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I maintain that decisions on gun control measures should be, when possible, based on probabilities rather than anecdote. I have stated in the past that the probability of guns being used to commit crime is reduced when the distribution, not necessarily the number, of guns is reduced, and that...

see: https://news.stanford.edu/2017/12/07/new-study-analyzes-recent-gun-violence-research/ New Stanford study analyzes recent research on causes of gun violence Consensus is growing in recent research evaluating the impact of right-to-carry concealed handgun laws, showing that they increase...

Yup. Your right. It was called the "Wild West." I don't think "wild" is polite.

that would be the converse, wouldn't it? How would you prove that, assuming you wanted to? I think you may find some studies that at least infer having firearms at home does not make you statistically safer. Perhaps this one...

Were people polite in the Wild West as long as they weren't drunk? Polite perhaps, with a thriving undertaking business. Judging from Hollywood's perspective, undertakers did well when everyone was toting.

But while smaller, similar in demographic, would you say? And there are many many similar examples. As the population gets larger we could expect the demographic base to widen somewhat. I won't convince you. And that does not matter. But Having a loaded 45 on your coffee table is not the...

I wish this were true, because then the answer might be as simple as everyone putting a loaded 45 on their coffee tables. But no, sorry to report the peers will not have statistically higher crime rates. They will have similar low crime rates. Check out , for one of many, many peers, White...

Sadly, it is just an anecdote. Although we all wish it was as simple as every home having a loaded gun on the coffee table and our national crime rate would plummet toward zero.

Are there???

Finding a city in which household gun ownership rate is high and the crime rate is atypically low should not be difficult -- any city in Wyoming will do. Can you find a city with similarly low crime rate and similar demographics where the rate of household gun ownership is significantly lower...

This is an interesting, and nearly irresistible anecdote. You are correct to point out at least two possible factors affecting the crime rate in Cary. I suspect the second reason you mention, household gun ownership, plays virtually no role in the low incidence of crime. But my intuition alone...

I think the defect in this reasoning is that criminals will, in general, not know ahead of time if their prey is armed. The number of exceptions is probably insignificant. If tsing tao believes he is significantly safer in his home than someone without a firearm, he is deluding himself. Only if...

This argument belies a certain naivety and lack of logical thinking. One has to look at gun regulation in terms of probabilities, rather than anecdotes, slogans, or improbable circumstances. .

I think you would like Canada's sensible gun laws. They are uniform throughout the provinces, unlike U.S. laws that vary from state to state. Basically Canada's laws allow reasonably easy access to guns used for sporting purposes but restrict access to guns easily concealed or useful for...

Let me do it, please. Consider this one lie, "Mexico will pay for the Wall". Surely you are not so naive to think that's not costing any of us more than a dollar!

It's a red herring. If you took every male over the age of 65 and treated them for ED the cost would be trivial provided the drugs came from Canada, the UK, Western Europe, or central or South America. Any good healthcare system must include outliers. The reality is the U.S. Health care...

It is most likely, I would think, that underlying all of the problems associated with U.S. healthcare are costs double the next highest cost healthcare in the world due to failure of U.S. capitalist markets to adjust well to situations in which the buyer can not walk away if he doesn't like the...

There is a very serious misunderstanding here. There is statutory law, since the Reagan presidency, requiring ERs to treat emergencies regardless of ability to pay. So quality has naturally adjusted to accommodate reality. M.D.s refer to ER treatment of the indigent as "Treat and Street"...

Real life in the 21st Century isn't fair. It is a fool errand to think so. On the other hand this is the 21st \century; not the 18th. It makes no sense to use measures from the 18th century to judge the 21st.

Three cheers for France and its Presidents, past and present. And three cheers for long suffering wives everywhere.