Summations Only

First, thanks for putting this graph together.Second, yes, that's pretty much what I thought it would look like. In Message 2678 I said that, "States with stronger gun control laws tend to have lower firearm death rates," and that's precisely what your graph shows. Gun control laws, overwhelmed as they are in this country by the 2nd amendment, can not be expected to have a very strong impact.A much stronger relationship should exist between gun prevalence and gun deaths. The more guns in a population the more gun deaths one should expect. This isn't extraordinary - it's true of everything. The more automobiles, the more automobile deaths. The more houses with chimneys, the more chimney fires. It wouldn't be any different with guns.As many other countries have discovered, the most effective way to reduce gun deaths is to reduce gun prevalence. Yes, you're correct, as currently constituted gun control laws have little effect on incidents like Newtown. What would you propose to address just this one tiny part of the gun problem, namely guns getting into the hands of the mentally ill. If it could be prevented then incidents like the mass shootings in Newtown and Aurora and assassination attempts like President Reagan and John Lennon might never have happened.--Percy

Insulting your efforts? Even as a joke (you included a smiley) I have no idea what you're referring to. I quoted the way I talked about it: "States with stronger gun control laws tend to have lower firearm death rates." How are you interpreting the word "tend"? Your image might have a typo in the URL, but anyway, a strong correlation between gun prevalence and gun deaths is pretty much what I expected. So my solution to reducing gun deaths is to reduce gun prevalence. How about reducing gun prevalence?--Percy

Geez, the first one was a couple hundred messages ago, you didn't respond at the time, and I stand by what I said about your denial of the correlation between gun prevalence and gun deaths. Ironic that you yourself just now gathered the data showing yourself wrong.The second one is a reference to the disdain for human life so apparent in messages from you and Marc9000, and I stand by that, too.I assumed you were talking about the current discussion and were saying that I was insulting your efforts at analyzing data, which of course I think is a great thing. I would rephrase your question: "Given that people like me exist who will resist all efforts to take our guns away, how?"--Percy

1 hostage, 2 suspects dead in California after high-speed chase and gun battle with policeOfficers respond to a bank robbery in progress, the robbers take hostages and escape in an SUV, the police give chase, massive gun battle ensues. One hostage and two suspects are killed. Neighborhoods are peppered with bullets, fortunately no one else is hurt or killed.Possible alternative scenario: Police hold their fire and do not engage in pursuit. Hostages are later released, no one is killed or endangered, detectives take over. This is what would likely have happened if police had no guns.Reading that article felt like watching an episode of The Untouchables (late 1950's TV show about 1930s Chicago).--Percy

• Is the burglar armed?
• Is the burglar crazy?
• Is the burglar drunk or on drugs?
• Is the burglar accompanied by anyone?
• Is the burglar much bigger and stronger than you?
• Is the burglar a black belt?
• Is what he's stealing more valuable than your life, permanent injury or a long stay in the hospital?
• Is the burglar actually your niece sneaking in to her uncle's house for who knows what ungodly reason?
• etc...

Regardless what the law permits, unless forced to do otherwise, don't try to handle the situation yourself. Call the police.--Percy

Every situation is fraught with unique details, every jurisdiction will draw the line between legal and illegal in a different place, every judge, every jury will interpret that line in a different place. Your question is unanswerable, certainly by me.Regardless of the law, responsible people will choose a course that maximizes life and safety for all involved. If you pull the gun out of the drawer and go looking for the source of that funny sound a burglar might shoot you, or you might shoot your niece. If you hide in your closet the worst that will likely happen is that you'll lose your TV set and laptop. And if you don't even own a gun then your crazy cousin will never steal it and go shoot up the local middle school.--Percy

Yes, exactly. Are you alone in the house or are there others? Do you suspect a burglar? A relative? A rapist? An inebriated neighbor? A kidnapper? A murderer? Militia (maybe you live in Syria or Iraq etc...)?What effect do laws have on crime incidence rates? I don't know, but it does seem inevitable that the more things you make illegal the more illegal acts will be committed. Some laws even make the crime incidence rate skyrocket, such as Prohibition-caused speakeasies.But getting back to the topic, I'm pretty sure that reducing gun deaths requires taking away people's guns.--Percy

I don't really have an ideal scenario, but I do think we'd have a better chance of reducing gun deaths if more people accepted that the more guns the more gun deaths.--Percy

The most likely use of a gun kept in a family setting is against a family member or friend. Owning a gun puts a family at greater, not lesser, risk.How would you reduce gun deaths in this country?--Percy

