83 thoughts on “No, Swimming Pools Are Not More Dangerous Than Guns”

1. The argument that pools are more dangerous than guns is NOT just about accidents and children. The outrage over gun deaths causes people to try to ban guns whether it’s a homicide or accident. Yet they don’t have the same outrage over drowning deaths. Gun deaths provoke calls to outlaw the guns. Drowning deaths provoke no such emotional response, even though each pool is many times as likely to kill someone than each gun is. Gun control advocates simply don’t see gun ownership as a legitimate activity, while accepting swimming or playing in the pool as totally worth while, and worth the risk involved. Going to the shooting range or target shooting simply doesn’t count as a legitimate activity with them.

   The arguments about how hard it is to keep kids from pools vs guns does not change the facts on which is more dangerous. It only explains why pools are more dangerous. The risk is about real world pools vs real world guns as people actually do secure them or fail to secure them, and how each are used in real life.

   The suicide rates are unlikely to change much in the absence of guns. A few people might change their minds if they have to change the method of suicide, but Australia simply saw a big increase in the use of hanging for suicide as the rate of gun suicide declined.

2. Actually, you’re wrong about suicide rates in Australia and in general. And most suicides are committed with handguns–so, for instance, a ban on AR-15s and similar weapons would probably not significantly reduce suicides by firearm. But if you remove the easiest means to kill oneself (handguns), then there are fewer impulsive suicides, and fewer fatal suicide attempts, which is what actually occurred in Australia, counter to your ‘hanging’ argument above (that is, while there may have been an increase in other forms of suicide, there was an overall decrease in the number of suicides). And I already laid out the statistical arguments about ‘deaths per capita’–or total number of deaths relative to total number of guns/pools, relative to total number of households where such things are present, and explained where “points” in the argument could be conceded. Also, being concerned about gun control does not necessarily correlate to one’s desire to have a swimming pool or to view one activity as more legitimate than another. Personally, though, I’m much less worried about people who want a swimming pool than about people who so rabidly defend the right of people to have AR-15s and similar weapons that they are willing to excuse the occasional mass killing of children, concert-goers, congregations, movie-viewers, etc.

3. I almost never respond to any website, but I’m just getting so tired of the spin, nonsense, and missing the point, I see in both your article and reply to the other commenter.

   First, you people always include suicide in your statistics to boost the numbers up. When we talk gun crime, we’re talking murders. Even leftist Michael Moore didn’t stoop to that level in his Bowling for Columbine movie where he correctly stated the 12,000+ gun homicide rate. It has since come down further, somewhere in the 9000+ range. If people want to take their own lives, that’s up to them. That’s pro choice, something I thought liberals were all for.

   Second, the point about swimming pools has nothing to do with whether people can use them to murder other people. What a strawman argument . It has to do with death count. After every school shooting liberals throw emotional temper tantrums and say we need to ban guns (or a certain type of gun) to save the lives of school children, of which there are just a handful every few years. Yet hundreds of children drown in swimming pools every year and the libs remain silent. This is why liberals show themselves to be totally disingenuous. If liberals were really concerned about child deaths, they’d be talking about swimming pools more than school shootings. If not an outright ban on those frivolous luxury items (pools), they could still go full big govt liberal on pool owners and mandate tall fences with locked gates around all pools, mandatory yearly inspections, mandatory swimming lessons, mandatory life vests, and mandatary liability insurance. You know, make pool owner’s lives an expensive bureaucratic living hell like liberals do elsewhere.

   And then we come to the mind-numbing stupidity of the AR-15 argument. Liberals don’t know what one is or why they think it differs from other guns, but they mindlessly parrot what they hear in the liberal media. The idea that if the AR-15 is banned it’s going to stop school shootings is the most idiotic of all talking points. There’s thousands of other guns to choose from. Dianne Feinstein created a list of guns that she’d rather people use when conducting school shootings, and many of them are just as effective if not more so than an AR-15. But the important point for liberals is they’re not as scary looking. Banning something based on looks is a level of irrationality that us who aren’t liberal will never understand. School shooters aren’t fussy. They use all kinds of guns. The most deadly school shooting used handguns. Not one school shooter is going to sit around and mope because a certain gun was banned and then decide not to shoot up a school. And then you lie and claim that some are willing to excuse the occasional mass killing of children to defend owning an AR-15, when in fact they’ve pointed out a million times that banning the AR-15 won’t stop school shootings. Jeez. It’s the same dumb arguments after every school shooting and liberals can never learn. There’s only one lib that’s ever said anything sensical on the issue, and that’s either you ban all guns or you ban none. Anything else is pointless and ineffective.

   What do people value more, swimming pools or children? See, I can play the same ridiculous guilt trip. If liberals don’t do something about swimming pools, then we will know they value them more than children.

4. For someone who claims to be concerned about ‘the other side’ being disingenuous, you’re having a field day mischaracterizing “liberals”–although liberals aren’t the only ones who are in favor of additional restrictions on guns and gun ownership. Even President Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of conservatives everywhere, argued that there was no reason for the general population to have weaponry like the AR-15 and similar guns. And, no, the concern about AR-15s is not because they are “scary-looking”, it’s because of their incredible destructive capabilities and the easy access that people have to them–your argument about other types of guns being ‘just as effective’ notwithstanding. And I’m ok with your suggestion of all guns being banned, although nobody is actually arguing for that–and contrary to what you suggest, there are liberals who own guns, and liberals who see gun ownership as just fine, but with more restrictions on who can access them and what their intended uses would be. And I’m sure not only one liberal has ever said that banning all guns is the only effective route to go.

   Funny also that you bring up regulations around swimming pool ownership. Many states have laws requiring pools to be surrounded by fences of certain heights, and with locked gates. There are also insurance requirements around them. Gun ownership is not restricted anywhere near as much in terms of where guns have to be stored, and training and insurance requirements are non-existent. I’m all for requiring insurance on guns, training, a registry, etc.

   Also, your stats about 9,000 gun homicides per year are just flat wrong. And, as I’ve already mentioned several times, since suicides by firearm are essentially an example of how gun ownership does not make one’s family member’s safer, removing those statistics from the debate is rather disingenuous. I’m fine if you want to parse out what categories the deaths fall into–accident, homicide, suicide, but leaving them out altogether is just a means of suggesting that gun ownership is safer than it actually is. And suicide is not just a matter of ‘pro-choice’–it’s a decision made by people who see dying as a rational choice, often because they are suffering from mental illness or dealing with an overwhelming level of stressors. Easy access to guns just makes it that much easier for people to kill themselves impulsively.

   Your idea of there being a “ridiculous guilt trip” around school shootings and ownership of AR-15s and similar weapons. along with many of your other comments, really does suggest that you are willing to write off the deaths of children murdered in school–after all, you say there’s “only a handful” of these incidents. And the deadliest attack on a school in the U.S. was actually committed with explosives–explosives that were then put under extreme regulations, much like the fertilizer used in the Oklahoma City bombing was immediately put under strict regulations. But where we “learned” from those attacks and took steps to stop further attacks of the same kind from happening, we’ve just never “learned” that stricter regulations on guns and gun ownership could lead to a reduction in such crimes.

5. But it’s unfortunate that we seem, as a species, to need to collect and account for ourselves chiefly in numbers and statistics. Even in our language – even in the terms I’m condemned to use here to communicate – we abstract ourselves away to perceived commonalities and necessary generalisations, eventually almost obliterating our true selves and all reality from what we discuss, eroding meaning from our very existence just to communicate some tiny shadow of our thoughts. But we don’t have to accept these constraints foisted upon us by not only language but our (seemingly) increasily narrow and dogmatic use of it – both in semantics and in acceptable ideals. We should not generalise about ourselves more than necessary. Likewise, we shouldn’t have to legislate for ourselves more than necessary either. Let’s all remember that legislation is there for law, and law is there not to dictate every facet of our lives but to govern where meaningful contest or conflict should require peaceful settlement. Legislation, not the legal process, is by definition – by almost sheer necessity in practical implementation – a blunt instrument. Predent is there to inform the deciders, law is there to be interpreted and enforced. Even at their most finessed, laws can at best call for the discretion of official people or trusted people-people who might be required to use their knowledge, trusted position or expertise to make decisions about the liberties of others on a case by case basis. However, even in these circumstances, such ideas are (seemingly) quickly losing popularity, in particular, in certain arenas. The idea of law alone, not more directly judges or officials, determining outcomes of legal precedings would be a terrifying prospect to the Romans; those upon whom our systems of law are modelled. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to meaningfully discern between the lives of individual weapons, regardless how logical that might be. In point of fact, it could even be quickly found to be untenable in some cases, particulary if parts of guns were interchangable. Licensing *a person*, however, and charging them with the responsibility of using the weapon responsibly, is a far more achievable goal. Sad that we have to even feel like guns or pools or anything be regulated. Sad that any of us die through accident, neglect, or yes, from killing each other. And so it’s sad that we must entertain the idea of passing laws to prevent such events. But in so doing, we need to honestly ask ourselves when the more complex underlying issues behind gun violence – or even pool deaths – will be soberly tackled. Laws are a last-ditch effort, aren’t they? Or does anyone suggest we declare “war” on gun owners? Schools? Fellow citizens? Unless I’m missing something, legislation to control guns says ‘nothing else worked’ in preventing people from using guns in violence. So I think we’re being dishonest with ourselves if we are only getting here now. On some points – we should have been there *years* ago. On other points, we should respect the rights of responsible gun owners who have put in place reasonable safeguards to prevent their weapons being either used without their knowledge, or, for their needs to be excessive beyond their trusted and reasonable purposes. Unless I’m hoping to be part of a cold war, for argument’s sake, I personally don’t need a nuclear weapon. No citizen should want, nor indeed feel the need to have, a nuclear weapon. Surely we could all agree on this extreme. So at a point we have an idea of ‘defence’ becoming absurd. Likewise, at an extreme, the argument of sports ownership becomes absurd. On the other hand, I don’t think too many of us would take it well that all cars should be banned because they kill lots and lots of people every year. I wonder… do cars kill more people or guns? The pollution from cars? – now and previous? *Actual* lead poisoning? I wonder where that research would lead on that?

