Gun Control III

What, no claims that you and your wife are superhuman, or that you're as good and fast a shot as a half century ago, or that you don't need a lockbox to keep your guns safe? I'd almost believe you wrote this while sober if you didn't go on to say yet more crazy stuff. People in the US and the UK are pretty much the same. The only society more similar to us than the UK is Canada. I've lived in the United States all my life, have never worried about somebody kicking my door in during the night, and nobody ever has. There you go saying nutty things again. People in the US are pretty much the same as in the UK.So why don't you try again. The suicide rate in the US (rampant guns) is 13.7 per 100,000 people while in the UK (very few guns) it's 7.6. What explains this if not widespread gun availability in the US? So how are you going to prevent those 2,226 deaths from malnutrition? You don't really believe your workfare answer, do you, that sending people dying from malnutrition to work is going to solve the problem, so are you in favor of increased funding for welfare and social services? So that's your answer? Everyone should be more like you? What if they're not like you, then what? You're not going to do nothing, right? You called it a disgrace that 2,226 people die from malnutrition. What are you going to do besides tell them, "Be more like me." Bzzzt - wrong again. Check out this graph showing the correlation between gun death rates and gun ownership rates: There are two problems with this claim. First, it is false. Chicago used to have very strict gun laws, but conservative politicians have chipped away at these laws. You don't even need to get a permit anymore. Second, Chicago is surrounded by jurisdictions with lax gun control laws. A ten minute drive takes you outside the city limits where you can buy all the guns you like. Most of Australia is virtually empty. Care to try again? Here's a population map: You said stuff both crazy and wrong. Could I suggest that a bit of research beats blowing smoke every time?--PercyEdited by Percy, : Minor edit final paragraph.

Drinking during the day again? How can anyone take you seriously if you're going to make provocatively insipid statements like this? You're primed and loaded and completely missing the point, half shot. Neither of us worries about "somebody kicking in my door," but you're the one placing yourself in greater danger by having firearms around the house, particularly that are loaded and not locked up. You might want to check your figures on this. This would be just incredible if true. You've got 2/3 of homeowners scaring off their offenders with guns when only 1/3 of households have guns. Are burglars somehow drawn to households with guns? You're the one exposed to the greater danger, so you're the luckier one. There's no such implication. The US has a greater suicide rate than the UK because guns are a more lethal means of suicide than any other means, and the US has far more guns. Check out this chart of many countries with both lower and higher suicide rates than the US. Look at the much higher proportion of suicide by gun in the US as compared to all other countries: I was using an attempt at an apples-to-apples comparison by using the age-standardized rates listed at Wikipedia: List of countries by suicide rateThat's an obviously false thing to say, sottie. Guns are the best method for impulsive suicides. Other means require more preparation and/or planning, providing opportunity for changing one's mind. Sounds like we could use increased immigration. So now we've come full circle. Repeating my question from a couple messages ago, does this mean you're in favor of increased funding for welfare and social services Unsurprisingly, you're not making any sense. Look at the top state with the most guns and the most gun deaths: Alaska. Do you really think there are (to quote you) "a lot more crooks and gangs" in Alaska? The other states in that upper right hand corner are Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, New Mexico, Montana, West Virginia and Wyoming. Do you think there are "a lot more crooks and gangs" in those primarily rural states, too?On the other side of the ledger, the more urban states (presumably with more crooks and gangs) that have fewer gun owners also have fewer gun deaths, like New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut and California. Surely you're not suggesting that liberals chipped away at Chicago's gun laws. Conservatives have little power in Chicago, not zero power. I don't want to eliminate all gun ownership, just most. Hunting rifles are okay. Handguns and assault rifles are not.Removing guns from circulation would probably involve buy-back programs and confiscation. Possession of a gun would be a crime, including one you build yourself. That's nice. With no guns there would be no use for gunpowder or ammo. People would gradually regain their sanity and find safer hobbies, like in the rest of the western world.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.Edited by Percy, : Grammar.Edited by Percy, : Grammar.

