🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Cy6qxy.9x2@txnews.amd.com> ricks@dvorak.amd.com (Rick Shank) writes:
>I believe that is exactly what I meant.  The way it was originally written,
>it was stated as an absolute rather than a likelihood.  The other problem
>with statistics is that they are almost always used to state as fact, things
>which are not valid due to the test/sample/data.  For example:  If a survey
>showed most crimes were committed with a handgun, removal of handguns would
>eliminate crime.  What would really happen is the criminal would find another
>weapon.  Also, statistics only show trends.  They are not absolutes.

Sorry, I over-reacted.  I ready your "PROBABLY" as "more likely to be
PROBABLY NOT".  In the cited study, odds are the number of felonies
prevented annually by gun ownership is somewheres near 2,000,000.  It is
very likely that the number is off by a few hundred thousand either way.

Statistics provide information about the likelyhood of events.  They may even
show possible cause and effect relationships.  But you are wrong in your
statement about statistics only showing trends, or the attempted relationship
between guns and crime in your example.  You've committed the usual mistake
that correlation and causation are linked.  This is why people don't
understand how "crime" and "guns" have the relationship they do -- they
don't know what the statistics mean.

For example, if all of the crimes in this country are committed with a gun
it doesn't follow that removing guns will reduce crime.  Even if the real
outcome would be that criminals found another weapon.  Without knowing if
the crime required a gun, or even if a crime required a weapon, you cannot
predict what would happen if guns or knives or sticks were outlawed.  The
reason is that you've not begun to address the role of the "thing" in the
outcome.  Consider for a moment how guns in the hands of non-criminals
might "behave".  Does the gun "cause" the behavior, or does the criminal
use the gun as a tool, much as anyone beyond homo habilis uses tools?

What you want isn't the percentage of crimes WITH guns, what you really want
is the percentage of guns involved in crimes.  When you actually =do= take
this into consideration you immediately should be struck by the fact that
of the 200,000,000 guns in this country, about 1% at most can be involved
in serious crimes.  Certainly no more than 0.01% of those guns can even be
involved in murders.  If we were looking at numbers like 50% of all guns in
existence are used in the commission of a crime, then it would make sense to
look at guns as somehow relevant.  But since 99.99% of all guns aren't used
in a murder, claiming that guns have a causal relationship to murder just
doesn't wash.
-- 
John F. Haugh II  [ NRA-ILA ] [ Kill Barney ] !'s: ...!cs.utexas.edu!rpp386!jfh
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 There are three documents that run my life: The King James Bible, the United
 States Constitution, and the UNIX System V Release 4 Programmer's Reference.