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You act like I don’t know this. You’re preaching to the choir.</p>
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As long as you understand that there are people who don’t become like George Zimmerman, then all is fine.</p>
<p>In my anecdote, the murdered wife was the gun owner. She was a former policewoman–you know, one of the classes of people (like rural hunters) who supposedly know how to handle guns responsibly. It most definitely did not keep her safe. I completely agree with Kluge about the risk analysis one should do regarding gun ownership.</p>
<p>FWIW, the husband claimed that she was pointing the gun at him and it accidentally went off while he was trying to take it away from her. The jury didn’t buy it, but an mutual acquaintance who saw the trial thought that the jury was likely swayed against him because of his emotionless demeanor during the trial. He is from another culture where showing emotion would not have been expected or appreciated.</p>
<p>Goldenpooch, I was trying to remember a case I had read about where a man shot two girls which I thought happened on Halloween, so I googled it, and got a number of hits - a 9 year old girl shot by her cousin, the Japanese student in Louisiana, a man who shot a high school student he mistakenly thought had TP’d his house, a crackhead who emptied a couple dozen rounds through his front door killing a couple of trick or treaters, etc. (Along with the usual variety of out of control parties, domestic shootings and the like which happen every day.) I guess it makes sense - people wearing disguises, approaching strangers; misunderstandings happen. Of course, when misunderstandings happen amongst people with guns, consequences ensue. </p>
<p>Niquii, I’m confused. You’ve set up a hypothetical in which you are able to shoot someone non-fatally, repeatedly expressing that preference. But you insist that you “know” that that’s not realistic. Why then the hypothetical? You’ve made it clear you don’t want to kill someone with a gun, but you want to own a gun. Your hypothetical makes it seem like you want to have it both ways; you have a gun, you prevail over the bad guy, but you don’t have to kill anyone.</p>
<p>If you own a gun but are unwilling to kill anyone with it, the overwhelming probability is that the gun will never be used for anything at all, but the next most likely thing (trailing by a few orders of magnitude) is that a bad guy will use it - either by taking it away from you after you try to shoot him in the arm or leg (and miss) or by stealing it and using it elsewhere. (Guns are prime theft targets because they are small, valuable, and readily sold with no need for “papers.”)</p>
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I do know it isn’t realistic. I’m sorry that my preference is to not have to kill a person…?</p>
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I would love to have it both ways. I would love to prevent someone from attacking me by shooting them, not killing them, and making off with my life in the end. </p>
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No, this is where you are mistaken. I am not unwilling to kill them. It wouldn’t be my first choice…my preference.</p>
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I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “When push comes to shove…”? I don’t want to kill someone, but if a situation comes my way, I am not going to be “up a creek without a paddle”. kluge, you don’t need to try to educate me on gun use. </p>
<p>Anywhp, this hypothetical was based off a light conversation with family after a holiday dinner. There’s nothing deep to it…Just a “what would you do…?”</p>
<p>Kluge: </p>
<p>Your typical meth cooker, ‘bad guy’ that I’d think we’d all agree him/she to be, is likely to pass the emotional maturity test you outlined for responsible gun ownership.</p>
<p>(You’re right in thinking some might disagree with your perspective.)</p>
<p>Catahoula, my perspective is that life is complicated and confusing. Few people are 100% right 100% of the time. Raising the ante for mistakes means that errors have consequences we may not expect; life is not like a hypothesis or an anecdote. Maturity means acknowledging our own fallibility and making decisions based on evidence-based analysis. The evidence is that for most people owning a gun increases the risk of injury or death to self, family, friends and innocents. Not for 100% of the people, but for most. But people tend to underestimate their fallibility and oversell their ability and emotional maturity - and not just crack heads. I’m sure you’ve heard of the survey in which 90% of American men assessed themselves as being above average drivers. Car, gun - not really very different, no? [Illusory</a> superiority - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority]Illusory”>Illusory superiority - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>On the other hand, I think of George Carlin’s observation: “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” Apply that to gun ownership, and where do you end up?</p>
<p>kluge, we both know the statistics underlying the opinions are dodgy. The anti-gun because theirs have been sliced and diced by some really motivated people, people that don’t see lying as much of hill to climb and the pro-gun because it partially depends on gun use use by criminals, in possibly criminal situations. And for both, it’s pretty much anecdotal.</p>
