OT religion and smacking

Chookie wrote:

My beef is that:
P(intruder) * P(getting to gun) * P (shooting intruder successfully)
must be greater than
P(gun accidents to family member) + P(gun murder of family member) +
P(gun suicide of family member)
to make gun ownership a good risk, and that I fear that the
probability of a family member becoming deranged/suicidal is rather
higher than the probability of the intruder scenario for most of us.

There are some interesting statistics on USA crimes at
http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/PublicSafety.shtml

Here is some interesting information on Firearm deaths in the US in 1999
though.

38% homicides (10,828)
57% suicides (16,599)
3% unintentional (824)
1% undetermined (324)

They separate by age as well. Those numbers above are totals. The rate of
violent crime is in the millions though. This discussion has focused on
burglary of ones home and in 1999 that was 34.1 per 1000 households.
Anyone know how many households in the US so we could turn that into a
number? There was a piece on the use of firearms as self-defense. 1/5 of
the victims suffered an injury compared to 1/2 of the victims who did not
have a gun for self defense. All these figures can be very misleading if
they are not put together properly and I don't have time to do that!!! So,
if interested check out the site ;-)

--
Nikki
Mama to Hunter (4) and Luke (2)

Chookie wrote in message ...
I presume that you are asserting that the rate of violent crime in a
society
will remain static whether guns are freely available or not. I disbelieve
this because, as I have already posted, our rate of "nutter" gun crime appears
to have dropped, without replacement with other kinds of "nutter" mass-murder.
This is partly because guns are not only a *quick* way to kill many people;
they allow you to kill at a distance. Go nuts with a gun and you can kill a
lot of people. Go nuts with a baseball bat and it's a different story.

There is the case in Japan where a "nutter" killed a bunch of kids at
a school with a knife. And violent crime without guns DOES go up when
guns are removed. For example, you are much more likely to be
bludgeoned to death in England, than in the US.

Cathy Weeks

Do you have a gun safe in every room? I'm having a hard time imagining
being surprised by an intruder in my bedroom and somehow getting to the
downstairs den to the gun safe all that quickly and without the intruder
catching onto what you're doing.

Do you think the police can show up in 30 seconds? If so, you've a better
police force than we have.


No, but an intruder who is motivated to maim or kill can certainly do it
more quickly than 30 seconds.

Well, sure. But you have more of a chance of getting to your gun than
the police do of getting there while it still matters.

Are you suggesting that people shouldn't have guns because they might
not have time to get to it prior to getting killed by an intruder,
even though there is NO chance the police could get there prior to the
murder?

Cathy Weeks
Mommy to Kivi Alexis 12/01

38% homicides (10,828)
57% suicides (16,599)
3% unintentional (824)
1% undetermined (324)

So guns are most often used for suicide? Am I reading that right? And
I'm curious to know the the overall rate of suicide (so we'd know the
percentage that used guns vs. other methods).

My understanding is that most (huge majority) guns in the US are never
fired with violent intent (ie only for target practice)

Cathy Weeks
Mommy to Kivi Alexis 12/01

Cathy Weeks wrote:

Do you have a gun safe in every room? I'm having a hard time imagining
being surprised by an intruder in my bedroom and somehow getting to the
downstairs den to the gun safe all that quickly and without the intruder
catching onto what you're doing.

Do you think the police can show up in 30 seconds? If so, you've a better
police force than we have.


No, but an intruder who is motivated to maim or kill can certainly do it
more quickly than 30 seconds.

Well, sure. But you have more of a chance of getting to your gun than
the police do of getting there while it still matters.

Are you suggesting that people shouldn't have guns because they might
not have time to get to it prior to getting killed by an intruder,
even though there is NO chance the police could get there prior to the
murder?


No, did you see that suggestion? I'm just presenting a counterpoint to
the argument that 30 seconds is a short period of time. To me, it's a
long period of time in which a lot can happen.

FWIW, an intruder did break into my house (and my bedroom) while I was
sick with chickenpox. The nanosecond he saw me, the intruder ran. And
I chased him to the kitchen door - yes, I was incensed that someone had
the nerve. But the ENTIRE incident took less than 30 seconds, from the
intruder sighting me to me seeing him run out my kitchen, jump down a 7
foot deck and leaping over a 7 foot fence.

You're right. No way the police could have gotten there within the time
frame. Although they arrive within a minute of being called. But there
was also no time to even open a drawer, never mind unlocking and opening
a drawer. Or maybe there was, but we don't have guns in our house and
we don't hold intruder drills (that's about the only way I could have
the reaction to grab a gun/weapon).

Jeanne

Cathy Weeks wrote:
38% homicides (10,828)
57% suicides (16,599)
3% unintentional (824)
1% undetermined (324)

So guns are most often used for suicide? Am I reading that right? And
I'm curious to know the the overall rate of suicide (so we'd know the
percentage that used guns vs. other methods).

No I wouldn't say guns are most often used for suicide. Those figures are
for the # of firearm *deaths* and how they break down. Not all use of guns
involve a death of course. Thousands and thousands more violent crimes are
committed with the use of guns but do not result in a death. Frankly, I
was shocked. In further digging there were 30,575 deaths by suicide in
America in 1998 and only 17,893 homicides in that year. I had no idea there
were so many suicides resulting in death. That doesn't count attempts.

