Summations Only

For everybody? All 375 million Americans? No, I can't agree that's the case. I can agree that it's the case for you and for me, and the result of that is that you and I choose not to carry guns.But jeez, Oni, we're not everybody. There actually are a lot of people for whom carrying a handgun in their day to day life is not in any way excessive, but a completely rational protection against their risk of being attacked. And I don't understand the basis by which you'd say "well, I've never needed a gun, so why do you?" Right, but you'd like to change the law so that if they did carry a gun, they would be making the wrong decision. Right? Well, ok. Let's look at "everybody gets along" in New York City:

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State City Population Violent Crime Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter Forcible rape Robbery Aggravated assault Property crime Burglary Larceny-theft Motor vehicle theft Arson

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New York New York 8,336,002 581.7 6.4 12.4 235.2 327.6 1,674.8 215.0 1,336.0 123.8 NA

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from http://en.wikipedia.org/...nited_States_cities_by_crime_rateI dunno, that doesn't look like "getting along." I live a block north of the District of Columbia, which has the highest murder rate in the nation and also it's completely illegal to own or carry a handgun there. Again, none of that is prove that we all need guns all the time, but your assertion that they "get along" where you live because people don't have guns doesn't seem to be the case. It doesn't work like that where I live, either. Look, what are you talking about? The board was hacked because of something I said. Percy's said so in multiple different threads about the Great Hack, and he repeated it in a private message to me, which I hope he won't mind me quoting from:

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I'm curious, when you resumed participating last year, did you know a group of angry hackers followed you here? They hacked this site because, I think, they wanted to destroy or in some way compromise your account. ...So if and when I take the board software commercial I'll have you to thank for forcing me to make the software secure.

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It's not my imagination, Oni, it actually happened. Everybody involved - including the hackers! - seem to agree that it happened because they were pissed off at me. I'm not crazy, it's just objective reality that there's something different about me from the rest of you that causes people to react to my completely uncontentious remarks by just completely losing their shit. You could have said that, I guess, but then it begs the question - why do you think it's silly for paraplegics to want to defend themselves?

No, you said that you didn't think of it as a hunting round. Read your own words, which you seem to have quoted without reading. You didn't say that when you thought of "hunting rounds", you thought of some other round besides the .22. That would be fine.You said that you didn't think of the .22 as a hunting round. Verbatim, that's what you said:

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But I can tell you I don't think of a .22 as a hunting round.

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I mean I trust we can agree these are your words, because you've said them twice, now. That's an outright denial that you consider the .22 LR a round for hunting. Not that it's not the first round you think of, but that you don't think it's for hunting. Well, they may. Certainly your single example of not thinking of it as a hunting round doesn't contradict that in any way. Who gives a shit what you think? You've stipulated twice that you don't know anything about guns.

Folks ignored the previous article I posted here (Message 747), so here's another one with some text to introduce it this time:

To the eyeball, it looks like a more heavily armed population goes hand-in-hand with less murder, as an average. The statistics bear that out: the correlation coefficient is negative, -0.23, and it is statistically significant.

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You can look for various trends, but there is no evidence here that the availability of guns leads to more murders. Two of the most heavily armed countries, Finland and Switzerland, have murder rates of 2.2 and 0.7, among the lowest in the world. On the other hand, every country with a murder rate at least 5 times greater than the U.S.'s has at least 5 times fewer firearms per person than the U.S.

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Yes, you can look for trends, but the Centers for Disease Control already did that for you. During 2000-02, a CDC task force "conducted a systematic review of scientific evidence regarding the effectiveness of firearms laws in preventing violence, including violent crimes, suicide, and unintentional injury." Here was their conclusion.

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"The Task Force found insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws or combinations of laws reviewed on violent outcomes."

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In short, the Al Sharpton advice is exactly wrong: this is not the time, and gun control is not the action. To put it mildly, we have better things to worry about.

http://www.americanthinker.com/...g_to_the_latest_media.html

Well first off, your contention was that people would not make their own handguns if they were illegal. But whatever, that's no biggie.To your point here, I want to be allowed to have guns. Showing me some complicated statistics from other countries really doesn't have any affect on that.I'd rather see, straight forward, what the effects of gun control would do here in the US, and what the effects would be without it. I understand that's not really possible right now, but a bunch of chewed up stats from unrelated cultures is fairly meanignless to me personally. Um, okay, well... thanks but no thanks. Handguns are by far the best self-defense available. My preference lies with them. Being against making some guns illegal doesn't necessitate advocating the arming of people. Its up to the individual whether or not he's better of armed, I just don't want you people enacting legislation that prevents him from being able to if he wants to. Well I think your suggestion sucks. It doesn't work and its only unhelpful. These things aren't decided by "necessity". You haven't asked them yet. I'm no expert, but I can tell you that both of those things are true. But that doesn't really do anything except increase crime. We even saw with the data from Australia that the amount of gun deaths there didn't drop any faster than the trend the rest of the world was seeing.

