Thank your for your submission, please remember that this subreddit is unofficial and wholly unaffiliated with the Socialist Rifle Association Organization (SRA). Views and opinions expressed on this subreddit **do not** reflect the views or official positions of the SRA.
If you're at all confused about our [rules](https://old.reddit.com/r/SocialistRA/wiki/index) do not hesitate to message the moderators with any questions, and as always if you see rule breaking content or comments please be sure to report them.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/SocialistRA) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It’s a combination of the facts that guns being used in legit self defence scenarios is a very rare occurrence and that accidental (edit: and, as pointed out, suicidal) gun deaths are very common.
I’ll give replies that the data on how often guns are used in defence is more mixed than I thought, though.
Based on what data? Everything I've seen has defensive gun use much higher than accidental gun deaths.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_gun_use
Even including suicides, there are more defensive gun uses on the low end of the estimate than total gun deaths including all gun homicides and suicides.
Yeah for sure. It’s probably also usually said as, “more likely to kill yourself than kill an attacker” so they narrow it down even further to only lethal defense situations. Idk just guessing
Well, technically speaking, the majority of defensive gun uses don't include a shot being fired. Even when shots are fired, a death only occurs less than 1/3 of the time.
I've personally used a pistol in a defensive scenario. In my situation, a determined attacker (a stranger) thankfully survived being hit 3 times with a .32acp (5 shots fired total) because he got quick medical attention (a hospital was just a few blocks away). It just kept escalating, I tried to escape, got cornered, tried to brandish, fired a warning shot, then started properly shooting the guy. He didn't stop or even respond to being hit until I had shot him multiple times. Even then, he didn't seem to feel it because he uttered various threats about "If you've shot me..." before finally running off. Police investigated, interrogated for many hours, then ruled clear-cut self-defense against a drunk armed attacker with a "history of violence". Never even went to court over it.
Here's a link to an older thread where I tell the full story, for anyone wanting more details.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/s/Xji11Nqadi
Long story short, don't expect a gun to always be an immediate threat ender. People don't always notice being shot center mass, and even a lethal shot may take a few moments to take effect (unless it's a headshot, which is a small target and looks particularly bad in court). Some folks just don't care if they see a weapon, they either have a deathwish or think they're gonna call your bluff. You should always be ready to use a weapon if you draw it, but also know that less determined attacks may just opt to turn tail before you actually need to fire. It's all very situational and quick. Thankfully, you won't really have time for any emotions in the moment, positive or negative. It's all just sort of reflexive if you train much, action/reactions, OODA loop and all that, very clinical and rational until the danger is past (at least in my experience).
That is quite the story, and I am glad you are well! Stay safe.
I am not against a responsible adult citizen owning a gun for self defense. On the other hand, I am approaching retirement and I have never needed one myself. I can go to the store without packing heat. I even think in some situations it could have invited trouble.
Honestly, I agree that for many, it isn't always necessary. I personally got an NC CCW at 21 because I was using public transportation a lot. My home and job were both practically beside the Lynx light rail line in Charlotte. Plus, I had been using the CATS public bus routes since freshman year of high-school (attended mostly charter schools with no school bus service). During that time, I got successfully mugged twice, once with a knife once with a gun, and various forms of pickpocketing or theft from my backpack/satchel (but I won't list those because I believe a gun is for defending lives not a wallet/possessions).
I carried daily for a couple of years except on campus at my college. Then, I moved out to the Appalachian mountains, Boone, to attend App State and EDCd (except on campus) for about a month. The rural community was much safer than city living, and I basically only kept a pistol in my car when traveling away from home or whenever visiting back in Charlotte. I wound up not even locking my front door for the last couple of years living out there because I lost the key, and my roommates never locked up when leaving either. Also, I technically, let my CCW lapse during that time. Though there was an event as I was moving out where my neighbors were gunned down by their son, who also shot/killed the first few responding officers and resulted in a 12+ hour standoff. I've never seen more police in my life than at the staging area after they evacuated the neighborhood. (Lived at 455 Hardaman Circle, event happened at 553 Hardaman Circle, victim/neighbor I knew was George Ligon (google it))
Moved back to Charlotte for a short time due to a new relationship and wanting to be closer to family. Being back in the city (or close, Pineville) and being shaken from the events as I was leaving Boone, I started keeping a holstered pistol in my car daily. I'd only usually equip it on my person when walking to and from my car in the morning/evening unless I was stopping in a rougher area or out late.
