Since you apparently are suspicious of statistics even before you hear where they come from, why don’t you give me an idea of which primary sources you do trust before I waste my time presenting statistics that you are going to discount anyway. For instance, is CDC on your list? Or how about the UNODC? Or do you trust all sources except Kellermann? Or do you simply distrust any statistic that does not agree with your pro-gun position?
Well, I’m an equal opportunity skeptic. I’m sure that you have heard “there are lies, damned lies and then there are statistics.” Even though no one seems to be able to track down the person who first wrote this, it is one of the quotes in history that I agree with. In my research over the years (research was once my occupation) I have found most stats that people quote from are in themselves bogus. The quote below is by G.K. Chesterton; a very intelligent chap.
Like I said in my last post I am skeptical of all stats. When you find some stats to back up your view do you ever look behind the numbers to see if they used case-controlled method or randomization?
Didn’t you already answer that yourself?
That’s true. We should all be skeptical, especially of interpretations applied to statistics. They are in error much more often than the numbers themselves.
Okay folks, the first reference that I went to besides the one that is not available at the url posted “Rates of Household Firearm Ownership and Homicide Across US Regions and States, 1988–1997” ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447364/
) but if I do feel free to discount them.Good Afternoon Annie: Can you elaborate on why you think the source is unreliable? Sometimes people you disagree with have good points. The reason to discount them is best based on facts rather than likes, dislikes or disagreements. and if you distrust a number, it is a good idea to explore it and see for yourself.
The post you are referring to just lists statistics. What you or anyone becomes convinced of is based on what you reason from the statistics.
The “suggests” and “may be” hardly makes that a good argument for gun control. You are correct sometimes even many times people who disagree with me have very good points. But I need hard facts not “suggests” and “mays”. You do know, do you not that many gun rights activists have dealt with stats such as that and made much headway. It is enough to put my brain on auto pilot. My own life experience contradicts the argument they make but I would never use my experience alone to make the argument for gun ownership.
There is a stark difference in wartime mentality than in peacetime mentality and that is not just demonstrated by the failure of the peace time arms race (cold war) but in psychological terms, the way an individual responds to the world around him by the ‘fight or flight’ over reaction.
The terms “suggests” and “may” are used in commonly used in analysis. Scientists, statisticians and business people use the terms very often as well. On the other hand, you are free to offer what you feel the data suggests. What do you think the data suggests Annie? I am simply asking you to look at the data and to offer your opinion of what it suggests, and I am offering you the opportunity to refute the data based on something other than the fact that you don’t trust all of the many sources quoted. Customarily this is done by pointing out flaws in the data collection or offering some alternative interpretation of the data, or offering better data.
The American bloggers opinion is not reflective of the reality at all. Very few people in Australia campaigne against the strong gun restrictions. That simply isn’t the response that arises out of gun crime here. The law was always intended to arrest a growing mentality about guns especially prone to being absorbed by power seeking or agrieved young men, that the gun is a powerful appendage of the self. The gun holds a lethal mystique where there is a deficiency in self integration. We, through the government, owe it to ourselves to protect each other from cultural cancers like mass gun ownership. We have to value the sense of security over the sense of individual power.
That conundrum was somewhat addressed by the Vatican in the 19th century in Pope Leo XIII letter concerning the affects of growing ‘Americanism’. As Catholics, our faith in Christ and the Church must always trump our faith in the human nation.I’m an odd duck on this topic.
As an American, I strongly believe in the right to bear arms. I’m tired of our freedoms being eroded or just plain given away. I don’t trust our government to be the only armed forces in this nation. So on that count, I am pro-gun.
However, as a Christian, I personally tend toward pacifism. I don’t know how shooting my enemy (in war or in self-defense) is “loving” him as myself as Jesus commanded.
I’m not here to debate pacifism; I just find myself in a bit of an odd spot. As far as “the world” goes, I guess I’m pro-gun. But on a personal level, I am anti-gun based on my own beliefs.
If I believed gun ownership was somehow immoral I would agree with you - Christ and the church would absolutely trump it. However, I don’t think guns (or owning them) for the vast majority of legal gun owners is in any way immoral; I don’t think taking guns away from individuals necessarily promotes nor improves the common good. In fact, I think it could greatly harm it.
I would agree to an extent. All life it sacred, but abortion is killing an innocent life. I’m personally iffy on the death penalty… And it is in the CCC that if and only if the only way to protect society from a habitual sociopath(murderer) then the death penalty can be deemed acceptable.
If a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful: whereas if he repels force with moderation, his defense will be lawful.... Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit the act of moderate self-defense to avoid killing the other man, since one is bound to take more care of one’s own life than of another’s.66So? All you have is a correlation between two variables. You can’t say that one is causing the other.
Yes, people who don’t own effective survival tools are more fit to survive.