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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Wed, 23 Jan 2002 18:17:29 GMT
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Viewed:
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749 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler writes:
> > Kleck and Kates (IIRC) suggest that it's merely a popular urban-rumor and
> > that real data don't support the notion. (Unless of course, X less than one.)
Well, the obvious source is by Kellerman and Reay: "Protection or Peril?
An Analysis of Firearm Related Deaths in the Home." The New England Journal
of Medicine, vol. 314, no. 24, June 1986, pp. 1557-60.
Gun apologists cite poor methodology and questionable data, but I'm not so
sure the specific numbers are important. Kellerman and Reay aren't claiming
that a gun in the home makes any given individual 43% more likely to shoot a
family member. Rather, it observes that, statistically, the person shot in
one's home is 43% more likely to be a family member than an intruder. In
essence, in 44 cases of in-home shootings, 43 of the victims were family
members, while 1 was an intruder. Kellerman and Reay aren't making claims
of causation but rather of correlation. Unfortunately, I've heard both 43X
and 22X, and I can't track down the original document at the moment to verify.
As an additional source, the FBI report "Crime in the United States, 1973"
observed that, statistically, that a gun kept in the home for self-defense
is six times more likely to be used in a deliberate or accidental homicide
involving a relative or friend than a burglar or unlawful intruder.
In any case, let's just pick some numbers at random for comparison. Let's
say that in a given year 100 people are shot within a home by
privately-owned guns. If, of those 100 people, 10 are family members and 90
are unlawful intruders, then is it unreasonable to conclude that an intruder
is 9X more likely than a family member to be the victim? I'm not addressing
causation, and I'm ignoring intentional vs. accidental shootings, since in
either case a person is shot.
Dave!
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: An armed society...
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| (...) Well, the NRA can hardly be taken as a bastion of objective reporting, so it's difficult to accept its pronouncements at face value. One could point out, for example, the NRA has perpetuated the lie that the 2nd Amendment says anything at all (...) (23 years ago, 23-Jan-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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