imported post
I've been reading up on statistics as well to use as ammo (yay for this pun) in arguments and have found many anti-gun statistics are so poorly thought out that they work in my favor on most occasions.
Example: "You are 10 times (I've seen a few number variations, all were around 10 though) more likely to kill yourself with a gun than an intruder in your home."
When I read this one it did seem like a pretty strong argument at first, but then I thought into it further. (and remembered some other statistics.) For one, I read elsewhere that something like 95% of encounters where the victim was able to pull a gun on the assaulter ended without death, which would turn the tables for this argument. Just an example but from what I've seen most of the anti-gun statistics will be like this.
Of course child safety is one they throw around a lot, quoting things like "a child dies from a gun every 3 hours"
http://www.libraryindex.com/pages/1779/Guns-Youth-CHILDREN-INJURED-KILLED-BY-GUNFIRE.html
The skewer in this argument is found in the graph on that page. 90% of the deaths occur in the 15-19 range(so gang-violence), and with the rest of the information given by the graph it turns out to be more about anti-gang than anti-gun.
Though the "comparison" arguments seem pretty overused to me, they are still effective. By using the chart found here,
http://danger.mongabay.com/injury_death.htm
I can argue that a year 2000 study found that a person had a 1/242 chance of dieing as a car occupant, and a 1/4613 chance of dieing due to accidental firearms discharge, as a support for guns (or an argument against cars). Even better, I could state that a person had a 1/331 chance of being killed by an assaulter with a firearm. But of course they put "intentional self-harm by firearm" at 1/216, which might be a bad statistic for us, but I would want to know how many of those people used a new gun (bought for the purpose of suicide) or a gun they didn't own.
Statistics are fun to throw around, but a statistic-war would rarely lead anywhere. Only use I have found for them is when a casual supporter of anti-gun laws states their one token statistic or situation as argument. Other than that they seem to be too misleading for anything else. I would rather just state that it's my right to be able to own and carry a gun no matter what the statistics say and leave it at that. (That's more of a Thoreau/Civil disobedience sort of thing than an argument though.)
http://cedrac-standup.blogspot.com/2009/04/gun-control-facts-and-fallacies.html is another fair site. Lots of them out there. Even if the statistic is pro-gun don't believe it without thought though.
