Gun Incident Mega Thread - Post All Gun Incidents Here

Quote from darkfrog : That's not the argument I made.

My reply is clear.

Mother & son killed [whdh.com]

Quote from gunnerusa : Just as true for defense as for offense, right? That's why we have to stick with recorded incidents.

The problem with that is that a great deal of cases where gun were used successfully to ward off attackers and other criminals are not reported, whereas those incidents where a gun is discharged and caused harm are reported.

Quote from charles052 : The problem with that is that a great deal of cases where gun were used successfully to ward off attackers and other criminals are not reported, whereas those incidents where a gun is discharged and caused harm are reported.

Not to mention cases where the abusive husband "reminds" his wife about his gun, and "suggests" that she not report the beatings.

It would be impossible to try and guess at the number of unreported incidents of either type that happen, so if we're to study the subject at all, we have to stick with reported incidents (which also generally have the advantage of having been investigated by law enforcement).

Quote from gunnerusa : Not to mention cases where the abusive husband "reminds" his wife about his gun, and "suggests" that she not report the beatings. It would be impossible to try and guess at the number of unreported incidents of either type that happen, so if we're to study the subject at all, we have to stick with reported incidents (which also generally have the advantage of having been investigated by law enforcement).

Which puts the advantage conveniently in your favor.

Quote from charles052 : Which puts the advantage conveniently in your favor.

Have you got any insight onto how we might study unreported, unverified, and unverifiable incidents? I would think that any attempt to do so would be mere guesswork.

Quote from gunnerusa : The right can be limited for the good of society, just as the right to freedom of speech can be limited for the good of society (for example, I don't have the freedom to announce troop dispositions in wartime). The right to bear arms does not mean the right to bear any and all arms. It's very difficult to predict when a "law abiding gun owner" will fall from that lofty status.

It's very difficult to predict when a "law abiding speaker" will fall from that lofty status and announce troop dispositions in wartime, too. Thankfully, we don't live in Minority Report, and we are innocent until proven guilty. In other words, we can't be arrested, tried, and convicted for a crime until we actually allegedly commit it. Would you have it another way? Guilty until proven innocent? Guilty if crime is a possible action?

The fact that we might be able to commit a crime with an object is irrelevant. We might be able to commit a crime with or without any object. Why you fixate on guns (especially given your handle) is odd.

Thankfully, your hypothesis of violent criminals all being "previously law-abiding gun owners until they snapped b/c of the magical powers of the evil gun nearby," is patently false. Even if all violent criminals came from the "law abiding gun owner" pool and "snapped," 99.98925% of the gun owners in question did not commit homicides with their firearms in 2011, and 99.9997% of guns in the U.S. were not used for murder in 2011 (with the #s skewed in your favor and assumptions stated above). See the stats I posted here. Lifetime odds of death from firearms discharge in 2007 per the NSC: 1 in 6,309 or 0.016%.

Quote : Military grade weapons, such as Assault Rifles, have no legitimate civilian use that cannot be better performed by other types of firearms. The only use that they excel at is the art of killing large numbers of human beings, but no civilian has a legitimate need for that purpose. Therefore, banning military grade Assault Rifles does not infringe on the legitimate rights of temporarily "law abiding gun owners."

First, we've been over this ad nauseum. What defines "military grade"? The phrase "assault" when attached to an inanimate object is loaded and inaccurate since assault is a human action and the vast majority of "assault weapons" are not used for assault. "Assault rifles" (also a dumb term, IMO) have been banned since 1986.

Inanimate objects don't excel at anything. The user makes them excel for his intended purpose. For example, 3-gun, ACTS matches, etc. use what you would probably call "military grade assault weapons" for competitive shooting. Any firearm can have a defensive use, sporting use, target shooting use, collection use, financial use, etc. There is a reason they called it a Bill of Rights and not a Bill of Needs. Needs are subjective. All anyone really needs is food and shelter. Anything else can be argued to be not needed and of no use by those who would choose to take away your rights. Thankfully the Framers were smart enough to anticipate that since those arguments have been used for centuries. Politics and corruption haven't changed much.

