Comments on: More on Mayors against guns

By: straightarrow

straightarrow — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 20:23:45 +0000

but, but, but , if they save just one life it is worth it! right? Isn’t that what they tell us?

By: chris

chris — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 17:10:32 +0000

I have never bought the 2,000,000 number.

Another number which is impossible to quantify, but nonetheless important, is the feeling of personal safety and security that carrying a firearm can provide.

Knowing I can respond to a problem makes me feel good, irrespective of whether I have to press a gun into service, which I hope never happens.

By: Guav

Guav — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 14:40:11 +0000

But forget all that 750k-2M stuff … as far as I’m concerned, firearms only need to be used defensively 30,000 times a year in order to cancel out that “guns are just used for killing” nonsense. I’ll give them the biggest benefit of the doubt ever and throw out the 1-2M estimates and peg it at 30,000. I’m comfortable with that.

And as I always like to clarify when the 30,000 killed with guns every year number is mentioned: Over half of those deaths�17k�are SUICIDES. And gun availability only dictates the method used to kill oneself, it has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on overall suicide RATES. When firearms are unavailable, there is a complete substitution of other means.

By: SayUncle

SayUncle — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 14:09:58 +0000

I think the 2M is the John Lott number, which is questionable. The Justice department puts it at about 750K to 1.3M. A florida study put it at like 900K to 1.5M.

By: john

john — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 14:06:45 +0000

I haven’t heard that 2,000,000 number before. Anyone have a link to stats on that?