HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ian@gomez.jpl.nasa.gov (H. Ian Novack)
Subject: Discussion control in California
Organization: Earth Observation Data Systems Grp, JPL
Distribution: ca
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 16:33:51 GMT

Okay, the gun control thread is heating up exponentially.  The big issue is
guns and crime.  However, I've a feeling that arguing this issue is pointless,
as both sides "know they are right".  Impasse.

Let's bend the subject a bit: what about the issue of firearm accidents in the
home?  I've heard numerous statistics decrying the great numbers of kids that
have found their father's/mother's/older sibling's gun in the house and
succeeded in shooting themselves or someone else by accident.

What do both sides have to say about this?

|-Ian Novack (Particle Man)----------------------------ian@gomez.jpl.nasa.gov-|
| "Science takes all of the fun out of the portent     Jet Propulsion Lab     |
|  business."  -- Hobbes, of Calvin & Hobbes           Pasadena, CA           |
|--Disclaimer: ...use your own brain, because mine is defective. - Dave Barry-|
Newsgroups: ca.news
From: andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman)
Subject: Re: Discussion control in California
Organization: Computer Science Department,  Stanford University.
Distribution: ca
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 22:20:35 GMT

In article <8y!nstj.strnlght@netcom.com> strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes:
>Josh Smith posts an elaborate sophistry arguing that guns don't harm
>anyone else. He has apparently not seen the accidental death statistics
>due to guns, where the victim is not the gun owner.

The statistics posted were for ALL accidents, regardless of the
relationship between the owner and the victim.  Gun accidents are in
the noise, so people who are concerned about them are concerned about
guns, not accidents.  What we do know about them suggests that there
isn't much we can do about them.  Thus, it is somewhat reasonable that
none of the proposals address accidents; it is merely dishonest that
they're proponents use accidents as a justification.

-andy
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Newsgroups: ca.news,talk.politics.guns
From: andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman)
Subject: Re: Gun control in California
Followup-To: talk.politics.guns
Keywords: nn
Organization: Computer Science Department,  Stanford University.
Distribution: ca
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 20:54:40 GMT

In article <2icfdux@Unify.Com> perry@Unify.Com (Perry Clarke) writes:
>andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman) wrote:
>>That's a silly bet.  We know how many gun accidents there are and we
>>know how many robberies there are.  We also know the consequences of
>>both.  We even know quite a bit about people who have gun accidents.
>
>In all seriousness, what studies have been done on the effectiveness of gun
>ownership by private individuals on preventing (interrupting, whatever)
>in robberies of the home?

See Kleck's "Point Blank", pub'd in 91 by Aldine de Gruyter.  "Armed
and [Considered?] Dangerous" by Wright and Rossi is also useful.

There are two effects: a general deterrence effect and a specific one.
In general deterrence, a home robber doesn't which residents are
armed, so he commits burglary, stealing without any possibity of
confrontation, instead; that's a positive effect because you can't be
physically hurt if you're not present.  It benefits to ALL residents,
not just the armed ones, although it is a function of the criminal's
perception of the chance of running into armed ones and the costs of
doing so.

There's also the effect of using guns for self-defense instead of
other things.  (Obviously, this only applies to people who have guns.)
While submission is more effective than resisting using weapons other
than guns, with-gun resistance is more effective than submission.

While there are more successful with-gun self-defenses than there are
with-gun crimes (note that self-defense is one that stops the attack,
that doesn't necessarily involve shooting), that's a silly comparison
unless you assume that gun laws affect each equally.  We know that gun
control is much less likely to affect access by criminals than by "the
rest of us", so it's possible, through law, to reduce the number of
with-gun self-defenses without affecting the number of with-gun
crimes.  That's not due to guns; it's due to gun laws.

>I am assuming (using my recent and painfully acquired education on the
>subject) that private individuals cannot legally carry weapons in public.

