Gun Rights

Seraine has put forth an important and hotly contested debate topic. Gun rights and gun control laws have been and likely will continue to be a significant topic of contention. There are few topics, aside from Religion, which tend to generate as much passion and conflict as gun ownership laws, and this is well exemplified by former NRA president Charlton Heston who was fond of noting that they would take his guns from his "[...] cold dead hands"[1].Seraine's argument is based on two main contentions :1) Guns deter criminals2) Guns provide constant protectionThe first contention is supported by reasoning and inference and then a mass listing of various statistics which are intended to support the premise that more guns tend to produce less crime. Now before I deal with some of the reasoning I will interject a blurb about statistics and how they are among the most difficult of evidences to use to properly support an argument and how they are among the easiest to cause confusion and misinformation. To note a common phrase there are "Lies, damned lies, and statistics."A) Statistics1) Correlation does not imply causationSeraine bolsters much of his case with statistics which seem to imply that changes in gun control produce a direct and negative effect on crime, i.e., gun control is a bad thing. He notes that there are changes between gun laws and crime which happen at the same time, this relation between two variables is called correlation[2]. He then implies that this means there is a causal effect between the two, i.e., one of them causes the other to chance. However, it is critical to note is that correlation does not imply causation. To put it plainly, you can not infer that the change in one thing caused the change in the other thing simply because they happened at the same time, in this case changes in gun control laws/ownership and the rate or amount of crimes.While this may seem counter intuitive, again, all Seraine is noting is that there are changes that happen at the same time (correlation) it is a statistical fallacy to jump from this to one is causing the other. The most famous example which is used constantly to refute and make light of this statistical fallacy is the Pirates vs Global Warming graph. This graph shows clearly that the rise in global temperatures has happened at the same time as large decrease in Pirate population[3]. And what is even more striking is that year after year every single increase in temperature is accompanied by a direct decrease in Pirate population! Now it is obvious that these two things are not related at all (unless you are geo) and that lack of Pirates is not causing Global warming. But if you simply jump from correlation to causation that is what the statistics would imply.The point is that simply because two things change at the same time does not mean one caused the other. Statistical inference is an extremely complicated mathematical methodology and is in general extremely unreliable unless it can be established that (a) there exists a connection between the two things, i.e., one can cause the other, and (b) (this is the critical part) that nothing else is changing at the same time. To show just how complicated this is to do properly and reach definite conclusions, consider the recent report published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition which concludes that intake of saturated fats prevents coronary heart disease[4]! This is the complete opposite conclusion of every single other study in the last 50 years. Take even a brief scan though the linked article and it becomes apparent just how difficult it is to take a change in one variable and conclude that it is actually causing a change in another variable in general.2) It is trivial to produce statistics that reverse any conclusionAs just one example, simply consider that the number of firearm deaths per population is less than a third in Canada than it is in the US[5] and Canada has much more strict gun control laws[6]. Now from this statistic can it be concluded that if the US adopted Canada's gun laws then the number of gun deaths would drop to less than 30% of what they are now? No, because as noted in the above correlation does not imply causation. 3) Cherry picking, cherry picking and more cherry pickingWhile Seraine gives massive amounts of numbers they are very carefully chosen. Consider for example "In London, which has gun control, you are 6 times more likely to mugged than in New York City. ". Ok, fine but what about other cites in the UK vs other cities in the US? Does anyone really not believe that I can find another pair of cities which will reverse this conclusion - of course this is possible and thus those types of comparisons are pure cherry picking, i.e., they are fallacious.This is another famous cause of statistical aberration and is commonly known as the observer bias where a conclusion once reached causes data to be interpreted to support the conclusion as patterns are seen simply by selecting specific data which support that conclusion. The complete opposite statistical overload can be seen on sites which advocate gun control where they list mass cases of violence and incidents and statistics which support gun control laws[7]B) Argument CommentaryBut let us now return to the main bulk of the argument and deal with some of the reasoning and conclusions. Consider the argument for example that criminals commit crimes anyway so gun laws only restrict the innocent. This seems logical at first pass but it is a very narrow view of gun control laws. In general gun control laws have many purposes which include [8]:1) deterring firearms use in criminal offences; 2) ensuring that firearms are not acquired by unqualified or dangerous persons; 3) permitting authorities to confiscate firearms from dangerous persons; 4) permitting authorities to withdraw dangerous firearms from private ownership; 5) permitting the regulation of commerce in, and the use, storage, transportation of firearms; and 6) assisting the police in investigating and preventing firearms crime. Thus this trivial argument does not hold and gun control laws have many uses and ability to deter crimes. Second, Seraine seems to be contradictory in several parts of his argument as he starts off with "And now that your average citizen can't obtain guns [...]" but later says "Americans use guns to frighten off intruders [...]. In any cause the main point of the argument which is "Without guns, there isn't much to protect people. "is simply false. There is a whole host of options which can be used to both prevent crime[9] and deal with crime when it happens[10] by simply lowering your risk of incident by altering your profile and increasing your tactical awareness.Based on the evidence present I hope it is clear that a) one can not use statistics to so trivially support a conclusionb) gun control laws have many uses to prevent crime and catch criminalsc) there are lots of options that people can use to protect themselves, you are not helpless without a gun[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk...[2] http://www.socialresearchmethods.net...[3] http://www.loleegreen.com...[4] http://www.ajcn.org...[5] http://library.med.utah.edu...[6] http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com...[7] http://www.guncontrol.ca...[8] http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com...[9] http://www.ehow.com...[10] http://www.tacticaladvantage.co.za...