From: paigen@tfs.com (David Paigen)
Subject: Re: Killing burglars.
Organization: TRW Financial Systems
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 20:46:20 GMT

lowry@watson.ibm.com (Andy Lowry) writes:

>In article <LOWRY.92Aug19174710@rotor.watson.ibm.com> lowry@watson.ibm.com (Andy Lowry) writes:

> > Reasoning by worst-case scenarios is very rarely useful as a guide for
> > decision making.  It's mostly useful when you want to put a bound on
> > the damage or cost you risk incurring.  That is, you use it to
> > understand your risk, but not as a basis for deciding a course of
> > action.  Generally, if you want to maximize your benefits, think in
> > terms of likely scenarios, not worst-case.

>Regarding the numerous followups to my post:

>I never said that when there's an intruder in your house you should
>assume they're not dangerous.  I merely stated my belief (and I may be
>wrong on this) that they are not likely to intend you or your family
>harm.  The main points are that (1) if you own a gun you should not
>simply go blasting at the intruder without a better reason that they
>have intruded into your house; and (2) keeping a gun in the house to
>begin with strikes me as idiotic.

I hope most of us can agree with (1).  As for (2), do you allow your
family to go swimming?  Do you allow them to get in a car?  Do you allow
your wife, or your children (assuming they are over 16) to drive?  These
activities are more likely to cause injury or death by far than owning
a gun.

>One poster suggested that keeping a gun in the house promotes
>evolution...

This, I agree, is a ridiculous notion.  Humans have been "civilized"
for about 10,000 years, or about 400 generations.  Evolution requires
thousands, or tens of thousands, generations to make even small changes
evident.  Firearms have existed for less than 20 generations.  A puny
time indeed.

>The claim was that by properly training children and other household
>occupants in the dangers and proper use of firearms makes their
>presence in the house safe.  Fact is, I frequently hear news reports
>of children who accidentally shot each other, or someone who
>accidentally shot a friend because they thought the gun was unloaded.
>In most cases, these people had been taught to respect guns.
>Unfortunately, training and responsible thinking are far from
>foolproof when a child is caught up in horseplay, is pressured by
>peers, or when an adult is intoxicated.  It just doesn't seem to work
>very well.

All of this can be said for cars as well.  I like to refer to driving
as "piloting a 2 ton guided missile."  We have required courses of
study for people who want driver's licenses and that still doesn't help.
We have water safty courses and three times as many people drown as are
killed by firearms.  Poison kills three times as many people as guns,
many of them young children.  Do you have any cleaning products in your
house?  Are any of them poisonous?

>It seems pretty clear to me that if I have a gun in the house I stand
>a much greater risk of having that gun accidentally used to kill a
>family member or friend than of having my home invaded and then using
>the weapon to disable / kill the invader.

This statistics that this assertaion is based upon are demonstrably
incorrect.  Ftp to pit-manager.mit.edu and read /pub/rkba/RKBA/*
or mail me for more details.

>But my home is not that likely to be
>invaded in the first place.

I seem to recall that there is a better than 50% chance that your home
will be broken into during your lifetime.  

----------------------->"Lay on, McDuff,    14th c. ideals in a 21st c. world
David Paigen            and damn'd be he        N: PLO Bush IRA CIA KKK
TRW Financial Systems   who first cries,        S: terrorism pipe bomb kill
paigen@tfs.com          'hold, enough!'"        A: assasination maim
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house
Subject: Re: Another brick patio question