federal assault weapons ban

Yikes. Please tell me the pseudo-English was for comedic purposes.

The "beef" is that I prefer to be competent with my weapons, and thus I practice whenever I can, so that I am able to safely put a neat hole in whatever I am aiming at, without endangering myself or anyone else. Practice, though, involves the use of a lot of rounds, and I'd have to spend a great deal less time reloading magazines, if the ones I had could hold 6 extra rounds per. At 500 rounds per box, that's 50 times I have to refill magazines with bullets, where I'd have to only do it ~30 times if I had the extra 6 rounds that the rest of the country now has access to; the 6 rounds that would, according to some, make my .22 target pistol into some sort of amazing killing machine.

Maybe I should compensate by mounting a bayonet?

Yes - saying that people who are not in favour of allowing anyone who happens to like them to have weapons capable of inflicting terrible harm do not have penises was the final clincher in Nate's argument for me. I am off to join the NRA.

"From my cold, dead, paws."

And he's right! I DON'T have a penis!!!

I'm off to get one of those rubber thingies...

Take this traditional Irish song as you will. It sure didn't work for them as a plan.

I am a merry ploughboy and I plough the fields all day
Till a sudden thought came to me head that I should roam away
For I am sick and tired of slavery since the day I was born
And I am off to join the I.R.A. and I am off tomorrow morn.

And we're all off to Dublin in the green, in the green
Where the helmets glisten in the sun
Where the bay'nets flash and the rifle's crash
To the rattle of a Thompson gun.

I'll leave aside me pick and spade, I'll leave aside me plough
I'll leave aside me horse and yoke, I no longer need them now
I'll leave aside me Mary, she's the girl that I adore
And I wonder if she'll think of me whe hears the rifle's roar.

And we're all off to Dublin in the green, in the green
Where the helmets glisten in the sun
Where the bay'nets flash and the rifle's crash
To the rattle of a Thompson gun.

And when the war is over, and dear old Ireland is free
I'll take her to the church to wed and a rebel's wife she'll be
Well some men fight for silver and some men fight for gold
But the I.R.A. are fighting for the land that the Saxons stole.

And we're all off to Dublin in the green, in the green
Where the helmets glisten in the sun
Where the bay'nets flash and the rifle's crash
To the rattle of a Thompson gun.

massaged numbers
Nate writes


OMG.. How silly of me to assume that criminals prefer to attack a single person with no bystanders. It should have been so obvious that they prefer to attacked unarmed victims when armed bystanders are nearby.
Gosh.. if 75% of the DGUs occur in your own home, I should have realized that it is FAR more likely for strangers to break in and attack your GUESTS than they are you. Gee.. Nate, I guess you proved with your lack of any numbers of your own that I don't have a clue. (<--- huge sarcasm)

Now back to reality
You claimed that something existed in the numbers that is not said. Care to provide any evidence to back up your claim that majority of those were armed bystanders coming to rescue of unarmed victims? Why do you think YOUR assumption is more valid than mine? Any evidence? Why would criminals that prefer to not attack armed victims prefer to attack victims with armed bystanders?

Here is another simple math problem for you.
FBI stats say that 23,330 people were murdered in 1994.
Kleck states that 15.7% of the 2.5 mill crimes prevented in his study would have "almost certainly" resulted in deaths and another 14.2% probably would have. Are you going to seriously tell us that if we banned all guns tomorrow that the murder rate in the US would "almost certainly" go to 415,830 or "probably" go to 770,830? In 1994, there were 316 justifiable homicides by citizens with handguns. Are you going to tell us they could have justifiably shot and killed 370,000 more?

(Math for simple minded. 2.5 million X 15.7% + the 23,330 actual = 415,830, 2.5 million X 29.9% + the 23,330 actual = 770,830)

My numbers come RIGHT out of Kleck's figures. As usual, you will probably claim I massaged them. Numbers don't lie. People that don't actually examine the numbers DO LIE, but they mostly lie to themselves.

