[quote=“Bill_Dungsroman”]
That’s great. Meanwhile, kids do get kidnapped and wives do get raped, and houses do get robbed when people are home.[/quote]
So? If the chance of that happening is nearly zero, then you’re statistically shortening your life by getting a gun to defend against it (accidents, etc.)
Actually, you didn’t. [/quote]
You’re right, I didn’t. I was thinking of previous threads. However it is my long-standing position so while I didn’t say it here, I’ve said it before. However, I still don’t believe there’s any good reason to only have a pistol for home defense. If you’re someone who actually takes the time to become comfortable with it, then in my view you ought to be able to take the time to become comfortable with a better weapon choice.
That’s great. Meanwhile, kids do get kidnapped and wives do get raped, and houses do get robbed when people are home.[/quote]
So? If the chance of that happening is nearly zero, then you’re statistically shortening your life by getting a gun to defend against it accidents, etc.)[/quote]
You can’t back up your inane statistical comparison of rape/abduction to being hit by a meteor (!) so you fall back to “accidental death”? Jesus.
Shift, I can’t find the breakdown, but I’m pretty sure the chance of rape during burglary happening to his wife is about zero. The chance of accidental death from a gun in the house is known to be significant. It’s just math.
I think the point was rape/abduction during home invasion, not just during an escalated burglary. You don’t get to just ad hoc away home invaders specifically looking for more than theft.
And it isn’t math, it’s you backing up your presumptions. Both of them are “about zero” when you consider there’s over 100 million gun-owning homes in the US. Prop up some researched backup, then we can do the “just math” part.
Rape/abduction during home invasion is also something that virtually never happens. “Stuff I see on the news” isn’t a statistic.
You’re right, I didn’t. I was thinking of previous threads. However it is my long-standing position blahblahblah. However, I still don’t believe there’s any good reason to only have a pistol for home defense. If you’re someone who actually takes the time to become comfortable with it, then in my view you ought to be able to take the time to become comfortable with a better weapon choice.[/quote]
I didn’t say it was my only weapon. In fact, I’ve said otherwise a couple of times here. I’m comfortable with a shotgun, and I’ve mentioned that I own several. I keep them locked up. Apparently processing this information causes you to reboot or black out or something, so here it is again. Being skilled with owning both shotguns and handguns, I choose my handgun for the purpose of home defense.
Now there are multiple reasons for that, some of which I’ve gone into here. I’m not arguing about the viability of shotguns for defending your home, they’re just not what I keep available for that use. I’m not even sure why it concerns you what other people use, actually. I mean, I don’t give a hoot if you want to defend your home with a wrist rocket and a bag of marbles. Go for it, man. Good luck with that.
Raife, when I said “you” I meant the indirect pronoun, not you Raife specifically. In my previous sentence: “If you’re someone who actually takes the time to become comfortable with it, then in my view you ought to be able to take the time to become comfortable with a better weapon choice”, change the word “you” to the nondescript “a person” at every instance and go hyper-analyze parts of speech in the P&R forum.
Offices | Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) | Office of Justice Programs for all your statistics. I know it isn’t a blog, but maybe it’s an OK source. Parse the numbers however you like then come back and keep telling me what occurs virtually never.
Easy there, Tiger. You’re a half-step away from a Jose Liz FACT: bulletpoint.
Okay, so your point is, the benefits of having a handgun outweigh the risks. I can dig that take, but you’re bringing to the table (anecdotally or otherwise) stats and assumptions based on relative benefit/risk outcomes for your average homeowner in your average town. And y’know, I can’t categorically not throw in with you, in that regard. Joe Nobody in a suburb in Springfield, USA could probably make do with a Louisville Slugger, especially if Mrs. Nobody and the kids were the inquisitive type and marveled over the shiny heavy thing in Dad’s sock drawer (the heavy, shiny thing in Mom’s is another story giggle).
I’m not going to bust your balls about not bothering to dredge the web looking for statistics - even though you always do and it makes me feel slighted you couldn’t be assed to do so for MEEEEEE and especially after Tom snapped his fingers in the ass thread to make you appear and defeat me with some uber stats finishing move. But, you know, I did.
I slummed through the Department of Justice’s site dedicated to statistics, or the BJS as the cool cats refer to it, since that sounds vaguely naughty. It barfed up some stuff more specific to me, a one William Xerxes Dungsroman, residing in a newly-built suburb in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States of America, Earth. These be all 2004 stats, incidentally.
26 Westerners per 1,000 were violent crime victims.
Urban residents had the highest violent victimization rates, followed by suburban resident rates. Rural residents had the lowest rates.
Property crime makes up slightly more than three-quarters of all crime in the United States.
Overall, in about 85% of all burglaries, the offender gained entry into the victims residence or other building on the property.
Households [with residents who] own their homes experienced 143 property crimes per 1,000 households.
