My calculations are an attempt to use BJS detailed data of crimes involving guns, and come up with a figure for how many crimes would not have happened if guns were banned. I made a couple of small assumptions, and quite generous to your side of the aurgument, but the data I used comes from the BJS.
Not sure what "your side" means because you made no such concessions. For example, how exactly do you quantify grief, anguish over loss of life? I am actually asking you this because you made the "calculations."
Your side - those who wish to ban or otherwise unreasonably restrict firearm access.
"concessions" made to make numbers look worse for gun usage than what they probably are in my figures:
-7% of the 414,000 crimes committed by someone who happened to have a gun, involved a serious injury, which
may or may not be gunshot related. I went ahead and figured they ALL were gunshot related, then multiplied it by 2.
What I came up with applies narrowly to crimes committed because firearms are available versus crimes stopped because firearms are available.
I think you purposely didn't link to it so it would be harder for someone to read it and call you out on that junk.
Right, because a 5 second Google search on the exact title that I wrote is too hard for folks? Good grief. Your logic is impeccable. I explained why I couldn't link to it. Feel free to read it again if you are confused.
But to make the statement that guns are a net determent to society or that less guns=less crime is a position not supported by data...[/b] it's speculation and bullshit based on other societies with so many other confounding variables the comparison doesn't hold.
Loss of life is never a "net benefit" even for many would be criminals (besides the obvious serial killer etc.). There are so many variables you cannot account for that to even simply try and quantify it is unreasonable and immoral. For instance you cannot quantify the grief and immeasurable suffering of those affected by any loss of life.
It's certainly not bullshit especially when other far less violent "gun toting" countries place a high value of responsibility on gun ownership and institute restrictions, rules, laws accordingly. Probably partly a result of understanding loss of life is not a "net benefit." But not here. We pretend it's not a problem and even in some cases (like with you) pretend it's all a "net benefit." Step 1 is admitting there is a problem. Since we can't get past the first step so many many more children will unfortunately meet a very untimely demise. It's ok though, their deaths will be canceled out by some defensive gun use and families and loved ones mental anguish dismissed. Status quo in other words.
We have lots and lots of laws and restrictions on firearms already. What makes you think there aren't any?
Firearms are absolutely a benefit to society. They were how peasants a serfs gained more and more liberty back in the day, and remain essential to the preservation of freedom. You can deny it all you want, but at the end of the day, political power boils down to who can exert physical force on who. We've come up with all kinds of fancy ways to dress that up, and as long as a population doesn't become stressed by lack of basic survival needs, that facade will hold, even without firearms... but we live in a remarkably good time overall, and there is not guarantee things will remain like this.
There's also the self defense aspect. Police simply can't be everywhere. No other tool allows the weakest among us to hand the upper hand, or, at worst, match any threat that faces them.
So yes, guns are a net benefit to society.. by an order of magnitude. If I didn't think they were, I'd argue for a ban too.
Of course, people can misuse the power a firearm gives them, and we need some laws to regulate that. We could do a few more things to reduce how many people misuse firearms without unreasonable restrictions... I've stated that I'm OK with these. Universal background checks, etc.
So, like every other thing in our lives, there's a balance, a trade off. We endure 1.3 million deaths per year to have the freedom to cover vast distances in automobiles.
We accept that 3500 of those deaths are due to cell phone misuse, but we endure those deaths to be able to communicate any time, any where.
I'm willing to endure 8-11k homocides caused by misuse of firearms for the benefits they provide.
As for other incalculable.... how many robberies, rapes, murders, etc aren't even attempted because the potential perp knows their potential victim has or might have a gun? how much misery was avoided because of that?