That too is a matter of law and under our control.  We could decide to
let "the rest of us" carry without causing any problems.  We know that
the carry laws don't affect criminals.  Thus, there is room for improvement.

-andy
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From: pc@slipknot.eng.pyramid.com (pc)
Newsgroups: ca.news
Subject: Re: Gun control in California
Date: 14 Aug 92 00:17:33 GMT
Distribution: ca
Organization: Pyramid Technology

In article <10626@risky.Convergent.COM> chrisb@convergent.com writes:

[ random spelling flames deleted ]

>There was another interesting piece of statistics in this morning Mercury
>News. Children are more likely to commit suicide when guns are in the
>house. I am sure this or any other figure about the devastating effect of
>guns doesn't bother you a bit, though.

99% of all statistics are bullshit.  Did it say why children are more likely
to commit suicide just because there is a gun in the house?  Or could it just
be that children are more successful in committing suicide when there is a
gun in the house?

>*Get you death propaganda off the net!*
      ^^^
I suppose I could make some rude comment about *your* spelling ability and
compare your intelligence to Mr. Quayle's, but I won't. :-)

Get a clue, people!  Guns don't kill people.  People kill people.  Guns just
make it more convenient.  :-)

pc
-- 
      -m---------    Patrick Connor           Pyramid Technology   
    ---mmm-------    (408) 428-8819           3860 North 1st St.
  -----mmmmm-----    pc@pyramid.com -or-      San Jose, CA           
-------mmmmmmm---    uunet!pyramid!pc         95134              
Newsgroups: ca.news,talk.politics.guns
From: perry@Unify.Com (Perry Clarke)
Subject: Re: Gun control in California
Keywords: nn
Organization: Unify Corporation
Distribution: ca
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 92 02:41:51 GMT

andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman) wrote:
>In article <asefuet@Unify.Com> perry@Unify.Com (Perry Clarke) writes:
>>The question that I would ask myself is: Which is more likely, that I would
>>successfully drive off a {robber, murderer ... insert baddie of your choice}
>>with my gun or that some accident would occur causing me untold grief?
>>Neither is very likely at all, but I know which bet I'm going to take.
>
>That's a silly bet.  We know how many gun accidents there are and we
>know how many robberies there are.  We also know the consequences of
>both.  We even know quite a bit about people who have gun accidents.
>

I had promised myself that I was going to drop out of this argument but I
can't resist :-)

In all seriousness, what studies have been done on the effectiveness of gun
ownership by private individuals on preventing (interrupting, whatever)
in robberies of the home?  I am assuming (using my recent and painfully
acquired education on the subject) that private individuals cannot legally
carry weapons in public.  Does gun ownership help?

In other words, in the battle between baddies with (illegally held?) guns
and honest citizens with guns, who is winning?

This is a serious question to which I would be interested to know the answer.
(I have to say this in an effort to avoid my mail box filling up with messages
implying I have the intellect of an amoeba while my only crime is not having
participated in a discussion of this nature before.)

--
Perry Clarke                   perry@unify.com                 (916) 928 6287
Unify Corporation, Sacramento, CA                   I speak only for Me, Inc.
Newsgroups: ca.news,talk.politics.guns
From: andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman)
Subject: Re: Gun control in California
Followup-To: talk.politics.guns
Organization: Computer Science Department,  Stanford University.
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 00:52:20 GMT

In article <1992Aug15.235042.17830@nosc.mil> sampson@nosc.mil (Charles H. Sampson) writes:
>In article <1992Aug13.194313.14949@cco.caltech.edu> danlip@cco.caltech.edu (Daniel Adam Lipofsky) writes:
>In article <1992Aug13.145832.23050@nosc.mil> sampson@nosc.mil (me) writes:
>>In article <1992Aug12.161215.5552@smartstar.com> syspb@smartstar.com (Paul) writes:
>>>              ...  Pretty soon, California may
>>>be like England, where nobody can have a gun.  ...
>>
>>     You mean my wife will be able to stroll in downtown L. A. at 11:00
>>P. M. without fear?  Gosh, we had better be on our guard to prevent some-
>>thing like that happening!
>
>     Try again.  My response was in the future tense, what you apparently
>meant as a rebuttal is in the present tense.  Doesn't work.
>
>     For others for whom my first comment was too subtle, my wife can walk
>around London at 11:00 P. M. without fear, with the exception of a few well-
>known areas.

