4 ms·

"the foundation of fear, especially such that motivates policy, should be based on odds." That is a fair point and a rational reason. However, it's convenient

"the foundation of fear, especially such that motivates policy, should be based on odds." That is a fair point and a rational reason. However, it's convenient to say "We've always had guns, the chance of randomly getting shot in the street is low, therefore we should keep them." What is the chance of randomly getting shot if guns were never legal in the first place (e.g. an American in which no 2nd amendment was present)? What will the chance be of randomly getting shot if guns are made illegal tomorrow? Lower? Higher? Maybe we could look at other countries and see how they compare. If your logic is policy should be related to odds, I think you may have just argued that guns should in fact be illegal based on homicide rates in other developed countries, for example - http://www.humanosphere.org/science/2016/06/visualizing-gun-deaths-comparing-u-s-rest-world/#prettyPhoto http://www.humanosphere.org/science/2016/06/visualizing-gun-...

virmundi 10y ago
Eye-balling the chart, I think the answer is that the EU vs USA is pretty even (maybe the EU being more) and they have stricter gun laws. I did that by guessing percentages for all the EU countries in the first graph. So based on my interpretation of your statistics, the an answer is it legality does not appear to make a difference. I do believe that splitting the EU into constituent parts for the purposes of statistics comparing the US is disingenuous. The EU has the same issues that the US has. It has multiple countries with different policy just as the US has different states.
- tyleraldrich 10y ago
  What chart were you looking at? It seems like you might have been interpreting the statistics presented incorrectly. The first chart shows the US having ~3.5 deaths per 100k people from firearms. Each other EU country has somewhere in the range of .5 deaths per 100k people. An eyeball average would be .5 deaths per 100k people throughout Europe. Are you trying to add the bars up? Because if that's the case, your interpretation of the statistics presented is wrong.
EdHominem 10y ago
Why have this conversation though? Even if you were right, you'd save a hundred times more people by advocating for better road safety. I'm not even against gun control. I'm merely against useless legislation and fear-based politics. The movement consistently fails to show interest in the results they're supposedly fighting for (less deaths) and just the means they propose (less guns).
- richmarr 10y ago
  > Even if you were right, you'd save a hundred times more people by advocating for better road safety. Just curious, what's that assertion based on?
  - EdHominem 10y ago
    That gun deaths cluster around guns, and ongoing violence. If you can avoid those you've chopped your risk greatly. Traffic fatalities do cluster around roads, yes, but those are harder to avoid for the average person. While the base numbers are roughly the same, for the tragic death of someone who could be you or me (ie not robbing a drug dealer, etc) traffic accidents are the more likely cause of death. Also, a lot of the low-hanging fruit is taken care of with guns. My colleagues who keep guns have locking holsters(?) that mount under the dash, gun-safes at home, etc. To reduce the deaths by much you've got to approach the hard area of intentional shootings, and you need to realize that those are people trying to kill another - many of those deaths will be replaced with stabbings, etc. Whereas every day I'm on the roads I see drivers setup to kill those around them while they blithely text away. (Guy in intersection waiting to turn right through the crosswalk, wheels cranked hard over pointing to the pedestrians, and on his cell-phone.) Further, if and when he kills someone, he'll get some pathetically low punishment and probably remain a driver. Many traffic fatalities happen "near home" and to anyone, pedestrian, driver, passengers in the other car. There's a ton of actionable things we could do, such as just make driver's license renewal require a retest. We remember the unique, so a gun death stands out. We stoically ignore the everyday, so V2 bombings and traffic fatalities quickly just become a thing that happens.

virmundi 10y ago

Eye-balling the chart, I think the answer is that the EU vs USA is pretty even (maybe the EU being more) and they have stricter gun laws. I did that by guessing percentages for all the EU countries in the first graph. So based on my interpretation of your statistics, the an answer is it legality does not appear to make a difference. I do believe that splitting the EU into constituent parts for the purposes of statistics comparing the US is disingenuous. The EU has the same issues that the US has. It has multiple countries with different policy just as the US has different states.

tyleraldrich 10y ago
What chart were you looking at? It seems like you might have been interpreting the statistics presented incorrectly. The first chart shows the US having ~3.5 deaths per 100k people from firearms. Each other EU country has somewhere in the range of .5 deaths per 100k people. An eyeball average would be .5 deaths per 100k people throughout Europe. Are you trying to add the bars up? Because if that's the case, your interpretation of the statistics presented is wrong.

EdHominem 10y ago

Why have this conversation though? Even if you were right, you'd save a hundred times more people by advocating for better road safety. I'm not even against gun control. I'm merely against useless legislation and fear-based politics. The movement consistently fails to show interest in the results they're supposedly fighting for (less deaths) and just the means they propose (less guns).

richmarr 10y ago
> Even if you were right, you'd save a hundred times more people by advocating for better road safety. Just curious, what's that assertion based on?
- EdHominem 10y ago
  That gun deaths cluster around guns, and ongoing violence. If you can avoid those you've chopped your risk greatly. Traffic fatalities do cluster around roads, yes, but those are harder to avoid for the average person. While the base numbers are roughly the same, for the tragic death of someone who could be you or me (ie not robbing a drug dealer, etc) traffic accidents are the more likely cause of death. Also, a lot of the low-hanging fruit is taken care of with guns. My colleagues who keep guns have locking holsters(?) that mount under the dash, gun-safes at home, etc. To reduce the deaths by much you've got to approach the hard area of intentional shootings, and you need to realize that those are people trying to kill another - many of those deaths will be replaced with stabbings, etc. Whereas every day I'm on the roads I see drivers setup to kill those around them while they blithely text away. (Guy in intersection waiting to turn right through the crosswalk, wheels cranked hard over pointing to the pedestrians, and on his cell-phone.) Further, if and when he kills someone, he'll get some pathetically low punishment and probably remain a driver. Many traffic fatalities happen "near home" and to anyone, pedestrian, driver, passengers in the other car. There's a ton of actionable things we could do, such as just make driver's license renewal require a retest. We remember the unique, so a gun death stands out. We stoically ignore the everyday, so V2 bombings and traffic fatalities quickly just become a thing that happens.