On Jul 28, 11:44*am, "Ed Huntress" wrote:


Hmm. Now that you've analyzed Louisiana, how about the other 49 states? g

That's fine cherry-picking, Dan. Now you can roll that one around until
you've completely obscured the general character of the issue and the
trends.

Hey, I just picked Louisiana because it was number one on your list of
states by violent crimes. I have no faith in correlations unless
there are no huge outliers. You pointed out an inconsistency among
the least violent crime states. I looked at the other end and
immediately found what I consider another inconsistency.



Of all the people I knew who owned guns, and that was almost every adult
and
most of the kids in western MD and northeast PA, I only remember two who
actually shot handguns. We just weren't interested. They had nothing to do
with our central interest, which was hunting, or our secondary interest,
which was target shooting. Shooting targets meant shooting skeet or making
holes in paper bullseyes at 100 - 500 yards. Handguns were useless crap,
unless you liked to collect rattlesnake skins while trout fishing, as one
of
my fishing buddies in PA did. He had a .22 revolver. The few handguns that
were around were mostly WWII trophies, in the hands of the adults who
served
there. And they stayed in the gun case almost all of their lives.

Not quite the same when I was growing up. *There was an interest in
handguns, and there were people that competed in target shooting of
handguns.. *But shotguns and .22 rifles were pretty much what people
had. *I did not know anyone with a centerfire rifle. *There was no use
for them as there was very few deer or other large game. *And I did
not know of a range where one could shoot a centerfire rifle.

Well, I have no idea where you grew up. I identified where *I* grew up, and
both states were big deer-hunting states. There were centerfire rifles
aplenty.

I believe you. And was agreeing with you on pistols not being popular
among the general population. But there was a range where one could
shoot pistols. No range for centerfire rifles as there were not many
around and no target shooting for centerfire rifles.

We get into a discussion about guns here on this NG, and watch what
happens; it's all quick-draw and stopping power (in a human being, rather
than a deer or bear) before the first spit hits the ground.

I do not remember any RCM discussions on quick-draw and stopping power
of handguns. *Might be because I just am not that interested in the
topic. *But it certainly is not a topic that comes up a lot.

Jeez. There's an example right in THIS THREAD. Take a look at the
discussions of .380 ACP and 9mm, and holsters...holy cow. Most importantly,
notice how the thread steered that way.

I did not look at every post, but did look at the first 40 posts. No
mention of quick draw in that 40, and only one humerous mention of
stopping power.........Carrying a Casul to ward off the cookie
monster.



It's one thing to calibrate a possible threat, as Don did in starting this
track of discussion, and make a judgment that the inconvenience of
carrying
is worth the extremely remote possibility that you might be glad that you
did, in a situation in which there are some mitigating circumstances that
make it worth more than ordinary consideration. It's another thing
altogether to build a culture around the minutiae of carrying concealed
guns
in society and to obsess about the remotest of statistical likelihoods,
and
to cook up fantastic scenarios that read like something from a cheap novel
but which have almost no referents in the real world.

The other side also cooks up a lot of fantastic scenarios too. *A bad
guy on each side of a car for instance. A bad guy that finds you on
the ground after a heart attack and searches your body. *The real
world is that you are not likely to ever need a concealed weapon. *And
if you do, the bad guy probably has not done a lot of target
practice.

Well, there's a good argument about taking the fantasies out of the
discussion. I agree entirely.

When you boil it down to essentials, Ranger has the numbers. You won't be
able to build much of a logical argument against it. But you have every
right to self-defense, IMO, and to the means to defend yourself. In other
words, carry if you must, but if you make a big deal out of it, you're
probably in need of emotional help. One hopes that you don't lose your
cool
at the wrong time. Or that the fantasies carry you away and you wind up
giving everyone the creeps. And the way much of our gun culture has
morphed
into some kind of a soldier-of-fortune fantasy, it can be very creepy
indeed.
I do not remember Rangerssucks ever using any numbers or actual facts
in this discussion.

Which of his posts are you talking about. The only post of his that I
can find that has a number mentioned in it is where he talks about bad
guys going about in Two's.


?? In terms of death rates, they favor his side of the issue. Please don't
try to tell us you don't agree.

If you let me know where he mentioned death rates, I will let you know
if I agree.


His arguments seemed to be pretty much that one should not carry a
concealed weapon because you may be better off without a gun.

Hmm. You just may be. You could try looking at the numbers. d8-)

And you are the one that came up with the statistic that resisting
seems to be slightly better than not resisting. 8-).

Dan
--
Ed Huntress