from that article: Multivariate analyses adjust for several potential confounders previously identified in the literature: rates of aggravated assault and robbery (Hsieh & Pugh, 1993), urbanization (Fingerhut, Ingram, & Feldman, 1992), unemployment (Karpati, Galea, Awerbuch, & Levins, 2002; Reed, Smith, Helmer, Lancaster, & Carman, 2003), alcohol use (Goodman et al., 1986), the percentage of the population 18–34 years of age (Gastil, 1971; Land, McCall, & Cohen, 1990; Loftin & Hill, 1974), the percentage divorced (Land et al., 1990), and a binary indicator variable for living in the southern census region (Gastil, 1971; Huff-Corzine, Corzine, & Moore, 1986; Land et al., 1990)



Try deleting the : at the end, I think I messed it up.



Fair enough, I absolutely agree with this.

I still think our global obsession with guns is a symptom of a terrible disease, which can't be cured by laws, but this is probably not the topic for that discussion

Same could be said of anyone who wants them all taken away, and for the same reason.

No, guns are just things. Guns don't do a single god damn thing. They can't be a symptom of a sickness when they have a number of reasonable uses.

What IS a symptom of a sickness are the violent crimes that occur, with any sort of implement. The reverse side of that sickness is that people seriously place heavy importance on one single implement that is sometimes used for the commission of these crimes. Do you not see how insane that is? The tone of most of these arguments is 'ban guns and the world will be ****ing awesome :tfti:'

False. Banning guns in the US won't do **** except removing a form of recreation from a large number of people, and removing a form of protection from a small number of people who actually need it. It's not going to reduce deaths as much as, say, getting rid of personally owned cars in urban areas and requiring public transportation. Or for ****s sake banning cigarettes.

While I do support the former in many respects, I think it's asinine to use the argument of accidental deaths when people are still allowed to smoke. If you want to keep people safe, remove the number one killer, not a small, obscure killer. I don't support banning of cigarettes, because I enjoy smoking. But I don't do it around anyones kids. Similarly, my guns aren't out where little kids can get to them. Because I'm a responsible ****ing adult unlike people who are terrified of something that can't do anything to them.

And Jon, your assessment of many people who talk about carrying guns is correct. But in my experience, the people who actually, truly carry their guns all the time, are quiet and professional. People who talk all this warrior **** can't be bothered to actually carry their gun because they can't dress how they want and do whatever they want because it interferes with their vanity. Fortunately, those people are usually the people with no training as well, keeping us all a bit safer.

He can always argue with someone who openly supports that argument, and is at the very least as mentally deficient. Such as Steven.

Right, 'molotov cocktails don't kill people, people kill people'. Maybe someone could explain this reasoning to me? I never got it.

Sick to the core, obsessed with violence and killing ****

ever seen a molotov light and throw itself?

pretty much needs no explanation when you use a little common sense

What the ****

very clever! and how true, ever seen a nuke press its own button? :v::v:

Skynet

The fact that you're one of the first to pick on others, and the first to cry rule violation when they do it to you is certainly a factor. As for guns, that's a more complex issue on which I don't base my view on anyone.

I dispute the validity of your statements, but beside that, I fail to see what they have to do with this thread at all.

They don't. You seemed confused about what I said, so I explained myself.

that wasn't the nuke pressing it's own button that was the AI system that some people put in control of the nukes

I still don't know why my name came up, especially in such a mean way

I thought we were friends, Jani

I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS!

I don't understand. You try to make a point but instead of arguing it just post more glib comments.

Well played Tenshu, well played.

I see the solution now.

Ban people.

Yes, I do very much hate people and my unfortunate resemblance to them.

In reality, the true solution to reducing problems like these is eliminating ignorance. Truly well educated people commit less crime. Of course, the reality of being able to ensure a good education for everyone on the planet is fairly far beyond our current ability as a race.

So until there is a lack of ignorant people, I will continue to have my shotgun in my room. After all, it would be foolish to ignore the home invasions resulting in homicides that have happened within only a few miles of my home. Honestly, the idea that I would be morally superior if I allowed someone to kill or maim me rather than kill them is something I find asinine and unnatural. The product of living in a fantasy world removed from nature.

I would argue that they perpetrate the most insidious and inconspicuous crimes of all.

No, your bias against rich and powerful people is causing you to be confused.

