Summations Only

I understood that this was your main point. I took no difference with the spirit of it, so I didn't comment about it.I only questioned your skepticism that guns made the "Old West" more violent. Of course they made it more violent. How could they not? I agree with your comments about ubiquity of "the gun culture in the Old West," and I concede that the removal of guns from the "Old West" is a hypothetical, but that doesn't mean the "Old West" wasn't more violent than it would have been without guns.As I said, all the evidence says the more guns the more violence, especially deadly violence.--Percy

One thing that's readily discovered when you research gun ownership and crime statistics online is that you can find just about any statistic you want to prove whatever you want.One remark I found at Fact Check dot org that really ought to be kept in mind is that statistical correlation does not establish a cause and effect relationship, but that is how you are using statistics.

So now you seem to be saying that you while you think families with a mentally ill family member shouldn't be banned from having guns, that there should be a law requiring them to make sure the mentally ill family member cannot access the gun. This completely ignores the argument I just made, that mentally ill does not mean mentally stupid. The mentally ill family member can figure out which key on the key ring is to the gun cabinet. Or maybe the key to the gun cabinet is locked in the desk. Well, where's the key to the desk? Hidden somewhere? You think a mentally ill person can't figure out a way to discover where the key to the desk is? Or whatever scheme is devised, any person of normal intelligence will be able to figure it out. You're ignoring reality.And if a family must devise complex schemes in an attempt to prevent the mentally ill family member from accessing the gun, of what use for defense is that gun when needed in a hurry? Remember, defense is the primary justification for a gun in the home.--Percy

Not ALL the statistics say that, Percy, you can find statistics saying the opposite.Less violent without guns you keep saying, but maybe, maybe not. There were plenty of extremely violent and bloody times in history before the invention of guns.

Well, yes, obviously, but when NoNukes asked, "Would all mentally ill people be banned from having weapons?" you replied, "All mentally ill, don't know."So have you now changed your "don't know" to "yes"?--Percy

There are some kinds of mental illness that aren't violent or threatening or even impulsive, so I may go from don't know to no on that one.Family members should maybe go from no to don't know. Depends on what methods may be available to keep guns safe. Your scenario is just one possibility.I really had in mind the implication of a genetic component more than location. "Family members under the same roof" also needs to be specified because if the sister of a schizophrenic lives in another state she shouldn't be disqualified from gun ownership because of him.

You've been duped. It's not only a "study out of Harvard", it's a study completely out of Harvard.The Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy is a publication of a conservative Harvard student organization called the Harvard Society for Law & Public Policy. It's the official journal of the Federalist Society.The study itself comes not out of Harvard but out of the imaginations of Don Kates of the Pacific Research Institute and Gary Mauser of Simon Fraser University. Both are longtime activists of the pro-gun lobby. Neither has any Harvard affiliation, and they apparently just make up data.For example, they apparently claim that Norway has a lower murder rate than Holland, and that because Norway has higher gun prevalence than Holland (combined with similar made-up data from other countries) that there is an inverse relationship between gun prevalence and murder.But if you check the Wikipedia article on List of Countries by Intentional Homicide Rate you'll find that the exact opposite is true. Norway has a murder rate of 2.2, while the Netherlands is 0.9, and so the correlation between gun prevalence and murder is positive, precisely as expected.If you make up data you can prove anything you like.--Percy

Actually, what you discover is that some people just make things up, as I pointed out was the case with your supposed Harvard research in Message 3007. All the real statistics show a positive correlation between gun prevalence and gun deaths. We can be pretty certain that guns cause gun deaths and not the other way around.--Percy

Thereby making the guns slow to access and mostly useless for self defense.So you can have them available on an emergency basis and kill your kids or have them safe and be useless to you.of course, it is not black and white like that. But that describes the general parameters. The safer they are the more difficult to have available they are.On the nightstand to grab as you get half awake and shoot into the dark is one end and locked in a gun safe in the basement is the other extreme.What do you suggest?

So you're against banning the mentally ill from owning guns? Yes, my scenario is just one unsafe gun possibility, among a multitude of unsafe gun possibilities. Can you come up with a single safe gun possibility that doesn't render the gun completely useless for quick-response defense?--Percy

No, that category was ALL mentally ill. I'm saying there are probably some categories of mentally ill that shouldn't be banned. People who visit shrinks for instance may be "mentally ill" only in the most superficial sense. Perhaps hospitalization should be the criterion, or particular categories of diagnosis. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

OK, here's another page of statistics.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Thank you. Nevada? OK. very different world..- nate

But Percy - it was the MOTHER who shouldn't have had any guns.How do we, as a society, intercept that? She was very threatened by her estranged partner and went bananas at the shooting range.How do we recognize when it's wrong?We can now have the 20-20 hindsight....meh

Faith, you've been duped again. Look at the first graph. The country names on the x-axis don't even line up with the vertical bars. Saint Kitts and Nevis, "the smallest sovereign state in the Americas" according to Wikipedia, has three separate bars above it. This graph isn't even a good attempt at fabrication. You see the little hash marks on the x-axis? There's a bar between every pair of hash marks (some bars are for values too close to zero to be visible). Now look at the country names. They do not line up with the bars. There are about 3 country names for every 8 bars.Why are you seeking out statistics anyway? I know I encouraged you to do so, but you replied with some nonsense about the invalidity of statistical comparisons because of differing demographics and the combining of statistics from urban and rural areas into a single number for each country. I have two questions, one new, one old. The new question is whether you've changed your mind about the validity of statistical comparisons. The old one is how, prior to this possible change of mind, you knew the relationship of gun prevalence to gun deaths if you refused to consider statistics.Anyway, if you're going to consider statistics now I think that's great, but the risk off being duped is high if your sole acceptance criteria is whether they agree with you. And valid statistics are not going to agree with you because the relationship you insist upon (the more guns the fewer homicides) is impossible. You wouldn't believe someone who claimed that the more cars we put on the road the fewer accidents, or the more smog we put in the air the lower the rate of emphysema, so why in the world do you believe that the more guns we put in people's hands the fewer gun deaths there will be? I know you talk about deterrence, but no study has ever detected any deterrence effect due to the possibility of other people also being armed. It's the same as the death penalty, which studies have revealed also has no deterrence effect. Murder via firearm is most commonly a crime of passion or insanity - rational contemplation of the risks isn't involved.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.