I could almost, just ALMOST take him and his question seriously up until his idiot buddy at the end.
Get a haircut hippies.
Or perhaps ease into it by washing your hair first.
So does he ever give the details on his “research” or is he just parroting the same “research” magoo and mikeb302000 always quote but never list?
Seems they are following the tenet, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”
“If you can’t bedazzle them with brilliance, befuddle them with bulls**t.”
Also, the scrawny guy has terrible trigger control.
I have a hard time taking anything the “I’m a banana” guy says or does seriously.
I actually feel dumber after watching that dribble. 55 seconds, plus the time it took to write this comment, that I will never get back, to go get that “advanced training” he feels we should all be required to have before owning or operating weapons (ballbat, knife, fork, soda can top, pocket comb).
So the Moral of the Story,”Don’t buy Airsoft????”
easily the dumbest thing I’ve seen all day……according to my research.
Agreed. And I’ve been reading about Congress and Obama all morning…..
I don’t know what’s wrong with you people. As a product of the American educational system, Onision is everything we could possibly hope for. Moreover, he’s certainly as smart as any Democratic congressman. And when it comes to firearms, I’m sure he knows as much a Carolyn McCarthy. Hey, Onision, have a barrel shroud on me. Just don’t put it up over your shoulder.
Or as smart as a Liberal in Canada.
Isn’t “Liberal in Canada” redundant?
No.
How advanced is his training requirement? I’ve done some pretty intense training, but nothing like the SEALs.
more like glee club, these guys are up there with cokeman 2423, i will never forget the video TTAG posted with him shooting a makarov in his room.
I know what those two got on their IQ tests…….drool.
I’d like to see either of these self-aggrandizing, wannabe-intellectual, hipster d-bags take on an actual example of the “red-neck” stereotype they mock at the end of the clip (in so doing implying that all 2A supporters are morons) in a real debate about the veracity of preserving our Constitutionally protected Right to keep and bear arms. Like all elitists backed up by a wealth of their own beliefs but a dearth of actual information, “Bubba” would no doubt dissect them with CITED statistics and fact-based analysis. Just imagine what the other 99.99% of gun owners would be able to do…
I made it to :21 seconds. It is best to ignore those that think it cool to leave only one eye visible while the other is hidden behind a greasy scrag of hair. Hippies are never a good source of information.
According to my research, I and my family are more likely NOT to suffer firearms accidents than we are TO suffer such accidents, even with weapons in the house. Also, those guys in the video are a couple of bigots.
What are his qualifications to suggest that advanced training be required to own certain private property? Should advanced training be required for the First Amendment? I ‘feeeeell’ it should be. What do you ‘feeeeeeeelllll’ about it?
“I am Jacks utter lack of a strong male role model”
William says: “So does he ever give the details on his “research” or is he just parroting the same “research” magoo and mikeb302000 always quote but never list?”
The guy is a complete dork and I don’t even know how people find this stuff to waste their time with it. But he is right about this: statistically, a gun is far more likely to result in a tragedy than be used in a DGU.
We’ve been through the numbers and all they inspire in you is denial, so let’s try a challenge: Every daily news cycle, you post the DGUs and I’ll post the accidents. It gives me no satisfaction at all to promise you that I will absolutely bury you. You don’t have a chance. In a couple of days you will be whining about media conspiracies.
“Every daily news cycle, you post the DGUs and I’ll post the accidents.”
If you consider that to be sound methodology it’s no wonder you believe in gun control.
Look, the only person “in denial” about the numbers is you. We’ve dismantled the “43 times more likely” nonsense by pointing out that they include suicides and exclude DGUs where no shot is fired, among other weaknesses. You’ve dismantled our numbers by… well, actually you haven’t dismantled our numbers. You dismiss them out of hand but can offer no rational basis for doing so.
I think we can all agree that there are roughly 35,000 wrongful deaths each year involving firearms. That’s including crime, suicide and accident. In order for your “far more likely” stat to be true there would have to be no more than 814 DGUs each year. That’s under a thousand. I know you dispute Kleck’s numbers (though you still can’t explain why) but do you really think he’s off by 2460% ? And the lowest figure I was able to find for defensive gun use, from any source, was an estimate of 80,000 DGUs. In order for you to be right the lowest available estimate has to be off by two orders of magnitude.
Yes, 80,000 is a good deal less than Kleck’s 2 million, but it’s still more than twice the total number of wrongful deaths.
I’m sorry, but you’re not allowed to simply dismiss numbers like that. If you continue to insist that a gun is “far more likely to cause a tragedy” you’re going to have to produce some actual evidence.
I’ve never said “43 times more likely.” I have no idea what you are talking about and I am sure you don’t either.
I offered the daily news challenge due to the well-known problem with the statistics on DGUs: their rarity. There is a reason the numbers are so thin and spotty: so are the events.
