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So I guess you don't have fire extinguishers in your house, car or place of work, only buy car liability insurance because it's the law, or home insurance becau

So I guess you don't have fire extinguishers in your house, car or place of work, only buy car liability insurance because it's the law, or home insurance because it's required by your mortgage holder? No insurance for your personal property? I've owned guns for self protection in the same 40+ years and have never needed them for self-protection, but I also haven't needed any of the other above forms of insurance except the last which came in really handy when my apartment was hit by a natural disaster.

jonp888 5y ago
Not a great comparison. I've never heard of a toddler accidentally murdering someone with a fire extinguisher, yet that's an everyday occurrence with guns.
- AdrianB1 5y ago
  Is it, really? Are there any statistics to back this up?
- leephillips 5y ago
  Really? Show us the link for yesterday’s occurrence.
  - kevincrane 5y ago
    This took me 15 seconds to find, here's a 2-year old and a 4-year old shot yesterday because of a gun lying around at home. https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/marietta-man-arrested-after-child-shoots-self-toddler-with-gun https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/marietta-man-arrested-after...
    - leephillips 5y ago
      That happened on Monday. Today is Thursday. Also, it wasn’t a “murder” (I’ll take a killing, but the victim did not die.) EDIT: I can’t help be curious about what’s in the mind of someone who is so blatantly dishonest. Right at the top it says “Published 2 days ago”, and in the second paragraph it says “Monday”. Is the idea that you assume no one will actually take a look at the link?
      - oblio 5y ago
        Just because it happened slightly earlier doesn't diminish his point, which is that it's a common occurrence.
        NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago
        It isn't a common occurrence. There are 330,000,000 people in the U.S. There are more lightning deaths (not strikes) than toddler-firearms killings.
      - aflag 5y ago
        So your point is that it is not that bad because it really only happen once every couple days? I mean, let's say it happens once a month or once a year. Is it worth it? Are guns preventing more deaths than they are causing?
        leephillips 5y ago
        No, neither that nor any of the other countless things that I did not say are not my point. My point is that the claim that a toddler kills someone with a gun every day is false.
        kevincrane 5y ago
        What's the appropriate frequency for a child to accidentally kill or maim someone before it becomes "okay"?
        leephillips 5y ago
        It can never be okay. What an astonishingly absurd and gruesome notion.
        aflag 5y ago
        Yes, the original post was not trying to precisely inform the frequency, just that it's not a once in a generation occurrence, but rather something that happens regularly. By trying to refute the frequency, you're completely missing the argument. That's what me and other people are saying.
  - Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
    Indeed. Given that a toddler isn't capable of "murder," we're talking accidents. Of which there were 486 lethal ones in the US in 2019, the last year for which the CDC has collated the data. Pretty sure there were more than 121 lethal accidents caused by people older than toddlers. Hint: stop digging, admit you're wrong.
    - leephillips 5y ago
      The actual rate of gun deaths caused a toddler (age <= 3) firing a gun was 15 for 2015, in 13 of which the toddler shot himself.¹ True, “murder” is not the right term, but I wasn’t quibbling about that. I’m not sure “accident” is the right term, either, as in every case an adult committed a horrible crime in allowing the child access to the loaded weapon. [1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/10/14/people-are-getting-shot-by-toddlers-on-a-weekly-basis-this-year/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/10/14/peopl...
    - kelnos 5y ago
      If there were 486 toddler gun deaths, then on average, those occurred 1.33 times per day. The frequency of gun-related toddler deaths is literally "every day".
      - leephillips 5y ago
        No one said anything like there being “486 toddler gun deaths”. Much less that many deaths caused by a toddler firing a gun, which was the original subject.
        kelnos 5y ago
        Huh? The parent said there were "486 fatal ones", didn't they?
        leephillips 5y ago
        486 lethal gun accidents, total. Meaning people of all ages. You're just trolling, aren't you? I guess I can expect a comment now along the lines of “Oh yeah? So 486 deaths a year is OK with you as long as they’re not all toddlers?”
aidenn0 5y ago
> So I guess you don't have fire extinguishers in your house, car or place of work, only buy car liability insurance because it's the law, or home insurance because it's required by your mortgage holder? No insurance for your personal property? GP said he didn't know anybody who needed to use a gun. - My wife has used a fire extinguisher - I have been reimbursed by car insurance - I have several friends who have been reimbursed by homeowners and renters insurance.
- Zababa 5y ago
  I don't know anyone who ever had a fire at their home, but I know a few people that were attacked on the street. Anecdotes are just that, anecdotes.
  - Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
    Well, there was one friend of mine who I convinced to keep a fire extinguisher in her car, and a week later on her commute she was able to hand it to man who then saved his car from total destruction by engine fire. But I too also know more people who've been threatened with lethal force on the streets than have had reason to use fire extinguishers. Doesn't deter me from keeping a big fire extinguisher wherever I live.
  - aidenn0 5y ago
    I think there's going to be two major sources of differing experiences on this: 1. Where you live. If you live in the suburbs and drive everywhere, there are just very few opportunities for you to get "attacked on the street" as you are hardly ever walking down the street. 2. Disagreement on what situations necessitate a gun. I know a lot of people who think that e.g. robbery is insufficient reason to defend yourself with deadly force. Similarly I've seen people astonished that someone might choose to defend themselves from an unarmed man with a gun, even when that man is larger and is not allowing them to leave.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    I've never had a fire in my home, but I have been attacked in the street. If I had been armed, I expect it would have gone a lot worse for me than it did. I might not be alive to write this post had I had a gun on me then. As you say, though, just another anecdote.
asdff 5y ago
The odds of a fire in my kitchen, someone dinging my car, and even a tree falling on my home in a storm are all much higher than the odds of me needing to fire a bullet at another human being. In fact something similar to all three of those things have happened to me already at one point or another. On the other hand I've never needed or even heard of anyone who has needed to use a gun. What's wrong with a baseball bat for self defense? I have one in my closet and never had to draw it, but due to its lower lethality if I had to I would have zero qualms about taking a full swing and I think anyone on the receiving end would realize the same pretty quickly.
- Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
  And if you don't land a disabling blow, could well be lethal, and they step outside your extended reach and use their handgun, then...?
  - asdff 5y ago
    If they have a handgun chances are I'm dead before I can draw my own and train one on them anyway. I'm not Clint Eastwood and this isn't a hollywood western. Whoever has the drop wins and by definition that's the intruder since I'm not going to spend every second of my life with a gun in my hand.
    - Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
      Projecting your claimed inadequacies, which I don't believe for a minute especially before you moved the goalposts from home defense ("I have [a baseball bat] in my closet") to a Spaghetti Western, says nothing about actual gun owners.
kelnos 5y ago
By that logic, we should also have grenades, missiles, and perhaps a tactical nuclear weapon at home, just in case. Probably won't need them, but who knows. > I've owned guns for self protection in the same 40+ years and have never needed them for self-protection, but I also haven't needed any of the other above forms of insurance except the last which came in really handy when my apartment was hit by a natural disaster. So what you're saying is that you don't need your guns, but the insurance did come in handy after all. Got it. I feel like you're making the parent's point for them.
- Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
  Your "logic" is missing the minor detail of required precognition. I didn't start buying personal property ("renters") insurance in the 1980s because I knew I'd need it decades later.

