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.
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