You seem unable to connect this crime information to any conclusions. No one's arguing about crime rates, but since you raise the subject of crime, crime has been decreasing across the country for years: The point that you've been ignoring and that you continue to ignore, a point supported by evidence cited earlier, is that you, your family, and your friends are in more danger from the gun you own than from guns wielded by criminals. You better take care there, fella - it's easy to get ripped off on the web. I hope you didn't already pay for the report, because it's available online at no cost at Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence.You chopped off the rest of the paragraph, which makes clear the claim isn't based on law enforcement statistics.
The claim is based on survey results. This means the information is from people responding primarily about unreported and unverifiable incidents. Also, the survey results are conflicting, varying across a range of 500%, as your next quote mentions, so let's get to that: Notice it says estimates, not statistics. And notice the 500% range of the estimates that I've already mentioned. This is not only useless as information, even if there were accurate law enforcement figures it would still be useless as support for your position. No one doubts that criminals can be defended against by guns. The problem for you is that your guns are more likely to be used against yourself, family or friends than against criminals. I'm only ragging on you because you keep making hairbrained statements, like that you're superhuman or that Americans are more like the Taliban than the British. If you're going to be absurd about so many things then how can we trust anything you say, such as that you don't drink - in fact, especially that you don't drink, since drinking would explain all the silly claims.I'll explain again, in slightly greater detail this time:If 3.7 million households are broken into each year (that's your figure from Message 448), and if 2.5 million victims use a gun to scare away the offender (also your figure from the same message), then for 2/3 (=2.5/3.7) of household break-ins the criminals are being scared off by guns when only 1/3 of households have guns (the 1/3 figure can be found in many places, for instance here, which gives the figure as 31% for 2014 and shrinking).It's impossible that for 2/3 of household break-ins that the criminals are being scared off by guns if only 1/3 of households have guns. You do understand that, don't you? The only way that would be possible is if criminals were targeting households with guns, which is absurd, which is why I mentioned it in the hope that it would help you see how nonsensical your figures are.I'll ignore the figures you cited next since you were trying to rebut something you didn't yet understand. You cited figures for household break-ins, so I responded about household break-ins. If you wanted to make your point using some other kind of crime then you should have written about that other kind of crime, not household break-ins. Is this difficult for you to understand?But you can talk about any kind of crime you like, it won't change the fact that a gun in the home increases the danger to yourself, your family, and your friends. Or are you going to claim to be superhuman again?--Percy

Hobby, sport, an object in a fantasy world, call it what you will. The 2nd amendment is an anachronism, like the 3/5 rule. I've already said I don't have anything against hunting rifles. We've been talking about handguns. As you make obvious, many people's attachment to their firearms is emotional and rather than coolly rational.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Spelling correction.

This is laughably meaningless. Other people have already addressed this, but because it's yet another example of your uncomprehension of the meaninglessness of the "number of this, number of that" counts you keep citing, it is worth commenting on it yet again.Whether a burglary every 20 seconds is appalling depends upon how many households are available to be burgled. Is it one? Ten? A hundred? A thousand? A million?It turns out it's none of these. It's much larger: there are 126 million households available to be burgled. With that many households, a burglary every 20 seconds translates into roughly 1200 burglaries per 100,000 households. The figure isn't usually reported that way - it's usually reported in terms of per 100,000 people, as here: Reported burglary rate in the United States from 1990 to 2017.Your figure of a burglary every 20 seconds across the entire US is actually good news. Burglaries have followed the overall declining crime rate downward and is probably the lowest it's been since the late 1960's. It's about a third what it was in 1990. The rate of armed burglaries is way lower. There you go making this inane statement again: that if everyone were just more like you then the world would be a better place. Aside from the conceit and narcissism it reveals (and the questions it raises about your sobriety since it's hard to believe anyone sober would say something like this), you've been shown wrong every which way and still cling to your mistaken beliefs just because you love your guns.I'm curious. Do you now understand that you can't have 2/3 of households using guns to scare off criminals when only 1/3 of households have guns?--Percy

