Radioman Loc: Ontario Canada

*******
As Churchill said, there are three types of lies:
Lies, Damn lies and Statistics ....

Frapha Loc: Tulsa, Oklahoma

You're absolutely correct. IMPROPERLY SECURED weapons in the home can be deadly for UNSUPERVISED children. I have two children well into their 40's who are evidence that PROPERLY secured weapons and SUPERVISED children in the same household can peacefully co-exist, survive and thrive.

moonshot24 Loc: Kenton, Ohio

Get real. Teach your children to respect firearms and you will have no problem.

rpavich Loc: West Virginia

Exactly.

And the problem with statistics is that people come to conclusions and assume that "since B follows A...then A CAUSED B" when it's not necessarily the case.
But why take all the time and effort to investigate a REAL solution when the knee jerk reaction is so much easier?

TimS Loc: GA

As I was sitting there wondering about the statistics they used I came up similar statistics that show the stupidity of the article:

Children who eat broccoli are 10 times more likely to die from choking on broccoli than children that do not eat broccoli.

Children who live in households with knives are 12 times more likely to be cut from a knife than children who live in households without any knives.

Children who ride in vehicles are 20 times more likely to die in a car crash than children that do not ride in motor vehicles.

Children who are severely allergic to peanuts are 100 times more likely to die from accidentally eating peanuts than children who are not allergic to peanuts.

OF COURSE a gun in the home increases the chances of someone being accidentally killed with it. If there is no gun in a home then the probability is zero. If a gun is in the home then the probability is something greater than 0. What that actual probability is - that depends on how well the fmily manages that risk. Through adequate storage, education, parental involvement, etc. that risk can be easily mitigated to a risk level acceptable to the patent when compared with the risk of dying from a home invasion.

So don't tell me that just because I have a gun in the house, my kids are very likely going to die from it because unlike the moron in the story, I don't keep a loaded gun under my mattress.

This USA Today statistic is just as stupid as one that gives a pitcher's ERA while playing during a full moon and exactly 2 days after watching a Leave it to Beaver rerun.

gfinnstrom

Well here we are again listening to corrupted information stats etc. I find it interesting how gullible society is…. If they see or read or hear something that is labeled stats then it has to be true like everything on the internet is true like that dumb commercial with the lady thinking she is going out with a dork from France….

Well sorry to burst the bubble as the saying goes believe 10 percent of what you read and hear…. In the old days before the US got lax stupid and dumb there were hardly any killings with guns… why because the kids myself included grew up with guns we went out shooting in high school we were taught about hunting how to reload ammo when my children were young I took them out to the desert took my 357 shot a soda can point blank then showed then what the damage was and in turn what it would do to them by playing with the gun….

Then I put in hot round made them shoot the gun they are around 6 and 7 years old AND I NEVER HAD A PROBLEM WITH THEM TOUGHING THE GUN and it was it was out all the time….

If children and families have guns they need to go to a NRA certified class and learn about safety and this will sound harsh however if the family does not do that they do not take safety classes then the results is what it is…. Their fault because they could have prevented the problem…. I learned one thing in law-enforcement which is I could write a report in favour of the person or against them using the facts of the scent which is why I don’t listen or read stats from the liberals etc what we need to do is do away with politically correctness get a real president which is a joke outside the country (watch the toast with the queen she never drank from the toast which is an insult and the president or whatever he is never caught it no wonder we are in trouble)

nairiam Loc: Bonnie Scotland

A quote from a colleague years back, when the subject of guns were discussed, the analogy was often, people had cars, were we to ban cars, after all more are people killed annually with cars than guns.

Quote : " Yes, but guns are designed to kill."
Very succinct, I think. "

rpavich Loc: West Virginia

And my reply is..."so what?"


Explain clearly and simply how the design intent of an object makes the argument different between cars and guns.

TimS Loc: GA

Peanut butter is not designed to kill yet many schools ban it. Unfortunately, one of my kids' schools is one of them.

TimS Loc: GA

I would also like to add that if an object, not designed to kill, winds up killing more people than an object that IS designed to kill then what does that say for the safety of the otherwise innocuous object?

rpavich Loc: West Virginia

Not only that....

You are 64 times more likely to be killed by your doctor than by someone else wielding a gun.

That's because 19,766 of the total 31,940 gun deaths in the USA (in the year 2011) were suicides.

So the actual number of deaths from other people shooting you is only 12,174.

Doctors, comparatively, kill 783,936 people each year, which is 64 times higher than 12,174. Doctors shoot you not with bullets, but with vaccines, chemotherapy and pharmaceuticals... all of which turn out to be FAR more deadly than guns.

This is especially amazing, given that there are just under 700,000 doctors in America, while there are roughly about 80 million gun owners in America.

How do 700,000 doctors manage to kill 783,936 people each year (that's over one death per doctor), while 80 million gun owners kill only 31,940?

Because owning a gun is orders of magnitude safer than "practicing" medicine!

Frank T Loc: New York, NY

Bonnie is right. Intent is very important whether in life or in the law. In some states even types of knives such as daggers, switchblades and dirks are illegal because they are designed as weapons. Brass knuckles, chukka sticks and throwing stars; all weapons, all illegal.
How sad that we Americans put our love of guns ahead of our love of children.
Try this as you new mantra:. It can't happen to me; until it does.

rpavich Loc: West Virginia

It's not sad because we don't Frank...quit ascribing motives to us that are false.

Try and use REAL arguments and not emotive appeals.

nairiam Loc: Bonnie Scotland

Sorry for the confusion of my last posting.

Basically, cars, peanut butter and other items have the capacity to cause fatalities if misused or if allergies are severe.
However, non of these items are designed specifically to kill. Guns are!

rpavich Loc: West Virginia

And again...I ask how that is relevant. Explain why I should care about the design intent of an object.