Are you afraid of guns?

[NoahFence]

I actually don't believe in conspiracy theories. I spent quite a few years of my life debunking conspiracy theories. The fact that you demonstrate the same behaviors and arguments as a conspiracist is fascinating to me.

Wow. If that's not the pot calling the kettle black, I don't know what is.

 

[Stellafane]

Personally, I'm not afraid of the whole world, thus I feel no need to carry a gun around with me in the statistically remote chance I may have occasion to legally use it someday.

 

[AlBell]

Yup. I go through most of my life interacting with people who are not carrying guns. That means those who do carry guns are the "weird" ones. They're either off-duty/plainclothes police officers (FWIW, I think off-duty police officers should not be carrying, and that if we could ban civilian handguns, after a time, they wouldn't all need to carry on duty)...or they're civilians who themselves are so afraid of the world that they can't go to a coffee shop, store, or restaurant without a firearm.

Am I afraid of guns? Yeah, when the bar is set so incredibly low for handgun ownership and carrying. I don't understand how I'm supposed to operate under the assumption that most of the people carrying a gun not only are responsible but have good intentions generally. My concern rises when when I think about the likely reasons such people decide to carry - their own irrational fears and/or lack of genitalia confidence.

See, the thing is that even if my fear of [people with] guns is [statistically] irrational, the world around me is not any more dangerous because of it. The fears of the person carrying a gun are [statistically] more likely to result in harm.

Re bolded: Assertions without evidence can be safely ignored.

 

[jimbob]

Really? Maybe you did not look. Took me less than a minute:

Comparisons of crime in OECD countries.

Out of 36 countries, all of them more or less developed, US has third highest murder rate (after Mexico and Estonia) and fourth highest rape rate. US rates of theft, robbery and burglary are between 8th and 13th (I was shocked by Belgium here), and it is right in the middle in assaults.

All in all, compared to the rest of developed world US seems to be a pretty violent place.

Note that England, where not only guns are effectively outlawed, but also police do not carry guns except on specific missions, has rather low murder rate (about 1/3 from the bottom), but is in top 8 in every other category. Looks like maybe police ARE the ones who should carry guns

Ah, time for this plot again, showing how much the US is an outlier when comparing for a proxy of wealth (GDP)

If anyone can come up with a better proxy and data I'd be very happy:

 

[jimbob]

And this PDF

has an interesting conclusion supporting other data that is no longer online:

Conclusion
􀂄Male life expectancy in US: 74.1 years
􀂄Average LE in 34 other rich countries: 75.8 years
􀂄US gap: 1.7 years
􀂄US firearm LE reduction 167.4 days
􀂄→27% of male US lag due to availability of firearms and resulting deaths
􀂄Females: 3.3%

A lot of the rest of the lag in life expectancy will be due to healthcare.

 

[jimbob]

I don't fear guns. I fear the people for whom guns are not a deadly object to be treated with respect and kept locked away except in great need. And because so few gun owners are like that, I would rather nobody was allowed to have them.

It doesn't really matter how many responsible people are allowed firearms, it matters how many irresponsible people have them. And how you tell the difference.

 

[bruto]

I'm not following.......

Accuracy. Treasure it.

 

[Minoosh]

The rate of murder by corrupt officers is 32 per 100k, and for CCW permit holders it's .7 per 100k. That means: as an innocent person you are 46 times more likely to die by a corrupt cop than by a CCW permit holder.

You have a problem with clarity. If the rate of murder by corrupt officers is 32 per 100,000, and there are 300,000,000 people in the U.S., then the number of people killed by corrupt officers is 32 x 3000, or 96,000. Annually, I suppose. Before you tried to turn this into a rate, you said there were 247 cases in 2010 of unjustified homicide by cop.

So what is the rate? Are you trying to say that there are 32 murderous cops per 100,000 total cops? Or, of 100,000 homicides, 32 were by bad cop? I can't tell.

Second point: You stated that gun control advocates are dishonest. The way I read this, you're not saying some gun control advocates are dishonest, you're saying all of them are. Maybe I'm in a minority; maybe everyone realizes that "gun-rights advocates are dishonest" really means "some gun-rights advocates are dishonest."

Third: I read the links you posted (New England Journal of Medicine etc.) and I don't see the widespread fallacious reasoning you claim. A quote would be nice - to see if we can agree on what it means. Or you can just say "because links" and leave it at that.