The Western portion of the nation experiences the highest rates of property crime overall in the nation.
22% of the incidents of violent crime, a weapon was present.
Offenders had or used a weapon in 46% of all robberies.
In 2004, U.S. residents age 12 or older experienced approximately 24 million crimes, according to findings from the National Crime Victimization Survey.
– 77% (18.6 million) were property crimes– 21% (5.2 million) were crimes of violence
– 1% were personal thefts.
In 2004 for every 1,000 persons age 12 or older, there occurred
–1 rape or sexual assault
–2 assault with injury
–2 robberiesMurders were the least frequent violent victimization – about 6 murder victims per 100,000 persons in 2003.
Oh shit, wait, I almost forgot: I’m single, white, male, and 33 years old. Tell him what he’s won, Johnny!
The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports show that in 2003, 91% of murder victims were age 18 or older. Of all murder victims, 46% were 20 to 34 years old.
Males experienced higher victimization rates than females for all types of violent crime except rape/sexual assault.
Never married persons were victimized at higher rates than married, widowed, and divorced/separated persons for violent crime overall.
Property crimes were experienced by 157 of 1,000 white households.
Burglaries were experienced by 28 of 1,000 white households.
WHOAH IS SOMEONE AT THE DOOR GET MY GUN.
And my least fave stat, even though it doesn’t pertain to this argument specifically:
Households earning below $7,500 and above $75,000 experience motor vehicle theft at similar rates.
HI WELCOME TO THE HIGHER TAX BRACKET HERE’S YOUR LOJACK TRANSPONDER.
Before I close, I’ll say that the good news is that crime as a whole has plummeted over the last 20 years, mostly leveling out over the last 5 years or so. Hey, it’s a fucking surprise to me, too. Here’s some charts to illustrate the trends. Pretty groovy, no? But, still…
Alright J-Mac, go add me up them stats up there and come to a net sum of “about zero.” Show your work!
Wait wait, didn’t you try to bust some shit on me like “Psh, the burglar’s gonna take away your gun and use it on you anyway, after a spine-tingling scene where you both wrestle for the gun, as the suspenseful music from the old Star Trek plays in the background.”
So, Mr. Robert Eublind - mind if I call you Rob? Where you goin’ with that gun in your hand?
According to the 1997 Survey of State Prison Inmates, among those possessing a gun, the source of the gun was from -
a flea market or gun show for fewer than 2%
a retail store or pawnshop for about 12%
family, friends, a street buy, or an illegal source for 80%
Sorry that’s from waaaaaay back in '97, it’s all them DOJ layabouts had.
HEY! Where’s the breakdown on “Taken from resident?” And don’t tell me it just got lumped into “illegal source” because technically taking the gun from inside the house is a theft. I fucking keel you for dat.
You got some other stuff regarding accidents involving firearms at home. I’ve been around guns and have been using them since I was 6. My Pops still hangs his Smith&Wesson revolver in its holster off his bedpost. He grew up on ranch in Oregon, so he’s got that old school pioneer thing going. I have a CCW, although I never actually walk about strapped or anything. My girfriend has been around guns most of her life and is familiar with their use and knows how to handle my Glock. That’s “Glock,” you perverts. My Glock. We don’t have kids. We both grew up in trailer parks. Living in a trailer park without a gun is like living in a house without windows. COME ON IN, TRY MY WIFE. Is a gun-related accident theoretically possible, still? Well, DURRR, yes. So is a ladder-related accident but I’m keeping that bad boy, too - even though I use each about the same, on average.
Put this way: I’ve had zero accidents, actual or almost, that were firearm-related. I’ve had a home-burglary scare, a real work burglary that I missed by less than an hour by my estimation, heard shots fired right outside my window and a jiggle on my sliding glass door handle immediately thereafter, not one but [two] seperate neighbors who were waving a gun around in their yard (one was subdued peacefully, the other blown the Hell away when she drunkenly sort of pointed it at the wall of cops drawing a bead on her), an assclown who threatened my life because I like talked to his girlfriend (we worked together) and he was spying on her and saw it (it was during work and the conversation was work-related FFS) and a girlfriend who, upon moving in with me and hearing my answer when she asked me if I owned a gun and said yes, said “Good.”
Will I ever have to plug some fool who steps to my proppity? Probably not. Probably not. Also, my house may never catch fire, no one may ever wander into my backyard and fall into my pool and drown, nor will ever several other unfortunate happenstances for which I have taken some measure to protect against. Am I equally as foolish for having a fire extinguisher?
[size=2]Edit: Oh snap. Shift6 is my nigga.[/size]
I have also been around guns for ever and a day and the only accident I had was once when I was 12 the 22 my friend was showing me was loaded and it went off shooting his couch.
I was like wtf why was this shit loaded?
We normally kept guns loaded but not in the chamber ready to fire.
