Firearms Deaths in US vs Other Developed Countries

[CarbineCaleb]

Bias of AMA?

So, a prevailing view here is that the AMA is biased against guns... what evidence would you have for that? While it might be true, I don't see any reason it would be. When I think of doctors, they are well educated, and I know education correlates negatively with interest in guns... whether that actually constitutes a "bias" or reason is of course open to speculation. Furthermore, one can deduce that in this profession, they will see the results of gun use against people in their work - again, would that experience amount to a bias? If there is a bias, I can only say that it wouldn't help doctors to "campaign" against guns, there is no motive there... it might only arise in terms of concern for their patients.
This will probably result in flames, but oh, well... if we want to talk about bias - why not bring up the NRA??? The NRA receives 10's of millions of dollars from the weapons/sales industries... that money flows into:
- Politicians pockets in campaign contributions
- Paid lobbyists to influence legislation
- Legal actions to influence legislation
- Public outreach to attract more shooters
- Public outreach to increase rate of product utilization by existing shooters

... now, of course, there might be all kinds of motivations for these actions, that have nothing to do with them receiving vast sums of money. However, I find it much more than coincidental that the NRA receives vast sums of money from an industry, and in turn carries a spectrum of activities that just happen to bring more money to that industry, by either retaining or expanding it's market. If you know what PAC groups, industry advocacy groups, and think-tanks do, this is it. While I am not antigun, I am anti-NRA. To me, they are a dishonest organization that takes advantage of the members.

So, some people are also knocking the scientific literature. As to peer-reviewed journals, you can scoff at science, but take a look at everything around you, from the computer you're typing on, to the plastics, paints, and resins in the chair you're sitting on, the medicines you take, the lights that allow you to see... everything that has lifted us from the darkness... science is not only a matter of intellect and creativity as it might appear; just as much, it's a matter of the process of peer review of ideas - and that takes place in the scientific literature. For laymen, peer review means that nothing may even appear in a scientific journal unless it has passed muster with a panel of expert reviewers who will invariably either request changes, or simply reject the paper if it's trivial in scope or has gross errors. While mistakes may still get through on occasion, they are invariably exposed and rejected by the scientific community at large. Books, newspapers, magazines, tv, movies - no other medium for communicating and proposing ideas has peer review, or has a dedicated community of knowledgeable people rigorously refereeing the viewpoint, which literally constitutes the state of knowledge - it's no exaggeration to say that everything else flows from this, the primary literature. Deride it if you like, it's your right to speak your mind, but that really says more about you than it does about science.

 

[Bud Helms]

A few threads on TFL in reference to the AMA:

Doctors for Sensible Gun Laws

Medical Questioning about Guns?

Docs and guns

Upset at Doctors today

Here is an excerpt from that last thread: Posted by user lonegunman on 02-07-2002.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the AMA are both run by ultra-liberals who have a political agenda.

Anybody read the speech given by the AMA's new president? I think it was his inaugaural address. Very anti - gun.

Don't fool yourself into thinking that these questions are without ulterior motive or political purpose.

Either of these groups would be happy to take away all your guns.

There are many thousands of physicians in the US who are members of these organizations and have totally opposite views on major political issues, such as this one. Yet they continue to support them with their dues because they think the "good" these organizations do is more important.

Others out there are more than willing to tow the party line and ask intrusive questions like this.

Medicine is more competitive now than ever. I assure you that if a physician has enough patients leave because of questions about guns, he will soon drop those questions.

I am a physician and I know these things to be true.

Personally, the way I would respond to this is by stating, as calmly as possible, that that was really none of their business, and not relevant to the matter at hand. I would indicate that I consider myself responsible for the safety of my family, and that I don't need any safety counselling. Then I would let them know the visit was over, and so was our relationship.

Resist the urge to become angry or confrontational. At best, this will make you look like a crazy person. At worst, they will have DFACS pay you a visit to check on the living situation of your children.

In the end, its all about money. If they lose patients over this issue, the issue will go away.

First, to begin the irradication of your own ignorance, you must admit that you are ignorant about some things. I have done this. Second, you must admit you can not know everything, therefore you will always be ignorant of some things. I have also admitted this to myself. Assumptions not only allow theories to be put forth, they also, in an entirely different context, propagate ignorance. Truism.

 

[Hkmp5sd]

I am anti-NRA. To me, they are a dishonest organization that takes advantage of the members.

They are not taking advantage of me. In fact, I think they are not aggressive enough in combatting anti-gun legislation, bogus lawsuits and lying media types.


