Summations Only

That's a silly and misleading question. I could as unreasonably and inaccurately ask, "Why don't you care as much about saving lives as you do about saving souls?"Anyway, you've arrived late to the party, you should see Message 3763 and read forward, but I'll summarize for you: Of course I'm concerned about motor vehicle deaths, but that's not the topic of this thread.--Percy

Assume the right to own and bear arms anywhere and anytime is the law of the land. How are you going to reduce gun deaths?Very interesting syntax in the second half of your post.--Percy

Yes, we know, and that's why it's impossible to reach reasonable compromises with the pro-gun crowd. They value their guns more than human life. Columbine and New Town are just a couple of many examples of unpreventable tragedies that must be forever endured. Two points. First, it isn't just your wife and kids that are in the zone of danger. It's everyone around you, which includes family and friends.Second, most people understand that how well they personally fit a statistical profile isn't the standard by which its validity is measured. If guns were truly a deterrent then incidents where good guys "shoot a criminal" would abound, but they don't. Fear of guns deters criminal behavior about as much as fear of arrest or fear of the death penalty, i.e., barely at all. The prevalence of guns only influences burglars and assailants to also carry guns, increasing the likelihood of tragic outcomes. What's the win/loss record on average citizens taking on gang members in your neighborhood? You know what's much more common? Innocent civilians being caught in the crossfire of a gun battle between gangs, or hit by a stray shot. You and the gangs need to lose your guns.A gun-packing good guy getting the jump on a criminal is a myth. It's so rare that it's considered amazing every time it happens. Even in your neck of the "woods," it's a pipe dream that almost never comes true.What does come true with a regular drumbeat is children and mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and family and friends dying who didn't have to, just because gun nuts love their guns.--Percy

I couldn't make much sense of Message 4018, either, but part of that was that Bliyaal also had a couple sentences that left me scratching my head. Maybe you guys could take another stab at it. There seems to be a worthwhile point at issue.--Percy

Your answer about stronger sentencing and somehow identifying "people who are willing to use guns illegally" was self-evidently absurd. The two-year old who shot his mother wasn't thinking about sentencing. The Vermont woman who just killed a social worker and three members of her family provided no hint that she was dangerous. You're being absurd again. It would only be irrational to not fear guns. Even you know you're wrong, since you only own a gun because you know people fear them, believing that just having a gun prevents people from messing with you. You can't have it both ways, claiming that guns are not fearsome while carrying a gun that you believe deters only because it is fearsome. Yes, we know, and guns purchased for defense are far more likely to be used against family and friends than against a criminal. You're voicing the gun nut attitude that is fueling continued needless gun deaths. A gun just sitting around in the home is probably the most dangerous gun of all. If you secure it sufficiently well then it will be unavailable for self defense (its supposed primary purpose), and if you don't then it will be available for misuse. Even if fully secured that gun can still look like an effective solution to all your problems when, for a recent example, a social worker causes you to lose custody of your child and your self control fails. Now you're just sounding loony and paranoid. For self-defense, there is no "best weapon." Handguns increase the risk of injury and death to you and those around you. Yes, we know, but obviously everyone isn't you. The statistical aggregate tells us that guns increase the risk of injury and death to gun owners and those around them. How are you going to reduce the gun deaths resulting from this equation? Well, sure, criminals could adjust to more people carrying in other ways. For example, they might just sneak up from behind and club you unconscious with a baseball bat rather than deal with the possibility that you might be armed. The point is that you're wrong to believe that more people carrying will deter crime. It won't, or at least not much. The causes of crime are rooted in social issues. It's like wack-a mole - you can push it down in one way, but it'll just pop up in another. By carrying you're just upping the odds of violent confrontations.Deterrence and intimidation has a long and honored record of failure. Threatening someone with incarceration or violence doesn't necessarily deter them. It often makes them sneakier or more violent or something else, but it doesn't deter them. That's a great movie script, but get real. Tell you what - let's just follow US news for a while (current news - no old news). Every time there's a defensive gun use we'll post it here. And every time there's a needless gun injury or death we'll also post it here. We'll keep a running count on the number of each until you give up. Sure, go ahead and roll your eyes. That attitude encapsulates the whole problem. You gun nuts only care about keeping your guns and not about the lives and safety of others.--Percy

I at first thought his claiming that he didn't understand what you were saying was just his way of dismissing your arguments, but when I went back to your Message 4017 I found I couldn't be certain what you were saying either, especially the first sentence. I do agree that Cat Sci does seem to be engaging in mental gymnastics to avoid confronting the contradictions in his position.Cat Sci won't abandon his position, so I can understand why you might not want to bother clarifying, but it might not hurt to put a finer point on things for the sake of others reading along.--Percy

