Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (211744)	12/15/2012 11:17:26 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541124

I suppose it is like airline crashes. Ugly and dramatic - surely something we want to do something about but short of grounding all aircraft will never go to zero. What do we do? I think "background check and open mental history" may be possibilities. I think to do one of these one has to be really nuts - who does this? Not just angry people - crazy angry people. The best we can do is a rudimentary background check for anyone who ones one. An angry person may scratch the paint of someones car or kick in the side. Shooting someone is really 3 SD away from the mean. Maybe 4 or 5 SD.

To: epicure who wrote (211744)	12/15/2012 11:52:02 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541124

epicure, re: "Gun deaths, especially like this one, have a corrosive effect on our society that poisonings (rightly or wrongly) don't have." I agree with you. People don't fear just death, they fear the manner of death. And, stick with me on this, the same reasoning applies to accidental gun deaths versus gun deaths from aggressive attackers. Many people are willing to take the chance of dying by an accidental shooting but cannot stomach the thought of being shot down unarmed by a malevolent shooter. Yes, death is death and dead is dead but you see the same irrational reasoning in effect in war zones where men would rather risk a friendly fire death than death from enemy fire, even when the choice they make is based on bad odds. I know. So telling people that their chance of dying a gun death if they own a gun is greater than if they don't doesn't resonate with most gun owners. Ed PS, do you think the studies that say that people with a gun were 4 1/2 times more likely to be killed in an assault than those without guns failed to take into account that gang violence accounts for a pretty good percentage of gun deaths and that both gangs are armed? I suspect that if you ran those numbers on home break-ins or random acts of violence you'd find a different answer.