Summations Only

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

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.

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.

In your own time.

As an argument for ignoring the facts, this could use a little more work.

But the parallel statement would actually be "But it turns out that a car in the family is more likely to hurt and kill the people who belong in the car than it is to transport them from place to place." And a gun owner is more likely to kill you than a responsible driver. This has nothing to do with the comparative dangers of guns and cars and everything to do with where we put the word "responsible".Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Most "real people" also ignore endogenous retroviruses when making their minds up about creationism and evolution, but that doesn't mean that they ought to be ignored and that it would be illegitimate to bring them into an argument on these forums.

Then what is your point? You are presented with a set of facts. You reply that most people ignore the facts. Did you simply intend this as a non sequitur?

Just as facts about endogenous retroviruses don't usually have much impact on human beliefs.Again, what's your point?

No. In the real world, people's actions are motivated by their assessment of the likelihood of the consequences of their actions. Sometimes they get that assessment wrong. Providing them with facts is the only way, or at least the only honest way, to help them to do it right.

I said that they didn't always weigh the consequences sensibly. But they are driven by consequences. Someone who has unprotected sex (for example) does, after all, want to get laid. They may be underestimating their risk of also getting an STD. If they had a much higher estimate of the likelihood of this, they would behave differently (as we can see by considering the extreme case where they believed that if they did so they would certainly contract HIV, herpes, and Exploding Penis Syndrome). By informing them of the statistics, we may change their behavior. Hence sex ed.Now if we're thinking about gun control, and the claim is made that guns make us safer (without reference to other benefits such as making nice loud bangs and being useful for hunting ducks) then it should be possible to weigh the costs and benefits on the same scale. Maybe this is worth trying to do.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Er ... that would be the same thing. Really? No-one has ever told me exactly how dangerous it is to jay-walk. I can't remember the last time someone told me the statistics associated with unprotected sex. Oh, and I only found out a few weeks ago that herpes is incurable. Who knew? Well, doctors apparently. I think it's a fact that should be more widely known. Of course they do. They just focus on particular consequences while neglecting others. The guy who agrees to unprotected sex is thinking of consequences, namely "I'm gonna get laid". The jaywalker is thinking of consequences "I wanna get to the other side of the road." Many people are indeed idiots, and don't do a proper cost-benefit analysis even of things that can severely affect their well-being. Which brings us back to the subject of gun ownership.

Yes, but not in Florida. I may also watch different TV shows from you. Y'know, with different commercials. I may even have gone to a different middle school from you. Now you think about it, do you see how that's possible?If you're going to try to be offensive, you should also try to be better at it. Unless they shoot first. Or your wife shoots you first. Or you shoot yourself first. Or someone steals your gun first, which statistically is about four times more likely than you using it for self-defense. Perhaps you need more guns to protect your guns with.

I live in Nevada, where gun fatalities outnumber car fatalities. I don't know if that means we have twitchy trigger fingers or just that we're careful drivers. I do know that I can get to work without a gun.

Someone tried that, remember? We discussed it on this thread. They got death threats from gun nuts. So did the gun shows they wanted to exhibit at, so they couldn't sell them. It seems that a gun that's safer to use isn't at all safe to sell.