Anyways gunz rulez.
I assume the implied end of this sentence is that you’re not Joe Nobody, and that for some reason whatever is statistically the likely outcome in the United States doesn’t apply to you – you’re smarter about how you keep and use your gun, you’re a crack shot, etc. I’d just point out that probably every single person in America thinks that. Towards the end of your post you talk about how you have insurance for stuff. I assume you think (as most people do) that you’re a better than average driver. What’s your liability insurance like? Is it over the state mandated amount? If the state didn’t mandate liability insurance, would you still carry it?
Because, for example, I think I’m a much better than average driver. I’ve taken motorcycle training classes, just like you trained with a gun, and I ride my bike every day, which is probably more often than you get to a shooting range. And I have stats to back it up – no at-fault accidents ever, no tickets in 10 years. Yet I still carry liability insurance. Because I recognize that even though I think I’m better than everyone, I’m probably not as good as I think I am – and even if I were, a mistake on my part is still a possibility. I would never think to myself, “Liability insurance is good for Joe Nobody in Springfield, Illinois, but this is Ryan the motherfucking Man Williams we’re talking about here.”
I feel the same way about a gun. I think I’d be better at using it than the average. I’m sure that’s true, actually. Even so, if the statistics showed – and I’ve seen people quoting them both ways – that you’re much more likely to be injured by a gun if you have one in the house, than you are to use a gun to foil a robbery, I would give that serious weight. On top of that, I’ve read various books and studies and also noticed in my own life and work that people tend to vastly exaggerate the likelihood of certain lurid bad outcomes. Most people probably think they’re more likely to be murdered by a gangbanger or street thug than they are to be, say, killed by lightning, but the opposite is probably true. It’s just that people way overestimate the chances of certain things happening. They see it on the news, they worry about it, etc.
Next up is your statistics. Since you didn’t actually say, I have no idea what you think the meaning of any of them are. But let’s note that, for example, “1 rape for every 1,000 persons in 2004” doesn’t mean “one home-invasion rape.” It means 1 rape of any kind. I would assume that spousal rape and date rape form the vast majority of those, and street rapes almost everything left over. I’ve been working in criminal justice for years and have been involved with (either with the prosecution or judiciary) several rape cases, and probably hundreds if not thousands of burglaries (cases where someone broke into a house to commit some crime). I have seen no – zero – home-invasion rapes, at least that I recall (and I think I would). Not one.
Then there’s your second set of statistics, which is not the same as the first. Although the first shows the chances of being a crime victim (and they’re all very low even for all crime types combined, with no specific breakdown of how many of those rare crimes were home-invasion crimes), the second set shows the relative proportions of victims. But of course, “46% of murder victims are white” does not mean white people have a 46% chance to be murdered. It means that, if you look at the 1 in 100,000 chance of being murdered, it’s actually more like 1 in 200,000 if you control for your race (assuming you personally are white). You apparently interpreted the number to mean the stats now showed an even greater chance of your victimization, but in fact the stats now show a much lesser chance. I think you make the same sort of error in your estimation of outcomes generally. Even looking at burglary rates (28 in 1,000 was the best stat for you), again, that doesn’t tell you (a) how many of those burglaries were committed while the occupant was at home (probably very much the minority), and (b) how many of those burglaries were intended to, or did, result in a non-property crime (nearly zero, in my experience, particularly if there’s no escalation by the occupant). But you seem to interpret it to mean that a home-invasion rape or murder is fairly likely.
Next up is your set of gun stats from prisoners. I am really trying to give the best possible interpretation to your pretty unclear (although stylish, which I know the kids love) arguments…but I swear the only thing I can think that you’re trying to show here is that “because the gun source stats don’t specifically break out guns taken from homeowners, there must have been zero such cases.” Am I right? If so, I’m just going to leave this one alone and assume that any thinking person will conclude that you’re probably mistaken. But I will point out that it totally ignores what many people point to as one of the likely problems with pulling a gun on a burglar: that the burglar might shoot you with his own gun, rather than just taking your valuables and leaving. And of course it ignores all risk of accidents (whether deliberate shootings at someone who turns out not to be hostile, deliberate shootings that miss their target and hit a bystander, or accidental gun discharges), which are also a substantial risk of gun ownership. I understand you dismiss that on the “I’m less prone to that than other people” theory, and you’re probably right that you are, but again – nobody’s perfect, and it’s a real risk.
And of course you say “DURR, I know it’s a risk, but so are ladders and I still have those around.” The flaw there is that a ladder is the best solution to a real need around your house. Of course things are risky. All life is risky. Driving a car is riskier than walking or taking the bus. But if a car gives you the best balance of risk vs usefulness, that’s fine. We all understand that. The argument people are making, which you’re sort of shooting past, is that a gun’s utility is pretty low (and you’re overestimating it), versus its risk (which you’re underestimating). So all the arguments about “Hey I keep a fire extinguisher, why not a gun?” are mostly a waste of time.
