Summations Only

Yes there is - good topics for other threads.--Percy

And that means that we don't place the whole responsibility on the drunk. A bartender can reasonably conclude that a patron has had enough and we do hold him responsible to some extent for the patron's actions if he continues to serve alcohol to the patron. Maybe we don't extend that responsibility to the brewmaster or the truck driver but the fact is that we, as a society, do recognize that the responsibility does extend beyond the individual.

You continue to display a complete lack of understanding of economics. The purpose of government is not to make a profit but to provide services. Why do you feel the wealthy deserve more from the government than the poor?Then again skip it. You have dragged us off topic again in order to peddle your right wing talking points that have no basis in fact or reality.

Your conspiracy theory has already been addressed but it doesn't make a bit of difference anyway. If ANY child is killed by a gun that his parents bought to "protect" him, there's something wrong. Handwaving the deaths that DO happen is disgraceful.

A nonsense comparison.The bartender's responsibility is the same as the responsibility of someone who tries to enforce a contract signed by someone clearly intoxicated, or the person who tries to defend herself from the rape charge by claiming that the thirteen year old boy gave consent.

Much like if he is killed in a car that his parents bought to drive him to boy scouts?

No, not much like that. A car DOES take you to boy scouts while a gun DOES NOT protect you. A car is an effective and useful tool. A gun (when purchased for protection) is not.A better analogy would be if a child was killed by a boa constrictor that his parents bought him because it was cute and cuddly.

People do protect themselves with guns.Nobody who buys a gun for protection thinks it will end up killing their own child.Nobody who buys a car to go to boy scouts think they'll be in an accident that kills them.

Well, let's look at that if you like. It appears that annually there are about 68,000 instances of people trying to defend their persons or property with guns. (I say "trying" because the statistics don't say how often this is successful. We may suppose however that it works quite often.)On the other hand, guns are used to commit crimes 467,000 times per year. (Note that this statistic is based on victims who actually saw a gun; it does not and indeed cannot include (for example) burglaries carried out by armed burglars, where the householder saw neither the burglar nor the gun.)Some references:http://www.vpc.org/studies/justifiable.pdf
Archived | Gun Violence in America | National Institute of Justice

To make the statistics meaningful and fair of course, we have to correct for the number of crimes that would happen with some other weapon were no gun available; likewise we must figure out how many times someone would defend themselves with something other than a gun.This would tell us the true impact removal of guns from the equation would have on the ability of people to defend themselves and the ability of others to commit crimes.

You didn't bother to include the statistic ... has hovered at less than 10%.
So, 90% of violent crimes DIDN'T involve firearms. I am thinking that I'll be part of the 67,000 that stopped a threat to my home and family. Wife and I, both, carry.

For methodological reasons, researchers have thus far confined themselves to the study of real crimes rather than imaginary ones. However I am willing to go so far as to suggest that if everyone was armed with small pieces of string, the casualty rate would be rather lower.

You may think so but the rest of society does not. They are called Dram Shop laws (for bars and restaurants) and Social Host Liability laws. At a bar or at your neighbor's home, if they let you get drunk and then you go out and kill someone with your car the bar and the neighbor are held as responsible as you are for your actions. Talk about a nonsense comparison.

And you managed to cite that statistic without mentioning that, per the same source: "In the same year, data collected by the FBI show that firearms were used in 68 percent of murders, 41 percent of robbery offenses and 21 percent of aggravated assaults nationwide."Less than 10% of offenses, but nearly 70% of homicides. Why is that? Could it be because it's quite hard to kill someone by punching them?But we were talking about people defending themselves with guns. To return to that subject, for comparison let's include the statistic that only 0.8% of crime victims defended themselves with guns. (Actually, wait, that's the proportion that attempted to defend themselves with guns.) If your point was that 10% is small, then 0.8% is even less, and the use of guns for self-defense is still outweighed 10 to 1 by their use for committing crimes. Statistically you're much more likely to fall into the much larger group that has their guns stolen.

My bad.I thought you wanted an adult conversation.