Seems to me no responsible gun owner would keep a firearm loaded and easily accessible in their home where their children might easily stumble upon it, no? And I'm not aware of any scenario in which an armed intruder announces his malintentions towards your family well ahead of time. So, once this brute breaks into your house, what happens? "Hold up, homes, lemme go into my safe?" I don't know what the actuarial tables say, but I'd hazard a guess that the most likely person to be harmed by a gun in the home is a member of the household. By quite a bit.
Sounds about right. I have 2,and bought them when i moved here to sc. But they are locked up separate from the ammo. I have a clip loaded,but it would still take an unreasonable amount of time in the middle of the night to determine whats going on and make the gun ready. So,pretty much what i ahve is a new hobby at the range.
Not to mention that in a society where gun ownership is ubiquitous all intruders are armed with guns and they have them at the ready. The logic of universal gun ownership is either your kids have a real chance to kill themselves or someone else or you're behind the 8-ball big time in any break in since the intruder has his out and ready to go when he enters the house and you are fumbling for combinations and then ammo.
No one is denying that. All I am doing is questioning whether that is the ONLY piece of information that one needs to consider when purchasing a gun for home defense. Heh. The very fact that you consider it stupid and irrelevant simply proves my point about you doing instinctual cost/benefit analyses when it comes to defending your family. Clearly, there is a point at which you say, "My family is protected enough." You were trying to argue that there was no such line to cross. That sounds like more cost/benefit analysis to me. WHY DON'T YOU LOVE YOUR FAMILY ENOUGH TO PROTECT THEM FOR REALZ? ARE THEY NOT PRICELESS TO YOU?! I have not said anything about guns being evil. I have not said there was anything wrong with owning a gun. The only thing I said was that people are horrible, in general, when it comes to making risk assessments. You seemed to think it was callous or something to reduce "protecting your family" to a this kind of analysis. But it's clear you do it, and that's all I wanted to point out. That wasn't the point of my "maybe." I said you might be more at risk of something VERY BAD HAPPENING if you do not have a gun and someone breaks in. The maybe had to do with whether or not a burglar is actually interested in harming the people inside the home. That is, there's a possibility that someone would break in your home, steal your TV and leave your family alone whether or not you have a gun. So I would hesitate prior to saying that simply having a gun decreases that risk. I said absolutely nothing about banning anything. And there is no such thing as zero risk. Ever. Fair enough. Just don't ever try again to sell me some line of bullshit about how your family is "priceless" and that ANY cost is worth it. You consider my examples extreme and ridiculous and they were meant to be just that to show you how quickly and instinctively people tend to make decisions about whether or not something is "worth" it... and how poorly they tend to fare when making those judgments. That's some downright shitty cost/benefit analysis. Cars also have a much more common utility and are typically much more necessary for the modern family. The car is an asset and an indirect investment, as I am capable of earning far more money by owning a car than I would be able to earn without one. The opportunity costs of having to bike or walk everywhere from my current location dwarf any amount of money I spend on the car, and I imagine it is that way for many people who own vehicles. Is my car dangerous? Yup. It's a known risk. I make that choice and live with that choice, and handle that choice as responsibly as I can. Guns have far less utility for me. It would be for one purpose and one purpose only. And to add one more thought to my previous point about how life can't be partitioned into these neat little bins all the time, I would ask you the following: if you're so worried about cars being more dangerous than guns, wouldn't it be a wiser investment to spend that $1000 on additional safety features for your family car than for a gun?
Curiously, we haven't heard from Rebel mike in awhile. Anyone want to lay odds that he accidentally blew his own empty head off?