In other words: there are some possible situations where one would really want to have a gun. But the chances of those situations coming to pass (home invasion with intent to harm me or those close to me; total breakdown in civil order; etc.) are, while possible, extremely low. The risk of having a gun around (accidents, chance I might shoot the neighbor who comes into my house by mistake, chance I might escalate a situation that would otherwise resolve without violence, etc.) are not high by any means, but they’re substantial, and probably outweigh any actual benefit I would gain from owning a gun. That’s the argument people are making.
There are statistics that show that you’re more likely to injure yourself with a gun than protect yourself, but that’s only because a lot of people commit suicide with guns every year. Accidental deaths from guns are pretty rare. Burglars shooting people with their own guns is unheard of.
So don’t own a gun if you’re depressed and suicidal. If you do own a gun, you probably won’t ever have to use it to defend yourself. You probably won’t ever hurt yourself or anybody else with it. The small odds of the former are somewhat larger than the small odds of the latter. But really, you should own a gun if you want to, and don’t if you don’t.
Ah, the old “guns are dangerous, you have one and you get shot” debate.
This is a free country, if you are more afraid of getting shot because you own a gun. THEN DON’T FUCKING GET ONE. Very simple, very easy and you don’t have to fuck with anyone else. I have owned a gun in some form all of my adult life and most of my younger. I own two handguns and my wife is trained in gun safety and use. We use all the precautions we can and when it comes time to talk to my kids about guns I will teach them how dangerous they are and to avoid them until they desire to know to use one safely and properly.
There is absolutely nothing worse than feeling helpless in your own house in any given situation and if you want to play the odds and statistic your way to safety. More power to you. I want the ability to control my safety.
Burglaries may not amount to as many rapes as the ‘statistics’ prove that it can’t possibly happen to you. But how is that statistic going to help you when you are that 1 in (Whatever number you want here) house and family. Even if you are that 1 in Whatever, you damn sure don’t want to let it ever fucking happen again.
Dude, fucking chill out. Nobody is trying to pry your gun out of your cold, dead hands. I’m a vociferous Second Amendment supporter, I believe the Second Amendment recognizes an individual right, I think you and everyone else has every right to own handguns and keep them in your home, etc. What we’re talking about here is not whether it is or should be legal to own guns, but whether it’s smart to own guns and, more importantly, whether people really appreciate the risks of ownership and the risks of nonownership.
There is absolutely nothing worse than feeling helpless in your own house in any given situation
I would disagree. Although I have no personal experience with either, I think I would feel worse if I shot my wife than if someone else shot my wife.
and if you want to play the odds and statistic your way to safety. More power to you. I want the ability to control my safety.
What you don’t realize is that you’re making a choice about risk either way. Owning a gun eliminates or reduces certain risks, but creates or increases other risks. Nonownership, obviously, does the reverse. The question is just which risks are greater. Either way, you are controlling your own safety – you make choices to accept certain risks but not others, and I exercise my control over my home to accept different risks, which I think are less than yours. But neither of us has any more “control” over our safety than the other.
But how is that statistic going to help you when you are that 1 in (Whatever number you want here) house and family.
Sure, but the same is true if you are the 1-in-whatever family where you accidentally shoot your wife (or your kid, despite your stern lectures, gets ahold of your gun, or any of that other stuff that we’ve talked about). Again, this “You’re taking a risk and I’m not” argument just doesn’t work. There are risks and statistics either way, and the important thing to determine is “Which behavior is riskier?” Every time I see someone avoiding that question or not understanding it, it reinforces my belief that many people own guns for what might turn out to be wrong reasons.
No offense Ryski, but so effin’ what? I shoot and clean my gun regularly. I only own the one gun, so I’m not liable to like forget it was loaded. Quite frankly, I’m utterly amazed at how often people apparently forgot their fucking gun was loaded. Anyway, me ol’ Dad taught me the two golden rules of firearms:
Treat every gun like it’s loaded, all the time, even if you know for sure it’s not.
Don’t draw your gun unless you intend to use it.
Yeah, those look like stupid-ass, cliche rules. But, you know, lots of people like to break rule #1 and shoot themselves or their sister/pal/dog in the face or whatever. And #2 is for the fools who figure waving their peashooter around will add weight to their words, or whatever. Usually, it just adds jail time. Point being, you have to actually point a loaded gun’s barrel at someone and pull the trigger for it to shoot somebody. That’s like at least three seperate steps, none of which I’ve ever done in concert or in any subcombination. Because that would be fucking stupid and I was taught better than that. The gun stays in its case in my dresser, the clip is in the handle but not fully engaged, and there is no bullet in the chamber. shift6 is correct in that IMO, cocking a shotgun is an awesome way to get a would-be intruder’s attention, so I’m inclined to either make a production out of chambering a round, or having the luxury of doing it quietly if need be. When I take it to the range, I remove the clip and clear the chamber once for good measure. I clean it right after I shoot with it. And the entire time it’s out, I treat it as loaded. Always. It’s not that hard, I handle liquid nitrogen, dry ice and all sorts of hazardous shit in my current and past jobs. Big hunks of dead, potentially diseased flesh. Like, I have the discipline, is what I’m saying. Do I think I’m better than the average dude who drinks a sixer and blows off his pinkie toe while cleaning his forty-ought six? Yeah, don’t you? That’s not arrogance, give me a break.