As for numbers that lie again. Your claim that shootings happen at schools because they are gun free is ludicrous and ignores the facts of school violence. The number of deaths or shootings at schools have dropped since the 80s. Go look at the DoJ numbers on school violence.

As for a study that shows that criminals prefer to attack armed victims, that is what I am showing you Kleck's study PROVES if you believe his numbers. THe MATH proves it. Until you do the MATH you have no leg to stand on. It is obvious you don't understand the basics of statistical analysis. If we wanted to run Kleck's numbers through all the claims he makes vs all the reported crimes to FBI and adjusted for all variables, the results would still end up the same. Kleck's numbers would imply that criminals are more likely to attack an armed victim than an unarmed one. Even if we ignore the simple claim of 85% of Kleck's DGU involved a serious threat of violence we are still forced to reach the same conclusion.

There is a real problem with your argument, since if we accept one of your claims it means that I can quickly prove that Kleck's other numbers don't add up. Kleck claims 65% of the DGUs were reported to the police. that means that if ALL of the out of home incidents were reported then there was still over 1 million in home attempts that were reported to the police but prevented. That figure can't be found in the FBI stats anywhere. Either the police were not actually informed or the police didn't record the information as required by Fed reporting guidelines or the most likely scenario, Kleck's numbers are inflated.

The problem with Kleck's survey is it surveys what people THINK, not what in reality happened. Kleck's respondents THINK they saved over half a million lives. In reality, they didn't, since no reasonable person can believe that the murder rate in US would jump to over half a million if we took guns away from citizens. The 34% of criminals who said they were prevented from a crime by a gun would prove this. Since 66% of crimes occur because there is no gun to stop the crime. (Math note. A 34% increase in the murder rate would not even get you close to 100,000 let alone 500,000)

Re: massaged numbers


Yes.


That's precisely the problem. Most of your arguments are taking numbers from one study, with one sampling method, with one group of data, and you're munging it together from different numbers from different sources regarding dissimilar types of crimes, and making what would appear to be a very valid point to a casual observer, but something rather dodgy to anyone willing to really examine. Also, the assumptions. I don't have to tell you what they say about assuming, suffice it to say it doesn't bode well for the numbers based on said assumptions.

The one thing I can applaud you on is your numbers on crime increase if firearms were banned. You did in fact use your calculator correctly. Where you went wrong is you ended up with the numbers and then just called them wrong, without any real reason, other than your own word that they are laughable. Should I cite you as source in future debates involving statistics, since you are the very model of credibility?

As for school shotings, you're just creating straw men to push over. I never claimed that school shootings are common, I just mentioned that they do happen, and hypothesized regarding a reason why.

Regarding armed victims, you're still hanging on your unsupported assumption that the armed person was the victim in all those incidents, which is neither said nor implied. I'm not assuming that every time had an armed bystander, and I never claimed a certain percentage, I was just pointing out the fallacy in your assumption, and a possible alternative.

In addition, your (still counterintuitive, but hey, let's run with it anyway) claim of me being 50% more likely to be attacked if armed, and thus able to reduce risk by putting away the gun, demonstrates wonderfully your inability to understand stats:
You're performing the common (but still absolutely incorrect) fallacy of assuming that correlation equals causation. I could look up the latin phrase for that classic fallacy, but I prefer English. An example: People who are eaten by sharks are usually swiming in the ocean, and are thus quite likely to be wearing swimsuits. Some may swim in the nude, but a good perecntage will be wearing the swimsuit. You could examine the numbers and announce that wearing a swimsuit makes you more likely to be attacked by a shark, and you would be absolutely correct that more swimsuit-wearing people get attacked by sharks than nude people, but your claim that the suit itself was necessarily a reason for the attack, would be fallacious.

