On 2/14/2010 6:55 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Oh.. And they are always willing to a) assert that their are "a lot"
>> of cases where is improved the odds of people not dying, while b)
>> their only evidence is situations that involved guns, and where there
>> was no way to resolve the situation without more of them.
>
> Not really. If you look at, for example, the FBI unified crime stats,
> you see that having a gun is somewhat safer than doing whatever the
> attacker says, which is in turn somewhat safer than anything else.
>
> It's not like there isn't any scientific evidence.
>
It still doesn't mean that the odds of catastrophic situations isn't 
increased, and any improvement is countered by any situation where the 
person making the threat has more numbers, or a bigger gun. And, again, 
you have to be **willing** to use it, for it to matter at all.

The point was, the statistics apply to any state in which the possible 
victim has something that could be used in defense, and the attacker 
doesn't have something worse. All guns do is escalate the "worse" part, 
without solving the original problem. More of them, bigger ones, etc., 
just keep expanding the category of "worse", and every situation that 
can arise from it. There are legitimate uses for guns, legitimate 
situations where they can be useful, etc. Arming every fracking idiot on 
the street, starting with paranoids, people that think liberals want to 
steal them, and every other sort that is **likely** to actually use one, 
and not as a last resort, is a damn stupid way to fix a problem that 
only exists *when* any idiot that wants to can stuff one in a pocket and 
take it out in public, whether with training, carry permits, or without 
*either*. The people that need defense from people with guns are *not* 
going to be the first ones buying the damn things, so.. logically, the 
solution of making it easier for people to get, use, and carry, them, 
isn't fixing much, of anything.

I imagine something of the same argument was made when someone worked 
out how to make a spear, and they found a guy with one in his gut. "If 
everyone has spears, this wouldn't have happened." Right....

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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