But mainly I am curious to know why this topic drives you to such fury. It’s like waving a red cape in front of you. What’s up with that?
“I’ve never said “43 times more likely.” I have no idea what you are talking about and I am sure you don’t either.”
Google the term “43 times more likely”. It’s the standard talking point amongst gun control advocates when they talk about guns being inherently dangerous. If my assumption that that’s what you were referring to was incorrect I apologize, but I also ask that you quantify the term “far more likely”.
“I offered the daily news challenge due to the well-known problem with the statistics on DGUs: their rarity. There is a reason the numbers are so thin and spotty: so are the events.”
So according to you this is how it’s supposed to work: dozens of people actually study a subject and present their findings along with the method they used to find them. You don’t like the findings and state “that’s impossible”. And we’re supposed to accept your baseless assertion as fact. Rational argument doesn’t work that way.
Tell you what though, since you have such faith in your news-combing method let’s apply it to something else. Every time there’s a news story about a plane crashing I’ll post it, and every time there’s a news story about a plane landing safely you post it. Using that method I’ll prove that nearly 100% of the people who set foot on planes die horribly.
“But mainly I am curious to know why this topic drives you to such fury. It’s like waving a red cape in front of you. What’s up with that?”
What fury? I’m just presenting math.
And I’d like to point out that, as has happened 100% of the times before and as I expect will happen 100% of the times in the future, you have responded to someone posting numbers by not providing a simple, straight answer. Which to me begs the question: if what you believe is so obviously true then why is it so impossible for you to prove?
I’ll ask you again: what does this “43 times” have to do with me? You’re tilting at windmills.
Your argument about plane crashes doesn’t make sense. You are equating DGUs to planes landing safely. Huh?
Are you kidding? I so get that analogy.
DGUs are news. Planes landed safely are not news.
Your contention seems to be then that if it doesn’t get reported on it didn’t happen.
According to the DOJ there were 4.34 million violent crimes in 2009. Can you find a news report on every one of them? I seriously doubt it. Does that mean they didn’t happen? Of course not.
I’ll ask you again: what does this “43 times” have to do with me? You’re tilting at windmills.
I’ll answer you again: usually when a gun control advocate says a gun is “much more likely” to cause a tragedy than be used defensively they’re referring to the talking point I mentioned. As I said above, if that’s not what you were referring to I apologize, but along with the apolgy comes a request that you tell me what in your mind constitutes “far more likely”. Do you mean twice as likely? Three times? Give us some kind of number.
Your argument about plane crashes doesn’t make sense. You are equating DGUs to planes landing safely. Huh?
No, I’m pointing out that the news only reports things they consider newsworthy. “Child has tragic, bloody accident” is newsworthy. “Homeowner frightens away intruder, no one hurt” isn’t.
But again, as you always do, you’re focusing on minutia while leaving the central question unanswered. In this case that question is “On what factual basis do you make the claim that a gun is x-number of times more likely to cause an accidental injury than to be used defensively”.
It’s a simple question. Can you give me a simple answer?
I guess I don’t get my simple answer. Imagine my surprise.
There is also the issue of deterence. Crimes that don’t happen because a rational criminal chooses not to commit them out of fear of being shot cannot be counted. You can only infer the difference, e.g., Northern Virginia versus the District of Columbia.
Magoo and Mike and other gun controllers (new civility here) are generally guilty of first order thinking. Guns kill people therefore if we ban guns then people won’t be killed. They fail to take into account alternative means of murder and suicide, that criminals will feel bolder and of course banning private ownership of firearms will only create a black market that will be readily satisfied by criminal organizations. To carry on a theme banning guns in Virginia will not make Virginia safer. It will make it more like DC.
Magoo says of Mikeb302000:
“The guy is a complete dork and I don’t even know how people find this stuff to waste their time with it.”
What’s your opinion of his coblogger, JadeG? You two seem to think quite a bit alike. As a matter of fact I’ve seen you post the same links and quotes as him. I think you two would get along splendidly!
@Magoo
I see that you’ve thus far refused my simple question/simple answer challenge above. I’d like to give you some other numbers to think about here in response to your contention that guns aren’t used defensively.
Using 2009 figures we have 555 thousand assaults and 200 thousand rapes. Of those, 25% of the assaults and 32% of the rapes occurred at home, giving us (excluding murder) roughly 200 thousand serious violent crimes occurring in the home. Using a lowball figure for unreported crimes I’ll add another 50 thousand of that to give us a quarter-million.
Please note that I’m not even bringing CCW into this. I’m only talking about guns at home.
Unless we’re assuming that criminals have a 100% success rate it is fair to assume that the number of attempted crimes exceeds the number of successful ones. I’m going to use what I consider a lowball figure and say that 10% of attempted crimes are successfully defended against. I admit that I have no source for that figure but it sounds reasonable to me. If anyone disagrees I’d be happy to hear their rationale.
