No knock warrants

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Well, if by ‘reckless’ you mean ‘shooting someone’, I’ll have a lash.

There are an average of 36 000 gun deaths per year in the US. Obviously, not all of those are reckless - some of them are deliberate, planned shootings. However, we’ll be as generous as possible, so let’s assume that all of them are reckless and round it up to 40 000, just to make the maths easier.

But that 40 000 is just deaths. Some shootings clearly don’t result in death, so let’s arbitrarily bump it up to 100 000. We’ll call all of those reckless as well, to account for the I-didn’t-know-it-was-loaded idiots and the people who accidentally shoot themselves in the foot while fondling their guns.

There are, very roughly, 400 000 000 firearms in the hand of private individual in the US. Assuming an average of four weapons per gun owner, that means 100 000 000 people in the US have at least one firearm of some sort (I’ve read that it’s more, but again, I’m being generous).

So, we’ve got 100 000 instances of reckless behaviour spread out among 100 000 000 gun owners. That means one out of every thousand gun owners has, at some point in any given year, behaved recklessly with a gun. So, at most, .001% of gun owners are reckless.

Again, this assumes that ALL shoots, fatal and otherwise are the result of reckless behaviour.

Boru

Your analysis is flawed. It isn't because you were being generous with your numbers either. According to the Brady Campaign web site the US averages around 33,000 accidental shooting injuries/deaths each year so your base number of 40,000 isn't too far off the mark. My problem with what you said is this. "Well, if by ‘reckless’ you mean ‘shooting someone'..."

Someone getting shot as a result of reckless behavior is going to be the exception not the rule. Reckless behavior that results in a negligent discharge of a firearm is going to be much higher. I have no idea how much higher, but I would be willing to bet someone getting shot by a negligent discharge happens 1 in a hundred maybe 1 in a thousand times. That would bring the number closer to .1 to 1% of gun owners are reckless.

That assumes a gun has to fire to meet the definition of reckless. It doesn't count the times someone unintentionally points a loaded gun at someone, props their loaded deer rifle up against a tree, or leaves a firearm out where a child could access it. If you count all reckless behavior I would bet that practically all gun owners are going to do something reckless with a gun at some point over the course of their life. That puts the number closer to 100%.

I went with shooting someone because GS specified ERs and morgues. I happily accept that ‘reckless’ gun behaviour is probably much, much higher - brandishing a firearm because someone took your parking spot is reckless, not properly securing your guns is reckless, etc, (even if no one is hurt) but that’s not what I was asked to consider. 

Boru