Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 12:26:10 -0500 From: "Crist J. Clark" <cjc@cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com> To: Brad Knowles <blk@skynet.be> Cc: Mark Ovens <mark@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>, Jay Nelson <noslenj@swbell.net>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Guns and freedom [Was: Re: On "intelligent people" and "dangers to BSD"] Message-ID: <20000327122610.A10396@cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com> In-Reply-To: <v04220811b505330f911e@[195.238.1.121]>; from blk@skynet.be on Mon, Mar 27, 2000 at 05:51:40PM %2B0200 References: <20000325104927.B234@parish> <Pine.BSF.4.05.10003251446080.3693-100000@acp.swbell.net> <20000325231656.E234@parish> <20000326015310.A846@cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com> <v04220811b505330f911e@[195.238.1.121]>
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On Mon, Mar 27, 2000 at 05:51:40PM +0200, Brad Knowles wrote: > At 1:53 AM -0500 2000/3/26, Crist J. Clark wrote: > > > Well, right there we see a problem with how the media focuses on the > > extremes. Police officers have been shot by legal and illegal guns as > > long as their have been guns and police. You bring this up like it > > happens all of the time, and it does not. > > I have an interesting little tidbit of information told to me by > a friend and former police officer. > > > The #1 killer of police is their own weapon -- they get it taken > away from them and used against them. For obvious reasons, police > departments don't want this statistic to get out. This absolutley wreaks of urban legend. First off, "heard it from a friend" does not inspire confidence. Second, why would police departments be covering it up? Third, since police departments are often not the ones compiling crime statistics (they fill out forms, other people analyze them), how do they go about covering it up? > This also happens to be the #1 killer of people with firearms at > home -- the intruder takes the weapon away and kills them with it. I think this is another misinterpretation of the statistics. The number one way people get killed by their own guns is suicide. The next most likely ways, and I'm not sure of the order, are accidently shooting yourself, being accidently shot by another member of the household, and being purposely shot by another member of the household. If we drop out accidental shooting, the net most popular target of the gun is going to be you or another member of the household with the shooter being someone else in the household. The first suspects in any violent crime are people close to the victim and for good reason. Being killed by an intruder by your own gun is well below those. Now, whether the intruder is more likely to use your weapon on you or you on him might be interesting, and could likely be the origin of your claim. > If we taught people (including our police) how to properly use > their weapons, this problem would go away. > > You can forget every single other aspect of this argument -- > until you can solve the problem of people who own firearms knowing > enough about them and their proper handling to prevent them from > being taken away and used against them, you're never going to get > much progress. I think the argument for training revolves much more about the problems of accidental shootings. The odds that someone actually will have the opportunity to use a weapon in their defense are so slim (as people have pointed out, most police officers will never fire their weapon, or even draw it, (exept on the range) in their whole career) in the first place that the number of people killed in this manner cannot be big. I think that is what people tend to forget. The chances you'll need, and if you need it, have access to, your weapon to defend yourself from someone are remote. Owning a gun for self-protection is a false sense of security. The probability of being killed accidentally or by friend of family with the weapon is much more probable than using it to defend yourself from a stranger. Here are some statistics that someone, shockingly, marched out via a URL to support guns in the home (http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdgaga.html), Type of Death No. Unintentional deaths 12 Criminal homicide 41 Suicide 333 Unknown 3 Total 389 Self-protection homicide 9 Between accidents and crimial homicide we have 53 versus 9 self-protection. Unfortunately, we are not told how many of the self-protection ones involved intruders since I would put money on some or perhaps most of those involved domestic violence. I told myself I was done with thread, but the claims here... I could not help myself. Now I'm done. Really. -- Crist J. Clark cjclark@home.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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