   Mike Moore was mentioned on in a response here, and it’s worth noting that in “Bowling for Columbine”, Moore did indeed discuss what he thought was the *actual* major cause of gun violence – the culture of fear. He compared and contrasted the US and Canada, and indeed many other places with high levels of gun ownership. All non-US countries had several things in common – but in general, they had some degree of protection for the underprivileged that was in law, because sometimes law can work. Like Canada, which supported it’s lower classes – not to the point of some hyper-regulated, dystopian nanny-state, like some hellish third-world anti-libertarian social backwater where none dare tread. But to the point that poor people weren’t so vulnerable that they would be driven to desperation. Education was accessible. You might not be getting the best education available, but again, if you were economically challenged there was at least a rope up – if you worked hard you could hope for a better future. Sure, it’s harder to legislate around “a culture of fear” than to just cry for gun restrictions. And those are needed, desperately in the long term. But no amount of a wrong antidote will cure a poisoned patient. No amount of misplaced legislation over gun control will cure a culture of fear. To cure that you need to both preserve people with sane regulations while maintaining reasonable liberty. You need to offer welfare and support while not destroying people’s incentives to try to improve themselves. I think the US still needs to wake up to itself and realize that the “all or nothing” mansion-or-on-the-street dream-peddling extremism nonsense is caustic. All the demonizing of the poor while worshiping rich and (often terrible!) parasites should be replaced by the ability to work for a fair wage, aspire to a comfortable life and to think rationally, work hard, but understand compromise and the need to help people *at a state level* while not unnecessarily undermining personal freedoms. And Moore demonstrated PLENTY of places that somehow managed that. And yes, at some point a really, really efficient killing instrument is just that, and no matter how trustworthy we might find someone, we’d have to be nervous if they have it – even if they offer it to us. I wouldn’t trust myself with a nuclear weapon and I am slow to even frustrate, let alone anger! Are we truly all naive enough to believe that even a President can order a nuclear strike with absolutely no checks and balances? No safeguards? Of course they can’t. Even the vast majority of guns have a safety on them! But let’s wake up. The US needs (and deserves) more social attention than just some knee-jerk tightening up of gun laws. And no – no I don’t even think that’s a good place to start. I think we can clearly see that this particular approach, no matter how horrible the violence, just isn’t going to work. Sometimes simple solutions to complex problems just don’t work. No amount of wishing is going to change that. Maybe it’s time to look at what mainstream media can and will get away with, and start looking at basic protections for disadvantaged citizens.

6. Wow! Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I agree that there are, of course, complex problems underlying all of this, the ginning up of fear, a ‘culture of cruelty’, and extremism of many varieties like you highlight. I will just note that guns of the AR-15 variety are legal but restricted in Canada–meaning it is much tougher to get one, and people can’t just stockpile them in their homes.

7. Suicides and homicides are not really a fair comparison to use in determining how dangerous a gun is to keep around. We see that as far as accidental shootings go, swimming pools are statistically more dangerous. What you are confusing, IMO, is the lethality of the two. Yes, guns are more lethal than pools, but that doesn’t make them more dangerous to keep at home. They are actually quite safe so long as the rules of gun safety are adhered to.

   The total number of gun deaths (33,000) a year does not undermine the argument of pools being more dangerous. Two-thirds of those deaths are suicides, and we know that the suicide rate is not driven by guns because other countries with no guns have either a very similar suicide rate or even a higher suicide rate in the case of Japan and South Korea. The other one-third is due to homicides, and a very large portion of those is due to inner-city gang violence, which is a whole complex problem unto itself.

   Regarding a right to own AR-15s, which you mention in some of the comments, I would say that in regards to mass shootings, defending the right to arms is like if say instead of mass shootings, we were having repeated Muslim terrorist attacks, a bomb here, a bomb there, a truck massacre here, and truck massacre there, etc…30 dead here, 60 dead, there, and so forth. If Muslim terrorists were the common denominator in all these attacks, that would not justify infringements on the rights of Muslims in the name of security. With guns like the AR-15, the guns have been around for many decades, but the mass shootings have only really increased greatly as of late. Which means there is something else going on that is causing these (three of them however have been Muslim terrorism thus far).

   You mention about the destructiveness of ARs and Ronald Reagan. I would argue that:

   1) Reagan was mistaken on that issue

   2) ARs are no more destructive than any other firearms. They are semiautomatic rifles, which have been around for over 100 years now. ALL guns are more destructive or lethal than other guns, depending on their application. Bolt-action rifles are excellent for sniping at people (and the military use the Remington 700 hunting rifle as a sniper rifle). Handguns are ideal for concealing a weapon and sneaking a weapon up on someone. 12 gauge shotguns are extremely destructive and deadly, but used by many millions of people and law enforcement for self-defense. They were nicknamed the “Trench Broom” by the Germans in WWI because you could take out a trench so quickly with them and they wanted U.S. soldiers caught using them to be tried for war crimes. A 12 gauge with 00 buckshot or slugs will put down a grizzly bear. Semiautomatic rifles can obviously also be very deadly.

   People like ARs because they are easy-to-use, easy-to-maintain, customizable, have low recoil, great accuracy, and excellent stopping power. They are ideal for physically weaker people, physically disabled people, and elderly people. Yes, they can very much be misused for mass murder however.

8. “Excellent stopping power” –for stopping what? “Ideal for physically weaker people, physically disabled people, and elderly people” — ideal for physically weaker people, physically disabled people, and elderly people to do what? And Ronald Reagan was not at all mistaken in asserting that people do not need weapons designed by the military for inflicting as many casualties/as much damage as possible in the most efficient way possible.

9. Regarding physically weaker people, disabled people, and elderly people, so that they can easily defend themselves. For example, my mother had breast cancer and surgery recently. She is almost 70. There is no way she would be able to handle a handgun like a 9 mm and definitely not anything like a 12 gauge shotgun. She could however, handle an AR-15.

   Regarding stopping power, one problem that police have had a lot of times is if they end up having to shoot a person (usually a young male) who is high on a drug that makes them very aggressive (like cocaine), that if shooting them with hand guns, the person can require a significant number of shots before dropping. There was a woman in Georgia for example who was defending herself and her child against a man who broke into her home. She used a six-shot revolver. She shot at him with all six shots, missed once, and hit him five times. He did not go down. He did, luckily for her, decide he’d had enough and ran out of there, but he did not die or anything. But what if he had been high on cocaine and kept coming? She would have been defenseless then. I can tell you that where I live right now, in the more urban areas near Rochester (I live near Rochester, NY) there is a problem of cocaine addicts trying to break into people’s homes.

   Now a weapon like an AR-15, or say a 12 gauge shotgun, have much better stopping power than a handgun like a 9 mm. You will not get shot six times with an AR at close range firing .223 or 5.56 and not drop. It also is more accurate and has less recoil than a hand gun.

   Regarding Reagan, he was wrong on his assertion about so-called “assault weapons.” Regarding this concept of military weapons designed “to kill as many people as possible in the most efficient way possible,” that is inaccurate. An AR is a semiautomatic rifle. It is no different in basic function than any of the other semiautomatic rifles like the M1 Carbine, semiautomatic AK-47, Mini-14, M1A, etc…or even the various semiautomatic handguns. Yes, semiautomatics can be used for mass murder. But that is because they allow for effective self-defense. Anything that allows you to make repeated strikes at an attacker will allow you to also make repeated strikes against innocents. But they are not designed explicitly for mass murder.

