Do ( D )s sell more guns than ( R )s?

[Dr H]

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Flawed analogy.

The purpose of a car is to provide transportation.
The purpose of a gun is to kill.

Deaths result from the use of both, but only in the second case
are the deaths the result of the object being used for its intended purpose.

You've been arguing eristic nonsense with people in internet forums for too long. I didn't make an analogy. That really clearly wasn't an analogy.

If it wasn't an analogy, then it's a non-sequitur, completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.

Your choice, I guess.

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The number of things that kill people and the number they kill is aside the fact . Stopping something bad isn't a numbers game .

I agree that it is not a 'game'. But numbers matter. We should obviously devote most of our attention to life saving strategies that will save the most lives and do the most good. Gun deaths are bad. Car deaths are bad. Opioid deaths are bad. Environmental damage done by cars is bad. So if you want to prioritize strategy to save the most lives and do the most good, and that means that numbers so totally matter. If you have a raging fixation on one bad thing at the expense of priorities that would save more lives and do more good, that's a bad thing that should perhaps be stopped.

Fair enough.  But then you have to look at the whole picture.  
It's not enough to look at how many lives are lost due to guns, cars, or opioids.
You also have to look at how many lives have been saved by each of them, and
how many lives would likely be lost as a result of each of them going away.

That is, in fact, the big problem with popular "risk/benefit" calculations":
they fail to take all the relevant parameters into account.

Now, maybe you can craft a good data-supported argument to show that taking away guns would cause more deaths than taking away cars (which, don't forget, transport everything from food for the hungry to the ill/injured to hospitals).

It will be interesting to see what you come up with.



Oh, and just for the record:  nowhere in this discussion have I advocated for taking guns away.
I don't, in fact, believe that it's possible.

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There are videos online showing how to beat at least one major brand of gun safes (with fingerprint ID system) with the foil from a stick of gum. Guns in the home are never safe.

Actually, that's kind of a weak argument.

Someone looking to steal a gun isn't going to fuck around with trying to break into a gun safe -- in someone's home, where he might get shot if he's discovered -- when there are plenty of guns lying around in glove compartments, desk, and dresser drawers,  and other easy to access places.

It's like burglary.  A deadbolt on your front door isn't going to atop someone from breaking in if they really want to.  But 99.9% of housebreakers, if they can't get through the door in 20 seconds or less, are going to move on to the next house, where you neighbor forgot to lock the door, or left the key in the lock.

So yeah, a gun in the home in a safe is a lot safer than a gun in the home in a kitchen drawer next to the ice cream scoop.

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Ultimately no they are not. Like I said in a prior post, it is far more likely that one is going go get injured or injure, or die or harm someone else in the home by accident than successfully defending oneself from a complete stranger. 

That's a very popular meme. But it is almost certainly not true. In most situations where an aggressor was stopped by a gun, the incident was never reported. An aggressor almost always retreats when confronted with a gun, and that's the end of the incident. No one bothers to report it.  I had 8 young men attempt to assault me in Portland OR while I was waiting for a bus at 1 AM. They were gay bashers. They were like, "You're going to die, faggot". I am not a gay man, but they thought that I was. They surrounded me and I pulled out my gun. They mouthed off for awhile, and then went away. I didn't fire a shot. They never landed a blow. There wasn't much to report. If I did report it, the cops might look for a reason to hassle me. But I probably would have had the crap stomped out of me that night if I hadn't had a gun. I might have been killed. Guns resolve situations frequently, and those situations don't get reported.

Um... Brian did say "in the home".  Your incident was not in the home.

If someone defended themselves with a gun against a stranger in their home, I'll wager that it's going to be reported most times, even if they didn't fire a shot -- because WTF was a stranger doing in their home ?   How did he get in?  What did he want?  Is he going to come back with friends or a gun of his own?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that incidents involving break-ins or home invasion are going to get reported, regardless.

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But remember, criminals don't follow the law and will obtain guns even if they are banned. The left promoting gun control is and always will be a losing issue and something that turns me away.

Well, that's kind of a weak argument, too.

Basically it boils down to "criminals don't obey the law, so therefore we don't need the law."

OK.  Burglars don't obey the laws against breaking into houses, so we don't need any laws against breaking into houses.  Rapists don't obey the laws against rape, so we don't need any laws against rape.  Murderers don't obey the laws against murder, so we don't need any laws against murder.

See where this is going?

Hey, maybe you're an anarchist, and didn't realize it?

Greetings, comrade!