Originally posted by shimauma:
Maybe that's the difference between folks of liberal character and folks of conservative character. Right thinking people can generally HANDLE the RESPONSIBILITY of having a firearm. and this:
Doctors vs Gunowners
Doctors
(A) The number of physicians in the U.S. Is 700,000.
(B) Accidental deaths caused by Physicians per year are 120,000.
(C) Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171.
Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services.
Now think about this:
Gunowners
(A) The number of gun owners in the U.S. Is 80,000,000. (Yes, that's 80 million)
(B) The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500.
(C) The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is .000188.
Statistics courtesy of FBI
So, statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.
TEEEEEEEJ Hi TJ,
As someone with a formal education in logic/statistics, I just have to comment on this little calculation you gave.
While your numbers surely are interesting, I have to say that the logic is intrinsically flawed.
Firstly, I would say that many advocates of stricter gun-control don't see
accidental killings as the main problem posed by lax laws on gun ownership.
I'd think that most see people who willfully and purposefully kill others (for what reason ever) with their guns as the real problem.
And while I agree that big-time criminals will always find ways to buy guns, the problem for many lies with small-time crooks and pretty much regular people.
The former might kill people during, say, a robbery, a gang war, a mugging, etc. because they don't really know how to handle a gun and committing a crime puts them in an extreme, high-stress situation, which clouds their judgment.
The latter might kill because they are enraged, depressed or highly frustrated, e.g. because they were cheated on one way or other, just got fired, were mobbed by colleagues or fellow students, etc.
Killing someone with a gun is just a lot easier, less physically demanding and less messy than killing someone with a knife, for example, or beating them to death.
Owning a gun gives people an extremely efficient way of expressing their aggression towards people, which yields a much higher death rate than other ways.
This can be a good thing when you actually get to shoot a robber or potential rapist, but it can be tragic when that person managed to use your own weapon against you, or when you are not in eminent danger, but shoot because of things which might be horrible for you, but simple no reason to kill another being (being cheated on, losing your job, etc. - see above.)
These cases do not appear in statistics on accidental deaths, but they lie at the heart of the argumentation for many people in favour of strict gun control.
Secondly, even if we were talking about accidental deaths, you cannot just compare those per gun-owner/doctor, because you have to keep the following in mind:
A doctor typically finds herself in situations where she could potentially kill someone on a daily basis (even just giving a flu shot, she could accidentally inject an air bubble and kill the patient).
I think that many gun-owners, on the other hand, only have guns for self-defense purposes and might not so much as take them out of the night stand in months or even years. (As you can see, I actually don't assume that all gun-owners are trigger-happy, gun-crazed fanatics who spend their days shooting at moving targets.)
You would have to take this discrepancy into account when making your calculations in order to make it work.
So what you *could* compare, is the number of instances where a doctor or a gun-owner is in a position where they could accidentally kill someone and weigh it against the times they actually do kill someone accidentally.
I don't know whether such data is even available, but I am pretty sure the numbers would show a different picture. (I don't have enough information on that matter to make a guess as to *how* different.)
Having said all this, I think this topic does not only have to do with logic and arguments, it has to do with history and differences in people.
I've been to the US many times and for the most part I felt pretty save, I didn't think that everyone was waiting with their loaded gun to shoot me for trespassing or something.
So while I am in favour of strict gun-control in my own country, I acknowledge that for many Americans the right to own a weapon has a high symbolical value and I respect that.
Best,
Eva