BF2S Forums Remind me never to send my kids to school in Colorado

AlbertWesker[RE] wrote:

From respected statistician and researcher John Lott:

Private citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals more than 2,000,000 times a year. Since the safety of children is often cited by gun opponents who don't want guns in private homes, the study analyzed deaths of children per year for the sake of comparison. For children under age 5 in the United States, less than 20 died of gunshot, about 100 drowned in bathtubs, and about 40 drowned in 5-gallon water buckets.

Moreover, Lott's central results are invalid because of errors in computing expected arrest rates: he obtains mostly negative numbers for arrests. For example, more than 19,000 of approximately 33,000 county-level auto theft arrests are "negative"; the number of negative arrest rates for aggravated assault and property crimes are, respectively, 9,900 and 13,500. What does a negative arrest rate mean? Obviously, the number of individuals arrested for crimes can only be zero or positive.

Once we correct for these errors, the more-guns-less-crime claim disintegrates. In fact, we show not only that Lott's strong crime-reducing effect does not materialize, but also that concealed handguns lead to a higher robbery rate.

The peer examination process usually exposes flawed research quickly. The ideologically intoxicating finding of Lott-advocating a governmental hands-off policy-seems to have impaired this healthy process. Endorsing Lott's book, the arch-conservative Milton Friedman of the Hoover Institute exults, "Lott has done us a service by his thorough, thoughtful, scholarly approach to a highly controversial issue." Friedman, obviously, is prepared to overlook all the documented inadequacies in Lott's work to embrace his claim.

Within a year, two determined econometricians, Dan Black and Daniel Nagin (1998) published a study showing that if they changed the statistical model a little bit, or applied it to different segments of the data, Lott and Mustard's findings disappeared. Black and Nagin found that when Florida was removed from the sample there was "no detectable impact of the right-to-carry laws on the rate of murder and rape." They concluded that "inference based on the Lott and Mustard model is inappropriate, and their results cannot be used responsibly to formulate public policy."

John Lott, however, disputed their analysis and continued to promote his own. Lott had collected data for each of America's counties for each year from 1977 to 1992. The problem with this is that America's counties vary tremendously in size and social characteristics. A few large ones, containing major cities, account for a very large percentage of the murders in the United States. As it happens, none of these very large counties have "shall issue" gun control laws. This means that Lott’s massive data set was simply unsuitable for his task. He had no variation in his key causal variable – "shall issue" laws – in the places where most murders occurred.

He did not mention this limitation in his book or articles. When I discovered the lack of "shall issue" laws in the major cities in my own examination of his data, I asked him about it. He shrugged it off, saying that he had "controlled" for population size in his analysis. But introducing a statistical control in the mathematical analysis did not make up for the fact that he simply had no data for the major cities where the homicide problem was most acute.

Masques wrote:

Just a hint re: John Lott, he's a poor researcher and is not very well respected academically. His work is shoddy and rife with coding errors. I'm not fundamentally disagreeing with you, however, your arguments are not logically sound and your source material is sub-standard.

AlbertWesker[RE] wrote:

Guns aren't the problem, it was the drugs and gang related activity.  Most criminals had guns to protect themselves from other gangs, and yes people got caught in crossfire from gang related activity.  The fact is that they didn't have guns TO cause crime, they had guns to protect themselves from other gangs.  Ask any gang activity expert, I did.

Masques wrote:

Their ownership of firearms and willingness to use them didn't deter assaults against them.

AlbertWesker[RE] wrote:

DUH, they are criminals, we aren't talking about CRIMINALS use of firearms for self defense, thats kinda missing the topic bud.  Of course it didn't deter aassaults against them, they're lifestyle INVITED that sort of thing, not owing guns, but the way they live.

Gawwad wrote:

AlbertWesker[RE] wrote:

Gawwad wrote:

I haven't heard of stuff like that happening in the Europe ever and I'm 100% sure that that has never happened in Finland and 99% on Sweden.

Yeah it does happen in Europe, but as for Finland

NCPA.org wrote:

Denmark and Finland also have high rates of gun ownership and low crime rates.

Switzerland has one of the lowest murder rates in the world, and it requires all able-bodied males between the ages of 20 and 50 to have a military-issued automatic weapon, ammunition and other equipment in their dwellings.