In a reply to me you're referring to me in the third person? That's a little weird, but continuing in that vein, Percy just follows the statistics about guns that show your gun is more likely to be used against you, your friends or your family than against any criminal. You left out the chart: Look at the relative length of the green line ("Not gun-related") to the red line ("Gun-related") for the US as compared to all other countries. How is that not an argument against guns? And how, exactly, do you reach that conclusion from the information in the chart, aside from rampant imagination. Well, yes it is an ludicrous argument, and nothing like the situation with guns. You'd like your contrived argument to be similar and realistic, because then you'd have an argument, but it's not, not even remotely. If you fail to see it then you're not thinking, because it's fairly obvious after even just a little reflection. Straggler explains it pretty well in Message 469, and it's not necessary to repeat what he's already said. As Dorothy Parker said, if it's that hard "you might as well live." True, but is that what's really driving the higher gun death rate in states with more guns? Here are the states I mentioned that are in the upper right of the plot, along with their crime rates in crimes per 100,000 people:

• Alaska: 1986
• Alabama: 1941
• Arkansas: 2065
• Idaho: 1068
• New Mexico: 2241
• Montana: 1230
• West Virginia: 1235
• Wyoming: 1136

The above states have both high and low crime rates, yet they all have high gun death rates. What they have in common is a high gun ownership rate. This suggests a strong correlation between gun ownership rates and gun death rates.And here are the states I mentioned from the lower left of the plot:

• California: 1701
• Connecticut: 1171
• New Jersey: 1180
• New York: 1194
• Rhode Island: 1268

Their relatively low crime rates probably do reflect better economic health, so these states have two things in common: good economic health and low gun ownership rates. If these states were all we looked at then it could be argued that both contribute to the lower gun death rate, but we also have the data from the high gun death states, and as I already pointed out, their wide range of crime rates implies that crime rate is not the controlling factor, and that the high gun ownership rate is. Yes, I understand the point ICANT is making. Leave it to ICANT to abandon a failed argument and shift to another as if that were the argument he was making all along. In any case, he has a sample size of one. I already pointed out how easy it is to get guns in Chicago just by taking a ten minute drive. It's the same phenomenon as the border between New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Liquor sales in New Hampshire are restricted to state owned/controlled liquor stores, so there are tons of liquor stores just across the border in Massachusetts. Firework sales in Massachusetts are illegal, so there are tons of firework stores just across the border in New Hampshire. I imagine there are tons of gun stores just outside the Chicago city limits. Obtaining illegal guns in Chicago is just way too easy. That's a big and important difference. I do not think people should own handguns or assault rifles or any firearm of large caliber and/or of great energy. This is all the bullet you need for hunting: You do not need bullets like these: I'm not "accepting of one but not the other." An assault rifle is not a hunting rifle. Hunting rifles are fine. I'm referring to real hunting rifles, like this: This is not a hunting rifle: I'm against assault rifles, whether or not they're automatic.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.Edited by Percy, : Typo.

You sound like a bundle of wound up nerves just looking for an excuse to explode. You should not have a gun. A gun in the hands of an aging veteran with failing faculties who sees threats on all sides and who fires automatically is a recipe for disaster. Your lack of any Christian sense of value for human life is noted. Policemen firing on people with cell phones is just one of the reasons why we have to take guns away from the police, too. There is nothing of God in your expressions of fear and eagerness to be an instrument of death.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

Well, I assume you're not on a steady diet of squirrel, so I guess all you meant was that you occasionally use one of your handguns to hunt. When you said guns weren't a hobby and that you can eat because of your guns, I thought you meant you were feeding yourself by hunting.There are around 75 hunting related fatalities each year. Given that you feel that even one burglary is one to many, isn't that 75 too many hunting related fatalities? How do you justify hunting at all?--Percy

