Gun Rights

Again I will respond in general to some of the points raised by Seraine and end with a summary and conclusion."You could refute most, if not all, of those arguments with your correlation-causation argument."No, and here is the difference. The conclusions that are reached in the above argument that I gave are extensively researched in the literature, samples of which were referenced. These conclusions were specifically used as examples to show that there was not only correlation but causation and the methods that are required to move from one to the other and support a conclusion of causation. Note the examples consistently used referenced published academic research papers, all of which are peer reviewed and extensively cited and supported by a host of mathematical analysis, social theory and direct conformational experimentation. This is the science involved in how you can moving from correlation to causation and it is missing in all the statistical blurbs that Seraine has quoted which are simply "headlines" picked for maximum impact."Gun Control saves 15x more lives than it ends" Seraine hammers home this statistic again and again and makes it the entire linchpin of his argument in his conclusion. However it actually paints a very misleading picture of the nature of gun crimes and in general gun violence. To attempt to clarify and show a more complete picture which this statistic severely distorts, let us take a look at these numbers in more detail and explore the source and possible other attributes and influences. Note to start that this "15x" blurb is obtained by comparing the rate of homicides that involve guns to a number of reported incidents where people claim to have prevented crime by brandishing a gun. Please consider carefully exactly what is being compared here, it bears repeating this is :(homicides with guns) vs (reports of "I think I prevented a crime/stopped criminal violence by brandishing a gun")This leads to the very eye catching "15x" statistic which appears on the surface to make a powerful argument. However what happens if instead you compare all gun related serious crime including robbery and assault instead of just homicides? Well if you do that then the statistic reverses and you have guns being involved in more than twice the amount of serious crimes as even the most vague report of what they are being claimed to prevent. Further to this consider the effect that guns have on the result of a crime, i.e., how do guns influence the nature of crimes when they are involved. Even a casual investigation into this viewpoint brings up many problems for example that robberies committed with guns are three times as likely to result in fatalities as compared with robberies without guns[2]. The same general pattern is seen in other disputes such as family violence where gun ownership raises the frequency of severe end results of disputes among family members. What does this mean and what general inferences can be reached? Consider the opinion of criminologists such as Philip J. Cook who argue that if guns were less available then criminals would commit the crime with less-lethal weapons.[3] Now again, the point here is not to cite a few statistics and then claim a conclusion to get rid of all guns, if I did that I would be just as guilty of the criticism that I am leveling at Seraine. My entire point is unchanged and remains the same argument that I have maintained from the very start. Very simply it is to note that 1) There is no way that Seraine can maintain the burden of proof through statistic blurbs which have no significant causation analysis performed at all.2) It is trivial to find similar statistics which would imply the opposite conclusion and I have done that several times in the above.3) Real academic statistical research which has been cited several times in the above shows the issue is very complex and conclusions drawn from simple rations do nothing but distort the problem."To conclude, gun control is wrong because gun rights save 15x more lives than it ends. Therefore, gun control causes deaths."Note in the end Seraine hangs his entire argument on this one statistic which has been shown in the above through even the most trivial of research to be extremely misleading. The actual reality which has been revealed through a very simple surface analysis is that this statistic is a cherry picked, unfair and meaningless comparison and that a level comparison will show that guns are used in serious crimes such as murders, assault and robbery more than twice as much as the vague claims they were used to prevent a crime. Thus if one is going to compare frequencies and involvement then the reality is that at best, even by using vague reports of possible crimes which may have been prevented, guns prevent half as much crime as they are involved in, not 15:1 the other way around. This is just one of the many examples of severely distorted statistics and again why I would repeat the common phrase : "There are lies, damn lies and statistics".To recap and summarize, there is no way that Seraine can have succeeded in carrying the burden of proof for two main reasons :1) He has made his entire argument hang on statistics which have been shown on multiple occasions to be extremely misleading. This has been argued in depth by showing that the statistics quoted are giving a partial, distorted picture and they do not have any where close to the level of rigor which is required from proper statistical analysis to support a conclusion of causation.2) His resolution is also extremely vague and was never fully clarified, even when it was noted that he was appearing to be contradictory. What exactly is Pro for and what is it that he opposes specifically in gun control laws. Is it to remove all gun control laws? Is it to stop any further gun control laws? Note that he starts off by attacking all gun laws with the trivial argument that criminals ignore the law anyway but then when a list of six reasons for gun laws is cited he concedes that he is not against all gun control laws.[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk...[2] Cook, Philip J. (1987). "Robbery Violence". Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 70 (2). NCJ 108118.[3] Cook, Philip J., Jens Ludwig (2000). "Chapter 3". Gun Violence: The Real Costs. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-513793-0.