“I call BULLSHIT on your BULLSHIT OC phil @ 36. Don’t believe everything you Google on anti-gun websites. For the latest year for which data was compiled there were only 762 accidental firearm deaths TOTAL (including adults). By comparison, there were 3,447 unintentional drownings.”

how bad did that sting oc phil? i know it left a mark.

So much for enjoying a meal without having to blather on about something or other.

http://rackjite.com/archives/2770-SNL,-Football-Great-Steve-THE-GUN-Martin.html

the self-selecting group of shall-carry owners is a good bet for extrapolating to the broader population.

I agree, but just because you pass a law like this doesn’t mean that every college professor, fraternity member, and band geek will start packing. People who get RTC permits tend to be knowledgeable about firearms and practice using them frequently. The vast majority of college kids can’t be bothered with the permit process.

As noted previously, ‘gun free’ zones don’t work, and it’s not the people with RTC permits who are the problem in that area.

Given the behavior I’ve seen there, I wouldn’t be too sure about that. And you’d definitely get shootouts over the last parking space on Macomb Street.

As for the broader question, I suppose I’m simply not convinced that 1) there aren’t other intervening variables about crime stats, and 2) that the self-selecting group of shall-carry owners is a good bet for extrapolating to the broader population.

But then I’m not convinced that most people should be allowed to breed or drive cars, so you have to factor that misanthropy in. My only consolation is that all these half-wits keep the man busy enough that their firepower asymmetry doesn’t become a problem for the likes of me.

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/493636.html

Although I agree that crime deterrent statistics are hard to come by. Mainly because they go unreported (there was no crime committed obviously). However, you can find plenty of news articles where someone with a firearm prevented an already committed crime from being much worse.

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/493636.html

http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/st176.pdf

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr53/nvsr53_05.pdf#18

Take DC, for instance: you could argue that the level of violence in certain areas of the city would be reduced if citizens were allowed to carry concealed handguns. Given the rate of failure of other deterrents in the form of the MPD and jail time, I have a hard time believing that you’d get anything other than a net neutral result in terms of gun deaths because the other factors that indicate gun violence wouldn’t change – it’s not like you get people exchanging fire outside Two Amy’s over who gets the next table.

And that’s an environment with fairly predictable levels of violence. The proportion of the population that are at risk for a school shooting is pretty small at best, and the incidence of same is such that the deterrence rate of RTC would have to be near 100% for it to work. The statistical argument really doesn’t cut it.

Better to stick to the principled argument. I don’t agree with it, but I can respect the position more than trying to make a statistical case for the at best improbable.

Well, according to that logic, the military shouldn’t enlist such hormonal kids until they are 30.