Summations Only

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. 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. Except, I guess, for the support you just lent to it. 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. 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?

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.

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. 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. 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.

removed dupe postEdited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

According to wikipedia, there's been a mass shooting and a mass arson since the gun-control measures you refer to went into effect - the Childers Palace Fire and the Monash University shooting. Homicides increased in Australia after the gun ban went into effect, armed robberies increased by almost 4000 per year, and neither decreased until eight years later, when homicide rates began decreasing in every OECD country, including the ones (like the US) that made no particular efforts at gun control.Sorry, Dblevins, but it's just objectively inaccurate to say that Australia's gun control reduced homicides or robberies or prevented mass shootings.

That's not what "freak accident" means. A freak accident is one that can't be foreseen. When a child plays with a loaded gun carelessly left unsecured and shoots themselves, as happened recently, that's not a "freak accident" because while it was certainly nobody's intent that the child be shot it was the entirely foreseeable outcome of leaving a loaded pistol out for them to find.Similarly, death of the person you're beating is the foreseeable outcome when you beat someone as hard as you can with your fists. It's not a difficult concept. The evidence is that if someone starts punching you and doesn't stop, you'll die. No, what I'm saying is that every fist fight or bar brawl could very easily end in someone's death, and that's why it's not legal - why it's very illegal and very very dangerous - to start physical altercations with people. And if you're in one you don't want to be in, it's very important for you to end it as soon as absolutely possible, because you could die otherwise.And that's what a firearm does. It immediately brings the fight to an end. But they're not unarmed. They're armed with fists. Yes, I have been. But you guys haven't been. You're the one telling me that some weapons are "more lethal" than others. Therefore it stands to reason that if that's really true, and if it's really true that one is obligated to respond with no more lethal a weapon than one is attacked with, then it'll be the case that soldiers are taught that in a firefight they need to first ascertain the caliber of the weapons they're being attacked with so that if they're only attacked with pistols, they don't immorally respond with rifles. That's exactly right. Nobody uses the doctrine of proportionality when assessing immediate danger. In immediate danger, the doctrine is "use force as necessary to bring the danger to an end." That's the doctrine of self-defense, and it's because of that doctrine that the use of lethal force in self-defense is justified when someone makes a lethal attack against you with their fists. So if I'm in a situation where I have no other means but lethal force to protect myself, I'm not supposed to protect myself? How is that moral? The source, as I told you, is the Bureau of Justice Statistics. They keep homicide figures arranged by weapon (or non-weapon) for every year back to 1975 or so.

And I don't. But similarly you can't compare to a non-existent statistic, either. But you insist on doing it when you attempt to argue by statistical inference that a gun increases your risk of gun-related injury by more than it decreases your risk of criminal predation. I'm sure the "gun lobby" is perfectly awful. But two can argue by "inference to topologically-similar policy spheres"; since the War on Drugs has not been anything but a deeply immiserating failure (at the cost of hundreds or even thousands of lives, plus a vast and racist incarceration society), why should we believe that the War on Guns would be any different? Yes, that's rather the point. It's hardly a criticism of the law that it does what it was intended to do.

