Subject:
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Re: An armed society...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 21 Jan 2002 19:56:19 GMT
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Viewed:
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617 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Mike Petrucelli writes:
> Roughly 2,000,000 crimes a year are prevented by armed citizens.
This is more or less identical to the old "we've discovered 2/3 of all the
oil in the world" argument. What qualifies as a "crime," in your example?
What qualifies as "preventing" a "crime" in your example? If my possession of
a handgun prevents a criminal from stealing my both wallet *and* my car keys,
does that count as two crimes prevented? If someone shoots me in front of ten
witnesses because I have a gun, and then the shooter flees the scene, does that
count as ten crimes prevented, since the shooter didn't also shoot the ten
witnesses?
> Statistically the easier it is to legally obtain a gun in an area the lower
> the crime rate.
Without additional information, however, there is no way to conclude that the
legal availability of handguns causes the lower crime rate. Baked bean sales
in the same region might be higher, too--is this also a causal factor?
Clearly, the offhand citation of questionable statistics requires greater
evidence than your say-so. In a field of hundreds of variables it is not
sufficient to say "A is the case, and B is the case, therefore A causes B."
How do we know, for example, that the lower crime rate in your second example
is not itself the reason for the ease of gun acquisition?
Dave!
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: An armed society...
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| (...) /objective mode on Well ignoring the propaganda on both sides of the Gun Control issue, and using indepentant statistics from Gallup Polls. This is all applicable to the USA. Roughly 10,000 crimes a year are committed with legally obtained (...) (22 years ago, 21-Jan-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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