Don't think professional, highly educated physicians are baised over the gun control issue, eh? Feel free to check out Physicians for Social Responsibility . They are more than happy to brag about teaming up with organizations with the acknowledged goal of banning every privately own firearm in the United States.

PSR is working with organizations like the Brady Campaign, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, the Violence Policy Center and Doctors Against Handgun Injury, to extend and strengthen this important protection for the public.

Perhaps you can explain why a person seeking peer review of scientific data goes to scientists, legal data goes to lawyers, yet when the news media or yourself seek firearm data, you call on the AMA, Sarah Brady and VPC?

 

[Tamara]

I once did some "peer reviewing"...

In an investigation of 177 gun injuries and 18 deaths,selected completely at random, no doubt Groner and his colleagues stacked the deck and found that 71% of the victims were shot at home--51% in their own homes and 20% in another residence. In fact, less than 10% of the children were shot in a public area or in the street. The children ranged in age from 1 to 18, but most were aged 10 to 15. Statisticians who pointed out that this "study" gives equal weight to a kid who gets one stitch after getting a BB removed in the emergency room after being shot in the unprotected buttocks area by his dumbass brother who is now grounded, and one gunned down for shorting his customers half a gram of rock, were shouted down as being "tools of the vast right-wing NRA conspiracy". "This is why curfews are not likely to be effective," Groner told Reuters Health. "Curfews are designed to keep kids 'off the streets,' but our data shows that kids are not shot in public places." And besides, the type of children who run around public places with guns tend to be too geeked up to remember that it's after curfew hours

Over half (51%) of the shootings were reportedly unintentional, the authors note, but I wouldn't believe over half (51%) of those kids if they told me the sky was blue: "Bobby, why did you plug little Gerald?" "Honest, Ma, it was an accident!". Nearly 70% of the victims knew the shooters because it's hard to get discounts on dime bags from total strangers and 26% were related to them (Raise your hand if you haven't shot your kid brother with a BB gun, be honest now), the report indicates.

"Most kids are shot by friends and relatives--the brother being the most common relative--not 'criminals,'" Groner said. "and everyone knows that 'criminals' don't have relatives".

The most popular weapons were BB guns and handguns, which were used in 38% and 36% of the shootings, respectively, no effort being made to distinguish "goofing around" with BB guns and attempted homicide with .38s. Shotguns were the least likely weapons, used in only 12% of the incidents seeing as your average pump action shotgun is as big as your average ten-year-old, this is unsurprising.

"Non-powder weapons (BB guns, pellet guns) are a major cause of firearm injuries in children," Groner stated the painfully obvious. Despite this fact, "the regulation of non-powder weapons has been almost entirely absent from the national gun debate," he pointed out "but if we succeed in generating some hyteria about BB guns in conjunction with that recent TV report, perhaps we can get these dangerous 'gateway firearms' banned,".

"My study also shows that firearm injuries in children may be concentrated in certain areas of a city," Groner added. "I can say this, because I am a liberal. A conservative would be dragged behind the barn and shot by the NAACP for even suggesting such a thing,"

Four neighboring zip codes accounted for more than 50% of the injuries but only 10% of the county's population, according to Groner and his team. Coincidentally, these four zip codes also led in drug-related crime, carjackings, and adult homicide rate. They were once known as "The Ghetto" before that became non-politically-correct. We now call them "The vibrant inner city". "Ninety percent of children were injured in their home zip code," the researchers note, "which is unsurprising, considering children can't drive,".

"I believe that we could target this specific population for intervention (rather than trying to target the whole city at once) we could reduce injuries," Groner concluded "but building a wall around the ghetto has such bad connotations since our secret heros, the Nazis, did it in Warsaw during the last big war,".

Comments in bold are, of course, mine.

More to come...

PS: Oh, and to the "Follow The Money" comment on the NRA, I'd suggest that Mr. Caleb research who signed the paycheck, and when, for the Krug "study"... Anyone can have an agenda; higher degrees confer no immunity...

PPS: In regard to Mr. Caleb's most recent post in the thread, I'd like to open some dialogue on the topics of "straw man", "argument from authority", and "ad hominem".

 

[johnbt]

"education correlates negatively with interest in guns"

Dang. I knew getting that M.S. at age 22 was a mistake. No wonder I'm so conflicted.

John

 

[Marko Kloos]

When I think of doctors, they are well educated, and I know education correlates negatively with interest in guns... whether that actually constitutes a "bias" or reason is of course open to speculation.