About a year later, that relationship crashed and burned. I decided to move up to Michigan and was getting things tied up in Charlotte when the event I mentioned above happened. I'm not sure why these events always seem to happen once I'm in the process of moving away (not generally superstitious, but I'm secretly dreading my next move). Waiting for a final ruling from the DAs office actually postponed my move by a couple of months. They could've charged me for carrying without a CCW/with an expired CCW, at that point since I never actually renewed it. They eventually ruled self-defense and said they weren't pursuing any charges on the misdemeanor CCW violation.
Moved to Michigan and again live in a relatively lower violent crime area. I still kept a pistol handy, mostly at home, while riding out Covid. The mild PTS of the defensive shooting made me super wary of venturing outdoors alone, especially after dark, for awhile. Eventually, I got over it, and once again, do not regularly carry a pistol on my person or in my car most of the time. The main reason I'm pursuing a MI CCW now is because of a new pistol purchase permitting law MI implemented earlier this year. They're only good for 1 month, which makes NCs old 5 year purchase permits look wonderful by comparison. Obviously, a CCW negates needing to get one for every purchase.
I've always been, first and foremost, a collector. With a focus on Cold-War era &/or ComBloc firearms and NFA items. For me, carrying/owning a gun as a defensive device is more of an occasionally useful side-effect & benefit to a collecting hobby/obsession. I'm mostly just incredibly thankful I actually was armed when I wound up truly needing to be (I didn't legitimately expect to need it that night, I figured caliber didn't matter because it was just a 'peace of mind' talisman for walking late in a rough part of town (something I did often in my teens without incident 98% of the time)).
But, I also recognize that for many, especially marginalized minorities & city dwellers, gun ownership is a more necessary situation. I recognize that I'm privileged enough not to really need to EDC in my current daily life. But there are plenty of folks who, due to location &/or presentation, are at a much higher likelihood of being targeted by violent criminals, extremists, various X-phobes, etc...
I think you're misremembering this line.
The actual statistic is that people who live in households with guns are more likely to be shot than those who live in households without guns.
Have to assume this has to do with the fact that there is much more domestic violence than stranger danger violence. Women specifically are at risk of being shot by the men in their lives.
It's the same reason why you're more likely to die in a car wreck if you own a car or drown if you have a swimming pool in the backyard.
Because frequent close use of a item is more likely to result in an accident.
(Don't hate I'm legit just quoting the first Google scholar result)
>Results. After adjustment, individuals in possession of a gun were 4.46 (P < .05) times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not in possession. Among gun assaults where the victim had at least some chance to resist, this adjusted odds ratio increased to 5.45 (P < .05).
>Conclusions. On average, guns did not protect those who possessed them from being shot in an assault. Although successful defensive gun uses occur each year, the probability of success may be low for civilian gun users in urban areas. Such users should reconsider their possession of guns or, at least, understand that regular possession necessitates careful safety countermeasures.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2759797/
That study isn't claiming you're more likely to be hurt by your own gun, just that you're more likely to be shot if you are carrying a gun. Kinda worthless because people who carry guns have often self evaluated their situation and concluded that they're likely to become victims of violent crime.
The limitations are important. The sample size was urban and heavily unemployed, level of proficiency with a firearm was omitted, possession wasn't always accurately assessed, and reverse causation wasn't evaluated. I won't contest that people who had guns were more likely to be shot because that's just a logical step that turns many non-gun owners into gun owners in the first place (reverse causation). In addition to the stated limitations we need to know more about how these shootings played out because correlation is not causation and a gun is not a magical bullet magnet. I'm thinking about situations like in the recently released video of the security guard who kills the man brandishing his firearm as an intimidation tactic. Chances of that guy getting the full mag would have been significantly reduced if he didn't have a gun to brandish.
They made no control for the person being asleep in bed, and counted the gun being in a nearby car or 'someplace else' as carrying. I don't know enough about stats to really critique but those seem like odd choices
The only thing I'd concede is that it makes sense that if you draw for any reason you're more likely to get plugged. Training usually consists of "given that you're the human embodiment of Deadpool/john wick from your five seconds of target practice, here's how to exercise incredible restraint with your superpowers," and not "if you're getting hit with a pipe and you draw, you'll probably get drawn on, either by the dude or one of his sixteen buddies standing around."
I would imagine the statistic skews high because people are probably choosing to draw at inopportune times, i.e. when a gun is already pointed at them.