ETA: Please don't try to put it in your own words.

 

[fuelair]

Afraid isn't how I would put it. Cautious, yes. Fear is a reactive, sub-cognitive emotion that does not usually generate logical responses.

Another good way of distinguishing........

 

[Jules Galen]

Am I afraid of Guns? Hell yeah...Guns are dangerous Mo' Fo's!

I've owned guns for 40 years, but I've never really become comfortable with handling them - and I am glad that this is so. I never forget that they can kill or maim in a millisecond and they are most likely to do this with people who become too complacent - too comfortable - handling guns.

I swear, I can't tell you how many times people I've known have had a gun go off in their house by "Accident". It's crazy. And it's always a freakin' handgun.

Seems like people just love handling handguns and in just one instant of thoughtlessness...BANG! I'm just thankful no one I know has been seriously hurt. (my little cousin who was recently shot by a friend's brother as he was showing off his new pistol...but he wasn't hurt bad...but it freakin' was close)

Yeah...guns are dangerous. And...guns should be dangerous, otherwise they wouldn't be worth having.

And...even though I own a few guns - of all types - I'm no gun nut. Ocassionally, I'll go out armed...but very seldom. I figure if someone feels they need to go around armed all the time then they are living a mighty screwed-up life. But...there are rare times I've been glad to have been armed.

Also, I don't teach anyone - I mean no one - how to really shoot a handgun well nowadays. I'm always glad to teach people the safety rules and basic markmanship...but that's it. I haven't come across anyone in a long time who I've taught to really shoot and handle a handgun really well - I just don't trust most people with this type of knowledge. I'd rather most handgun owners be the kind of people who are always struggling with accuraccy and having to practice a lot. What I don't want most people to become is the type of person to whom shooting a handgun is as natural as riding a bicycle.... something they could do in a rush, in the middle of the night, in the dark, after not having even touched a gun in years. Even though most gun owners try to be responsible...the world isn't ready for that type of Gun Owner on a mass scale.

 

[epepke]

Ah, time for this plot again, showing how much the US is an outlier when comparing for a proxy of wealth (GDP)

If anyone can come up with a better proxy and data I'd be very happy:

In order to find better data, I think you'd have to focus on something smaller than the entire country.

I don't think that it's terribly controversial to point out that the US has a huge disparity in distribution of wealth, enough so that there are patterns on a regional basis, which regions are often larger in both population and area than quite a few, perhaps even most, of the countries studied. There are places in the US where homicide, gun violence, sexual battery, and pretty much every social ill you can name is absolutely rampant. There are other places where, again, anything you care to name is nearly unheard of.

Add to that the fact that essentially all of the laws concerning such matters are left to the States and Territories.

This makes it at best rather difficult to say anything about the US as a whole. You can't even say much about the GDP, because some areas have a very high productivity rate, and others are net drains. That plus the idiotic War on Drugs, which again is highly regional, complicates matters immensely.

 

[Totovader]

ETA: Please don't try to put it in your own words.

Well... but... I...

Crap. Nothing I can say.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

See, this is where you really start to lose me. You believe in a "right to be free of guns if I so choose." If we can just make up stuff like that, I... want a right to have you provide me with a ham sammich.

You are just touching on the edge of a profound realisation there. You just need to take one tiny logical step forward.

The right to a ham sammich is obviously something you just made up. It's not a law of the universe or anything. So too is the "right to be free of guns if I so choose" - that's just a desire a previous poster holds, which they have glorified with some rhetoric about how they have a "right" to it. It's obvious to you that their rhetoric has no inherent moral force.

Now you just need to take one step further and realise that your "right to bear arms" is just as much a glorified statement of personal preference as the right to a sammich or the right to live in a gun-free environment. All you are really saying when you say you have a right to bear arms is "I want a gun, and I feel entitled to a gun, so there!".

If you can't see the difference, that's okay, it's hard to see when ideology clouds your vision. It's a lot like Christians who can easily see the sheer absurdity of Islam or Hinduism, but think it's perfectly normal to believe they are telepathically communicating with the ghost of a two thousand year old Jewish dude to get out of being tortured for eternity in a hellish afterlife. People are funny like that.