In the same way, you can't claim that the presence of the gun was a cause for the attempted crime, even if your assumption-laden calculation was absolutely correct, which is quite debatable. It's possible that the gun could be a partial cause, but the numbers don't support that as a necessary conclusion. It could also be that people who live, work, or travel in dangerous places and occupations choose to arm themselves, and that would mean that the guns and the attempted crimes were effects of a cause external to the two, rather than the guns being the reason for the attempt, or the attempt being the reason for the guns.

tangent that needs to be wrapped up:

For one, you could spend five minutes trying to figure out what a gun magazine is called, so you don't look silly calling it a "barrell[s] where there are bullets in [it]", and for two, for the last time you are incorrect, and "assault weapons" require one trigger pull for each round fired. That's what the word "semiautomatic" means, and the "assault weapons" ban specifically states that the weapons in question are semiautomatic.

----end tangent----

Back to you, Parados-

We have one more demonstrable
Vacation from the logical,
You bob and weave
But only leave
A statement unstatistical:



See that? Apples, turned right into oranges for your numerical convenience. You equated 34% of criminals having one (or more) crime(s) with 34% of crimes, and didn't even properly do the math for deriving the percentage. Considering the high recidivism rate, there's no way you can equate one criminal with one crime - you have x criminals committing x * (some number greater than one) crimes, and that's only counting the ones we have convictions for. In addition, even if we did have one criminal for each crime, and 34% of crimes having been prevented by guns, adding in that 34% again would result in a 52% (34/66) increase in crime, since you went from 66% crime to 100% crime, not 100% to 134%. Not even can you not combine stats right, you don't even know how to properly add percentages.

If you want to continue this via email or on my own board, feel free. I don't like this board enough to come back every day and check for responses.

Regards,
Nate

In other news, "munging" can be used as a verb



:wink:

I just checked, and "munge" has an entry at dictionary.com, as unlikely as I thought that would be.

I thought it was funny. "mung" had a different connotation during my college years.

mung

n : erect bushy annual widely cultivated in warm regions of India and Indonesia and United States for forage and especially its edible seeds; chief source of bean sprouts used in Chinese cookery; sometimes placed in genus Phaseolus


Yeah, that would be a weird thing to use as a verb. I'm sure your definition would be even better, though.

We referred to such things as spilled bong water and certain other "wet spots" as mung. We had a "mung rag" that we used to absorb such messes.

This may have been noted earlier (I'm not in the mood to wade through 20+ pages), but I read the other day that a guy in Utah cleaned out his local gun shop of the newly legalized guns the first day they were available. He bought 15 of them.

I'm curious as to whether this concerns any of the gun-rights folks here. Perhaps this guy's purchases can be explained by:

a) he really wants to exercise his 2nd Amendment rights;
b) he's a bit obsessive;
c) he's arming a private militia.
d) all the above.

Sounds kind of obsessive, to me. More than one purchase in a 30 or 60 day period (forget which) used to trigger an investigation, and probably still does.

Nate's assumptions
Well, Lets see Nate.... what did you trot out this time that is ludicrous on its face

I can't compare studies of what ACTUALLY happened with studies of what people THOUGHT might happen? How do you figure out the accuracy of studies then? Surveys are often influenced by the questions and how they are asked. Every statistician knows this.

Now if the study has a question about threat of violence and the FBI stats have a category that is very specific about THREAT of violence then why do you think I can't compare the two. The problem perhaps is that you don't understand what the FBI category is.

Let me quote from the FBI study:
"Violent crime is composed of 4 offenses: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, and aggravated assault. All violent crimes involve force or threat of force."

Then the FBI study says about all other crimes:
property crime includes the offenses of burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft and arson. The object of the theft-type offenses is the taking of money or property, but there is no force or threat of force against the victims.

Now let me quote from your claim about Kleck's study:


AND



What is the difference between Kleck's "threatened or used force" and the FBI's "force or threat of force"? It looks like apples to apples to me. Perhaps you can explain to me and everyone else why force is sometimes an apple and sometimes an orange.

