Friends in Las Vegas, please check in.

[MrFanti]

There's marijuana and poppers deaths also.....You guys want to ban those too?

That alcohol ban worked real well......

Maybe to be on the safe side, we should ban alcohol again since alcohol related death numbers are HUGE!!!!!

[broncofan]

Small percentage?!

Let's consider 2010...

table 15: 232 justifiable homicides by private citizens;
table 14: 385 justifiable homicides by law enforcement officers;
table 11: 8775 murders by means of firearms;

So you have killings out of which 6.6% are justified homicides out of which almost 38% are done by private citizens and just above 62% are committed by law enforcement.

I don't know about you but my opinion is that private citizens are doing a damn good job defending their own asses with their guns.

A few things to consider: most of the unjustified homicides were probably committed by private citizens. Therefore the fact that justified killings were 2.6% of the total number of murders is not that impressive. Overall, for every time a gun is used to kill an assailant, there are about 15 unjustified murders with a gun. And that's including both the police officer and private citizen numbers.

I will also point out that the 8775 number only includes murders and doesn't seem to include manslaughter. If we're talking about the usefulness of guns it would also be relevant to include the number of accidental killings with guns and suicides, which drives down your 2.6% even more.

[broncofan]

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...st-gun-deaths/

I believe it was cdc numbers that says there were 606 accidental firearm deaths in 2010. According to Pew Research (link above) 19,392 people committed suicide with guns in 2010. Of course some of those people would have found other ways to kill themselves if they did not have guns, but many would not have. Attempts to commit suicide with a gun are successful over 95% of the time, whereas other means have much lower success rates. And many people who fail don't try to kill themselves again.

Finally, just to put the above number of justified killings in perspective: more than twice as many people died from accidental gun discharge than by justified killing by a private citizen in 2010! Not too promising!

[broncofan]

A few things to consider: most of the unjustified homicides were probably committed by private citizens. Therefore the fact that justified killings were 2.6% of the total number of murders is not that impressive. .

Sorry I didn't make this clear. The 2.6% is 232/8775, so I'm talking about justified killings by private citizens. That's not a high percent, particularly as I said above that 606 people were killed in 2010 by shmucks accidentally discharging their guns.

[MrFanti]

Upon much deliberate thought, how about everyone meet at the middle of the road here.

Since alcohol kills approximately 3 TIMES as many Americans as guns do, why don't we just ban both alcohol and guns?
http://anonhq.com/alcohol-kills-near...year-than-gun/

If folks are really concerned about "senseless deaths" then banning both alcohol and guns should be an easy decision for you folks....

[MrFanti]

Yep the data is out there. Alcohol kills way more Americans than guns do...
http://www.simplefactsplainarguments...than-guns.html

So those "sane" folks that say guns should banned logically should also be advocating for the ban of alcohol too!

[broncofan]

Upon much deliberate thought, how about everyone meet at the middle of the road here.

Since alcohol kills approximately 3 TIMES as many Americans as guns do, why don't we just ban both alcohol and guns?
http://anonhq.com/alcohol-kills-near...year-than-gun/

If folks are really concerned about "senseless deaths" then banning both alcohol and guns should be an easy decision for you folks....

Previously everyone was arguing over whether guns save lives. I'm glad you've given up on that argument and are comparing it to an addictive substance. I'm also glad you deleted the marijuana article you posted that you thought discussed marijuana deaths but which actually said it's one of the least toxic substances available.

Arguing that alcohol is also harmful doesn't really suggest guns are not. Nobody is suggesting guns should be banned, only regulated. If there were a way to make alcohol consumption safer, and there are a few ways (see Dram Shop Acts) I would be all for it.

[filghy2]

Yep the data is out there. Alcohol kills way more Americans than guns do...
http://www.simplefactsplainarguments...than-guns.html

So those "sane" folks that say guns should banned logically should also be advocating for the ban of alcohol too!

Alcohol is actually regulated to try to reduce these risks, which is what sensible people are proposing to do with guns. Most obviously, it's illegal to drive while under the influence of alcohol, which is one of the main causes of alcohol-related deaths. There's also a bunch of restrictions on the sale of alcohol. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._United_States

[SanDiegoPervySage]

Small percentage?!

Let's consider 2010...

table 15: 232 justifiable homicides by private citizens;
table 14: 385 justifiable homicides by law enforcement officers;
table 11: 8775 murders by means of firearms;

So you have killings out of which 6.6% are justified homicides out of which almost 38% are done by private citizens and just above 62% are committed by law enforcement.

I don't know about you but my opinion is that private citizens are doing a damn good job defending their own asses with their guns.

The point isn't about whether or not civilians are doing a good job at defending themselves. The point is 6.6 percent is a small percentage, which you didn't really dispute with any useful information. If 10 percent of that 6.6 percent were justified homicides by civilians, you'd probably still say they're doing a good job.

[filghy2]

The most telling data are international comparisons of murder rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._homicide_rate
In the US in 2015, 4.88 people were murdered for every 100,000 inhabitants. The next highest among countries generally classified as advanced was Belgium with 1.95 murders per 100,000 people. Most have even lower rates, eg Canada 1.68, Australia 0.98, UK 0.92, Germany 0.85, Japan 0.31. So an American is 4-5 times more likely to be murdered than people in most other developed countries.

These data include all murders, which covers the argument that people will use other weapons if they don't have guns. However, the UNODC data shows that about 60% of murders in the US involve guns, a far higher percentage than in other developed countries. https://data.unodc.org/ So If we include only gun murders, the disparity between the US and other countries is even greater. The US also has the highest rate of gun ownership by far - around 1 gun per person, which is 3-4 times higher than other developed countries. http://www.gunpolicy.org/

Would any of you gun nuts care to explain how this can be consistent with your contention that widespread access to guns makes people safer?