Summations Only

Good thing I'm not advancing any such nonsensical ideas.

Yes. And we often ignore the fact that the gains aren't worth the risks.People citing statistics need to realize that they are nice tidbits of information but that they don't usually have much impact on human behavior.

If you knew how to follow a line of discussion you wouldn't have to ask such stupid questions. NoNukes said:

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NoNukes in Message 3468:

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But it turns out that guns in the house is are more likely to hurt and kill people who belong in the house than they are to hurt and kill criminals. We cannot say the same thing about a car.

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Not thinking about the consequences is exactly what people are saying is wrong.

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I'm saying that if ignoring consequences is wrong, then we are all guilty of being wrong in pretty much everything we do.And we can take that position, or we can acknowledge that calling certain people wrong for behaving just like everyone else doesn't move the debate anywhere and is, instead, probably counter productive to creating open dialogue.Now I know you hate open dialoguepreferring witless, irrelevant one-liners to meaningful conversationbut it's actually a good thing and worth giving a try.

But that's not what 'actually takes place'. If it were, no one would drive to get supper.Instead, we would all wait and travel to purchase groceries only as often as necessary. Supposing our risk of dying in a car accident is 1% per trip and our risk of dying from starvation increases by .25% for each day we go without food. It would make sense, based on these statistics, that we should buy no less than four days' worth of food for each drive we make to the store,and preferably more if we want to decrease our risk of death in a car accident even further.That would make a drive for only one day's worth of food (or worse, only one meal) a statistically foolish thing.Yet we all get in the car Saturday night and head on down to the restaurant. Even you and I do it, though we know the risks and are perfectly capable of avoiding them.We aren't 'wrong' in doing this, of course; we're just human. Gun owners perhaps know guns statistically diminish safety but, much like you and I when we go to pick up supper, don't believe they will end up on the bad side of those statistics.And the conversation doesn't go anywhere by calling such people 'wrong' or implying they are stupidly making their decision out of some irrational love affair with firearms.They might after all just be humans.

The upside is all the people who successfully protect themselves with a firearm who would have otherwise perished.Just like the statistical upside of all the people who die in car accidents on their way to pick up supper is all the people who don't die of hunger who otherwise would have (zero, unfortunately).Edited by Jon, : No reason given.

Yes.The risk involved in dying from not eating a single meal is zero.The risk involved in driving a car to a restaurant is greater than zero. Sure; because they don't care. People rarely make such calculations. And when they do, they often assume they won't end up on the bad end of the statistics.And if you consider them to be rational, then you can only describe someone who buys a gun for protection likewise.I personally think both are irrational, but accept that irrationality is a part of being human.Edited by Jon, : No reason given.

You'll notice I said 'supposing'. I was just making up numbers to illustrate my point. Sure. Lots of things have risks and many times people put themselves at risk unnecessarily. It's not just the risk of dying while driving, it's the risk of dying while driving compared to the risk of dying from skipping a single meal.Our odds of living are better skipping the meal than getting in the car. You know it. I know it.Yet we're both gonna get in that car, aren't we? That's possible.I haven't paid attention to their arguments much.Personally I don't own a gun. And I understand the statistics quite well.But if I lived in an area where I felt I might need protection (or had dangerous enemies, etc.) I may still consider getting a gun.

That's exactly what I was, and still am, arguing.

What a load of fantastical bullshit.

More crap.Even when a person is aware of all the known risks, they still often engage in the risky behavior.But that's because people aren't risk-reward analyzing machines; they're human beings.You and I both know that over 3000 people are going to die in car accidents today. And yet we're both going to hop in our cars and go for a ride.Telling someone they are wrong to own a gun for protection isn't any more likely to get them to give up their guns than telling someone else they are wrong to drive for pleasure is going to get them to give up their wheels.The whole issue is a pointless waste of time. Energy is better spent making guns and gun storage safer, making neighborhoods safer so people feel less need for guns, and so forth. Just like energy is better spent improving car safety, intersection safety, setting speed limits, and implementing better public transportation than trying to convince people to stop driving.If you stick to your current path you'll accomplish nothing, and you'll have spent a good deal of time and effort doing it.

Just make the guns safer.A lot of the safety features on cars aren't plainly apparent to consumers. But people still buy cars with safety features because it's just a reality that that's how cars are made.

I used the international figures from this website since I don't know where Dr Adequate lives.

Well I'm over 25; I don't know about Dr Adequate, but I assumed he was too. That's why I used the general figures that make no reference to age (first bullet):

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"Road Crash Statistics" from ASIRT:

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Nearly 1.3 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,287 deaths a day.

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Of course it doesn't matter. The point is that it is more dangerous to go out to supper on Saturday night than it is to skip supper on Saturday night. People still go out to supper. And society's response isn't to shout at people daring to risk life and limb for good steak, but instead to make cars safer, intersections safer, improve driver education, etc.The same approach, if taken with guns, would be much more effective than throwing statistics at a single mother trying to convince her not to buy a gun she feels she desperately needs to protect her children and herself.

The primary reason that guns tend to harm the people they are bought to protect more often than protect them is because the safety measures required are never seriously discussed.How safe do you think cars would be if there were only two sides to a debate about automobile usage: One side saying automobiles are necessary to get around and the other side saying it's stupid to own them because they end up killing people?When both sides are locked into a nonsense position that nothing should be done except precisely what they want done, then it is very difficult to see how anything will ever be done. No. I am saying there is a cost-benefit associated with going out for supper vs. not going out for supper and a cost-benefit associated with owning a gun vs. not owning a gun.Your chance of dying is greater if you get in your car and go out for supper instead of staying home and not eating a meal that night. Much like your chance of dying is greater if you buy a gun instead of hope no one tries to break into your house and kill you.The 'purpose' of each thing has no relevancy whatsoever. My analogy was to show that statistical probabilities don't rule people's decision-making-processes. If they did, no one would drive for supper on Saturday night and no one would own a gun.