   Actual assault rifles, in their original design, were designed to kill a large number of people very quickly. The first was designed by the Germans and called the “Storm Rifle” based on the idea of “storming the enemy.” But to be an assault rifle, it requires automatic fire. Without it, it isn’t an assault rifle. Same with a machine pistol. To be a machine pistol, it needs automatic fire. But assault rifles and machine pistols are highly regulated.

10. But the AR-15 and similar weapons were not designed for self defense. It was designed as a weapon of war–not explicitly for mass murder–but for war–where taking out the enemy efficiently is one of the goals. And in spite of your hypotheticals and example, the idea that anybody needs an AR-15 for home defense is rather ludicrous. Where exactly are the weak and elderly keeping their AR-15s that they can get to them quickly if somebody kicks in their front door–on the coffee table? Leaning against the nightstand?

    Also, the definition of “assault rifle” varies in different states and in different regulations. And since you mention the heavy regulation of ‘real’ assault rifles and machine pistols–is there some problem with adding additional layers of regulation to the other weapons under discussion? Does an able-bodied 18-yo really need to be able to buy an AR-15, or even stockpile AR-15s and ammunition, with very little oversight? Since most mass shootings have been carried out by young, white males in communities that do not suffer a high rate of crime, I’m pretty sure that none of those people were making the argument that they needed an AR-15 to protect their homes and families.

    And, since I didn’t address it earlier–there are several countries with higher suicide rates than the United States–if we’re looking at per capita rates, and a few with higher total numbers of suicides. But there are cultural differences at play, among other things. To generalize, the United States has a largely negative view of suicide as ‘the coward’s way out’, as well as a fairly negative view of seeking help for mental health concerns or suicidal thoughts, combined with an overtaxed system for providing mental health care, systemic blocks to accessing care (in the form of insurance companies, etc.), and plenty of stigma around seeking mental health care. The presence of guns in the home makes impulsive suicides much easier to carry out and makes those attempts much more lethal.

11. I need to write a bit of a long post to respond to your questions properly, so apologies for that. Regarding the idea of the AR-15 being designed for war, that can be said pretty much for all the commonly-owned and used firearms in America. To ban military guns, you’d have to ban everything. For example:

    Bolt-action rifles: The bolt-action rifle was designed as an explicitly military design. It is still the most accurate form of rifle design and was designed because the newer forms of warfare involving firing from the prone position made the lever-action rifles difficult to use. Bolt-actions quickly became adopted by civilians however and are extremely common for hunting rifles today and in fact, the U.S. military and law enforcement use a version of the Remington 700 bolt-action hunting rifle as a sniper rifle.

    Shotguns: The most common shotgun is the 12 gauge pump-action. They have been used in every military conflict the U.S. has been involved in since WWI and as I pointed out above, during WWI the Germans nicknamed them the “Trench Broom” and wanted U.S. soldiers captured with them to be tried for war crimes. 12 gauge pump-actions are extremely common among civilians and law enforcement in the United States. They have very wide use, from self-defense, to military, to law enforcement, to hunting, target shooting, etc…

    Lever-action rifles: Designed in the mid-1800s as a military rifle, but were adopted by regular citizens as well. Used for everything from war to hunting to self-defense.

    Muskets: Both breech-loading and the older, slower muzzle-loading muskets, were designed as weapons for war.

    Handguns: The Colt 1911 pistol, .45 caliber, which was designed in 1911 (hence the name), became the standard sidearm for the U.S. military for many years. Today they use the 9mm I believe. Both the 9mm and the .45 caliber pistols are extremely common handguns among both civilians and law enforcement in addition to the military. Other handguns that are functionally identical are the .357 Magnum and .38 Special.

    Cartridges: The cartridge refers to the casing/shell, with the bullet in the front, and then the gunpowder and primer behind it. The AR-15’s .223 ammunition actually derives from a hunting round, the .222. The 5.56 is derived from the .223. Prior to the creation and adoption of the .308 Winchester and 7.62 x 51mm by the military, the 30.06 was the standard rifle cartridge used by the military. Today, 30.06, while no longer used by the military, is still an extremely widely-used cartridge for things like hunting and self-defense. 00 buckshot gets its name because it was originally designed to hunt bucks, but it is used by law enforcement and the military.

    So I mean you can find a military design or origin in pretty much every commonly-used gun in America. You’ll find quite a few military designs in firearms adopted for hunting use and a lot of hunting designs adopted for military use. For example, to make AR-15s better for hunting, one company designed a longer AR-15 barrel. The military found it made the AR great for sniper use, so they adopted the barrel for that.

    One thing you say is that a military gun means it is designed to kill “efficiently” as opposed to being for self-defense. Well that depends on how you define it. If you are talking about being able to shoot and stop someone quickly, then yes, they are designed for that, but that is the point, and that makes no difference whether one is attacking an enemy on a battlefield or defending themselves in their home. No one is going to want a gun that won’t stop an attacker quickly and efficiently. In that sense, use of a gun by an infantry soldier shooting at a terrorist in Iraq or Afghanistan and use of that same gun by a person shooting at an intruder in their home, will be the same. If you mean “efficiently” as in kill lots of people very quickly, such as automatic fire weapons, well as said, those are already highly-regulated.

    Also, it is important to understand what the word “arms” in the Second Amendment means. It doesn’t mean every weapon period. For example, they had primitive biological weapons at the time—the British used smallpox-infected blankets against the Native Americans. But the right to keep and bear arms did not refer to a right to keep smallpox-infected blankets. Today, it similarly is not a right to modern engineered biological weapons. The standard warship of the time was the ship-of-the-line, but warships were not regarded as “arms” so in modern times, the Second Amendment doesn’t cover a right to things like modern warships, submarines, battle tanks, attack helicopters, etc…vehicles of warfare. “Arms” I believe also was distinguished from “munitions” at the time, and thus did not cover things like grenades and explosives. So those wouldn’t be protected either.

    Now today, we use the word “arms” as a general term for all weapons (“global arms trade,” “nuclear arms,” etc…), but the word at the time meant what today are called “small arms,” i.e. things like pistols, rifles, shotguns, swords, knives, etc…and armor (the definition at the time included armor). “Arms” makes no distinction between “military” versus “civilian” arms because they are one and the same. They are a basic tool, one used by both civilians and a professional military. And today there still is really no distinction either, aside from ones with automatic fire. But otherwise, arms are arms, regardless of who utilizes them. The pistols, rifles, shotguns, knives, etc…used by the military are the same ones used by law enforcement and ordinary citizens. And that is the whole idea behind the concept of the right—small arms are not some “military-specific” tool, rather they are a basic tool that all free humans have a right to possess. They are basic tools of combat and warfare. Warfare and combat can be anything from a person attacking you and trying to kill you to soldiers fighting on the battlefield. Combat doesn’t just happen between professional militaries. And the idea thus is that every person has a right to possess arms as a basic right in nature, as self-defense is so inherent a right in nature, that the government does not have a right to a monopoly on arms (small arms). This also helps to serve as a check on the government since it has a monopoly on force. And then of course the people’s right to self-defense as well.

    Now the government DOES have a monopoly on very destructive weaponry, such as explosives, vehicles like battle tanks, attack aircraft, nuclear-biological-chemical weapons, etc…but those are military-specific weapons that people make no use of. Small arms, however, are something ordinary citizens, the military, and law enforcement use. Now you might wonder then how are automatic fire weapons banned. Well automatic weapons were originally only restricted in 1934 due to the St. Valentine’s Day massacre when Al Capone’s gang gunned down members of a rival gang. This was all due to the bootlegging wars due to alcohol having been made unconstitutional at the time. The legislation required paying a fee and a special registry for ownership of automatic weapons. Then in 1986, a clause was inserted into the Firearms Owners Protection Act to try and kill it that closed the registry, thus making purchases of brand-new automatic fire weapons illegal. So those are why they are so highly-restricted today. Whether they should be many debate. But that is the existing law.

    Regarding the weak and elderly, well they might keep an AR-15 in case of a breakdown in civil order (natural disaster for example) and yes, some people keep guns by their bed. The weapons with the differing definitions you refer to, the so-called “assault weapons,” really do not exist. It is a strictly politically-created term that has no technical basis and which is defined completely-arbitrarily by the politicians. Technically, I would argue, such laws should be eliminated and are probably among the most blatantly unconstitutional laws ever devised. For example, most “Assault Weapons Bans” do not cover weapons like the Mini-14, but that is just as capable as an AR-15. Here in New York, they have an assault weapons ban. But you could still buy AR-15s. They were just made “Assault Weapons Ban-compliant.” So then after Newtown, the state amended the law to try and ban ARs. The result was the AR makers modified the weapons further to make them again compliant. Some states, to get around this, have just flat-out outlawed the AR-15, but they haven’t outlawed the other guns that are functionally identical. So such laws are absurd.

