DOJ says in 2012 6.6% of violent crime involved guns. 6.6%... Think about that for a moment.

[cherokeeprogressive]

Less than 1 in 10 violent crimes nationwide involved guns. Firearm violence, as a percentage of ALL reported violent incidents was 6.6%. See Table 2 in the link below. Pay CLOSE attention to the "Percent of All Violent Incidents" line.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDQQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bjs.gov%2Fcontent%2Fpub%2Fpdf%2Fcv12.pdf&ei=P60jU4CLPIXboATdp4GQAw&usg=AFQjCNFm6pe0s3KS3S2C3Woxcd31oZW_BQ&sig2=VW9MIan5JAWfMd4RbcWCjw

Given that there are nearly as many guns as there are people in this country, does anyone think the fear of being killed OR injured by a gun might be just a little bit irrational if the sum total of gun-related violent victimization is barely more than 5% of ALL violent crime? MASS SHOOTINGS, SCHOOL SHOOTINGS, MALL SHOOTINGS, and whatever other SHOOTINGS you want to claim... LESS than 10% by a wide margin.

[FarCenter]

1. Isn't a gun one of the things that makes a crime violent?

Please give me all your money -- Without a gun it is just begging.

[FarCenter]

18. I didn't say a gun was the ONLY thing that made a crime violent.

But you are right. You made an excellent argument for having a loaded 12 gauge automatic readily available.

[Scootaloo]

66. I'm a little puzzled by this post

'Cause it looks like you're participating in a version of Fantasy Football that replaces linebackers with serial killers.

[blkmusclmachine]

2. Be happy. Don't worry.

[madville]

3. And it's mostly handguns

Handguns account for most of the gun violence, we should be going after those way before rifles which only make of a small fraction of gun violence.

[cherokeeprogressive]

5. Would you consider 6/100 a "small fraction"? .06?

[Scootaloo]

67. Considering the vast amount of things that qualify as "violent crime"?

One-one thousandth of fruits in the world are apples. So naturally the produce section only has one apple for every 999 pieces of produce in stock, right?

[ManiacJoe]

4. Link to the PDF:

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv12.pdf

[DanTex]

6. Yes, and at the same time, more than half of murders involve guns.

That's what guns do. They take ordinary crimes or arguments and make them deadly. That's the whole problem.

[cherokeeprogressive]

8. You can twist the statistic all you want. Is MURDER not considered "violent victimization"?

Look up the statistic. Violent crimes considered, GUN VIOLENCE makes up 6.6% of ALL reported violent crime.

[BainsBane]

13. It's only "twisting the statistic"

if one considers the loss of human life utterly inconsequential.

[cherokeeprogressive]

16. Statistics suck, I agree.

I'm not going to die as a "victim" unless it's outside of my own house and off my property. Inside my house, if I die, I'm going to go down fighting.

[BainsBane]

21. Your choice, but that doesn't justify

Conflating all violent crime with murder. They are not the same. There is a wide array of crime that is considered violent and very little of it is fatal. Guns make it lethal. That is what they are designed for, and it is what they accomplish.

[cherokeeprogressive]

25. I already referenced a DOJ Report that said gun violence makes up less than 10% of ALL

violence in the country, as of 2012.

Fuck murder. Gun Violence makes up less than 7% of ALL VIOLENT CRIME. Less than 1 in 10.

You're barking up the wrong tree.

[Crunchy Frog]

41. I'd rather get slapped in the face than shot dead.

Even though I realize that they're both "violent crime", and therefore essentially the same thing.

[cherokeeprogressive]

49. I'm wondering then WHY the Department of Justice would make a distinction between

getting slapped in the face and shot with a gun. After all, they're "essentially" the same thing...

Statistics suck, don't they?

[Crunchy Frog]

56. "Statistics suck".

Is that the only thing you know how to say? I don't even know what you mean by that.

In any event, I have no desire to get bogged down in pointless debates with "gun culture" advocates.

[cherokeeprogressive]

58. That's the best abdication I've seen in a long time, and surely the most diplomatic...

I've been here for almost a decade, and I can assure you "statistics suck" ISN'T the only thing I know how to say.

Of COURSE you "have no desire to get bogged down in pointless debates..."

[Crunchy Frog]

69. Well thank you.

I would debate you, but I honestly haven't seen any indication that you have anything meaningful to say, and I don't do shadow boxing with endlessly repeated and meaningless talking points.

