Sunday, January 10, 2016

The Idiocy of Guns in the Home

21 comments:

  1. As with Capitalism stupidity about the truth concerning guns will NOT be denied!

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  2. "Idiocy of Guns in the Home."
    Where do you suggest I keep them?

    orlin sellers

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  3. Of exactly zero relevance to those of us not prone to homicidal rage, suicidal despair, or mind-numbingly stupid negligence. Hey--waddya' know--I'm one of the scores of millions (if not hundreds of millions) of Americans not cursed with such failings. Guess I'm golden.

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    1. Do you mean scores or hundreds of million gun owners never ever suffer from any of those things, even briefly?

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    2. Do you mean scores or hundreds of million gun owners never ever suffer from any of those things, even briefly?

      Until these scores or hundreds of millions do something specific to show that they suffer from them, yes--I presume they are innocent of such failings. It's the only ethical thing to do, of course.

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    3. Your idea of ethics flies in the face of logic. It's not logical to presume a 100 million people never, not even once, suffer from "homicidal rage, suicidal despair, or mind-numbingly stupid negligence."

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    4. It's not logical to presume a 100 million people never, not even once, suffer from "homicidal rage, suicidal despair, or mind-numbingly stupid negligence."

      It's a moral requirement to presume that each individual is free from such problems until one has specific, compelling evidence to the contrary. I realize that you refuse to be constrained by such niceties as truth and morality. Normally, my libertarian outlook would cause me to envy anyone who is immune to any constraints that regulate my own behavior, but morality and integrity are a couple of the few restraints I gladly accept.

      Really, Mikeb--please consider trying it.

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    5. It is perfectly logical to presume that hundreds of millions of people do not in fact suffer from those problems. If they did then we would have a country full of dead people instead of a normal functioning society. Therefore your logic is flawed Mike.

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    6. "It's a moral requirement to presume that each individual is free from such problems until one has specific, compelling evidence to the contrary. "

      Bullshit. You're bastardizing the famous "innocent until proven guilty" thing. We're not talking about criminal culpability in a court of law, but you knew that didn't you?

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    7. We're not talking about criminal culpability in a court of law, but you knew that didn't you?

      Of course I knew that, genius--which explains why I never claimed we were talking about criminal culpability in a court of law. Still, the principle applies--we must assume everyone is worthy of their Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental human rights until they have provably demonstrated their unworthiness.

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    8. MikeB: "We're not talking about criminal culpability in a court of law.."

      Uh huh. You are talking about removal of rights, which also calls for due process of law as stated in the Fifth Amendment. Is there any part of the Bill of Rights that you do like?

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  4. Tell this to those who've thwarted home invasions.....or worse, been the unarmed victim of such.

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    1. You mean the comparitively few, compared to all the suicides, homicides and accidents, not to mention stolen guns that have happened as a result of guns in the home.

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    2. “Defensive uses of guns by crime victims is a common occurrence, although the exact number remains disputed (Cook and Ludwig, 1996, Kleck 2001a). Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun use by victims is at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year (Kleck, 2001a), in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008 (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2010).

      - Obama directed CDC report, June 2013

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    3. Those numbers are a joke, and you know it. They include people reporting incidents for which there is no evidence. Funny how you evidence-based sticklers suddenly accept this weak nonsense in place of solid proof. And lets not forget all the dgus against snakes and coyotes.

      After you eliminate all the frivolous reports and get down to a solid estimate you have to consider how many of those were really necessary. Most were not.

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    4. Still can't face facts can you Mike. Even from administration that is presumably on your side.

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    5. They're not facts, and I explained why. They're wildly overstated ESTIMATES.

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    6. So you are saying that Obama and democrat party LIED? Interesting. I thought that it was your contention that only right wingers lied.

      Where is your proof that these estimates are "wildly overstated"? And don't expect me to just take you at your word, your going to have to produce a legitimate study. Like the ones the taxpayers paid for, just as an example.

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  5. I'm afraid I wasnt able to find any mention of a source for the statistics mentioned. It can be a challenge to include that in a source, though I did fine the source of the quote,

    http://www.childrensdefense.org/newsroom/child-watch-columns/child-watch-documents/GunsLeathalizeAngerAndDespair.html?utm_campaign=Child-Watch-Column&utm_medium=social-media&utm_source=twitter&utm_content=Domestic_Violence_Guns&utm_term=share

    And it was a pretty inaccurate article. First, we have no source for the quote you posted. Then we come to this,

    " And so must every one of us in our gun saturated nation which takes the life of a child or teen every 3 hours and 28 minutes, nearly 7 every day, 48 every week, and more than 2,500 a year."

    The gun control lobby likes to do this a lot. By using the term "teens", they can add over a thousand gun deaths of people who are normally called adults. The CDC lists gun deaths of children in 2014 as 1,331. That figure is for real non-adult children without the 18 and 19 year old adults included which bring the number to 2,549.
    And while the article seems to focus on the dangers of guns in the home, it includes an event of a woman and her children murdered in her home. But the gun wasnt in the home until it was brought in by an abusive ex-boyfriend. In truth, the event they use looks like a textbook example of the utility of a firearm kept for self defense.

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    1. As usual, your numbers flip-flop doesn't change the total number dead. I guess you put the death age as somehow a less important life.

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    2. Actually its a common case of attempted Sleight of hand on the part of the gun control lobby Anon. As I've said many times before here, their common practice of attempting to inflate numbers do them no good in their argument because they are now well known for that practice.
      You don't, and shouldn't put up with it from gun rights advocates, so why are you willing to look the other way when those on your side of the issue do it?

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