No, I'm not. I'm rebutting the same list of misrepresentations cast at me by people, like you, who can't stand it when I'm right and you're wrong. Except that it's not. Sure, a bunch of you say it's a pattern. But there are never any examples except misleading misrepresentations. When we chase them down, really get to the bottom, we see - always - that it's my opponents and detractors who were wrong and I who was right. Moderators usually give up before they get to that point.I mean, we know how you moderate, Percy - the "sticky darts on the car" style. If you see a car on the highway with a bunch of sticky darts on it, it's probably some asshole who needs to get pulled over.Well, sure. That works if people have no reason to collude and misrepresent some poor fucker as being the asshole. But suppose some small number of people say "you know, every time I see license plate ROAD-FR0G, I'm gonna shoot that guy's car with a sticky dart." On their own they don't get to stick too many darts, except a small number of people who really make it their mission to stick darts on that guy. Some number of other people get accidentally cut off during a lane change, or maybe tailgated a little bit, and when they see a couple of sticky darts on the car, they're less inclined to see those actions as unintentional irritations and more inclined to see them as the deliberate actions of an asshole. Sticky dart. ROAD-FR0G's friendly wave as he passes suddenly seems like a sarcastic provocation, instead. Sticky dart. His "have a nice day" bumper sticker seems less like an optimistic slogan and more like a middle finger. Sticky dart.Sticky darts, Percy. There's no "established pattern" with me except a pattern of me being immediately subject to incredible personal vendettas starting with AZPaul3 on my return back in 2010 and subsequently by others, ever since. Sure, sure. You think I'm being "paranoid", except that I'm objectively not being paranoid. There's no other explanation for AZPaul3's immediately belligerent - and unprovoked - reply except that I somehow cause people to have personal vendettas against me. There's no other explanation for hackers following me to EvC to hack the place except that I somehow cause people to have personal vendettas against me.At least on the internet. Nothing like this happens in my real life, I can tell you that.So no, Percy, you're describing a "pattern" that is completely the invention of my detractors. But they're lying, and always have been. I've proven it, and you'd know that if you had ever bothered to look when I tried to show you. But you've never once taken me seriously about it because you don't see how your "sticky dart" mode of moderation can be so easily played. It's a point of pride with you, I suspect. You said that I believe the US is inherently more homicidal than the rest of the world and what I replied with was that I don't believe this. So to assert that I do is a misrepresentation of my position. Surely you see that ascribing to me a position I don't hold - have never held - is a misrepresentation? And now that you're doing it after being corrected, isn't that willful?Didn't you once deny that people were willfully misrepresenting me? Remember when I showed you that people were and you just ignored it? Now that you're doing it, how can you still maintain that nobody is? Empty assertions. Anyone can see you're making absurd charges during a retreat, Percy. Respond to the arguments or don't. I don't care either way. Just stop making accusations you know to be false. It's not paranoia, Percy. I'm just better acquainted with the facts than you are. I don't expect you to have an encyclopedic knowledge of what must be tens of thousands of posts addressed to me since 6-27-2010. I don't even expect you to have read most of them. Even more than perhaps a small fraction of them.But answer me honesty - isn't it reasonable for me to suggest that I have read almost all of them, since they were people trying to talk to me? And therefore isn't it actually quite reasonable for me to suggest that the reason I know I'm being misrepresented all the time, and the reason you mistakenly think it's all in my head, is that I'm a lot more familiar with what people are saying to me, and about me, than you are? Of course it is. That's why I know I'm right about the misrepresentations.

I don't think you looked. My only obligation is to provide a source for my citations; I'm not required to hand-hold you if you can't figure out how to access it. Yes, Hooah.

I'm very well aware that my avatar is a toad, because it's Mr. Toad in his car from The Wind in the Willows. I knew it when I picked it. What gave you the impression I didn't know that?

You're proving me right. What could possibly be the motivation behind this personal attack except personal animus, Percy?Just to be clear, Percy, I'm aware that it was Panda who made this comment; that's my point. I'm asking you, Percy, because you don't seem to believe it's possible that people spread falsehoods about me out of personal animus, but here's Panda doing exactly that. If I'm not subject to a unique degree of personal animus, Percy, then why on Earth do people so frequently get so fucking personal in response to me just asking questions about their positions? What had I said that caused AZPaul3 to respond as though he did? What did I say that made hackers attack EvC and bring it down for a week? Give me some kind of reasonable alternative explanation for things like that and I'll revisit my conclusion. But calling me "paranoid" is just another of the personal attacks I'm used to getting from people, like you, who are losing arguments against me.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

It's been a frog avatar, sometimes. I've had different avatars. ROAD-FR0G was a reference to one I had for quite a few years, before you joined. It was the original Frogger cabinet art. Can't find the link, now, but Percy will get it.

Keep lending support to my position that you're motivated by personal animus, by all means. I'm sure Percy is watching.It's not my intent to be a martyr in any way. I'd much prefer if you guys would stop being complete assholes and we could talk about something more interesting. You're the ones insisting that it get personal. And what a surprise, it's all the usual suspects.

I didn't say "Bureau of Prisons." If you thought I did you're proving that you didn't even bother to follow my citation before you said I never made one. I said "Bureau of Justice Statistics", which is the record-keeping body within the FBI, and the national repository for statistical information about crime in the United States. http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/You're looking for "homicides by category of weapon, 1975-2011."

Oh, you know, I thought you were Hooah when I replied.Sorry about the crack, that wasn't fair. That was my mistake and I apologize.