 

[Noztradamus]

Are you afraid of guns?
yes, except when handled by a trained Police officer.

Amadou Diallo, Patrick Dorismond, Joseph Charles Schultz

 

[Cain]

It's unlikely I will be gunned down. A car accident, cancer, eventually heart disease, or a stroke are all much more likely. However, it is interesting to think about how many gun-owners fear the federal government will turn (more) tyrannical and enslave them. Worse, it will take away their guns!

I think a dose of government-phobia's actually good thing, but primarily when it comes to dropping bombs on other people's heads -- "we're gonna free the **** out of you." Interestingly, what brings the government-phobes out of the woodwork in the U.S. is the prospect of regulating firearms or providing health-care for all. Safety is tyranny. After all, Ben Franklin said as much (in a quote that's been taken out of context).

Statistically my fellow citizens would in all likelihood be safer if guns were more regulated (these empirical arguments are discussed above, as well as other threads). The sticking point is that people claim to have "natural rights" to firearms, the sort of line of "thinking" Kevin flags above. Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to reason with these sort of people.

 

[Sam.I.Am]

It wasn't Senators plural, it was one Senator. Her assault weapon ban was proposed twenty years ago. Her handgun ban was more recent but it only involved one state and it failed.

If you had said 'a Senator from California once proposed' I would've agreed with you. Only you said gun control advocates, implying what's behind the motives of the gun control movement in general. I asked you to back that up. You don't seem to be able to do that.

I remind you, I'm on the fence. Convince me you're right and I'll agree. So far you're not doing that.

Not to pick nits but the Assault Weapon Ban was passed by at least half of the senate and house (I can't seem to find the exact numbers). So while it may have been proposed by one senator (not unusual) it was also agreed to by over 200 lawmakers.

I thought that it was a bad law because its criteria to determine what was an "Assault weapon" was almost purely cosmetic in nature so it was really more of a "Scary looking gun ban" than anything else. The stated intent was to reduce crime but the reality was that the guns that fit the bans criteria were rarely used to commit crimes that involved guns (except in movies and on TV). So either the writer(s) of the law were completely clueless as to the crimes they were trying to stop or they based their law on fictional accounts or they had an agenda to get rid of guns and this was an attempt to get their foot in the door.

 

[tsig]

This.

This is an example of a gun control advocate not being honest. On the one hand stating that it would be great to eliminate all guns, and then in the other stating that they would be a proponent of ridiculously strict regulation.

That isn't a "gotcha" it's just the truth- it's the logical inconsistency in your argument.



Hold the phone. What rights of yours am I trumping by carrying a weapon?

My right to life.

 

[newyorkguy]

It wasn't Senators plural, it was one Senator.

[Highlighted by Sam.I.Am.]

Not to pick nits but the Assault Weapon Ban was passed by at least half of the senate and house (I can't seem to find the exact numbers).

I know what you're saying but you're misunderstanding what I wrote. I asked for examples of the gun control advocates who wanted to ban ALL guns. Senator Diane Feinstein was named. Someone referred to her as Senators. I said she was only one Senator. And it was one ban of one class of weapon enacted twenty years ago.

The stated intent was to reduce crime but the reality was that the guns that fit the bans criteria were rarely used to commit crimes that involved guns (except in movies and on TV)...

By the way, I'm not defending the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban but it's stated intent wasn't to reduce crime so much as to address public concerns about mass shootings. Two catalysts were the shooting of thirty-four children at a Stockton CA school in 1989 and a shooting spree in a San Francisco office building in 1993 that was carried out for no clear reason and in which eight people were murdered. In both cases it was alleged that rapid firing weapons had made the shooters much more deadly and served to increase the death toll. There was a good deal of outcry, especially in California where both incidents took place. How quickly we forget, but viewed in context Feinstein then introducing an assault weapons ban bill doesn't seem so strange. And as Sam.I.Am stated, the bill had strong bi-partisan support.

 

[BenBurch]

I prefer explosive devices myself!!! But, guns are legal.

Tannerite is legal.

 

[Seismosaurus]

I'm not afraid of guns, largely because I live in a country where few people own one or want to own one. Few people see them as necessary or desirable things to have in their life. Thus, there are very few guns around me to be afraid of. This makes me happy.

If I lived in the US, I would be much more afraid of guns than I am.