possible talking point?

[old lady new shooter]

Anybody know how the number of firearm deaths (excluding criminals killed by LE) as a percentage of the number of firearms in the country, compared to the number of motor vehicle deaths as a percentage of motor vehicles in the country?

 

[AlexanderA]

First of all, nobody knows the number of firearms in the country. A wild guess would be in excess of 300 million. Secondly, the bandied-about figure of 30,000 annual firearm deaths includes a very high proportion of suicides. Criminal use of firearms is much smaller.

Bottom line: The percentage of extant firearms that is used to murder people is infinitesimal, but can't be reliably quantified.

As a society, we accept the possibility of car accidents as a price for the mobility that car ownership brings. Now, the possibility of gun misuse as a price for the freedom to own guns is not as universally accepted. We need to do a better job of showing people the benefits of owning guns.

 

[Fine Figure of a Man]

We need to do a better job of showing people the benefits of owning guns.

How about some history lessons people should have been taught in school?

 

[Hokie_PhD]

First of all, nobody knows the number of firearms in the country. A wild guess would be in excess of 300 million. Secondly, the bandied-about figure of 30,000 annual firearm deaths includes a very high proportion of suicides. Criminal use of firearms is much smaller.

Bottom line: The percentage of extant firearms that is used to murder people is infinitesimal, but can't be reliably quantified.

As a society, we accept the possibility of car accidents as a price for the mobility that car ownership brings. Now, the possibility of gun misuse as a price for the freedom to own guns is not as universally accepted. We need to do a better job of showing people the benefits of owning guns.

Well said
Nor can we calculate or ever know all of the crimes that are stopped by good guys with guns. Many aren’t reported like a friend of mine who was car jacked as a guy with a knife jumped into his car at a red light. My friend pulled his 1911 out and then dropped the carjacker off in a railroad yard a few miles from town. (This was many years ago)

We also can’t count all of the stimulations where a good guy with a gun stops a situation from getting bad before anything happens other then letting the bad guy know they’re their and are armed.

 

[hso]

I love data, but the argument isn't just about rates of murders with firearms or suicides. It is a practical and philosophical argument that we have to reach people with.

The RIGHT to defend oneself against unjust violence is a fundamental human right. The means to do so effectively is an extension of that because not having the means renders the right moot. That's the point of the 2nd, to ensure the means of the right to defend yourself against unjust violence.

The argument then becomes about regulating the means and whether any regulation or what regulations of the means of self defense is allowable. We regulate every other right from speech to assembly to religion to trials to states vs. the national government authority. Because of this it makes it difficult to discuss how much regulation of any right is acceptable beyond the most minimal interference.

As to the data I profess to love so much, we have solid numbers from the Annual Uniform Crime Report that tells us homicide data. Half the homicides are suicides. 450-470 are justifiable homicides. That leaves 15,129 murders in 2017 of which ~11,000 were by firearms. This is for a population of ~300,000 making the murder rate by a firearm 11,000/300,000,000 or about 1 out of 30,000 (we also know that circumstance make that vary across the country). Handguns were overwhelmingly used in murders. Knives (1,490), clubs/hammers (428) OR hands and feet (687) were used to murder people more than all types of rifles (285) were used. One sad trend, amongst this sad information, is that murders rates higher than just a few years ago.

 

[bearcreek]

Anybody know how the number of firearm deaths (excluding criminals killed by LE) as a percentage of the number of firearms in the country, compared to the number of motor vehicle deaths as a percentage of motor vehicles in the country?

The problem with that way of thinking is that that implies the need to justify firearms ownership based on their usefulness in the current situation. That's not what the 2A is for. Throughout history, the number of civilians killed by their own governments dwarfs the number killed by other civilians. Protection from civilians is a side benefit of the 2A, not the primary purpose.

