As happens so often, knowing the story behind the numbers can be important. The NCVS findings look good, but as it turns out the reason we see such success is that the victims tended to fight back only when the criminal was not comparably armed, so we don't really see an appropriate comparison to what we are discussing, IMO.
Not according to Kleck:
"These data indicate that victims who use guns for self-protection actually face less favorable circumstances than other victims, and that the post-self-protection injury rates for defensive gun use, low though they are, may still be misleadingly high compared to tother self-protection measures because victims who used guns faced tougher crime circumstances. More dangerous situations apparently prompt victims to adopt more dangerous self-protection measures. Two pieces of information available in the NCVS support this view. First, victims who used guns were substantially more likely than victims in general or victims using other self-protection measures to face offenders armed with guns — 32.7 percent of victims who attacked the offender with a gun, and 21.8 percent of those who threatened the offender with a gun, and 21.8 percent of those who threatened the offender with a gun, faced offenders with guns, compared to only 6.8 percent of all victims who used self-protection measures, and 2.2 percent of all victims. Second, victims who used guns were more likely to face multiple offenders — 33.2 percent of victims who attacked offenders with a gun and 34.5 percent of those who threatened with a gun confronted multiple adversaries, compared to 20.6 percent of all those who used self-protection measures, and 6.2 percent of all victims. These findings are consistent with the view that crime circumstances likely to appear more dangerous to victims are more likely to push victims into using guns. They are contrary to the speculation that crime outcomes are better for gun-wielding victims merely because other circumstances of the crime made successful outcomes more likely." (pp. 291-92)
thus defending one statement with the same type of support he is arguing is irrelevant in another post!
Which post are you referring to? I'd be happy to clarify both positions if you'd like.
When a driver turns on the left turn signal, it indicates a strong likelihood they are going to turn left. Sure, they might not do so, sure they might not have done so in the past, but it is fair to assume they are going to do so now.
So, does that mean you should feel safe passing them on the right? Sure, the odds are in your favor that you could without incident, but you really don't know if they are turning left and will your insurance company give you a break because the odds were in your favor or is your car less wrecked? My point is that it boils down to a judgement call, that imo is better based on information gathered during the situation than statistics and it is hard to fault someone for whatever decision they make because they are the participant, not the observer.
You are in essence arguing that, as an example, each NASCAR race is unique therefore past records of events, drivers, and so on are not relevant to discussing the likely outcome of the race.
So, a NASCAR race is always won by the driver who is statistically most likely to win and has never been won by one who was statistically not?
