Gun deaths in USA 2001
Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
Lingua non convalesco, consenesco et abolesco. -- Rule 1 has a caveat! -- Who broke the cabal?
"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.
| [reply] [d/l] |
If it's on the internet then it must be true :)
Whilst I'm firmly on your side of this debate, that source isn't exactly compelling. It doesn't say where any of those numbers come from.
--
< http://dave.org.uk>
"The first rule of Perl club is you do not talk about
Perl club." -- Chip Salzenberg
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... that source isn't exactly compelling.
Agreed, but if you look at anonymonks figures drawn from the FBI numbers; he is talking 9,000 -v- 11,000 homidices and 15,000 -v- 17,000 suicides in 2001.
And if you download and wade through that FBI "Uniform Crime Reporting", you will find that they use some pretty dubious math, and some even more dubious reasoning for using it, to produce thier 'Uniform' statistics for 'reporting' purposes. I believe that the table I linked is the raw, 'unmassaged' data.
Even if you prefer the FBI numbers, we are talking a few percent difference, not orders of magnitude.
More kids killed in one year in the USA, than all gun related deaths over a ten year period in the UK. I know which system makes me feel safest.
Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
Lingua non convalesco, consenesco et abolesco. -- Rule 1 has a caveat! -- Who broke the cabal?
"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.
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Personally, I'm not worried about criminals with guns, I'm worried about idiots with guns.
From your cdc link: "and an estimated 29,721,821 persons with nonfatal injuries...27,551,362 (92.7%) were unintentional" | [reply] |
Bizarrely, where gunownership among criminals is higher, the death rate during commission of a crime may be lower.
I remember an article in Scientific American where this minor statistic popped up: when a robber has a gun (I remember a Chicago cop saying that if the mugger has a gun, the mugger will show the gun: he wants you to know he's armed) the victim will tend to say "yes, sir" and give the thief what is wanted (usually money). When the thief is not showing a gun, or is armed with (say) a knife, there is more chance the victim will try to fight back, which (for most people) is a bad idea.
emc
"Being forced to write comments actually improves code, because it is easier to fix a crock than to explain it. " —G. Steele
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A high percentage of idiots with guns are goverment employees, like Dick Chaney.
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