 

[Bruce D Pease]

The right to self defense is ancient. It was a matter of English Common Law and is enshrined for us in the Second Amenment. The 2A enumerates the right ( not privilege) to keep and bear arms and provide for the common defense (via a citizen militia). It says Arms, not muskets, because the founding fathers knew that there would be improvements made and new discovery would produce improved arms.
Historically the militia were all of the adult (male at the time of writing) made up the militia less a few legislators, and well regulated meant that they possessed a firearm, powder, ball, flints etc and the ability to use it effectively. All of the firearms so possessed were in fact military grade. The British Army marched from Boston ( one if by land and two if by sea) to Lexington and Concord with the sole purpose of confiscating said firearms-from the troublesome Colonists. All the better to subjugate them. The colonists said NO rather emphatically, by “firing the shot heard round the world”. When the founding fathers finally wrote the Constitution they attached to it a set of Amendments called the Bill of Rights, (notice they didn’t call it a list things we’d like, or want, they enumerated these Rights as an addendum to the Declarations life, libert, and the pursuit of happiness.) The second of these Rights was the right to keep and bear arms without any infringement, lest we someday have to defend ourselves from a tyrannical government.
The number bandied about today says we have about 300,000,000 firearms in the hands of the citizenry. Personally I think it’s probably upwards of twice that number, because I don’t think w really tell anyone what we own, and there are a lot of older functional guns out there from before records were kept on them. The VAST majority of firearm owners a legal and practice safety all the time. There are many out there who think that the “people of the gun” just get our licenses etc so we can go after other people, and for the most part these people are beyond convincing that we are really the good guys (and gals) no matter how many facts you present them with. They think NRA members eat babies for breakfast and practice horrendous bloody rotes under the light of the moon, or so it seems anytime we have any mass casualty event. My sister in law is one of those people, and she does not have any idea that I am carrying whenever we go out to eat with them etc, She’d probably go hysterical if ff she knew. No amount of explaining etc will change her mind. It would really frost her cookies if she knew that one of her grand-daughters goes to the range with my wife and I, with her 357 Smith.
I guess all we can do is explain what the history is, why we carry, and give the facts about the true state of firearms and crime here and abroad. We really have to read a lot, and remember it, so we can calmly and rationally have conversations about the RKBA. I personally carry a pocket copy of the Constitution, I feel we all should.
I recommend that you reread the Constitution, especially if you haven’t since high school. I also recommend the Federalist Papersm (they can be convoluted at times, English has changed since the 1790s). Really I feel we should educate ourselves. Read some of John Lott’s stuff, read Dana Loesch.
We really have to be knowledgeable so when we do discuss guns with “civilians” we can show them that we, the legal gun owners of America really are “freedoms safest place”

 

[AlexanderA]

How about some history lessons people should have been taught in school?

Your examples are persuasive to me -- because of my own family's experiences -- but most comfortable Americans consider these things to have happened long ago and far away, and are not relevant to them. We need more immediate relevancy.

 

[Fine Figure of a Man]

Your examples are persuasive to me -- because of my own family's experiences -- but most comfortable Americans consider these things to have happened long ago and far away, and are not relevant to them. We need more immediate relevancy.

Maybe so.
"Comfortable" is a much diplomatic term than I would use.

 

[hso]

Americans consider these things to have happened long ago and far away

We do lack the long term perspective of older cultures that trace their history back centuries instead our couple of centuries.

 

[bearcreek]

Your examples are persuasive to me -- because of my own family's experiences -- but most comfortable Americans consider these things to have happened long ago and far away, and are not relevant to them. We need more immediate relevancy.

The thing about "more immediate relevancy" is that it would probably mean the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Unfortunately, you're probably right that that's what it would take but it's gonna suck badly if/when that happens.

 

[kmw1954]

Your examples are persuasive to me -- because of my own family's experiences -- but most comfortable Americans consider these things to have happened long ago and far away, and are not relevant to them. We need more immediate relevancy.

