Good guy with gun kills a teen returning an airsoft gun to sporting goods store

Okay, let's deal with the numerous issues found in this "analysis."

First, you seem to be suggesting that somehow a gun isn't responsible for a death in a suicide, accidents, or homicides, which is strange. Why do we care about that breakdown? What is the point of it?

Now let's get to your survey. You are making the assumption of accurate reporting in a self-report on that question. That is a highly questionable assumption without a basis on which to make it. A gun owner taking that survey has several incentives to answer yes other than accurately answering the question. For example, maybe they feel the need to justify the expense and risk of owning their firearm.

You also have the issue of endogeneity. Even if we were to accept their self-report, and make the assumption that the assistance provided was life saving not harm or property saving as stated in the question (more on that later), were they utilizing the gun to protect themselves because of the very laws that allowed to own the gun. In your telling of it, the person's life is saved because somebody points a gun at him and he points a gun back. But, couldn't it also be argued that the person's life was only in danger because the first guy pointed the gun at him in the first place? So was the life saved by the gun or did we just get back to the stage where we would have been if neither had a gun except for the increased risk of deadly violence and the potential psychological damage done by the gun pointing exchange?

Here is another angle of that question as well: could the first person have answered yes to that question? Sure, their life was only in danger because they pointed a gun at somebody, but once that person pointed the gun back at them, the mutually assured destruction saved both of their lives (in theory).

Beyond that, you are implicitly equating the protection of property (and the protection against harm) with the protection of life by comparing the answer to that question to the deaths due to guns. That is obviously not true.

 

I actually did not discount accidents and homicides. I do discount suicides since those are deaths that are likely to happen anyway. I provided the break down to give an accurate account of gun deaths in America nothing more
And since the FabI and local police do not differentiate between defensive gun use and (for lack of a better term) offensive gun use all we really have to go by are the self reported surveys.
And even given a large margin of error… the numbers are overwhelming. But let’s get back to the basics. The vast vast vast majority of legal gun owners are law abiding citizens that do not shoot or murder anyone.

 

Big assumption there. Death rates by suicide attempt with a gun are much higher than death rates by suicide attempt without a gun. Most suicide attempts are not successful. Not the case when you add in a gun. Could there be an endogeneity issue there? Absolutely. Perhaps those that use a gun are simply more committed to a successful completion of the suicide attempt.

It isn't a margin of error. A margin of error is, in practice, just a result from some sampling issue or some other set of random errors. What we are discussing is more systematic than that. A ton of systematic errors all working to support your hypothesis.

So let's really get to the heart of the matter: let's say that we decided to test this experimentally. We took two populations. Handed one a bunch of guns. Forbid the other from having guns. We then isolated both populations from each other. At the end of the experiment, which population would have more people dead due to violence? You seem to be suggesting that it would be the one without the guns. Is that accurate?

 

LOL, are you really trying to sell that?

And even if that were true, which it is not, you left out what would be a caveat; 9.99 million of those fictious gun defensive usages would not have occurred had our lax gun laws enabled criminals to be so well armed.

 

Call everyone Kreskin; because we can all see what Republicans VOTE FOR.

 

Yes, let’s get to the basics. You love guns. You are going to peddle whatever made up assertions to convince yourself that guns are good. You are exactly the character this thread is addressing. No wonder you got so defensive.

 

He wasn't following to confront; observe and report was the goal. TV initiated the confrontation and apparently dominated it except for the gun.

 

What would the outcome of your experiment be if you swapped out guns with alcoholic beverages? Which group would have more deaths due to drunk drivers? If your conclusion with guns is to outlaw guns, then you’re conclusion with alcohol should be outlaw alcohol.

 

Probably not a fair rating by me, but I found his post pretty offensive. But i clarified above that they are not equal so I can sleep tonight.

 

Literally part of your point is based on abortion.

 

That isn't my conclusion. In fact, I never said it was. But let me ask you: which one of those groups do you think would have more deaths?

 

What he/she said in that post …yeah… really.

 

Guns, unless you take away suicides, and then I think they’re roughly in the same ballpark.

What is your conclusion of the experiment that you proposed?

 

That guns increase death rates, I suspect even if you just look at homicides or accidents, contrary to the claim that they save orders of magnitude more lives than they cost.

 

Complete arrogance. It’s ok for me to label all of you, and put you in a box, because DAMN IT …you’re all the same. While he denounces racism, xenophobe and any other ism & phobia that is out there. Clown.

 

How would you feel if a weird grown man was following your 17 year old child at night in the dark, in your/his own neighborhood? What if someone was following you? Would you not fear for your life? I don't doubt that Trayvon thought his life was in danger, and the danger was caused by Zimmerman. From what I understood Trayvon tried his best to get away from him, but he wouldn't leave him alone.

It's like you guys lose all common sense when you talk about this case.

 

I figured the the kids must have been non-white. Unless a jury and judge send a strong mesage, this crap will continue.

 

In 2023 15,149 Americans died in gun-related homicides, 10,500 died in accidents involving drunk drivers. 24,090 died as the result of suicides caused by guns.
Nearly 43,000 people died from gun violence in 2023: How to tell the story
Alcohol Related Deaths per Year, State & More | 2023 Analysis

 

Not sure why you’re asking me that. I didn’t say that anywhere.
I did find describing him as a “child” a bit ridiculous.
Maybe go back and see the original post…?

 

What should he have done?

From what I understand he thought he was watching him to see what we was doing?

But now you’re going into the weeds.

Nobody would look at a 6ft person and describe them as a “child”. That’s my point to you.