MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Seriousness The three mass shootings this month

Xenophon · 04-05-2009, 12:32 PM

Many common household implements in the US have higher death-tolls than firearms. These include:

Automobiles (including trucks, busses, etc.)
Five-gallon plastic buckets.
The ever-popular "blunt instrument."

The US has more homicides that do not involve firearms than homicide by fire-arm. Even more oddly, when you consider killings involving legally owned weapons the numbers get quite small indeed. Most homicide by firearm involves violent criminal A killing violent criminal B -- a problem that has existed since long before the beginning of recorded history. They just didn't use guns back when Ug killed Og over the best part of the deer. You might not realize these things if all you see is news coverage, because the cases that don't fit that profile are the ones that get most of the news.

Should any of you choose to check up on these assertions, be very careful when reading papers on the subject. Nearly all writers conflate different kinds of problems (whether deliberately or not) and so produce exceedingly confusing statistics (as in "lies, damned lies, and"). For example, the CDC* reports on deaths of children involving fire-arms -- and you have to look really carefully to discover that their definition of "children" includes people below the age of 25(!)*, includes deaths of criminals in shootouts with police, includes deaths of policemen (who happened to be younger than 25), etc.

And writings from other places (on both sides of the issue) are nearly as confusing!

If you read the literature, you must read very carefully indeed!

Xenophon

*I single out the CDC because that particular bogosity is easy to explain. Others are nearly as bad, but more subtly so. Further, I may well have mis-remembered the number 25 -- it might really be 21, or 20, or 22, or... but it was definitely older than 18.

04-05-2009, 12:32 PM	#59
Xenophon curmudgeon Posts: 1,487 Karma: 5748190 Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Redwood City, CA USA Device: Kobo Aura HD, (ex)nook, (ex)PRS-700, (ex)PRS-500	Many common household implements in the US have higher death-tolls than firearms. These include: Automobiles (including trucks, busses, etc.) Five-gallon plastic buckets. The ever-popular "blunt instrument." The US has more homicides that do not involve firearms than homicide by fire-arm. Even more oddly, when you consider killings involving legally owned weapons the numbers get quite small indeed. Most homicide by firearm involves violent criminal A killing violent criminal B -- a problem that has existed since long before the beginning of recorded history. They just didn't use guns back when Ug killed Og over the best part of the deer. You might not realize these things if all you see is news coverage, because the cases that don't fit that profile are the ones that get most of the news. Should any of you choose to check up on these assertions, be very careful when reading papers on the subject. Nearly all writers conflate different kinds of problems (whether deliberately or not) and so produce exceedingly confusing statistics (as in "lies, damned lies, and"). For example, the CDC* reports on deaths of children involving fire-arms -- and you have to look really carefully to discover that their definition of "children" includes people below the age of 25(!), includes deaths of criminals in shootouts with police, includes deaths of policemen (who happened to be younger than 25), etc. And writings from other places (on both sides of the issue) are nearly as confusing! If you read the literature, you must read very carefully indeed! Xenophon I single out the CDC because that particular bogosity is easy to explain. Others are nearly as bad, but more subtly so. Further, I may well have mis-remembered the number 25 -- it might really be 21, or 20, or 22, or... but it was definitely older than 18.