(June 13, 2016 at 12:35 am)KevinM1 Wrote: Huggy, you're an idiot.  Automobile use is so different from that of a firearm one cannot meaningfully compare death statistics between them.

What are you talking about? You can compare the two just fine, dead is dead, there really is no ambiguity. 8000 people died by firearms in 2014 as compared to the 32,000 that died by automobile... see?

(June 13, 2016 at 12:35 am)KevinM1 Wrote:  If the general population used firearms with the frequency and duration they usually drive, the casualty numbers would be much, much higher.

So using the same logic you use with automobiles... If guns were used more than automobiles a higher death toll would be acceptable?

I'm not playing this game Huggy. Your attempt to present automobiles as being more dangerous than firearms is utterly fallacious. I've already explained why.

(June 13, 2016 at 2:11 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:

(June 13, 2016 at 1:59 am)Huggy74 Wrote: Hold up! I'm lying? About what exactly?

Here are my exact quotes.


*emphasis mine*

Last time I checked 32,000 is FOUR TIMES AS MANY as 8,000.

You quoting me as stating "four times as likely" is false.

*emphasis mine*

Now who's the liar?

What you don't seem to understand is that you need to have use rates of each item in order to compute the likelihood of death arising from usage.

Four times as many people may die in auto accidents each year, but how many people drive (or ride, for that matter -- autos kill passengers, too) how many miles each year, compared to how many people fire how many rounds each year? Those facts are needed to compute likelihood. This is why any claim of autos being "four times more likely" to cause death is empty: the requisite data hasn't been presented.

What you don't get is I never made any claim of autos being "four times more likely" to cause death, all I stated was the body count between guns and cars. If everyone had guns and were shooting them off on a daily basis and there were 128,000 gun deaths per year vs 32,000 auto deaths, would that be more acceptable seeing how guns were being used more than autos in that scenario?

Guns are weapons. They're made to cause harm. Cars are not weapons. Why is this difficult?

Ok I have an idea, let's make a law saying that gun manufacturers are required to start making guns safer. The will now be expected to compete based on whose gun is less likely to hurt someone in an accident. Ready, go. Oh wait no that doesn't work because a gun's purpose is to hurt people.

(June 13, 2016 at 1:59 am)Huggy74 Wrote:

(June 13, 2016 at 12:43 am)The_Empress Wrote: What the actual fuck, Huggy? Why do you think you're allowed to lie? You should probably watch out for the various cactii while you're in there.

Hold up! I'm lying? About what exactly?

Here are my exact quotes.

(June 12, 2016 at 10:39 pm)Huggy74 Wrote: There were 8,124 homicides involving firearms in 2014, and according to the NHTSA, there were 32,675 traffic fatalities in 2014.

(June 12, 2016 at 11:08 pm)Huggy74 Wrote: Yet four times as many people die every year from automobiles than guns.

(June 12, 2016 at 11:38 pm)Huggy74 Wrote: That's kinda the point isn't it? Automobiles aren't designed to kill, actually it's quite the opposite, they are designed to adhere to strict safety regulations, yet they kill four times as many people as the thing that's actually designed to kill.

*emphasis mine*

Last time I checked 32,000 is FOUR TIMES AS MANY as 8,000.

You quoting me as stating "four times as likely" is false.

(June 13, 2016 at 12:18 am)The_Empress Wrote: No... it's really not. People don't generally drive automobiles with the intent to injure or kill with them. Accidents happening is an unfortunate side effect that happens at a lower and lower rate as safety and security features improve. On top of that, gun deaths are on the rise, sometimes accidentally, and often intentionally.

On top of that, according to the CDC, guns are more likely to kill, so his "four times more likely" snippet is a blatant lie.

*emphasis mine*

Now who's the liar?

I made the mistake of missing that you specified "homicides". You're equivocating by only counting homicides when it comes to firearms but not to cars. Second, I couldn't find any actual numbers for homicide by gun in 2014, and since you don't cite your sources (I wonder why that could be), I have to go with 2013.

Wikipedia (bold mine):

Quote:Gun violence in the United States results in thousands of deaths and injuries annually.[1] According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2013, firearms were used in 84,258 nonfatal injuries (26.65 per 100,000 U.S. citizens) [2] and 11,208 deaths by homicide (3.5 per 100,000),[3] 21,175 by suicide with a firearm,[4] 505 deaths due to accidental discharge of a firearm,[4] and 281 deaths due to firearms-use with "undetermined intent"[5] for a total of 33,169 deaths related to firearms (excluding firearm deaths due to legal intervention). 1.3% of all deaths in the country were related to firearms.[1][6]

Where there were 32,719 vehicular deaths in 2013, and even fewer in 2014 at 32,675.

(June 13, 2016 at 2:34 am)Losty Wrote: Guns are weapons. They're made to cause harm. Cars are not weapons. Why is this difficult?

Ok I have an idea, let's make a law saying that gun manufacturers are required to start making guns safer. The will now be expected to compete based on whose gun is less likely to hurt someone in an accident. Ready, go. Oh wait no that doesn't work because a gun's purpose is to hurt people.

Yet you fail to see the irony in the thing that is DESIGNED to be safe having a higher body count every year than the thing designed to kill.

If you guys seriously think I'm arguing to ban automobiles, you miss the point.

(June 13, 2016 at 2:17 am)Huggy74 Wrote: What are you talking about? You can compare the two just fine, dead is dead, there really is no ambiguity. 8000 people died by firearms in 2014 as compared to the 32,000 that died by automobile... see?