That statement is both highly presumptuous, and mildly insulting. It's basically the old "gun-loving Bubba" stereotype repackaged in educated language.

Books, newspapers, magazines, tv, movies - no other medium for communicating and proposing ideas has peer review, or has a dedicated community of knowledgeable people rigorously refereeing the viewpoint, which literally constitutes the state of knowledge - it's no exaggeration to say that everything else flows from this, the primary literature.

As someone both inside and close to the academic world, I have to tell you that you put a little too much trust into academics. The tenured community has more than its fair share of "Research 1" types who do nothing but sit on their butts and surf the web all day, and academic dishonesty is by no means the exception. My wife (who is very pro-gun, by the way) almost had her dissertation idea stolen by the head of her advisory committee, for example.

Facts are facts, but they can be selectively used to support just about any political agenda. And speaking of politics: many academics are left-leaning Ivory Tower types who see themselves as the embodiment of the "philosopher kings" envisioned by Plato's Republic. Of course there's a liberal bias at public universities and colleges...anyone who claims otherwise is simply in denial. Do they have the right to their political opinions? Of course they do! But don't try to make believe that only the Right uses the tools at their disposal to influence public policy, and that somehow only Liberals have an ability to stick to facts and the scientific method. (In my experience, both Right and Left play fast and loose with the facts whenever it suits them.)

Deride it if you like, it's your right to speak your mind, but that really says more about you than it does about science.

Speaking of science, I believe that Tamara provided you with the source data for the crime statistics of the last decade, proving your earlier statement untrue prima facie. Which one of these is faulty in this case: your methodology, your data, or your interpretation?

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

First of all, your supposedly unbiased study uses homicide rates from a five-year period that just happen to coincide with the highest rate of homicide in the last 25 years, even though there are more current homicide rates available - and even then the numbers put forth by your website are way off what either the FBI or the CDC reports for those years.

For example, in 1999, the TOTAL homicide rate was 5.70 and the firearm homicide rate was 3.72 per 100k based on the FBI UCRs (3.93 age-adjusted according to CDC, 3.99 non-adjusted).

CDC Mortality Report Form

If gun availability is the reason for the discrepancy in homicide rates between Europe and the United States, then why is the U.S. rate trending down even as more guns are added to civilian ownership?

These are distinguished sources without any idealogical aim.

Says who? For someone who wants to challenge others perceptions, you seem remarkably willing to swallow certain assumptions unquestioned.

When I think of doctors, they are well educated, and I know education correlates negatively with interest in guns...

Really? News to me and the doctors I know. How did you "know" that education correlates negatively with interest in guns?

However, I find it much more than coincidental that the NRA receives vast sums of money from an industry

Actually, the NRA receives a lion's share of money from the individual members. The industry has its own organization (the NSSF) who is nowhere near as hardcore as the NRA. After all, the industry just wants to sell guns and make money. If you have some information that suggests that the political arm of the NRA receives a significant portion of its funding from the industry, I invite you to share it.

Were you even aware that the NRA has distinct branches? For example, the NRA Foundation teaches gun safety and promotes target shooting. It has no political spending. The NRA-ILA and NRA-PVF represent the "new" NRA of the late 1970s that formed in response to the gun control movement. They do the political work.

Your defense of peer review is great; but you state it as if the link you provided had reached some finite goal. Peer-review is an ongoing process that continues as knowledge expands. Others have provided examples of peer-reviewed works that were published to the scientific community and then later debunked. There are in fact, no shortage of such works in the gun debate - Kellerman, Bellesiles, Wintemute, etc.

Then we have the more subtle biases... for example, P.J. Cook (cited several times as a source in your link) developed what is called "Cook's Index". Because gun ownership is an unknown factor, Cook developed a proxy method to determine gun ownership rates - he used a combination of firearm suicide rates and firearm homicide rates to guess at what gun ownership was - Several researchers have used this index to publish peer-reviewed studies showing how higher rates of gun ownership equated to higher firearms suicide and homicide rates. Talk about your circular arguments...

 

[CarbineCaleb]

The fallibility of the scientific literature

For the record:

- I never claimed that because someone has a PhD, that their word is gospel - for instance, the Unabomber was a Berkely Mathematics Professor - quite a high bar for intellect. He was smart alright, just paranoid, irrational, and delusional (now I am sure all the Unabomber lovers here will angrily jump to his defense).

- I did not claim that the scientific literature are without published errors. Mistakes get through. Everyone knows that.

