Posted on 10/07/2009 3:44:32 PM PDT by genetic homophobe
Packing heat may backfire. People who carry guns are far likelier to get shot – and killed – than those who are unarmed, a study of shooting victims in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has found.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
Why didn't they consider how many cops there are in this country vs. how many cops have been shot/killed in the line of duty?
This is equivalent to surveying all drowning victims and seeing how many own swimming pools and then reporting that people who own pools are more likely to drown without ever considering how many pool owner don't drown.
My first thought as well: they didn’t bother to differentiate between legal carriers and criminals or it would have disproved their assumptions!
They are setting the stage for the government to outlaw guns. Well, I guess I'll be an outlaw. WOLVERINES!
You may be struck and killed by a meteor in your sailboat.
Or you might have a great day sailing.
Which of these scenarios is more likely?
Hands off my boat, pansies.
Let’s save our police by having them disarmed! Duh.
Branas needs to stop speculating about subjects he knows nothing about. If I want self-defense advice, I'll go to a self-defense expert rather than a silly academic who has never seen a gun except on TV.
I know total nonsense when I see it. This is total nonsense!
I am a native Philadelphian and a former Philadelphia police officer. Now I am a journalist/writer.
While I’ve not read this study, I’d be willing to bet it is fallacious. It is a defective syllogism - sort of like the old “ All Riffian tribesmen have blue eyes, Ahmed has blue eyes, therefore Ahmed is a Riffian tribesmen” syllogism.
The defective conclusion is that people who carry guns are shot more than those who don’t, therefore it isn’t safe to carry a gun.
It omits that people who carry guns may be shot more than those who don’t because many people who carry guns are trying to shoot others who also may have a gun. It doesn’t state the cause of the shooting.
So it’s quite possible that those who have been shot while carrying a gun were shot while committing an illegal act by others who were also committing an illegal act or by those who were protecting themselves from an illegal act.
Now I’m not sure whether this headline was a result of the study or the journalist/editor. I’d have to read the study to learn who is grinding the axe.
Quite frankly, I don’t want to waste my time.
Being named “Plaxico” increases the risk of being shot.
The name “Plaxico” should be banned.
Yep, that why thousands of police... 
are killed every day, eh?
agreed...The study was probably brought to us by the same people who brought us global warming...
I'd recommend Army FM 17-12-8 for those who need help getting that first round on target. It's always a good idea to get the first shot off and accurately...just sayin'.
My experience w/ Philly is from various articles and routine visits. I am interrested in your view of what I wrote. If I'm off I don't mind being told, learning what is true is more important to me. Thanks for your service, BTW. Philly is rough. How long and what years were you an officer there?
smell the BS all the way through the computer screen
I am amazed that the computer geeks have figured out how to do something like “scratch and sniff” over the WWW, but this is damn good example of it.
Am bettin this “study” found that many of those confronting CC folks did die while carrying an inferior weapon with no training and no range time.
Pure weapons grade BS.
Methinks “new scientist” has a hidden agenda...
BINGO! Great minds think alike. I chased down this study and read most of their boring statistical analysis.
I could not find anywhere that they cared whether the guns were LEGAL or not. Some gang banger with a gun buying drugs from another gang banger with a gun in downtown Philly doesn't mean anything to me as I would never be kind that situation. Not even HALF of that situation.
from their study:
“It is also worth noting that our findings are possibly” (POSSIBLY?) “not generalizable to non-urban areas whose gun injury risks can be significantly different than those of urban centers like Philadelphia
NO KIDDING Sherlock.
This study is totally meaningless unless you are an unemployed, low life, Black, drug user or boozer, living in a bad neighborhood in downtown Philly. Unless those statistics apply to you, this study doesn't.
If you are interested download the PDF at http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1087&context=dennis_culhane
I was going to write that but got to intellectual in my post. Now because of you I won’t have the opportunity.
Every time I see that quote it cracks me up and goes along with “studies have shown” and “experts say”.
Maybe we could hire a large research staff, do some computer modeling and come up some statistics? /s
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