Towards the end of your post you talk about how you have insurance for stuff. I assume you think (as most people do) that you’re a better than average driver. What’s your liability insurance like? Is it over the state mandated amount? If the state didn’t mandate liability insurance, would you still carry it?
WTF? I’m fully covered, Rywill. Always. And my insurance agent thinks I’m a pretty fair driver. I drive a lot in my job. I put 40K on my XTerra in the two years I’ve had her. I’ve gotten zero tickets and been involved in zero accidents - oh, I’ve avoided several, Las Vegas freeways are fucking retarded - since I bought her. I know, I suck. Anyway, that has fuck-all to do with gun safety and home protection. You’re like looking at me right now with raised eyebrows. Oh, you think you’re better than everyone, hmmmmmm?
Because, for example, I think I’m a much better than average driver. I’ve taken motorcycle training classes, just like you trained with a gun, and I ride my bike every day, which is probably more often than you get to a shooting range. And I have stats to back it up – no at-fault accidents ever, no tickets in 10 years. Yet I still carry liability insurance. Because I recognize that even though I think I’m better than everyone, I’m probably not as good as I think I am – and even if I were, a mistake on my part is still a possibility. I would never think to myself, “Liability insurance is good for Joe Nobody in Springfield, Illinois, but this is Ryan the motherfucking Man Williams we’re talking about here.”
Because I’m totally doing that, I’m totally swinging my sack around, about how badass I am with a gat. I’m not bragging about being able to dot the “i” on a “No Parking” sign at 50 paces from the hip with my off-hand, fella. I’m telling you I live in a town that has some funky shit going down on more than just the rare occasion, and I am confident that I have the skill to not point the gun at things I don’t I want to hurt and, if necessary, point it at things I want to defend myself against. Since, you know, I grew up around guns and I’m cool with them. Some people grew up around Gila monsters or Vietnamese potbellied pigs, and they’re cool with those things, too, whereas you or I might not be. I figure you’re not so cool with guns, obviously. Doesn’t mean I or anyone can’t be. It doesn’t mean I’m way off the mark in calling myself an experienced firearms handler, alone or when compared to some paranoid pudgy middle-aged guy who has little exposure or experience with a gun who gets one because it makes his dick feel big. I shave my pubes and date chicks with small hands for that, incidentally.
I feel the same way about a gun. I think I’d be better at using it than the average. I’m sure that’s true, actually. Even so, if the statistics showed – and I’ve seen people quoting them both ways – that you’re much more likely to be injured by a gun if you have one in the house, than you are to use a gun to foil a robbery, I would give that serious weight. On top of that, I’ve read various books and studies and also noticed in my own life and work that people tend to vastly exaggerate the likelihood of certain lurid bad outcomes. Most people probably think they’re more likely to be murdered by a gangbanger or street thug than they are to be, say, killed by lightning, but the opposite is probably true. It’s just that people way overestimate the chances of certain things happening. They see it on the news, they worry about it, etc.
Hey, Jason just told me I was going to get hit by a meteor, so who knows? How likely is it that your house will be broken into, robbed, and then burned to the ground? Because it happened to my best friend and his family, who lived 7 hou^H^H^H^Htrailers down from me, when I was 12 or so. His Pops had insurance on the joint, though. But Ffft, that shit never happens.
Next up is your statistics. Since you didn’t actually say, I have no idea what you think the meaning of any of them are. But let’s note that, for example, “1 rape for every 1,000 persons in 2004” doesn’t mean “one home-invasion rape.” It means 1 rape of any kind. I would assume that spousal rape and date rape form the vast majority of those, and street rapes almost everything left over. I’ve been working in criminal justice for years and have been involved with (either with the prosecution or judiciary) several rape cases, and probably hundreds if not thousands of burglaries (cases where someone broke into a house to commit some crime). I have seen no – zero – home-invasion rapes, at least that I recall (and I think I would). Not one.
