In what world do you think your inability to provide a cite (or even a guess) to counter my cite (from a government source) indicate some weakness in my argument?
You’re retarded.
The answer, as I’ve said here before, to the question of “how many DGUs are there per year,” is not enough to provide firearm owners with a net safety benefit. That’s absolutely the only answer that matters. There’s a reason you keep bringing it up, though. I think you know what it is.
Joe the Plumber to parents of Elliot Rodger’s victims: “Your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights”
Sad.
Tea Party official: “No idea how my son will die but I know it won’t be cowering like a bitch at UC Santa Barbara. Any son of mine would be shooting back.”
Nice way to refer to the victims, you asshole.
How can you be so sure that there isn’t a net safety benefit without knowing how many DGUs there are?
Gun grabbers seem to be keenly aware of the price of guns but have no idea of the value.
Gun nuts sometimes point to automobile deaths and ask why we don’t ban automobiles and the argument is immediately dimisses because of the societal benefits of cars. But when it comes to gun, we need only know the price, we don’t need to know the value of the things.
Guns have never saved my life and I suspect they never will but I have seen how guns provided security to a peaceful community during the LA riots and if there are in fact hundreds of thousands of defensive gun uses every year then its hard to see how you can dismiss the value of guns when there are fewer than 1000 accidental gun deaths every year.
I suppose there is that study that shows that people who live in homes with guns are more likely to be murdered by a gun. A lot of gun grabbers latched onto that kellerman study as proof positive that guns were a net negative. They frequently don’t realize that the murdersw are not caused by the guns in the home but guns brought into the home by others. The study is adjusted for demographics and socioeconomic variables and posits many reasons for the higher incidence of murder. UIt sounds all scietntific until the very end of the study when they admit that they “did not account for the potential of reverse causation between gun possession and gun assault” IOW people who are at high risk of being murdered go out and arm themselves.
We’ve been over this in this very thread, you and I. You understand the basic point I’m making, as you’ve explained it back to me twice now, but not the degree. If there were 100,000 DGUs per year, or 1 million, or whatever “low end” but extremely high numbers you want to accept, then Kellerman wouldn’t be a wishy-washy “It appears that guns make people less safe but we didn’t account for a few factors” study. There would be no doubt; Kellerman would have seen a massive safety benefit to owning a gun. The fact that there aren’t any studies that show a slam-dunk case for gun ownership screams something about either the facts behind DGU numbers (they’re vastly overstated) or the usefulness of them.
This is a long fucking thread. I don’t remember half of it. Did you at some point make the argument that gun nuts bear the burden of proof?
The gun rights side isn’t claiming a slam dunk case. We don’t have to. We have the law and the constitution on our side. Its the gun control side that has to make the argument for change and despite the fact that we have been making the case for gun rights on this board, it is the gun control side that bears the burden of making a case for gun control. Especially when their ultimate objective is the radical reduction of gun availability to ordinary citizens.
It seems to me that it is the gun control side that is claiming a slam dunk case. If there is a significant level of uncertainty surrounding guns then how do they justify the sort of derision they direct towards the gun rights side of the debate? How do they justify such radical changes? So, how do you know with such certainty that guns are a net safety negative?
There are over a million gun crimes per year (once again courtesy of the NCVS), perhaps in that light a hundred thousand dgu doesn’t seem so “extremely high” anymore (I think the number of DGU is probably somewhere between 250K and 500K but lets keep using the 100K number for now).
And noone is claiming that 100,000 dgu means 100,000 lives saved. I can only guess how many lives were saved but I suspect the number is higher than the number of accidental gun deaths.
What? No, I made the argument, as I’m making here, that DGUs are an irrelevant statistic.
Again, what? I know you’re not claiming a slam dunk case. That’s because there isn’t a slam dunk case, and you know it. I’m saying that if DGU was as common and/or meaningful as you claim, there would be a slam dunk case.
And why are you bringing up the “We don’t have to justify gun ownership because of the 2nd amendment” during an argument about the efficacy of guns for personal safety? If you don’t have to justify the efficacy of guns, then why bring up DGUs?
Ehh, let’s not keep using the 100k number because it’s irrelevant. Which is the point. The point that I’ve been trying to make. In the absence of convincing evidence that gun owners are statistically safer than non-gun owners, DGUs is a worthless stat.
I mean, if millions of people had tiger-repelling rocks, and I did annual surveys that showed that they were using their tiger-repelling rocks hundreds of thousands of times per year to repel tigers, would you consider that a meaningful statistic? Would you say, “My brain is telling me that people without these rocks aren’t attacked any more frequently, but that’s an awfully big number of defensive rock uses (DRUs), so maybe there’s something to this whole tiger-rock thing!”?