Hmm interesting how guns reduce crime, No it can't be, say it aint so.

Can you specify "high"? I know only one guy, that has guns of the people, that me and my family know.

He used his guns for target shooting, not for self defence.

The finnish people have traditionally been honest by nature. This is changing nowadays though (after Russia opened it's borders), but that is why the crime rates are low here.

Low crimirates have nothing to do with guns in Finland.

Last edited by AlbertWesker[RE] (2006-09-30 01:02:23)

AlbertWesker[RE] wrote:

High, I'm not sure, do you mean high gun ownership, Finland has a relatively high gun ownership compared with other European countries, yet it doesn't have a high crime rate (some people try to equate LOTS of guns with LOTS of crime), that theory kinda fails, even in the U.S.  How do you know there are so few guns, let me search for some objective stats. 

You are probably right it doesn't make it high. 

The United Nations International Study on Firearm Regulation reports Finland's gun ownership rate at 50% of households. http://www.uncjin.org/Statistics/firear … x.htm#data

Straight from the UN themselves.  They say 50%, one study from 1994 says 23.2%.  Much higher than Sweden.  The 50% is much higher than the 40% of the U.S. Assuming its true that is.  So I don't know.  My point is that which I stated before, Guns do not EQUAL crime, they don't neccessarily DECREASE crime but they do prevent crime on an annual basis.  Anyone that doesn't think that happens AT ALL is quite blind.

Last edited by Gawwad (2006-09-30 01:24:14)

markkos wrote:

Did you know, that you can buy firearms in Finland already when you're fifteen? These are for sporting/hunting purposes but I have a hunting license, I could go to a local police station and get a firearm purchasing license...

Gawwad wrote:

markkos wrote:

Did you know, that you can buy firearms in Finland already when you're fifteen? These are for sporting/hunting purposes but I have a hunting license, I could go to a local police station and get a firearm purchasing license...

Yeah, but do you? I don't think people here buy guns just because they can. Theyre mostly used for hunting, which is logical since most of the nation is covered in forest.

I don't think people buy guns for self protection or showing off here. More likely for practical use.

AlbertWesker[RE] wrote:

Gawwad wrote:

I don't think people buy guns for self protection or showing off here. More likely for practical use.

Because self defense isn't practical.....

AlbertWesker[RE] wrote:

markkos wrote:

Gawwad wrote:

Yeah, but do you? I don't think people here buy guns just because they can. Theyre mostly used for hunting, which is logical since most of the nation is covered in forest.

I don't think people buy guns for self protection or showing off here. More likely for practical use.

I didn't say I'd buy a gun just because i can.  I passed the hunting test last year and have a hunting and a big game shooting license. I don't want always to borrow guns when I go hunting.

But could you tell me any other country where it is legal to buy weapons when you're a minor?

Not even in the U.S. 

AlbertWesker[RE] wrote:

Gawwad wrote:

but if someone is threatening you with a gun, I think you're risking your life if you are carrying a gun too.

You gotta be kidding me, the only reason to carry a gun is not to protect yourself just against somoene with a gun.  Let me share with you but ONE story of thousands.

The Columbus Dispatch, Columbus, OH 07/01/06 wrote:

Police said a carryout restaurant employee was restocking shelves and cleaning after hours when two masked burglars entered the store by breaking a lock off a security gate and shattering the glass off the front door.  Hearing the ruckus, the employee, armed with a handgun, went to investigate.  When one of the intruders confronted him with a crowbar, he shot him once in the upper chest, killing him.  The dead man's accomplice fled, but police apprehended him two blocks away.  The suspect was charged with a murder for committing a felony in which an accomplice was killed, and with aggravated burglary.

The murder charge is not uncommon in most states in the U.S. and is fitting for most cases including this one.

Even though he had a crowbar, not a gun, that still constituted as a clear and present threat.

Yes Finland is HUGELY different than the U.S. I guess you wouldn't understand.

Last edited by Gawwad (2006-09-30 08:01:15)

markkos wrote:

In Finland it isn't possible to defend himself with a gun. If you even have a unloaded gun in your hand (not even pointing it at anyone)  when you meet a burglar you will be charged... Here if you meet a burglar I think the government expects us to open friendly the door, make a cup of coffee, ask what the guy wanted to steal and while he is drinking coffee you collect all valuables, put them in a bag and thank in the end.