CD Richards
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RE: Australia News
Message edited:
Since details matter, yours are wrong on two counts, Harambe.
Firstly, the number of deaths of children aged 0-17 due to car crashes is 1,000, approximately. For guns, it's around 1,600. Not even close.
Secondly, why not use 0-19? I don't know many people who have finished a full high school education by age 17, do you?
If you need references, it will have to wait until I'm home. Even typing a response on my phone is a PITA.
RE: Australia News
CD: Are you just using AI to pull up your stats for you without checking anything? I'll bet the numbers you pulled up only count up to age 14 for vehicles, yet you're comparing that to a data set on guns that goes up through age 19. You're off by over a factor of 2. In the words of Joe Biden: come on man. Gorilla math is more accurate than Australian math.
In the US, you are legally an adult at age 18. You can be held legally liable, no longer require a parent or guardian signature, and if you are male must register for the draft. Since these dumb data composites pick arbitrary age ranges, just so they can use the word "teenagers", we have to do some averaging to compare them properly.
https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/teenagers
and here is a screenshot of a relevant chart from that source:
Homicides 0-17:
about 1800 a year (averaging around 1730 over the last 22 years). That's slightly higher than your data. Proof that I don't cherrypick to score cheap points.
Traffic deaths 0-14: ~1200
Traffic deaths 15-17: ~900
Total traffic deaths for minors: ~2100
Meanwhile, our teen suicide rate (acknowledged that this is not apples to apples, but I'm just making a quick general point) is slightly lower than Korea (6.5 vs. 7 per 100k) where there are no guns. I am sure it is higher than some other countries. I can’t find any data offhand showing if firearms are a preferred method for suicide for adolescents. Probably it's a bit lower than it is for adults, which would skew more in the direction of your argument than mine, but I am going to guess it is about half of teen firearm deaths.
In conclusion, traffic is the leading cause of death for minors, not homicides by firearm (and firearms are not even responsible for all those homicides). Overall, firearm homicides have dropped over time, and so have vehicle deaths. But drug deaths completely dwarf both of them.
CD Richards
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RE: Australia News
Very well, I will address your post in detail this evening, when I have time.
RE: Australia News
Two other things I thought of:
-Here is
another source you can use to make points about excess gun violence in the US. About 3/4 of our homicides are from firearms so you can multiply those earlier homicide stats by... let's say 0.8, to be generous.
-I'm gonna posit the general hypothesis that non-accidental gun violence is a direct function of the trade security black market. This is a little different from saying "criminals always have guns". We have a serious drug problem in the US, and because demand is high, so is the cost. And we're pretty spread out, which makes security much more expensive. Since we have limited security, especially in poor areas, drugs and weapons function as an unregulated currency that is somewhat immune to inflation.
Folks yelling "defund the police" might fall into one of the following areas:
-police/security in their area is underfunded, and thus underperforming (corrupt, poorly trained, etc)
-they're in the contraband business themselves, and regulated security is a threat to their own security business
-desire for payback for past perceived injustices
Anyway, to Lance's point, if you want an audience, you can't talk about taking away guns without first addressing the security issue. This is just one piece of the economic puzzle.
CD Richards
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RE: Australia News
Message edited:
Harambe,
I'm unable to reproduce the figures I quoted earlier from my phone. Odds are I had some filter in place, judging by the reduced number of fatalities of both causes. In any case, the CDC database (https://wisqars.cdc.gov/) shows that regardless of whether you regard a child as under 20 or under 18, guns STILL killed more children than cars in the year you nominated (2022).
You say you don't cherry pick or manipulate the data to suit your purposes. In that case, why is it that:
1) You quote an "average" figure over a 22 year period for gun deaths, and a figure for a specific year (2022) for car deaths; and
2) You deliberately omit suicides from gun deaths of children. The figures for both 0-17 and 0-19 are shown below:
RE: Australia News
Message edited:
Edited: initially, your figures did not show up on my phone, but now they are showing up.
