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EvC Forum Side Orders Coffee House Gun Control Again

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Author Topic:   Gun Control Again
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 1171 of 5179 (686816)
01-04-2013 10:50 AM
Reply to: Message 1170 by New Cat's Eye
01-04-2013 10:31 AM


Re: Study: "Stand Your Ground" Laws Increase Homicide Rates
Catholic Scientist writes:
But the fact that the mere presence of guns increases the likelihood of gun death is inescapable. It doesn't matter whether you* believe it or not, you're at greater risk of gun death if you own a gun.
No, that is the Ecological fallacy.
No, CS, it is not the ecological fallacy. Most times you can drop into the impersonal you and people can tell just from context, but I was afraid Crash would misinterpret it and accuse me of the ecological fallacy yet again, so I put an asterisk there (see it? you quoted it). Checking the asterisk we see it says:
Percy in Message 1066 writes:
*You = the impersonal you.
And of course, "you" is both the singular and plural form of the second-person personal pronoun.
Over and over again I have said I'm arguing statistically. Invariably what I write, what anyone writes, cannot be completely unambiguous, so I will grant up front that a careful reading of my posts in this thread will reveal many instances of ambiguity. Please stop playing gotcha.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1170 by New Cat's Eye, posted 01-04-2013 10:31 AM New Cat's Eye has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1183 by crashfrog, posted 01-04-2013 8:05 PM Percy has replied

New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 1172 of 5179 (686817)
01-04-2013 11:03 AM
Reply to: Message 1169 by Percy
01-04-2013 10:29 AM


Re: Statistical Blindness
Really? Just like that you're going to accept that mathematically we know that 0 guns must correspond to 0 gun deaths? Even after all your objections?
Where have I objected to that? How could someone die from a gun when there aren't any guns?
And you're also going to accept that as the number of guns in a population increases that the number of gun deaths must also increase and that the incidence rate of deterrence must necessarily be negligible until gun prevalence reaches some level? After all your arguments about how invalid this position is?
I'm capable of assuming pretty much anything for the sake of argument.
So please pardon my skepticism about your newfound openness, but you were dismissing everything I said, and in such an environment it didn't seem likely there was any possibility of finding common ground. I find it hard to believe you're going to change your approach.
Try me. Start with addressing the concern raised by my question that assumes your premise:
quote:
But is your ineffective attempt worth the cost? To be illustratively ridiulous; would the demise of an unarmed populous who are facing a zombie apocolyps, or alien invastion or whatever floats you boat, be worth a minor reduction in the number of poeple who die by gunshot per capita per year?
Assuming that reducing the number of guns would reduce the number of gun deaths, how do we know that its something that is worth the both the cost of pursuing and the cost of implimenting?
We're not going to get anywhere if I, for example, state that I'm trying to vary a single variable at a time, and you respond with:
You are failing to focus on one variable.
And that's all you say. What am I supposed to do with that?
I explained why you weren't:
quote:
You've been trying to group together the inner-city unlawful and reckless gun users together with the rural law-abiding extra careful gun enthusiast into one group of average danger-per-gun group so that you can say that an individual person should avoid having a gun because it'll be dangerous.
There's variables involved that you are failing to consider.
By focusing on the single asymptote, really!?
Asymptote? What asymptote? There's no asymptote. And that's all you say. What am I supposed to do with that?
Sorry for the ambiguity. I was referring to your point at 0,0. I had already explained my reasoning:
quote:
When you increase the number of guns from 0 to 1, you can only increase the number of gun deaths. But that doesn't hold true when you increase the number of guns from 1 to 2. Or, necessariy, from any other numbers besides 0 and 1!
.
And then there's the ridiculous:
Um... no. People can't just sneak up behind me. I'm neither deaf nor blind. There's situations where they can, sure, but so what?
In response to the assertion that criminals will try to catch you unawares you say that people can't sneak up behind you, but sometimes they can, but so what? What am I supposed to say to that?
You could have just answered my question:
quote:
Is that really what we're to distinguish 'ready' and 'not ready' by?
Nobody is 'ready' because someone could potentially sneak up behind them? Is that what you meant?
Or how about this:
Pssht. The last time a criminal approached me he walked right up to my face and asked me for help.
You're seriously offering anecdotal stories like this to question a criminal's ability to catch you unawares? Really? Are you serious?
Actually that was in response to the assertion that "In the real world you'll never see the criminal coming". And it proves it wrong.
Okay, but why should I let the fact that those idiots in Memphis are shooting each other determine whether or not I would be better off having a gun?
It wasn't just Memphis.
I wasn't implying that it was just Memphis, but that Memphis was, in fact, included in the data. And the question remains:
Why should I use the statistics including inner-city unlawful and reckless gun users to determine whether or not a rural law-abiding extra careful gun enthusiast would be in more danger if they got another gun?
If we do reduce gun prevalence then it is undeniable that some will die who would otherwise live (this is the gun rights concern), but it is equally undeniable that even more, potentially many, many more proportional to the degree of reduction, will live who would otherwise die.
Assuming that's true, I'm not convinced the cost is worth it. The ramifications of an unarmed populous are not worth the insignifcant reduction in 'deaths by gun' that would result.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1169 by Percy, posted 01-04-2013 10:29 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1174 by Percy, posted 01-04-2013 11:45 AM New Cat's Eye has not replied

Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


Message 1173 of 5179 (686818)
01-04-2013 11:17 AM
Reply to: Message 1168 by New Cat's Eye
01-04-2013 10:28 AM


Re: Statistical Blindness
Do you accept that the research linked to has indeed found a correlation between gun prevalence and homicide rates?
CS writes:
Is it the gun ownership that is causing the homicide rates or is it the homicide rates that are causing the gun ownership?
Are you suggesting that the US is just more homicidal than other nations (and this is the cause of higher gun prevalence in the US as compared to other comparable nations)? If so Percy's graph would seem to put paid to that notion:
CountryNon-firearm homicide rate per 100,000 pop.
Switzerland0.40
Slovakia0.48
Germany0.70
Ireland0.78
Denmark0.83
New Zealand0.99
Spain1.00
Canada1.04
Slovenia1.21
Australia1.26
England & Wales1.33
Chile1.37
United States1.58
Hungary1.61
Portugal1.63
Finland1.76
Poland5.18
CS writes:
Not only did I point out that it wasn't OECD countries, the question I asked implies my reasoning.
I looked at the countries included. Unsurprisingly the list of countries with high HDI and those in the OECD is much the same. The point that you keep missing is that the choice of countries to make comparisons with needs to be on an relatively equal in terms of some measure of wealth. That is what the Harvard study did. That is what an OECD comparison would seek to achieve and that is what taking high HDI countries seeks to do as well.
CS writes:
I don't see how cherry-picking the data points helps establish a causal relationship between gun ownership and gun murder.
Using nations of comparable wealth isn't "cherry picking". Comparing murder rates with Sierra Leone or Congo or other poverty stricken nations might be quite comforting but it is going to be largely irrelevant in this context isn't it?
CS writes:
I don't see how cherry-picking the data points helps establish a causal relationship between gun ownership and gun murder.
CS writes:
Is it the gun ownership that is causing the homicide rates or is it the homicide rates that are causing the gun ownership?
Given the change in approach above - Have you now moved on from denying that there is a causal relationship between the two factors to insisting that high homicide rate is the cause of high gun ownership?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1168 by New Cat's Eye, posted 01-04-2013 10:28 AM New Cat's Eye has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1184 by crashfrog, posted 01-04-2013 8:24 PM Straggler has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(2)
Message 1174 of 5179 (686822)
01-04-2013 11:45 AM
Reply to: Message 1172 by New Cat's Eye
01-04-2013 11:03 AM


