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Old 14-05-2007, 15:39   #1
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Fire arm evidence is skewed

Everybody by now has heard what happened to Peter Blake. His death is exhibit one in the argument not to carry a gun aboard.

But what if the evidence in favor of carrying a gun never becomes public information?

Is it possible that the sucessful uses of armed defense never see the light of day, while the instances of armed defense that end poorly for the defense get plastered by the media for all to see.

Think about it, if you were boarded by pirates and shot somebody, what would you do? Turn yourself into the local authorities? Or sail away far, far away and never breath a word of it for fear of extradiction?

How do we really know the facts? Maybe guns work better than anybody can guess. How would we know? Even if the media were neutral on this issue (it ain't) the data is probably heavily self-censured.

* * *

Disclosure: I do not carry guns; nor do I plan to. But I have an interest in accurate facts and data.
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Old 14-05-2007, 15:56   #2
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Another case of the media conspiring to actually keep us from finding out how many pirates the honest well armed sailors have killed. Will this censorship ever end?
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Old 14-05-2007, 16:02   #3
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If we have no accurate data, we cannot draw ANY rational conclusions - neither pro-gun, nor anti-gun (as a useful denfensive tool).
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Old 14-05-2007, 16:03   #4
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Originally Posted by GordMay
If we have no accurate data, we cannot draw ANY rational conclusions - neither pro-gun, nor anti-gun (as a useful denfensive tool).
Precisely.
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Old 14-05-2007, 18:05   #5
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John,

Blake's death is exhibit one in the argument not to go running into a cabin filled with armed bandits (armed or otherwise). Note there are not a lot of comparable stories. By the same standard, there are few stories where guns were used effectively - although the story of Gandalf and Mahdi comes to mind.
You may be right that there could be unreported pirate deaths at the hands of armed yachties. There may also be unreported yachtie deaths - after the pirates board and murder them, they are even less likely to report themselves to the authorities. But as you so wisely surmised, without hard facts, it's very difficult to categorically support either point of view.

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Old 14-05-2007, 19:44   #6
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I guess I have really missed the point of this thread!!!!
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Old 14-05-2007, 19:57   #7
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Uh-Oh, here we go again...

Guns good: They kill bad guys?
Guns bad: They kill good guys?
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Old 15-05-2007, 00:15   #8
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Guns good: They kill bad guys?
Guns bad: They kill good guys?
And then add to that, that sometimes the person with the gun can't tell the difference.
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Old 15-05-2007, 00:37   #9
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The bad guys are the ones with the black hats.........
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Old 15-05-2007, 04:57   #10
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You could look to *land* based stories and data and try to apply that information to life on a boat.

There are plenty of accounts of gun usage (pro and con) on land. Life on the sea isn't that different that the same principles wouldn't apply.

One of my favorites was a little old lady in Harlem heading out to church. She was in a wheelchair too. She was mugged and happened to have a permit to carry (VERY rare in NYC). She had her loaded gun and let one off, hitting the mugger. It wasn't fatal to the mugger but he ran like crazy (and was caught a few blocks away).

This story was on NY1 and in the Times.... not an urban legend, believe it or not.
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Old 15-05-2007, 09:33   #11
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Originally Posted by Chuck Baier
I guess I have really missed the point of this thread!!!!
My point was to underscore the observation that the firearms debate is more 'religious' in nature than it is a debate about facts.

People tend to have an emotional predisposition and then go looking for facts in support thereof, rather than the reverse process.

Bottom line, I question whether we really have enough facts to engage in a rational discussion. Instead, we have various flavors of hysteria parading as argument and discussion.
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Old 15-05-2007, 10:29   #12
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For Christ's sake! Can't we talk about about which is the best anchor instead? Or how to get rid of odors in the head?

This arguement on firearms will never going be resolved and no one will ever be satisfied. Just to show that I am not a puss. I keep a shotgun secured and safe in my bedroom, in my house, on land for protection. This is my right as an American citizen. But I doubt that I would ever take one on my boat cruising. I will be outside my native waters and the places that I would visit don't want me to have it there. That is their right.

