First off, I'll note that you have no response to or are purposely
ignoring the REAL statistics I posted to support my arguments, while
you continue to badger Mr. Butler, who has not posted the sources of his
facts about police related shootings.
The only studies of improper use of firearms under stress that I am
aware of is studies of AMerican troops in Vietnam. They shot over 9,000
rounds on average in order to kill one VC, and normally, 4 out of five
infantrymen never even fired their guns when in a firefight, they
typically just tried to cover their asses. I think these data are more
important in the context of why we had such trouble in that war, and
that the source of this poor performance was more morale related. Most
grunts just did not want to be there and wanted to live long enough to
go home. This has nothing to do with self defense of ones home, person,
or dependents, with firearms, unless the study also examined the
performance of VC troops in defending their homes from the imperialist
agressors, which it did not.
The facts are that over 2.4 million crimes are prevented each year,
according to one statistic I've seen (I don't have the source with me
but I'll dig it up), by the use of firearms by private citizens. This is
typically not reported because 95% or more of the time, nobody is hurt
as the crook typically runs away or is peacefully subdued. THe media
only likes to publish stories of people getting killed by guns, not
being saved by guns. This is why they always use a gun logo when a news
anchor is reporting a crime, to subliminally implant in viewers minds
the idea that guns=crime. As Goebbels said, "repeat a lie often enough,
and people will beleive it."
I take it from your posts that you are a combat veteran. If so, I highly
suggest that you seek out the help of a mental health expert to treat
your combat related gunshy neurosis. Only once this is done can you
develop a realistic evaluation of the value of guns in society.
-- TANSTAAFL!!! Michael Lorrey ------------------------------------------------------------ mailto:retroman@tpk.net Inventor of the Lorrey Drive Agent Lorrey@ThePentagon.com Silo_1013@ThePentagon.com http://www.tpk.net/~retroman/Mikey's Animatronic Factory My Own Nuclear Espionage Agency (MONEA) MIKEYMAS(tm): The New Internet Holiday Transhumans of New Hampshire (>HNH) ------------------------------------------------------------ #!/usr/local/bin/perl-0777---export-a-crypto-system-sig-RC4-3-lines-PERL @k=unpack('C*',pack('H*',shift));for(@t=@s=0..255){$y=($k[$_%@k]+$s[$x=$_ ]+$y)%256;&S}$x=$y=0;for(unpack('C*',<>)){$x++;$y=($s[$x%=256]+$y)%256; &S;print pack(C,$_^=$s[($s[$x]+$s[$y])%256])}sub S{@s[$x,$y]=@s[$y,$x]}