jonp888 5y ago

Not a great comparison. I've never heard of a toddler accidentally murdering someone with a fire extinguisher, yet that's an everyday occurrence with guns.

AdrianB1 5y ago
Is it, really? Are there any statistics to back this up?
leephillips 5y ago
Really? Show us the link for yesterday’s occurrence.
- kevincrane 5y ago
  This took me 15 seconds to find, here's a 2-year old and a 4-year old shot yesterday because of a gun lying around at home. https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/marietta-man-arrested-after-child-shoots-self-toddler-with-gun https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/marietta-man-arrested-after...
  - leephillips 5y ago
    That happened on Monday. Today is Thursday. Also, it wasn’t a “murder” (I’ll take a killing, but the victim did not die.) EDIT: I can’t help be curious about what’s in the mind of someone who is so blatantly dishonest. Right at the top it says “Published 2 days ago”, and in the second paragraph it says “Monday”. Is the idea that you assume no one will actually take a look at the link?
    - oblio 5y ago
      Just because it happened slightly earlier doesn't diminish his point, which is that it's a common occurrence.
      - NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago
        It isn't a common occurrence. There are 330,000,000 people in the U.S. There are more lightning deaths (not strikes) than toddler-firearms killings.
    - aflag 5y ago
      So your point is that it is not that bad because it really only happen once every couple days? I mean, let's say it happens once a month or once a year. Is it worth it? Are guns preventing more deaths than they are causing?
      - leephillips 5y ago
        No, neither that nor any of the other countless things that I did not say are not my point. My point is that the claim that a toddler kills someone with a gun every day is false.
        kevincrane 5y ago
        What's the appropriate frequency for a child to accidentally kill or maim someone before it becomes "okay"?
        leephillips 5y ago
        It can never be okay. What an astonishingly absurd and gruesome notion.
        aflag 5y ago
        Yes, the original post was not trying to precisely inform the frequency, just that it's not a once in a generation occurrence, but rather something that happens regularly. By trying to refute the frequency, you're completely missing the argument. That's what me and other people are saying.
- Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
  Indeed. Given that a toddler isn't capable of "murder," we're talking accidents. Of which there were 486 lethal ones in the US in 2019, the last year for which the CDC has collated the data. Pretty sure there were more than 121 lethal accidents caused by people older than toddlers. Hint: stop digging, admit you're wrong.
  - leephillips 5y ago
    The actual rate of gun deaths caused a toddler (age <= 3) firing a gun was 15 for 2015, in 13 of which the toddler shot himself.¹ True, “murder” is not the right term, but I wasn’t quibbling about that. I’m not sure “accident” is the right term, either, as in every case an adult committed a horrible crime in allowing the child access to the loaded weapon. [1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/10/14/people-are-getting-shot-by-toddlers-on-a-weekly-basis-this-year/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/10/14/peopl...
  - kelnos 5y ago
    If there were 486 toddler gun deaths, then on average, those occurred 1.33 times per day. The frequency of gun-related toddler deaths is literally "every day".
    - leephillips 5y ago
      No one said anything like there being “486 toddler gun deaths”. Much less that many deaths caused by a toddler firing a gun, which was the original subject.
      - kelnos 5y ago
        Huh? The parent said there were "486 fatal ones", didn't they?
        leephillips 5y ago
        486 lethal gun accidents, total. Meaning people of all ages. You're just trolling, aren't you? I guess I can expect a comment now along the lines of “Oh yeah? So 486 deaths a year is OK with you as long as they’re not all toddlers?”