However, what I did say is that the scientific literature are much more dependable than other forms of media. Here's why:

1. The authors are normally well educated in the topic of their submission and go to considerable effort to research their work.

2. Peer review is a process whereby the editor receives a paper for publication, and then selects a panel of expert reviewers who are qualified in the particular topic addressed by the candidate paper - this goes a long, long way towards eliminating garbage.

3. Some scientists might love politics as well as any other, however, politics has no business mixing in science. I was educated as a computational chemist, and read journals in several fields of chemistry, as well as applied mathematics, statistics, computer science and a smattering of biology. I have never, ever seen anything remotely political in these readings (over 20 years of them). I have once seen an article that had some political content in an professional organization's weekly magazine (not a journal) - and even there, the very next week, there were angry editorial letters from scientists of all political stripes denouncing the presence of this content.

4. Professional science is actually a very small world. Everyone who is anyone in a particular field knows one another, the world over. Noone wants to be embarassed in front of their peers.

5. Surprise - science is extremely competitive. When someone manages to get something published that is wrong, then it will be attacked, and the ideas will be left behind.

You can't say these things about other media. Anyone can get anything published, as long as others will pay, in the popular literature of books and magazine articles. It's why Bill O'Reilly and Al Franken can both publish books, with great sales, both of them highly idealogical, that are completely orthogonal. The primary literature isn't perfect, but it's the best thing there is.

Consider that crackpot, Charles Darwin. He published his landmark "Origin of the Species" in the mid 19th century. Although presenting a radical view at the time, it was widely accepted by knowledgable scientists within a decade. On the other hand, the Vatican just recently publically acknowledged that there just may be something that old Chuck was onto 150 years ago. Maybe there's hope for science yet . Interestingly though, there continue to be published works in the popular media that debunk the theory of evolution - they may even cite "studies" conducted by disreputable scientists that will do anything for a price (certain well funded groups pay them to construct arguements supporting a particular view) but these studies never appear in the primary literature.

 

[Tamara]

CarbineCaleb,

...they may even cite "studies" conducted by disreputable scientists that will do anything for a price (certain well funded groups pay them to construct arguements supporting a particular view)

Such as the Krug study, financed through the CDC during the Clinton administration, when the "Gun Violence As Medical Epidemic" movement was in full swing?

(I know that, being an academic, the good Doc didn't care which side his bread was buttered on, right? )

Odd that now that a different administration controls the CDC's purse strings, the research goes the opposite way, no?

(now I am sure all the Unabomber lovers here will angrily jump to his defense).

That's pretty rich...

Tell you what: You set up a PayPal account and I'll send you a buck for everyone who springs to that nutcase's defense in this thread. Deal?




PS: Still haven't heard your response to the raw source data that flatly disproved your claims in the other thread. You said "The violent crime rate is climbing dramatically in the US, and that is the Orthodox Truth." I said eppur si muove. I'm waiting...

 

[Fred Hansen]

I have never, ever seen anything remotely political in these readings (over 20 years of them).

 

[CarbineCaleb]

Tamara - actually, you haven't proven anything, except that you have blind faith in the NRA teachings and an unhealthy level of paranoia. To tell the truth, you, along with others on these online gun forums have indeed caused me to rethink my position on firearms. I thought it was a lot more reasonable before I had this contact. Between all the paranoid firebrand rhetoric, denunciations of foreigners, the people on this forum discussing the best loads and tactics for terrorist hunting, on the 1911 forum advocating civil war if any new gun regulations are passed... I may just drop the idea of a second gun and sell the only one I have - there are nuts anywhere, but this takes the cake. I have a young son to think about that I need to set an example for... hate to think that I'd have him become the kind of man who'd be checking under his bed for communists before he goes to sleep.

 

[Tamara]

CarbineCaleb,

Tamara - actually, you haven't proven anything, except that you have blind faith in the NRA teachings...

Thank you for that statement, as it has clarified your position. I realize now that I've been wasting my time with someone who likely doesn't even own a firearm, but rather wandered over to stir stuff up with them knuckle draggin' bible-thumpin' right wing troglodytes on the gun boards. I didn't need to prove anything, Caleb, as I was not the one making the positive assertion. The FBI, however, did disprove your assertion for me, and all you can come back with is some bluster about "NRA teachings." Sigh.

If you'd taken the time to read any of the posts that I'd addressed to you, you would've found no reference to any "NRA teachings." Care to cite what I said that was drawn from them, and thereby hold yourself to the rigorous standards you promulgate? Or are you going by your "feelings"? Your heavy use of ad hominem and straw man arguments would definitely suggest the latter.