So?  She'd have been able to do that BEFORE gun control came to the
UK.  Thus, the comment is not too subtle, but irrelevant, unless
you're going to argue that UK criminals are affected by laws not yet
passed.

Gun control wasn't associated with a reduction in the UK's crime or
murder rate.

BTW - Your wife can walk around LA NOW at 11pm without fear, with the
exception of a few areas.  Whether or not she knows about them is
another issue.

-andy
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Newsgroups: ca.news
From: andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman)
Subject: Re: Gun control in California
Organization: Computer Science Department,  Stanford University.
Distribution: ca
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 19:56:55 GMT

In article <10626@risky.Convergent.COM> chrisb@convergent.com writes:
>There was another interesting piece of statistics in this morning Mercury
>News. Children are more likely to commit suicide when guns are in the
>house. I am sure this or any other figure about the devastating effect of
>guns doesn't bother you a bit, though.

Actually, the statistics offered don't support that conclusion.

50% of US households have one or more guns, and guns are rarely used
for suicide outside the home, especially by children.  (Households
with seniors are more likely to have guns, and old people are far more
likely to have "good reasons", such as painful and terminal illnesses,
to commit suicide, so the 50% is a conservative figure for the suicide
population.)

41% of the suicides in the "study" were at home and with guns.
29% were at home, but not with gun.
30% were elsewhere.

Guns are more lethal than the "average" suicide method, but so are ALL
of the other serious means, and they're all readily available; they
all work fairly quickly.  (There are serious and non serious means for
suicide; the "average" is somewhere in the middle.)  The Japanese
experience demonstrates that they're quite adequate.

While we know that gun ownership rates do affect the fraction of
suicides that are committed with guns, there isn't any evidence
demonstrating an effect on the total suicide rate.  See Chapter 6 of
Kleck's Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America for more
information.

-andy
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Newsgroups: ca.news,talk.politics.guns
From: andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman)
Subject: Re: Gun control in California
Organization: Computer Science Department,  Stanford University.
Distribution: ca
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 18:30:23 GMT

In article <36881@sdcc12.ucsd.edu> djohnson@cs.ucsd.edu (Darin Johnson) writes:
>>	The only difference gun control makes is that politicians
>>and other criminals need not fear that their victims will defend
>>themselves while they are being robbed.
>
>Well, contrary to what some say, gun "control" does not mean
>people can not buy guns.  They just have to be registered, wait
>awhile, or whatever restrictions there are.

Actually, gun control can mean many different things.

It can mean "mandatory safety and marksmanship training in schools",
as was done in the ex-USSR.  (The gun accident rate in the US is in
the noise, but if accidents really are an issue, that's the way to go
about it.  The same arguments for sex-ed apply; teaching safe use
techniques isn't advocating use.)

It can mean "if you have to travel through a dangerous area, you can
go to the local police department and check out a submachine gun", as
is done in Israel, where there must be at least one armed adult on
every school outing.

It can mean "every full citizen is issued a full-auto battle rifle and
ammo and is expected to practice regularly using subsidized ammo", as
is done in Switzerland.

It can mean "only the mayor's buddies are allowed to register a gun,
but anyone caught with an unregistered gun is sent to jail", as it
does in Chicago.

It can mean a law that allows a police chief to arbitrarily delay or
deny purchases without recourse, as the Brady Bill does.  (The gun
can't be delivered until the chief acknowledges that he's received the
information, but the law specifically states that he doesn't have to
do anything.  It won't happen here?  It already happens in Maryland,
and their law requires chiefs to respond.)  We already know how CA
police use their discretion wrt gun permits.