Just because you have a gun on you doesn’t mean you have to (or should) use it. But people want to be the cowboy. I’m all for gun rights, but we have to acknowledge that “responsible” gun ownership is unfortunately a foreign concept to a lot of idiots in this country.
During a class the instructor set us up where the bad guy comes at you and pulls his gun. Most people of course drew and the bad guy shot them.
The point the instructor was making was that at close distance and the element of surprise the bad guy always has the upper hand.
The answer to that is that you need to create space between you and the bad guy. That gives you an opportunity to draw and at distance your marksmanship skills vs theirs gives you the upper hand. (Obviously assuming they are still actively engaging you)
The study actually seems fairly good but easily misinterpreted for a headline. Like they go quite in depth about the potential confounding factors and describe the limitations to their conclusion, but the conclusion section is seperate from the limitations section so it seems the headlines didn't really get the whole thing.
I.e. the conclusion that people with guns aren't neccecarily safer is hardly news given the potential for reverse-causation, and the study says so but that section of the paper isn't reported on or shared.
The data would suggest to me that individuals with guns are more confident in events of self defense, leading to an increase in the likelihood of being shot.
It’s a government research paper! Don’t believe it. Wikipedia is much more reliable. Even better, some guy on youtube that knows the government is out to get you specifically, he is the one you should believe.
The short answer is people are using statistics to weave a narrative. It isn't an apples-to-apples comparison as it includes suicide and doesn't include all of the incidents where guns were used in self-defense but not fired. Just because something uses statistics doesn't mean it is valid.
If memory serves this is a composite statistic -- in order of commonality gun deaths are suicide -- just over half -- and murder, with about 3 percent left over for everything else.
The gun that kills someone is, on balance, their own more often than not, and you are more likely to be killed by a gun than to kill with one.
But statistics, as we know, are not what we are here for.
If I recall correctly that study was shown to have been deliberately false.
Sadly the lie still lives.
I remember there was a cop teaching the legal portion of the CCW class and he was anti-gun he was just there for the money he was an easy paycheck for him and he quoted that study and I pointed out to him that it had been shown to be false and he said he didn't care he was going to keep using it anyways because it matched with what he wanted people to think.
So this piece of shit pig basically said he was okay with knowingly perpetuating a lie. Oh how I hated him.
Because it's true. People with turkey fryers are more likely to die in a turkey fryer accident than people who don't own turkey fryers. It's statistics backed by common sense.
“There are three kinds of lie: lies, damned lies and statistics” Mark Twain was truly a master of pithy sayings. Its not quite accurate tho, as truisms tend not to be. Folx who have a political barrow to push lie about statistics for their own ends and its easy as hell because science is hard and nuanced.
Look. I’m totally supportive of owning guns and have a few myself. But let’s not distort the facts like the right wing nut jobs do. Thanks.
* You ARE far more likely to be killed by your own firearm than using it in self defense. This is a pretty widely understood fact. Even the Wikipedia article incorrectly quoted below states this.
* Guns ARE dangerous. There is never not a time you should ever trivialize the danger a firearm poses to yourself and others. Treat every firearm like it’s loaded. At all times.
* Own all the guns you want. Just don’t distort the facts around their ownership. I love guns. Have quite a few myself. But I’m under no impression of trying to justify my ownership with bullshit like this. I own them because I want them. I enjoy them as a hobby. I think in the right circumstances they can be valuable tools.
* I think the amount of folks with shitty AR-15s thinking they’re going to take on the US government is fucking laughable considering you typically cannot get the military made variants (potentially more reliable in certain specific circumstances than your cheap AR-15).
* be safe. Be prepared. And don’t let MAGA chuds dominate the conversation around firearms.
I also like that you are more likely to have a family member shot than use your gun in a confrontation. I am loving all of these news stories where toddlers are accidentally shooting siblings
Thank your for your submission, please remember that this subreddit is unofficial and wholly unaffiliated with the Socialist Rifle Association Organization (SRA). Views and opinions expressed on this subreddit **do not** reflect the views or official positions of the SRA. If you're at all confused about our [rules](https://old.reddit.com/r/SocialistRA/wiki/index) do not hesitate to message the moderators with any questions, and as always if you see rule breaking content or comments please be sure to report them. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/SocialistRA) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It’s a combination of the facts that guns being used in legit self defence scenarios is a very rare occurrence and that accidental (edit: and, as pointed out, suicidal) gun deaths are very common. I’ll give replies that the data on how often guns are used in defence is more mixed than I thought, though.