That means that 25,000 violent crimes are resisted each year, at an absolute minimum. How many of those are resisted using guns? I don’t know. But it makes sense to me that among successful resistors the armed are going to be better represented than the unarmed, especially when one considers how many US households have guns.
Mathematically speaking there is absolutely no basis for your claim that a gun is “far more likely” to be involved in an accident than in a defensive use. And that’s just using my crude figures. The NCV survey information estimates 80,000 DGUs each year. Why is that significant? Because that figure is cited by gun-control advocates as being authoritative. They use it as a refutation of Kleck’s two-million number, seemingly oblivious to the fact that their refutation still admits to DGUs being more than twice as common as wrongful gun deaths. Not just accidents mind you… all wrongful deaths.
I don’t expect you to answer this substantively, but hopefully it will do some good for someone who’s genuinely interested in making a decision based on data.
I stand amazed that gun grabbers still simply parrot what they know must be true and claim it as a statistic and refuse to provide any substantial anything to back it up rather than their own feeling about the issue. While gun grabbers consider gun nuts (equal opportunity epithets I guess) to be irrational – when we see such gun nuts post real numbers with math – they stonewall and pretend they answer when you can see that they don’t.
I stand by my earlier statement that they are living proof of lying long enough becomes truth to some folks. And I’m not sure they are intentional about regurgitating the lies. They have fallen for them and now spread them to us with the fervor of a televangelist.
Sorry, I can’t go with your reasoning on firearms used to resist crimes based on a wild-guess estimate on number of crimes resisted. You say we need to employ rigor, then you pull numbers out of thin air. As long as we are just guessing, I’ll guess that only a tiny fraction of the crimes resisted involve firearms.
Please forgive the delay in replying. When you are arguing with me from multiple points in the discussion at once, I may not see them all.
My numbers aren’t pulled “from thin air”. I linked to my sources. The only number I extropolated on was using 10% as a successful-defense figure, and in so doing I was being generous to your side of the argument. Just as I was being generous by completely discounting crimes outside the home.
But fine, we’ll stick to hard numbers with no interpretation: what is your rationale for dismissing the NCVS figure of 80,000 DGU’s… the figure that even the Brady Campaign uses? And if you don’t trust the lowest available estimate of DGUs then what number would you trust?
You know what? We’ll take the rock bottom lowest estimate for DGUs and then arbitrarily cut it in half. That leaves 40,000 DGUs. That still outnumbers accidents.
So my question remains: on what basis do you make the claim that a gun is many times more likely to cause a tragedy than it is a defensive use?
What I find so funny about the “people who are allowed to have guns should be required to get training” argument is that the po-po get all kinds of training (up to and including military tactics) and yet how may stories has TTAG posted where a cop was either irresponsible with their gun, or involved in an ND.
Training is great… but at the end of the day I have a Constitutionally protected (not granted, the right is intrinsic) right to defend my life, the live’s of my family and protect my property. The Second Amendment says nothing of training, “advanced” or otherwise. It does say “shall not be infringed” though.
Actually, in the spirit of fairness I’m going to play a little devil’s advocate here.
Gun grabbers love to focus on the subordinate clause of the 2A, which reads “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State….
The thing about the grabbers is that they quote that without having the slightest idea what it means. It does not refer to an army of bureaucrats looking over everyone’s shoulder. “Well regulated”, in the usage of the time, referred to something being in good working order. As in “Le Bernardin is a well regulated restaurant. Every single course is perfectly prepared and beautifully presented”.
Keeping that in mind, a well regulated militia is a body of citizens with well maintained weapons and, arguably, proficiency with those weapons.
I agree that “shall not be infringed” is a pretty clear cut statement, and that is the independent clause in the sentence. Based on that I think if we’re going to err it should be on the side of freedom. But as long as it wasn’t applied as de facto prohibition I don’t think a training requirement would necessarily be odious.
Are not the “Militia” and “The People” two different entities though?
We have a Militia – that is made up of the various branches of the military.
It’s because a military is necessarily to protect the state that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
The 2A exists to protect the people’s right to keep and bear arms in case we ever need to defend ourselves from said militia the government would not be able to legally take away the people’s guns.
I’m a purist – any government blockade between me and exercising my right, no matter how prudent (such as training), is an infringement.
How about we require the gun grabbers to take a class and get a licence before they exercise their right to free speech? Think they will go for that?
“Are not the “Militia” and “The People” two different entities though?”
In order for the text to make sense grammatically “the militia” and “the people” have to be the same entity.
Using the language that the Founders did the militia was made up of every adult male (naturally not including slaves). The Founders considered such a militia to be “essential to the security of a free state”.
Ground forces operated by the government are called “the army”, and in Article 2 it’s made clear that “the army” and “the militia” are two distinct entities.