Or maybe I'm just an intellectual midget, and you tower over me, in which case, you can take satisfaction in your victory over me.

In any event, I'm finished with this thread.

[Logical]

7. With 300 Million guns there is no way to stop gun violance. n-t

[tosh]

9. Think about this for a moment...

a 6.6% reduction in violent crimes...

a 50% reduction in successful suicide attempts...

606 people alive today that would have been unintentionally killed by firearms in a single year.

Think about that.

[Walk away]

10. A violent crime can be punching someone so...6.6% is very high and probably....

the deadliest end of the spectrum. This sounds like typical NRA bullshit to me.

[The Straight Story]

11. It is like how fox tries to portray people on welfare

Grab a few cases and prop them up and only talk about them.

Person defends themselves with a gun? Don't post in GD - only negative stories because we have a narrative and showing any gun owner in any positive light destroys the appearance we want to cast.

Less than one percent of all gun owners use them in a crime.

[Crunchy Frog]

42. Those stories pretty much always get posted in GD.

There's not one single narrative here. In fact, there's a huge bloc of posters here who are pushing a narrative that guns are basically benign, or a positive social good, and that the problems of gun violence are largely a matter of misperception.

The current thread is a case in point.

[The Straight Story]

50. Really? Then why do they get locked and why did skinner say to lock them and not others

when it comes to kids and guns?

People are problems and cause problems. Some of those people own guns and use them in bad ways but represent less than one percent of all gun owners.

Welfare fraud has a higher percent than that (I think it is around 2.2%).

So it is not a narrative - it is about principles and how they are used.

Do you find the way fox news handles welfare is just and good because what they want to accomplish is ending fraud?

Painting everyone in a group as welfare queens or gun nuts who want to shoot everything are the same tactics - both use a minority to create bias and stereotyping of the majority.

[Crunchy Frog]

53. I personally haven't witnessed it, though I admit I've been away quite a bit.

This thread hasn't been locked though. As for the rest, I'd take it up with Skinner, as I'm not responsible for the policies.

I can't make heads or tails of the rest of your post. It looks like gibberish to me.

[BainsBane]

12. The pertinent number is deaths, homicide and sucide

not a broad conception of violent crime.

A bar right is a violent crime. So what? What matters is killing. A domestic dispute is a violent crime. They become deadly when guns are involved. Pretending a punch in the face is in any way comparable to a killing is unconscionable.

Transparently bullshit stat designed to distract from the issue of gun violence.

[laundry_queen]

64. +1 nt

[Gravitycollapse]

14. STUDY DEMONSTRATES NO ANNUAL DEATHS ATTRIBUTABLE TO ATOMIC BOMBS.

Therefore atomic bombs should totally be legal.

[cherokeeprogressive]

17. And you feel good posting this because...?

[Gravitycollapse]

19. Because the argument made in your OP is silly.

[cherokeeprogressive]

20. My point was that less than ONE IN TEN violent crimes in this country involve guns.

Argue that?

The FUCKING DOJ supplied the numbers.

Tree. Barking. Wrong.

[BainsBane]

24. You're angry

You assumed people here were stupid enough to fall for the subterfuge of presenting statistics that treat a slap to the face and homicide as though they were identical. Now that people point out that your statistics are meaningless, you become incensed. Perhaps you should have more respect for the intelligence of members?

[cherokeeprogressive]

26. I consider myself lucky to be in the midst of people MUCH schmarter than I.

I ain't all that. I can Google though. And The Google leads me to DOJ statistics. Imagine that.

I like you. Let me say that up front.

Fear of "gunz" is misguided and statistically comparable to being struck by lightning.

[Bjorn Against]

31. Is fear of home invasions also misguided?

I always hear the paranoid gun nuts worrying about home invasions, yet murders which happen during home invasions are far less common than deaths by shooting which do not involve home invasions.

Do you honestly think the people who are so paranoid they need to carry a gun at all times are more rational than the people who are concerned about gun violence yet still feel safe leaving the house without being armed?

[cherokeeprogressive]

33. Apples... meet Oranges. I don't carry. Won't. Don't wanna.

Your point? Seeing as how you're talking about TWO DIFFERENT THINGS, I'm not sure.

I don't CARRY a gun. Won't. Don't wanna.

300,000,000+ people in this country... HOW MANY CARRY GUNS 24/7?