Re: Statistical Blindness
Look, CS, thanks for the offer, really, but it's just over the top for me. You want me to consider scenarios of zombie apocalypse and alien invasion? Seriously? And your explanations precede your objections by several paragraphs, and I'm supposed to follow that? Seriously? You want me to just answer the question that followed your contradictory statement that people can't sneak behind you but sometimes they can? Seriously?
No thanks, but let me address a couple of the more reasonable points you just made.
Catholic Scientist writes:
Nobody is 'ready' because someone could potentially sneak up behind them? Is that what you meant?
No, "sneaking up behind you" was just one example. The actual point is simple and indisputable. The criminal is ready and you're not. The criminal picks the time and place, you don't. The fact that you're carrying doesn't give you superhuman powers of observation, and it certainly doesn't give you any advantage over an armed criminal. When both the criminal and the victim are armed then it makes it more likely that a gun will be used. That's one reason you're less safe if you carry.
About this next thing, I take back what I said earlier about only addressing your more reasonable points, this is just so absurd I just have to reply:
Or how about this:
Pssht. The last time a criminal approached me he walked right up to my face and asked me for help.
You're seriously offering anecdotal stories like this to question a criminal's ability to catch you unawares? Really? Are you serious?
Actually that was in response to the assertion that "In the real world you'll never see the criminal coming". And it proves it wrong.
We were talking about the criminal's advantage because he can catch you unawares. Are you seriously offering this ridiculous (whether it really happened or not, it's still ridiculous) anecdotal story as rebuttal? Seriously? I mean, come on CS, seriously? And putting a literal focus on hyperbole ("you'll never see the criminal coming") so you can take an interpretation that clearly was never meant? Seriously?
That's why I'm saying ,"No thanks," to this stuff.
Assuming that's true, I'm not convinced the cost is worth it. The ramifications of an unarmed populous are not worth the insignifcant reduction in 'deaths by gun' that would result.
Except that the deaths caused by the prevalence of guns is not insignificant. This is just something you've convinced yourself of in denial of all the data.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1172 by New Cat's Eye, posted 01-04-2013 11:03 AM New Cat's Eye has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1176 by DBlevins, posted 01-04-2013 12:59 PM Percy has replied

xongsmith
Member
Posts: 2578
From: massachusetts US
Joined: 01-01-2009
Member Rating: 6.8


Message 1175 of 5179 (686827)
01-04-2013 12:55 PM


Aesop has a fable about the Sun and the Wind. One day they are watching a man below, on the Earth, walking along a road. He is wearing a coat, because the weather is not so warm. The Wind gets the Sun into a contest to see who can get the coat off the man first. The Sun accepts the challenge and magnanimously lets the Wind have the first try. The Wind blows hard up the coattails and up into the coat. The man clutches the coat ever harder against him, wrapping his arms tightly around him. The Wind blows harder and harder. The man clenches the coat ever so much more tightly. The Wind blows him over, but still the man clenches his coat. The Wind pauses and turns to the Sun, saying "Your turn." The Sun shines brighter and brighter, warming the air. The man gets up and continues to walk the road again. The Sun shines even more, warming up the day. Soon it gets so hot the man removes his coat and carries it under his arm. The Wind concedes that he has lost.
We won't get rid of guns until those that get them no longer want to get them. We can't blow like the wind with bans on certain kinds of guns. We must get to them, mostly inner city young boys, at the age of 4 or less and teach them in a manner so that they will not want to have a gun. It will be very HARD to do that. But it is the best way. We can start by legalizing drugs. The inner city youth has grown so cynical about whitey male government that owning a piece is a just natural part of fighting the terrible world they find themselves born into. We have to fix that by making the world they are born into not so virulently heinous to them.