    If a person is responsible enough to drive a car at 15 (as in Florida), then they are plenty responsible enough to own and operate a firearm at 18. There is nothing wrong with young people purchasing AR-15s or owning multiple weapons (ownership of multiple weapons does not mean “stockpiling” necessarily, just as said multiple weapons do not per se constitute an arsenal either). With most mass shootings, all the person needs is one gun anyway. But how would one define “stockpiling” of guns or ammo? Most of the people with gun collections who are harmless. And ammunition? To a gun control proponent, having 3,000 rounds might sound like a lot. To a person who shoots frequently, that is actually a rather low amount. But a person with 20,000 rounds and 10 guns is no more dangerous than a potential mass shooter with 50 or 100 rounds.

12. So, you clearly know a lot about weapons. But it sounds like you’re saying ‘regulation is hard, therefore we shouldn’t do anything.’

    A few other points, you mention 15-year-olds being able to drive–but it is not like the moment they turn 15, they can just grab the keys and go. In most states, drivers first have to pass a permit test, and only drive with an adult over 21 in the car with them. Then, after they turn 16, they can take a driving test in order to get a license and be allowed to drive alone. Even then, they have to have insurance, and have to renew their license every few years. There is also policing of roadways to try and ensure drivers are operating their vehicles safety, vehicle registration, emissions tests, etc. So, the analogy doesn’t hold up in that guns in the U.S. are not subject to a similar regimen of testing, insurance, etc. Also, cars aren’t designed with the purpose of killing, but guns are.

    Also, your interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is a bit off. It does not suggest that people are individually guaranteed the right to purchase guns with no oversight. It actually reads, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” It is essentially designed to establish something like the National Guard, because the founders thought a standing army was dangerous. Those militias were regulated by the government, guns were registered so the government was aware of who owned what guns, and the government inspected peoples’ weapons and readiness to use them in defense of the country. It was a measure to protect the common good, not a measure to give free access to guns.

13. I’m curious about the percentage of the 6084 gun deaths in the 15-24 range. How many of those are self-inflicted?

    Sincerely yours,
    A data driven gun clinger

14. The quote regarded the total number of pools vs the total number of guns. Your stats are correct, and matter, but for accuracy sake, so are the gun quotes. Also, if you remove black on black gun deaths from your 15-24 age group the number of drowning victims in pools and deaths by firearms is comparable to the first group, with more drowning victims. This gun violence in mostly black urban areas appears to be a social issue that must be addressed. The stats are tragic for all issues, however. It would be best to work together to provide resources to prevent all these tragedies.

15. So, I know my stats are correct, but I don’t know what you mean by “the gun quotes.” Also, if you’re going to make statistical claims, it sure would be nice if you’d site the source of those stats. Your whole ‘black on black gun deaths’ business is pretty ridiculous. Y’know what? If we took the white males out of the mass shooting statistics, it would sure make mass shootings, particularly the high-body-count, AR-15-involved mass shooting stats, seem like much less of a problem. And what are you suggesting are the ‘resources to prevent all these tragedies’? There are safety devices for both guns and pools that could help prevent a lot of these ‘tragedies’ — but people who own pools and guns apparently aren’t using them. How about offering a solution other than “resources” if you don’t want to have to give up your guns, or deal with more regulations on guns?

16. What about ratio? How many pools are there compared to guns? How many gun owners compared to pool owners? The stats I found were a little over 8 million commercial/residential pools and 215 million guns. So 26x the amount of guns to pools so way higher than the 10x total gun deaths to drowning. So yes, your more likely to die if you enter water than if you have a gun.

17. Try reading the post before you comment on it. And the pools are, generally speaking, 1 per residence that has one while the more appropriate ratio regarding gun ownership is how many households have them as there are quite a few people who each own several weapons. Also, wasn’t about only those who die because they have guns. And again, the vast majority of those deaths in pools are children, typically unattended children.

18. Can you give me a link to the specific webpage where you get the 6085 fatalities from?

19. This was written a long time ago, so was utilizing 2013 stats. They are available here: https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/38255#:~:text=Results%3A%20In%202013%2C%20a%20total,the%20same%20as%20in%202012.

20. Alright let’s see how you get that number from.
    Accidental discharge of firearms: 107
    Intentional self-harm (suicide) by discharge of firearms: 2,210
    Assault (homicide) by discharge of firearms: 3,704
    Discharge of firearms, undetermined intent: 64
    Total: 6085
    Interesting, But ultimately irrelevant do to a lack of context and why said context makes the evidence you provided unreliable.
    the context being that the anti-gun party tried to make it seem like guns kill more MINORS(a classic tactic of “think of the children!” when it’s done purely to further there own agenda and STILL being used to this day), To which people did a bit of research on that to see if it was true and found out that kids are more likely to drown then get shoot, So I don’t know who started making claims that pools are dangerous in general or if you’re the one making that claim.
    And as for the evidence being unreliable, the thing that you’re citing mixes minors and adults(15-24) together as such we can’t reliably extract an accurate number of minor fatalities making it useless with the provided context.

21. Nice try, but you’re arguing against something I never said. I pointed out that for children 14 and under, drownings are responsible for more deaths than guns, and that accurate stats tracking ALL minors are not available due to the strange age categories used. And I pointed out exactly where the initial claim came from, and that it had been disingenuously altered by pro-gun folks from a specific claim re: childhood deaths by drowning relative to childhood deaths by firearm, to a broad claim that swimming pools were responsible for more deaths than guns. At the time I wrote this, over 8 years ago now, the swimming pools claim was all over the Internet…comments on news articles about mass shootings, plenty of Reddit feeds, Twitter, Facebook, etc., and plenty of the people who previously commented on this were familiar with the claim. If it’s not still making the rounds, then good. But since several years of stats have been made available since then, it would probably be a good idea for me to revisit this whole mess.

22. “Nice try, but you’re arguing against something I never said”
    Cute try, mental gymnastics aren’t going work I know what you’re trying to do and you’re not masking it well.
    “I pointed out that for children 14 and under, drownings are responsible for more deaths than guns”
    Yes that’s what the original point of the argument against guns being the number 1 killer of children also pointed out, Your point?
    “and that accurate stats tracking ALL minors are not available due to the strange age categories used”
    you’re not the first to misrepresent information from CDC and you won’t be the last.
    
    “And I pointed out exactly where the initial claim came from”
    If by that you mean the “pro gun embracers of NRA misinformation” then no, That isn’t an initial source of anything.
    And speaking of sources, can you give one for the supposed NRA misinformation?
    “broad claim that swimming pools were responsible for more deaths than guns”
    I have never heard of that being claimed by anyone.
    “the swimming pools claim was all over the Internet…comments on news articles about mass shootings, plenty of Reddit feeds, Twitter, Facebook, etc., and plenty of the people who previously commented on this were familiar with the claim”
    In simpler terms, You saw a few people on the internet form the most unreliable sites(sure you can find some insightful individuals in them but it’s clear your getting your information from trolls or idiots) making this ridiculous claim and then tried to make it seem like this is a sentiment that is shared through out the entire gun community your little page and throughout it all you give a know it all haughty attitude when your being the most ignorant and least qualified individual to talk about any of those topics, Glad to know that nothing has changed for you folks, always stagnant.

23. First of all, I apologize that the original source of the pools vs. guns information is not cited in the post. There had previously been a link to an article, which is apparently no longer available. At any rate, the original argument re: accidental child deaths from swimming pools vs. firearms came from the book Freakonomics. The book is still referenced in comments on this post from December of 2017.

    But seriously, ‘Mental gymnastics,’ and ‘you know what I’m trying to do?’  You’re getting awfully dramatic over an 8 year old blog post on ‘my little page’

    “Yes that’s what the original point of the argument against guns being the number 1 killer of children also pointed out, Your point?”  

    Well, if I had been arguing that guns were the number 1 killer of children, I guess YOU would have a point in questioning what my point is?  Again, you are claiming I said something that I never said.  I was arguing that a particular claim was being distorted and repeated into a very different, broad claim that had strayed far from the initial point—i.e. the original claim that more children die from accidental drownings than from guns having morphed into the argument that more people die in swimming pools than are killed by guns. Not really any major mental gymnastics required to sort that out.

    “you’re not the first to misrepresent information from CDC and you won’t be the last” 

    I didn’t misrepresent anything from the CDC statistics and was clear about the statistics I cited and what age groups they applied to. 

