Mass shooting in the middle school Vladislav Ribnikar in Belgrade

[Irreligious Atheist]

I meant that none of us on the forum are going to die in a mall shooting, but since AWTY has now threatened me, let's please change topics so I don't get banned.

You don't even know that none of us here at this forum will not de in a mall-shooting, or any other mass-murder. And then after asserting something you literally cannot know, you ask to change the topic?

Maybe you should think about what you write before you write.

What you just wrote is beyond silly and you're just writing stuff up and throwing shit at the wall just for the sake of it at this point. Yes, no one here will die in a mall shooting, or by getting hit in the head by a past it's date satellite coming down from space, but anything is possible, if that's the concession you're looking for.

I ask to change the topic? Such was demanded of me in a threat by an admin. Are you suggesting that I defy that demand? Are you trying to bait me into further discussing what I was told not to discuss, so you can sneakily help me get banned? No? Then please understand that when I am threatened, the smart move is for me to stop talking about something and basically take that as a thread ban, and take a break and go on to fight another day on another topic.

[Thumpalumpacus]

You don't even know that none of us here at this forum will not de in a mall-shooting, or any other mass-murder. And then after asserting something you literally cannot know, you ask to change the topic?

Maybe you should think about what you write before you write.

What you just wrote is beyond silly and you're just writing stuff up and throwing shit at the wall just for the sake of it at this point. Yes, no one here will die in a mall shooting, or by getting hit in the head by a past it's date satellite coming down from space, but anything is possible, if that's the concession you're looking for.

I ask to change the topic? Such was demanded of me in a threat by an admin. Are you suggesting that I defy that demand? Are you trying to bait me into further discussing what I was told not to discuss, so you can sneakily help me get banned? No? Then please understand that when I am threatened, the smart move is for me to stop talking about something and basically take that as a thread ban, and take a break and go on to fight another day on another topic.

I don't care enough about you to want to see you around or banned. If I wanted to see you banned, I'd say as much -- not that that would mean anything at all here, as I'm not staff and swing no stick at all. But, what she objected to was you mentioning her name "in conjunction with your lies." So it seems pretty clear you're not being told to silence yourself.

Now, I can understand why you might not want to have to explain a few dumb things you've written here. But --

The topic here seems to be a particular mass-shooting which has generated further discussions about mass murders. Maybe you could address it without typing stuff like they never happen or no one here will ever get caught up in one? It would probably help keep the discussion on the rails a bit better, reduce AWTY pointing out that one is a lie and the other is something you cannot know, and so on.

My main point was that you really ought to avoid these absolutist statements. They do the conversation no favors. As my English comp professor advised us, "write exactly what you mean when writing polemic. Avoid hyperbole."

[FlatAssembler]

That's the problem. When a gun takes a life, it usually makes it into the news. When a gun saves a life, it usually doesn't make it into the news, even if that happens way more often. And politics is influenced by the news.

If the times that guns save a life aren't reported then how the hell do you know the numbers?

By the Gary Kleck's study.

[FlatAssembler]

Either way, it's by orders of magnitude more scientific than things you keep saying here.

Excellent, and so..we can scientifically say that there are @ 300k unreported crimes involving a firearm going on every year.  Brandishing and threatening are, ofc, illegal in the us.

No, it's almost an order of a magnitude more. There are, according to the Gary Kleck's study (and quite a few other studies arrive at a similar result), around 2.5 million defensive gun uses per year. In about 20% of them, the gun is actually fired. The 300k is just the Gary Kleck's estimate of the number of people who have been actually saved by guns, who would die if they hadn't had a gun. And, to the best of my knowledge, no other study tried to estimate how many lives are saved by guns each year. So, the Gary Kleck's study is the best data we have on this, and we have to accept it.

[The Grand Nudger]

Well then, 2.5 million unreported gun crimes? Is that supposed to be better?

I'll tell you the same thing I tell US nuts who are much better at this. You're writing the gun control lobbies ad copy for them.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Excellent, and so..we can scientifically say that there are @ 300k unreported crimes involving a firearm going on every year.  Brandishing and threatening are, ofc, illegal in the us.

No, it's almost an order of a magnitude more. There are, according to the Gary Kleck's study (and quite a few other studies arrive at a similar result), around 2.5 million defensive gun uses per year. In about 20% of them, the gun is actually fired. The 300k is just the Gary Kleck's estimate of the number of people who have been actually saved by guns, who would die if they hadn't had a gun. And, to the best of my knowledge, no other study tried to estimate how many lives are saved by guns each year. So, the Gary Kleck's study is the best data we have on this, and we have to accept it.

How on Earth can Kleck determine how man people would have died if they hadn’t had a gun? Remember that Kleck also includes gun owners’ encounters with animals. Would Joe Glockbearer have died if he hadn’t shot the bunny rabbit?

If ‘the best data we have on this’ is hopelessly flawed and at variance with observed facts, why should we accept it?

Boru

[The Architect Of Fate]

By the Gary Kleck's study.

Which is flamming garbage 

[FlatAssembler]

How on Earth can Kleck determine how man people would have died if they hadn’t had a gun?

As being approximately equal to the number of people who have actually seen the attacker and think having a gun saved their life.

[The Grand Nudger]

Who then pull a gun, and 20% of the time fire it. 2.5 million unreported gun crimes, including 20% attempted murders.

[FlatAssembler]

By the Gary Kleck's study.

Which is flamming garbage 

Most of the studies about gun control are flaming garbage. Most of the studies about gun control compare homicide rates in some city before and after some gun control law in that city was passed, and they conclude based on that whether it was effective or counter-productive. While that intuitively sounds like a reasonable methodology, it is not. Think of it this way: the vast majority of gun control laws only affect the sales of new guns. And there are 400 million guns already in the US. So, gun control laws only affect around 1% of total guns in existence. And homicide rates vary by around 6% from one year to the next. The signal-to-noise ratio is therefore at most 1:6. It is extremely unlikely that any such gun control study can arrive at a statistically significant result. The famous Gary Kleck's study where he tried to estimate the number of lives saved by defensive gun use each year at least does not suffer from that fatal flaw.