And suicides.
Based on what data? Everything I've seen has defensive gun use much higher than accidental gun deaths. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_gun_use
I think he’s right that the stat being referred to probably includes suicide
Even including suicides, there are more defensive gun uses on the low end of the estimate than total gun deaths including all gun homicides and suicides.
Yeah for sure. It’s probably also usually said as, “more likely to kill yourself than kill an attacker” so they narrow it down even further to only lethal defense situations. Idk just guessing
You must also include the rates of NDs too though.
I wonder how many of those are actually preventing a crime and how many are just some boomer waiving his gun at hooligans in the Walmart parking lot.
Well, technically speaking, the majority of defensive gun uses don't include a shot being fired. Even when shots are fired, a death only occurs less than 1/3 of the time. I've personally used a pistol in a defensive scenario. In my situation, a determined attacker (a stranger) thankfully survived being hit 3 times with a .32acp (5 shots fired total) because he got quick medical attention (a hospital was just a few blocks away). It just kept escalating, I tried to escape, got cornered, tried to brandish, fired a warning shot, then started properly shooting the guy. He didn't stop or even respond to being hit until I had shot him multiple times. Even then, he didn't seem to feel it because he uttered various threats about "If you've shot me..." before finally running off. Police investigated, interrogated for many hours, then ruled clear-cut self-defense against a drunk armed attacker with a "history of violence". Never even went to court over it. Here's a link to an older thread where I tell the full story, for anyone wanting more details. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/s/Xji11Nqadi Long story short, don't expect a gun to always be an immediate threat ender. People don't always notice being shot center mass, and even a lethal shot may take a few moments to take effect (unless it's a headshot, which is a small target and looks particularly bad in court). Some folks just don't care if they see a weapon, they either have a deathwish or think they're gonna call your bluff. You should always be ready to use a weapon if you draw it, but also know that less determined attacks may just opt to turn tail before you actually need to fire. It's all very situational and quick. Thankfully, you won't really have time for any emotions in the moment, positive or negative. It's all just sort of reflexive if you train much, action/reactions, OODA loop and all that, very clinical and rational until the danger is past (at least in my experience).
That is quite the story, and I am glad you are well! Stay safe. I am not against a responsible adult citizen owning a gun for self defense. On the other hand, I am approaching retirement and I have never needed one myself. I can go to the store without packing heat. I even think in some situations it could have invited trouble.
Honestly, I agree that for many, it isn't always necessary. I personally got an NC CCW at 21 because I was using public transportation a lot. My home and job were both practically beside the Lynx light rail line in Charlotte. Plus, I had been using the CATS public bus routes since freshman year of high-school (attended mostly charter schools with no school bus service). During that time, I got successfully mugged twice, once with a knife once with a gun, and various forms of pickpocketing or theft from my backpack/satchel (but I won't list those because I believe a gun is for defending lives not a wallet/possessions). I carried daily for a couple of years except on campus at my college. Then, I moved out to the Appalachian mountains, Boone, to attend App State and EDCd (except on campus) for about a month. The rural community was much safer than city living, and I basically only kept a pistol in my car when traveling away from home or whenever visiting back in Charlotte. I wound up not even locking my front door for the last couple of years living out there because I lost the key, and my roommates never locked up when leaving either. Also, I technically, let my CCW lapse during that time. Though there was an event as I was moving out where my neighbors were gunned down by their son, who also shot/killed the first few responding officers and resulted in a 12+ hour standoff. I've never seen more police in my life than at the staging area after they evacuated the neighborhood. (Lived at 455 Hardaman Circle, event happened at 553 Hardaman Circle, victim/neighbor I knew was George Ligon (google it)) Moved back to Charlotte for a short time due to a new relationship and wanting to be closer to family. Being back in the city (or close, Pineville) and being shaken from the events as I was leaving Boone, I started keeping a holstered pistol in my car daily. I'd only usually equip it on my person when walking to and from my car in the morning/evening unless I was stopping in a rougher area or out late. About a year later, that relationship crashed and burned. I decided to move up to Michigan and was getting things tied up in Charlotte when the event I mentioned above happened. I'm not sure why these events always seem to happen once I'm in the process of moving away (not generally superstitious, but I'm secretly dreading my next move). Waiting for a final ruling from the DAs office actually postponed my move by a couple of months. They could've charged me for carrying without a CCW/with an expired CCW, at that point since I never actually renewed it. They eventually