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The Good Guy With A Gun Theory, Debunked

Full disclosure; I am a multiple firearm owner. More a collector really.

I do not hunt.

I am not now, never have been and likely never will be a member of the NRA.

Because I can read and have a better-than-average grasp of history I understand that the 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution was designed to address a national (and now impractical and obsolete) military requirement, not a personal desire to hunt ducks. That said, nearly my entire collection are ex-military firearms,... just in case. My Lee Enfield's could come in handy if The Hun invades.

I do not carry although I have thought about getting a permit to do so simply to save on paperwork and hassle given the way purchasing laws are in my state.

I do not keep a firearm loaded and ready for action to defend my home or family - all are safely locked up at all times. I am a responsible gun owner.

That said, in a truly free society any law abiding citizen that wants to own one or more firearms should be able to own one or more firearms. 'Eff off, I like guns,' is a perfectly valid reason to own a gun,... in a truly free society.

People who don't like guns do not have the right to decide that those of us who do can't have them, just because they don't like guns,... in a truly free society.

The NRA doesn't seem to get that.

20-odd years ago the NRA decided for political reasons that to justify the right to own guns they needed to push a right to self defense (using guns).
In the process they created a whole new market for whole new types of firearms designed specifically for personal protection - which couldn't have upset the NRA's main contributors too much.

The NRA party line that only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun is bollocks. Do good guys (or gals) with guns sometimes stop bad guys with guns? Yeah, but it isn't all that common. On the flip side statistically it is far more likely that gun will harm the owner or someone the owner knows/loves rather than a baddie. Not the best argument for personal protection. Of course if one is a responsible gun owner and keeps their firearms unloaded and locked up then they are far less likely to harm themselves or a loved one,... but that makes the firearm all but useless for self defense.

That said, if someone is convinced that they need a firearm to protect themselves, their loved ones and/or property and they are a law abiding citizen they should be allowed to have a firearm for protection,... in a truly free society. Even if that increases risk of injury or death. Freedom isn't all moon beams and sparkly unicorns.

Keeping in mind that the primary purchase of regulation is to get the legislator re-elected, restricting the ability of law abiding persons to purchase firearms is going to have eff-all effect on the rate of firearm violence and little on the incidence of accidental death or injury (I will concede it might have some impact on the rate of suicides but by how much is debatable. There are better ways to dramatically reduce gun violence than making it illegal for law abiding people to engage in something they enjoy.

That's my $0.02 worth
 
Mark F said:
On the flip side statistically it is far more likely that gun will harm the owner or someone the owner knows/loves rather than a baddie.
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The statistics you refer to are aggregate statistics which include gun ownership by baddies. They do not indicate a higher risk of harm for someone who is not a member of a gang or otherwise engaged in criminal activity.
 
arthwollipot said:
I already know how this is going to end, but...

The Good Guy with a Gun Theory, Debunked



Here are a couple more relevant quotes from the article, which you should totally go read:







The upshot of this last point is that while violent crime statistics have been falling all over America, it has fallen more slowly in states that have "Shall Issue" laws.

Since this is a comprehensive and rigorous study, backed by forty years' worth of crime data, I expect that those members on this forum who have previously repeated the NRA's propaganda that gun ownership reduces crime to change their minds, completely recant this idea, and start arguing for greater gun control, now that we have hard scientific evidence to support it.

*beat*

Hahaha. Who am I kidding? Of course they won't.
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Not seeing what other possible conflating factors were investigated, for example the presence of lead in pollution and paint, and it's gradual eradication.
 
SezMe said:
Lott is known data forger. I would not believe him if he said the sky was blue.
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In all the years since his books have come out and of all the attempted refutations of his conclusions, I have never once heard this before.

What's the evidence you got that informs your statement?
 
Ziggurat said:
Your question itself is nonsensical. Why are you considering only cases where the firearm was actually discharged? Guns can have a significant effect on a situation even without being discharged. Shouldn't those cases be included too? Yes, obviously they should. So why do you want to ignore them?
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Your objection is nonsensical. The questions were not related to defensive gun use (fired or not). They were related to injury and death due to guns, period. The accidental discharge of a gun has absolutely nothing to do with defense.
 
Argumemnon said:
Wait... how can they know what would've happened under a hypothetical alternate reality scenario?
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By evaluating (and possibly extrapolating) existing data. For example, if 189 people drowned swimming in a local creek in a town with no swimming holes and 230 drowned after 14 swimming pools were built, one could make a make a reasonable extrapolation about the "alternate reality" of no swimming pools when in fact some pools did exist.