If you'd like to learn more about the Krug study (which has been shown to be at variance with actual US crime data as provided by the DOJ), I'd suggest looking up the Doctors For Integrity In Policy Research; it's been handily debunked. Science is science, Caleb, but junk science is just that.

Now that I see you are only here to make accusations and insinuations, as well as providing bold assertions without backing them when challenged, I think I can bow out of our one-sided discussion with the embarassed acknowledgment that I was wasting my time.

 

[TexasVet]

You know, all this data on the subject in both threads was really interesting. Until I discovered we were feeding it to an illiterate. Next time a thread pushed by someone who WILL NOT OR CANNOT READ the data he asks for comes along, I believe I'll skip it.:barf:

 

[Bud Helms]

CarbineCaleb:

... actually, you haven't proven anything, except that you have blind faith in the NRA teachings and an unhealthy level of paranoia. To tell the truth, you, along with others on these online gun forums have indeed caused me to rethink my position on firearms. I thought it was a lot more reasonable before I had this contact. ... I may just drop the idea of a second gun and sell the only one I have ...

There you go: anti logic in action. All this time spent by posters on this thread trying to give reasonable responses in a give-and-take and in the end if you don't agree with Caleb, you're paranoid and he's going to sell his handgun. Way to go Caleb.

DFTT.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

I may just drop the idea of a second gun and sell the only one I have

Well, I can't speak for the others but if the level of rational debate you have demonstrated here is indicative of your usual state, that is probably the best course for everyone here.

 

[CarbineCaleb]

Reasonable, thoughtful responses? What have I learned here? After accuations that the scientific literature is biased against guns, I tell that I've been reading 5 disciplines for more than 20 years and have seen no political content whatsoever and what happens? I am called a liar. Real thoughtful response. Although the NRA poses the rhetorical question - Who are shooters? And answers it by naming "doctors, lawyers" first (I wonder why?), here, I learn that doctors and lawyers are well known to have a terrible antigun bias. No motivation is even proposed for this terrible bias by those evil doctors and lawyers, however. Again, very thoughtful response. I learned that the entire CDC is just a puppet for an antigun conspiracy, and that their real mission is not to look after the public health, but to try to eliminate firearms at all costs - what would their motivation be? Obviously some knowledgeable unbiased experts on the CDC here. My comments have been repeatedly taken out of context and I have been misquoted... not the context of reasonable discourse. And though they appeared in other threads, people here may think it's a sound position for people without training in judgemental use of force or training in recognizing terrorists to go hunting for them with arms, or to advocate violent overthrow of the government if a law were to appear that you don't agree with - I consider this to be the lunatic fringe, however. Ah well, I am wasting my breath, I might as well discuss evolution with the Pope, or race relations with the Klan, or the Palestinian crisis with the JDL - a very fair and reasoned discourse will ensue there with totally unbiased persons seeking to answer questions and not to push idealogy as well I am sure.

 

[raz-0]

caleb, by all means, please sell your gun and quit your trolling.

The reason why the numbers are so SHOCKING is because. well as near as I can tell they are WRONG.

at least in 2001 they seem to be pretty off. according to the CDC numbers, we have 800 unintentional deaths, 16,863 suicides, and 11,326 homicides. That's 28,989 deaths from firearms. The us populaiton from the US census for 2001 (estimated from 200 data) was 285,669,915. That yeilds a fatality rate of 10.14 per 100,000.

Peer review or not, I smell cherry picking going on. If youw ant to compare, compare a given year to a given year. not a 5 year range. Unless of course youa re doing 5 years of numbers for EVERY country in the study.

Under peer review, this would be acceptable. However, my numbers are only 6 years out from 1995. That would be only one year beyond the range of the study. If you can have a a deviation of 28.59% in a six year period, I'm sure 25% would be reasonable to cover in a 5 year period. You pick the high for the countries you want to, and the lows for the one's you don't. Combine them with non-uniform reporting methods in various countries and BINGO!

You can spin and fudge all you want without doing one thing your peers would make a peep about provided you don't claim your numbers represent something they don't.


but based on the death statistics, you would be much better off setting an example for your kid by dropping the fries and backing away slowly. In 2001 hear disease took out over 600,000 people.

Also chuck your car keys and put guard rails around your property. Vehicular deaths were over 42,000. Perhaps america's obsession with cars is killing our children.