I said well educated. In the sense of having a classic liberal arts eduction, perhaps. The kind that allows you reason, particularly morally, and relate to other people through an understanding of people not like you.

I didn't say anything about people who had been to Ivy League schools or the like. Which is obviously what you thought. Unfortunately the term education has been commandeered by the people who want to keep success and fulfillment to themselves.

Really, your post blows my ****ing mind.

This is what blows my mind. Unless by 'education' you mean something more like autodidacticism or intuition, I disagree that it will 'allow you reason;' especially morally.

Obviously being self taught is one way to get there, and the only alternative for many people in the modern world.

But do you really believe you can't trust any educators at all? Have you ever taken a course from a skilled teacher who uses the Socratic method to teach instead of a lecture? If the students do not carry a heavy bias such as fundamentalist political or religious viewpoints, it's a great learning experience.

Just because the current educational model is fatally flawed does not mean that institutionalized education is doomed to failure in all ventures. Only a crazy person would think that.

Oh, good point Steven.

It's called reductio ad absurdum, and it's a valid form of argument.



Instead of one sane person protecting himself against a paranoid and dangerous person, we now have two paranoid and dangerous persons.

I agree with you on all the rest.

It's called straw man fallacy, and it's an invalid form of argument. You're not arguing his point; you're building a different argument based on something he said.

Firearms != Nuclear Weapons

Beside that, Spook is only "paranoid and dangerous" if you enter his room uninvited in the middle of the night. I don't see that as being problematic.

No, this is not called straw man fallacy. This is, as said, called reductio ad absurdum: we follow the original proposition to a logical, but absurd conclusion:

-guns don't kill people, people do
-grenades don't kill people, people do
-land mines don't kill people, people do
-nukes don't kill people, people do

Point being, that maybe we should stop building that **** alltogether, and maybe not make it so absurdly readily available to everyone and his dog?



This is awful! Instead of keeping quiet and compliant and sane, you reach for a gun when someone breaks into your house? Are you that attached to your irrelevant **** that your willing to create a bloodbath over it? You're not one bit better than the burglar! YOU are the problem.

The Relative Frequency of Offensive and Defensive Gun Use: Results of a National Survey, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11200101 : Some controversy exists about the relative frequency of criminal and self-defense gun use in the United States. Using data from a national random-digit-dial telephone survey of over 1,900 adults conducted in 1996, we find that criminal gun use is far more common than self-defense gun use. This result is consistent with findings from other private surveys and the National Crime Victimization Surveys. In this survey, all reported cases of criminal gun use and many cases of self-defense gun use appear to be socially undesirable. There are many instances of gun use, often for intimidation, that are not reported to the police and may not appear in official crime statistics.

Give me a break, man..

As noble as you might think this is, there are a ****ton of people out there who will never, ever, ever, ever see it like you. And there are people out there who will do bad things uninstigated, too. Instead of telling everyone how they ought to act, you should be content figuring out how you'll act yourself.

I fail to see how that is a logical step; firearms are legal, and "easily" (relatively) acquired by the general public. Grenades, land mines, and nuclear weapons are not, as they are infinitely more dangerous.

videos are distributed on computers
porn is distributed on computers
viruses are distributed on computers
kiddie porn is distributed on computers

BAYAN DEM GOTDAMN COMPUTEERS!

I'm sure the people breaking into the house are peace-loving people.

Tenshu is almost as as Freelancer. Everyone with a gun is not out to get you or go on a killing spree.

I don't wear tinfoil hats because they're made by the Illuminati.

I don't, firearm violence is not (yet) an issue over here.



Well, as stated, self-defense gun use is highly overestimated. Also, I think they're just people, but I seem to have revolutionary views on this.

And, purely practical: I'm sure chances of a good outcome (aka survival) are better when you DON'T reach for a firearm.

I don't know how I got into this argument. There's two ways we can approach the current climate:

-buy more guns
-deal with the violent climate itself

We've tried the first in many variations over many centuries, it only got us more ****ed up.

So obviously don't worry about it. Totally logical. I am not saying it happens all the time. I'm not saying it's ever going to happen to me in my own home. But it could. And unlike you, I don't even imagine using deadly force to secure property in the first world. If someone was stealing my only food it would be different. If they want to take my computer and my tv they can do it, insurance will get me brand new ****. That's awesome. You're totally out of the loop when it comes to this kind of thing, and it shows in the naive way you talk. Stop watching movies and go travel or something.