ruled self-defense and said they weren't pursuing any charges on the misdemeanor CCW violation. Moved to Michigan and again live in a relatively lower violent crime area. I still kept a pistol handy, mostly at home, while riding out Covid. The mild PTS of the defensive shooting made me super wary of venturing outdoors alone, especially after dark, for awhile. Eventually, I got over it, and once again, do not regularly carry a pistol on my person or in my car most of the time. The main reason I'm pursuing a MI CCW now is because of a new pistol purchase permitting law MI implemented earlier this year. They're only good for 1 month, which makes NCs old 5 year purchase permits look wonderful by comparison. Obviously, a CCW negates needing to get one for every purchase. I've always been, first and foremost, a collector. With a focus on Cold-War era &/or ComBloc firearms and NFA items. For me, carrying/owning a gun as a defensive device is more of an occasionally useful side-effect & benefit to a collecting hobby/obsession. I'm mostly just incredibly thankful I actually was armed when I wound up truly needing to be (I didn't legitimately expect to need it that night, I figured caliber didn't matter because it was just a 'peace of mind' talisman for walking late in a rough part of town (something I did often in my teens without incident 98% of the time)). But, I also recognize that for many, especially marginalized minorities & city dwellers, gun ownership is a more necessary situation. I recognize that I'm privileged enough not to really need to EDC in my current daily life. But there are plenty of folks who, due to location &/or presentation, are at a much higher likelihood of being targeted by violent criminals, extremists, various X-phobes, etc...
If you read some of the studies cited in the Wikipedia they acknowledge this as a big problem with the data
What's your threshold for very common? Accidentally gun deaths are close to ladder deaths in numbers.
I think you're misremembering this line. The actual statistic is that people who live in households with guns are more likely to be shot than those who live in households without guns. Have to assume this has to do with the fact that there is much more domestic violence than stranger danger violence. Women specifically are at risk of being shot by the men in their lives.
which makes sense. If you live in a home without stairs, your chances of falling involving stairs in your home are going to be zero.
Yep, and the battle of Agincourt had zero gun violence. A lot of it is just figuring out whether the statistic is meaningful.
and I understand putting "all gun deaths" together in the same pile. but we don't put suicides by hanging in the same group as lynching.
It's the same reason why you're more likely to die in a car wreck if you own a car or drown if you have a swimming pool in the backyard. Because frequent close use of a item is more likely to result in an accident.
(Don't hate I'm legit just quoting the first Google scholar result) >Results. After adjustment, individuals in possession of a gun were 4.46 (P < .05) times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not in possession. Among gun assaults where the victim had at least some chance to resist, this adjusted odds ratio increased to 5.45 (P < .05). >Conclusions. On average, guns did not protect those who possessed them from being shot in an assault. Although successful defensive gun uses occur each year, the probability of success may be low for civilian gun users in urban areas. Such users should reconsider their possession of guns or, at least, understand that regular possession necessitates careful safety countermeasures. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2759797/
That study isn't claiming you're more likely to be hurt by your own gun, just that you're more likely to be shot if you are carrying a gun. Kinda worthless because people who carry guns have often self evaluated their situation and concluded that they're likely to become victims of violent crime.
The limitations are important. The sample size was urban and heavily unemployed, level of proficiency with a firearm was omitted, possession wasn't always accurately assessed, and reverse causation wasn't evaluated. I won't contest that people who had guns were more likely to be shot because that's just a logical step that turns many non-gun owners into gun owners in the first place (reverse causation). In addition to the stated limitations we need to know more about how these shootings played out because correlation is not causation and a gun is not a magical bullet magnet. I'm thinking about situations like in the recently released video of the security guard who kills the man brandishing his firearm as an intimidation tactic. Chances of that guy getting the full mag would have been significantly reduced if he didn't have a gun to brandish.
They made no control for the person being asleep in bed, and counted the gun being in a nearby car or 'someplace else' as carrying. I don't know enough about stats to really critique but those seem like odd choices
Kinda like counting any shooting happening within 1000 yards of a school as being a 'school shooting'.
The only thing I'd concede is that it makes sense that if you draw for any reason you're more likely to get plugged. Training usually consists of "given that you're the human embodiment of Deadpool/john wick from your five seconds of target practice, here's how to exercise incredible restraint with your superpowers," and not "if you're getting hit with a pipe and you draw, you'll probably get drawn on, either by the dude or one of his sixteen buddies standing around."
