Stuff I hear all the time

I am getting a bit tired of hearing the same old arguments for gun control, so I thought I'd list out some responses. It might save us all some time.

Also, if you want to go right for the jugular, you can ask just one question.

A gun in the home means you are X times more likely to be killed

I've heard X range from 2 to 44.

First, correlation does not imply causation. Second, that study has been proven to be garbage.

Guns kill 70,000 people per year

The CDC lists just over 30,000 deaths per year attributed to firearms. That seems pretty high at first, but how does that compare to other causes?

Cause Number

Heart disease                                      710,760
Cancer                                                 553,091
Stroke (cerebrovascular disease)       167,661
Chronic lower respiratory diseases     122,009
Doctor's negligence                               98,329
Influenza and pneumonia                      65,313
Motor-vehicle                                         43,354
Suicides (all kinds, including firearms)  29,350
Firearms (Total)*                                    28,163

Suicides    16,586
Homicides 10,801
Accidents       776

Accidents (six causes)

Falls                                           13,322
Poison (solid, liquid)                  12,757
Choking on food or other object  4,313
Drowning                                     3,402
Fires, flames                                3,377
Firearms                                         776

Homicides (all instruments)         16,765

You can make all kinds of interesting arguments from here. Doctors kill 3 times as many people as guns do!

Another way to put these deaths in context is to point out that there are over 2 million protective uses of guns each year.

From Gun Owners of America Fact Sheet 2004

Source: Except for the figure on doctor's negligence, the above information is for 2000 and is taken from National Safety Council, Injury Facts: 2003 Edition, at 10, 19-20, 129. The number of yearly deaths attributed to doctor's negligence is based on the Harvard Medical Practice Study (1990) which is cited in Kleck, Point Blank, at 43.127
*The total firearms death figure above is a summary of the "Suicides," "Homicides" and "Accidents" subcategories. The Total excludes two categories: Legal Intervention and Undetermined.

Yes, but guns only have one purpose, to kill!

I usually point out how my guns have never been used to killed anyone, and I've had some of them for over 20 years now.

Sometimes I'll bring up competitions (there are several Olympic shooting sports, for example) and hunting, but I've found the real moonbats don't care. They don't think that's a good enough reason, so therefore you shouldn't be able to own one.

Sometimes, if I feel like being antagonistic I might say, well, so does an abortion doctor. That's usually a lot fun, but it tends to derail the conversation.

You can also bring up that killing isn't always illegal or immoral, and a gun is a great equalizer for the physically weak, but sometimes this might be viewed as conceding the point.

Gun owners are knuckle dragging, poorly endowed, insecure people

Usually if this is taking place face to face, at this point the other person is incredibly worked up, with spittle flying everywhere. It's probably best to just be the "bigger" man here and walk away.

Resist the urge to make comments about how it was enough for the persons mother.

If you are online, there's a great WSJ article here to point them to. Here's an excerpt:

It turns out [gun owners] have the same level of formal education as nongun owners, on average. Furthermore, they earn 32% more per year than nonowners.

The data say that the people in the approximately 40 million American households with guns are generally happier than those people in households that don't have guns.

Why are gun owners so happy? One plausible reason is a sense of self-reliance, in terms of self-defense or even in terms of the ability to hunt their own dinner.

In 2002, they were more likely to give money to charity than people without guns (83% to 75%).

In 2004, they were more likely than those without guns to strongly agree that they would "endure all things" for the one they loved (45% to 37%).

Doesn't sound like such a bad group of people to me.

These are the things I hear the most. For other things, the Gun Owners of America website has some great information, as does Gun Facts.

For even more in depth analysis, I recommend John Lott (book) and Howard Nemerov (book).