This is just a silly off-topic rant - there's been crime since the beginning of time. You're ignoring what you can't rebut.You've been arguing that you need your guns locked and loaded by your side to protect you from burglars who could break down your door at any moment since there's a burglary every 20 seconds in the US. But it's been pointed out to you several times that that's a small number given how many households there are in the US, and that burglaries are down by 2/3 over the past 30 years, with the threat of crime going down every year. How do you justify the danger your guns put you, your family and friends in given that it's greater than the danger represented by criminals?An analogy: if someone told you there was chance you could die from some disease but that a pill would completely protect you from that disease, would you take it if the pill had a greater chance of killing you than the disease? No, of course not.It's the same with guns. If someone told you there was a chance a burglar could break in and kill you but that if you armed yourself with a gun that it would completely protect you from the burglar, would you arm yourself if the gun had a greater chance of killing you than the burglar? No, of course not, not if you believed the odds you were quoted. Your problem is that you can't accept that the odds are true because you love your guns too much, but you can't find anything wrong with the odds either, so you're arguing about everything else but. Why are you having so much trouble understanding this? Yes, we know - that it's so large is why your "burglary every 20 seconds" figure doesn't help you make your case. Did you check out the link I provided a few posts ago: The percentage of U.S. households with guns is falling? It puts the number of households with guns at 31%. From the webpage:

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Methodology: Researchers surveyed about 1,500 adults in each of the years studied and asked them, 'Do you happen to have in your home (if house: or garage) any guns or revolvers?' Numbers for gun ownership tend to vary across polls, depending on responders' willingness to divulge ownership information and other factors. Still, the downward trend of gun-owning households is consistent across data sets.

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Don't believe that link? Here's another: American gun ownership drops to lowest in nearly 40 years. About household gun ownership it says:

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Different national polls tend to show slightly different rates of gun ownership. The latest household gun ownership rate in the General Social Survey, in 2014, was 32 percent. The October 2015 Gallup survey showed a higher rate of 43 percent, including guns kept on property outside the home.

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You continue on to misleadingly state: The quote I provided just above shows that you're selectively quoting. You left out the part about "including guns kept on property outside the house," which would mean storage sheds, etc. That's why the percentage is higher. This figure is useless for your argument since a gun kept outside the house can't protect you from people breaking into your house.You can debate the figures all you like, that last link also says:

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But the downward trend in gun ownership remains consistent across the national polls. According to Gallup, gun ownership has fallen by about 10 percentage points since its peak in 1993. The General Social Survey shows a 20-point drop since the mid-1970s.

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Raising concern levels, you next say: Admitting that you're a liar when it comes to guns isn't going to help you make your case. That's fine, the point doesn't change, I'll just substitute the value you prefer. Do you understand that 67% of households can't be using guns to scare off criminals if only 42% of households have guns? Oh, good grief, another figure, and once again you go nowhere with it. You already have a percentage, you don't need a hard number. But I've already shown this isn't true at the state level. Here's the information I presented earlier to Hyroglyphx in Message 473:

• Alaska: 1986
• Alabama: 1941
• Arkansas: 2065
• Idaho: 1068
• New Mexico: 2241
• Montana: 1230
• West Virginia: 1235
• Wyoming: 1136

The above states have both high and low crime rates, yet they all have high gun death rates. What they have in common is a high gun ownership rate. This suggests a strong correlation between gun ownership rates and gun death rates, but not between crime rates and gun death rates.--Percy

Obviously untrue. These are your words from Message 457:

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When it comes to the point my neighbor is fixing to harm me or my wife, yes I would blow his/her brains out.
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My mind is conditioned that when I would see a weapon of any kind that is being positioned to bring harm to me or anyone around me reflexes would take over without even thinking as my actions would be automatic. I know you don't understand that but I can't help you there.

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Remember I would not shoot anyone offensively but in defense it will work automatically.

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That is the reason a person pulling a phone out of his/her pocket when standing before a policeman with a revolver in hand shouting orders or reaching for their back pocket usually end up dead. If the policeman has to think he is usually the one that ends up dead.

