the effects of more open and concealed carry firearms **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 25, 2016, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-and-estimating-the-effects-of-more-open-and-concealed-carry-firearms/744198 "2016-01-25T19:18:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-and-estimating-the-effects-of-more-open-and-concealed-carry-firearms/744198/61 "2016-01-26T21:20:08Z")
Bone, I’ll try to respond to your post later–it can be time-consuming to do so. This one is an easy comment, though: > [@steronz](#): > > If guns make you safer, then that should be evident in the life expectancy of gun owners. This is true, but there’s a lot to control for. I’d expect people at greater risk of victimization by violent crime to be likelier to purchase guns, AND to die more often from homicide, than people at lesser risk of such victimization. In compiling these stats, if you don’t control for risk of victimization, the stats might be misleading. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-and-estimating-the-effects-of-more-open-and-concealed-carry-firearms/744198/62 "2016-01-26T21:21:57Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Have a hard time believing you are arguing honestly here. You were putting forth the idea that any time a “good guy” uses a gun it should go in the win column when clearly iiandyiii wanted to compare actual personal injury or death prevented caused. There is no way you believe every good guy gun use prevented an injury or death. Did you see post # 17? I asked specifically if property defense counted. Your _“clearly iiandyiii wanted to compare actual personal injury or death prevented caused”_ is refuted by the affirmative response in post #18. The meaning was interpreted the same way by posters in post #19 and #39. You are correct, I do not believe every good guy gun use prevented an injury or death. Good thing I never stated nor implied this. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Not sure why anyone would be upset by language like “perhaps we could…” – this is an informal discussion, not an official debate; when I’m uncertain about something, I’ll use less-than-certain language. What’s wrong with just throwing around ideas? I’m not upset as you say here, nor sad as you say in the post above. Uninterested is more accurate. The problem with passive and open ended language that you favor is that it leaves open avenues for creatively recasting statements. Here’s how the sequence plays out: **Not me:** Let’s compare A : C & D. **Me** : Shouldn’t it be A & B : C & D?\*\* Not me: \*\*Yes, that’s good. **Me** : Does B include X? **Not me:** Yes, I think. **Me** : Okay, here’s A & B compared to C & D. \*\*Not me: \*\* Great, now I know C & D, except, B shouldn’t be included. And I doubt A even exists so let’s just use ZERO for that side of the comparison. C & D is much more than ZERO, case closed! This is parody somewhat. It’s also tiresome. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Bone, I’ll try to respond to your post later–it can be time-consuming to do so. No need unless there was something new. It is time consuming and I myself would have passed had the question been presented as it is now. Like I said, tiresome. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-and-estimating-the-effects-of-more-open-and-concealed-carry-firearms/744198/63 "2016-01-26T21:31:03Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Bone, I’ll try to respond to your post later–it can be time-consuming to do so. This one is an easy comment, though: > This is true, but there’s a lot to control for. I’d expect people at greater risk of victimization by violent crime to be likelier to purchase guns, AND to die more often from homicide, than people at lesser risk of such victimization. In compiling these stats, if you don’t control for risk of victimization, the stats might be misleading. Fair enough. If you don’t control for risk you could probably show that locking your door increases your chance of getting burgled. My point is simply that if you wanted to prove door locks worked to prevent burglaries, you wouldn’t ever count up all the instances where people left their houses with the door locked and returned to an un-burgled house and call that gigantic number “burglaries foiled by locked doors.” ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-and-estimating-the-effects-of-more-open-and-concealed-carry-firearms/744198/64 "2016-01-26T21:33:34Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > I’m not upset as you say here, nor sad as you say in the post above. Uninterested is more accurate. > > The problem with passive and open ended language that you favor is that it leaves open avenues for creatively recasting statements. Here’s how the sequence plays out: > > **Not me:** Let’s compare A : C & D. > **Me** : Shouldn’t it be A & B : C & D?