[Bjorn Against]

36. You just don't want to answer the question

You make a thread accusing people concerned with gun violence of having irrational fears, yet the fact is many gunners insist we all need weapons to protect themselves. Even if you don't personally own a gun, you have to admit that many gun advocates do claim that we need a gun to protect ourselves from home invasions even though home invasions are the cause of far fewer deaths than other gun murders.

If you think people who are concerned with gun violence are irrational than you must think the people so paranoid about home invasions that they always keep a loaded gun at the side of their bed are extra irrational, right?

[cherokeeprogressive]

37. 6.6%

Look it up. I provided the link to the DOJ statistics.

If the "bad guys" knew NO ONE HAD GUNS, might they be emboldened to target more houses?

I don't carry a gun. Would never carry a gun. On the other hand, I'm not a victim. Will never be a victim. Not in my own house...

[Bjorn Against]

39. As several in this thread have pointed out to you, you are comparing slaps in the face to gun shots

You keep pushing that 6.6% number and claiming that people are irrational to be afraid of guns, yet you don't seem willing to acknowledge that it is even more irrational for people to think they need to sleep with a loaded gun at the side of their bed to protect themselves from random home invasions which are far more rare than gun homicides.

[cherokeeprogressive]

51. I keep pushing the 6.6% number because THE FUCKING DOJ SAYS THAT'S HOW MANY CRIMES

INVOLVE GUNS.

I don't carry. I'm not afraid, unless someone like Murderin' Christopher Dorner abandons his vehicle less than a mile from my house. Then? I'll take my 9 out of the safe and put it on the nightstand next to the bed. I said as much.

No victim here.

[Bjorn Against]

65. THANK YOU FOR THAT ALL CAPS SENTENCE ABOUT THE FUCKING DOJ!!!!

In the future however if you want to make a post claiming others are irrational you might want to avoid those all caps shouts or you may look much more irrational than the people you are accusing of being irrational.

[Fumesucker]

70. ~55 deaths per year due to lightning strikes... only 26 for 2011..

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/weather/news/story/2012-01-09/lightning-deaths-storms-weather/52504754/1\

Gun deaths are ~32,000 per year.

http://usconservatives.about.com/od/capitalpunishment/a/Putting-Gun-Death-Statistics-In-Perspective.htm


Where did you get your degree in statistics? Cornflake box?

[Gravitycollapse]

29. How many homicides involve firearms?

[Loudly]

22. This does not come anywhere near being a 2A justification for guns in the hands of the public.

In fact, the only justification for the 2A is armed rebellion against the government.

Which was abandoned as illegitimate for all time at Appomattox.

All that can really be said about the statistic is that it is fodder for gun lovers to try to make guns and ammo seem like less of a public health issue than they are.

And, of course, it does nothing to justify them as a clear threat to genuine rights.

[Bjorn Against]

23. What I think is an irrational fear is feeling you need to carry a gun to the grocery store

The irrational fear belongs with the people who are so damn paranoid about a random stranger jumping out of the shadows and killing them that they feel they need to carry a loaded gun with them everywhere they go. If you want to talk about irrational fears let's talk about the paranoid gun nuts who are afraid to eat at a restaurant which has a "No guns allowed" sign on the door. Most of us survive our trips to restaurants and grocery stores just fine without a gun, but the gun nuts somehow think they need the ability to use deadly force at all times in order to be safe. Now that is an irrational fear.

Recognizing that guns are truly responsible for tens of thousands of deaths however, that is not irrational that is reality.

[cherokeeprogressive]

30. I have never, nor WOULD I ever carry a gun into a grocery store.

But that's hardly the argument.

[Bjorn Against]

32. Yet many gunners do...

Do you think the fears of the people who argue we need guns for self defense are more rational than those who are concerned about gun crime yet still feel safe leaving the home without a weapon?

[cherokeeprogressive]

35. HOW MANY GUNNERS DO? Stop using bullshit phrases you can't back up with NUMBERS.

How many people in the Stater Brothers Market were carrying guns tonight when I went there to buy a BOX of wine?

[Bjorn Against]

38. I did not follow you to the grocery store and survey the people shopping there

I do know that concealed carry permits are very popular among gun nuts these days though, I don't know the number off the top of my head but you know as well as I do there are concealed carry permit holders who do bring concealed guns into the grocery store with them.

You are not actually denying that people carry concealed are you?

[cherokeeprogressive]

48. I am denying that out of the 40-50 people who were in the store at the same time I was...

There were people who MIGHT have had a weapon whose possession of same I needed to be afraid of.

