Reply #65: what the hell are you yammering about? [View All]

[iverglas]

"The respondents in this survey claimed to have PREVENTED some 385,000 homicides IN ONE YEAR." - Iverglas.

The respondents made no such claim, yet you say they did, and made representations to that effect.

You did that.


Yes, I DID THAT. And no one here replied -- because I demonstrated the complete bullshit nonsense that these claims of "defensive gun uses" are and there's no way around that and no two ways about it.


But you may just have a tiny point.

Among 15.7% of gun defenders interviewed nationwide during The National Self Defense Survey, the defender believed that someone "almost certainly" would have died had the gun not been used for protection — a life saved by a privately held gun about once every 1.3 minutes. (In another 14.2% cases, the defender believed someone "probably" would have died if the gun hadn't been used in defense.)

15.7% of "gun defenders" reported their belief that someone "almost certainly" would have died blah blah.

There were 2,452,643 alleged "defensive gun uses".


Hmm. How many did each "gun defender" engage in?


If it was, say two each, then maybe only one of the two was one where someone "almost certainly" would have died blah blah.

That would leave us with 192,532.5 homicides prevented.

Hell, maybe each "gun defender" engaged in five "defensive gun uses", and only one of them was one where someone "almost certainly" would have died blah blah.

That would leave us with 77,013 homicides prevented.

Bloody hell -- let's make it one homicide prevented for every 10 "defensive gun uses" -- where each of the respondents who believed someone would have died engaged in 10 "defensive gun uses" each.

That gives us 38,000 some-odd homicides prevented.

Still more than double the number of *actual* homicides.

So forgive me while I continue to laugh.


It should be a simple matter to determine how many people were involved in these alleged "defensive gun uses" -- an average of X per person, i.e. And then apply the percentage to that number -- the number of users -- rather than the number of uses. And hell, even assume that each respondent was only referring to one incident when they said they believed someone would have died blah blah.

I can't find the answer. Do you have it?



I would think everyone knew by now that this ridiculous figure for "defensive gun uses" -- the nearly 2.5 million per annum figure -- had been completely discredited.

Is that what you're meaning to say?