I agree with most of what you are saying. Except I'm not really cocky at all, I just have strong opinions on certain topics, and this is one of them. Opinionated? Sure. Cocky, no way. I'm a pretty humble person, generally speaking, but I really enjoy debating. Humans are animals, regardless of our egos putting us above the rest of the animal kingdom. Sure, we're more intelligent and can have empathy and weigh out options, but survival is still the most important thing. If a bear in the woods is coming after me, I'll try to kill it, just like I would if a human with a weapon is coming at me. Kill or be killed. A threat on your life is a threat on your life and shouldn't be taken lightly. I wouldn't hesitate because it's a human. Humans are probably the worst thing to hit this planet since the extinction level event that ended the Triassic. We are careless, irresponsible and wasteful. We value convenience much moreso than our future on this planet. We don't fully appreciate what we have here on this earth. If we lose the right to bear arms, it opens a big can of worms. I'd rather see humans held responsible for their own actions, than banning a tool or suing somebody when you slip on the ice in the winter like an idiot. In America today, human responsibility takes a back seat to scapegoats, and a large reason for this is the sensationalist nature of the media and they way they appeal to emotions. Bombs can be made at home and can kill dozens with a single click. Knifes are deadly. Brass knuckles, swords, power tools, automobiles all can be used to commit mass murder. It's really the human element itself that is the common denominator, not the gun or choice of killing tool. We are a very diverse species when it comes to feelings, beliefs, actions and outlooks on life. Getting drunk while hunting is not responsible just like drinking and driving. If they want to really go at the problem, they should spend more resources on shutting down illegal weapons manufacturing and importing. The reason people want guns is because criminals already have them and don't really have much trouble getting them. Wanna hear a joke? It's incredibly easier for somebody involved in illegal activities to get a gun illegally to use for committing crimes, than it is for a law abiding citizen to get one for hunting or self defense in most states. That's a disgrace. Until the problem of illegal weapons is resolved substantially, limiting gun sales only hurts the law abiding citizens. That's the simple fact of the matter. I do agree that there should be regulations and mandatory psych evaluations for gun owners as well as training courses. But first we need to crack down on illegal weapons.
If you can't afford something, you can't afford it. That's not cost vs benefit, it's not being rich. You know I could really use my own helicopter. The cost is high but the benefit would be awesome, way better than a car! You could avoid all traffic and get anywhere within minutes. I guess I'll reverse mortgage the house and get one! Cost vs benefit works out. That doesn't mean it's doable or realistic in your financial future. Alright, I misunderstood your maybe. If more people had guns and shot intruders on sight, there would logically be way less burglaries in the country, would there not? Cost vs benefit says most people, even desperate ones wouldn't risk stealing a TV if they knew it could cost them their life. The sad thing is that in some states you can be sued or arrested for killing somebody that breaks into your house. If somebody does break in, you do not know their intentions, so there's no reason to take chances. You can hope they just steal your TV and run, but if you're upstairs and hear somebody going through your shit downstairs, you simply do not know. Call the police, keep quiet, get your family together locked in a room, and get your pistol just in case. My point was that human responsibility is the greatest factor involved. I wrote a nice paragraph in my response to Biggs on human responsibility. The risk is virtually zero, sorry. If you are responsible the only thing that could possibly get you or another family member killed is the weapon malfunctioning although that's usually the owners fault for poor maintenance, but I supposed there is a slight risk of manufacturer defect. I forgot about that. And possibly saving your life one day isn't more important than having a convenient way to earn a living and make money? No offense but that's the definition of cost vs benefit. Car: Cost: $20,000 plus insurance and gas (maybe $30,000 total) Benefits: Convenience; Investment to earn more money and make a living Gun: Cost $500 plus training classes, ammo and license fees (maybe $2000 total) Benefit: Could save your life or family's lives one day Less cost - greater benefit. Now I know you'll try to throw probability at me again, but that cost is definitely worth it. Maybe you don't think so, but I do. I'm not worried about it, just like I wouldn't be worried having a gun. A lot of people do put money into safer car features, although most car companies include them in all family vehicals. But again, there's only so much safety features can do if somebody cuts you off on the highway and sends you spinning out of control into oncoming traffic or if a drunk driver swerves onto your side of the road at the last second.