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Over and over and over again you have expressed your willingness to inflict fatal harm on others if you think you're threatened, and that you think others have that same right. I guess it's not enough that you have to be dumb about guns, you have to be misogynistic, too. As the Police Shootings thread clearly documents, police commit unjustified shootings all the time, especially when cameras are present to contradict the official police report. You're living in your own gun fantasy world where everyone who gets shot deserves it.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.

Oh, here we go, you're superman again.Of course you've made mistakes. There's no one perfect out there, no matter what your delusions tell you. What you really mean is that your mistakes haven't hurt anyone yet, that we know of. You're already making a major mistake by not locking up your gun and ammunition separately. You've told us straight out you'd lie when it comes to guns, so why should we trust anything you say anyway.--Percy

You're very confused, I'll get to why in a moment. Yes, it is a little more complicated. That's why I didn't suggest comparing suicide rates between countries. There are cultural and medical differences between countries that skew the statistics. That being said, I think it's possible that South Koreans commit what we would deem suicide at a higher rate than many other countries, but that's really got nothing to do with this discussion. This is the confusion you have that I mentioned earlier. If you read back in the thread you'll see that there was never any claim that people only commit suicide using guns. That would be an absurd thing for anyone to say, and I don't know why you think it was said or why you're bothering to rebut anything so ridiculous.The actual claim made was that this chart shows that suicides are disproportionately committed by guns in the United States compared to all other countries: This is because the US has a much higher gun ownership rate than other countries. Guns vilify themselves. A gun's purpose is to kill. Name another product advertised for it's stopping power or killing power, the ability of a weapon to incapacitate a human or animal. I don't know about you, but obviously ICANT is thinking about stopping people, not animals. The only animal he apparently hunts is squirrels, no stopping power required. Well, yes, I do have an obvious bias. I'm biased toward life and the right of people to be safe in their homes and while they're out and about.The following is just one silly thing after another: Rope is an essential part of any economy going back thousands of years. I am against murder and capital punishment. Not sure what kind of thing you're thinking of here, but high places that people frequent should have protections. Medicine is essential for doctors to treat patients. Most everyone's against drug abuse and in favor of programs to stop it. I don't know if you're referring to knives or scalpels, but they're both essential. If you're talking about using them to commit murders then I think pretty much everyone's against murder. I see an obvious problem in your approach. Guns make no contribution to the economy, they don't keep us safe, they don't cure disease or relieve pain, they don't help prepare food or perform surgery. Guns kill. That's it, except for hunting, which also kills, but at least not people. Well then offer some disconfirming evidence. You keep mentioning it, but you never present any. I can't tell if you've said anything meaningful here. Maybe you can clarify.Next you screwed up your link, I've fixed it for you: You inadvertently appended some text from my post, and that screwed up your URL. Of course it's a solution. You just don't like this solution because you love your guns too much. It's an emotional issue for you. Your average gun owner *is* the problem. They don't realize they're a danger to themselves and all around them. Look at ICANT. He doesn't even lock up his guns and ammunition. I think a .22 in competent hands is good for far more than gophers, but the modern hunter is spoiled. He wants a high caliber bullet with excellent stopping power that can bring down that buck no matter how bad a shot he is.What do you really need for deer? A .30 rifle? Even something a little bigger? Fine, I have no problem with it. Because they make it too easy to kill a lot of people very quickly, and because they have no other purpose than to kill people. Why would anyone want one?--Percy

I have no strong feelings about the caliber of hunting rifles. How big and bad a gun do you think is needed for moose hunting? Back in colonial times wouldn't they have used muskets? Even more humane is not shooting animals at all. I do not doubt that high caliber high velocity bullets are very effective at bringing down large game - doesn't matter where you hit 'em, down they go. Doesn't seem like much of a challenge, more like shooting fish in a barrel. Where's the skill, the marksmanship?Are normal hunting rifles okay, or are a full clip and a bump stock needed?I wonder where ICANT lives. I just looked up the dates of moose hunting season in Maine and noticed that squirrel hunting season only lasts three months.--Percy