- xongsmith, 5.7d

Replies to this message:
 Message 1177 by DBlevins, posted 01-04-2013 1:11 PM xongsmith has replied

DBlevins
Member (Idle past 3776 days)
Posts: 652
From: Puyallup, WA.
Joined: 02-04-2003


(2)
Message 1176 of 5179 (686828)
01-04-2013 12:59 PM
Reply to: Message 1174 by Percy
01-04-2013 11:45 AM


Re: Statistical Blindness
Hello Percy,
I thought I might provide a link to a video that might help illustrate your point about 'criminal advantage.'
ABC News

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1174 by Percy, posted 01-04-2013 11:45 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1181 by Percy, posted 01-04-2013 4:13 PM DBlevins has not replied

DBlevins
Member (Idle past 3776 days)
Posts: 652
From: Puyallup, WA.
Joined: 02-04-2003


(1)
Message 1177 of 5179 (686830)
01-04-2013 1:11 PM
Reply to: Message 1175 by xongsmith
01-04-2013 12:55 PM


I have to respectfully disagree. Gun control regulations can reduce the incidences of mass killings, though they will never completely eliminate accidents or murders. A prime example of this is what happened in Australia after a 1996 mass shooting. In the 15 years after the gun-control measures were put into effect, there has not been a mass shooting in Australia. Not only that but homicides declined by 59%, suicides by 69%, while robberies using a gun dropped significantly and home invasions did not increase.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1175 by xongsmith, posted 01-04-2013 12:55 PM xongsmith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1178 by Rahvin, posted 01-04-2013 1:18 PM DBlevins has not replied
 Message 1179 by xongsmith, posted 01-04-2013 2:51 PM DBlevins has replied
 Message 1185 by crashfrog, posted 01-04-2013 8:28 PM DBlevins has not replied
 Message 1186 by crashfrog, posted 01-04-2013 8:31 PM DBlevins has replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(1)
Message 1178 of 5179 (686831)
01-04-2013 1:18 PM
Reply to: Message 1177 by DBlevins
01-04-2013 1:11 PM


I also disagree with xong on the effectiveness of gun control.
I agree, however, that another avenue toward reducing gun-related deaths (and with greater implications beyond) is to attack the root causes of crime in general, such as poverty and the "war on drugs."
I'd love to see some real proposals aimed at addressing disenfranchised inner-city youth and other high-risk demographics. Legalizing or at least decriminalizing drugs (though I'd much prefer government regulation and standardization with hefty taxes, much like has been done with alcohol and tobacco) seems to be one powerful vector toward reducing violent crime by essentially gutting the profit potential of the cartels and various gangs...as well as all of the benefits of avoiding accidental overdose and spending money currently spent on prisons on free voluntary rehab, instead.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1177 by DBlevins, posted 01-04-2013 1:11 PM DBlevins has not replied

xongsmith
Member
Posts: 2578
From: massachusetts US
Joined: 01-01-2009
Member Rating: 6.8


Message 1179 of 5179 (686844)
01-04-2013 2:51 PM
Reply to: Message 1177 by DBlevins
01-04-2013 1:11 PM


DBlevins cites a source:
A prime example of this is what happened in Australia after a 1996 mass shooting. In the 15 years after the gun-control measures were put into effect, there has not been a mass shooting in Australia. Not only that but homicides declined by 59%, suicides by 69%, while robberies using a gun dropped significantly and home invasions did not increase.
From that I find the following:
Whether the same policies would work as well in the United Statesor whether similar legislation would have any chance of being passed here in the first placeis an open question. Howard, the conservative leader behind the Australian reforms, wrote an op-ed in an Australian paper after visiting the United States in the wake of the Aurora shootings. He came away convinced that America needed to change its gun laws, but lamented its lack of will to do so.
Two comments. First, the USA is an Outlier in all comparisons of nations. This was referred to in the first sentence above. This means that those tools that may have worked elsewhere are not expected to work in the USA. It's like bringing a carpenter's tool box to an automobile. Second, I advocated the push to change more Americans to NOT want to own guns in the first place - exactly the same as the Howard's op-ed lament in the last sentence.
Certainly gun laws can make a difference here in the USA - but not that much at this time. We need to change the whole national mindset here. That will be very hard to do. Until that happens, nothing really will work to well.

