5 ms·

I'm not sure I buy this statistical justification for gun ownership, because if you're into statistics then you owe it to yourself to look not only at the odds

I'm not sure I buy this statistical justification for gun ownership, because if you're into statistics then you owe it to yourself to look not only at the odds that you will need a gun at some point in your life (which is what this article argues) but also at the odds on what that gun will be used for while you own it (which this article totally ignores). Adding a gun to your house increases the odds of successful suicide, of that gun being used against you, and of that gun being involved in an accidental death of a loved one. Gun ownership isn't as simple as "don't shoot anyone with it." Every year that you own a gun, there is a nonzero risk of it being part of a tragedy. You can mitigate and reduce this risk, but it's just as dumb to set it at 0 (because you're responsible) as it is to assume that the odds of a revolution are 0 (because one has not happened in your country in your lifetime). A more thorough assessment would use the same Bernoulli Process to calculate the lifetime odds that the gun will be involved in a tragedy, and compare it to the odds that it'll save your life in a disaster of some kind. FiveThirtyEight has a great writeup on gun deaths here, if you haven't seen it. 2/3 of the gun deaths in America are suicides. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gun-deaths/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gun-deaths/

leephillips 8y ago
The probability of a civil insurrection can be roughly estimated, and is completely external to me. My decisions have no effect on that. The average rate of gun suicides have nothing to do with the probability that I will turn my gun on myself, which is zero. As the author says, if you think you're going to use your rifle for murder or suicide, you should get rid of it. People are always conflating population averages with individual probabilities, as if the behavior of other people has some magical nonlocal interaction with an individual's behavior. The rate of alcohol-related sickness and death is probably much higher for people who keep hard liquor in the house. But I can fill my cupboards with whiskey and never take more than one drink a day. Know thyself.
- guntars 8y ago
  > the probability that I will turn my gun on myself, which is zero. Assuming that you're not going to change and that your life will be exactly the same, forever. Do you think there's ever been someone that thought there's a 0% chance they'd ever kill themselves and eventually did it? What's wrong with those people? Are they just stupid? But you're not stupid, right? You're smart, and in addition to there being 0% chance of you ever killing yourself, there's also a 0% chance of you being wrong about that. It's dishonest to make those kinds of statements with absolute certainty.
- astura 8y ago
  So you're completely discounting that you'll ever have suicide ideation just because you've never had it before? And many people have spouse and kids.

leephillips 8y ago

The probability of a civil insurrection can be roughly estimated, and is completely external to me. My decisions have no effect on that. The average rate of gun suicides have nothing to do with the probability that I will turn my gun on myself, which is zero. As the author says, if you think you're going to use your rifle for murder or suicide, you should get rid of it. People are always conflating population averages with individual probabilities, as if the behavior of other people has some magical nonlocal interaction with an individual's behavior. The rate of alcohol-related sickness and death is probably much higher for people who keep hard liquor in the house. But I can fill my cupboards with whiskey and never take more than one drink a day. Know thyself.

guntars 8y ago
> the probability that I will turn my gun on myself, which is zero. Assuming that you're not going to change and that your life will be exactly the same, forever. Do you think there's ever been someone that thought there's a 0% chance they'd ever kill themselves and eventually did it? What's wrong with those people? Are they just stupid? But you're not stupid, right? You're smart, and in addition to there being 0% chance of you ever killing yourself, there's also a 0% chance of you being wrong about that. It's dishonest to make those kinds of statements with absolute certainty.
astura 8y ago
So you're completely discounting that you'll ever have suicide ideation just because you've never had it before? And many people have spouse and kids.