    Funny that at this point you insert a YouTube video that is based on statistics from John Lott’s “Crime Prevention Research Center” which is essentially the clearinghouse for statistical f*ckery concerning guns. The creator of the video doesn’t explain the specific source of the information (and does not give the CPRC enough credit for his video, since essentially the entire thing is just parroting this bit from the CPRC: https://namelyliberty.com/john-r-lott-jr/looking-at-the-false-claim-that-firearms-are-the-leading-cause-of-deaths-for-children-or-teens/ ) It’s also available in one of the more complete versions here: https://crimeresearch.org/2022/04/motor-vehicle-v-firearm-deaths-2015-much-left-wing-predictions/. Generally speaking, though, Lott does not clearly explain how he arrived at his percentages, and almost never gives actual numbers to back up his assertions, aside from claiming that he uses FBI crime data compared to CDC data, and weakly attempting to justify why certain parts of the CDC data don’t count. The CDC data is related to overall deaths, the FBI related to deaths tied to crimes. But that’s okay, if the death didn’t occur in a crime, it’s not really a death, right? 

    But that’s Lott for you, when one set of data works for him, he uses that instead of another and then makes some weak excuse for why his data is more correct. When certain statistics don’t fit what he wants to claim, he just throws them out. When unrelated stats make his claim look better, he arbitrarily adds those in. When one version of the statistics (raw data, various forms of adjusted statistical “rates”, or various forms of statistical regression analysis, etc.) work better for his claims than another, he goes with those. There is no clear indication of where the various percentages cited in that web post, or in the video come from.

    And a few other points on the video:

    • Suicides (which the video guy refers to with the darling euphemism “self deletions” – what is he too frail to use the actual word? Or is he just such a tool that he thinks a human life is subject to something so inconsequential as a “deletion”?) just get thrown out as not counting, because shooting oneself is apparently not a violent form of death, and apparently somehow doesn’t involve a gun.
    • He claims that where guns are less readily available, people will just use other means of suicide, but this is just plain false. Lott’s attempts at making this argument are true masterpieces of throwing crap at the wall to try and make something stick, and hoping nobody actually looks up the real info (which most people who are inclined to agree with him don’t bother to do).
    • He complains that the definition of “children and adolescents” used by the CDC includes 18 and 19-year-olds (actually that’s the WHO definition of ‘children and adolescents’ and commonly used in official statistics regarding public health as opposed to legal issues, since human brain development is not actually complete until roughly the early to mid-20s).  But then he (following Lott) lumps 17-year-olds in with the adults to adjust the numbers more to his liking.
    • He claims that people are trying to take away guns from law-abiding citizens, which is not an argument he has actually demonstrated that anybody was making.
    • He says that “we do any and everything to protect” children, which is obviously bullsh*t since he apparently thinks the current state of affairs re: minors and gun deaths is just hunky-dory, and doesn’t want anything changed.

    “I have never heard of that being claimed by anyone” –

    At the time I wrote the post, it was a ‘talking point’ that was being circulated on the Internet, on right-wing TV news programs, and on right-wing radio. Sorry, I didn’t archive a bunch of video and radio clips or save a bunch of screen caps or links.  Still It’s not that hard to find instances of that claim being referenced online, like here: https://martinezgazette.com/letter-to-the-editor-more-people-die-in-swimming-pools-than-from-guns/.  Or here:

    https://www.theatlantic.com/membership/archive/2017/11/how-to-constructively-debate-gun-control/544841/

    Since that one from the Atlantic is all the way at the bottom of a long series of articles by multiple people, here’s the quote from that link: “Pools and cars do kill more people than guns, despite safety controls. (Tragically, cars at least are sometimes used to kill people on purpose.)”

    “when your being the most ignorant and least qualified individual to talk about any of those topics, Glad to know that nothing has changed for you folks, always stagnant.”

    Sorry, your qualifications are what exactly? And the guy in the video’s qualifications are what exactly, aside from making YouTube videos and trying to sell T-shirts? And since neither of you apparently bothered to come up with anything original to say, and you argued against my points by using arguments only tangentially related to what I said, and both of you simply relied on skewed information that you wanted to agree with, I’ll assume that you’re plenty ignorant and unqualified to talk about ‘any of those topics’ yourself. Talk about stagnant.

24. “But seriously, ‘Mental gymnastics,’ and ‘you know what I’m trying to do?’ You’re getting awfully dramatic over an 8 year old blog post on ‘my little page’” Oh don’t worry, you already showed me some gymnastic with your response which we will get too.

    “morphed into the argument that more people die in swimming pools than are killed by guns.” If your argument was against that claim then sure I’ll give you that one, But if you try to claim that guns kill more people on average than no, That award goes to accidents and transportation at the time.

    “I didn’t misrepresent anything from the CDC statistics and was clear about the statistics I cited and what age groups they applied to.” Uh-huh using statistics that doesn’t take into account justifiable homicide(self-defense) and ignoring causes of death far FAR greater then homicide and suicide via gun(which you combined for whatever reason) not to mention that the age group you talk about are more likely to injury themselves(6,181) then they are to kill someone or kill themselves. like I said before, if you’re trying to say bodies of water don’t kill more people on average then you’re right, if you’re saying guns kill more people on average then you’re wrong with the statistics provided.

    “aside from claiming that he uses FBI crime data compared to CDC data, and weakly attempting to justify why certain parts of the CDC data don’t count. The CDC data is related to overall deaths, the FBI related to deaths tied to crimes.” Considering how all of the discourse surrounding guns is about crimes committed with guns, Of course people are going to use statistics that focus on crimes.

    “But that’s okay, if the death didn’t occur in a crime, it’s not really a death, right?” No, It means that it’s irrelevant to the conversation.

    And as for your little rant about lott:pot calling the kettle black.

    “what is he too frail to use the actual word?” Well aren’t you a big tough boy, you see much like how you pretend that getting rid of one of the many tools of mankind is going to solve issues that have plagued it from the dawn of time, youtube likes to pretend that if it violates the first amendment it’s going to solve the problems within it’s site, unjust copyright, demonetization for just saying fuck in a video, so on and so fourth.

    “Suicides just get thrown out as not counting, because shooting oneself is apparently not a violent form of death, and apparently somehow doesn’t involve a gun.” And apparently it’s the only way to violently take your life according to you.

    “He claims that where guns are less readily available, people will just use other means of suicide, but this is just plain false. Lott’s attempts at making this argument are true masterpieces of throwing crap at the wall to try and make something stick, and hoping nobody actually looks up the real info (which most people who are inclined to agree with him don’t bother to do).” Fucking hell man, literally right under the suicide by firearm is suicide by other means and it’s 2,668. even if your talking about current day, 55% are from firearms, 26% is suffocation, 12% is poisoning, 8% is other means https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/suicide-data-statistics.html#:~:text=in%20suicide.-,Firearms,-are%20the%20most, And if you delude Yourself into believing that’s a small number or that removing one method of suicide is going to stop the entire thing then you are mistaken. Or are you more bothered by the tool they use to end it all?

    “actually that’s the WHO definition of ‘children and adolescents’ and commonly used in official statistics regarding public health as opposed to legal issues, since human brain development is not actually complete until roughly the early to mid-20s” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5382900/#:~:text=unless%20national%20law%20delimits

    “He complains that the definition of “children and adolescents” used by the CDC includes 18 and 19-year-olds But then he (following Lott) lumps 17-year-olds in with the adults to adjust the numbers more to his liking.” Really Mr 15-24? Your fine lumping minors nowhere near adulthood but someone on cusp of legal adulthood is a real big no no for you.

    “He claims that people are trying to take away guns from law-abiding citizens, which is not an argument he has actually demonstrated that anybody was making.” Right, Because the assault weapon ban isn’t enough of red herring.

    “He says that “we do any and everything to protect” children, which is obviously bullsh*t since he apparently thinks the current state of affairs re: minors and gun deaths is just hunky-dory, and doesn’t want anything changed.” Enough of your out of context nonsense, even today you argument doesn’t hold. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/child-health.htm#:~:text=Leading%20causes%20of%20death

    “Sorry, I didn’t archive a bunch of video and radio clips or save a bunch of screen caps or links” Cry me a river, If you can’t bear the burden of proof then get out.

    “Sorry, your qualifications are what exactly?” Common sense and basic understanding of human nature.

    “And the guy in the video’s qualifications are what exactly” https://www.google.com/search?q=Colion+Noir&rlz=1C1CHBF_enSA837SA837&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

    “And since neither of you apparently bothered to come up with anything original to say” Oh the irony, If your group didn’t constantly ask the same questions maybe you would be able to hear different answer.

    “and you argued against my points by using arguments only tangentially related to what I said” and your points fall apart the moment you factor in accidental fatalities

    “and both of you simply relied on skewed information that you wanted to agree with” Don’t project yourself onto me.