- xongsmith, 5.7d

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1177 by DBlevins, posted 01-04-2013 1:11 PM DBlevins has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1245 by DBlevins, posted 01-06-2013 5:50 PM xongsmith has seen this message but not replied

hooah212002
Member (Idle past 801 days)
Posts: 3193
Joined: 08-12-2009


(1)
Message 1180 of 5179 (686848)
01-04-2013 3:40 PM
Reply to: Message 1167 by crashfrog
01-04-2013 9:30 AM


Re: I missed out on New Years Eve fireworks (and two people died)
I'm simply refuting the contention that Houdini being punched and then dying from it was a "freak accident." There was nothing accidental about it. The man attacked Houdini with the intent of causing grievous bodily harm, grievous bodily harm was inflicted, and Houdini likely died from it. A perfect chain of completely intentional events and their expected consequences. Nothing "freak accident" about it.
So the guy who punched Houdini intended to kill him and Houdini agreed to this? The freak accident is that he died from it when death was not the intended outcome. It's not that difficult.
If you accept, then, that it's possible for someone to kill you with their fists, then you have to admit that someone who attacks you with their fists and gives no indication that they will stop until you're dead, then it's clearly reasonable to defend yourself as though they're going to kill you.
That is a leap in logic that I do not accept and one that I have repeatedly asked you to provide evidence for. What you are saying is that every single fist fight/bar brawl is intended to be murder.
Identically to how you're not required to treat someone attacking you with a knife as though they're a surgeon about to perform a necessary medical procedure to your benefit, but rather an assailant who means to maim or kill you.
Well, yea, because they have a weapon! It is debateable whether or not it is acceptable to shoot someone who is brandishng a knife, but that is not what we are debating. We are talking about shooting unarmed assailants. I will say that I am leaning towards what Oni has been saying about teaching folks self defense so that someone who has a knife doesn't equal a death sentence for you. I will also clarify that at no time have I said or even given the impression that I am completely against gun ownership.
You would be completely wrong. Officers will fire upon the unarmed - and will be legally and morally in the right to do so - when it's necessary to defend their own lives or the lives of others.
You will notice that I requested something stating ANY police department's policy on this as opposed to crashfrog saying "nah man, cops can shoot you no matter what".
That's because police officers understand that you can be beat to death, like 800 people were in 2009 alone (Bureau of Justice Statistics.)
Perhaps you could link me to what you are talking about because I cannot seem to find it.
And if you're fired on with pistols you'll respond with rifles, correct?
Correct me if I am wrong....but haven't you been of the position that essentially "a gun is a gun", when talking about rifles or pistols? I swear I have seen you argue that the same rounds used in, let's say an M4 or M16 (which is what a soldier would have) are the same rounds that can be used in a handgun.
Are you now saying that a rifle is far more deadly than a handgun? Is it coming directly from you that a good start for regulation would be to ban rifles? Good idea!
The doctrine of proportionality doesn't require constructing a hierarchy of weapon lethality, so that you spend entire minutes sitting there determining whether the guy with a tire iron means you have to use your bare hands because you don't have anything on you whose lethality is between bare hands and tactical knife.
"The doctrine of proportionality" deals with punishment. YOU YOURSELF cried about how we aren't debating punishment. Secondly, "The doctrine of proportionality" is not what US soldiers use when assessing immediate danger. You will notice that I mentioned THE GENEVA CONVENTION for a reason as that is what is used.
Lastly, of course there is no expectation of constructing or detailing a hierarchy of weapons when faced with imminent danger. However, I can assure that soldiers who make the wrong decision will likely face punishment. We are talking about soldiers (in this case) firing live rounds at unarmed people. You keep bringing this shit up about hierarchy. YOU are the one saying it is ok to shoot to kill unarmed people and that soldiers and police have the authority to do so. That is incorrect.
I live in Washington DC, which has the highest rate of homicides in the nation (and until recently a complete ban on handguns.) Just this past year a man died during an altercation in which only a single punch was thrown.
Oh my god crash! Personal anecdote is soooo sexy! Give me some more!
If you don't think that a man beating on you with his fists constitutes a threat to your life, then you just don't know what you're talking about.
If you think it is appropriate to kill people just because you have no other means to protect yourself, I feel sorry for you and think you ought to be locked up. You are a potential murderer. If you think that every fist fight is imminent death, you don't know what you are talking about.
Almost a thousand people are murdered that way every year - far more than are killed by assault rifles, incidentally.
First it was an unsourced 800, now it is almost 1000? Damn I want some of your sexy figures that I can manipulate any way I see fit! That shit makes me hard!
I'm sure that if someone started firing on you with an assault rifle, you'd have no problem justifying return fire, despite the fact that almost nobody in the US is killed by assault rifles in any given year. The number of people who die that way every year is irrelevant. What justifies the armed response is that it's necessary to save your life. Period.
So we go from talking about shooting unarmed people to shooting back when shot upon?
You live in DC, you said? Are there lots of gun fights at the DC Corral? Do you guys still ride horses over there? Is horse theft still punishable by death where you're from?