<p>Tell me this, if you would: do you believe there’s any societal benefit to individual peace of mind? Even if that peace of mind might be somewhat of an illusion?</p>
<p>Catahoula, statistics can be used to prove whatever point you want. I will give you several examples:</p>
<p>There are roughly 300 million guns in America. There were roughly 19,000 gun related suicides. Therefore, each gun had a 99.994% chance of not being used to commit suicides. There was even a higher chance that each gun was not involved in a homicide. I could persuade you that guns are very safe.</p>
<p>Burglary rate in the US is roughly 670 per 100,000 inhabitant (this includes businesses and homes). Therefore each person has a 99.33% chance of never having their homes burglarized. This statistic can be used to persuade you to leave your doors unlocked, to get rid of your security system, guard dog, bat, and gun. While you are at it, get rid of the flood lights. You don’t need them.</p>
<p>The problem with all of these statistics is the fact that they do not account for each person’s risk tolerance. Despite the convincing numbers, each person will be swayed to their individual tolerance of risk and reach vastly different conclusions.</p>
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<p>Not quite, as the rate is per year. A 0.67% chance every year of being burgled is pretty high.</p>
<p>Sorghum, it all depends on your risk tolerance. My elderly neighbors are in their 70s and keep their doors unlocked. They’ve never been robbed and they would see that rate as being very low. When it comes to my risk tolerance for burglary, a 0.67% rate is astronomically high.</p>
<p>It is high compared to a 99.33% chance of NEVER being burgled.</p>
<p>More practically, the chance can be far higher or lower depending on where you live.</p>
<p>I have to go to Craig’s List to hire a thief to take some of our stuff! I don’t lock the doors on our house - ever! In fact, I’ve lived in this house for 21 years, and don’t even have a key.</p>
<p>In our newspaper this morning, an item about a GA man who shot and killed a person he thought was an intruder, but was actually a wandering Alzheimer’s patient. The gun owner called the police when the 72 year old knocked on the door, but rather than waiting for them to arrive, shot the confused “intruder” when he didn’t respond to voice commands.</p>
<p>Two things that are interesting about risk assessment are people’s weighing of different risks and false equivalencies. Anyone who smokes exposes himself to a significantly elevated risk of death caused by that activity; yet a smoker may take extreme steps to avoid other, far less likely risks that he deems to be threatening - building a bomb shelter back in the day, for example. A similar disconnect would be comparing an event which results in serious injury or loss of life - such as an accidental shooting or a suicide - with loss of property, such as might occur in a burglary.</p>
<p>Conflating home invasion robbery with burglary numbers is a false equivalency. The vast majority of burglaries are people entering either commercial and/or vacant premises to steal stuff and then sneak away, a crime which poses little risk of harm to the owner of the premises. Back in the day I lived in a sketchy neighborhood and my home was burglarized - ransacked, actually - three times in 18 months. I was pretty upset the first time, a bit less the second, and just called the insurance company the third. If a member of my family was accidentally shot or committed suicide with a gun I brought into my house, on the other hand, I’d be devastated and haunted for the rest of my life.</p>
<p>So, actually there are statistics which are both reliable and informative to a rational analysis. About 20,000 suicides with guns each year. That’s a lot of tragedy. Over the course of a person’s life that would touch more than 1% of American families. (And no, a person who is denied access to a gun will not just commit suicide another way; that’s been pretty thoroughly studied and suicide tends to be an impulsive act, even for a person who has thought about it. Remove an easy and efficient way to kill yourself and many suicides will get through the situation and go on to lead happy lives, without leaving their families to deal with the pain. States with higher gun ownership rates have correspondingly higher suicide rates as well.) And there’s a comparable number of accidental shootings (albeit, some of those are hunting accidents.)</p>
<p>The statistics which are sketchy and hard to pin down are the “gun use prevents crime” ones. The number of situations where a crime actually would have occurred and would not have been prevented if a “good guy” had not been there with a gun are really hard to pin down. When my wife was attacked in our driveway some years ago, if I’d have grabbed a gun before chasing the robber away that would have been classified as a “gun-prevented crime.” But I didn’t have a gun, so I know that wasn’t the case. The presence of a gun would have been superfluous. Similarly when my girlfriend saw a burglar reach in through the window of our apartment many years ago, if she’d cocked a 12 gauge and the guy ran away that would have been counted as a “gun prevented” crime. Instead, she sat up and said “You’d better get out of here” and the burglar ran away, so I know that the presence of a gun would have been superfluous in that event as well. </p>
