4 ms·

Do you understand how ridiculous it is to say that guns aren't safe because I might intentionally murder my family with it? I can tell you now, that risk for me

Do you understand how ridiculous it is to say that guns aren't safe because I might intentionally murder my family with it? I can tell you now, that risk for me is 0. I would never do that. You are missing the point of my post which is basically people have such a hard on for arbitrary statistics that they will completely ignore that likely outcomes are very easy to identify in many cases. Because I know myself, I know I am not part of the population of the average which contributes to the "self/family harm" side of the statistic. And its ridiculous for you to suggest that I am somehow just as likely as the average to murder my family or kill myself or have an accident.

petsfed 3y ago
And you're missing the point that the things that drive people to deliberately cause harm with firearms (which is AGAIN, the reason why the statistics are what they are) are completely unaffected by the best practices taught today. Congratulations that you and your spouse are completely immune from ever experiencing brain tumors or traumatic brain injuries that cause wild behavioral changes. You should really let us all know how you know, a priori, that you'll never experience such a psychologically traumatizing event that it would push you into such an action. That would save millions of veterans' lives. I am not saying that people shouldn't own or keep firearms in light of these statistics. I'm saying that "I observe safe practices with my firearms, so those statistics don't describe me" is along the same lines as "I know I'm a good driver, so all the statistics about most dangerous days/times/situations to drive are irrelevant to me". It's a failure of imagination on your part. You can still mitigate the how's and why's of those statistics, but it takes a lot more than a gun safe and a trigger lock, and it's stuff that is never actually characterized as "gun safety".
- DontchaKnowit 3y ago
  No it isnt. You are obsessi g over this particular example. My point is this : If you have 100 coins and 1 of them has heads on both sides, on average the likelihood that flipping a rabdom coin will give heads is about 50, and approaches 50 as your number of them increases. For the 1 coin with 2 heads though, the probability is always 100 percent. The point I am trying to make is that people take a generalized statistic and when you say "okay but that really isnt all that applicable in this specific case" they have an anuerysm and accuse you of exceptionalism instead of just listening to reason. The law of large numbers applies only to the aggregate. If you have any information whatsoever about a specific case it can dramatically change the math.
  - petsfed 3y ago
    I'm "obsessing" over it, because its a bad example. If anything, this whole exchange is a good example of how people will ignore valid, relevant statistics because they find the implication of a given statistic inconvenient. Claiming to be an exception necessarily opens you up to greater scrutiny, so it behooves you to critically examine what, exactly, makes the affected group subject to the stated phenomenon, and honestly assess whether or not your circumstance is indeed an exception. Here's an illustrative example from my realm of experience: between the fall of 2009 and spring of 2023, 363 people have died in avalanches in the US. Of those, 173 were skiers or snowboarders, and 17 of those were "inbounds" [0]. Somewhere on the order of 60 million people visit ski resorts each year[1]. A surface level understanding of those numbers might cause a ski-hill operator to conclude "the money I spend on avalanche mitigation is wasted, since deadly avalanches are significantly less likely at ski resorts". Obviously this is a straw-man. But there are a number of ways to misinterpret the data to arrive at a conclusion you want (to whit, in that time period, 3 times as many skiers than snowboarders died in avalanches, and more than twice as many snowmobiler/snowbikers died in avalanches than snowboarders. But it takes really digging in to realize that a) there are also a lot fewer backcountry snowboarders vs backcountry skiers and b) snowmobiliers are consistently the least avalanche-educated of all backcountry users who actually play on avalanche prone slopes) You're entirely correct that statistics don't dictate outcomes. But understanding what does dictate outcomes, without bias, can help you change those outcomes. 0. https://avalanche.org/avalanche-accidents/ https://avalanche.org/avalanche-accidents/ 1. https://coloradosun.com/2023/05/29/national-ski-areas-record-skier-visits-2023/ https://coloradosun.com/2023/05/29/national-ski-areas-record...
    - DontchaKnowit 3y ago
      I just don't understand how we are talking past each other. We seem to agree while disagreeing (basically just cause guns are a contentious issue. I said it was a bad example at the outset...) right : Statistics do not dictate outcomes. I am identifying something that does definitely without question change outcomes for gun ownership (that is safety practices) and you seem to be making the argument that this does not change my chance of injuring myself with my own firearm. In fact, I currently have no bullets in my house at all, and have no plans to purchase any. So right now my chance of injury is 0. It is not possible for me to be in the same cohort as the people with average risk of injuring themselves.

