US Drops to #49 in Life Expectancy

[sees_all1]

I appreciate him citing his information, but that doesn't make the primary sources reliable. You'll notice my questions were mostly addressing the original fact.

 

Have the book in front of me right now.

Actual reports of successful defensive non-shootings are low (and you won't find them in the news - nothing could bore the media more than "no shots fired"), but that doesn't mean they aren't out there. Social scientists studying the phenomenon disagree widely about the actual numbers, but one set of thirteen different surveys yielded results ranging from 760,000 to over 3 million defensive gun uses per year. According to another particularly well-respected survey, no shots were ever fired in over three-fourths of such defensive gun uses.

 

 

A.D.D. moment- A few grassroots efforts are under way to do the job the media won't and track defensive gun uses. You can find updates on two of them here:

www.keepandbeararms.com/opsd

www.claytoncramer.com/gundefenseblog/blogger.html

 

 

SOURCE:

Gary Kleck, "Guns and Self Defense," in Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control (Piscataway, N.J.: Aldine Transaction, 1997).

 

Google'd the source, the guy is a criminologist at Florida State University and has a phd.

[Zierro]

And that doesn't even include crimes committed with guns. Every tried robbing a bank with a knife? It's a little bit less impressive. Ever tried to run away from someone without getting hurt? It's a heck of a lot easier if they don't have a firearm.

 

Ever tried fighting off a burglar with a knife? Oh that's right, good old reliable Poochy has everything under control.

 

US has a high murder rate: http://www.nationmas...ders-per-capita (3 times higher than the UK)

US has a high firearm death rate, which is correlated with % gun ownership: http://www.gun-contr...rk.org/GF01.htm

 

I'm sure you think that's due to the "anarchic" country on your southern border, or immigrants, or poor people in gangs, or something else. But I think its because of all the guns.

 

Drug laws don't really prevent drug trafficking in America. And being an 'American right', I don't think Americans would give up guns so quickly either. So I guess you could say yes, it does have something to do with the culture.

 

Guns are for killing, and that's the bottom line.

 

And intimidation (to prevent further conflict [or to exacerbate it]).

 

2 seconds... which is still 2 seconds less than it takes you to get at your gun wherever you have it, aim and fire. Oh, that's right, you're the hero that can quick draw, aim at the head, and save the day.

 

Why do you people always assume that they're just going to trip over their shoelaces and fall onto their gun and kill themselves?

[Saru Inc]

IF ONLY YOU KNEW HOW WRONG YOU ARE ZIERO.

 

 

 

aka

 

 

I concur with your intellectually stimulating post, it has giving my ego, and brain, a plethora of endorphins.

<3:

[Alg]

I feel like poking the Nationmaster one... According to it, The US has 0.042802 murders per 1,000 people. Unless I'm horribly wrong, that comes out to around 4 per 100,000, around 4 times the rate of the UK's. And unless I'm missing something else, this doesn't include just guns.

 

Now consider that one statistic that keeps floating around, that there are "more weapons than people" in the country. For that amount of weapons, there really aren't as many people using them maliciously as one would think there are. Could it be that the majority of gun owners are responsible? It seems that you would have us believe that the US is basically one big Western-style gunfight.

And why wouldn't that be the case when the only way that the country seems to get portrayed is as a population of ignorant, bigoted gun nuts? Facts get in the way of that kind of moral outrage, I can't expect people to actually look into them...