Mick...I am reading those references.

I find on the WWW the "Gunowners" site where you probably obtained them. There's a lot to read there, and more in THEIR links...but almost everything I've looked at so far seems to relate back to the "Kleck and Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime" study.

What I see is language like "... citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every year." That still seems larger than I can imagine. They don't say how many of these were separate individuals and how many were one guy reporting he 'used' his gun in defense 53 times....and does 'use' include simply saying "I've got a gun, you better not try anything."?


Since I do not have that book, I am left wondering how their numbers were arrived at....that is, what kind of data was included. Police reports? Interviews? Hearsay? I say this because as YOU know from listening to Bush for 6 years, statistics can be padded and manipulated and interpreted to prove most any point....and a "gunowners" website would certainly have an interest in a particular conclusion.

I am still reading and trying to sort out what I think about the data/study/source. It would be important if it were even fairly accurate.


but also..." In this debate, it seems to me, you are relying on individual stories that suit your bias."

No, I am not 'relying'...as anyone does, I cite 'examples' I am familar with. (Did you read the one about the guy I knew personally? You said YOU had never known anyone who was careless or dangerous....I did.) I 'rely' on myriads of facts and stories and valued opinions of others for 45 years now. I did not start opposed to guns...I played at guns..I once owned a .22 pistol...briefly. I had no built-in opposition, or personal tragedies to color my opinions. I just ran what I knew, what I read and heard, what others (on BOTH sides) said, and what logic tells me, and was persuaded that as far as I could tell, the negative aspects of the USA's fairly open policy on personal ownership/possession of firearms has begun to to outweigh the positives.

This is not a frontier society any longer, and YOUR argument that "my family has always had 'em, so why should I give 'em up?", doesn't move me a lot when I see the monthly reports of robbery & assault in DC and other cities. (I do NOT see many reports of 'honest citizens defending themselves with guns'.)

But, as a matter of fact, my concern is NOT especially with making YOU give up your guns...it is rather with being MORE sure that idiots cannot GET them...and removing them from the hands of idiots who already have them! (See my post in the other thread.)

further, demagogue sayeth not. (I got wood to turn)