    “I’ll assume that you’re plenty ignorant and unqualified to talk about ‘any of those topics’ yourself. Talk about stagnant.” And here you are, Using the same tired bullshit tactics to this day, Still stagnant.

25. Once again, you are trying to argue with things I didn’t say, repeatedly. It’s tiresome. At any rate, you admitted I’m right about the core argument. Great. Maybe you should just stop there instead of continuing on with your pointless, unrelated rant.
    You are claiming that I think getting rid of guns will end suicide. I didn’t say that. Easy access to firearms leads to a higher rate of suicide in the United States than would otherwise happen, as it allows for more impulsive and lethal attempts. It’s a basic element of suicide prevention that when people are having suicidal thoughts, removing their access to the means reduces the risk. And removing access to guns is a pretty common thing that even police do for people having suicidal thoughts– not taking away their guns permanently, but holding onto them until the crisis can be addressed.
    You cite a stat of suicide by firearm being 55% of all suicides, and perhaps think that 55% is less than other means of suicide? People who use guns for suicide will not necessarily just go and use some other means for killing themselves, as utilizing other methods often takes more time, planning, and effort, whereas having easy access to a gun makes it very convenient to kill oneself in very short order, often impulsively. (Here you claim that I think guns are the only violent way to commit suicide–again something I never said, and having worked in crisis intervention and suicide prevention for over 2 decades, something I know a bit about). In various pieces, Lott attempts the ‘other means are just as violent’ argument, citing, for example, throwing oneself in front of a train, or from a great height — means that are relatively rare.
    As for Colion Noir’s credentials — I would think somebody with a law degree, who is a self-proclaimed gun aficionado could come up with video content that isn’t just straight cribbing somebody else’s work. Since he is a lawyer, the dishonesty and misdirection evident in his arguments is to be expected.
    Now, since you already admitted I was right about the total number of gun deaths vs. total number of drowning deaths, and since I was never arguing that guns kill more children (whatever age definition you want to use) than all other forms of death, hammering on the “guns don’t kill more kids” thing has nothing to do with the original point being made. However, removing 17-year-olds from statistics about gun deaths after complaining about using 18- and 19-year-olds in “adolescent” stats is just plain bullsh*t.
    Saying that I am using whatever stats suit me like Lott does is also bullsh*t. I was using raw data from the CDC in regard to deaths by drowning vs. deaths by swimming pools, again, not just for children. Lott wants to remove stats for suicide, remove stats for certain age groups that ARE categorized as children to make an argument about child death, remove stats that are allegedly related to gang violence without offering any indication of how he arrived at the conclusion that all the killings in a particular age range can just be discounted as probably related to gang activity, remove stats for alleged justified homicides (again offering no solid numbers).
    Saying my post falls apart the moment I factor in accidental fatalities makes no sense, since that does not alter the original argument at all.
    As for burden of proof, I readily found instances of the argument about swimming pools killing more people than guns in ‘real’ sources, not just ‘trolls on social media’– including one from that hotbed of rabid gun rights advocacy — ‘The Atlantic.’
    The information you cite from the WHO on the age of adults contextualizes that as a legal construct and says IMMEDIATELY AFTER the part you highlighted that the WHO considers “an adolescent someone aged 10 to 19 years.”
    You keep trying to claim that I was arguing that gun violence (or gun crime, I guess is your point) kills more children than any other cause–which is not something I ever said.
    You keep trying to claim that I was advocating taking away everyone’s guns, and label the assault weapons ban as a ‘red herring’ –which is weird, since that is nothing that I even touched on in my post.
    Your claim to ‘common sense and basic understanding of human nature’ does not pan out to even being able to respond to the original points without trying to introduce a bunch of unrelated, and frequently inaccurate, arguments. You’re complaining about my “tactics” but I’m not the one introducing a whole bunch of tangential arguments so that I can argue against things you weren’t arguing in the first place. Stick to the actual topic, or give it a rest, FFS.

26. I’ll deal with your ass, later I have business to deal with.

27. I’d prefer if you left my ass out of it. Also, weird comma placement between “ass” and “later”, but I try to avoid grammar shaming on the vast majority of comments here, or there would be far too much material to cover.

28. Uh-huh.

29. alright, I’ve get time to kill.

    “Once again, you are trying to argue with things I didn’t say, repeatedly. It’s tiresome. At any rate, you admitted I’m right about the core argument. Great. Maybe you should just stop there instead of continuing on with your pointless, unrelated rant.”
    sigh, first off, the concept of implications and an example to go along with it “But with the NRA pushing for everybody to have access to guns everywhere and at all times, concealed or open carry, who knows when you’re going to find yourself dealing with some Frank Castle wannabe or an aspiring Dylann Roof–who, by the way, thinks he’s one of the good guys with guns?” you don’t outright say everyone who open or concealed carries is a would-be white supremist, neo-Nazi, but you sure as shit imply it.
    and don’t switch form “I didn’t claim that” to “I didn’t imply that” cause you do.
    secondly, if you think everything I have said up to this point is “pointless and unrelated” then that goes to show how “tangential” as you like to say, the claim and your counter argument to that claim really is to the supposed issue of guns.

    “You are claiming that I think getting rid of guns will end suicide. I didn’t say that.”
    yeah no shit sherlock, you want to get rid of suicide? get rid of the motivators instead of one of many possible tools.

    “Easy access to firearms leads to a higher rate of suicide in the United States than would otherwise happen, as it allows for more impulsive and lethal attempts. It’s a basic element of suicide prevention that when people are having suicidal thoughts, removing their access to the means reduces the risk. And removing access to guns is a pretty common thing that even police do for people having suicidal thoughts– not taking away their guns permanently, but holding onto them until the crisis can be addressed.”
    suicide prevention only ever works IF the individual reaches out, even if you do take away all possible methods of suicide they would still be other methods you can’t deprive them of, and after that you would have to find out what’s the motivator.

    “You cite a stat of suicide by firearm being 55% of all suicides, and perhaps think that 55% is less than other means of suicide?”
    55 isn’t a small number of firearm suicide, neither is 46 total of other methods of suicide but hey it’s only just short of it by 9 so let’s ignore that and pretend people are not going to find other means to do self deletion I guess.

    “People who use guns for suicide will not necessarily just go and use some other means for killing themselves, as utilizing other methods often takes more time, planning, and effort, whereas having easy access to a gun makes it very convenient to kill oneself in very short order, often impulsively.”
    that’s it? “time, planning, effort and convenience” is your excuse? it isn’t a herculean effort to buy a rope or get over the counter drugs to overdose on.

    “In various pieces, Lott attempts the ‘other means are just as violent’ argument, citing, for example, throwing oneself in front of a train, or from a great height — means that are relatively rare.”
    and you like to split hairs on what is considered a violent death, though my guess is that you like to consider a quick but messy death to be more violent then a cleaner but slower one.
    frying yourself in water via electricity being one such example.

    “As for Colion Noir’s credentials — I would think somebody with a law degree, who is a self-proclaimed gun aficionado could come up with video content that isn’t just straight cribbing somebody else’s work. Since he is a lawyer, the dishonesty and misdirection evident in his arguments is to be expected.
    Now, since you already admitted I was right about the total number of gun deaths vs. total number of drowning deaths, and since I was never arguing that guns kill more children (whatever age definition you want to use) than all other forms of death, hammering on the “guns don’t kill more kids” thing has nothing to do with the original point being made. However, removing 17-year-olds from statistics about gun deaths after complaining about using 18- and 19-year-olds in “adolescent” stats is just plain bullsh*t.”
    oh how sweet, you think other jobs (and no doubt yours) are immune to dishonesty and manipulation because it’s totally never been know for so called “experts” to outright lie because of there own beliefs.
    eh, whatever is convenient for you i guess.

    “Saying that I am using whatever stats suit me like Lott does is also bullsh*t. I was using raw data from the CDC in regard to deaths by drowning vs. deaths by swimming pools, again, not just for children.”
    you use and inflate stats that are convenient for you.
    you ignore how drowning is a small part of accidently deaths.
    and you no doubt are going to scream “tangential” at anything outside your own narrative.
    and even within that narrative it doesn’t hold if you take into account other stats.

    “Lott wants to remove stats for suicide, remove stats for certain age groups that ARE categorized as children to make an argument about child death, remove stats that are allegedly related to gang violence without offering any indication of how he arrived at the conclusion that all the killings in a particular age range can just be discounted as probably related to gang activity, remove stats for alleged justified homicides (again offering no solid numbers).”
    and yet here you are, claiming all that about Lott (who you’re oddly hung up on, is he your ex or something?) yet not providing any proof of that claims.