The 2A exists to protect the people’s right to keep and bear arms in case we ever need to defend ourselves from …the government…
On that fundamental point we agree. I’m just saying that based on the text of the 2A a training requirement isn’t necessarily off the table. Indeed, an argument could be made that the 2A requires training (I’m not saying it’s an argument I’d agree with, just saying it’s a reasonable interpretation of the text).
How about we require the gun grabbers to take a class and get a licence before they exercise their right to free speech? Think they will go for that?
I don’t think they’d go for that, and I think that suggesting it makes an excellent illustration of how dangerous it is to apply their thinking to the Bill of Rights.
If the Militia and the People are one-in-the-same then why does the 2A refer to both the Militia and the People?
If the intention was to refer to the Militia throughout should it not read:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the Militia to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
I think you should be required to have advanced training to post videos on the net.
Adam says: “What I find so funny about the “people who are allowed to have guns should be required to get training” argument is that the po-po get all kinds of training (up to and including military tactics) and yet how may stories has TTAG posted where a cop was either irresponsible with their gun, or involved in an ND.”
Disappointing as law enforcement’s safety record with firearms is, I’ll bet it’s still better than the safety record for non-LEO civilians. Are we trying to argue that training is a bad thing? If so, include me out. Cops need more and better training. Non-cops need more and better training, too.
I don’t think he’s saying training is a bad thing, I think he’s saying that exercising one’s right can’t be contingent on it. The same way we allow illiterate people their right to vote and guilty-as-sin mobsters to not incriminate themselves.
Also, honestly, I can teach someone everything they need to know about safe gun handling in 10 minutes. The kind of stupid that results in NDs can’t really be cured by training anyway.
Training is not bad at all. but when it’s a required by law in order for me to exercise my intrinsic right – it’s an infringement on that right.
The argument in the video is that – more training = less accidents. I’m saying that I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. Again, look a LEOs, the one group of people most anti-gun, anti-2A people agree should have guns. they have the training and yet, as we can see, it really means noting in terms of preventing stupid.
@Magoo
So you think that government mandated training to be allowed to exercise a right is ok?
Would you think it’s ok to require people to take a class before they were allowed to exercise their right to free speech?
And don’t tell me it’s not the same thing – the idea that you be required to do anything other than exist to exercise any of your rights is preposterous. You would not stand for such silliness baring you from exercising any other right – why are 2A rights any different.
Adam… did you actually read any of my posts? Because I said these things unequivocally: “I agree that “shall not be infringed” is a pretty clear cut statement, and that is the independent clause in the sentence. Based on that I think if we’re going to err it should be on the side of freedom.”
and I don’t think they’d go for (classes required for free speech), and I think that suggesting it makes an excellent illustration of how dangerous it is to apply their thinking to the Bill of Rights.
So you’re arguing with someone who basically agrees with you.
But the fact remains that the subordinate clause is in the 2A, and that clause mentions a “well regulated militia”. It is arguable, based on the language of the day, that “well regulated” means “equipped and trained”. If we’re going to argue from the standpoint of original intent (and I think we should be doing just that) then we’re obligated to honestly appraise what that intent was based on the clear text of the Constitution.
@James Felix
The comment threading does not make replies very clear – you must have caught my comment before I added the “@Magoo” at the top for clarity.
Yes, I did read your posts – that comment was directed @Magoo
Apologies for the confusion.
Adam says:
“@Magoo
So you think that government mandated training to be allowed to exercise a right is ok?
Would you think it’s ok to require people to take a class before they were allowed to exercise their right to free speech?
And don’t tell me it’s not the same thing – the idea that you be required to do anything other than exist to exercise any of your rights is preposterous. You would not stand for such silliness baring you from exercising any other right – why are 2A rights any different.”
Well, I can tell you that they are indeed different, and you can take it from there. For example, in my state there is a mandatory 12-hour training course to obtain a handgun permit, and it’s totally constitutional. Now, your interpretation of the Constitution might be totally different from that of any Supreme Court justice who ever lived, and that’s your right. But it’s only your interpretation.
The point is they speech and the right to keep and bear arms are rights protected by the constitution. No other right protected by the constitution requires that you take a class before you exercise it.
For example, in my state there is a mandatory 12-hour training course to obtain a handgun permit, and it’s totally constitutional.
Ah, I see what you did there. Your right – state governments are completely free to place whatever restrictions on guns they want since the Second Amendment isn’t incorporated by the Supreme Court to apply to the states.
Now, the Supreme Court has ruled to stop outright bans on gun ownership in states (Parker v District of Columbia). And with more recent rulings (McDonald v Chicago) is seems that we may be on the path to have states recognize the Second Amendment the same way they recognize, say the 14th… one can hope anyway.
I could almost, just ALMOST take him and his question seriously up until his idiot buddy at the end.
Get a haircut hippies.
Or perhaps ease into it by washing your hair first.
