Summations Only

Come on CS - we're naturally mortal creatures ! You surely can't expect deaths by unnatural causes to exceed (or even come close to exceeding) deaths by natural causes before we begin to wonder if we can try to stop them. It cannot be an acceptable response to a relative of an innocent victim of a gun killing to say "Sorry, your concerns won't register with me until you at least reach the levels of mortality caused by heart disease".

Its there for contrast. i don't expect the numbers to approach each other.We're talking about the death of 0.003% of our population. Let's say we're in a population of 33,000 people.50 people over here are dying from this disease, 50 people over there are dying from that disease, and you come along: "I'm concerned about innocent deaths, there was one guy who was murdered with a gun. We need to do something about all this innocent death." This isn't about consoling victim's families. This is about legislation and gun control.Why does the anti-gun crowd always resort to emotive arguments? Its so insincere.You don't care about people dying. You don't care about preventing innocent deaths. You just dislike guns and don't want people to have them.I guess the end justifies the means, yeah?Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.

Speak for yourself.

Tell us more about your fantasy world. Why do people "just dislike guns", rather than just disliking umbrellas, or just disliking hats? We've established that it's not because they care about the victims of gun crime. (Heck, who could care about that? It's inconceivable.) Well, presumably they're equally indifferent to the victims of umbrella crime and hat crime. So how did they come to choose guns as the object of their arbitrary dislike?

As for the fraction of a person who died on 9/11 ... I guess that's just one of those things that no-one can really care about.

Okay, I work along side the healthcare industry. One thing I do is write and present topics, for continuing education programs, on things that can help reduce HAI's in hospitals.And then in my free time, I like to go down to the range and use my gun to punch holes in pieces of paper. I'm a monster

A fair point, we should see how far this reasoning can take us.Let's say 35 billion people lived in the world in the 20th Century. Let's say 200,000 died as a result of nuclear explosions. That means, in the 20th century what's that 0.0006%?That's only 1/5 of a person in our small population stretching over 100 years! We should stop worrying so much about nuclear proliferation.

I'm clairvoyant. Was I right?

Well, I looked on the CDC's website, and it turns out that annually only 75,000 hospital patients with HAIs die during their hospitalizations. So you can't really care about them, and there's too few of them to bother about. My way is cheaper.

What you have in these cases is someone being shot dead for:
-Burgalry
-Shoplifting
-Dangerous driving
-Carjacking
-Threatening violenceDo you think death is a suitable punishment for these crimes?If So, I expect you would want this punishment written into lawIf Not, do you believe allowing the victim(s) of such a crime decide whether or not the perpetrator should die is a good system?

You can worry about whatever you want. (I'm not sure why Dr A keeps saying that I'm saying that you cannot care about things)My point is that if you are trying to prevent X (like innocent deaths), and you start talking about something that has a negligible effect on X, then I'm saying that X isn't really the thing that's driving you."I care about all the natural gasses that are being added to our environment. Let's do something about hamster farts."No, you already decided that you wanted to do something about hamster farts, and you're just using natural gasses being added to our environment to bolster your argument.To argue for gun control because of all the innocent lives that are being lost is inane.ABE:I mean, look at this:

quote:

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Don't forget, there is no mountain of innocent bodies too high to clamber over, no lake of innocent blood too wide to cross, in the defence of a gun enthusiast's right to his gun.

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Mountains of bodies and lakes of blood?There really aren't that many people that are being killed by guns.Why are people acting like there are? Am I way off base that they just don't like guns and are looking for emotive things to distract you from their real motivations?Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.

I don't think death is a suitable punishment for any crime. But these are not punishments for crimes. Nobody was convicted, no punishment was applied. Yes, because people have a right to defend themselves, even with lethal force if necessary.

Well, you haven't answered my question. Why is it that they "just don't like guns"? If their choice is arbitrary, why did they pick on guns?For example, here's a story about anti-gun campaigner Neil Heslin, whose six-year old son was murdered at Sandy Hook. As we know, he doesn't care about people dying; he doesn't care about preventing innocent deaths. So why --- it's a complete mystery --- why did he arbitrarily decide to campaign against guns rather than poodles or marmalade?

I doubt its arbitrary.It could be from culture, irrational fear, they don't like rednecks or gangsters, they've been influenced by some media, or they know someone who was killed by a gun or someone robbed them at gunpoint.I dunno, there could be all kinds of reasons. He probably does care about people dying and preventing innocent deaths. I've never said that people can't care about those.But again, if your argument for gun control is based on all the lives that you're going to save, then you're an idiot.And if you're premise is that there's so many lives being lost to guns, so therefore we need more gun control, then you're also an idiot. Or lying about your motivation, as I suppose.

How about, they don't like mass murder?That would explain it. It would also explain other phenomena that would otherwise be baffling, like why 9/11 made people sad. Well, you said that they don't. As you are not telepathic, I assumed that you had derived this uncontrovertible truth from an a priori argument.