My own observation is that the majority of people today younger than 30 years old have no clue as to what the world went thru during the period of 2 world wars. The atrocities committed, the destruction, pain and suffering. These folks today consider 5 dead an atrocious mass murder while back then 5 would be a common occurrence and the survivors would be grateful it wasn't more. I can still remember my mother talking about food rationing. My father never talked about his service in Europe during the war and only once do I remember him talking about Korea. It was of him clearing a mine field after a platoon walked into it.

To these younger folks that was a couple generations ago with no old family members left to tell them and remind them of what the world can become. What real horror is. The older I get when I watch those old film clips I get a new perspective of just how horrible and wasteful war is. Again these younger people don't appear to want to know and believe it could never happen again.

 

[CapnMac]

Anybody know how the number of firearm deaths (excluding criminals killed by LE) as a percentage of the number of firearms in the country, compared to the number of motor vehicle deaths as a percentage of motor vehicles in the country?

Ok, to answer the question prime facie, in the US there are about 45-60,000* automobile related deaths in an average year. If we use the anti's "talking points" numbers, there are about 30,000 "gun fatalities" in an average year. So, in the rawest sense, automobiles are twice as deadly as firearms. If we discount the 20,000 suicides in the "gun" number, autos become about six times deadlier. If we then parse out the 5,000 (closer to 8, come to cases) criminal-on-criminal "gun violence," then the highways and roads are 12 times more dangerous than firearms.

Now, all of those numbers can be nitpicked beyond all recognition. For one, none of those are actually equally distributed equally geographically or per capita. Instead, there's a huge bias based on proximity to large/huge metropolitan areas. But, not perfectly. St Louis & New Orleans do not well fit the >2 million model that Chicago, L.A., S.F., & the BosWash corridor seem to demonstrate. Equally perversely, in metro areas > 5 million population tend to have lower automobile deaths.**

Which then leads us back to an essential problem with the requested correlation. The availability/quantity/[resense of a tool does not equate to deadly outcomes from the use of that tool. Fewer cars does not equate to fewer automobile deaths; neither does fewer firearms result in fewer firearms deaths. This actually tracks fairly consistently internationally. Even with the bias problems in getting any sort of verifiable numbers of cars, or guns owned. (For a fascinating factoid, if we examine the New World only, and remove the violence numbers--even suicides--from the five largest--not most violent, just largest--US cities, Belize becomes a more violent country than the US.).

So, yes, the metadata analysis could be performed, but the data resultingmight not be very informative.
The presence of sliced bread has no correlation with the number of sandwiches made.

The other problem being the ever present one of attempting debate with those who have accepted a political postion as a matter of faith, rather than one of fact. Asking those people to consider a different position becomes one of getting them to admit to heresy or apostasy or infidelity; to go against their beliefs. Which means those people are unlikely to debate on an equal level.

___________________________________________________________
*The US does not actually keep very uniform statistics on how many people die on the roads. The data is confused by differing ways deaths from DUI, vehicular manslaughter, and the like are tallied, adjudicated, and the like. Also, getting data for those who later died from injuries is complicated. Also, some states do not collect pedestrian fatalities into automobile fatalities, just to complicate things. Lowest value I have seen in Transportation reports is 42,500; highest is almost 70,000.

**As a trend, there is lower auto ownership in megacities where there are huge public transit options. However, that concentration of people in transport means that a single event results in more death and injuries. Further, mass transit vehicles versus pedestrians have worse outcomes than smaller, personally owned ones. Increased numbers of pedstrians also increases the per-pedestrian risk, too.

 

[old lady new shooter]

Ok, to answer the question prime facie, in the US there are about 45-60,000* automobile related deaths in an average year. If we use the anti's "talking points" numbers, there are about 30,000 "gun fatalities" in an average year. So, in the rawest sense, automobiles are twice as deadly as firearms. If we discount the 20,000 suicides in the "gun" number, autos become about six times deadlier. If we then parse out the 5,000 (closer to 8, come to cases) criminal-on-criminal "gun violence," then the highways and roads are 12 times more dangerous than firearms.

