More Reasoned Discourse on Guns
“Momlogic” says everyone should get rid of their guns since 500 kids get killed by accident every year. Dadlogic says that in a nation of over 300 million people, 500 is a statistical zero. What say you?
UPDATE: Kevin Baker has more. Seems the 500 figure, puny as it is in a country of our size, is exaggerated. Kevin also gives an example of a much more egregious exaggeration from Salon. RTWT.
May 8th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
Less than a statistical zero when you consider that “kids” can be 19 year old gang-bangers.
.-= Alton Foley´s last blog ..The Great Seal Of The Commonwealth Of Virginia Has Varied Over The Years =-.
May 8th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Still a statistical zero. To get less than a statistical zero we’d need a negative number, with a negative value large enough to be outside the margin of error.
May 8th, 2010 at 6:43 pm
“One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.”
Oh, wait; that was Stalin.
.-= James Young´s last blog ..Interesting Data =-.
May 8th, 2010 at 11:02 pm
Boydlogic says more than 500 kids would be killed by guns every year if owning guns were illegal.
May 9th, 2010 at 1:47 am
Obama’s doing enough to stop natural selection with this damn health care bill. Let people keep their guns! Kids or not, we need to weed out the idiots and keep growing stronger and smarter as a nation. Obviously if someones kid dies from some kind of gun accident, their parents were stupid; which means the kid probably would have grown up to be just as dumb!
May 10th, 2010 at 7:13 am
How many lives are saved by guns every year? Wouldn’t we need to know this in order to determine if these 500 potential saves would be more than the number of other lives that would then not be saved?
May 10th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
Parents in Vacaville case were charged. http://cbs13.com/local/vacaville.shanahan.shot.2.1540656.html
May 11th, 2010 at 12:29 am
I say that 500 a year is an exaggeration by about a factor of five, and that 100 is even closer to statistical zero.
That said, each of those one hundred or so deaths is a tragedy to the families involved, so why must gun banners inflate the scaaaaary numbers? Why aren’t the real numbers enough? Ever?
Don’t believe me? Check the CDC’s WISQARS tool. “Children” being defined as < 1 to 17 years of age, and "accident" defined as "unintentional."
2006: 102
2005: 127
2004: 105
2003: 102
2002: 115
2001: 125
2000: 150
1999: 158
Oh, and note that the number has been trending down for years, even as the total number of guns in private hands has been increasing by 3+ million a year.
Don’t believe me? Here’s some more:
1998: 207
1997: 247
1996: 272
1995: 330
1994: 403
1993: 392
1992: 378
1991: 419
1990: 417
And now I have another post to write…
May 11th, 2010 at 12:34 am
Good point. Mine is that if you have to lie, at least make the lie worth something. If you know that their real number is a statistical zero, they’d better inflate it to a figure that isn’t. Raising the number from 100 to 500 is reminiscent of the old joke about Russia combating alcoholism by raising the drinking age from 1 to 2.
May 12th, 2010 at 7:14 am
Approximately 80 MILLION gun owners in America.
If only TEN PERCENT of the gun owners “caused more problems with children then they solved” then that would mean that there would be at least 8 MILLION accidental gun deaths for children a year.
If only ONE PERCENT of the gun owners “caused more problems with children then they solved” then that would mean that there would be at least 800,000 accidental gun deaths for children a year.
If only ONE TENTH OF ONE PERCENT of the gun owners “caused more problems with children then they solved” then that would mean that there would be at least 80,000 accidental gun deaths for children a year.
And if only ONE ONE HUNDETH OF ONE PERCENT of the gun owners “caused more problems with children then they solved” then that would mean that there would be at least 8000 accidental gun deaths for children a year.
There are about 50.
So some people think that because .00001 of children of gun owners misuse their gun, that the 99.99999 that do it correctly should for some reason follow their advice and give up their guns?