"Science is interesting, and if you don't agree you can fuck off." -Dawkins

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1167 by crashfrog, posted 01-04-2013 9:30 AM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1187 by crashfrog, posted 01-04-2013 8:44 PM hooah212002 has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(2)
Message 1181 of 5179 (686853)
01-04-2013 4:13 PM
Reply to: Message 1176 by DBlevins
01-04-2013 12:59 PM


Re: Statistical Blindness
Thanks!
If any of the guns rights participants post their reactions to that video it will be interesting to hear what they have to say. The student exercise was only one narrow and specific scenario, but during the course of the entire story I thought it did a good job illustrating how fraught with bewildering confusion any such life-threatening incidents are, and how difficult it is to react appropriately, accurately and, most importantly, without putting the innocent at risk.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1176 by DBlevins, posted 01-04-2013 12:59 PM DBlevins has not replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 1182 of 5179 (686856)
01-04-2013 8:01 PM
Reply to: Message 1165 by Percy
01-04-2013 8:33 AM


Re: Statistical Blindness
No, crash, my data does not support your belief that the US is inherently more homicidal than the rest of the world.
I don't see how you can say that when you've posted the data that confirms it. You've just posted a table that shows that the US has three times the non-firearms homicide rate of Switzerland and Slovakia; double that of Germany and Ireland; 50% higher than Canada; well over that of the UK and Australia. You just did that. The United States has an uncharacteristically high rate of homicide in all categories, that was my contention, and you've just proved it.
So clearly the US doesn't have the highest non-firearm homicide rate in the world
Who's making stuff up, here? I don't recall saying that the US has the "highest non-firearm homicide rate in the world." We don't have the highest firearm homicide rate in the world, either. But among the "Western-Style" countries you've hand-picked to connect gun ownership with gun murders, the US has an extraordinarily high rate of homicides in all categories, supporting my contention that the correlation is exactly the reverse - people in America want guns because they want to use them for homicides.
So your conclusion that in the absence of guns that all gun deaths would have occurred anyway but by other means has no support.
Except, I guess, for the support you just lent to it.
This is just you being you again, distracting attention from a losing argument by making things up.
Except I'm not making anything up. There's nothing to distract because I'm not losing. Between your elementary statistical errors, your amazing ability not to read your own sources, and your complete fabrication of positions I'm not advancing, it's clear, Percy, that you're the one who's losing. 1000 posts or more in, and still nobody has been able to connect reducing gun ownership to a reduced homicide rate. Nobody's been able to provide a single example of a nation that reduced its homicide rate by reducing gun ownership from 85 guns per 100 people to 15 or 30 (approximately the ownership rates of Canada and Europe). Nobody's even tried. And that's basically the game, there. Until you can show that you can at best show a correlation between gun ownership and homicide in a hand-picked set of data points - picked specifically to show that correlation - and that's simply not convincing to someone with even an elementary grasp of statistics.
So, now of course come the standard dishonest and false accusations that I'm "making things up", which again we can probe to the bottom of so that you can see that I'm not. But having made the accusation and basically staked your reputation on the idea that I "make things up", there's no particular reason I should expect you to admit error, now is there?
Regardless, Percy, I'm going to have to ask you to follow the forum guidelines and not accuse your opponents of dishonesty.
You'll probably sift through my old replies looking for the inevitable ambiguous references that are part of everyone's contributions in discussions like this, including your own.
If I promise not to - and why should I go looking for them at this point, since here you are admitting that I would find them - will you at least withdraw this charge that I'm "making things up"?
My only desire in these debates is that people respond to what I actually say in my posts, not to strawmen of their own invention. That they respond to the argument that racism is a function of privilege, not that they respond to the argument that it's always OK for black people to be racist. That they respond to the argument that sometimes a gun is necessary to defend yourself in a life-or-death situation, not that they respond to the argument that everybody should own a gun for their own safety. That they respond to the argument that a historical figure who shares zero nontrivial characteristics with the mythological Jesus is not very likely to be the basis for the mythological Jesus, not that they respond to the argument that Jesus must have been named Jesus or he wasn't Jesus.
All I ask is that people respond to my arguments, instead of inventing different arguments and responding to them. Like you're doing, now. I don't think not being misrepresented is too much to ask in a discussion. Can you explain why it was too much for you, Percy?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1165 by Percy, posted 01-04-2013 8:33 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1189 by Percy, posted 01-04-2013 8:54 PM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 1183 of 5179 (686857)
01-04-2013 8:05 PM
Reply to: Message 1171 by Percy
01-04-2013 10:50 AM