The primary concern isn't about armed people defending against actual deadly threats, though it is a concern.The primary concern, especially for anyone with gun fantasies like yours, is that you'll think you're faced with a deadly threat, go into "defense" mode, pull out your piece, and blow away some poor schmuck just going about his business. You give no indication of respect for any human life but your own, have an overinflated opinion of your own competence, and show no comprehension of the weighty responsibility of possessing a device capable of meting out death. You're a menace.--Percy

Message 492: You don't hunt with other people? Or other people won't hunt with you? For anyone who has a gun there is a greater than zero chance that they will shoot themselves. You are not superhuman. That's absurd, too. Why do you think people are going to believe your silly stories? it's impossible that an area within range of your hammock would sustain that many squirrels over a period of weeks. More absurd bragging. So what happens after that first shot misses? Does the squirrel just sit there instead of turning into a blur, waiting for the second shot?Message 494: Gee, it sure had all the qualities of a rant: impassioned blustering nonsensical spouting off. So any crime is one crime too many, but if they pass a law you don't like you'll break it and commit a crime. Inconsistent much? You've said so many absurd, unbelievable things, why should we believe this one either? This is self evidently false, but checking the statistics, only 12% of burglaries are armed which is 190,000 armed burglaries/year, and there are only about 100 homicides during burglaries each year (Corrections to Michael Moore's gun stats). So only 0.05% of armed burglaries result in homicides, making your odds of death from an armed burglary far, far, far, far, far less than 100%.This tiny chance of being killed by criminals, whom you're in contact with for only a fleeting moment if at all, is why possession of a gun, which in your case is apparently with you always, means your odds of being hurt by your own gun exceed those of being hurt by a criminal. So yes you read the link, and even though their methodology was described on page one you have to ask about their methodology? Do you want to reconsider your claim to have read the link? Plus I quoted the methodology in my post. Obviously you're lying and did not read either the link or my post. Here's a link to the original paper which explains the methodology and inherent accuracy problems in great detail: Gun Ownership in the United States: Measurement Issues and Trends, see the sections on Data Sources and Measurement Issues. Getting into such detail would make this post far too long, but to mention just one issue they describe, you'll get different answers depending upon whether the question specifically excludes air rifles, pellet guns, starter pistols, and firearms that are antiques or no longer operable. You're having great difficulty reading for comprehension. Given how often you fail to understand what is written, repeating things you didn't understand the first time would be an exercise in futility. My own quote included the figure you said I vilified, and then since you preferred that figure I used it in my calculations. You're continuing to be really strange. You said you would lie about your gun ownership, and I took you at your word. That is not jumping to conclusions. In case you forgot what you said about how you'd lie when asked if you owned a gun, here it is again from your Message 476:

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If you call me and ask if I had guns in the house I would say no. If you came to my door and asked the same question I would say no. If you were sitting in my living room and asked me the same question I would say no. Yet one would be within reach of my hand. I would not know what your intentions were regardless of what you said your reasons for asking was.

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See, no jumping to conclusions. And look at that, there you are quoting me using the figure you said I vilified. Words, sentences, simple percentages, it's all just a jumble of confusion to you. There's no point in explaining again, you'll just reply with more miscomprehension.Message 496: Yeah, sure, you're superman. Your irrational overconfidence in your abilities makes you a menace.Message 497: So now you're changing your story? Now you hunt bear, deer and gators, in addition to squirrels from your hammock? I guess for you the truth is whatever you happen to write at the moment, no matter what you said at any other moment. So you do or you don't have rifles. Why are you asking me? What do they teach you in firearm education classes? I think this'll be the third or fourth time I've said that I don't have strong feelings about what caliber rifle is used for hunting. Use whatever caliber rifle makes sense for what you're hunting. Just make sure it's a hunting rifle, not an assault rifle.--Percy