OT: Americans love their guns

[Richard Wesley]

In article <Qlo3b.7388$n94.4843 at fed1read04>,
 midnight at warm-summer-night.net (falling star) wrote:

> Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters <mertz at gnosis.cx> wrote:
> LotLE> 
> LotLE> USA automobile deaths are ^43k/year
> LotLE> USA gun-related deaths are ~29k/year
> 
> Where did you get your number?   29k a year???  Don't believe it.  I
> would guess the number to be somewhere in the 1000 to 2000 range.

US murders with firearms were 8,259 in 1999, ranked #4 in the world.  
Source: <http://www.nationmaster.com/red/graph-T/cri_mur_wit_fir&int=15>  
The US is a bit better per capita firearms murders at #6 
<http://www.nationmaster.com/red/graph-T/cri_mur_wit_fir_cap&int=300>.  
So while "falling star" appears to be swallowing some well cooked data, 
the raw data is still pretty bad.  Being in the company of South Africa, 
Columbia, Zimbabwe and Mexico is not something that a progressive nation 
should be proud of.

> Unless you are including people killed by police in your figure?

They don't have the data for this, but estimating from where I live 
(Seattle, population 5e5, ~2/year) gives ~1000/year.  I don't believe 
from looking at the data that this would affect the US ranking 
significantly.  The US is in a big clump at the top of the rankings in 
both total and per capita measurements.

> Or as Mark Twain put it, 'There are lies, damn lies, and statistics'.

He actually attributed this quote to Benjamin Disrali.  Since neither of 
them had any mathematical background (indeed they were both famous 
rhetoricicians), I'm not sure they are qualified to comment on 
statistics...

> The statistic the other poster mentioned about more guns lowering
> crime:  In states with concealed carry laws, *crime* is lower.  Your
> statistic about gun _deaths_ being higher in states with relaxed gun laws
> is a canard.  That is correlating gun deaths with overall crime.  There
> are issues of population as well.  Again, we are talking statistics, and
> there can be no agreement as there are so many correlated factors.

Speaking of canards, the whole state law comparison arguments used by 
both sides in this are pretty sketchy (partly for the reasons you 
present).  There are much larger data sets available from other 
countries and they pretty clearly show that the US is anomalous.  What 
to do about it may be somewhat debatable, but when you have similar 
firearms murder rates to countries that have de facto civil wars, it is 
prudent to ask what you have in common with those areas might lead to 
similar results.  

One can argue that there is no comparison, but the data is so striking 
that I believe the burden of proof is on those who make that argument.  
For the affirmative, we observe that a heavily armed populace is one 
common factor, as is lack of a common culture or social identity 
(generally caused by tribal or economic differences).  Personally I 
think it is both:  The US populace has very little in common outside of 
its political institutions and it is heavily armed.  This is 
historically a bad combination, for if you are used to demonizing others 
and you can kill them, you probably will.

Which brings us back to this Handgun Control/NRA meme war.  The fact 
that US politics is havily polarized is partly due to this lack of 
social cohesion and partly due to there being so much at stake in 
controlling the largest economy in the world.  Once the debate becomes a 
shouting match and a battle of egos, social cohesion drops even further 
and you have a positive feedback loop.  So in a small way, the argument 
that you two are having is actually contributing to the problem under 
discussion.

Please note that I am /not/ arguing that the gun violence in the US is 
being caused by NRA vigilantes hunting down HCI partisans or vice versa.  
But I do believe that villification of the "other" in the media by 
large, well-funded organizations intent on maintaining and increasing 
their own power, leads to feelings of persecution and self-righteousness 
in /all/ members of society.  In the end, those with poor impulse 
control and easy access to deadly weapons vent these emotions with 
tragic results. (This includes the police in some cases.)

So I think there are actually two policy needs here:  handgun control 
and more civil public discourse.  I think that both are required, but I 
doubt that either will happen.  But to the NRA gun nuts, I say that a 
civil society is a far better guarentee of your safety than being well 
armed, and to the HCI nuts I say, you are more likely to achieve your 
goal through a civil society free of fear, for guns are only a symptom 
of the fear, not its root cause.

Anyway, this is waay of topic and I need to get back to work now...

-- 

- rmgw

http://www.trustedmedianetworks.com/

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Richard Wesley                                  Trusted Media Networks, Inc.

"Grownups have the most uninteresting explanations for things."
                 - C. S. Lewis, _The Magician's Nephew_