On 4/25/2010 5:32 PM, Dave Bugg wrote:
> Dave Smith wrote:
>> Omelet wrote:
>>> In >,
>>> > wrote:
>>>
>>>> argus tuft wrote:
>>>>> * 10,177 guns were used in murders in the U.S. in 2006 while in
>>>>> the same year, Canada reported 190. That's over 5 times a higher
>>>>> rate in the US. * Around 32,000 people have been shot in America so far
>>>>> this year.
>>>>>
>>>>> * 300 Americans are shot, on average, every day.
>>>>>
>>>>> * For adults, keeping a gun in the home quadruples the risk of
>>>>> dying of an accidental gunshot wound.
>>>>>
>>>>> * In 2008, 17,215 people in the U.S. were wounded in unintentional
>>>>> shootings
>>>>> but survived.
>>>>>
>>>>> * For kids ages up to four years old, the mortality rate is 17
>>>>> times higher in states with high number of guns, versus states
>>>>> with a low number of firearms.
>>>>>
>>>>> * 33% of U.S. households contain a gun, and half reportedly don't
>>>>> lock up their weapons.
>>>>>
>>>>> * A gun in the home is four times more likely to be used in an
>>>>> unintentional
>>>>> shooting than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> For some of us, you're preaching tot he choir. For others, those
>>>> are fighting words.
>>>>
>>>> gloria p
>>>
>>> <lol> Too true!
>>>
>>> According to statistics, guns save 20 times as many lives as they
>>> take:
>>
>>
>> That takes a huge leap in logic. Given that the US has five times the
>> per capita rate of firearms homicides, you have to ask how they could
>> have saved 20 times as many lives. Gun use (against humans is not as
>> prevalent here as in the US. By your logic, we should have had a lot
>> more people murdered.
>
> You didn't read the entire post, Dave. I fail to see where the leap in logic
> exists. BTW, on a per capita basis, do you know which country has the
> highest level of violent crime?
>

It *might* be South Africa, but I think it's Great Britain. I read about
that in the _London Times_ last year. (that's why the gun banners like
to qualify the statistics as "gun crimes", which could mean as little as
an expired permit, instead of "violent crimes")

It is easy to get statistics about how many people died from gunshots,
then sift the numbers to support whatever point you're trying to make.
It is very difficult to get meaningful statistics (maybe impossible)
about how many crimes *didn't* happen because the victim was armed or
whatever. (How do you prove a negative? So then how can you count it?)

The _American Rifleman_ magazine has a column every month with accounts
of criminals who were stopped by armed victims. They are pretty
compelling stories, of course they probably don't publish the hundreds
of boring stories. ;-)

Bob