Kinda line economists use Ceteris paribus to describe alternate scenarios.
 
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AJM8125 said:
For those of you who don't know, Mr. Bloomberg is vehemently opposed to concealed carry. Except when it comes to his personal safety, that is. Then it's ok to surround himself with the concealed firearms carried by his private security team. 24/7.

Yup.
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I'm pretty sure you would agree that there is a world of difference between private security carrying in order to protect a person who gets death threats and some ordinary Joe carrying a concealed weapon.

You attempted comparison has no value in its attempt to portray Bloomberg as a hypocrite.
 
Ziggurat said:
No, they were not.
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Hahahahaha. You didn't read that link, did you? It specifically states that the work was based on Delaware state data. For example, this is a quote from the text:
Our fieldwork demonstrates that data across Delaware agencies can be linked and that linking data has value in allowing service providers to better understand the multiple risk factors for violence involvement that need to be addressed,particularly among young men.
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That's got nothing to do with the CDC.
 
Mark F said:
That said, in a truly free society any law abiding citizen that wants to own one or more firearms should be able to own one or more firearms. 'Eff off, I like guns,' is a perfectly valid reason to own a gun,... in a truly free society.

People who don't like guns do not have the right to decide that those of us who do can't have them, just because they don't like guns,... in a truly free society.
<snip>

That said, if someone is convinced that they need a firearm to protect themselves, their loved ones and/or property and they are a law abiding citizen they should be allowed to have a firearm for protection,... in a truly free society.
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In this you have just substituted your own bias ("law abiding citizen") for the NRA's (just about anybody) or the anti-gun nuts (nobody). What makes your particular criterion better than anyone else's?

And does a jay walking ticket debar someone from being able to buy a gun? After all, she is not "law abiding". Yeah, I know that's a silly question but it raises the very important question about what "law abiding" really means.

Also, what limits would you place on the definition of a "gun". Can a "law abiding" citizen care these:


Again, it's a silly question but it raises the issue of what kind of gun any "law abiding" citizen should be able to own.
 
The Norseman said:
In all the years since his books have come out and of all the attempted refutations of his conclusions, I have never once heard this before.

What's the evidence you got that informs your statement?
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It's a reasonable question. Most of the site are not from sources that might be deemed unbiased. Well, in the gun debate what sites are unbiased. :) Anyway, this is just the introduction.
 
theprestige said:
Since we're Godwinning the thread anyway... The rise of Nazi Germany came about because the German police *didn't* have a monopoly on violence. Hitler's SA goons started out as thugs deployed by the party to disrupt rival political rallies and events. The Nazi party rose to power on the back of such political violence, outside of any legitimate police authority or government control.

Incidentally, this is why I find the political violence of the "antifa" crowd so depressingly ironic. Their use of violence to suppress and intimidate political speech they don't like is literally a fascist tactic.
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Ha ! a rare 100% agreement ;).

Paramilitary group are often used in support or the creation of fascist governement, to deal with the more innoficial dirty work.
 
Ziggurat said:
The statistics you refer to are aggregate statistics which include gun ownership by baddies. They do not indicate a higher risk of harm for someone who is not a member of a gang or otherwise engaged in criminal activity.
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Unfortunately, the real world doesn't break down into neat little groups labelled 'goodies' and baddies'. Try watching that Youtube video linked earlier.
 
BStrong said:
To establish a database of firearms owners.
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To computerize records they are legally required to maintain. Not a database of fire arms owners, but records of the sales that they are again, required to maintain.

The goal is to make the data useless.


It seems your basic argument is that any collection of gun data is wrong and all guns need to be anonymous and untraceable. That does fit with the NRA's goals. All gun owners need to be able to quickly sell off their guns to criminals, it is a basic american right as is the right for that to have no legal consequences for you ever.
 
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SezMe said:
By evaluating (and possibly extrapolating) existing data. For example, if 189 people drowned swimming in a local creek in a town with no swimming holes and 230 drowned after 14 swimming pools were built, one could make a make a reasonable extrapolation about the "alternate reality" of no swimming pools when in fact some pools did exist.
Click to expand...

But then, you'd say "230 people died after these swimming pools were installed, compared to 189 in the same amount of time prior to their installation." not "only 189 people would've died if these pools weren't there!". You just can't know the latter.
 
SezMe said:
[Citation needed]
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Funny, you never asked for a citation from Mark F. Your request for citation is dishonest. I might still dig it up later, but it's clear that you're trying to apply a hypocritical standard of evidence.
 
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