Now, all of those numbers can be nitpicked beyond all recognition. For one, none of those are actually equally distributed equally geographically or per capita. Instead, there's a huge bias based on proximity to large/huge metropolitan areas. But, not perfectly. St Louis & New Orleans do not well fit the >2 million model that Chicago, L.A., S.F., & the BosWash corridor seem to demonstrate. Equally perversely, in metro areas > 5 million population tend to have lower automobile deaths.**

Which then leads us back to an essential problem with the requested correlation. The availability/quantity/[resense of a tool does not equate to deadly outcomes from the use of that tool. Fewer cars does not equate to fewer automobile deaths; neither does fewer firearms result in fewer firearms deaths. This actually tracks fairly consistently internationally. Even with the bias problems in getting any sort of verifiable numbers of cars, or guns owned. (For a fascinating factoid, if we examine the New World only, and remove the violence numbers--even suicides--from the five largest--not most violent, just largest--US cities, Belize becomes a more violent country than the US.).

So, yes, the metadata analysis could be performed, but the data resultingmight not be very informative.
The presence of sliced bread has no correlation with the number of sandwiches made.

The other problem being the ever present one of attempting debate with those who have accepted a political postion as a matter of faith, rather than one of fact. Asking those people to consider a different position becomes one of getting them to admit to heresy or apostasy or infidelity; to go against their beliefs. Which means those people are unlikely to debate on an equal level.

___________________________________________________________
*The US does not actually keep very uniform statistics on how many people die on the roads. The data is confused by differing ways deaths from DUI, vehicular manslaughter, and the like are tallied, adjudicated, and the like. Also, getting data for those who later died from injuries is complicated. Also, some states do not collect pedestrian fatalities into automobile fatalities, just to complicate things. Lowest value I have seen in Transportation reports is 42,500; highest is almost 70,000.

**As a trend, there is lower auto ownership in megacities where there are huge public transit options. However, that concentration of people in transport means that a single event results in more death and injuries. Further, mass transit vehicles versus pedestrians have worse outcomes than smaller, personally owned ones. Increased numbers of pedstrians also increases the per-pedestrian risk, too.

Thank you.

 

[Bruce D Pease]

To all who answered after I wrote my fairly long post above....I agree with you, and I readily admit I’m a creature of my families experiences...my uncle and cousin walked out of Chosen in 1950...an uncle was a heavy engineer under Patton in the Battle of the Bulge, another uncle was an infantryman in the Hurtgen Forest, another uncle was in the Navy on North Atlantic convoy duty, my dad spent his time in the Army in WW2 at Ft. Benning, one of my grandfathers was a mechanic on Spads in the Hat in the Ring Squadron in WW1 (yes he knew Rickenbaker, wish I knew where that picture went) I did six years as a marine between Korea & Nam and one of my Sons is retiring from the Air Force next year. He has flown both the B-52 and the B-2 into combat. So, yes, there is an immediacy to my experiences. I also have a hobby(so to speak) of reading History. George Santayana, in 1905, told us that if we don’t remember history we will end up repeating it ( not an exact quote). I think that there should be a greater emphasis on history and civics in school than there is now, we don’t want to have a cataclysmic event like 9/11 or 12/07/1941; happening again to make people realize what’s possible. Just my two cents worth again, Thanks for putting up with a slightly older guy than many, maybe most, of you.

 

[kmw1954]

Anybody know how the number of firearm deaths (excluding criminals killed by LE) as a percentage of the number of firearms in the country, compared to the number of motor vehicle deaths as a percentage of motor vehicles in the country?

One direct accounting. In my immediate family there was my father, mother and seven brothers and sisters not including myself. I have lost my father and eldest brother to separate drunk driving incidents, 8 years apart. So from my own family of 10, 2 have been killed in auto accidents while I haven't lost a single family member to gun violence.