[geeks] [rescue] Guns - what are they good for? - was Re: TME and Apple II and other Drive emulator questions.

[Lionel Peterson]

A couple quick thoughts:

As I pointed out earlier, suicide by gun shot accounts for about half of all
gun deaths in the US, how you count a suicide by gunshot could seriously alter
the ranking of the US in charts such as you linked to.

As I understand it in some countries guns are typically stored outside the
home, that would influence statistics, since it's hard to accidentally shoot
someone at home with a gun that is stored in a gun safe at your gun club...

As I noted earlier the US and Canada have similar suicide rates, but while
half of US suicides are from gunshot wounds, half of Canadian suicides are by
hanging. Following that logic, focusing on the method of murder can obscure
the truth - when some one wants to kill someone else, they typically find a
way to do it (poisoning, stabbing, hit-n-run, etc.) - don't equate gun
homicides with murder.

Lionel

> On May 20, 2014, at 6:09 AM, Jonathan Groll <lists at groll.co.za> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 19 May 2014 08:51:04 -0400, hike <mh1272 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> When my father was a child in Virgina, he would take his .22 rifle to
>> school in order to go hunting right after school.  They stacked the guns
in
>> a corner of the classroom, I suppose.  He never spoke of it as if there
was
>> any rigamarole or bspecialb procedures for doing so.  He taught me that
>> guns were for sport, hunting included, and self-defense.  He taught me
that
>> guns are not the way to resolve an argument.  This is what I teach and it
>> works.  The National Rifle Association (NRA) teaches the same thingbfun,
>> necessity, and self-defense.  While they hold that law-abiding citizens
>> should have guns if they want, the NRA does not propose the breaking of
any
>> laws or arming people indiscriminately.
> [...]
>
> This has made me read up on the gun ownerships statistics:
>
>
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-homicides-ownership-
world-list
>
> For the most heavily armed nation in the world (88.8 firearms per
> 100), the stats for the USA are surprisingly good (2.97 firearm
> homicides per 100,000). Compared with, say South Africa (12 firearms
> per 100) but a firearm homicide rate of 17 per 100,000! And it gets
> worse if you look at Honduras, El Salvador and Jamaica, etc.
>
> However, the quite well armed continental europeans and scandinavians
> have very good statistics. Switzerland, Finland, Serbia, Cyprus,
> Sweden, Norway, France, Austria, Germany all own at least 30 firearms
> per 100 but all have firearm homicide rates lower than 0.77 per
> 100,000, and some are much much lower (France?, Norway).
>
> What are they doing right?
>
> Cheers,
> Jonathan
>
> P.S. not convinced the stats above are all that solid. Another
> article, also on the Guardian web site puts the US firearm homicide rate at
> 10.2 per 100,000:
>
> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/18/gun-ownership-gun-deaths-study
>
> --
> jjg: Jonathan J. Groll : groll co za
> has_one { :blog => "http://bloggroll.com" }
> Any other Disclaimer in this mail is Wrong.
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