    “Saying my post falls apart the moment I factor in accidental fatalities makes no sense, since that does not alter the original argument at all.”
    again, drowning is a small part of accidental deaths.
    i would tell you to look at your own citation but i can already feel the word tangential being writing as down without any explanation to why it’s unrelated.

    “As for burden of proof, I readily found instances of the argument about swimming pools killing more people than guns in ‘real’ sources, not just ‘trolls on social media’– including one from that hotbed of rabid gun rights advocacy — ‘The Atlantic.’”
    “real sources”? ah, i guess you think news outlets are credible source of info and are not have been shown to be manipulated and biased for varying political beliefs through history.
    though of course, it’s not your type of rabid anti gun rights advocacy now is it?

    “The information you cite from the WHO on the age of adults contextualizes that as a legal construct and says IMMEDIATELY AFTER the part you highlighted that the WHO considers “an adolescent someone aged 10 to 19 years.””
    wow, okay, we are talking about deaths in the USA yet for some reason in your mind it failed to register the fact that the WHO abides by the laws of country it’s in thus it still stands and takes precedent over whatever bullshit you have in your head that justifies why that law doesn’t have any effect.
    and another thing, i was citing the NIH not the WHO, was that a typo on your part?

    “You keep trying to claim that I was arguing that gun violence (or gun crime, I guess is your point) kills more children than any other cause–which is not something I ever said.”
    if that’s the case, don’t use stats that mixes 15-24 year old.

    “You keep trying to claim that I was advocating taking away everyone’s guns, and label the assault weapons ban as a ‘red herring’ –which is weird, since that is nothing that I even touched on in my post.”
    right, cause that’s definitely not one of your wet dreams and the end goal of these types of conversations you know damn well what you want to happen at the end of the day.

    “Your claim to ‘common sense and basic understanding of human nature’ does not pan out to even being able to respond to the original points without trying to introduce a bunch of unrelated, and frequently inaccurate, arguments. You’re complaining about my “tactics” but I’m not the one introducing a whole bunch of tangential arguments so that I can argue against things you weren’t arguing in the first place. Stick to the actual topic, or give it a rest, FFS.”
    buddy, your entire post has the most ridiculous and extreme example from likening the average concealed carry guy to a fucking NEO-NAZI and inflating numbers in your little meme poster, I mean where the fuck did you get 30.000+ statistic from? your ass?
    I don’t know what kind of bullshit you feed yourself, but try to chew it with your mouth closed.

30. “If you’re killing time, it’s not murder. It’s suicide.” — Lou Holtz

    “Blah blah Nazi blah blah blah” Whatever, dude. Frank Castle wasn’t a Nazi. Maybe learn how pop culture references work.

    “No shit sherlock” The 8th grade class of 1982 called. They want their witticism back.

    “get rid of the motivators instead of one of many possible tools” Sure thing, dude. Let’s get rid of the girlfriend who just broke up with you, or whatever it is you’re attempting to say here. And are you admitting that guns are basically a tool for suicide? I mean, they have plenty of other uses, like wounding and murder, so don’t sell them short.

    “suicide prevention only ever works IF the individual reaches out” Or if somebody notices a change in their attitude/behavior and takes appropriate action, or if the means to commit suicide are removed from their immediate environment, or if somebody reaches out to them, or…

    “self deletion” Again with this term?

    ““time, planning, effort and convenience” is your excuse? it isn’t a herculean effort to buy a rope or get over the counter drugs to overdose on.” Excuse? Excuse for what? But given that handy access to a gun right now is a lot more immediate and lethal a means of suicide than ropes or medication…

    “and you like to split hairs on what is considered a violent death, though my guess is that you like to consider a quick but messy death to be more violent then a cleaner but slower one.frying yourself in water via electricity being one such example.” Not so sure electrocuting oneself in the bathtub takes all that much longer than shooting yourself, unless you have GFCI circuits that you have to disable or something, but even then, it’s a bit less messy than brains, blood, and skull fragments on a wall.

    “oh how sweet, you think other jobs (and no doubt yours) are immune to dishonesty and manipulation because it’s totally never been know for so called “experts” to outright lie because of there own beliefs” My point was exactly the opposite, not sure how you missed that. Just saying that there are ethical standards to adhere to, none so slippery as those in the legal profession.

    “you use and inflate stats that are convenient for you.
    you ignore how drowning is a small part of accidently deaths.
    and you no doubt are going to scream “tangential” at anything outside your own narrative. and even within that narrative it doesn’t hold if you take into account other stats.” As they say in Wikipedia-land, citation(s) needed.

    “and yet here you are, claiming all that about Lott (who you’re oddly hung up on, is he your ex or something?) yet not providing any proof of that claims.” So, uh, I explained that he is removing stats on 17-year-olds, and stats on alleged gang members from his numbers. Was that not clear. Oh, and, uh…sick burn on the “ex” joke…you’re the one who put up his post as ‘evidence’ of your claims, so just responding to a few of the ridiculously stupid thing he says.

    “again, drowning is a small part of accidental deaths.i would tell you to look at your own citation but i can already feel the word tangential being writing as down without any explanation to why it’s unrelated” Apologies if you feel harmed by people expecting you to actually follow an argument and respond to the argument being made, as opposed to coming up with side arguments that make it easier for you to pretend you have an actual point.

    ““real sources”? ah, i guess you think news outlets are credible source of info and are not have been shown to be manipulated and biased for varying political beliefs through history. though of course, it’s not your type of rabid anti gun rights advocacy now is it?” Whatever, dude – uhhh…do your own research or whatever it is your saying here.

    “wow, okay, we are talking about deaths in the USA yet for some reason in your mind it failed to register the fact that the WHO abides by the laws of country it’s in thus it still stands and takes precedent over whatever bullshit you have in your head that justifies why that law doesn’t have any effect.” Okay, if you’re defining a word, it helps to use the same word in the definition. Adolescent…adult…two different words. Also, strangely enough, this article is about NOT putting children into adult categories when conducting medical research.

    “and another thing, i was citing the NIH not the WHO, was that a typo on your part?” The resource you cited was citing a WHO definition. Try to keep up with your own references.

    “if that’s the case, don’t use stats that mixes 15-24 year old” If there was anything unclear about the specifics of the stats in my original post or any of my comments, then you would possibly have a point here.

    “right, cause that’s definitely not one of your wet dreams and the end goal of these types of conversations you know damn well what you want to happen at the end of the day” I haven’t had a wet dream in many a decade, but I can assure you, of the ones I had, none involved guns or the removal of guns from other people.
    “buddy, your entire post has the most ridiculous and extreme example from likening the average concealed carry guy to a fucking NEO-NAZI and inflating numbers in your little meme poster, I mean where the fuck did you get 30.000+ statistic from? your ass?” See above re: Nazi whatever you’re pretending to talk about. 30,000+ gun deaths? Should I have used the stats from 2021? Y’know, the ones where there were 40,000+ gun deaths in America?

31. “if you’re killing time, it’s not murder. It’s suicide.’ — Lou Holtz”
    “I’m fourteen and i think this is deep” – some random kid

    ““Blah blah Nazi blah blah blah” Whatever, dude. Frank Castle wasn’t a Nazi. Maybe learn how pop culture references work.”
    see? love how you name drop dylann roof in your own post yet SOMEHOW a dumbass like you thought i meant frank.

    “The 8th grade class of 1982 called. They want their witticism back.”
    Harvard called, they want there degree back.

    “Sure thing, dude. Let’s get rid of the girlfriend who just broke up with you, or whatever it is you’re attempting to say here.”
    aw, did your ex wife finally make the best decisions and leave you?
    sorry, not likely a women would approach a man(at least i think you are) who manages to act like a bitch on there period.

    “And are you admitting that guns are basically a tool for suicide? I mean, they have plenty of other uses, like wounding and murder, so don’t sell them short.”
    and your admitting that you really don’t care what happens to people unless it involves a gun.
    and don’t sell must tools of man short while you’re at it.

    “Or if somebody notices a change in their attitude/behavior and takes appropriate action, or if the means to commit suicide are removed from their immediate environment, or if somebody reaches out to them, or…”
    assuming there is anyone near them and assuming they notice anything to begin with.

    ““self deletion” Again with this term?”
    what? did it hurt your feelings?

    “But given that handy access to a gun right now is a lot more immediate and lethal a means of suicide than ropes or medication…”
    not it isn’t, why don’t you go down to the local home depot or drug store and see for yourself.

    “Not so sure electrocuting oneself in the bathtub takes all that much longer than shooting yourself, unless you have GFCI circuits that you have to disable or something, but even then, it’s a bit less messy than brains, blood, and skull fragments on a wall.”
    thanks for proving my point.