It can mean gun owner harassment measures, like registration and
waiting periods, that can't and don't affect crime.

It can mean gun bans, such as CA's, which banned a number of
semi-autos because of their appearance, guns which the state KNEW
weren't disproportionately involved in crime.

It can mean largely useless, but symbolic crime control, like instant
background checks, measures which are opposed by people interested in
harassing gun owners.

Gun control can mean lots of things.  However, the effects of a
specific measure are not determined by the propaganda, and those
effects need not have anything to do with crime or provide any social
benefit.  There are some things gun control can't do, and some things
it has never done.  There are things that some measures can do, and
some they can't.

Wishes still aren't horses.

-andy
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Newsgroups: ca.news
From: danlip@cco.caltech.edu (Daniel Adam Lipofsky)
Subject: Re: Gun control in California
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Distribution: ca
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 19:43:13 GMT

In article <1992Aug13.145832.23050@nosc.mil> sampson@nosc.mil (Charles H. Sampson) writes:
>In article <1992Aug12.161215.5552@smartstar.com> syspb@smartstar.com (Paul) writes:
>>              ...  Pretty soon, California may
>>be like England, where nobody can have a gun.  ...
>
>     You mean my wife will be able to stroll in downtown L. A. at 11:00
>P. M. without fear?  Gosh, we had better be on our guard to prevent some-
>thing like that happening!
>
>				Charlie

Anyone who strolls in downtown L. A. at 11:00 P. M. without fear is an idiot,
regardless of the existance of guns.  Getting rid of guns won't make things
safe.  (Besides, most violent attacks are by unarmed aggressors).

--danlip

-- 
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why, but it might not be a good idea to hang around and find out."
	--Terry Pratchett, _Wyrd_Sisters_
From: scott@ryptyde.cts.com (Scott McClure)
Newsgroups: ca.news
Subject: Re: Gun control in California
Keywords: n
Date: 18 Aug 92 15:43:36 GMT
Distribution: ca
Organization: Ryptyde TimeSharing, San Diego, CA

perry@Unify.Com (Perry Clarke) writes:

[stuff deleted]

>I am obviously missing something here.  The basic logic is that because the
>baddies have guns therefore we should all have them.  Isn't the problem
>that we need to remove guns from society, not introduce more?  

Won't happen.  Should we remove cars and alchohol too?  They (together)
are responsible for a more deaths each year than the number of US personnel
killed during the entire Vietnam War.  (oh, no... more stats...  8-))

Guns aren't the problem.  Alcohol was thought to be a problem earlier
in American history, but did attempting to remove it solve anything?  No.
The problem isn't these material things, but rather the sick, social misfits
who abuse them.  That's the root of a lot of problems.  If we did a better
job of maintaining society, this would happen quite as much.

>--
>Perry Clarke                   perry@unify.com                 (916) 928 6287
>Unify Corporation, Sacramento, CA                   I speak only for Me, Inc.

Scott

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Newsgroups: ca.news
From: andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman)
Subject: Re: Gun control in California
Organization: Computer Science Department,  Stanford University.
Distribution: ca
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 20:48:06 GMT

In article <fRr4Q0x@quack.sac.ca.us> mrapple@quack.sac.ca.us (Nick Sayer) writes:
>The gun control advocates obviously believe this is not so. If
>they truly feel this way, then it is time for them to attempt to
>repeal the second amendment to the constitution. Why don't they do
>this?

Actually there is a bill currently in Congress to do exactly this.

I welcome that effort, even though I oppose its passage.