aidenn0 5y ago

> So I guess you don't have fire extinguishers in your house, car or place of work, only buy car liability insurance because it's the law, or home insurance because it's required by your mortgage holder? No insurance for your personal property? GP said he didn't know anybody who needed to use a gun. - My wife has used a fire extinguisher - I have been reimbursed by car insurance - I have several friends who have been reimbursed by homeowners and renters insurance.

Zababa 5y ago
I don't know anyone who ever had a fire at their home, but I know a few people that were attacked on the street. Anecdotes are just that, anecdotes.
- Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
  Well, there was one friend of mine who I convinced to keep a fire extinguisher in her car, and a week later on her commute she was able to hand it to man who then saved his car from total destruction by engine fire. But I too also know more people who've been threatened with lethal force on the streets than have had reason to use fire extinguishers. Doesn't deter me from keeping a big fire extinguisher wherever I live.
- aidenn0 5y ago
  I think there's going to be two major sources of differing experiences on this: 1. Where you live. If you live in the suburbs and drive everywhere, there are just very few opportunities for you to get "attacked on the street" as you are hardly ever walking down the street. 2. Disagreement on what situations necessitate a gun. I know a lot of people who think that e.g. robbery is insufficient reason to defend yourself with deadly force. Similarly I've seen people astonished that someone might choose to defend themselves from an unarmed man with a gun, even when that man is larger and is not allowing them to leave.
- kelnos 5y ago
  I've never had a fire in my home, but I have been attacked in the street. If I had been armed, I expect it would have gone a lot worse for me than it did. I might not be alive to write this post had I had a gun on me then. As you say, though, just another anecdote.

asdff 5y ago

The odds of a fire in my kitchen, someone dinging my car, and even a tree falling on my home in a storm are all much higher than the odds of me needing to fire a bullet at another human being. In fact something similar to all three of those things have happened to me already at one point or another. On the other hand I've never needed or even heard of anyone who has needed to use a gun. What's wrong with a baseball bat for self defense? I have one in my closet and never had to draw it, but due to its lower lethality if I had to I would have zero qualms about taking a full swing and I think anyone on the receiving end would realize the same pretty quickly.

Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
And if you don't land a disabling blow, could well be lethal, and they step outside your extended reach and use their handgun, then...?
- asdff 5y ago
  If they have a handgun chances are I'm dead before I can draw my own and train one on them anyway. I'm not Clint Eastwood and this isn't a hollywood western. Whoever has the drop wins and by definition that's the intruder since I'm not going to spend every second of my life with a gun in my hand.
  - Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
    Projecting your claimed inadequacies, which I don't believe for a minute especially before you moved the goalposts from home defense ("I have [a baseball bat] in my closet") to a Spaghetti Western, says nothing about actual gun owners.

kelnos 5y ago

By that logic, we should also have grenades, missiles, and perhaps a tactical nuclear weapon at home, just in case. Probably won't need them, but who knows. > I've owned guns for self protection in the same 40+ years and have never needed them for self-protection, but I also haven't needed any of the other above forms of insurance except the last which came in really handy when my apartment was hit by a natural disaster. So what you're saying is that you don't need your guns, but the insurance did come in handy after all. Got it. I feel like you're making the parent's point for them.

Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
Your "logic" is missing the minor detail of required precognition. I didn't start buying personal property ("renters") insurance in the 1980s because I knew I'd need it decades later.