Or would you want to see something that showed that people with rocks were safer than people without rocks? Can you honestly sit there and tell me that you’d give a rats ass about my DRU statistics?
As you imply, attempting to establish the population prevalence of DGUs is a fools-errand, given the problems of accurate self-report from people who are self-selected to be more scared (that is, people who feel vulnerable are people who obtain firearms). Hemenway has illustrated that most DGU reports actually end up being illegal firearm uses, that they are fraught with clearly implausible reports, and that in these kind of small samples, each single false positive ends up massively distorting the estimated prevalence rate when you try to extend from the sample to the population at large.
The best we can do is look at sample-level relationships between firearm ownership and outcomes or other variables. You referenced Kellermann’s study, but that’s not the only one. To my knowledge, none of these studies show anything other than a net increase in risk due to firearms ownership. From a different perspective, *David * (not John!) Hemenway has also shown that people are much more likely to be threatened by someone with a firearm than to use a firearm to defend themselves.
Despite multiple studies, however, Dumuri Ajashi and his ilk cannot comprehend or even retain the information. This thread is proof.
Then since the advent of widespread “Shall Issue” laws in the majority of states, why isn’t there a simple direct correlation between issuance of permits and increased misuse of firearms by permit holders? The sky hasn’t fallen; Shall Issue didn’t lead to an epidemic of road rage shootings, spousal abuse/murder or vigilantism. The simple presumption of “more guns = more gun crime” fails for permit holders.
Treating guns as a vector of the “disease” of gun violence is hopelessly simplistic because it completely ignores the input of human factors. My wild-arsed guess would be that the single greatest variable determining the rate of misuse of guns is the level of personal responsibility: permit holders who had to pass qualifications- high. The general population who can acquire guns at will- medium. Habitual criminals such as narcotics users and gang members- low.
Really? What has the rate of change been in places that shall issue has been instituted? You must know, since you can state that there isn’t a direct correlation.
On the other hand, researchers have shown that there is a direct correlation between the prevalence of gun ownership in a state and the state level rate of homicide
Siegel, M., Ross, C. S., & King III, C. (2013). The relationship between gun ownership and firearm homicide rates in the United States, 1981–2010. American journal of public health, 103(11), 2098-2105.
What does that even mean? Of course the problem with guns is the human factor! You’re buying into your side’s rhetoric. Humans - all humans - are fallable and fluctuate along a number of dimensions that impact gun safety.
You and I have been down the road of “permit holders being supernaturally responsible.” You are right that it is a wild-assed guess. I prefer empiricism myself, and I prefer not to fool myself into thinking that some permitting process makes people invulnerable to human fallability.
How exactly are we supposed to see how many murders DIDN’T happen as a result of dgu?
The number of DGU isn’t my claim, I am citing the department of justice. You have a cite that says that the DoJ is full of shit?
I think maybe the number seems big to you because you don’t appreciate the scope of how prevalent guns are. Like I said, guns are used in over a million crimes per year. Guns are used defensively 100,000 times per year (most frequently without a shot being fired).
Because you seemed to be saying that gun nuts bore the burden of proof.
WTF are you talking about. There are millions of crimes committed each year, there are not millions of tiger attacks every year. And the DoJ is telling me that there are 100,000 DGU every year.
So show me a study that shows that people are less safe because they have guns (and not the other way around).
No they haven’t. They have shown a correlation between gun ownership and GUN homicide. The correlation between gun ownership and homicide seems much more attenuated.
Who said anything about infallible?
Now this dumbass even knows what the crosstabs are within his fantasy number!
No shit, Sherlock. That was the point I was replying to.
Mark Twain said that there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. If the same statistical methods gun control advocates use were applied to African-Americans, one would conclude that having the majority of your ancestors come from Africa meant an elevated risk for committing crime and violence, and that eliminating African-Americans from a region would decrease the crime rate. Technically that’s actually true, but on a human level it would be grossly unfair and prejudiced. Gun owners want to be judged by the quality of their character, not the color of their rifles.
I mean that yet again, the vast majority of gun owners who have never committed a crime, shot themselves or a family member or gone on a killing spree are being held collectively responsible for every misuse of a gun.
I never claimed “supernaturally” or “invulnerable”. Trained police officers have accidents or commit crimes with guns. I suggested that the vetting process for permit holders by definition selects for people who demonstrate a certain level of responsibility. If by “empirical” you mean “more guns = more gun crime”, then that was the entire point I was refuting. Since people who premeditate committing crime or violence are likely to (often illegally) obtain guns, of course areas of increased crime and violence are going to have higher rates of gun ownership; but the converse is not necessarily true.
