How many people are seriously afraid of firearms?

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Are you afraid of firearms?
I'm afraid of people using them wrongly, but am not afraid of their mere form. 40%  40%  [ 20 ]
I'm afraid of the mere form of firearms. 10%  10%  [ 5 ]
I don't have a problem with firearms. 32%  32%  [ 16 ]
Other stance regarding firearms that you may state below if you care to do so. 14%  14%  [ 7 ]
I don't have an opinion, I just want an option to click that says nothing. 4%  4%  [ 2 ]
Total votes : 50

pastafarian
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28 Nov 2011, 4:47 pm

Asp-Z wrote:
More importantly, I'd like to point out that, if you're only looking at the number of murders, of course the US will be higher, they have a significantly larger population. You've got to look at ratios.


yeah, your right but I didn't need to I could get sense of scale without that

UK population is about 1/5 of the US so I should have been comparing the 2002 '9,300' figure with 70, not 14

I'm sure there are lots of other corrections but its ballpark.
Most people I know are astonished by the ballpark figures.



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28 Nov 2011, 4:51 pm

pastafarian wrote:
Asp-Z wrote:
More importantly, I'd like to point out that, if you're only looking at the number of murders, of course the US will be higher, they have a significantly larger population. You've got to look at ratios.


yeah, your right but I didn't need to I could get sense of scale without that

UK population is about 1/5 of the US so I should have been comparing the 2002 '9,300' figure with 70, not 14

I'm sure there are lots of other corrections but its ballpark.
Most people I know are astonished by the ballpark figures.



Sorry Asp-Z but before we go into correcting this admittedly flawed ballpark, dont the scales astonish you?

Lets say with more accurate and fair data, this unintended exaggeration (UK figure will go up a bit and wonderfully US figure will come down a bit) becomes more precise, cant you see the scale is totally mindblowing?



Asp-Z
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28 Nov 2011, 4:55 pm

"The scale" is meaningless unless it's adjusted to the massive population difference.

To fight stats with stats, let me show you this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... a-U-S.html



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28 Nov 2011, 4:57 pm

You missed this: "In Britain, an affray is considered a violent crime, while in other countries it will only be logged if a person is physically injured."

Always read the smallprint.

At this stage I can't tell if you're joking to keep the topic going for some reason.



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28 Nov 2011, 4:59 pm

Asp-Z wrote:
"The scale" is meaningless unless it's adjusted to the massive population difference.



errggh???? I just adjusted it .

As I said the population of the UK is 1/5th of US, so I multiplied the UK number by 5

Can explain how thats not adjusting it?



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28 Nov 2011, 5:01 pm

pastafarian wrote:
Asp-Z wrote:
"The scale" is meaningless unless it's adjusted to the massive population difference.



errggh???? I just adjusted it .

As I said the population of the UK is 1/5th of US, so I multiplied the UK number by 5

Can explain how thats not adjusting it?


Assuming that the number of murders would increase at the same rate if the population was five times bigger isn't reliable at all.



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28 Nov 2011, 5:04 pm

Asp-Z wrote:
Point is, don't fool yourself into thinking the UK is a safe place just because guns are illegal. As has been repeated many times, criminals still have them and, in many times during the past month alone, shoot people with them, and if they can't get guns or don't want to, they'll use an alternate weapon instead.


People always make this mistake. Guns are not illegal in the UK. Many law-abiding people own and keep guns, and more law-abiding people shoot them regularly. The difference is that the guns in question are utilitarian weapons, shotguns and hunting rifles and target guns - ones whose created purpose is recreation, pest-control and hunting - whereas in other places one can also own weapons whose created purpose is killing people - handguns and military rifles.

People make another mistake. Handguns and military rifles are not illegal in the UK because of concerns about "ordinary" criminals. They're illegal because Michael Ryan killed a lot of people in Hungerford. Link.

Anecdote: the other day I had the opportunity to take a (non-functional!) air rifle into the school where I work to use as a theatrical prop, and I got to wondering what proportion of our kids handle real firearms on a regular basis (as I did when I was their age); I reckoned it to be about one in ten (mainly between clay pigeon shooting, cadets, farming and in some cases the sheer murderous joy some people round here take in the local wildlife - though they prefer using dogs for that end.) Not high, but you should see why statements to the effect that the UK is a magical gun-free zone (with either the hidden implication that everyone is deathly afraid of guns, or that there is no place at all for guns in our society) annoy me.

And another mistake. The police here have guns, plenty of them. Ordinary police don't carry guns, but there are police who do, when they are needed.


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pastafarian
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28 Nov 2011, 5:06 pm

I trust the UN stats.