Under the FBI stats for "aggravated assault" it states: "Attempts are included since it is not necessary that an injury result... "

It would appear we have an "apple" of both attempted and actual force being included in BOTH the FBI figures AND in Kleck's figures. Feel free to point out the "Orange" if you can.

Now, under the Uniform Crime reporting statute, local police are supposed to report all crimes to the FBI. Do they always do this? No, but there is no evidence to show that they fail to report a majority of crimes.
If we take the SMALLEST possible number under Kleck's survey of crimes that were threats of violence that would mean that Kleck's survey respondents reported 1.019 million "threatened or used force". If we look at the FBI numbers for reported "force or threat of force." We get the number 1.113 million. Does this mean that over 90% of the figures in the FBI stats are from gun owners that defended themselves? I hardly think so since it would mean that the majority of assaults reported to FBI were stopped by a gun. (Again proving that the odds of being attacked are greater with a gun than without.) I am willing concede that police perhaps did not report all of the "threatened or used force" as required under statute but it would mean that almost one million of those crimes would have had to go unreported for there to be as many non defensive gun "force or threat of force" as there are DGU thwarted attacks. (See Fedral's post on Defense Gun Use in the media, Of the 113 headlines he posted only two specifically showed a person coming to defense of someone else. And to think I must have just "MADE THAT UP." The 2% from Fedral's unscientific headlines would be more than offset by my not including the DGUs in the FBI stats. As you include MORE DGUs in the FBI figures it reduces the % of non gun defended attacks thus increasing the odds of being attacked while having a gun.)


I called them laughable based on the study you quoted that said only 34% of criminals have ever been stopped from a crime by a gun. If you want to trot out numbers then we should put them into context based on facts known about commissions of crime. Interesting, that you would tell us that criminals do several crimes, a fact I am well aware of, but it was much easier to leave you the opening to dig the hole, jump in, and then pull the dirt in after you. If as you claim criminals do many crimes the fact that only 34% of the criminals have run into a gun while committing a crime would seem rather low if there were really 2.5 million DGUs each year. Either the number of DGUs is too high at 2.5 million or those 34% of criminals (assuming the ratio is the same for non jailed criminals) commit all the crimes that result in someone preventing it with a gun. This would seem to argue directly against your claim that criminals prefer to not commit crimes against armed people. It would appear based on this claim of yours that those 34% prefer to commit crimes against people MORE likely to be armed. One problem again with the numbers from Kleck is that 75% of those DGUs were at home. That would lead us to the likelihood that those 34% prefer armed people at home.

As for Nate's statement


Your analogy makes no sense at all compared to my argument. First of all I never once used the word "cause" in referring to the likelihood of being attacked if you have a gun. I only pointed out the odds are greater. That does NOT equate to causation. Odds of something happening are correlation. Your nude analogy presents no numbers of nudes have a lower % of being attacked. Instead you just claim that because there are fewer nudes your odds are less if you are nude. That is not a statistical analysis at all but your own "straw man" argument. The numbers appear to show, if Kleck is correct, that if you have a gun you are more likely to be threatened or involved in a situation where someone is threatened.

The real problem is that you refuse to examine Kleck's numbers in light of any other surveys or arrest figures. The mere fact that Kleck's study has numbers does NOT mean they are accurate without some outside corroboration. A scientific poll conducted for Time found that 9% of respondents had met space aliens and 7% claimed they were abducted by them. Should we accept those numbers without question as well? If we accept the numbers from this Time study then there were 22 million people that met space aliens.

When it comes to Kleck's findings vs what the FBI said about crime for that year there are several possible reasons for the discrepancies:
1. Kleck's findings could be faulty either due to lack of science or lack of accounting for overzealous respondents.
2. The FBI numbers could be off drastically due to underreporting by local officials. ( not likely since Lott's county by county study closely follows FBI numbers and we all know that Lott's study is completely accurate.)
3. My math or my assumptions could be wrong. (You have not disproved my math and I am waiting for you to show that Kleck's "threatened or used force" and the FBI's "force or threat of force" are substantially different in form and substance.)
4. Your reporting of Kleck's numbers is not factual compared to what Kleck really found. (A problem I admit I have not delved into yet.)

