"Pete C." wrote in message
...
Too_Many_Tools wrote:


Actually the greatest danger from personal weapons is domestic
shootings...family members or friends shooting each other....not from
the crazy mall or church shooters.

Partly true if you're implying guns, however that ignores the fact that
nearly every one of those situations would still have happened if guns
were not available, just with different weapons. The presence of a gun
makes little difference in rates or outcomes.

That doesn't work, Pete. There are a few studies around that strongly
suggest it isn't true, at least in terms of outcomes.

What's interesting -- and I just saw this recently, so I think it's new
data -- is that the presence of a gun doesn't seem to have much influence on
*rates* of violent attacks. But it does result in significantly higher
mortality rates from those attacks. I think that's about what common sense
would tell us, too.

I also saw something recently that will make a lot of gun owners cringe: it
appears that if someone pulls a gun on you while they're committing a crime,
and you don't have a gun, your chances of surviving are some large multiple
of your chances if you do have a gun. I'm not going to go explore that data
but it was published in some peer-reviewed journal. I find it a little
suspicious but, who knows.

--
Ed Huntress