Re: Study: "Stand Your Ground" Laws Increase Homicide Rates
Over and over again I have said I'm arguing statistically.
Yes, but people have to make judgements individually. That's the point. If owning a gun would make you - the personal you - less safe then owning a gun is a mistake. Don't get me wrong, I think a lot of people are making that mistake and I wish they wouldn't.
But that's not true for everyone, and for those people, regardless of what the statistics say, owning a firearm makes them objectively safer. Asserting that that can't ever be true - and making a law against private ownership of firearms is making that assertion - because it's not true in the statistical aggregate is committing the ecological fallacy, by definition.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1171 by Percy, posted 01-04-2013 10:50 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1209 by Percy, posted 01-05-2013 8:09 AM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 1184 of 5179 (686858)
01-04-2013 8:24 PM
Reply to: Message 1173 by Straggler
01-04-2013 11:17 AM


Re: Statistical Blindness
If so Percy's graph would seem to put paid to that notion:
Percy's graph proves that notion. Look at the US's position on that chart - 5th on the list. It beat out 20 other countries. How can anybody who isn't motivated by a perverse need to be contradictory look at that chart and construe it as proof that the United States isn't a significantly more homicidal nation regardless of the firearms ownership rate? It's just stupidly obvious.
The point that you keep missing is that the choice of countries to make comparisons with needs to be on an relatively equal in terms of some measure of wealth.
Sure, but isn't that just the admission that substantially larger factors than anything so anodyne as rate of gun ownership are overwhelmingly controlling of the murder rate? That it's the vast inequality of income in the US and other countries that has a more profound effect on violence? That basically you're hand-picking a sample based entirely on members of the sample correlate positively between gun ownership and violence? Percy said it was about having a good "baseline for comparison." The point, though, is whether gun ownership and homicide rate are a valid baseline for comparison, and you prove nothing with a sample hand-picked to eliminate any members where the baseline for comparison doesn't work as well.
Using nations of comparable wealth isn't "cherry picking".
How could Argentina and Barbados be of "comparable wealth" to G8 nations? That's absurd. Argentina has the 59th largest per-capita GDP; Barbados, 44th. But why the exclusion of Kazakhstan (58th), Uruguay (49th), or Saudi Arabia (37th)?
Because those countries don't fit the trend. By the stated rationale of using "nations of comparable wealth" they should be on there; they're not, because the sample is cherry-picked to show a weak positive correlation between handgun ownership and homicide.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1173 by Straggler, posted 01-04-2013 11:17 AM Straggler has not replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 1185 of 5179 (686859)
01-04-2013 8:28 PM
Reply to: Message 1177 by DBlevins
01-04-2013 1:11 PM


removed dupe post
Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1177 by DBlevins, posted 01-04-2013 1:11 PM DBlevins has not replied

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