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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


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