American History
I thought the thread in the last post's comments would be fun to continue after we all watched this highly educational video.
From Wikipedia:
"In response to suggestions that homeowners were at risk from home invasions and would be wise to acquire a firearm for purposes of protection, researcher Arthur Kellermann tabulated in home homicide figures in three cities over several years, and found that the risk of a homicide was in fact higher in homes where a gun was present; his study led to the conclusion drawn by some that the risk of a crime of passion or other domestic dispute ending in homicide when a gun was available was large enough to overwhelm any protective effect the presence of a gun might have against burglaries, home invasions, etc. In seeming confirmation of this conclusion is his little-remarked upon finding that almost all the risk was limited to homes where a handgun was kept both loaded and unlocked, and therefore available for immediate use; apparently, the amount of time and effort required even to just remove a loaded gun from a locked cabinet was sufficient to allow tempers to cool enough to prevent a shooting."
"It has been claimed that Kellerman does not show causation and homes in which firearms are kept may have elevated rates of homicide may simply reflect the incidence of gun ownership in dangerous neighborhoods. However, Kellermann did control for such factors as drug use, neighborhood, domestic violence, and criminal history and still found a significant positive correlation between gun ownership and homicide."
"Some claim that Kellerman does not take into account the incidence of defensive guns uses. However, if guns in the home are often used defensively to deter or scare away criminals then homes with guns in them would have a lower rate of homicide than the homes of non gun owners. As it is, Kellermann found that homes with guns in them higher rates of homicides."
Statistics don't lie. Ask any police officer if they would rather that people had guns in their houses or did not. Most of them see gun deaths everyday and know that it is usually someone you know i.e. a family member that would shoot you. By this indisputable fact, having a gun in your house will increase your chances of being killed. The various stories about how people who had guns in their homes and saved themselves are nice for NRA propaganda but the facts and/or reality (once again, something neocons have trouble with) don't support this claim.
In other words, the boogeyman is not a comin' to get ya...it is your dad or your mom or your older brother that is the bad guy which is the truly sad thing about all of this.
10 comments:
Ask any police officer and he will also tell you that 100% of traffic fatalities are caused by driving.
Also, 100% of divorces are caused by marriage.
Since I don't have an older brother and my dad and mom don't live with me your statements don't really apply to me do they?
I grew up around guns, all of our hunting buddies grew up around guns, not one of them had any accidental shootings in their homes. Yes, they happen, it is the exception, not the norm.
If statistics don't lie, why don't you post the statistics about gun deaths in the counties that voted for Al Gore in 2000 compared to the counties that voted for Bush in 2000? I'll be sure to do that tonight, you blue staters you...
I never said the boogeyman is comin to get anyone. Notice that I'm not advocating that you all go out and arm yourselves...you all can do what you want.
Remember freedom?
Life is a sexually transmitted disease that is 100% fatal.
I'd be interested to see the stats on by county, but are they raw numbers or per capita?
Average gun deaths per 1000 on counties that voted for Bush - 1.2.
Average gun deaths per 1000 in counties that voted for Gore - 10.2.
I hope my county isn't at the high end, or even average, of the latter.
A factor of 10 seems highly suspicious to me. What are some reasons for such a difference? Gun education could be some reason. Urban areas could be another. Still, a factor of 10 times more death in blue counties seems suspect. That's a VERY significant difference.
Any theories?
Where did those numbers come from? I can't find them online.
The number I found at CDC is 10 deaths per 100,000 for 2003. That's .1 per 1,000 using the numbers you quoted. That's the national number.
What made me suspicious is the number you quoted for blue counties would mean 1 in every 100 people is killed by guns every year. I know at least a hundred people and no one I know has ever been shot, let alone killed by a gun. Even taking into account my education, job, income, etc. and remoteness from petty crime, 1 in 100 people killed by guns every year is a huge number. I bet not even Iraq can match that number. Even the number for red counties is hug. That's still 1 in a thousand that are killed by guns every year and that's still 10 times the CDC number.
I would be suspicious of wherever you found that info. It seems likely to be wildly inflated. I would not be surprised if there is a difference between the red and blue counties, however the likelihood your child will shoot themselves or a friend with your gun or you shoot your wife during an argument is much better than the chance you'll stop a bad guy from hurting you in your house.
I found some stuff on gun deaths going down and gun deaths having far lower rates in states with more comprehensive and enforced gun control laws. Those were mostly blue states.
I mistyped, I meant to type 100,000. I got it in an email a while back where someone sent data regarding differences in the red states/blue states in the 2000 election.
There most certainly is a difference and the reason is INNER CITIES and you all know this to be true. For all the talk about the "boogeyman" comin to get ya in the suburbs, inner city violence is rarely mentioned on this blog even though that is where most of the gun deaths occur. I graduated paramedic school in Illinois back in 1996. My uncle has been a firefighter/paramedic in Rock Island, IL for over 20 years. Any paramedic will tell you the same thing, guess which part of town they are always called to regarding shootings?
You see, Cheneys accident deserves discussion while the negroes who shot a pizza delivery driver in Minneapolis a few weeks back simply so they could have the sports jersey he was wearing isn't mentioned at all. I'm guessing it's becasue there isn't anything to be gained politically by mentioning that gun incident.
Are you sure that email was genuine? I can't find any information on those numbers either. Could be another one of those Andy Rooney deals.
I took a look at this page and found some interesting data.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004902.html
Here we see a lot of crime rates in bigger cities but the larger incidents are in the south....red states.....crime is higher in places like Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas. Of course, Detroit burys everyone and that is in a blue state.
I guess I don't really know where you are going with your discussion of "negroes", the inner city, and gun violence.
Where I'm going is the same place you are going when you talk about guns...generalizing large groups of people.
Just like the research you discovered says, the majority of gun deaths take place in large cities with a high minority population (in other words, not country hick neocons who are living in fear of the boogeyman). Those facts do seem to contradict your claims that gun deaths are the fault of idiots like Willis T. Otis from Alabama (aka a neocon in your book).
I saw Juan Williams on the "free speech" part of the CBS evening news last week talking about his new book...check it out. He talks about the high school dropout rate of blacks in this country along with the fact that 70% of black children born today are born to unwed mothers.
The places with the biggest gun crime problems (the cities you mentioned among many others) are the cities that have the strictest gun control laws. That is because criminals (by their nature) are not likely to give a damn about gun control laws. So then the only people armed are criminals and police, and the criminals outnumber the police.
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