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Are you afraid of guns?

Minoosh said:
Originally Posted by Totovader
The rate of murder by corrupt officers is 32 per 100k, and for CCW permit holders it's .7 per 100k.
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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.
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Minoosh, I thought you taught both English and Math courses.

If I said - "The rate of death as a direct result of using heroin by habitual heroin users is 204 per 100k" (from here - http://www.intheknowzone.com/substance-abuse-topics/heroin/statistics.html), would you really make the assertion that there must be over 600,000 heroin deaths in the US?

(I'll give you a hint. There aren't.)
 
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Jules Galen said:
You are playing with words. It's childish. Please stop.
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Did you or did you not say this:
A Tragedy that will haunt the survivor.
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How is my asking you to clarify playing with words? Are you unfamiliar with the term? There's a bit of that going around lately.


To imply that every person who takes another life haunts the survivor (presumably the one who did the killing) is absurd.
 
Here's a Youtube Video that shows how to pull off a damn-near perfect murder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsTsqefYEcw

Notice that the shooter approached the door while he blades his handgun by his body....until he gets close. Then notice how the shooter puts his chin down and gets in the guys face and starts talking trash. He puts the chin down because he know he's about to be punched as a result of what he is saying and havong your chin tucked tight will keep you from getting KO'd (this is why professional fighters do it). Then...the punch comes right on time and BLAM!!!! the kid is shot to death in "so-called" self defense.

To the internet gun crowd, the shooter was a hero. In Houston, Texas, the shooter is under indictment for his crime. See....Texas don't go for that crap neither.
 
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Jules Galen said:
Here's a Youtube Video that shows how to pull off a damn-near perfect murder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsTsqefYEcw

Notice that the shooter approached the door while he blades his handgun by his body....until he gets close. Then notice how the shooter puts his chin down and gets in the guys face and starts talking trash. He puts the chin down because he know he's about to be punched as a result of what he is saying and havong your chin tucked tight will keep you from getting KO'd (this is why professional fighters do it). the...the punch comes right on time and BLAM!!!! the kid is shot to death in "so-called" self defense.

To the internet gun crowd, the shooter was a hero. In Houston, Texas, the shooter is under indictment for his crime. See....Texas don't go for that crap neither.
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How is that "damn-near perfect"?
 
Jules Galen said:
Here's a Youtube Video that shows how to pull off a damn-near perfect murder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsTsqefYEcw

Notice that the shooter approached the door while he blades his handgun by his body....until he gets close. Then notice how the shooter puts his chin down and gets in the guys face and starts talking trash. He puts the chin down because he know he's about to be punched as a result of what he is saying and havong your chin tucked tight will keep you from getting KO'd (this is why professional fighters do it). Then...the punch comes right on time and BLAM!!!! the kid is shot to death in "so-called" self defense.

To the internet gun crowd, the shooter was a hero. In Houston, Texas, the shooter is under indictment for his crime. See....Texas don't go for that crap neither.
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Perfect.

What's this got to do with anything, anyway?
 
Gawdzilla said:
How is that "damn-near perfect"?
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he came close to getting away with it until a local Lawyer pointed out to the DA how this incident could not only have been avoided, but was provoked and almost certainly scripted by the shooter (who had a history of pulling guns on unarmed people).

Here's a video of another murder in Houston staged to look like "Self Defense". Notice how much time this poor Damsel in Distress ha to unlock her trunk and get a rifle to fend off Granpops!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0qX_7JCuf4
 
NoahFence said:
Why are you posting links to murders?
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To show you that many of these so-called "Self-Defense" situations aren't Self Defense after all - they were situations that could have been avoided. But...sometimes people with Guns can't wait to use them, so they exacerbate a potentially bad situation to the point someone gets shot and killed.
 
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Jules Galen said:
he came close to getting away with it until a local Lawyer pointed out to the DA how this incident could not only have been avoided, but was provoked and almost certainly scripted by the shooter (who had a history of pulling guns on unarmed people).
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Sounds familiar.

A person with a history of, let's say...aggression and temper, has a gun and shoots someone in an incident that could have been avoided, but instead was provoked and was held up as a hero to the gun rights crowd.

We've never heard this story before.
 
Jules Galen said:
he came close to getting away with it until a local Lawyer pointed out to the DA how this incident could not only have been avoided, but was provoked and almost certainly scripted by the shooter (who had a history of pulling guns on unarmed people).

Here's a video of another murder in Houston staged to look like "Self Defense". Notice how much time this poor Damsel in Distress ha to unlock her trunk and get a rifle to fend off Granpops!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0qX_7JCuf4
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So, somebody watched the video with a sharp eye and no confirmation bias.
 
My "fear" of firearms is about the same as my "fear" of chainsaws, electric cables and busy road crossings- in short these are things where caution seems required.
In part this is due to the rarity with which I encounter guns. Armed police in this country are in evidence at airports and a very few other locations where security is an issue.

Hunting weapons- rifles and shotguns- are usually only encountered where active game or vermin shooting is in progress. I have no business in such situations normally and again would exercise sane caution and weapons discipline, but not fear. (An archery shoot or golf course require similar levels of alertness).

If I encountered a man with a handgun or automatic weapon in a street (especially at night, as happened during a gangland murder near my wife's old flat recently) I would be in fear for my life, quite reasonably, I feel. In such a situation, I would leave the scene with alacrity if possible. If that was not possible and a weapon was aimed at me, that would pretty much end any rights to anything the wielder had in my eyes- at which point he would be well advised to fire.
What I mean by that is that my reaction to a threat involving a firearm is to assume the holder does intend to kill me. I would then act accordingly.
 