(bold mine)

There. There's your lie. More than 33,000 people died via firearms in 2013 (your 2014 date isn't turning up any results for me), not counting death-by-cop. See my sources (gasp! Sources???) above.

(June 13, 2016 at 2:44 am)The_Empress Wrote:

(June 13, 2016 at 1:59 am)Huggy74 Wrote: Hold up! I'm lying? About what exactly?

Here are my exact quotes.


*emphasis mine*

Last time I checked 32,000 is FOUR TIMES AS MANY as 8,000.

You quoting me as stating "four times as likely" is false.

*emphasis mine*

Now who's the liar?

I made the mistake of missing that you specified "homicides". You're equivocating by only counting homicides when it comes to firearms but not to cars. Second, I couldn't find any actual numbers for homicide by gun in 2014, and since you don't cite your sources (I wonder why that could be), I have to go with 2013.

Wikipedia (bold mine):

Quote:Gun violence in the United States results in thousands of deaths and injuries annually.[1] According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2013, firearms were used in 84,258 nonfatal injuries (26.65 per 100,000 U.S. citizens) [2] and 11,208 deaths by homicide (3.5 per 100,000),[3] 21,175 by suicide with a firearm,[4] 505 deaths due to accidental discharge of a firearm,[4] and 281 deaths due to firearms-use with "undetermined intent"[5] for a total of 33,169 deaths related to firearms (excluding firearm deaths due to legal intervention). 1.3% of all deaths in the country were related to firearms.[1][6]

Where there were 32,719 vehicular deaths in 2013, and even fewer in 2014 at 32,675.

*Emphasis mine*

So your basically tacking on suicide which can be achieved by means other than firearms... You seriously can't be suggesting that less guns means less suicide.

---

(June 13, 2016 at 2:48 am)The_Empress Wrote:

(June 13, 2016 at 2:17 am)Huggy74 Wrote: What are you talking about? You can compare the two just fine, dead is dead, there really is no ambiguity. 8000 people died by firearms in 2014 as compared to the 32,000 that died by automobile... see?

(bold mine)

There. There's your lie. More than 33,000 people died via firearms in 2013 (your 2014 date isn't turning up any results for me), not counting death-by-cop. See my sources (gasp! Sources???) above.

I did post sources btw.

(June 12, 2016 at 10:39 pm)Huggy74 Wrote: According to the FBI
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/cr...0-2014.xls

There were 8,124 homicides involving firearms in 2014, and according to the NHTSA, there were 32,675 traffic fatalities in 2014.
http://www.nhtsa.gov/About+NHTSA/Press+R...ing-higher

It would seem that automobiles are the bigger threat, why not work big to small and start by banning them?

See? sources.

(June 13, 2016 at 2:48 am)Huggy74 Wrote: Yet you fail to see the irony in the thing that is DESIGNED to be safe having a higher body count every year than the thing designed to kill.[...]

LOL. So the fact that large percentage of US adult population never uses a gun in their life, yet EVERYONE uses cars, all the time - that has no influence on your (questionable anyway) statistic?

It's risk vs benefit, you see. If ALL cars did was kill people - then they would be banned. And when guns start carrying goods and people around (or anyway - have more beneficial uses than they do now) - then the society might get over the collateral damage.

Okay, so finally another single-gunman massacre has occurred that was worse than Port Arthur. As big a tragedy as it is, and I don't want to give the impression I don't think it is, I'm pleased to finally have something else in the real-world to compare the 1996 massacre to. Also it is so far at least the most comparable massacre of a size to the Port Arthur event - the two other massacres carried out by individuals wither larger than 50 people dead were substantially different. But still provide useful information though, like Anders Breivik going to great lengths to obtain a pistol for the massacre (handguns are ideal for mass shootings, whereas rifles are not).

Some differences are immediately obvious:

* Gunman took a rifle AND a hand gun to the shooting,
* Police were quickly able to identify where he had obtained the murder weapons,
* He had been a person of interest to FBI but dismissed as a threat,
* He took hostages at the scene,
* More wounded than killed,
* Killer had clear motivation for the crime,
and there'll probably be more points of contrast too as the facts come to light.

Now despite my criticisms of the theory that Bryant was solely responsible for Port Arthur, I am still pleased with the sensible gun reforms that were passed by the Howard government. Howard was a career politician, and he's on the right of the Liberal party - right out on the right. So when he was prime minister, the reason his government was more functional than say the Abbott government is because he lead a cabinet government and the moderates kept him in check. I mean he's so to the right of the party's centre that he has publicly said he supports the Republican party in the US over the Democrat party! And both those parties are significantly to the right of mainstream Australian politics.

Anyway, I digress, His decision to push through gun reform was highly controversial at the time - and he was only fresh into the role of PM as it was. He did it in defiance of heavy lobbying, and he even had to wear a bullet-proof vest in public both at the time he announced the reforms, and for about a year after as well. He has consistently claimed ever since that it has reduced gun crime. He is probably right - and by that I mean almost certainly right. But, you can't prove it from "grade iv" evidence alone. The hard truth is that gun deaths were already declining prior to 1996 anyway, but they have been fairly flat since 2004. My take on it is that I think it has contributed to a culture shift away from unnecessary personal firearm possession, and while it's unlikely to be solely responsible for the declining trend in gun deaths, it could be quantified as a number somewhere in the range of 30-150 people per year or so. But it certainly hasn't had a positive effect on gun deaths rates - which is often the mindless rhetoric that we hear coming out of the US "if you ban guns then more deaths will happen" - no certainly not. As discussed you'd say with a good degree of confidence it's almost certainly had a negative effect on gun death rates in Australia, and that's what most qualified experts will tell you.