Maybe, and maybe not. I don't know who you think you are talking to, but I have had a gun pointed at me, while armed, and had neither party fire a shot. On the flip side, I have a number of friends (more than you can imagine) who have come out on top of a two way gun range. Unfortunately I also have more than I am comfortable with that I'm never going to get to talk to again. Now very few of those were in the states, but they are there. The fact that we live in a mainly civilized society does not mean that we are safe. From natural disaster or other people.

I promise you, guns do not cause anything themselves. Your emphasis seems to indicate that you think they do. I've been in a physical altercation before while wearing my gun and didn't draw it because nobody's life was at stake yet. I got into two fights in Iraq with other Marines while we both had loaded assault rifles and nobody starting pointing their gat at eachother.



If that's how you want to see it. And the second one does not involve immediately beating all of your cowbells into plowshares. It involves a long term social change.

Still the king, baby! Even though my views on this subject are very moderate, too..

This is all retarded. There was violent crime before guns... Banning guns will not help anything.

Go ahead, ban guns... if someone really wants to kill you... they'll use a pillowcase full of batteries. Better ban those items too.

I don't expect people seeing the irony of YOU people calling ME ? It's YOU who thinks you're constantly in danger. It's YOU who thinks you constantly have to defend yourself, enough to warrant always carrying a gun with you in public. That IS sick. I'm not talking about the laws, which I know very little about, I'm just considering that idea. I think it's YOU who's absolutely paranoid.

I'm pretty much out of the loop, yep. You say that like it's a bad thing. I think we're experiencing full-blown culture shock here.

Thank you for your concerns about my traveling, I have traveled extensively. Not to the US though, so maybe it's true that I don't know what you're going through.

At the risk of sounding like a peace-loving hippy: I think a little idealism is in order here. The idea that things are going to *improve* by arming yourself in this way is absolutely alien to me, but again it could be the culture shock speaking.

You lack the capability to understand what people are saying.

Good day.

Apparently I do

A possible problem with banning guns, especially in a country like the United States where demand is high, is that the sale of illegal guns becomes a far more lucrative and common business and this makes it even easier than before to get a gun when you're someone who would have priorly had a harder time obtaining one due to your background and whatnot. It's the same argument drug legalization advocates use in the war on drugs debate, and while I read about some study in Britain that supports the theory with guns, I can't provide a link typing this on my cell phone right now so it's of course to be taken with a grain of salt just as anything.

I believe there are plenty of the sort of responsible people out there who are LIKELY to never abuse their right to carry a gun, just as they're unlikely to kill anyone by other means. Right now without some sort of information that would change my mind I don't think guns should be restricted from such people, but I am in favor of strict control against guns ending up in the hands of those deemed likely to abuse them. How to define such a risk is another issue with plenty of room for misinterpretation...

As for the "if you want to kill someone you'll do it despite not having a gun" argument, I think it's both true and false. A pillow full of batteries (Energizer could use that in marketing, you know! "It goes on *whack* and on *whack*..."), a sharpened screwdriver, an original Xbox controller, an absurdly large penis - yes, you CAN kill people with these items, but compared to a gun they are less effective and produce a thicker psychological barrier to use them for killing people, and these factors at least contribute to a generally lower body count.

It seems to me that the logical choice when it comes to home defense would be to take measures to secure your home (e.g: a door club). I merely put chairs against the doors at night & put pieces of wood in the window to prevent them from opening. Granted someone could've busted out my entire window (including the wood frame) but that would've made a lot of noise & I personally think that this would be enough of a deterrent to keep out the vast majority of criminals & even if it didn't you'd probably hear it & have enough time to secure your bedroom door & call the police. I don't see anything wrong w/ keeping a gun in the home in case you're the unlucky lottery winner that night (the likelihood of someone being involved in a violent crime in most areas in this country is very low) but I personally think that this is a bit paranoid. I actually think that even I'm being a bit paranoid by securing my apartment w/ chairs & wood but it's free & actually does something to prevent the break-in (obviously not foolproof). I also don't have to worry about relatives accidentally beating themselves or someone else to death w/ a chair. However, being paranoid isn't illegal & doesn't necessarily make one a bad person.