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Probability of a firearm given that you have been the victim of a crime = 4.55% (~1 in 22 chance) - an interesting statistic, but not what we're after
Probability that you are a victim of crime given that there is a firearm = .43% (~1 in 234)
Probability that you are the victim of a crime given that there is no firearm = 4.81% (~1 in 21)
That shakes out to: you are 11 times more likely to be the victim of a crime given there is no firearm
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In other news, you are more likely to die when you are not in the middle of a raging hurricane.

Highly misleading use of probabilities there and no mistake.
 
Totovader said:
Mind explaining that one?
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To compare situations, you can't just compare the probability of dying in situation one versus situation two based on statistics. If you spend one day of your life in a hurricane and only have 1% odds of dying in it, that means you are 100 times more likely to die in a situation without a hurricane. Naively you could therefore conclude that being in a hurricane is 100 times safer than not.

In actuality, if you spend some 30,000 days outside hurricanes compared to one day in a hurricane (for simplicity's sake let's assume the odds of dying each of those days are equal) then each day not in a hurricane is 300 times safer than the one day spent in the hurricane.

To have a relevant way to compare the relative level of danger of situations, you need to factor in the time periods spent in those situations.

The OP's counterintuitive numbers are the direct result of exactly this: not factoring in time periods spent with and without gunmen in the vicinity.

Doing so would be difficult, but without adding that, the numbers are completely meaningless. You ARE more likely to die outside a hurricane, overall.
 
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Lorentz said:
To compare situations, you can't just compare the probability of dying in situation one versus situation two based on statistics. If you spend one day of your life in a hurricane and only have 1% odds of dying in it, that means you are 100 times more likely to die in a situation without a hurricane. Naively you could therefore conclude that being in a hurricane is 100 times safer than not.

In actuality, if you spend some 30,000 days outside hurricanes compared to one day in a hurricane (for simplicity's sake let's assume the odds of dying each of those days are equal) then each day not in a hurricane is 300 times safer than the one day spent in the hurricane.

To have a relevant way to compare the relative level of danger of situations, you need to factor in the time periods spent in those situations.

The OP's counterintuitive numbers are the direct result of exactly this: not factoring in time periods spent with and without gunmen in the vicinity.

Doing so would be difficult, but without adding that, the numbers are completely meaningless. You ARE more likely to die outside a hurricane, overall.
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You have completely missed the point: I'm not measuring likelihood of random events. I am measuring the conditional probability of death given a scenario. You are confusing the inverse: the likelihood of death given that you are in a hurricane is not the same as the likelihood you are in a hurricane given that you have died. The relative likelihood is: given that things exist, what is the likelihood. We don't care about the inverse of that- because we are measuring the deadliness of the groups.
 
12AX7 said:
Sounds familiar.

A person with a history of, let's say...aggression and temper, has a gun and shoots someone in an incident that could have been avoided, but instead was provoked and was held up as a hero to the gun rights crowd.

We've never heard this story before.
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If the hypothetical situation you are proposing is the same one I'm thinking of, some of us strong 2nd Amendment supporters actually think the fellow in question should be wearing an orange jumpsuit.
 
Totovader said:
You have completely missed the point: I'm not measuring likelihood of random events. I am measuring the conditional probability of death given a scenario. You are confusing the inverse: the likelihood of death given that you are in a hurricane is not the same as the likelihood you are in a hurricane given that you have died. The relative likelihood is: given that things exist, what is the likelihood. We don't care about the inverse of that- because we are measuring the deadliness of the groups.
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Yes, you are "measuring the conditional probability of death given a scenario". Sadly that is a meaningless question to us as humans. What we want to know is, which situation is more dangerous to us in a given timeframe?

The question whether spending time in a restaurant filled with guns is more dangerous than driving a car on public roads over a lifetime has no meaning. The odds are influenced as much by the scenario as by the time spent in the scenario. Chance of dying = chance per time unit in that scenario * time in that scenario. If you only collate results per scenario without figuring in the time factor, you get nonsense numbers.

The question that actually matters is whether spending two hours in a restaurant with twelve armed men is more or less dangerous than driving a car for two hours.
 
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Lorentz said:
Yes, you are "measuring the conditional probability of death given a scenario". Sadly that is a meaningless question to us as humans. What we want to know is, which situation is more dangerous to us in a given timeframe?

The question whether spending time in a restaurant filled with guns is more dangerous than driving a car on public roads over a lifetime has no meaning.

The question that actually matters is whether spending two hours in a restaurant with twelve armed men is more or less dangerous than driving a car for two hours.
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An additional consideration is that rational humans are worried about the risk of death compared to the alternative, not just the raw number. In the case of police we are worried about our risk of death in a society with police versus the risk of death in a society without police, and the risk of death in a society with civilians carrying concealed weapons versus the risk in a society with unarmed civilians.

Since our risk of being a homicide victim is far higher in a lawless state (despite what anarchists like to think), it's clearly rational to prefer to have police around. It's also clearly rational to want those police to be well trained in when to use lethal force, but still bad police are much better than none. Whereas the homicide risk is definitely not decreased in any reliable and substantial way by civilians with concealed guns.
 
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