So does he ever give the details on his “research” or is he just parroting the same “research” magoo and mikeb302000 always quote but never list?
Seems they are following the tenet, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”
“If you can’t bedazzle them with brilliance, befuddle them with bulls**t.”
Also, the scrawny guy has terrible trigger control.
I have a hard time taking anything the “I’m a banana” guy says or does seriously.
I actually feel dumber after watching that dribble. 55 seconds, plus the time it took to write this comment, that I will never get back, to go get that “advanced training” he feels we should all be required to have before owning or operating weapons (ballbat, knife, fork, soda can top, pocket comb).
So the Moral of the Story,”Don’t buy Airsoft????”
easily the dumbest thing I’ve seen all day……according to my research.
Agreed. And I’ve been reading about Congress and Obama all morning…..
I don’t know what’s wrong with you people. As a product of the American educational system, Onision is everything we could possibly hope for. Moreover, he’s certainly as smart as any Democratic congressman. And when it comes to firearms, I’m sure he knows as much a Carolyn McCarthy. Hey, Onision, have a barrel shroud on me. Just don’t put it up over your shoulder.
Or as smart as a Liberal in Canada.
Isn’t “Liberal in Canada” redundant?
No.
How advanced is his training requirement? I’ve done some pretty intense training, but nothing like the SEALs.
more like glee club, these guys are up there with cokeman 2423, i will never forget the video TTAG posted with him shooting a makarov in his room.
I know what those two got on their IQ tests…….drool.
I’d like to see either of these self-aggrandizing, wannabe-intellectual, hipster d-bags take on an actual example of the “red-neck” stereotype they mock at the end of the clip (in so doing implying that all 2A supporters are morons) in a real debate about the veracity of preserving our Constitutionally protected Right to keep and bear arms. Like all elitists backed up by a wealth of their own beliefs but a dearth of actual information, “Bubba” would no doubt dissect them with CITED statistics and fact-based analysis. Just imagine what the other 99.99% of gun owners would be able to do…
I made it to :21 seconds. It is best to ignore those that think it cool to leave only one eye visible while the other is hidden behind a greasy scrag of hair. Hippies are never a good source of information.
According to my research, I and my family are more likely NOT to suffer firearms accidents than we are TO suffer such accidents, even with weapons in the house. Also, those guys in the video are a couple of bigots.
What are his qualifications to suggest that advanced training be required to own certain private property? Should advanced training be required for the First Amendment? I ‘feeeeell’ it should be. What do you ‘feeeeeeeelllll’ about it?
“I am Jacks utter lack of a strong male role model”
William says: “So does he ever give the details on his “research” or is he just parroting the same “research” magoo and mikeb302000 always quote but never list?”
The guy is a complete dork and I don’t even know how people find this stuff to waste their time with it. But he is right about this: statistically, a gun is far more likely to result in a tragedy than be used in a DGU.
We’ve been through the numbers and all they inspire in you is denial, so let’s try a challenge: Every daily news cycle, you post the DGUs and I’ll post the accidents. It gives me no satisfaction at all to promise you that I will absolutely bury you. You don’t have a chance. In a couple of days you will be whining about media conspiracies.
“Every daily news cycle, you post the DGUs and I’ll post the accidents.”
If you consider that to be sound methodology it’s no wonder you believe in gun control.
Look, the only person “in denial” about the numbers is you. We’ve dismantled the “43 times more likely” nonsense by pointing out that they include suicides and exclude DGUs where no shot is fired, among other weaknesses. You’ve dismantled our numbers by… well, actually you haven’t dismantled our numbers. You dismiss them out of hand but can offer no rational basis for doing so.
I think we can all agree that there are roughly 35,000 wrongful deaths each year involving firearms. That’s including crime, suicide and accident. In order for your “far more likely” stat to be true there would have to be no more than 814 DGUs each year. That’s under a thousand. I know you dispute Kleck’s numbers (though you still can’t explain why) but do you really think he’s off by 2460% ? And the lowest figure I was able to find for defensive gun use, from any source, was an estimate of 80,000 DGUs. In order for you to be right the lowest available estimate has to be off by two orders of magnitude.
Yes, 80,000 is a good deal less than Kleck’s 2 million, but it’s still more than twice the total number of wrongful deaths.
I’m sorry, but you’re not allowed to simply dismiss numbers like that. If you continue to insist that a gun is “far more likely to cause a tragedy” you’re going to have to produce some actual evidence.
I’ve never said “43 times more likely.” I have no idea what you are talking about and I am sure you don’t either.
I offered the daily news challenge due to the well-known problem with the statistics on DGUs: their rarity. There is a reason the numbers are so thin and spotty: so are the events.
But mainly I am curious to know why this topic drives you to such fury. It’s like waving a red cape in front of you. What’s up with that?
