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#161
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Gun safety/America (was: 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) |
#162
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Gun safety/America (was: OT religion and smacking)
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 |
#163
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Gun safety/America (was: OT religion and smacking)
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 |
#164
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Gun safety/America (was: OT religion and smacking)
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 |
#165
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Gun safety/America (was: OT religion and smacking)
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 |
#166
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Gun safety/America (was: OT religion and smacking)
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) |
#167
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Gun safety/America (was: OT religion and smacking)
"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 |
#168
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Boys are treated Unfairly [was OT religion and smacking]
"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. |
#169
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Gun safety/America (was: OT religion and smacking)
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#170
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Gun safety/America (was: OT religion and smacking)
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 |
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