Violent crime in the US has been declining btw.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr52/nvsr52_03.pdf

I had my eyes dialated today so it is hard to read or I'd dig up some more
;-) but here are some facts on suicide in the US from the site above.

In 2000 - 30,622 deaths by suicide of those...
Firearms - 16,869
Posioning - 5,191
Suffocation - 6,198
Fall - 651
Cut/Pierce - 458
Drowing - 339
and the rest were made up of fire, flame, transport, struck, other

--
Nikki
Mama to Hunter (4) and Luke (2)

"Nikki" wrote in message ...
Cathy Weeks wrote:
No I wouldn't say guns are most often used for suicide. Those figures are
for the # of firearm *deaths* and how they break down. Not all use of guns
involve a death of course. Thousands and thousands more violent crimes are
committed with the use of guns but do not result in a death.

Yep, and of course there is alot of legal use of guns as well.

Frankly, I
was shocked. In further digging there were 30,575 deaths by suicide in
America in 1998 and only 17,893 homicides in that year. I had no idea there
were so many suicides resulting in death. That doesn't count attempts.

I wonder if that is because doctors don't seem to care much about
relieving pain. I have chronic pain that doctors weren't solving for
me, but luckily I just researched and threw every pain relief
treatment I could find at it and have it where it is under control.
But, there was a time that the pain was sooo severe it was hard for me
to not kill myself. I just perservered with the hope that it would
eventually get better. Doctors don't seem to care about helping
people with pain too much in my experience. Because of what I have
been through I can understand people choosing to die to escape pain.

KC



Violent crime in the US has been declining btw.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr52/nvsr52_03.pdf

I had my eyes dialated today so it is hard to read or I'd dig up some more
;-) but here are some facts on suicide in the US from the site above.

In 2000 - 30,622 deaths by suicide of those...
Firearms - 16,869
Posioning - 5,191
Suffocation - 6,198
Fall - 651
Cut/Pierce - 458
Drowing - 339
and the rest were made up of fire, flame, transport, struck, other

"Nina" wrote in message ...
I once got in trouble in Jr high, some boys did too, same offense.
Because
they wouldn't paddle girls, the boys got a paddling and I got
suspended for 3
days.

This is unfair for boys. Science has proven that the average little
girl is no weaker, nicer, or less aggresive than the average little
boy of the same age. Either girls should get paddling or boys
shouldn't. In fact, science has proven that little girls are actually
stronger and more aggressive than little boys of the same age

Treating boys unfairly only causes them to develop jealousy of girls.
This can lead to repressed rage. Later in life the boy make take his
anger out on girls by harming. So if we really care about the safety
of girls, we must treat boys equally.

The average adult women:

1. Is physically weaker than the average adult man

2. Can get pregnant where men can't

3. Less violent (esp. toward children) than the average adult man

4. Is more emotional than the average adult man

I therefore do agree that women need more protection than men. However
when such is applied to children, it can really mess boys up.

I really care about boys and wish they were treated as good girls or
that girls were not treated better than boys. Boys are as frail as
girls.

As for preventing male-to-female violence, the best measure would be
to stop treated boys unfairly. This would stop such violence by approx
90%. Males who attack females based on gender are usually repeating
the victim-perpertrator cycle.

The younger the boy is when attack with sexism, the younger his
potential female victim(s) will be. Its all in the science.

In article ,
(Cathy Weeks) wrote:

There is the case in Japan where a "nutter" killed a bunch of kids at
a school with a knife.

From what I can determine on the Net, 8 kids died and 21 people were injured
in this attack in 2001. It was the worst mass-murder since the sarin gas
attacks 6 years earlier (ie, mass knife murders don't seem to be a feature in
the Japanese way of life -- and IIRC they have strict gun laws).

As I keep trying to point out, with a knife, the assailant has to come to
close quarters with the victim. With a gun, he doesn't. That's why this guy
only managed to kill 8 *little children* (no adults) in a presumably packed
building, while 33 people -- adults AND children -- were shot dead in a picnic
area at Port Arthur, while they were running away from the murderer.

IOW, a nutcase with a gun can kill lots of people easily, even at a distance.
A nutcase with a knife can kill people, but not so quickly, and not at a
distance, therefore not so many as with a gun.

And violent crime without guns DOES go up when
guns are removed.
For example, you are much more likely to be
bludgeoned to death in England, than in the US.

Did I say it wouldn't? The question is whether it results in the same
*murder* (and suicide) rate.

You are more likely to be bludgeoned to death here too, I believe (true even
before our stricter gun laws). The most likely route to being killed in
Australia is to go to a rough pub late at night and pick a fight with someone
(one of our better-known cricketers died recently in this sort of situation,
though the details aren't all known yet). Same situation applies as with the
knife -- you are fighting at close quarters. You can kill people with a pub
chair, for example, but not so quickly, and not at a distance, therefore not
so many as with a gun.
You will notice that this sort of violence is quite personal, and puts the
attacker at some risk -- unlike, say, the Washington sniper situation.

Anyway, do you see what I'm getting at?

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Life is like a cigarette -- smoke it to the butt." -- Harvie Krumpet

In article ,
"Nikki" wrote:

I had no idea there were so many suicides resulting in death.

Er, don't they all?

:-)

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Life is like a cigarette -- smoke it to the butt." -- Harvie Krumpet