3 ms·
> Because the data globally points the other direction. Once you include multiple countries, isn't your data skewed by "countries at war import a lot of guns"?
by MikeUt 6y ago
> Because the data globally points the other direction.
Once you include multiple countries, isn't your data skewed by "countries at war import a lot of guns"?
> or spun to include things other than gun violence in "crimes", perhaps?
That's not spin. You want to minimize total deaths, not "gun violence". If banning guns meant instead of getting shot, the same number of people got stabbed instead, the ban would be pointless.
- brailsafe 6y agoIf someone wants to kill you, and has a gun, not only can they do so from a distance, but it was invented for that purpose. Stabbing someone is more of an act of opportunity I'd wager, and in a lot of circumstances you'd be less likely to die, therefore reducing deaths.
- MikeUt 6y agoAs I said, that is why you look at homicides, not "gun deaths" or "stabbings" - so you don't have to wager or guess.
- brailsafe 6y agoWell, not quite. You said that the same number of stabbings would be equivalent to the same number of people getting shot, but didn't specify that the stabbings would be fatal. I'm suggesting that if total violent crime stayed the same, but you removed guns, you'd have less fatalities.
- michaelbrave 6y agomore people survive stabbings than shootings, and if someone was to say start stabbing on a school campus a lot less people would be stabbed than shot in a school shooting.
- MikeUt 6y agoWhich is, as I said, exactly why counting homicides is not spin, and better than counting "stabbings" or "shootings" or "gun deaths". You look directly at the metric you care about (people killed), instead of intermediate metrics (people stabbed/shot) and trying to figure out how that translates to number of people killed.