<p>How many events occur in which a gun is present but in fact superfluous? It’s hard to say. The scenario of a heroic good guy pulling out his gun to cow the bad guys is a staple of cheap fiction, and runs strong in the minds of most people. So much so that folks want to believe it happens all the time. Gun manufacturers and advocacy groups want people to believe that, so they encourage that belief. Folks who have bought guns to be “that guy” want to believe it’s true as well. So much so that the lack of objective reporting of many actual cases of it happening has to be explained by reliance on a claim of a conspiracy. The NRA achieved the muzzling of the CDC by accusations of “bias.” A common refrain in gun nut circles is that “the media” conspires to suppress reports of heroic defensive gun use - a belief that requires some heavy-lifting suspension of disbelief in a “if it bleeds it leads” society with virtually infinite sources of news and wide reporting of the instances where it actually appears to be credibly reported to have happened. </p>
<p>So to explain the disconnect between reliable data and the belief system you’ll get comments like:
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<p>And to respond to your question, Catahoula; I think George Zimmerman’s guns give him “peace of mind,” as did Nancy Lanza’s, Rodney Peairs’ and most of the tens of thousands of families of suicides and accidental gunshot victims which happen every year. And no, I don’t think, on balance, that illusory peace of mind outweighs the very real damage done tens of thousands of times a year by bringing tools designed to kill people into folks’ homes.</p>
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<p>If we assume Zimmerman or any other gun owner has peace of mind having a weapon and that has an intangible value, the distress caused to others outweighs the benefits to the gun owner. For example, I walked through a neighborhood one day to see a man with a pistol at his side walking his dog. I am sure he felt relaxed knowing he could kill anyone wanting to harm him. His behavior created a great deal of stress for me because it was out of the ordinary for the neighborhood and I didn’t know if the guy was mentally stable or not. Someone who is not law enforcement walking around with a pistol on his side is probably not mentally stable. I am pretty sure there were many more people upset by his behavior than he was happy with his behavior.</p>
<p>I’d like to see the debate focus more on the meanings of “well regulated” and “arms”. Under original intent, arms may have meant single shot sidearms and muskets, and nothing more. At the other extreme, “arms” may have been intended to include any and all weapons that might be utilized by a well regulated militia in a nation that did not maintain a standing army, which might now include tanks, missiles, aircraft carriers, drones, and nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>Since there aren’t any militia, and since the 14th Amendment trumps the states in potentially setting up militia…</p>
<p>Why do you say that about the 14th Amendment, mini? I just read through the text and I don’t see anything there that seems to support that.</p>
<p>Razorsharp, it is your risk tolerance that would make you nervous. You are concerned that the individual may suddenly use his gun on you or an innocent person. I used to have that concern with police officers. There are many people, such as myself, that would find it intriguing that someone would openly carry their weapon. My state allows it but I have yet to see someone do so. Why make people uncomfortable or show a potential perpetrator where your weapon is hidden. </p>
<p>Many people in my state will not shop at businesses that show the “no weapons” sign. I have seen more and more businesses take those signs down as a result. I complained to my bank and after other customers complained, they replaced it with a “no open carry” sign. CCW permit holders want the peace of mind that they will be able to defend themselves if they are ever threatened regardless of the risks. Hearing crime reports and taking care of assault victims has strengthen my decision to own and carry my weapon.</p>
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<p>Well, not really. My concern is based on the degree of conflict that everyone encounters on a daily basis. Ever seen road rage? Now image both drivers with guns. Ever seen shoppers at Black Friday sales fighting over the same product? Now image every one of those shoppers armed. Ever seen a boss fire an employee? Now image that employee with gun while being fired. </p>
<p>The problem is that for me to feel safe from you I now have to be armed. Being armed exposes me and others to extreme danger from accidents or irrational decisions involving guns. Please don’t tell me the solution is simply to be careful with a gun. Knives are sharp and cut. You know that yet I am certain in your life you have cut yourself with a knife. Knowing guns are dangerous will not prevent accidents any more than knowing that knives cut. </p>
<p>Arming everyone is part of the problem. If you put 100 people in a room and each one has a side arm, you can bet at least one of those people is crazy. That places everyone in danger. The fact that the 99 other people have guns does not reduce the risk, it actually increases it. When the one nut starts shooting everyone else will start shooting and half the room will be dead from friendly fire. The solution is no one should carry a weapon. If you see someone carrying a weapon, then you will know that is the crazy one and try to stay away.</p>