I agree, but the problem is that outcomes aren't individually probabilistic. You don't get "50%" mugged or "24.3/100,000" murdered. You get either 0% murdered or 100% murdered. Likewise, you can't be 50% armed with a handgun. And yet some people won't be able to defend themselves if they're not allowed to have guns for personal defense, which means some people will be murdered who could have saved their own lives. I think it's better to allow people to make their own choices, because I can't say that preventing someone from defending themselves saves even a single life. Can you? Supposed in this case we had legally prevented the homeowner from killing the intruder by preventing him from owning a firearm. Whose life would the deaths of him, his partner, and their 2-year-old daughter have saved?The intruders? Is there a social interest in ensuring that people can invade each other's homes in safety by shifting the burden of that criminality to innocents? I don't see it.

"375 million Americans?" "375"? You probably got that made-up statistic from the same place as your imaginary Norwegian statistic.

I've only ever heard the term "varmint" used to refer to vermin, as per its dictionary definition:

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an animal considered a pest; specifically : one classed as vermin and unprotected by game law

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http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/varmintbut in light of Theodoric's information I'll stipulate that where I have said "varmint round", what I meant was "vermin round" as per the dictionary definition of "varmint" and the Wikipedia entry on "Varmint Hunting":

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Varmint hunting is the practice of hunting vermin, generally small mammals targeted as a means of pest control, rather than for food.

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as well as Theodoric's own "Varmint Rifle" article:

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Rifles firing .22 caliber bullets became popular varmint guns after World War I. Calibers up to .264 caliber (6.5 mm), including .243 Winchester, 6mm Remington and .25-06 Remington, became popular for ranges over 200 meters (220 yards) as the ballistic advantages of heavier bullets were recognized.[3] Varmint shooting is one of the few areas where calibers smaller than .22 (5.56 mm) are found; the .17 Remington and various other .17 caliber (4.5 mm) wildcats have a vocal following, and the new .204 Ruger is well suited to varminting, and may be the first in a new line of .20 caliber (5mm) rounds.

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So, .22 LR is a "varmint" round. Thanks, Theodoric!

You're right, it's 315 million (plus change.) Just looked it up on Census.gov. Funny, I was pretty sure about that one.Still, can you explain how it detracts from my point?

You glossed over the fact that you were also wrong about violent crime statistics in Europe (particularly Norway).

FWIW, I ignore most bare links regardless. I'm here to discuss with the members here. I go to other sites to get link suggestions.

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In short, the Al Sharpton advice is exactly wrong: this is not the time, and gun control is not the action. To put it mildly, we have better things to worry about.

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Yup. According to this blog, over 400 kids have been shot in Chicago over the last year. Chicago, where it was basically illegal to even just have a gun. Gun control just doesn't work.

I was not, in fact, wrong about violent crime statistics in Europe - they're higher than in the US, as I proved with a source. You ignored the source. And I'm still waiting for you to answer my questions, whenever you're ready.

Direct me to your supposed post that shows Norway has a higher violent crime rate than the USA.Whenever you're ready.

You have to look at things statistically, not individually. Again, it's the same as the vaccination argument. Each individual child's parents may feel it is safer refusing the vaccination because it prevents exposure to the risks of the vaccination itself. But they're wrong. If too many parents feel this way then we get epidemics and greatly increased childhood mortality. This isn't hypothetical, we're already seeing increased measles outbreaks and associated increased mortality.With guns, each individual may feel safer when armed for personal defense, but they're wrong. Gun owners are more likely to be gun victims than non-owners.We already know that people are really bad about assessing risk, for example, many believing it is far more likely to be attacked by a shark than struck by lightning (you're 30 times more likely to be struck by lightning). We shouldn't let the common misconception that gun ownership increases safety guide our actions. The fact is that the more guns the more gun deaths, and only by reducing gun ownership will we reduce gun deaths.--Percy

You really do not kn ow anything about guns do you.Look at the picture. Do you see the .22LR? It is a straigth walled case with minimal powder. Do you see the .22-250? It is a .22 caliber round also. The difference is it is a large case necked down to a .22 caliber bullet. Much different than a .22LR. Ummm, no. It doesnt say that anywhere.Ok so let me make this simple. Caliber does not have a direct correlation with power. A .17 HMR is a much more pwerful round than a .22LR.

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Comparison with .22 LR Ammunition
Advantages

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Faster flight: 2350-2550fps compared to the popular ≈1255fps .22LR High Velocity. (.22LR Hyper Velocity can reach ≈1700fps)
Flatter trajectory. This means that the user will not have to adjust for the projectile's drop as much as with the .22 LR
Longer range
As the round is smaller there is less chance of ricochet
More accurate, 1 MOA or better
More powerful
Less susceptible to cross winds due to high ballistic co-efficient
More effective on larger game

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.17 HMR - WikipediaYes there are .22 caliber and smaller varmint rounds. .22LR is not one of them. What I posted and what you posted clearly say that.

Half-measure gun control does not appear to work, no.State-limited gun control is meaningless when state lines can be crossed on a whim. Limiting only specific types of guns is meaningless when other guns can just as easily be used.Nationwide gun bans, however, as exist in most of Europe and the UK, do seem to work.And, of course, a raw incident count number is rather meaningless. You need per-capita numbers to make comparisons. Simply saying "Look, this happened x times" is nothing more than an emotional appeal and doesn't do much for the debate.