The way in which you are using your data is misleading. I just explained above why I omitted suicides. There is not a clear enough causal relationship between guns and suicides to say that guns are the cause. I am willing to consider an argument that the presence of guns slightly increases the incidence of suicide. But you have to consider that if guns are the chosen method for a large percent of suicides, that it reduces the comparative use of other methods. I looked at a long range of years because the year 2020 and 2021 were both aberrant due to Covid. And as you can see, on a whole, the average has not changed a ton over 22 years. It went down and then it went back up.
The average was 730ish but now it's around 800.
Your figures are relevant mainly for coroners. They are irrelevant and misleading for affecting policy. And you are trying to change the definition of a child simply because adding two more years of data happens to suit your argument. But if you are using US stats, you are going to have to use US definitions.
Once again, traffic deaths kill more minors than gun homicides. If we were to add in ages 18 and 19, and remove suicides, we would see that the ratio roughly holds.
The real issue here is in fact drugs and other unregulated contraband. And the drug trade is mostly due to a broken, purposeless culture.What is "freedom" for? I think you and I might agree that is a good question to ask.
CD Richards
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RE: Australia News
Message edited:
Lancellot: It's late here, way past my bed time. I haven't had time yet to properly put into writing some genuinely constructive suggestions to help fix the tragic gun problem we've been discussing. I will get to that.
It occurs to me that part of the reason the US finds itself in the horrific situation of being, by a country mile, the deadliest place in the western world to live as far as gun violence goes is the ridiculous glorification firearms, and the use of firearms, has received over many decades. Every other movie release can be summarised in a few words. Guys in black hats do something really bad. Guy in white hat comes charging in with his six-shooter blazing and saves the day. Of course, statistics tell us this almost never happens.
So my first suggestion would be to stop this nonsense glorifying gun violence and promoting shooting people as the answer to every problem. Makes me wonder if most US films are sponsored by the NRA. Anyway, as a (slightly tongue-in-cheek) suggestion, I'd like to offer some plot lines for potential remakes of some famous shoot-em-ups, with slightly more realistic endings:
Death Wish:
After Paul Kersey’s home is broken into, resulting in the murder of his wife and violent rape of his daughter, he is given a revolver by a client while on a business trip. A shattered man, he uses the revolver to blow his brains out.
Die Hard:
A group of 13 terrorists take over the Nakatomi Plaza Christmas party, capturing around 30 hostages, including NYPD Officer John McLane’s estranged wife. The highly organised terrorists have a formidable arsenal of weapons, including Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns, Beretta 92FS pistols, Steyr AUG assault rifles, an M60 machine gun, a Remington 879 shotgun and C-4 plastic explosive. Armed only with his Beretta 92F pistol, McClane bravely takes on the terrorists, as a result of which he ends up looking like the product of an explosion in a spaghetti and meatballs factory. His wife and all the hostages die.
Shane:
The heroic gunslinger rides into town to save Joe Starrett and his family from ruthless cattle baron Rufus Ryker. While initially grateful for Shane’s help, Starrett begins to get peeved when Shane develops an unfortunate attraction to his wife, Marian, and becomes a bit too fond of his son, Joey. One night, after drowning his sorrows with one more hit of moonshine than is good for him, Starrett takes Shane’s Colt Peacemaker while Shane is sleeping, and shoots him in the head with it. Marian promises never to get the hots for a drifter again.
Perhaps if more movies told the truth, whackjobs might not see themselves as the next Alan Ladd, Bruce Willis or Charles Bronson. More to come.
CD Richards
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RE: Australia News
Harambe,
It's very simple. A kid who commits suicide with a firearm is exactly that. It's a death in which a gun is the cause. No trickery, no misdirection. They could go out and steal daddy's car and drive it into a tree, but they don't. A gun is much easier.
RE: Australia News
CD, I disagree. Guns are not the cause. They are the implement. The causes include:
-broken families/culture
-broken education system
-mental illness
-poor physical conditioning due to food manipulation, media consumption, lack of exercise
-substance abuse
RE: Australia News
I also quoted a specific year for car deaths to be as fair as possible to your argument, because car deaths of young people have dropped precipitously over recent decades. If we were to compare it to any other decade, car accident deaths would proabably dwarf homicides.
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