Guns, Guns Guns

I remember my karate instructor's advice on what to do when confronted by an angry man with a shot gun, "put a brick wall between you and run like hell". Some people seem to believe that a gun comes with its own force field. A poster in my old unit's HQ said "If the enemy is in range, so are you".

Joat42 wrote:Just owning a gun statistically increases the risk of being shot by a significant margin.

THAT'S BULLSHIT!!

That conclusion is reached by mis-using statistics. The flawed analysis starts with a biased sample group — people that have been shot — and compares their rate of gun possession to the overall rate.

The primary determinant in that group turns out to be why they possess the gun, which in over half the cases is for criminal purposes. Many of them are not legally allowed to possess a gun at all. Over 60% of ‘gunshot victims’ in the U.S. are criminals.

Use statistics correctly, compare the rates of legal gun owners getting shot to non-gun-owners, and you would reach a completely different conclusion. Non-owners appear to be slightly more likely to get shot, but the difference is within the margin of error and not statistically significant.
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I used to live on a farm. I know what bullshit smells like.

Imaginos1892 wrote:

Joat42 wrote:Just owning a gun statistically increases the risk of being shot by a significant margin.

THAT'S BULLSHIT!!

He says, disregarding actual data to make unsupported claims about what data he doesn't have WOULD say just because he says so...

In the meantime here in reality...

http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/ab ... lCode=ajph

Just looking at assault victims, both clearly at risk groups. ONLY difference being had or did not have a gun.

Assault victims who were armed were 4.5 TIMES more likely to end up getting shot themselves in the assault (and as you would imagine, often killed). Because having the gun caused an escalation they were not in control of and not prepared to handle.

You are making the same mistake. It is impossible to reach any valid conclusions about legal gun owners by starting with a sample group that is so heavily biased. Thirty times higher content of violent criminals in your group than the overall US population.

Anyone who knows anything about statistics would know that.

Imaginos1892 wrote:You are making the same mistake. It is impossible to reach any valid conclusions about legal gun owners by starting with a sample group that is so heavily biased. Thirty times higher content of violent criminals in your group than the overall US population.

And you base that claim on what? Besides pulling it out of your backside?

Imaginos1892 wrote:

Joat42 wrote:Just owning a gun statistically increases the risk of being shot by a significant margin.

THAT'S BULLSHIT!!

That conclusion is reached by mis-using statistics. The flawed analysis starts with a biased sample group — people that have been shot — and compares their rate of gun possession to the overall rate.

The primary determinant in that group turns out to be why they possess the gun, which in over half the cases is for criminal purposes. Many of them are not legally allowed to possess a gun at all. Over 60% of ‘gunshot victims’ in the U.S. are criminals.

Use statistics correctly, compare the rates of legal gun owners getting shot to non-gun-owners, and you would reach a completely different conclusion. Non-owners appear to be slightly more likely to get shot, but the difference is within the margin of error and not statistically significant.
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I used to live on a farm. I know what bullshit smells like.

Everything I've read so far indicates that owning a gun (either directly or by proxy) significantly increases the risk of being shot.

And it's kind of funny you condemn an analysis as flawed without knowing which one I'm referring to.

I would say that the FBI and CDC provides quite good statistics, and then you have the National Crime Victimization Survey provided by Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Let me put this in childishly simple terms.

People who don't own guns are not likely to be accidently shot by their own gun.

People who don't own guns are unlike to be shot by a third party using/misusing said gun.

Add the assumed that people who own a gun are more likely to get involved with any criminal shooting situation they run accross and you see why, on an intuituitive level, owning a gun makes you more likely to be shot.


Something the statistics, such as they are in the USA, back up.

A simple example. You are armed and get involved in a road rage incident.
The other person is unarmed, you shout at each other.
The other person pulls a gun, you immediately classify them as a lethal threat, and go for yours. One or both of you will end up shot.

I believe there is enough empirical evidence to indicate that carrying a weapon makes you more likely to be injured in the event of a confrontation. Be the weapon a gun or a knife or even a baseball bat. People's perceptions of their options, their ability to protect themselves and so forth are adjusted by their status.

I do not believe that simply OWNING a gun makes you more likely to be shot. As before, 120 million people in the US legally own guns. Only 6% of the US population of 330 million has a carry conceal permit. Assuming that all 6% are carrying 100% of the time, that's about 20 million people carrying guns around all the time. 20 MILLION, yet gun deaths each year from violence is ~12,000. The statistical numbers are too small in such a sample to be relevantly considered. Even if all 12k came out of the 20M number, it's statistically tiny, certainly not something you can identify as 'more likely to be shot' if you own a gun.

Again, I postulate that it's the mindset of the individual carrying the weapon which makes them more likely to get shot. They make false assumptions because they have a weapon.

As for the other 100 million people who own guns, they are probably more prone to having an accident with a weapon, just by virtue of owning the weapon. After all, you can't accidentally shoot yourself cleaning a gun if you don't have a gun. But the notion that OWNING a weapon makes you more likely to be shot by some one else is pretty hard to swallow.

But let me address the point a bit more forcefully, people who don't own guns, as Annachie says, are clearly VERY LIKELY to get shot by third parties. As that is where most of those 10-12k people killed each year by gun violence come from. If you were referring to being shot by their own guns, well I can't find solid numbers on this, but 550 'unintentional' deaths are reported each year. So maybe this is the 'cleaning the gun and it went off' category, but the vast majority of people shot in their own homes are shot by a gun brought by the perpetrator, not their own weapon.

Show me statistics on gun violence which address the number of people who are killed by guns, who own guns versus the number who don't own guns. And not some Huffington Post or unpublished Harvard study.

If we can take away all of the guns, I'd give up mine. But I'm keeping my bazooka and grenades.