Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: guns-OT

[Matt Lawrence (matt]

On Sat, 26 Oct 2002, Elizabeth Stevenson wrote:

> Plenty an honest, law-abiding citizen has come home to a child with his head
> blown off. Gun owners can be many things, but stupidity is something that
> gets people with guns in the house killed, whereas stupid people without
> guns are less likely to die of gunshot wounds. Many people who get shot are
> shot by a member of their own household.

Children also die by various other means in insufficiently childproofed
homes.  Swimming pools are far more dangerous on a per-capita basis.
Safety training is important when dealing with any dangerous tools, you
should hear me lecture friends who come to work in my woodworking shop.
 
> A student of mine was in a funk this week, because her 80yo mother-in-law
> was just killed by someone who thought he saw a coyote on his property.

It would be interesting to know the details.  There aren't a lot of places
where shooting a gun in a populated area is legal.

> And of all the men who have killed their wives and children, I think pretty
> much 100% of them did it with guns.

That sounds like media hype to me.

> I don't particularly want to get into a gun owning argument with anyone,
> because it's not the sort of thing that people tend to change their minds
> about. But if you think that somehow it makes no difference whether or not
> you have a gun in your house as far as your long-term chances of survival,
> you're dead wrong.

You might want to check the various statistics.

> As for rational and logical, I think that's in the eye of the beholder. I
> don't think it's in any way rational to own a gun. If most of your friends
> who own guns are more rational than the ones who don't, it says more about
> your opinion than about your friends.

I suppose there are a lot of hunters who would disagree and I know there
are a lot of people who do target, skeet and trap shooting who would
disagree.  There are also a few Olympic events that use guns.

> To be fair, I guess I have started an argument. I am happy to take this
> off-list if others don't think it's appropriate here. I won't post again.

I suspect you have started an argument.  It sounds like to me that you are
parrotting various media positions without having actually studied the
statistics.

-- Matt

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