A little something I wrote up

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when I got into another argument with uber liberals over *gasp* guns!!!
Here is the original context... http://olyblog.net/something-mike-said-elsewhere#comment-53647

Per the CDC, 30,694 firearms related deaths out of a population of 296,507,061 for all purposes, muder, suicide, legal intervention (self defense, LEO) etc...
All motor vehicle related deaths, 45,520 out of the same population.
In 2003 there were 231 million motor vehicles in the United States
There are between 238-276 million firearms in the United States
I own guns. I do not own a car. Rick, you do not own guns. You have stated you own a car. It seems per the statistics it is more likely you will be the cause of someone's death than I will be.
It is a question of social acceptance of the averse effects of owning something. Few would take a ban on possession of an automobile in Olympia seriously.
Like any item capable of inflicting harm or death the key to reducing their harm while maximizing the usefullness society gains from the item is responsible use. Sadly one cannot legislate responsibility. One can however educate.
In the meantime, please keep away from me in your car. With that vehicle you pose a greater threat to the safety of society than I do with my gun.

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Beautiful! Reminds me of a point I frequently make to others (found here: http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/tabor/041229)

Liberals are always complaining about getting to the root of the problem — unless it deals with gun rights. Then they abandon all logical analysis and resort to hysteria, distortion and downright lies.

Today I want to set the record straight and dispel a few of the more common myths with some hard facts.

First, according to statistics provided by the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, there is an interesting correlation between accidental deaths caused by guns and by doctors.

Doctors: (A) There are 700,000 physicians in the U.S. (B) Accidental deaths caused by physicians total 120,000 per year. (C) Accidental death percentage per physician is 0.171.

Guns: (A) There are 80 million gun owners in the U.S. (B) There are 1,500 accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups. (C) The percentage of accidental deaths per gun owner is 0.0000188.

Statistically, then, doctors are 9,000 times more dangerous to the public health than gun owners. Fact: NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN, BUT ALMOST EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ONE DOCTOR. Following the logic of liberals, we should all be warned: "Guns don't kill people. Doctors do."

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Very nice stats!! The vehicle one makes so much sense. Just one day of driving around town and I see it everywhere. People on cell phones in accidents is a big part of that eqaution I would imagine. It's a good thing my local government is taking steps towards cell phone control at least.

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But children are the ones at most risk and the most innocent, they will say.

Of course hot tubs and swimming pool drownings are the most common accidental cause of death for kids, even accounting for the fact that liberals consider everyone to be a child until after age 21.

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thebastidge wrote:

...even accounting for the fact that liberals consider everyone to be a child until after age 21.

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Unless it comes to voting... then they want it lowered to age 16. See http://www.washingtonvotes.com/2008-HB-2662

Then they can get them to vote democrat while they're still freshly brainwashed by the public education system and the media. Hell it took me almost 20 years to unlearn all the BS and see how damaging the liberal agenda is.

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Steve,

Good discussion, but there's one point you completely missed in either that discussion, or the earlier one you mentioned there, and that's the issue of the gun accident rate in the US over time.

You almost fell into this fallacy, yourself, when you wrote about "people used to learn how to handle their parent's guns but now that doesn't happen" (or words to that effect.)

But in actual fact the rate of gun accidents has shown a steady decline ever since stats on this have been tracked. It's crucial to point this out whenever folks get onto the "guns are dangerous" bandwagon.

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kparker wrote:

Steve,

Good discussion, but there's one point you completely missed in either that discussion, or the earlier one you mentioned there, and that's the issue of the gun accident rate in the US over time.

You almost fell into this fallacy, yourself, when you wrote about "people used to learn how to handle their parent's guns but now that doesn't happen" (or words to that effect.)

But in actual fact the rate of gun accidents has shown a steady decline ever since stats on this have been tracked. It's crucial to point this out whenever folks get onto the "guns are dangerous" bandwagon.

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True. I've had this argument a million times and I'm getting tired of it. Add a long schedule and little sleep this week... Screw 'em. I've changed the minds I'm going to change. I think I'm going to get my butt out of this mess and quit arguing it with them for a while. I did make some converts to the notion that OC is not only legal but not something to go screaming to the cops about, so I feel good about that. The ones with truely open minds have welcomed what I have said, and everyone else, well...

Thanks for pointing out my errors.

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Well, as Kevin Baker (http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/) and Kim & Mrs. Du Toit (http://theothersideofkim.com/ http://www.mrsdutoit.com/) point out, (among many others)our arguments are most effective aimed at people who are undecided, and our efforts are best targeted at those who already lean slightly our way.

By convincing more neutral or ambivalent people, we increase not only our political power, but our creditbility. The only point in arguing with extreme "anti's" is to convince the fence sittters that our point of view is more compelling.

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BobCav wrote:

Liberals are always complaining about getting to the root of the problem — unless it deals with gun rights. Then they abandon all logical analysis and resort to hysteria, distortion and downright lies.