petsfed 3y ago

And you're missing the point that the things that drive people to deliberately cause harm with firearms (which is AGAIN, the reason why the statistics are what they are) are completely unaffected by the best practices taught today. Congratulations that you and your spouse are completely immune from ever experiencing brain tumors or traumatic brain injuries that cause wild behavioral changes. You should really let us all know how you know, a priori, that you'll never experience such a psychologically traumatizing event that it would push you into such an action. That would save millions of veterans' lives. I am not saying that people shouldn't own or keep firearms in light of these statistics. I'm saying that "I observe safe practices with my firearms, so those statistics don't describe me" is along the same lines as "I know I'm a good driver, so all the statistics about most dangerous days/times/situations to drive are irrelevant to me". It's a failure of imagination on your part. You can still mitigate the how's and why's of those statistics, but it takes a lot more than a gun safe and a trigger lock, and it's stuff that is never actually characterized as "gun safety".

DontchaKnowit 3y ago
No it isnt. You are obsessi g over this particular example. My point is this : If you have 100 coins and 1 of them has heads on both sides, on average the likelihood that flipping a rabdom coin will give heads is about 50, and approaches 50 as your number of them increases. For the 1 coin with 2 heads though, the probability is always 100 percent. The point I am trying to make is that people take a generalized statistic and when you say "okay but that really isnt all that applicable in this specific case" they have an anuerysm and accuse you of exceptionalism instead of just listening to reason. The law of large numbers applies only to the aggregate. If you have any information whatsoever about a specific case it can dramatically change the math.
- petsfed 3y ago
  I'm "obsessing" over it, because its a bad example. If anything, this whole exchange is a good example of how people will ignore valid, relevant statistics because they find the implication of a given statistic inconvenient. Claiming to be an exception necessarily opens you up to greater scrutiny, so it behooves you to critically examine what, exactly, makes the affected group subject to the stated phenomenon, and honestly assess whether or not your circumstance is indeed an exception. Here's an illustrative example from my realm of experience: between the fall of 2009 and spring of 2023, 363 people have died in avalanches in the US. Of those, 173 were skiers or snowboarders, and 17 of those were "inbounds" [0]. Somewhere on the order of 60 million people visit ski resorts each year[1]. A surface level understanding of those numbers might cause a ski-hill operator to conclude "the money I spend on avalanche mitigation is wasted, since deadly avalanches are significantly less likely at ski resorts". Obviously this is a straw-man. But there are a number of ways to misinterpret the data to arrive at a conclusion you want (to whit, in that time period, 3 times as many skiers than snowboarders died in avalanches, and more than twice as many snowmobiler/snowbikers died in avalanches than snowboarders. But it takes really digging in to realize that a) there are also a lot fewer backcountry snowboarders vs backcountry skiers and b) snowmobiliers are consistently the least avalanche-educated of all backcountry users who actually play on avalanche prone slopes) You're entirely correct that statistics don't dictate outcomes. But understanding what does dictate outcomes, without bias, can help you change those outcomes. 0. https://avalanche.org/avalanche-accidents/ https://avalanche.org/avalanche-accidents/ 1. https://coloradosun.com/2023/05/29/national-ski-areas-record-skier-visits-2023/ https://coloradosun.com/2023/05/29/national-ski-areas-record...
  - DontchaKnowit 3y ago
    I just don't understand how we are talking past each other. We seem to agree while disagreeing (basically just cause guns are a contentious issue. I said it was a bad example at the outset...) right : Statistics do not dictate outcomes. I am identifying something that does definitely without question change outcomes for gun ownership (that is safety practices) and you seem to be making the argument that this does not change my chance of injuring myself with my own firearm. In fact, I currently have no bullets in my house at all, and have no plans to purchase any. So right now my chance of injury is 0. It is not possible for me to be in the same cohort as the people with average risk of injuring themselves.