Super. You win the rape invasion sub-argument. Now, about your thousands of burglaries…Oh wait, first thing’s first. Yeah Rywill, DUHHHHH I have no idea what any of those stats mean. I took a, ha ha, shot in the dark, how’d I do? Anyway, wow you totally busted me on the rape thing, yeah. I just figured 5 instances of violence per 1,000 adults, while being a measly 0.5% chance, just 1 person in 200, was a bit more than “almost zero.” Jason said “almost zero.” If I stuck you in a room with 199 other dudes and said “Good night guys - tomorrow, we rape one of you! Just one, though. Well, maybe we’ll just beat on you for a little while or juust shake you down for all of your grip. It’s a mystery!” Are you going to just pass out like a light? Somebody wake up Hicks.
Then there’s your second set of statistics, which is not the same as the first.
Far out, Ry. Way to look behind the curtain, there.
Although the first shows the chances of being a crime victim (and they’re all very low even for all crime types combined, with no specific breakdown of how many of those rare crimes were home-invasion crimes), the second set shows the relative proportions of victims. But of course, “46% of murder victims are white” does not mean white people have a 46% chance to be murdered. It means that, if you look at the 1 in 100,000 chance of being murdered, it’s actually more like 1 in 200,000 if you control for your race (assuming you personally are white). You apparently interpreted the number to mean the stats now showed an even greater chance of your victimization, but in fact the stats now show a much lesser chance. I think you make the same sort of error in your estimation of outcomes generally. Even looking at burglary rates (28 in 1,000 was the best stat for you), again, that doesn’t tell you (a) how many of those burglaries were committed while the occupant was at home (probably very much the minority), and (b) how many of those burglaries were intended to, or did, result in a non-property crime (nearly zero, in my experience, particularly if there’s no escalation by the occupant). But you seem to interpret it to mean that a home-invasion rape or murder is fairly likely.
Dude, if I was as fucking dumb as you keep insinuating, my drenched drool bib would have shorted out my keyboard and blown up my boarding room at the local mental health halfway house. You’re not even quoting my stats right. And you can go on and show me where I said any of this is “fairly likely.” Don’t presume to know what I “seem to interpret” any of it as. Jason said owning a gun will only shorten my lifespan in the long run. I begged to differ. He said bad things don’t really happen enough to warrant it, and so did you. You also missed the other, far more salient point in my Joe Nobody hypothesis: it’s as much, if not more, about where Joe lives - a quiet suburb in a low-crime town - than whether or not he’s trained with firearm use. Wait, I’ll let you call me a retard some more before I have my fun.
Next up is your set of gun stats from prisoners. I am really trying to give the best possible interpretation to your pretty unclear (although stylish, which I know the kids love) arguments…but I swear the only thing I can think that you’re trying to show here is that “because the gun source stats don’t specifically break out guns taken from homeowners, there must have been zero such cases.” Am I right? If so, I’m just going to leave this one alone and assume that any thinking person will conclude that you’re probably mistaken.
I’m wrong because you say so, and you’re right because you say so? Man, Ry, you’re my negro and all, but fuck that.
But I will point out that it totally ignores what many people point to as one of the likely problems with pulling a gun on a burglar: that the burglar might shoot you with his own gun, rather than just taking your valuables and leaving. And of course it ignores all risk of accidents (whether deliberate shootings at someone who turns out not to be hostile, deliberate shootings that miss their target and hit a bystander, or accidental gun discharges), which are also a substantial risk of gun ownership. I understand you dismiss that on the “I’m less prone to that than other people” theory, and you’re probably right that you are, but again – nobody’s perfect, and it’s a real risk.
You know, we had a similar argument over this awhile back, but I feel the need to point out now, as I did back then, that I’m not flying down the stairs with my gun drawn and my dick flapping in the night air to pop some caps into an Irish immigrant who was only breaking into my house to escape freezing to death. I’m upstairs with my lady, and in time my kids, some dude breaks into my place, I call the coppers. I listen. He starts breaking stuff like it’s Mazel Tov Day at the champagne glass convention or he starts clomping up the stairs to where we are, where he knows we are, I crouch low and shoot up into his chest and head until he is dead and my family is safe. “Psh, never happens.” Okay.
And of course you say “DURR, I know it’s a risk, but so are ladders and I still have those around.” The flaw there is that a ladder is the best solution to a real need around your house.
“Of course” huh? Wow, ain’t you the prescient one? And your flaw at this point is, you can’t use a ladder for much else, except as a really awful picture shelf or the legs of a makeshift scaffold. Going and shooting my gun off every once in the while is a decent stress relief, if you must know. My girlfriend loves it. I take it on overnight hikes that we occasionally do, but I know you couldn’t give two shits about protective measures involved in hiking in the wilderness. And you come up with a better solution for a guy trudging up your stairs at you, you let me know.
Of course things are risky. All life is risky. Driving a car is riskier than walking or taking the bus. But if a car gives you the best balance of risk vs usefulness, that’s fine. We all understand that. The argument people are making, which you’re sort of shooting past, is that a gun’s utility is pretty low (and you’re overestimating it), versus its risk (which you’re underestimating). So all the arguments about “Hey I keep a fire extinguisher, why not a gun?” are mostly a waste of time.