-andy
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Newsgroups: ca.news,talk.politics.guns
From: andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman)
Subject: Re: Gun control in California
Keywords: n
Organization: Computer Science Department,  Stanford University.
Distribution: ca
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 18:29:49 GMT

In article <1992Aug18.062259.26033@odin.corp.sgi.com> pal@wpd.sgi.com writes:
>In article <asefuet@Unify.Com>, perry@Unify.Com (Perry Clarke) writes:
>|> Now there's a gory study: A Comparison Of Total Fatalities Caused By
>|> Ginsu Wielding Japanese And M-16 Wielding Americans.
>
>It's been done.  I don't have the exact reference handy, but I beleve
>it was done by Zimring, Hawkins, and Morris at the University of
>Chicago.  They analysed police reports of attacks involving various
>weapons, to compare lethality (or "effectiveness", to put it another
>way).  Assaults with firearms were about twice as likely to result in
>death as the next "best" method (knives).

Actually, that study didn't do that comparison, even though it is
reported as if it did.  It confused "edged weapons" with knives, but
there are significant differences.  (Crooks don't carry spoons.)

It also didn't account for other differences between the attacks.  For
example, knife users who want to convince their victims of their
seriousness often inflict "little" wounds.  Gun users with similar
intentions merely wave the gun.  Zimring didn't count the waves, but
he did count those little wounds, which are lethal.  Guess what that
does to the stat.

Note that even if there was a lethality difference, there's also an
economic difference; with-gun criminals can attack wealthier targets
(like stores, instead of the elderly).  To the extent that disarmed
with-gun robbers attempt to maintain their standard of living, the
number of deaths and injuries goes UP.

For a nice review of work by Zimring and others, see Wright, Rossi,
and Daly's "Under the Gun".  (They were hired by the Carter
administration to make the case that gun control works.  Oops.)  For
additional information, see Kleck's Point Blank.

>And as for the assertion that there is no problem with accidental
>firearm deaths, that is simply preposterous.  Again, I don't have the
>figures handy, but I'll bet that accidental firearm deaths are in the
>thousands, and quite probably close to 10,000, annually.

How much is Pal willing to bet?  We know that even including quite a
few suicides* and some covered up murders, the total is under 1,500.
Given the gun ownership rates, that's in the noise.  Feel free to
compare it to swimming pools, fire, accidental falls, medical
"misadventure", and so on.

-andy

* - It turns out that police will use "gun cleaning" when they realize
that the family really needs the insurance, and they won't get it if
the report is accurate.
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Newsgroups: ca.news
From: ed@Tekelec.gecko.uucp (Ed Campbell)
Subject: Re: Gun control in California
Originator: ed@rover
Organization: Tekelec Inc
Distribution: ca
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 22:13:58 GMT

	The only difference gun control makes is that politicians
and other criminals need not fear that their victims will defend
themselves while they are being robbed.
	If a person wishes to asault others individually or en
masse, there are other weapons that will work just as well as a
gun, and if no honest citizen is armed, they are more likely to
"flip out" because there is no one to stop them. For example, in
Tokyo, it seems to be almost a custom to hit the kitchen when you
are stressed out, grab your favorite ginsu knife, and run down the
street slashing at people.
	You don't hear of many crazys shooting up fast food places
or schools in Arizona because they know that it is legal to carry
an unconcealed firearm there and it is no fun to shoot up a place
when there is a good chance they will shoot back.
	If you think gun control will disarm anyone who should be,
I have a nice toll bridge near Brooklyn I'd like to sell you. The
average criminal does not care what the law says, or he would be
in some other business. Do you really think a law banning firearms
will have the average armed robber, drug dealer, or gangster running
to turn in his weapon? There is a law against cocain, does that stop
anyone from getting all he wants? 
	Many ask the utterly stupid question, "Are your posessions
realy worth more than the life of a thief?" Well, they must be to
him, or he wouldn't risk his life to steal them.  I spent a good
part of my life working to obtain what little I have, so taking it
away is exectly the same as taking that part of my life, and I will
defend my life with whatever force is needed, even if it is life
already lived.
Newsgroups: ca.environment,sci.engr.mech,rec.autos.mech