[Bjorn Against]

55. So you are continuing to avoid the question

Do you admit that it is less rational for a person to be so concerned about a random act of violence against them that they feel they need to carry a concealed weapon with them everywhere they go than it is for a person to be concerned about gun crimes yet still feel comfortable leaving the house without a weapon?

[cherokeeprogressive]

57. I'm not as smart as you give me credit for being... I'm going to have to read this three times.

I ain't so schmart as I thought I were... damn...

Less rational for a person to carry than it is to be rational to be afraid of people who carry?

[Bjorn Against]

60. You know what I asked you just don't want to answer it

I will try to state it in simpler terms for you however...

You have two people.

The first person is concerned about gun violence but she still feels safe going to the grocery store without a gun.

The second person believes there are threats of random violent crimes being commited against them wherevever they go so they feel they need to carry a concealed gun with them everywhere.

Which of those two people do you feel has a more rational fear of violent crime?

[cherokeeprogressive]

62. The first person has no fear, ever? The second person understands the definition of "random"?

I'd say it's a tie.

[Bjorn Against]

63. Yeah a tie...

You know that people concerned about gun violence are far more rational than the paranoid concealed carry nuts you just can't bring yourself to acknowledge the obvious.

[struggle4progress]

27. It's about 400K incidents a year, even if it is "only" 6-8% of violent incidents

[alcibiades_mystery]

28. Gunner shitheads will be gunner shitheads

[frazzled]

34. Try homicide statistics

According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention):

All homicides
Number of deaths: 16,259
Deaths per 100,000 population: 5.3

Firearm homicides
Number of deaths: 11,078
Deaths per 100,000 population: 3.6

Source: Deaths: Final Data for 2010, table 18

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm

This means that 68% of all homicides in the US involve a gun. More than 2/3. That's big. Add in suicides to this number.

[Recursion]

46. Suicides will dwarf any other category of homicide

This is why I think we need to stop making our gun safety pushes be about homicide, particularly random mass shootings. They're not what's actually killing the most people. What's killing the most people is that easy access to a handgun greatly lowers the safety margin of somebody at risk for suicide.

[cherokeeprogressive]

52. Ooops. Homicide is a separate statistic I guess...

VIOLENT criminal victimization (which I'm betting my life on) says 6.6% percent of ALL criminal victimization can be attributed to guns.

This is according to the DOJ.

[kwassa]

40. But in the Serious Violent Crime category, weapon use was about 70%

Explain that.

[Crunchy Frog]

43. How to mislead with statistics.

[flvegan]

44. <--Token vegan wants to talk about "violence"

"Crimes" can be stipulated to or against as part.

[cherokeeprogressive]

54. So stipulated, counselor.

That doesn't change the DOJ numbers though.

[Recursion]

45. Again, we keep looking at the "wrong" thing about guns. The public health issue is suicide

That's over 2/3's of gun deaths. Our suicide rate is more than double our homicide rate, and over half of suicides are committed with a gun, essentially always a handgun. The US has a suicide rate that's statistically identical to India. Does that seem crazy to anybody else? India vastly exceeds the US in all methods except firearms, and the US more than makes up the difference in the rest.

The actual gun problem in the US is that people have both suicidal impulses and access to handguns. If you want to stop gun deaths in the US, address that nexus.

[Skip Intro]

47. And the vast majority of that is inner city, often gang-related.

Last edited Sat Mar 15, 2014, 01:54 AM - Edit history (1)

Not Newtown, but Chicago. Philly. Newark. Oakland. Memphis.

This is what really gets me about those that use Newtown, and the admin made a traveling production of it, to argue for their purposely vague "common sense gun control." They are dishonest and deceptive from square one. All ready to rip away at the Constitutional rights of ALL the people based on a contrived, bullshit premise.

No thanks. I don't trust you. You know?

Anyway, nice to see a thread concerned with facts on this topic.

K&R.

[erglerbergler]

61. Disgusting Post

I agree completely. Black people killing each other with guns shouldn't count toward gun crime statistics.

/sarcasm off

[MindMover]

68. Everyone that looks for a fight will find one, with or without weapons ...

that includes, individuals, groups, and governments ....

[Donald Ian Rankin]

71. And virtually no fraud did, and that's just as irrelevant. Lots of murders did, though.

There are a lot of less serious violent crimes for each murder.

Most of the less serious ones do not involve guns.

An awful lot of the murders do.

So this is a complete red herring.