Finally, given the #s above and # of deaths by rifle relative to knives, blunt objects, cars, etc. we are needlessly banning things and not obeying Sutton's law of "going where the money is" in terms of lives saved.

Quote from gunnerusa : Nah, you're misunderstanding me. I said that the situation was typical for shootings involving "home defense" weapons. IE, when a "home defense" weapon is discharged, it is almost always as a result of a suicide, assault/murder committed by a resident, or accident. You almost never see "home defense" weapons used as such. Just as true for defense as for offense, right? That's why we have to stick with recorded incidents.

The NRA has been running a regular segment called the Armed Citizen for a long time. It links to published stories in local media (not made up by the NRA) of legitimate use of firearms in self defense. It is a long running segment with numerous examples published regularly, and those are only the ones that make the papers. Many do not. You're speaking anecdotally, and there are plenty of anecdotes there for you. Many of them are elderly victims defending themselves against younger, stronger attackers.

From an evidence-based standpoint, they have done studies estimated that defensive use of firearms is anywhere from 2.5-8 times more frequent than criminal use.

Quote from charles052 : The problem with that is that a great deal of cases where gun were used successfully to ward off attackers and other criminals are not reported, whereas those incidents where a gun is discharged and caused harm are reported.

So you are saying that someone tries to break into someone's house, the homeowner uses his gun to ward off the attacker, and he does not even report this to the police? Well, I would ask for proof of this claim but I suspect you are gonna say no proof exists because those incidences are not reported.

Ta-da!

Quote from gunnerusa : Military grade weapons, such as Assault Rifles, have no legitimate civilian use that cannot be better performed by other types of firearms.

And the vast, vast majority of people will not own military grade weapons.

However, if you are insisting that semi-automatic rifles fall in that category, it is nice you are advocating citizens own more guns to replace those rifles that you wish to ban. So instead of one owning a single AR 15, we should expect that person to now subsequently own at least 2+ rifles to handle the many aspects that the AR could have handled.

Quote from gunnerusa : Another typical outcome for shootings involving "home defense" weapons: http://blog.al.com/tuscaloosa/201...denta.html

Quote from gunnerusa : Yep. The use of a "home defense" weapon for actual home defense is so rare that the pro-gun side even tried to make this thread a catch-all for such incidents. But there were so few cases of actual self defense, and so many cases in which a "home defense" weapon was used by family members against family members that they gave up. http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/con...9.abstract http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_...ted_States

Quote from gunnerusa : Nah, you're misunderstanding me. I said that the situation was typical for shootings involving "home defense" weapons. IE, when a "home defense" weapon is discharged, it is almost always as a result of a suicide, assault/murder committed by a resident, or accident. You almost never see "home defense" weapons used as such. Just as true for defense as for offense, right? That's why we have to stick with recorded incidents.

If this is the line of reasoning that is going to be continually used, I advocate this thread just be closed.

Quote from gunnerusa : Another typical outcome for shootings involving "home defense" weapons: http://blog.al.com/tuscaloosa/201...denta.html

typical outcome? typical idiot.

Check our gun reviews online - the very first thing that anyone does is to visually check that the chamber is empty after releasing the magazine. When handling (e.g. handing over) a weapon, it's done such that it's impossible to cause a misfire - action locked back for most semiauto pistols, or fingers through the cylinder opening in a revolver.

I don't know how the hell one manages to shoot themselves while cleaning a gun.

Yet another typical outcome for those who have weapons in the home:

Quote : Country singer Mindy McCready, whose troubled personal life often overshadowed her music, made several suicide attempts using pills in the past decade. She died this time when she used a gun.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/new...e/1927815/

Quote from AlfredoGarcia : You're speaking anecdotally

No, I cited academic, peer reviewed, scientifically valid studies.

Quote from gunnerusa : Yet another typical outcome for those who have weapons in the home:

What's typical is that the average firearm in someone's home will not hurt someone after being discharged. You are being highly disingenuous by reiterating a flawed study and using that to say injuries are "typical".

Quote from gunnerusa : No, I cited academic, peer reviewed, scientifically valid studies.

Who used flawed methodology to obtain wanted results. And those studies don't validate to your "typical" use mantra.