I'm getting the feeling that you do not really understand how cost/benefit analysis works. Shit don't work out all nice and pretty the way it does in your head. There is a non-zero chance that all other kinds of things go wrong from your plan. My initial point is that when you sum all those non-zero chances together -- from you not hearing someone rummaging around downstairs, to you not being able to unlock and load your gun, to you firing and missing at the intruder, etc. -- I sincerely doubt that having a gun makes you and your family actually safer across all situations. The situation in which it makes your actually safer is the one where your house was broken into, the burglar was going to do your family harm, you were composed enough to be able to unlock and load the gun without drawing attention to yourself, you were able to shoot and kill/incapacitate the burglar without being harmed yourself. Having a gun makes you feel safer, which has its own value and should not be discounted. But that's different from actually being safer. And I can only speak for myself here, but I've lived over 13,200 days and have never had a home broken into, nor have I known anyone who has had a home burglarized. And I've lived in some sketchy neighborhoods, too. "Virtually zero" is not the same thing as "zero." And considering we are talking about very very low probability situations across the board here, that's not negligible. Also, for every additional step you take to make it a lower probability that something bad will happen with your responsibly owned weapon, you are also increasing the amount of time it will take to deploy your self-defense weapon effectively. Out of curiosity, how much experience do you have with CBA? I'm going to guess not much. No offense meant... I just wouldn't expect someone familiar with it to be so dismissive of probability considering it's fundamental to the arguments. The car is a net positive, overall. As for the "possibly saving your life one day" angle, that's simply ridiculous. There is a far greater likelihood that the car will be able to save a family member's life by being able to quickly transport them to a hospital than there is a possibility of a gun doing the same thing. (And I have two very active young boys, which means that those trips to the hospital are almost guaranteed.) So that argument of yours just goes right out the window as nothing but pure spin. The gun is very likely a net loss, although that will depend on the situation and the person. Something else to consider is that the danger involved with driving has been steadily falling since the 1970's (which is, incidentally, when the US government started focusing on improving the safety of our vehicles and our roads). Firearm related deaths have been on the rise. The funny thing about all of this -- and for the record, this is the last I'm going to say on the subject -- is that you have done a marvelous job of displaying how the reptilian portions of the human brain are still amazingly well equipped to short circuit the pre-frontal cortex. The situations you continue to propose are indeed quite dramatic and scary. They are also a very, very very low probability... from the deranged burglar who is out to rape your kids to the drunk driver ruining your ride home from a family picnic, you are picking extreme situations that are very unlikely to happen. Does the Law of Large Numbers say that they are likely to happen to some people in a country with a population over 300 million? Yes. Of course. But will they happen to YOU? Not very likely. And so the question becomes, how much of your time/money are you willing to invest to protect against some extremely low probability event? And are you accurately weighing the costs of your decisions there? Again, if it makes you feel safer, great. That's different from actually being safer. I would never argue against the former... against the latter, I think it's a toss-up, at best.
I had an apartment broke into twice when I lived in NC. I wasn't there when it happened prior to that I'd never had any problems. Just recently in the news there was an Atlanta woman who hid with her children and the bad guy actually searched her out and got shot for his troubles. One thing to remember is if the good guy with a gun just manages to scare the bad guy off it is a good net result.
"Recently in the news" is a phrase that I think explains a hefty portion of why people are prone to make poorly informed decisions.
I was going to post a link to it, but I was trying to figure out how to use Multi Quote and messed it up. My point was supposed to be that while statistically unlikely to happen to any particular person violent crime does happen. I'll see if I can find the link.
www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/woman-hiding-kids-shoots-intruder/nTm7s/ Here's the link. What's crazy to me is the guy actually went looking for her and finally found her in the attic. From other reports the guy had just got out of Jail and had numerous arrests on his record. Personally I think the biggest thing we could do to reduce crime in this country is stop the revolving door with violent criminals.
Well, yeah. Of course it happens. That's obvious. The question is whether these awful, low-probability events being the things most likely to be shown on the news distorts a person's ability to accurately assess the risk and respond in an appropriate manner. Just as another example, child abductions are always big, big news. 100 or so children are kidnapped in the movie fashion (sociopathic stranger) every year. There are over 50 million children under the age of 11. On a given day, the chances of your young child being abducted (all other things being equal) is one in more than 181 million. (For comparison, the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot is one in 175 million.) But since these stories usually make national news, parents watch the news and feel like these abductions are happening every other day. I know a parent who will not let her eight-year-old child play outside because of this. At all. (This lady is a bit of a freak, but still...) And while - as a parent - I can sympathize with this kind of fear, I think people often miss some of the hidden costs of those decisions. I don't even know that there's a right or wrong way to go about this, either. How do you correctly weigh the dangers of losing your child (low probability, but unbelievably tragic if it happens) against the smaller (but highly probable) costs of raising a kid who lacks self-direction, motivation, independence, self-esteem, general optimism about his ability to control what happens in his world, but instead sees danger around every corner? That's some seriously intangible shit. However, I feel like a lot of people aren't even considering those other possible costs when making these decisions to "protect" their family. I've said it before and I'll say it again: The 24-hour news cycle is one of the worst things to happen to our society.
While I agree with what you said the bolded part is the piece I'm in complete agreement with. The worst part about it IMO is the "if it bleeds it leads" mentality. I really wish we'd see a lot more of the good news.
My daughter was so excited this morning while watching the news. There was a story about Newtown and Sandy Hook Elementary, and the file video they showed had a sign that my daughter recognized as the one her class made and each kid signed. How is the town coping jonnyd?? Lets not wait until the anniversary to remember this set of victims.
Nothing brings out the spirit of Christmas as much as buying your deranged little psycho another lethal firearm: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/n...veal-items-seized-at-adam-lanzas-home.html?hp
still waiting to hear about what they found, if anything, on that guy's computers and the ISP info on where he was hanging out online