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While I understand to a large extent where you're coming from, Bob, I wish you (and others like you) wouldn't generalize in quite this way. I consider myself a liberal (in that it's the pigeonhole that most closely approaches my political beliefs), but I'm pro-RKBA. I acknowledge that there's no shortage of people who self-identify as liberals who are anti-RKBA, but then again, if you look closely enough, you can find plenty of non-liberals who are also anti-RKBA. It's not a party-related issue; if anything, it's more closely correlated to geographical region and degree of urbanization. North-eastern conservative Republicans are more likely to be anti-gun than western liberal Democrats. Of now-defunct presidential candidates, who would you have trusted more to respect your gun rights, Bill Richardson (governor of New Mexico; liberal; CCW permit holder; stated the 1994 AWB was a mistake) or Mitt Romney (former governor of Massachusetts, state motto "Live Free Or Here"; conservative; only became aware of gun rights upon running for office outside Massachusetts and then pretended to be a staunch long-standing member of the NRA)?

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Euromutt wrote:

BobCav wrote:

Liberals are always complaining about getting to the root of the problem — unless it deals with gun rights. Then they abandon all logical analysis and resort to hysteria, distortion and downright lies.

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While I understand to a large extent where you're coming from, Bob, I wish you (and others like you) wouldn't generalize in quite this way...

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Euromutt,

Gun Rule 4: Be sure of your target. I didn't write the article in question, I merely liked it and wished to share the point that doctorskill more people than guns. I highly recommend you contact and pass along your comments to the author, Nathan Tabor Euromutt wrote:

While I understand to a large extent where you're coming from, Bob, I wish you (and others like you) wouldn't generalize in quite this way...

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Did you read what you wrote there? In the same sentence you wished I wouldn't generalize, you generalized me with the statement "and others like you"! Please don't presume to know what I am like. You don't know me beyond what I have shared here on OCDO or even the whole internet and believe me, that is just a scratch on the surface.

That said, though a generalization, I do believe it is largely true and not a personal attack against you, merely a reflection of wherethe most vocalanti-s, left leaning politicians,their pet media, and the largely innocent and ignorant sheeple that they would manipulate and control, are in their views.

Personally I loathe political labels beyond American.



Nuclear winter is the solution to Global Warming! (my very own quote...like it?)

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Sorry, Bob, didn't realize it was a quote. I withdraw the complaint to you, with my apologies.

That Nathan Tabor's now a moron in my book, though.

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Ah, not a problem. The data and the fact that it is largely ignored by the MSM speaks volumes. Liberal, conservative, whatever, all just political labels that make it easier to wholesale hate and/or disenfranchise entiregroups of individuals. I agree completely, there are anti'son all sides.

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Actually, you'll find the numbers for iatrogenic (or, in English, "doctor-caused") deaths get quite a bit of play in the MSM, but like the numbers for "gun deaths," they get presented without nuance. A significant number of iatrogenic deaths, probably a large majority, are ones that would also have occurred absent medical intervention. We are, after all, talking here about people who were ill or injured, which is why they needed a doctor to begin with. So implying that all victims of medical error would have been fine if only it hasn't been for the medical profession is very much akin to obscuring the fact that over half the 30K+ gun deaths in the US annually are the result of "intentional self-harm" (to use the CDC term for suicide); it's highly implausible that none of those people would have killed themselves if they had not had access to a firearm. The suicide rates in most European countries are notably higher than in the US, tighter restrictions on private gun ownership notwithstanding; the really shining example here is Japan, which has a significantly higher suicide rate than the US, despite private gun ownership being practically non-existent (consequently, only ~0.04% of Japanese suicides are carried out with guns).

The problem with the mainstream media, generally speaking, is that part of their job is to sell advertising space (especially with broadcast media), and that means attracting and holding the attention of viewers/readers. The most effective way to do that is by using fear. Imagine a story in which groundwater in one small in rural Georgia turns out to contains levels of (naturally occurring) arsenic which are comparatively high, but nowhere near levels required to cause toxicity in humans. The teaser for a television news show will present it like this:

Coming up next: increased amounts of deadly arsenic in our nation's water supply. Could you be at risk? Find out after the break!

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Note the prefix "deadly," the reference to "our nation's water supply" and the implication that there is a danger to you and your loved ones. If they'd said "mild worry over the water content in some place on the other side of the continent; don't panic, it can't hurt you," there'd be nothing to stop you changing the channel, but the implication that there's a danger to you will keep you watching (through the ad break) because you want to gather information about this threat.

MSM coverage of gun-related stuff just follows the same template. Journalists and their editors aren't inherently anti-gun (though many of them lean towards or just plain are anti-gun, in particular the editorial boards of major north-eastern newspapers, such as the NYT, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Baltimore Sun, etc.), they just hype up the fear because it's what is most likely to keep you reading.

I came across a compilation, from a pro-gun perspective of FAQs on the usegroup talk.politics.guns (more precisely, rejoinders to anti-gunner talking points) yesterday. In particular, I liked a comment on the page dealing the Kellermann "43 to 1" crap:

As criminologists know and can demonstrate, the fallacy underlying the work of researchers who treat 'gun violence' as an 'epidemic' or as an issue of 'public health' is the idea that people are all at equal risk for becoming a perpetrator of crime, and lack only a deadly weapon.

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