Another crassly dumbed-down oversimplification of what I’ve been saying, Rywill. But wait, you gotta lay into me a little more. Let me get my latte.
In other words: there are some possible situations where one would really want to have a gun. But the chances of those situations coming to pass (home invasion with intent to harm me or those close to me; total breakdown in civil order; etc.) are, while possible, extremely low. The risk of having a gun around (accidents, chance I might shoot the neighbor who comes into my house by mistake, chance I might escalate a situation that would otherwise resolve without violence, etc.) are not high by any means, but they’re substantial, and probably outweigh any actual benefit I would gain from owning a gun. That’s the argument people are making.
No shit, thanks for coming along and pointing that out.
Anyway, here are some more of my pointless, misleading links that I don’t really understand anyway:
I’m Bill, and I live in Las Vegas.
Wait, wait. Let me show you my nearest cross street and what’s been going down in the last 2 months. Now, the LV Metro PD site there won’t update its URL properly as you use the Crime Wizard, so I gotta assign some homework: click “Next” and go to the What screen and enter whatever crimes you feel are bad enough. Go to the Where screen and enter Rainbow Boulevard and Tropicana Boulevard as cross streets, which are the ones closest to my neighborhood. Search in a one mile radius, it’s the max but Hell, one mile is just one flippin’ mile. Likewise, go back 60 days and Search. I dunno, is that a lot of crime activity or what?
Oh, and this guy lives about 6 blocks from me. In a relatively better part of town. Here’s a silly-ass excerpt from the last part of the article:
Greg Block – a Huntington Beach, Calif., law enforcement firearms instructor who also teaches at one of the largest civilian handgun schools in the country – said deciding whether to keep a firearm in your home and business is an individual decision. Before doing so, you should educate yourself about firearm use and safety. He also recommended becoming familiar with state law regarding deadly force and enrolling in the appropriate firearms safety classes.
“It is up to the individual, but I always say it is better to have a gun and never use it than to wish you had one when you really need it,” Block said.
I dunno, he’s probably dumb and paranoid like me, I guess.
A concealed-carry instructor taught me another one:
“Don’t shoot anyone unless you have at least $20,000 to spend on your legal defence.”*
This is the most telling problem for me. If a would be burglar busts in packing heat and you’re unarmed, most likely you’ll hide, or stick your hands up while your stuff is looted. If you confront him with a gun, there’ll likely be a shootout, which you’re somewhere around 50% likely to win – much less on the good chance there’s more than one robber.
By using a gun for home defense you dramatically increase the risk of yourself getting shot, even though the chance of getting succesfully burglarized probably drops. It might feel good to not be at the other guys mercy or have to hide, but bringing a gun to the table doesn’t actually “put you in control” – rather it sticks you on the roulette wheel. For my taste, having a gun at best would put me in a one on one pistol duel, which IMHO is simply bad tactics.
On the other hand, I think Bill’s right that it matters where you live, and while I agree he missed the point on the numbers, his anecdotes are hard to ignore. If I lived in a neighborhood with alot of violent crime, people being knifed for their shoes, etc. I’d get a gun too. Such places are pretty uncommon though as most “bad neighborhoods” aren’t so dangerous, and even then you’d be better off moving.
Getting back to the original point of the thread, I still think it’s ludicrous to suggest that after leaving your patio door open and having a few things stolen, the first thing you should do is rush out, buy a gun, and head down to the practice range.
No fucking shit? Would you feel worse if your wife was raped in front of you than if you shot her with a gun and she didn’t get raped? Assuming she lives, of course… since your Deadeye Mcgee.
What you don’t realize is that you’re making a choice about risk either way. Owning a gun eliminates or reduces certain risks, but creates or increases other risks.
For reals? I did not know that.
Nonownership, obviously, does the reverse. The question is just which risks are greater. Either way, you are controlling your own safety – you make choices to accept certain risks but not others, and I exercise my control over my home to accept different risks, which I think are less than yours. But neither of us has any more “control” over our safety than the other.
Yes, assuming the statistics are taken to a conditional level. Your conditional level may be much different than mine even though I have to use a base and non-specific statistic for your argument to work. Location, lifestyle, friends, family, children, past, history all that shit are not as easily statistical analyzed.
There are risks and statistics either way, and the important thing to determine is “Which behavior is riskier?” Every time I see someone avoiding that question or not understanding it, it reinforces my belief that many people own guns for what might turn out to be wrong reasons.
Maybe this is what you don’t get. We are not on an equal playing field of statistical risk.
Let me make an admission here that would be worthy of job loss, thankfully this is a somewhat anonymous place.