“I’ve never said “43 times more likely.” I have no idea what you are talking about and I am sure you don’t either.”
Google the term “43 times more likely”. It’s the standard talking point amongst gun control advocates when they talk about guns being inherently dangerous. If my assumption that that’s what you were referring to was incorrect I apologize, but I also ask that you quantify the term “far more likely”.
“I offered the daily news challenge due to the well-known problem with the statistics on DGUs: their rarity. There is a reason the numbers are so thin and spotty: so are the events.”
So according to you this is how it’s supposed to work: dozens of people actually study a subject and present their findings along with the method they used to find them. You don’t like the findings and state “that’s impossible”. And we’re supposed to accept your baseless assertion as fact. Rational argument doesn’t work that way.
Tell you what though, since you have such faith in your news-combing method let’s apply it to something else. Every time there’s a news story about a plane crashing I’ll post it, and every time there’s a news story about a plane landing safely you post it. Using that method I’ll prove that nearly 100% of the people who set foot on planes die horribly.
“But mainly I am curious to know why this topic drives you to such fury. It’s like waving a red cape in front of you. What’s up with that?”
What fury? I’m just presenting math.
And I’d like to point out that, as has happened 100% of the times before and as I expect will happen 100% of the times in the future, you have responded to someone posting numbers by not providing a simple, straight answer. Which to me begs the question: if what you believe is so obviously true then why is it so impossible for you to prove?
I’ll ask you again: what does this “43 times” have to do with me? You’re tilting at windmills.
Your argument about plane crashes doesn’t make sense. You are equating DGUs to planes landing safely. Huh?
Are you kidding? I so get that analogy.
DGUs are news. Planes landed safely are not news.
Your contention seems to be then that if it doesn’t get reported on it didn’t happen.
According to the DOJ there were 4.34 million violent crimes in 2009. Can you find a news report on every one of them? I seriously doubt it. Does that mean they didn’t happen? Of course not.
I’ll ask you again: what does this “43 times” have to do with me? You’re tilting at windmills.
I’ll answer you again: usually when a gun control advocate says a gun is “much more likely” to cause a tragedy than be used defensively they’re referring to the talking point I mentioned. As I said above, if that’s not what you were referring to I apologize, but along with the apolgy comes a request that you tell me what in your mind constitutes “far more likely”. Do you mean twice as likely? Three times? Give us some kind of number.
Your argument about plane crashes doesn’t make sense. You are equating DGUs to planes landing safely. Huh?
No, I’m pointing out that the news only reports things they consider newsworthy. “Child has tragic, bloody accident” is newsworthy. “Homeowner frightens away intruder, no one hurt” isn’t.
But again, as you always do, you’re focusing on minutia while leaving the central question unanswered. In this case that question is “On what factual basis do you make the claim that a gun is x-number of times more likely to cause an accidental injury than to be used defensively”.
It’s a simple question. Can you give me a simple answer?
I guess I don’t get my simple answer. Imagine my surprise.
There is also the issue of deterence. Crimes that don’t happen because a rational criminal chooses not to commit them out of fear of being shot cannot be counted. You can only infer the difference, e.g., Northern Virginia versus the District of Columbia.
Magoo and Mike and other gun controllers (new civility here) are generally guilty of first order thinking. Guns kill people therefore if we ban guns then people won’t be killed. They fail to take into account alternative means of murder and suicide, that criminals will feel bolder and of course banning private ownership of firearms will only create a black market that will be readily satisfied by criminal organizations. To carry on a theme banning guns in Virginia will not make Virginia safer. It will make it more like DC.
Magoo says of Mikeb302000:
“The guy is a complete dork and I don’t even know how people find this stuff to waste their time with it.”
What’s your opinion of his coblogger, JadeG? You two seem to think quite a bit alike. As a matter of fact I’ve seen you post the same links and quotes as him. I think you two would get along splendidly!
@Magoo
I see that you’ve thus far refused my simple question/simple answer challenge above. I’d like to give you some other numbers to think about here in response to your contention that guns aren’t used defensively.
Using 2009 figures we have 555 thousand assaults and 200 thousand rapes. Of those, 25% of the assaults and 32% of the rapes occurred at home, giving us (excluding murder) roughly 200 thousand serious violent crimes occurring in the home. Using a lowball figure for unreported crimes I’ll add another 50 thousand of that to give us a quarter-million.
Please note that I’m not even bringing CCW into this. I’m only talking about guns at home.
Unless we’re assuming that criminals have a 100% success rate it is fair to assume that the number of attempted crimes exceeds the number of successful ones. I’m going to use what I consider a lowball figure and say that 10% of attempted crimes are successfully defended against. I admit that I have no source for that figure but it sounds reasonable to me. If anyone disagrees I’d be happy to hear their rationale.
