Guns in America

Christopher Titus has some funny, but also very insightful opinions about gun control in the U.S. including a brilliant plan to "arm the children" in order to prevent school shootings and child abuse (he's a comedian... it's a joke). He puts it all into perspective.

Alethea Thompson wrote: First 30000 is lower than 610000

Sure I can. In fact you just did use it to tell your story, but here's the story I would paint:

How many of those deaths were motorcyclists? How many were drunk drivers? How many pedestrians? How many were single vehicle? Multiple vehicle?

I actually have those stats (found them just for this argument):

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalityfacts/state-by-state-overview

Onto Heart Disease:
611,105 is the number of people that died in 2013 of Heart Disease.
26.6 million the estimated number of adults diagnosed with Heart Disease, according to the CDC that's about 11.3% of the adult population.

So between these two, I could say that since only 11.3% of the adult population is diagnosed with Heart Disease, you have more to fear from your own ability to drive (as most vehicular accident were single vehicle) (though really there is about on par, separate only by 7%) than you do of heart disease. It's the leading cause of death, but our mortality rate isn't like it use to be. I can crunch those numbers, it's about breaking them down further, and that's how people get you.

30,000 IS lower than 600,000. Both of them are a fraction (/3,000,000.) The largest fraction is the largest occurrence usually expressed as a percent (how many parts out of 100.) One cannot make 30>600. Just doesn't work that way, so you cannot twist that statistic to state whatever you want. The most you can do is the question character argument, which essentially signals you have lost when the data points are already peer reviewed. Essentially such as a argument goes like this: My proposition "Well these are the numbers as collected and peer reviewed by a panel of some of the most qualified minds in this country." Your retort "Well I have no degree, am one man, was not part of this study, conducted no study of my own with no data for other people to inspect for proper collection methods but I with all of my mighty qualifications denounce your panel of qualified minds and call their data bunk!" At that point you might as well be a fool on the street screaming about the end is nigh.

When you continued onto heart disease after posting that link I failed to find a complete argument. I found half an argument like half an equation. In this case its sitting like (y=11% of x) && blank blank blank blank blank. You seem to be missing comparable data points on the auto side, as well as the conclusive "therefore" or "=" statement. Should you say "You are more likely to die when an auto accident does occur than you are if you have suffered a heart disease episode" then the logical follow question is "well then how many people die in auto accidents and of heart failure each year?", and the answer of that undoes any smoke and mirrors you attempted to create. In essence only providing one statistic creates the logical question for the root principle (how many die) and means you haven't demonstrated anything.

added:

Thought to simplify all this in a short statement: Just because you have provided enough statement to satisfy the lazy does not mean you have provided a complete argument.

Which is my point. I twisted what you stated. (btw, you were the one that stated initially that you would have a higher chance of getting killed by vehicle than heart disease, I just took what you [accidently] said and proved it to be the bigger concern.

I didn't say it would be accurate. I made your statistics state a much different picture by giving context. People look at what someone has to say, and then never look into the work themselves to determine things for themselves. Your heart disease is not that big of a concern when you consider that heart disease on average is something you can easily prevent. You cannot prevent the drivers around you from being idiots- only yourself. So given that only 11.3% of the population is even diagnosed with heart disease, it is not something that people need to worry too terribly much about if they are taking eating habits and exercise seriously. But there is nothing they can do about the road.

Another Mass Stabbing example that shows mass killings without guns. Where there is a will, there is a way.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/stabbings-reported-pennsylvania-high-school-article-1.1750425

One thing that I find interesting is that the media no longer seems to distinguish between a mass shooting and a murder in a public place or a fight between two groups where multiple people get shot. Obviously it's still gun violence and it's still bad, but if we're discussing the "current trend" of mass shootings then we need to be clear on what makes a mass shooting a mass shooting.

There was a shooting today in the parking lot of an Arizona college dorm and it's being branded as another "school shooting." If you read into it at all though you find out that there were two groups of students that got into an altercation in the parking lot of a dorm hall at 1:30 am and one of them pulled a gun. One person is dead and three are injured. This is terrible and tragic yes, but it is not the same as a "school shooting" where a person walks into a school in session with the sole purpose of killing multiple people. This was a fight that got out of hand and just happened to be on school owned property.

Kitsu Tails wrote: Another Mass Stabbing example that shows mass killings without guns. Where there is a will, there is a way.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/stabbings-reported-pennsylvania-high-school-article-1.1750425

It is so sad that this is the case but people find ways.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childers_Palace_Backpackers_Hostel_fire

Alethea Thompson wrote: Which is my point. I twisted what you stated. (btw, you were the one that stated initially that you would have a higher chance of getting killed by vehicle than heart disease, I just took what you [accidently] said and proved it to be the bigger concern.

I didn't say it would be accurate. I made your statistics state a much different picture by giving context. People look at what someone has to say, and then never look into the work themselves to determine things for themselves. Your heart disease is not that big of a concern when you consider that heart disease on average is something you can easily prevent. You cannot prevent the drivers around you from being idiots- only yourself. So given that only 11.3% of the population is even diagnosed with heart disease, it is not something that people need to worry too terribly much about if they are taking eating habits and exercise seriously. But there is nothing they can do about the road.