This thread's over a year old and almost 3000 messages, so it isn't reasonable to ask a newcomer to read the entire thread. That being said, the evidence has been presented here before. For example, here's the abstract from a 2004 paper titled Guns in the Home and Risk of a Violent Death in the Home: Findings from a National Study: You go on to say: I don't know that you're convincing anyone here that you're much of a scientist, but in any event, you're not the topic here, so I don't know why you're telling us all how much you think of yourself. I'm not the topic either.How would you reduce gun deaths in this country?--Percy

Is there something special about your ability to defend your family? If not, if you're about average, and if your family lives in an average type area rather than some urban war zone, then your family is safer without a gun in the house.And if you *are* exceptional in your ability to defend your family then you're not representative and shouldn't be using yourself as an example. The danger comes not from just the owner of the gun but from everyone. That includes the gun's owner, his family, guests, visitors, and birthday party and beer bash attendees. It includes times when everyone's sober and other times when some have been drinking. It includes times when everyone's happy and other times when some are depressed. Or angry. Or mentally disturbed.Let's say you're fine now, but next year some time you begin having dark thoughts of murder. You discount them, suppress them, try to ignore them, determinedly go on with your life, but the thoughts get more heinous and frequent. As you descend more and more deeply into schizophrenia, will you have the forethought and presence of mind to get rid of the gun?Or let's say this happens to one of your children. Will you recognize the signs in time and get rid of the gun?Or let's say a relative is descending into madness and attends a family get together. Will someone have noticed this, know you have a gun in the house, and warn you to hide it?Or an argument breaks out between distant relatives at a family barbeque? Will one of them become so angry that he looks for and finds your gun?Or will a child find your gun and accidentally discharge it?Will someone in your household become so depressed that they use the gun to commit suicide?--Percy

The aggregate of the data across all homes all across the country is that a gun in a home makes the residents less safe, not more. So you believe there's no such thing as depression or mental illness? That they're just excuses people use?Anyway, depression and mental illness are additional factors that contribute to the danger widespread prevalence of guns contribute to society. I don't follow. How is this a reply to anything I actually said, which was, "The danger comes not from just the owner of the gun but from everyone. That includes the gun's owner, his family, guests, visitors, and birthday party and beer bash attendees."The point is that the potential danger isn't just from just the gun's owner. The potential danger comes from everyone who enters the house. Every person who might be angry or insane or under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol or careless or irresponsible instead of just being a danger is now a potentially lethal danger.If the statistics seems unintuitive to you then consider how many times in any year the average house receives an intruder, versus how many times a resident of or visitor to the house is angry or insane or drunk or drugged or careless or irresponsible.--Percy

The kinds of situations where a gun may be used by a non-criminal to kill someone have already been enumerated several times. The list includes more than just the "sick individual". If you remove from the statistics all situations involving criminals, the number of gun deaths that would not have occurred had there been no gun would still be a large number. Therefore guns make people less safe.A gun can increase safety by providing protection against potential threats. And a gun can decrease safety by simply being a threat in and of itself. The statistics say the net of these factors is that people overall are less safe when there's a gun in the home.--PercyPS - In case you were unaware, when you want to reply to a specific message, there's a little reply button just beneath it.PPS - Since you don't quote any text it's often difficult to tell what you're specifically replying to. If you need help quoting text just say so.

This one happened a couple weeks ago. I would have posted but I was on vacation: Sleeping with her twin grandsons, she was awoken by a scraping sound, grabbed her gun, and fired into the dark.It was apparently a close couple days, but fortunately he survived.--Percy

From Pew Research Center survey finds more support for gun rights than gun control: Dangerous convicts staged a successful prison break not too far from here a couple months ago, and it caused me to think what I would do if they tried to break into our house. I would of course call 911, but I assume they could break down the front door and then the bedroom door in a minute or less. Now what? With murderous convicts bursting into the bedroom would I reconsider my earlier conclusions that a gun in the house is a danger always?I doubt it. The mathematics is undeniable, and the impact on a family's entire life of adding a gun to a household both usefully and safely is just too overwhelming to contemplate. There's training and practice, and then where do you put the gun? If you put it in the nightstand, what if you're in the family room when the convicts burst in? What if a child finds it in the nightstand? If you lock it up, will you have time to free the gun when you need it? If you unlock the gun and put it in the nightstand at bedtime every night, will you remember to lock it up again *every* morning without fail?There's just no safe way to have a gun in the house if the purpose is for protection.-Percy