Until I came up with number 4, I was leaning toward a combination of 1 & 2. Kleck's respondents were overzealous in their claims of the threat vs the way the Police perceived that threat when informed of it.

holy **** parados, are you still on this? I told you to email me if you wanted to continue, but I see you'd much rather continue this thread knowing that I was likely to never return.

Have fun with your bowls full of fruits of varying type.

But for old time's sake,


You are absolutely correct.

Although, you did say that I can reduce my chances of being attacked simply by going unarmed, which directly implies a cause-effect relationship. Unless you would like to retract that statement, you claimed causation and my point stands.

Cheers!

The newly leagalized guns the Dartagnan mention are not much different from the same guns you could buy before the ban sunsetted. Except in states like Kalifornia which still ban such guns. All in all that person can not go into a gun store and buy 15 guns unless he ahs a FFL.
Dems like to like...take Rather or an example.

Rights
If you actually read the constitution, Amendment Two states- "A well regulated militia, being to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed". The amendment was made in the late 1700's when malitias were still around, this amendment does not give us the right to run around with assualt weapons, shooting at things.

Re: federal assault weapons ban


You obviously do not know the details of the "federal assault weapons ban". The weapons were NOT banned. Only the IMPORT and SALE of NEW particular weapons with certain (mainly) cosmetic features was banned. It banned thumb-hole stocks, bayonnet lugs, collapseable stocks, and removeable flash-hiders. The one thing that could even CONCEIVEABLY do anything was that it limited magazines to only 10 rounds. (Big deal, instead of one 30 round magazine, the psycho carries ten 10 round magazines that can be changed out in one second with practice.)

To be considered not an "import" there had to be a certain number of US made parts. So, things like the sling swivel, trigger guard, stocks, etc. were replaced with US made parts. But it did nothing to the already thousands and thousands of them that are already here. They are called "pre-ban". All that happened is that they suddenly became much more valuable collectors items, and the price shot up. For example, a "preban" Colt AR15 (a semi-auto .223, looks like an M16) goes for around $1500. It can have the collapseable stock, hi capacity magazine, bayonet lug, etc. The exact same brand new rifle, with the fixed stock and 10-shot only magazine can be had for about $700.

Now that the useless bill has expired, the rifles that were marked "For Government and Law Enforcement Use Only" (LEO) are now for sale to everyone. Talk about collectors items...

So, to recap your false statements -
1. It NEVER banned the sale, just the importation of 19 particular models.
2. The AK-47s and other semi-automatic guns that you're now for some reason more worried about gangs having have ALWAYS been available, before, during, and after the bill. It had absolutely ZERO effect on that.

Furthermore, since the gangs, drug dealers, and violent criminals are all felons anyways, it's ALWAYS been illegal for them to own any firearm whatsoever. Why is it you believe they'll break that law, but would for some reason abide by this one?

It is somewhat cliche, but there is some truth to the saying that "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." If you think that guns are just "bad", then feel free to put a big sign up in your front yard saying "This is a Gun Free House". What, you wouldn't do that for fear that you may be broken into? You may not, but I want anyone who's thinking of breaking into my home to wonder whether or not I'm armed.

Re: Rights


Uh, yes it does.

I honestly think you gun people have taken the 2 admendment and run amock with it. I think if those same folks were around today they would set you all straight as to what their intentions were.

But since they ain't around today and we can only go by what is written we either have to live with it or change it.

I don't think it will ever be changed so we may as well accept it.

The next time there is a school shooting I hope you guys can sleep in the comfort of knowing that it was a kid that shot those people and he/she just used a gun and their parents should have done a better job of keeping the guns away from their kids.