    “My point was exactly the opposite, not sure how you missed that. Just saying that there are ethical standards to adhere to, none so slippery as those in the legal profession.”
    no it wasn’t your point.
    and don’t give me that bullshit about ethics, people in your profession did more questionably unethically shit.
    and just because other professions are “slippery” doesn’t mean yours isn’t any less of a slip and’ slide

    “As they say in Wikipedia-land, citation(s) needed.”
    what you have been citing.

    “So, uh, I explained that he is removing stats on 17-year-olds, and stats on alleged gang members from his numbers. Was that not clear. Oh, and, uh…sick burn on the “ex” joke…you’re the one who put up his post as ‘evidence’ of your claims, so just responding to a few of the ridiculously stupid thing he says.”
    right, cause you’re definitely not a biased and totally impartial source of info.

    “Whatever, dude – uhhh…do your own research or whatever it is your saying here.”
    okay?

    “Okay, if you’re defining a word, it helps to use the same word in the definition. Adolescent…adult…two different words.”
    what lovely mental gymnastics.

    “Also, strangely enough, this article is about NOT putting children into adult categories when conducting medical research.”
    and how long did it take you to figure that out?

    “The resource you cited was citing a WHO definition. Try to keep up with your own references.”
    i was talking about the site numbnuts.

    “If there was anything unclear about the specifics of the stats in my original post or any of my comments, then you would possibly have a point here.”
    whatever helps you sleep at night.

    “Apologies if you feel harmed by people expecting you to actually follow an argument and respond to the argument being made, as opposed to coming up with side arguments that make it easier for you to pretend you have an actual point”
    sorry if i don’t give enough of a fuck about repeating myself and playing by your rules.

    “I haven’t had a wet dream in many a decade, but I can assure you, of the ones I had, none involved guns or the removal of guns from other people.”
    sure, i will definitely take your word for that.

    “See above re: Nazi whatever you’re pretending to talk about. 30,000+ gun deaths? Should I have used the stats from 2021? Y’know, the ones where there were 40,000+ gun deaths in America?”
    give a source or practice what you preached in your least reply.

32. “see? love how you name drop dylann roof in your own post yet SOMEHOW a dumbass like you thought i meant frank.”
    You quoted my quote mentioning roof and castle as ‘evidence’ that I was calling all gun owners neo-nazis. Since your point is so ridiculous in the first place, it didn’t even merit a response, but whatever. And cool name-calling.

    Harvard called, they want there degree back.
    Ooh…sick burn accusing me of getting a degree from Harvard.

    “aw, did your ex wife finally make the best decisions and leave you?
    sorry, not likely a women would approach a man(at least i think you are) who manages to act like a bitch on there period.”
    Ooh…another sick burn. I guess when I suggested you got your jokes from eight graders in the eighties I was giving you too much credit.

    “and your admitting that you really don’t care what happens to people unless it involves a gun.
    and don’t sell must tools of man short while you’re at it.”
    Not sure how you managed to piece that conclusion together. But keep trying—you might eventually make a relevant point, even if by accident.

    “assuming there is anyone near them and assuming they notice anything to begin with”
    Yeah, pretty much what I said.

    “what? did it hurt your feelings?”
    No, it’s just a weak euphemism.

    “not it isn’t, why don’t you go down to the local home depot or drug store and see for yourself.”
    Even if you already have a rope or OTC medication in your home, if you already have a firearm in your home as well, using the firearm to try to kill yourself is much more likely to be quick and lethal, hence why most completed suicides are by firearm.

    “no it wasn’t your point. and don’t give me that bullshit about ethics, people in your profession did more questionably unethically shit. and just because other professions are “slippery” doesn’t mean yours isn’t any less of a slip and’ slide”
    The existence of ethical standards and adherence to ethical standards are different things. But bottom line, lawyers get paid to win legal arguments, not to sort out what’s right and truthful.

    “what you have been citing.”
    You didn’t recognize your own words?

    “right, cause you’re definitely not a biased and totally impartial source of info.”
    Not sure exactly what you’re saying here since biased and impartial are essentially antonyms. Maybe you were going for “you’re definitely a non-biased and totally impartial source of info” with the intended sarcasm.

    “what lovely mental gymnastics.”
    Not sure what “mental gymnastics” you are referring to, since it’s actually what the reference is specifically stating…the difference in definitions between ‘adolescence’ and ‘adulthood’.

    “and how long did it take you to figure that out?”
    About as long as it took me to read the title. I was pointing out the contradictory nature of you citing an article about not labeling children as adults in medical research while you were trying to defend Lott’s choice to remove 17-year-olds from gun violence statistics.

    “i was talking about the site numbnuts.”
    Yeah, and I was talking about the definitions being cited in the article, which were from the WHO. And cool name-calling, really makes your argument more powerful.

    “sorry if i don’t give enough of a fuck about repeating myself and playing by your rules.”
    Not expecting you to repeat yourself, but when claiming somebody is wrong about something, you have to accurately point out what is incorrect in what they said, not make things up that they didn’t say and argue against the things you made up. Not really my rule, just how these things work.

    “give a source or practice what you preached in your least reply.”
    When I made the Wikipedia comment, it was a dig at you for claiming I said something I didn’t say. And re: the 40,000+ gun deaths in 2021, it’s not exactly difficult to find, but here you go: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/

33. “You quoted my quote mentioning roof and castle as ‘evidence’ that I was calling all gun owners neo-nazis. Since your point is so ridiculous in the first place, it didn’t even merit a response, but whatever. And cool name-calling.”
    and yet you did respond in the most pitifully childish way.
    and yes you did call them that, your post, your writing don’t try to weasel
    your way out of that fact.
    and i can call you what i damn well please fuckwit.

    “Ooh…sick burn accusing me of getting a degree from Harvard.”
    Ooh…sick reply which is not going to be repeated in the next paragraph.

    “Ooh…another sick burn. I guess when I suggested you got your jokes from eight graders in the eighties I was giving you too much credit.”
    Ooh…another sick reply. have i bit more creativity in your response will you.

    “Not sure how you managed to piece that conclusion together. But keep trying—you might eventually make a relevant point, even if by accident.”
    unplug the shit in your ears.

    “Yeah, pretty much what I said.”
    no, not really.

    “No, it’s just a weak euphemism.”
    so?

    “Even if you already have a rope or OTC medication in your home, if you already have a firearm in your home as well, using the firearm to try to kill yourself is much more likely to be quick and lethal, hence why most completed suicides are by firearm.”
    oh i’m sure people who overdosed on sleeping pill get up and seeing the error of there ways.
    and i’m sure that tying a noose from a relatively decent height won’t break your neck immediately.
    and speaking of height, don’t forget diving head first into the ground from a 5 storey building is not lethal and immediate at all.

    “The existence of ethical standards and adherence to ethical standards are different things. But bottom line, lawyers get paid to win legal arguments, not to sort out what’s right and truthful.”
    split as many hair as you want, the bottom line is that anyone in any profession maybe or maybe not will go above that boundary for whatever reason they deem good enough.

    “You didn’t recognize your own words?”
    you don’t recognize the cdc source you been using?

    “Not sure exactly what you’re saying here since biased and impartial are essentially antonyms. Maybe you were going for “you’re definitely a non-biased and totally impartial source of info” with the intended sarcasm.”
    congratulations on fixing a gramatical error your mother must be so proud.
    look, i even made another one ^ on purpose so you can feel just that tiny bit more intelligent and witty for correcting it.

    “Not sure what “mental gymnastics” you are referring to, since it’s actually what the reference is specifically stating…the difference in definitions between ‘adolescence’ and ‘adulthood’.”
    and yet you decided to give an argument about “legal construct” for whatever reason while ignoring the rule of law.

    “About as long as it took me to read the title. I was pointing out the contradictory nature of you citing an article about not labeling children as adults in medical research while you were trying to defend Lott’s choice to remove 17-year-olds from gun violence statistics.”
    and now your putting words into my mouth.
    in fact, i bit of scrolling up would show otherwise.
    unless i’m remembering things incorrectly.

    “Yeah, and I was talking about the definitions being cited in the article, which were from the WHO. And cool name-calling, really makes your argument more powerful.”
    to completely separate entities yet you try link them together because one research onto into policy of the other.
    and cool acknowledgment of my name calling really makes it that much weaker shit for brains.

    “Not expecting you to repeat yourself, but when claiming somebody is wrong about something, you have to accurately point out what is incorrect in what they said, not make things up that they didn’t say and argue against the things you made up. Not really my rule, just how these things work.”
    not for you apparently.

    “When I made the Wikipedia comment, it was a dig at you for claiming I said something I didn’t say. And re: the 40,000+ gun deaths in 2021, it’s not exactly difficult to find, but here you go”
    sigh, alright i’ll give some instructions. see that meme poster that you copied and pasted 4 times for some reason? scroll up to it, look at the red text, and tell me where did you get 30,000+ deaths from.