That means that 25,000 violent crimes are resisted each year, at an absolute minimum. How many of those are resisted using guns? I don’t know. But it makes sense to me that among successful resistors the armed are going to be better represented than the unarmed, especially when one considers how many US households have guns.
Mathematically speaking there is absolutely no basis for your claim that a gun is “far more likely” to be involved in an accident than in a defensive use. And that’s just using my crude figures. The NCV survey information estimates 80,000 DGUs each year. Why is that significant? Because that figure is cited by gun-control advocates as being authoritative. They use it as a refutation of Kleck’s two-million number, seemingly oblivious to the fact that their refutation still admits to DGUs being more than twice as common as wrongful gun deaths. Not just accidents mind you… all wrongful deaths.
I don’t expect you to answer this substantively, but hopefully it will do some good for someone who’s genuinely interested in making a decision based on data.
Here’s my data, none of it from “the gun lobby”.
http://www.libraryindex.com/pages/447/Victims-Crime-WHEN-WHERE-DOES-VIOLENT-CRIME-HAPPEN.html
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv09.pdf
I stand amazed that gun grabbers still simply parrot what they know must be true and claim it as a statistic and refuse to provide any substantial anything to back it up rather than their own feeling about the issue. While gun grabbers consider gun nuts (equal opportunity epithets I guess) to be irrational – when we see such gun nuts post real numbers with math – they stonewall and pretend they answer when you can see that they don’t.
I stand by my earlier statement that they are living proof of lying long enough becomes truth to some folks. And I’m not sure they are intentional about regurgitating the lies. They have fallen for them and now spread them to us with the fervor of a televangelist.
Sorry, I can’t go with your reasoning on firearms used to resist crimes based on a wild-guess estimate on number of crimes resisted. You say we need to employ rigor, then you pull numbers out of thin air. As long as we are just guessing, I’ll guess that only a tiny fraction of the crimes resisted involve firearms.
Please forgive the delay in replying. When you are arguing with me from multiple points in the discussion at once, I may not see them all.
My numbers aren’t pulled “from thin air”. I linked to my sources. The only number I extropolated on was using 10% as a successful-defense figure, and in so doing I was being generous to your side of the argument. Just as I was being generous by completely discounting crimes outside the home.
But fine, we’ll stick to hard numbers with no interpretation: what is your rationale for dismissing the NCVS figure of 80,000 DGU’s… the figure that even the Brady Campaign uses? And if you don’t trust the lowest available estimate of DGUs then what number would you trust?
You know what? We’ll take the rock bottom lowest estimate for DGUs and then arbitrarily cut it in half. That leaves 40,000 DGUs. That still outnumbers accidents.
So my question remains: on what basis do you make the claim that a gun is many times more likely to cause a tragedy than it is a defensive use?
What I find so funny about the “people who are allowed to have guns should be required to get training” argument is that the po-po get all kinds of training (up to and including military tactics) and yet how may stories has TTAG posted where a cop was either irresponsible with their gun, or involved in an ND.
Training is great… but at the end of the day I have a Constitutionally protected (not granted, the right is intrinsic) right to defend my life, the live’s of my family and protect my property. The Second Amendment says nothing of training, “advanced” or otherwise. It does say “shall not be infringed” though.
Actually, in the spirit of fairness I’m going to play a little devil’s advocate here.
Gun grabbers love to focus on the subordinate clause of the 2A, which reads “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State….
The thing about the grabbers is that they quote that without having the slightest idea what it means. It does not refer to an army of bureaucrats looking over everyone’s shoulder. “Well regulated”, in the usage of the time, referred to something being in good working order. As in “Le Bernardin is a well regulated restaurant. Every single course is perfectly prepared and beautifully presented”.
Keeping that in mind, a well regulated militia is a body of citizens with well maintained weapons and, arguably, proficiency with those weapons.
I agree that “shall not be infringed” is a pretty clear cut statement, and that is the independent clause in the sentence. Based on that I think if we’re going to err it should be on the side of freedom. But as long as it wasn’t applied as de facto prohibition I don’t think a training requirement would necessarily be odious.
Are not the “Militia” and “The People” two different entities though?
We have a Militia – that is made up of the various branches of the military.
It’s because a military is necessarily to protect the state that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
The 2A exists to protect the people’s right to keep and bear arms in case we ever need to defend ourselves from said militia the government would not be able to legally take away the people’s guns.
More eloquently explained: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GNu7ldL1LM
I’m a purist – any government blockade between me and exercising my right, no matter how prudent (such as training), is an infringement.
How about we require the gun grabbers to take a class and get a licence before they exercise their right to free speech? Think they will go for that?
“Are not the “Militia” and “The People” two different entities though?”
In order for the text to make sense grammatically “the militia” and “the people” have to be the same entity.
Using the language that the Founders did the militia was made up of every adult male (naturally not including slaves). The Founders considered such a militia to be “essential to the security of a free state”.
