Summations Only

Yeah, remarkable, isn't it? There are over 300 million civilian firearms in the USA, so out of all the nations on Earth American citizens should be the most securely protected against being shot. Why doesn't it work out like that? It's a mystery.

You know, I bet even in the golden days of the Founding Fathers primary school teachers didn't take their muskets into class to defend against potential school shootings.

So why did they scrub this early draft? What you have there is a version of a second amendment that in the end Madison did not put forward and Congress did not adopt. Whatever the intentions of the Founders, I don't think the evidence of what they deliberately decided not to do can have evidential value except in the negative --- if they considered saying that, and ultimately decided not to say that, it's probably not what they wanted to say.

So you're guessing that Madison himself wanted the clause, but he had to drop it because Congress would never have passed it?Well in that case, again, the omission of the clause tells us what the amendment as actually passed meant. The fact that Congress would only pass it without that clause (if you are right) would be indicative of what they meant it to mean when they voted for it.

The vast majority of people don't commit murder, so what's the point in legislating against it? Under what regime do you anticipate creating the first law that would be followed with 100% compliance?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

But that's not true, is it?

Right, a man with a gun took cover in a store rather than shooting the guy. So then the guy shot himself because he was frightened of being shot by someone who was in no position to shoot him. And we know this because ... ? He fired off at least twenty shots, despite his rifle jamming, and police were on the scene within a minute after the shooting started. As to what crazy people are thinking, I don't know, but I do know that it is usual for them to stop shooting other people after a while and shoot themselves instead. Most of them don't actually conduct a body count first and check pulses to see if they've killed enough people. Which he didn't. I did. First I believed you. Then I found out the facts.

Ask to see the source. The real statistics will ultimately originate from someone in a position to keep count, such as the police. The made-up statistics won't.

So, he shot himself to prevent himself from being shot? Why didn't he use his gun for self-defense? Oh, right, because the guy with the Glock wasn't pointing it at him, he was too busy hiding.

All the countries with a Human Development Index over 73% ("very high" according to UNDP) are represented. Figures are taken from the WP articles:* List of countries by Human Development Index - Wikipedia
* List of countries by firearm-related death rate - Wikipedia
* Estimated number of civilian guns per capita by country - WikipediaFollowing the links will show where they got their figures from.

I think the trend is fairly clear. That's how many points the guy said were on the graph. I'll see if I can find out what happened to the rest.ETA: It must be because WP doesn't provide figures for some countries, e.g. Lichtenstein is in the Very High category of the HDI, but WP has no figures for guns per capita. It must be that .73 was a typo for .793. Wikipedia. Some guy. A biologist, I think. It hardly matters if he's using figures from Wikipedia.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Also see the edit to my post. I don't. R² values are high on the list of things I don't think about, just below the fact that cigarettes are bad for me and just above Newt Gingrich naked.

Yes it would. There is actually a reason why people buy guns rather than axes. Guns are more effective. Otherwise they could save a whole lot of money, and the National Ax Association would be bigger than the NRA. There'd be big savings for the Army, too.

Killings in self-defense happen overwhelmingly because one individual wants to defend himself against an assailant, and once that guy is dead, they're done self-defending. And whether a gun is around, or a knife or a necktie or a pair of bare hands, is really very immaterial to that.Remember, guns don't protect people, people protect people.

So what you're saying is that if there were no legal guns, there would consequently be far fewer illegal guns, 'cos criminals would have no-one to steal them from?Yeah, that sounds about right.