You Know Less Than You Think About Guns

[lnrw]

[Philly]

How many more "Anti gun people are so stupid" blog posts are you gonna spam us with? We get it.

[lnrw]

Depends on how many it takes.

[Dylan]

You could post them all in the same thread?

[lnrw]

Because all 6 posters are overwhelmed posting in other threads?

I don't think I'm doing any harm or interfering with anyone or anything.

You can ignore them.

[exploited]

Nothing wrong with gun posts. Ignore these plebs dude.

The first argument in the article - regarding absolute gun ownership and the murder rate - is a classic example of a person not following through with his thoughts. How many of those new guns are owned by people who already own a gun? The percentage of Americans who own guns is, what, 30-40%? It follows that the average gun owner possesses more than one gun. The obvious conclusion is that the risk of homicide doesn't increase person by person if that person has 1, 2 or 5 guns. The important point is the difference with a person who owns no guns and a person who owns at least one... And on that front, the statistics are absolutely clear. Gun ownership increases the risk of homicide in the home, as it does the risk of suicide, accidental death and injuries. This has been confirmed literally over and over again.

The second major point questions whether gun laws lead to less gun crimes. The author says that there is no evidence of this - as proof, he tries his hardest to undermine a study featured in the National Journal. The problem is that when you read what this guy actually does, it is an abomination to statistics. For some reason, he decides that overall violent crimes must be considered to answer a question that has nothing to do with overall violent crimes. He argues that criminals might just switch to a different weapon, therefore the data needs to consider other types of violence. The problem is that this substitution theory has been absolutely devastated, again and again, over the years. It is probably the single weakest argument you could make in support of guns - just compare the utility of a sword with a firearm, and you can see why it makes no sense to stake this claim. He even goes so far as to draw out a ridiculous analogy about two towns, one of which bans a certain type of car, and therefore sees less deaths from that type. The problem, of course, is that guns aren't banned anywhere in the US.

That is pretty much the extent of the guys arguments. They rehash much of the same talking points we've debated endlessly before, and they aren't convincing at all.

[Philly]

Dylan and I are not plebs. That's a baseless personal attack. Reported.

[Medius]

[Medius]

[Philly]

Don't tell me you're one of those people who puts sweaters on dogs.