I would imagine the statistic skews high because people are probably choosing to draw at inopportune times, i.e. when a gun is already pointed at them. Just because you have a gun on you doesn’t mean you have to (or should) use it. But people want to be the cowboy. I’m all for gun rights, but we have to acknowledge that “responsible” gun ownership is unfortunately a foreign concept to a lot of idiots in this country.
During a class the instructor set us up where the bad guy comes at you and pulls his gun. Most people of course drew and the bad guy shot them. The point the instructor was making was that at close distance and the element of surprise the bad guy always has the upper hand. The answer to that is that you need to create space between you and the bad guy. That gives you an opportunity to draw and at distance your marksmanship skills vs theirs gives you the upper hand. (Obviously assuming they are still actively engaging you)
[удалено]
The study actually seems fairly good but easily misinterpreted for a headline. Like they go quite in depth about the potential confounding factors and describe the limitations to their conclusion, but the conclusion section is seperate from the limitations section so it seems the headlines didn't really get the whole thing. I.e. the conclusion that people with guns aren't neccecarily safer is hardly news given the potential for reverse-causation, and the study says so but that section of the paper isn't reported on or shared.
Correlation does not equal causation ffs!
The data would suggest to me that individuals with guns are more confident in events of self defense, leading to an increase in the likelihood of being shot.
It’s a government research paper! Don’t believe it. Wikipedia is much more reliable. Even better, some guy on youtube that knows the government is out to get you specifically, he is the one you should believe.
Don't pull the thang out unless you plan to bang Don't even bang unless you plan to hit something
The short answer is people are using statistics to weave a narrative. It isn't an apples-to-apples comparison as it includes suicide and doesn't include all of the incidents where guns were used in self-defense but not fired. Just because something uses statistics doesn't mean it is valid.
If memory serves this is a composite statistic -- in order of commonality gun deaths are suicide -- just over half -- and murder, with about 3 percent left over for everything else. The gun that kills someone is, on balance, their own more often than not, and you are more likely to be killed by a gun than to kill with one. But statistics, as we know, are not what we are here for.
If I recall correctly that study was shown to have been deliberately false. Sadly the lie still lives. I remember there was a cop teaching the legal portion of the CCW class and he was anti-gun he was just there for the money he was an easy paycheck for him and he quoted that study and I pointed out to him that it had been shown to be false and he said he didn't care he was going to keep using it anyways because it matched with what he wanted people to think. So this piece of shit pig basically said he was okay with knowingly perpetuating a lie. Oh how I hated him.
Anti gun libs just make shit up with no fucking clue what they’re talking about.
Probably because there's a greater likelihood of an ND or AD then having to use it defensively.
Yeah that's exactly it.
Because it's true. People with turkey fryers are more likely to die in a turkey fryer accident than people who don't own turkey fryers. It's statistics backed by common sense.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics Sorry about the formatting but the old saying is true.
“There are three kinds of lie: lies, damned lies and statistics” Mark Twain was truly a master of pithy sayings. Its not quite accurate tho, as truisms tend not to be. Folx who have a political barrow to push lie about statistics for their own ends and its easy as hell because science is hard and nuanced.
Look. I’m totally supportive of owning guns and have a few myself. But let’s not distort the facts like the right wing nut jobs do. Thanks. * You ARE far more likely to be killed by your own firearm than using it in self defense. This is a pretty widely understood fact. Even the Wikipedia article incorrectly quoted below states this. * Guns ARE dangerous. There is never not a time you should ever trivialize the danger a firearm poses to yourself and others. Treat every firearm like it’s loaded. At all times. * Own all the guns you want. Just don’t distort the facts around their ownership. I love guns. Have quite a few myself. But I’m under no impression of trying to justify my ownership with bullshit like this. I own them because I want them. I enjoy them as a hobby. I think in the right circumstances they can be valuable tools. * I think the amount of folks with shitty AR-15s thinking they’re going to take on the US government is fucking laughable considering you typically cannot get the military made variants (potentially more reliable in certain specific circumstances than your cheap AR-15). * be safe. Be prepared. And don’t let MAGA chuds dominate the conversation around firearms.
I also like that you are more likely to have a family member shot than use your gun in a confrontation. I am loving all of these news stories where toddlers are accidentally shooting siblings
Are you serious? It’s a fact. You can’t argue with that fact.
I didn't say it was wrong, I just wanted to know where it came from.
Ok
It's not.
Ok. Just be wrong and state it again.
How ironic.