Ground forces operated by the government are called “the army”, and in Article 2 it’s made clear that “the army” and “the militia” are two distinct entities.
The 2A exists to protect the people’s right to keep and bear arms in case we ever need to defend ourselves from …the government…
On that fundamental point we agree. I’m just saying that based on the text of the 2A a training requirement isn’t necessarily off the table. Indeed, an argument could be made that the 2A requires training (I’m not saying it’s an argument I’d agree with, just saying it’s a reasonable interpretation of the text).
How about we require the gun grabbers to take a class and get a licence before they exercise their right to free speech? Think they will go for that?
I don’t think they’d go for that, and I think that suggesting it makes an excellent illustration of how dangerous it is to apply their thinking to the Bill of Rights.
If the Militia and the People are one-in-the-same then why does the 2A refer to both the Militia and the People?
If the intention was to refer to the Militia throughout should it not read:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the Militia to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
I think you should be required to have advanced training to post videos on the net.
Adam says: “What I find so funny about the “people who are allowed to have guns should be required to get training” argument is that the po-po get all kinds of training (up to and including military tactics) and yet how may stories has TTAG posted where a cop was either irresponsible with their gun, or involved in an ND.”
Disappointing as law enforcement’s safety record with firearms is, I’ll bet it’s still better than the safety record for non-LEO civilians. Are we trying to argue that training is a bad thing? If so, include me out. Cops need more and better training. Non-cops need more and better training, too.
I don’t think he’s saying training is a bad thing, I think he’s saying that exercising one’s right can’t be contingent on it. The same way we allow illiterate people their right to vote and guilty-as-sin mobsters to not incriminate themselves.
Also, honestly, I can teach someone everything they need to know about safe gun handling in 10 minutes. The kind of stupid that results in NDs can’t really be cured by training anyway.
Training is not bad at all. but when it’s a required by law in order for me to exercise my intrinsic right – it’s an infringement on that right.
The argument in the video is that – more training = less accidents. I’m saying that I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. Again, look a LEOs, the one group of people most anti-gun, anti-2A people agree should have guns. they have the training and yet, as we can see, it really means noting in terms of preventing stupid.
@Magoo
So you think that government mandated training to be allowed to exercise a right is ok?
Would you think it’s ok to require people to take a class before they were allowed to exercise their right to free speech?
And don’t tell me it’s not the same thing – the idea that you be required to do anything other than exist to exercise any of your rights is preposterous. You would not stand for such silliness baring you from exercising any other right – why are 2A rights any different.
Adam… did you actually read any of my posts? Because I said these things unequivocally:
“I agree that “shall not be infringed” is a pretty clear cut statement, and that is the independent clause in the sentence. Based on that I think if we’re going to err it should be on the side of freedom.”
and
I don’t think they’d go for (classes required for free speech), and I think that suggesting it makes an excellent illustration of how dangerous it is to apply their thinking to the Bill of Rights.
So you’re arguing with someone who basically agrees with you.
But the fact remains that the subordinate clause is in the 2A, and that clause mentions a “well regulated militia”. It is arguable, based on the language of the day, that “well regulated” means “equipped and trained”. If we’re going to argue from the standpoint of original intent (and I think we should be doing just that) then we’re obligated to honestly appraise what that intent was based on the clear text of the Constitution.
@James Felix
The comment threading does not make replies very clear – you must have caught my comment before I added the “@Magoo” at the top for clarity.
Yes, I did read your posts – that comment was directed @Magoo
Apologies for the confusion.
Adam says:
“@Magoo
So you think that government mandated training to be allowed to exercise a right is ok?
Would you think it’s ok to require people to take a class before they were allowed to exercise their right to free speech?
And don’t tell me it’s not the same thing – the idea that you be required to do anything other than exist to exercise any of your rights is preposterous. You would not stand for such silliness baring you from exercising any other right – why are 2A rights any different.”
Well, I can tell you that they are indeed different, and you can take it from there. For example, in my state there is a mandatory 12-hour training course to obtain a handgun permit, and it’s totally constitutional. Now, your interpretation of the Constitution might be totally different from that of any Supreme Court justice who ever lived, and that’s your right. But it’s only your interpretation.
The point is they speech and the right to keep and bear arms are rights protected by the constitution. No other right protected by the constitution requires that you take a class before you exercise it.
For example, in my state there is a mandatory 12-hour training course to obtain a handgun permit, and it’s totally constitutional.
Ah, I see what you did there. Your right – state governments are completely free to place whatever restrictions on guns they want since the Second Amendment isn’t incorporated by the Supreme Court to apply to the states.
Now, the Supreme Court has ruled to stop outright bans on gun ownership in states (Parker v District of Columbia). And with more recent rulings (McDonald v Chicago) is seems that we may be on the path to have states recognize the Second Amendment the same way they recognize, say the 14th… one can hope anyway.
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