I’m overwhelmed by how thoroughly you’re missing the point.
Something so prevalent should be easy to show a marked safety benefit then, right?
I… I can’t follow your logic here. You: “Guns are an effective safety device, this big DGU number is my evidence.” Me: “Studies have shown that guns aren’t effective, DGUs are meaningless, here’s why.” You: “We don’t have to prove that guns are effective.”
YOU’RE the one claiming that DGUs mean something. I’m not burdening you with the “proof,” you’re providing it willingly! And now I’m rebutting it.
Did I walk through that slow enough for you!?
You know what? That’s fair. Tiger attack are rare.
So I’m selling my tiger-attack-prevention rocks and selling heart attack prevention rocks! $39.99, act now and get one free.
Of course, studies show that my rocks don’t work. In fact, since they’re largely bought by high-risk fatties, people with my rocks seem to be at a higher risk of having a heart attack. BUT! I say. But within these rocks, those fatties would be having even MORE heart attacks. As proof for this spurious claim, I can present to you:
A) Carefully controlled studies that show that, controlling for demographics and risk factors, the rocks are in fact effective at preventing heart attacks, or
B) Hundreds of thousands of self-reported claims of people saying that they had chest pains, rubbed the rocks on their noses, and the chest pains went away. Heart attack prevented! Viva la rocks!
Now, as a slimy rock-monger, I can’t produce A. So I throw B at you. Are you convinced!?
Does the analogy make sense to you? DGUs DO NOT MATTER.
Yes, he did.
Now, this is just fucking stupid and reflects an ignorance of the analyses in question. You may not like the conclusions of the analyses, but a reasonable response doesn’t include just making shit up and desperately trying to link the analyses to racism somehow.
Not really - the ones who are pushing mindlessly for MOAR GUNS are primarily responsible. I think the vast majority of gun owners are for reasonable efforts to restrict and control firearms possession and use.
Well, quite specifically you said
I asked you to provide evidence for your claim specifically regarding the number of permits and the misuse of firearms. (Which you still haven’t done.)
In the meantime, I presented yet more data that indicates that a greater prevalence of firearms in a community is associated with greater firearms homicide, which would indirectly bear on the question of what might happen with the greater spread of firearms through “Shall Issue” practices.
What “analyses”? Your cite basically boils down to “more guns = more gun violence”, with no allowance whatsoever for other factors. I even offered a reasonable hypotheses for why cause and effect might be reversed in the correlation found by the cited study. Again, one could make at least as strong a case for African-Americans being innately prone to crime and violence if you ignore human factors. If that sounds absurd, that’s the point of the analogy.
People (like myself) pushing for ‘more’ guns do so because first, we’re primarily fighting back against persistent, well-organized attempts to strip people of the right to possess weapons, one “reasonable” step at a time; and secondly, because guns only do good in the hands of good people, yet that’s exactly the low-hanging fruit that’s always the first target of gun control. Yes, I really do believe that more lawful carry would improve, rather than worsen, the situation. I’ve repeatedly said in various threads that I think we’re currently in the worst of both worlds: criminals and psychotics can easily obtain guns (despite all the “gun control” laws), while still comparatively few law-abiding people arm themselves.
Geez Louise, I posted in a thread, not set out to document a master’s thesis. I took absence of evidence as evidence of absence: if permit holders were being the trigger-happy yahoos the gun control crowd predicted, we’d be hearing it trumpeted to the heavens.
And I posted a rebuttal explaining why a simple correlation could be and probably is flawed evidence of causation.
It did? You either didn’t read it or didn’t understand it. The authors included 19 other factors, dummy.
It sounds absurd because it’s just stupid and ignorant of the empirical literature on the topic. What is true regarding African American ethnicity and crime in the US is that when one accounts for socioeconomic conditions, the association between race and crime is not significant. That is not the same with the literature on guns and violence. THAT’S why your knee jerk reaction is just stupid.
And you’ll go on believing exactly what you want to believe because you’re unwilling to consider alternatives. Whether that’s the case out of fear or ignorance doesn’t really matter.
Despite what reality says, of course.
And the fact that about half of firearm homicides are committed by people who are (up to that point) neither criminals nor psychotics will never change your mind on that point.
I realize that for some people being asked to think about something is akin to completing a master’s thesis.
Which is exactly why the NRA and conservatives have stymied and stifled actual research. Then they can say exactly what the fuck you just said.
If you think it was a simple correlation, you didn’t read or didn’t understand it.