If I am attacked and I don't have my gun available, that would suck and I might be dead or injured. If I am attacked and I do have my gun available and kill a bad guy, that would suck (at least for a little while) and I stand a good chance of rotting in a third world prison argueing 2nd Amendment rights with my new freinds and bored prison guards.

Will we ever get to the point were we all can accept the that this issue will only be resolved when the sun winks out and we are all left in a cosmic chill. There must be better ways to spend our time and energy. I have wasted too much here already.

Mr. Gord and Mr. Wheels if you take exception to some of my vocabulary, feel free to delete it.

I am Maddog and I approve this message. This is the first and last post I will make on this thread. Both sides should feel free to flame away. Now back to those head odors.
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Old 15-05-2007, 10:34   #13
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"This story was on NY1 and in the Times...."
Stories of successful gun defense don't make the national nooze, and there are no federal statistics to collect or document them. However, the NRA encourages their members to send clippings in and some dozen of them (audited and confirmed as coming from local TV, news, or police reports) are published in their magazines every month, year after year.
Private interviews and professional surveys about guns used in self-defense also confirm that most gun owners simply do not report a defense that did not involve shots fired, simply because they don't want the bother that can come from it.
So Chuck, I don't think anyone was referring to a media conspiracy. It's simply a matter of gun owners knowing they can only lose time and money by reporting an incident that can't result in an arrest or conviction, because there's no proof that the crime--much less the defense--ever happened.

Hiracer, the only rational discussion is to say "Look at the facts." The facts speak conclusively but the folks who have been terrified by the Nooze and the Saviors in Office don't want to hear that. The leading voice anti-gun in the US was HCI, who were shamed into closing and reorganizing under a new name, after their "statistics" were proven wrong, their denied agenda confirmed and published, and their games proved to be their undoing. (HCI filed a complaint with the US Postal Inspectors, seeking to have the NRA's postal permits rescinded for postal fraud because of all the NRA's alleged lies and distortions. After the investigation, at great taxpayer expense, the entire complaint was dismissed. The USPS couldn't find one "fraud" in any statistic the NRA had ever published and mailed.)

Unreliable sources like the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and multiple state agencies have all confirmed that what the NRA has been saying, and what Machiavelli said, is factual. But some folks never let facts confuse the issue. The others, the ones who think "this can't be true" but take the time to investigate the facts? Often wind up being quoted as saying "I never thought I'd join the NRA, but I found out they were right."

Anyone who has a problem with the "facts" of gun control can find them very simply. Contact the NRA, contact the DOJ, contact whatever "anti" gun group you believe in. Ask each for facts, and run them down to the source citations. Funny thing about that...the facts don't disagree.

The NRA was founded to provide trained civilian marksmen for the military draft. Sporting programs and conservation programs were just an adjunct to that. Gun politics was a very reluctant change of stride, after the membership decided that if guns were banned...it would be impossible to fulfill any of the other missions, including Job Number One, training draftees to be familiar with firearms.
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Old 15-05-2007, 10:37   #14
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Originally Posted by Maddog
For Christ's sake! Can't we talk about . . . .
LOL
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Old 15-05-2007, 11:03   #15
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Originally Posted by hellosailor
Stories of successful gun defense don't make the national nooze, and there are no federal statistics to collect or document them. However, the NRA encourages their members to send clippings in and some dozen of them (audited and confirmed as coming from local TV, news, or police reports) are published in their magazines every month, year after year.
Having been a member of the NRA for a couple of decades, I'm well aware of its monthly periodicals. And I would not put the NRA in the category of a dispassionate fact finder. It has an agenda that it wears on its sleave and looks for facts, and only those facts, that support its agenda--thus proving my point above. Ancedotal 'facts' in support of a public policy is not rational, IMO.

Further, I'm far from convinced that what happens relating to guns in, say, Topeka, Kansas is relevent to what transpires in most foreign cruising grounds. Apples and oranges. Particularly with the additive of at least different two cultures thrown into the mix.
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