\*\* > Not me: \*\*Yes, that’s good. > **Me** : Does B include X? > **Not me:** Yes, I think. > **Me** : Okay, here’s A & B compared to C & D. > \*\*Not me: \*\* Great, now I know C & D, except, B shouldn’t be included. And I doubt A even exists so let’s just use ZERO for that side of the comparison. C & D is much more than ZERO, case closed! > > This is parody somewhat. It’s also tiresome. Apparently there was a misunderstanding. At no time was I interested in any events that _only_ risked property and had _zero risk_ to people – and you never stated it that way. When discussing burglaries and the like, I made the assumption that some of these involve some risk to people (even when, ultimately, they are prevented with no injury or death), and I should have explicitly said that those are the only ones I’m interested in. I apologize for any misunderstanding, but that’s all it was. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2016, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-and-estimating-the-effects-of-more-open-and-concealed-carry-firearms/744198/65 "2016-01-28T22:00:39Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > De jure, you’re correct. De facto, as I understand it, the CDC put zero dollars toward research on firearms now, out of fear of running afoul of congressmembers afraid of any such research. Is this correct? There is nothing they WANT To research that wouldn’t be advocating for gun control. They keep track of how many people die from gunshot wounds. They keep track of all sorts of shit so they should have no problem keeping track of how many times a concealed carry permit holder used his gun defensively versus accidentally shot someone while carrying his gun. The problem I see is that people will argue about what is defensive use. Was the Treyvon martin shooting a defensive gun use? Using the most likely criteria, it would be but I don’t think that is a really good argument for increasing the prevalence of concealed carry. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2016, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-and-estimating-the-effects-of-more-open-and-concealed-carry-firearms/744198/66 "2016-01-28T22:19:58Z")
> [@inscrutable](#): > > Probably impossible to quantify the “deterrent effect” of armed civilians in public. Well, yes and no. States that adopt conceal carry laws have seen violent crime rates drop faster than the national average. But that might be because conceal carry laws are frequently adopted along with other “tough on crime” legislation so you can’t tell what is causing the faster drop in crime rate. But I bet if the numbers went the other way, some would see it as irrefutable evidence that conceal carry is exactly as horrible as they always thought it was. There are about 600 accidental deaths every year. Very few of them are the result of a conceal carry holder accidentally shooting someone while walking around with a concealed weapon. The most common killing committed by a conceal carry permit holder is suicide. Conceal carry holders are on average more law abiding that the general public and (in Texas at least) they are more law abiding than the police. Guns are used by concealed carry permit holders much more frequently but as I point out with the Treyvon Martin case, you could argue about whether the presence of a gun was a good thing despite the defensive gun use. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2016, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-and-estimating-the-effects-of-more-open-and-concealed-carry-firearms/744198/67 "2016-01-29T16:45:05Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > That’s weak sauce. Congress is not famous for evenhandedness and impartiality. CDC administrators who do not know what a particular Congresscritter will consider to be advocacy may well reduce all gun research out of fear of being called up in front of a committee and raked over the coals, regardless of whether said research was advocacy. > I said they put zero dollars toward research “now.” What time period comprises now might be open to debate, but a study begun in 1996 hardly qualifies. The time frame you suggest is after Obama instructed the CDC to start doing research again. The CDC did so and the results AFAICT is that more research is needed and there is no conclusive proof either way on much of anything but there are a few stubborn facts that seem unavoidable: Every study on the issue of defensive gun use shows a significant number of defensive gun uses. Voluntary gun buyback programs are ineffective at reducing gun violence. Assault weapons bans don’t seem to have any effect on the rate of gun violence (mostly because of the next item). Assault Weapons account for a tiny sliver of gun homicides. Mass shootings account for a tiny sliver of gun homicides. Given the inconclusive nature of any of the studies out there, why should we impose more and more gun regulations “just to see if it will work” > **[Read "Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related...](https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/18319/chapter/1)** > > Read chapter Front Matter: In 2010, more than 105,000 people were injured or killed in the United States as the result of a firearm-related incident. Rece... The law banning advocacy was passed in 1995 and the research mentioned in your post was started in 1996. I’m not sure how that isn’t a relevant time frame. There was clear bias among the researchers that the CDC was funding and among CDC officials as well. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2016, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-and-estimating-the-effects-of-more-open-and-concealed-carry-firearms/744198/68 "2016-01-29T16:47:47Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > Not really - though this is now quibbling. This says the net result was an overall reduction in firearm violence research. You said the CDC spent zero dollars. Those are different statements. [This cite(ha!)](http://everytownresearch.org/reports/access-denied/)says: > > Though when I look through to the actual budget summary I can’t find the $100K line item. If this is true, the $100K \> $0. > > Based on your new criteria with the lookback 2-3 years, here are a list of awards from the [National Institute of Justice related to studying gun violence](http://nij.gov/funding/awards/pages/awards-list.aspx?tags=Gun%20Violence). Not the CDC, or the HHS, but part of the Department of Justice. > > With regards to conducting research - sure, great. The CDC is not the right place for it though as they are tainted beyond repair for gun issues, IMO. It doesn’t count as gun violence research unless it is funded by healthcare professionals and conducted by economists. The stuff funded by law enforcement folks and conducted by criminologists doesn’t count. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2016, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-and-estimating-the-effects-of-more-open-and-concealed-carry-firearms/744198/69 "2016-01-29T17:24:23Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Let’s review this paragraph, which is where the point of contention occurs. There are a few different possibilities: > > 1. The CDC prior to the Dickey Amendment, spent significant funds to advocate or promote gun control. Congress was responding to a real issue. > 2. The CDC was engaged in public safety research of the sort they do on all sorts of subjects (volcanic emissions, tuberculosis, unintentional falls, etc.), but when their research touched on firearms, the NRA responded, worried that too much research on the subject would make it harder for the NRA to control the conversation. Their lackeys in congress obliged, quashing research. > 3. Some high up officials in the CDC expressed support for gun control, as their personal opinion and not as official agency position, and when Gingrich’s revolution took power in 1995, it was time for payback; the amendment was intended to shut those people up and to make them worry about their jobs, not to have any real effect on research. > > Me, I suspect it’s a combination of 2 and 3. You haven’t offered a shred of evidence for 1: you’ve described what other agencies have done, you’ve offered out of context quotes that are uncited, you’ve suggested there’s a mountain of additional evidence in a [Gish Gallop](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop). > > If you think the CDC–not some other agency, mind, the CDC itself–was engaged in significant activities indicating an agency “history of wanting to ban guns” (not wanting to reduce their number, wanting to ban them), that’s what you should be citing. Again, not other agencies, not what someone may have said out of context or off the cuff or whatever (we don’t know what words of Rosenburg’s were paraphrased in that article). Actual cites to the CDC’s history of wanting to ban guns. > > Or instead, back off of the claim that the CDC has a history of wanting to ban guns, and help other anti-gun-regulation advocates understand why this claim is false. It almost sounds like you want a statement from the current head of the CDC saying “I want to ban guns” Institutional biases do not just go away, especially when those institutional biases are based on personal biases and preconceived notions. We would not take a statement about trying to reduce the number of Jews at Harvard in 1979 and again in the 1990s and conclude that those biases no longer exist because they haven’t publicly expressed those biases recently so there is probably no bias against Jews anymore. You can’t just wave away the comments of the head of the CDC section in charge of overseeing gun violence (among other things) and pretend he’s just some low level flunkie. The bias is probably significantly reduced these days because the folks at the CDC have seen how damaging it can be to the organization to use their bureaucratic position to advance political agendas (and if you ask folks at the CDC under the age of 40 or so, they will probably agree that the CDC had a bias when the law was initially passed). The most recent report (linked above) show a much more detached and objective attempt as addressing the problem of gun violence in America. They now look at both sides of the issue. The mere fact that they acknowledge that defensive gun use exists and the fact that they use a multidisciplinary approach rather than merely an epidemiological approach is a vast improvement over their prior posture. But it is pretty clear that the folks in charge over there had a bias in the past. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2016, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-and-estimating-the-effects-of-more-open-and-concealed-carry-firearms/744198/70 "2016-01-29T17:31:26Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > That’s fine, but it’s a different question – I’m asking about a comparison between accidental shootings and lives/injuries prevented from the use of guns. > > After the fact, I don’t think there’s a way to confirm whether a burglar really might have hurt someone or not, _even if they didn’t intend to_. I doubt every stopped burglary prevented injury or death, but it’s reasonable that some of them did; I don’t know how to determine which are which so I’m willing to look at the totals, 'cause why not? We’re just throwing ideas around here. If you are really just going to compare accidental injury and death against prevented injury and death, I think the evidence leans heavily in favor of concluding that accidents are significantly outnumbered by defensive gun uses. I also don’t think you are being fair to the gun control side. The gun control side of the argument would say (or should say) that you should also include gun injuries and deaths caused by folks who could legally purchase the firearm used in the injury or death. IOW, all murders and gun injuries caused by folks who were legally allowed to purchase the firearm used at the time the crime was committed. Still, its hard to get away from the rather large numbers that every study on defensive gun uses spits out. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2016, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-and-estimating-the-effects-of-more-open-and-concealed-carry-firearms/744198/71 "2016-01-29T17:37:43Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > If you are really just going to compare accidental injury and death against prevented injury and death, I think the evidence leans heavily in favor of concluding that accidents are significantly outnumbered by defensive gun uses. But as previously noted, not only do DGUs fail to differentiate when there is a risk of injury or death from instances in which the risk is only to property, but the self-reporting numbers seem to be wildly different numbers from the other methods of determining DGUs. I’m not saying you’re wrong, just that I’m not ready to conclude that, due to the apparent shakiness of the self-reporting numbers. > [@](#): > > I also don’t think you are being fair to the gun control side. The gun control side of the argument would say (or should say) that you should also include gun injuries and deaths caused by folks who could legally purchase the firearm used in the injury or death. IOW, all murders and gun injuries caused by folks who were legally allowed to purchase the firearm used at the time the crime was committed. Still, its hard to get away from the rather large numbers that every study on defensive gun uses spits out. Those are good questions, but not the ones I was asking. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2016, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-and-estimating-the-effects-of-more-open-and-concealed-carry-firearms/744198/72 "2016-01-29T17:40:05Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > It looks as though [26% of burglaries in which a household member was home result in someone in the house being a victim of violent crime](http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/vdhb.pdf). It’s possible that the number would have been much greater if more victims hadn’t been armed, but it’s also possible that nearly three-quarters of DGUs prevented only violence that wouldn’t have occurred anyway. That’s probably fair, I recall a reading an article from way back during the height of the Bernie Goetz controversy in NYC where they determined that only 1 in 7 victims of muggings were seriously injured (I think this meant required medical attention) during the robbery. Of course some of those injured ended up dead but the vast majority of them ended up with nothing worse than getting pushed to the ground and maybe a few bruises. Does that mean we can ignore 85% of defensive gun uses when comparing accidental gun injuries/deaths, maybe… but it also means that you are ignoring a bunch of other harms that are being prevented by defensive gun uses. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2016, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-and-estimating-the-effects-of-more-open-and-concealed-carry-firearms/744198/73 "2016-01-29T17:43:29Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > You also have to know whether or not any of those violent crime victims _did_ have a gun in the house; after all, guns are a pretty terrible means of self defense, so if one was present and it failed to prevent an injury or death, that needs to count against the total. Why? When comparing how useful guns are to how harmful guns are, why would you inject when guns are irrelevant? When we measure the effectiveness of smoke detectors or vaccines or fire extinguishers we do not count the times when they don’t make a difference against them. We don’t say “well 1000 people got the vaccine and infections went from 300 to 100 so we have to count the 100 people that got infected despite having the vaccine against it” Or are guns special? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2016, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-and-estimating-the-effects-of-more-open-and-concealed-carry-firearms/744198/74 "2016-01-29T18:08:12Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > But I think the risk of firearm ownership other 99.999% of the time that people aren’t getting burgled outweighs that benefit. On what do you base that opinion? Considering that the accidental rate of gun death at ~600 and defensive gun uses is probably in the hundreds of thousands? The ratio of robberies to deaths from robberies is somewhere between 0.35% and 0.8% (based on a study of robberies in Detroit between 1962 (relatively low crime period) to 1974 (relatively high crime period). The ratio of aggravated assault to death is significantly higher at about 2% (5/100,000 deaths from aggravated assault :: 250/100,000 aggravated assaults). I’ve got no idea how the DGUs divide out between preventing someone who is only interested in the money in your wallet and preventing someone who wants to hurt you. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2016, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-and-estimating-the-effects-of-more-open-and-concealed-carry-firearms/744198/75 "2016-01-31T18:53:46Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > DGUs can include anything under the sun, including scaring away the pizza guy who’s at the wrong house. But I don’t want to fall into a trap here, my point isn’t that I want to count this and not that, my point is that counting isn’t necessary; it’s a meaningless statistic. If guns make you safer, then that should be evident in the life expectancy of gun owners. > > eta: And to make this hijack relevant to the OP, if there’s a benefit to a large percentage of the population carrying a handgun every day, that should also be evident in the life expectancy of the population. In trying to compare like to like it might make sense to consider whether there is a higher concentration of folks who are at higher risk of getting themselves killed in the population of gun owners. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-and-estimating-the-effects-of-more-open-and-concealed-carry-firearms/744198/76 "2016-02-02T15:48:04Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Why? When comparing how useful guns are to how harmful guns are, why would you inject when guns are irrelevant? > > When we measure the effectiveness of smoke detectors or vaccines or fire extinguishers we do not count the times when they don’t make a difference against them. We don’t say “well 1000 people got the vaccine and infections went from 300 to 100 so we have to count the 100 people that got infected despite having the vaccine against it” > > Or are guns special? Good news, Damuri Ajashi! I’ve invented a miracle device that helps protect people from the Boogie Woogie Virus, or BWV, that you may have heard about. This dreadful dancing disease spreads through airborne contact and kills dozens of people every year. My device is a nanobot injector that reads the human immune system response and, when a BWV response is detected, _boosts_ the immune system by 1000% using specially constructed nanobots! Amazing, right!? Now, there’s a downside. Sometimes the nanobot injector glitches and injects them directly into the brain instead of the bloodstream, killing the wearer instantly. Regrettably, this happens dozens of times per year. But thanks to our “Always On” internet connectivity, we can precisely record every time our nanobot injectors encounter a BWV response and inject protective nanobots, and it ends up that it happens _six hundred thousand times per year_. What an amazing medical breakthrough! What’s that? You’re still worried about the dozens of people per year who die from nanobot-brain-injections? Dude, 600,000 is so much bigger than dozens, how can you doubt its effectiveness? What’s that? You think that the normal, unassisted immune system is obviously capable of dealing with the Boogie Woogie Virus almost all the time, based on the evident ubiquity of the virus and the relatively low death rate, and that the nanobot response is therefore almost always unnecessary? **Why? When comparing how useful my nanobot injector is to how harmful it is, why would you inject when my nanobot injector is irrelevant?** * * * DA, you and I have gone back and forth on this multiple times; at this point, I can only assume that there’s some willful ignorance involved. Am I treating guns differently? Of course not, I’m holding them to the exact same standard to which we hold any other treatment. You’re the one who’s willing to throw conventional science out the window on this issue. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-and-estimating-the-effects-of-more-open-and-concealed-carry-firearms/744198.md?page=3)