 

[Vibe]

"After accuations that the scientific literature is biased against guns, I tell that I've been reading 5 disciplines for more than 20 years and have seen no political content whatsoever"

Hmmmm. NO political content? Why would the Center for DISEASE Control have ANYTHING to do with firearms ownership and use if not for the POLITICAL descision to attach the stigma to it as being "some sort of disease". You don't see a POLITICAL agenda behind that? Hell boy - that's just BLATANT. And like rank and file police officers do not always agree with the LEO Managment positions (FOP etc.), neither do many layers and doctors (who are NOT biased against firearms) automaticly follow in lockstep with the Publications (who DO demonstrate subtle biases) associated with their disciplines. The proof is in the "bad science" studies that get published and raved over, just becasue they happen to show the DESIRED results, while the more factual numbers must be dredged up by the more layperson among us. Again, if this does NOT indicate a political bias, what would YOU call it?

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Caleb, here are some issues I have with the Krug study you linked to:

1) The study cherry picks its data samples. It just happens to start prior to the worst period of firearms homicide in the U.S. (a period that started almost 15 years ago and ended almost 10 years ago) despite the fact that more recent data is available. Hell, the study even cites figures from 2000 in its executive summary. Why concentrate on that period for the international comparison (especially when Canada, England and Australia have all seen a rise in firearm homicide and homicide in general more recently)?

2. The study comments: "Compared to high-income Asian countries (Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan), the firearm mortality rate in the U.S. is over 70 times higher (14.24 per 100,000 in the U.S. compared to 0.1925 per 100,000 in Asia)."

This is technically true; and shows why a narrow focus on a single issue (firearms related death vs. violent death in general) can obscure important details.

The homicide rate in Taiwan during part of the period measured by this study was 7.13 per 100k (1). The non-firearm homicide rate of Taiwan exceeded the TOTAL homicide rate of the U.S. The suicide rates of Japan and Singapore far exceed the U.S. as well; but it isn't done with firearms, so it doesn't count right?

3. The study comments: "The correlation between firearm availability and rates of homicide is consistent across high-income industrialized nations: where there are more firearms, there are higher rates of homicide overall.10 The U.S. has the highest rates of both firearm homicide and private firearm ownership. In 1998 an estimated 38% of U.S. households had a firearm."

But this isn't true at all, according to Martin Killias in his peer-reviewed study (Can Med Assoc J, Killias, M (1993)), Canada has an estimated 29% of household with firearms. Norway has 32%. Switzerland has 27.2% and Finland has 23.2%. Yet all of these have homicide rates comparable to countries with few or no firearms - plus I already pointed out Taiwan's homicide rate which would almost certainly stand out to researchers, yet no mention at all in this study. Odd, don't you think?

4) The study concentrates on all firearms injuries as if they were all equal - ignoring the reality that sometimes people need to be injured with a firearm. We don't give cops guns so they can blow kisses at people do we?

Pretty much, I can go on all day long and all night too as this study is nothing but manure piled on manure and relies on several already discredited studies in its citations. However, I think I'll wait and see if you really are interested in a discussion of the issues further before I put myself out.

If you want a rational discussion of the faults of this study, I'll give you enough to make your ears bleed; but I don't think you do as you have yet to offer even a faintly rational response to any of the criticisms directed your way yet.

 

[Kaylee]

I consider this to be the lunatic fringe, however. Ah well, I am wasting my breath, I might as well discuss evolution with the Pope, or race relations with the Klan, or the Palestinian crisis with the JDL - a very fair and reasoned discourse will ensue there with totally unbiased persons seeking to answer questions and not to push idealogy as well I am sure.

Geee... nice to meet you too. Always nice to hear from my edumacated superiors.

But to the original question...EVEN IF the data you're talking about is true (despite all the counters you've just seen, with LINKS TO THE ORIGINAL DOJ NUMBERS FOR GOSH'S SAKE)... and EVEN IF the study you referenced in this thread didn't come out with some (surprise-surprise) biased-looking "recommendations" in short.. EVEN IF EVERYTHING YOU SAY IS TRUE..


.... why should I care?

You've no more right to restrict my weapons because some hopped-up gangbanger blasts his rival punk than you do to restrict my truck because some idgit gets drunk and crosses the center line. In short, *I* am not going around shooting people, so leave my frickin' weapons alone. You don't like that, Molon Labe baby.

So um.. how's that Vertec workin' for ya? You get the standard model or the Ben Cohen guerilla special?

-K