Scanning through today's news I found only this: Score:
Thwart Crime: 1
Injury and Death: 0--Percy

I'm impressed. Whatever you're doing is very effective. Using Google news I couldn't find search terms that returned any items from your list on the first page, until I started typing in words from the actual headlines, and then it would only return that single item.We'll have to use the same search tool and equally effective search terms, else we're just measuring search tool effectiveness. For today when I searched for defensive gun use using Google News I came up with only a single item, and when I searched for gun injuries and deaths I came up with zero items, so that's one way we could go. Or we can switch to whatever you're using, but you'll have to fill me in.--Percy

Yeah, you're right, this might not be workable. I'll wait to see what Cat Sci says before deciding whether to put any more effort into it.2 child firearm deaths per week is fairly alarming. Since there are around 8,000 gun deaths per year (not counting suicides), that means around 700 of them are children, or a little under 10% of all gun deaths.--Percy

Not a valid or constructive response.--Percy

Okay, NoNukes was right, you're not using a search engine. Again, we have to use the same approach or it's not meaningful, although I'm listening if you have ideas for how to balance different approaches. Take your time.--Percy

Sure, of course.We have other ways of making the comparison. Let's assume for the sake of making a point that every link in your list in Message 4029 is truly about a successful defensive use of a gun for just one day (they aren't, but we'll just assume). There are 12 items on your list, so with 365 days in a year that would 4380 successful defensive gun uses every year. But there are over 8000 firearm homicides, and if we use the war ratio of injuries to fatalities of 4:1 then we can add in 33,000 or so firearm injuries. Kind of dwarfs your 4380 derived figure.But, of course, the 4380 figure is wildly inflated, so let me respond to this: But it *is* a myth. For example, your first story (Rosemont resident reportedly shoots burglar in home invasion) is about a home where some yahoo discharged a firearm at a burglar. The burglar wasn't threatening them. There's no evidence the burglar was armed, and it was apparently a frequent visitor to the residence. How about trying, "Uh, Joe, we know it's you. Go home before we call the police." You can't count every yahoo who shoots a gun as a defensive gun use. This is just an example of why we need stricter gun control.Cassie Dunlap wasn't so lucky, because she actually hit what she was shooting at, her abusive boyfriend. She was charged with attempted murder and had to go before a grand jury, who, fortunately for her, decided not to indict (Woman won't face charges after shooting man in head). Meanwhile her abusive boyfriend lies in a hospital with a bullet wound to the forehand.We have to stop insanity like this and take peoples' guns away.--Percy

Really? Is that what your question in Message 4023 meant? ("Am I supposedly 1000 times more likely to kill one of these hypothetical people than defend myself with a gun?") You were still displaying your inability to apply statistics when they don't describe you personally, and your question looked like rhetorical skepticism and not a concession.If you really believe the ratio is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1000:1 for firearm murders versus defensive gun use, then your position is even more inexplicable and deplorable. I was already very clear. You can't just claim defensive gun use every time some yahoo pulls out a gun. The expressions you've made here tell us that you're part of the problem, willing to see threats all around you that require "significant firepower" for your defense. You're just a gun incident waiting to happen. Dump your gun and stop placing yourself in places and situations where you feel you need one. The most likely person to be shot by your gun is either yourself or someone you know, and this is exactly that situation again. If the burglar had actually been shot, he was somebody they knew. And burglars are not the only people who might sneak in. Last year or the year before there was the story of the father who unwittingly blew away his daughter's boyfriend after he snuck into the house, and again, it was someone known to the person firing the gun. A son or daughter might sneak out of the house after curfew and then sneak back in later and sound just like a burglar. People don't usually become convinced in these discussions. What interests me is showing how the gun nuts are firing blanks when they argue that they need their guns.--Percy

I understand you're trying to balance issues from both sides of the debate, but when guns are present then specific situations like suspected burglaries can be fraught with danger for people who are definitely not burglars. Remember the case from last year when a grandmother accidentally shot her 7-year old grandson because she thought he was an intruder (FL GRANDMA SHOOTS 7-YEAR-OLD GRANDSON, THINKING HE WAS INTRUDER). Or remember the 2012 case of a retired officer killing his son after mistaking him for a burglar (Retired Cop Fatally Shoots Own Son, After Mistaking Him For Burglar). Or how about the case early this year when a father shot his son thinking he was a burglar (HPD: Father mistakes son for burglar, shoots him).Yes, burglars can possibly be dangerous. But having a gun in the house 24/7 is even more dangerous. A lot more dangerous.--Percy

Agreed. I'd go even further and say I don't think hardly any are psychopaths.I think that people who believe guns make them safer are literally fatally wrong, as are people who don't believe that but argue it anyway because they like their guns.--Percy