I actually went back to review exactly what I said because I could actually have made a mistake and I could not find it. I challenged you to make statistics state something that is patently not true, that you are at higher risk of dying of heart disease than you are of a car accident in the United States. " Make statistics demonstrate that you are at more risk of dying of auto accidents (30,000 deaths annually in the United States) then heart disease (610,000 annually.) " You simply cannot without outright making up your own statistics demonstrate that.

You stated roughly 1/10 Americans suffer from heart disease but again its an incomplete argument. Where is the flip side to that? Where is the rest of the argument? 1/10 chance of facing deaths door suddenly is pretty severe, and being a health ninja is less protection than one would think. However that is irrelevant here. You haven't actually made the claim that heart disease is less of a risk, you just stated 1/10 with no perspective, context or anything of that matter. This is not an argument, you are merely leaving things on the table waiting for someone to walk by and react emotionally to it which is not the same thing.

Of course the obvious next step in making that statistic argue what you want is to provide the counter auto statistic, which would be "x number of Americans in their lifetime will suffer a life threatening auto accident" which was not provided. Again stating the percentage of Americans who will on average fight heart disease in their lifetime is not making these statistics support your point until you have provided the compatible statistic demonstrating the same thing for another case.

In order for statistics to "say" something it must be asserting something, it must be an argument. Arguments are essentially verbal equations. In this case its x>y therefore b. Thus far you have stated blank>y therefore b. So you still have work to do.

Goken wrote: One thing that I find interesting is that the media no longer seems to distinguish between a mass shooting and a murder in a public place or a fight between two groups where multiple people get shot. Obviously it's still gun violence and it's still bad, but if we're discussing the "current trend" of mass shootings then we need to be clear on what makes a mass shooting a mass shooting.

There was a shooting today in the parking lot of an Arizona college dorm and it's being branded as another "school shooting." If you read into it at all though you find out that there were two groups of students that got into an altercation in the parking lot of a dorm hall at 1:30 am and one of them pulled a gun. One person is dead and three are injured. This is terrible and tragic yes, but it is not the same as a "school shooting" where a person walks into a school in session with the sole purpose of killing multiple people. This was a fight that got out of hand and just happened to be on school owned property.

The question about the whole thing is whether or not the media is reporting in such a manner because of an agenda or just trying to improve viewership?

None of what you see in statistics is technically not true. It is ALL true, but you can make them tell you anything.

When you say that heart disease is the number one factor in death across America, I can use statistics to prove that it's not something to be too worried about- but you should be more worried about the road- unless you are one of the 11.3% of the adult population already diagnosed with heart disease, then you might need to be more worried about dying from heart disease.

All you need are more facts and figures to accompany what you have. Also, I misread your words, I thought you said that accidents are more prevalent, I see now that you meant have me do that. And I did. Here's why your position that heart disease is a leading cause of death is misleading:

It suggests that these are the only two causes of death. Which is inaccurate. Heart disease only accounts for 19% of deaths in 2013 (2,596,993 was the number of recorded deaths in 2013). You are are at greater risk to die of literally anything than you are Heart Disease. Since only 11.3% of the adult population is diagnosed with heart disease, you are left with the conclusion that unless you are diagnosed with heart disease, you are IN FACT more likely to die from a car accident.

Statistics can be used to paint any picture your want. You wanted them to say that you're more likely to die from heart disease than a car accident. But you're truth isn't the full truth when you start looking beyond two parts of the stats. The addition of 11.3% is the only thing I needed to disprove your likelihood of dying from heart disease vs. a car accident.

In fact, I could give a really good fear-mongering case to support that you are more likely to die from cancer than anything else based on the fact that 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women will have cancer at some point in their life. But even these stats miss which parts of cancer are easily gotten rid of.

Klink wrote:

Goken wrote: One thing that I find interesting is that the media no longer seems to distinguish between a mass shooting and a murder in a public place or a fight between two groups where multiple people get shot. Obviously it's still gun violence and it's still bad, but if we're discussing the "current trend" of mass shootings then we need to be clear on what makes a mass shooting a mass shooting.

There was a shooting today in the parking lot of an Arizona college dorm and it's being branded as another "school shooting." If you read into it at all though you find out that there were two groups of students that got into an altercation in the parking lot of a dorm hall at 1:30 am and one of them pulled a gun. One person is dead and three are injured. This is terrible and tragic yes, but it is not the same as a "school shooting" where a person walks into a school in session with the sole purpose of killing multiple people. This was a fight that got out of hand and just happened to be on school owned property.

The question about the whole thing is whether or not the media is reporting in such a manner because of an agenda or just trying to improve viewership?

Yes.

The problem with statistics is that people look to them and think they are good. But they will believe whatever they want, because people will bend the stats to the picture they want to paint, rather than looking through the various stats themselves. When they do, they'll find a very different picture.

Do you really need to worry about dying in a car accident? Sure, if you aren't very good at driving, decide to drink and drive or are non-attentive to the drivers around you. But I think it is safe to say that when you look at the numbers of people in the US vs. the mortality rate, you don't have too much to worry about on average unless you're in a high risk job and/or do not make an honest effort take care of your body by giving it proper nutrition.