I dont trust a Daily Mail story because thats been written with the sole purpose of selling papers.



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28 Nov 2011, 5:07 pm

Ambivalence wrote:
Asp-Z wrote:
Point is, don't fool yourself into thinking the UK is a safe place just because guns are illegal. As has been repeated many times, criminals still have them and, in many times during the past month alone, shoot people with them, and if they can't get guns or don't want to, they'll use an alternate weapon instead.


People always make this mistake. Guns are not illegal in the UK. Many law-abiding people own and keep guns, and more law-abiding people shoot them regularly. The difference is that the guns in question are utilitarian weapons, shotguns and hunting rifles and target guns - ones whose created purpose is recreation, pest-control and hunting - whereas in other places one can also own weapons whose created purpose is killing people - handguns and military rifles.

People make another mistake. Handguns and military rifles are not illegal in the UK because of concerns about "ordinary" criminals. They're illegal because Michael Ryan killed a lot of people in Hungerford. Link.

Anecdote: the other day I had the opportunity to take a (non-functional!) air rifle into the school where I work to use as a theatrical prop, and I got to wondering what proportion of our kids handle real firearms on a regular basis (as I did when I was their age); I reckoned it to be about one in ten (mainly between clay pigeon shooting, cadets, farming and in some cases the sheer murderous joy some people round here take in the local wildlife - though they prefer using dogs for that end.) Not high, but you should see why statements to the effect that the UK is a magical gun-free zone (with either the hidden implication that everyone is deathly afraid of guns, or that there is no place at all for guns in our society) annoy me.

And another mistake. The police here have guns, plenty of them. Ordinary police don't carry guns, but there are police who do, when they are needed.


Fair point, farmers and police do indeed have guns legally.



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28 Nov 2011, 5:07 pm

pastafarian wrote:
I trust the UN stats.

I dont trust a Daily Mail story because thats been written with the sole purpose of selling papers.


The article is based on EU stats.



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28 Nov 2011, 5:09 pm

Asp-Z wrote:
pastafarian wrote:
I trust the UN stats.

I dont trust a Daily Mail story because thats been written with the sole purpose of selling papers.


The article is based on EU stats.


And you ignored the fine print, which I already pointed out. Are you trolling?



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28 Nov 2011, 5:13 pm

fraac wrote:
Asp-Z wrote:
pastafarian wrote:
I trust the UN stats.

I dont trust a Daily Mail story because thats been written with the sole purpose of selling papers.


The article is based on EU stats.


And you ignored the fine print, which I already pointed out. Are you trolling?


Ohh, a troll accusing me of trolling. How quaint.

But I linked to that article just to prove my earlier point that it's incredibly easy to manipulate statistics, even if they are from the UN or EU.



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28 Nov 2011, 5:18 pm

Asp-Z wrote:
pastafarian wrote:
Asp-Z wrote:
"The scale" is meaningless unless it's adjusted to the massive population difference.



errggh???? I just adjusted it .

As I said the population of the UK is 1/5th of US, so I multiplied the UK number by 5

Can explain how thats not adjusting it?


Assuming that the number of murders would increase at the same rate if the population was five times bigger isn't reliable at all.


I had adjusted for the massive population difference, before you pointed it out, you just missed it.
I agree it may not be an accurate extrapolation (for whatever reason?).

But it is to a first order and with the UK population scaled up, I'm comparing a number close to 10,000 (US), to a number close to 100 (UK).

Is the scale of difference not astonishing to you, at all?



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28 Nov 2011, 5:21 pm

You can't take a small sample of people then assume that whatever's true for them will be true for an imaginary larger population.

That's why you need stats that use ratios. They will say that "for every 100,000 people, [insert number here] is shot every month" or something. That's a fairly reliable way to work around the population difference.



fraac
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28 Nov 2011, 5:24 pm

Asp-Z, why would you not trust statistics on people killed by firearms? You were either shot dead or you weren't.

"That's why you need stats that use ratios."

If you adjust for population then you are using ratios. Every 12 year old understands this.



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28 Nov 2011, 5:33 pm

Asp-Z wrote:
You can't take a small sample of people then assume that whatever's true for them will be true for an imaginary larger population.

That's why you need stats that use ratios. They will say that "for every 100,000 people, [insert number here] is shot every month" or something. That's a fairly reliable way to work around the population difference.


UN 2002
For every 309million people 9,300 people are shot a year (US)
For every 70million people 14 people are shot a year (UK),

You estimate it for every 100,000 people and see if you are astonished by the scale of the difference.
I don't need to.