"John B." wrote in message
...
On Wed, 18 Sep 2013 01:34:54 +0000 (UTC), Doug Miller
wrote:

John B. wrote in
news:rruc39h1q0j6915mratkjd25gjvmkogs16@
4ax.com:

On Sun, 15 Sep 2013 13:50:20 +0000 (UTC), Doug Miller
wrote:

John B. wrote in
news:lg7b39himjt7mektqorjq403qf1ba8p9mg@
4ax.com:

On Sun, 15 Sep 2013 01:32:58 +0000 (UTC), Doug Miller
wrote:

John B. wrote in
news:8oa339ps4tntimq4geqaljdj9kmbt0g2mn@
4ax.com:

The U.S. kills some 37,000 people annually in auto accidents and
injures an additional 2.35 million. Versus a miserable 11,000 gun
deaths.

This is not true.

There are approximately 10,000 to 11,000 gun *murders* in the U.S.
annually.

And more than half again as many suicides.

The total number of gun deaths in the U.S. is very close to the total
number of
automobile
deaths. Not quite, but very close -- within less than ten percent.

I see, you want to count those who have decided that life is no longer
living? I assume that you believe that without a gun they would not
be able to kill themselves?

I want to correct a false statement, that is all. The claim that there
are 11,000 gun deaths in
the US annually is false.

Technically correct but on the other hand, if someone hangs themselves
do we call it a "rope death"? Or slashes them with a razor blade a
"razor death"? Or do we just say "they killed themselves"?

Beside the point. When an anti-gun activist says that guns kill [almost]
as many people as
cars every year, he's telling the truth -- and if you say, no, that's not
so, it's only one-third as
much, he *has* the statistics to prove his figure. You don't. What you
need to counter that is
the knowledge that yes, in fact, there are nearly as many firearm deaths
as automobile
deaths annually -- but what the anti-gun activist probably does *not* know
is that about *two
thirds* of them are suicides, and very few of them are accidents.

Bottom line: make sure you have *all* the facts before engaging in debate.

Firstly, I really don't give a **** what the anti-gun mob has to say.

Hogwash, you would not be responding at all if that were the case.

If they acted even halfway rationally I might listen but they don't.

You're the one that's being irrational; does not matter whether
self-inflicted or accidental, statistically, the total number of death by
firearms MUST include all of them.

Only then can you further classify the data.

And, for that matter, neither do many of the pro gun lot.

Yeah--they almost ALWAYS want to ignore the fact that bona-fide self-defense
shootings happen to comprise only a VERY small percentage of overall deaths
where guns are involved.

--once you subtract suicides, almost all of them are murders.

Your insistence in quoting the suicides as gun deaths is, while
basically correct in that they died, as a result of shooting
themselves, the implication is that you are seizing on a number to
bolster an argument. After all, we don't rush about counting "Bed
Deaths", when, in fact, the vast majority of people who die in the
United States die in bed, which makes as much sense as counting
suicides when counting anything.

When people start robbing banks, commiting suicide or otherwise commiting
assaults by clobbering themselves or each other over the head with an
"assault bed" then you might have a valid arguement.

Or, perhaps we should ban beds, then perhaps all those people wouldn't
have died?


Here is some justifiable homicide data for the year 2005, there is probably
more up to date info but I doubt there has been a tremendous change since
that time.

I'm making the assumption that the overwhelming majority of these homicides
were by firearms although probably at least a few of them were by other
means.

http://www.bjs.gov/content/homicide/justify.cfm

Total including police action for that year appears to be about 550 and is
it about 200 when you include only citizens.

Total gun deaths for that year were about 31,000 of which around 1/2 were
suicides which leaves us with a total of about 15,000

In other words, out of the approximately 14,650 citizens that were killed
with a gun by another citizen, only about 200 of them were justifiable.

In that same year, there were 789 unintentional firearms deaths in the US:

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states

So, if we round this number upwards to 200, it becomes clearly evident that
on average, your garden variety, law-abiding gun owner is statistically
about 4 times more likely to cause an accidental death than he is to shoot
some bad guy in a case of justifiable homicide.

Below is a paper covering domestic violence statistics for the year 2002:

bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/fvs02.pdf

It can be seen that about 22% of murders in that year were acts of domestic
violence and that firearms were used in around 1/2 or 11% of of them and so
it should become fairly evident that your odds shooting someone in an act of
justifiable homicide as opposed to being shot by or shooting a family member
or there occurring a suicide in the family are pretty darned slim
considering that if memory serves me, justifiable homicides including police
action only constitute around 1.8% of total gun deaths and if you exclude
police actions the number comes out to be about .66%

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_vio..._United_States

A ) in 2010, there were a total of 12,996 reported murders, and about 1/2 of
them occurred during the commission of some other felonious act.

B ) In 2010, a total of 780 murders occurred during the commission of a
robbery, which calculates out to be 6% of all murders

C ) In that same year, 3396 of all murders ( 26% ) occurred due to an
argument over money, property or other.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr...10shrtbl12.xls

About 35% of murders in the US are never solved...

http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/...ved-homicides/

About 49% of the solved cases were committed by someone that did not have
any previous felony convictions; presumably it was perfectly legal for them
to own a gun.

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/ascii/vfluc.txt

In most localities, it is completely legal for a private individual to sell
guns and ammunition to a perfect stranger without any background checks
whatsoever, the reality being that this is exactly what happens every single
weekend at gun shows and sporting expositions across much of the nation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_sho..._United_States