I have come VERY close to firing a fairly high caliber round through my house by mistake. I was competely fucked up at the time, and learned my lesson thankfully without “complications”. (Though I was utterly horrified when seeing a chambered round) I also have many LE friends and I know of at least one Secret Service guy that has shot himself by mistake. Shit happens, I suppose is what I’m saying, and shit definitely happens when firearms enter the picture. Or maybe there should be an IQ test before being allowed to carry weapons for work and/or personal use. In which case, I’m fairly certain most every weapon in America would be promptly confiscated.
Either way, I’m very torn on this issue. I think everyone should own a gun because if/when government decides to totally take over. Fuck them. However, as a home defense mechanism… eh. Unless you are eternally locked and loaded and take it from couch, to bed, to bathroom, etc. It is marginally useful. Home invasion is a statistically uncommon crime and most of the time the guy/guys have the drop on you anyways. Burglars generally do not want to become armed robbers so you risk escalation at best in that situation. shrug
If it helps you sleep better at night Billy boy, go for it, but for actual usefulness, that may be another issue.
I was actually making the exact opposite point, which is that if you carry liability insurance on your car (acknowledging that even though you think you’re a better driver than most, accidents happen), I don’t understand why you assume that you’re so much a better gun-handler than most, that you’re at no (or negligible) risk of a gun-related mishap.
Since, you know, I grew up around guns and I’m cool with them. Some people grew up around Gila monsters or Vietnamese potbellied pigs, and they’re cool with those things, too, whereas you or I might not be. I figure you’re not so cool with guns, obviously. Doesn’t mean I or anyone can’t be.
I don’t know where that came from. If it matters or somehow makes my opinion more believable in your eyes, I actually grew up around guns, everyone in my family except me has one in the house, I’ve shot pistols several times and am totally fine with them. I choose not to have one in my house because I think the risks they cause are probably worse than the risks they alleviate. And, like I said, I think most people very much overestimate the risk of not having a gun, and underestimate the risk of having one.
I just figured 5 instances of violence per 1,000 adults, while being a measly 0.5% chance, just 1 person in 200, was a bit more than “almost zero.” Jason said “almost zero.”
But again – and I don’t want to send you off on another A Fish Called Wanda “Don’t call me stupid!” bender – that statistic is really pretty meaningless. Because you’re talking about 5 instances of violence per 1,000 adults, everywhere. But Jason is talking about the chance of violence in your home. Since you said you don’t carry your gun outside the home, I’m not sure what those statistics are supposed to prove.
And you can go on and show me where I said any of this is “fairly likely.” Don’t presume to know what I “seem to interpret” any of it as.
Obviously you didn’t use those words (hence “you seem to interpret”), but I think it’s a fair conclusion based on your post, as well as this response post, where your point seems to be that you think there’s a substantial chance of a home-invasion rape or murder or kidnapping taking place in your home. Rather than being all am-I-or-aren’t-I, can you just tell me whether you think that’s a substantial possibility or not?
I’m not flying down the stairs with my gun drawn and my dick flapping in the night air [etc.]
Which is great, and makes you better than the worst-case gun owner, and all this stuff – and all the stuff you talked about earlier re: gun safety, practicing at the range, etc. – I agree is smart and almost certainly makes you better than average. Maybe I’m not being very clear, but my point is that I think even a careful gun-owner is taking on more risk by owning a gun than he’s alleviating.
[quote]And of course you say “DURR, I know it’s a risk, but so are ladders and I still have those around.” The flaw there is that a ladder is the best solution to a real need around your house.
“Of course” huh? Wow, ain’t you the prescient one? [/quote]
Not really. I was restating the argument you made in your post, and responding to it. I’m going the quote-talk-quote-talk route this time so that it doesn’t bother you.
And your flaw at this point is, you can’t use a ladder for much else, except as a really awful picture shelf or the legs of a makeshift scaffold. Going and shooting my gun off every once in the while is a decent stress relief, if you must know.
OK, but that’s a totally different point and has nothing to do with safety. If the argument has changed to “Yeah maybe it’s less safe but I get other benefits from it,” fine and dandy. My motorcycle is less safe than owning a car, but I get other benefits from it. And at the end of it all, even if you don’t get other benefits from it obviously it’s your choice and I’m not trying to talk you out of owning a gun, any more than you’re trying to talk me into buying one. I’m just explaining my thoughts on the issue.
I’ll leave off the links about your place in Vegas. I live in LA and work downtown and it’s not exactly a crime-free environment either. I guess that arguably means I’m just as qualified as you are to talk about guns, if that’s the metric we’re using. I’m also leaving out the quote from the gun instructor about how people should probably own guns, although if it’s important to you I’ll dig up a quote from one of those Brady-bill people about how people shouldn’t. At the end of the day, I don’t think it matters much what Mr. Gun Instructor or Mr. Brady Bill think about gun ownership, and I don’t think it matters that much whether you live in a city (more crime, but also closer police) or out in the middle of the country (less crime, but hours from help).