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Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

wsj.com

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Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#881

Post by lmm »

abrokenpipe wrote: post #757
philwelch wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is not that bad compared to other New World countries. From your link we see Brazil at 27, Mexico at 29, Argentina at 5, Uruguay at 12, Greenland at 5, Panama at 9, and Costa Rica at 11. Canada is the biggest outlier, but the US still has less homicide than even relatively nice New World countries. If you’re going to tout France’s low homicide rate of 1.2, I’d invite you to observe that Japan’s homicide rate i…

I don't think it's bad in general considering the size of the country and especially considering the fact that we have hundreds of millions of civilian owned guns (23 million sold last year, and even more sold this year already). When you compare guns to other stuff like drunk driving it shows how blown out of proportion the problem is. - CDC stats (2018) - US Firearm Homicides: 14,414 US deaths caused by drunk drive…

Erm, what? Firearms causing more deaths than drunk drivers seems like a very strong argument for tighter gun regulation to me.

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#882

Post by zepto »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #599
sillysaurusx wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true for every sufficiently-large section of the world. But different places have different statistical properties. Look, my grandpa took me shooting when I was young. I remember doing target practice under a bridge when I was like 7, using a freakin' magnum revolver of all things. It was next to a very small river, and someone further downstream was trying to fish. I asked gramps "Do you think he heard us?" a…

I would say poverty has more to do with the murder rate than anything else. If you want to go and rob houses or join a gang, you'll get a gun, legally or illegally. This happens everywhere, not only where guns are legal. If you can't get a gun, you'll get a big knife or a baseball bat. The USA is rich in GDP per capita but has patches with poor people with little to lose. In many EU countries there is far less people…

Murder clearance rate by police has more to do with murder rate.

You are much more likely to get away with murder in the US (where clearance rates are 60% at best) than you are in Japan or the UK (where clearance rates are above 90%).

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#883

Post by solidsnack9000 »

ryandvm wrote: post #69
sharklazer wrote: post #53

Everyone should own a gun, and most more than 1. If we were to maintain public education (which... just no, please) gun education should be standard.

Strange take. In 40+ years, I've never needed a gun to defend myself. Nor do I even _know anyone_ that needed to use a gun to lawfully defend themselves. So why should we all have something that A) the lawful uses of such are exceedingly rare, and B) ends up involved in a lot of unlawful or unintentional killings.

If you're not a criminal, it's actually very unlikely that any of those things will happen.

The majority of shootings (more than 60%) are suicides; these are both intentional and generally lawful. Evidence suggests that most of the rest (between 20% and 30% of all shootings) are criminal conflict -- a lot of people with criminal records shooting other people with criminal records. Here again, there is a lot more to the story than just owning a gun. Unintentional shootings are fairly unusual, less than 4% of all shooting deaths. This is in part why thinking about guns has to be very different from our thinking when it comes to "safety" issues, like car accidents (95% of traffic deaths are unintentional).

The lawful uses of guns are, in fact, much more common than killings. These include hunting and target practice. Most gun owners will never shoot another person but that doesn't mean they don't use their guns.

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#884

Post by zepto »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #870
philwelch wrote: post #823

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are comparing the USA, a developed country, purely to developing countries. I mean, ya, the USA does better than much poorer countries, but can’t compare to any other developed ones. Almost every country in the world is much poorer than the USA. Most European countries have a smaller per-capita GDP than Mississippi, the poorest US state.

Ya, that just makes the USA’s high homicide rate even more embarrassing.

Why? Money doesn’t magically solve all cultural problems.

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#885

Post by zepto »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #843
abrokenpipe wrote: post #757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's bad in general considering the size of the country and especially considering the fact that we have hundreds of millions of civilian owned guns (23 million sold last year, and even more sold this year already). When you compare guns to other stuff like drunk driving it shows how blown out of proportion the problem is. - CDC stats (2018) - US Firearm Homicides: 14,414 US deaths caused by drunk drive…

I would expect drunk-driving deaths to far exceed firearm homicides, and it's honestly shocking that firearm homicides are that high. I think the stats show that it's not blown out of propertion.

Why would you expect that?

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#886

Post by Glyptodon »

yunohn wrote: post #607
Glyptodon wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To begin with you're creating a premise that the only reason gun legality can be justified is self defense, particularly against other people. I do not accept this premise. There are many other premises for gun legality. That said, when I was very young my grandfather had to shoot a number of stray dogs out his car window while driving through a rough pasture because they'd killed a couple calves and were attacking h…

“I need guns because my grandpa once used his to kill some stray dogs”. Surely this is a parody example?

I think you're paraphrasing wrong. Preventing the additional loss of thousands of dollars of that year's income and livelihood (on top of the calves that were lost) with a gun is more accurate. And additional loss would have been impactful.

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#887

Post by zepto »

worrycue wrote: post #859
zepto wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not white and I’ve been stopped by police numerous times and have never been afraid of being shot. The chances of being involved in a school shooting are lower than the chance of being hit by lightning. I also have flown many times. Nobody has ever ‘checked me for guns’. Generally they are checking for knives and explosives. You might be too young to remember, but much of today’s airport security was brought in a…

You never been told to keep your hands on the wheel where they are visible to the police officer and not to make any sudden movements, when you are pulled over?

Yes, I have been told that. Frankly I always forget to be quite so procedural about it, but I’m always polite and cooperative with police, and generally let them guide the interaction, so it has never been a problem.

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#888

Post by mettamage »

inter_netuser wrote: post #820
mettamage wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 4.96/100,000 for 2012 So... 5 * 20 years = 100 So living in the US for 20 year means that the people murdered by guns are very roughly estimated at 1 person per 1000. That's about as twice as high of a chance as dying from the flu [1]. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1127799/influenza-us-mor...

Which means guns are 500% safer than COVID-19?

Well, considering that people live on average 80 years, I'd upperbound it to 4/1000 instead of 1/1000. Also I wouldn't call "dying less" a way to frame safety when talking about these type of chances.

So I guess Covid is twice to 4 times as deadly? I mean it's a very rough estimation and clearly I haven't considered everything. But ballparking it like this, I'd be inclined to say so.

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#889

Post by [deleted] »

seoaeu wrote: post #812
zepto wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not white and I’ve been stopped by police numerous times and have never been afraid of being shot. The chances of being involved in a school shooting are lower than the chance of being hit by lightning. I also have flown many times. Nobody has ever ‘checked me for guns’. Generally they are checking for knives and explosives. You might be too young to remember, but much of today’s airport security was brought in a…

> I also have flown many times. Nobody has ever ‘checked me for guns’. Generally they are checking for knives and explosives. Oh, come on. You seriously don't think the metal detectors pick up guns too? > It’s a totally unrealistic fear, and one that can only result from being misinformed. Police officers routinely justify their actions on such grounds.

[deleted]

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#890

Post by yunohn »

Glyptodon wrote: post #886
yunohn wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I need guns because my grandpa once used his to kill some stray dogs”. Surely this is a parody example?

I think you're paraphrasing wrong. Preventing the additional loss of thousands of dollars of that year's income and livelihood (on top of the calves that were lost) with a gun is more accurate. And additional loss would have been impactful.

Like another commenter said, this usecase would be covered under a hunting/farming license in most countries. It is absolutely not necessary to have an indiscriminate personal right to carry in cities.
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