No, meteor defense can get in line behind heart disease, automobiles, suicide, gun violence, war, police, and all the other things astronomically (heh) more likely to kill people, therefore more deserving of our attention.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_ex... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian-Triassic_extinction_eve... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_bo...
We've detected such a series of objects and have willingly not tried to prevent them from dramatically altering our ecosystem, but are encouraging and quickening the damage they do. Detecting and predicting is not nearly enough. Action is required and there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that humans will take that action. I strongly disagree that a species such as humans 'can and will react and adapt'. So far we have shown that we are the exact opposite: we are the ones causing global environmental catastrophe.
WP estimates roughly one million car accident deaths per year (worldwide est for 2007). Heart disease numbers are more like 30M/year, although lots of those people were very old, so it's hard to estimate what's preventable. Compare that with a hypothetical meteor that kills one hundred million people, in a confined geographic area (that's 1/7 of Europe, or 1/5 of N America, or just half a dozen large Asia cities). What're the odds of that meteor? Even the once-per-millenium Tunguska event wasn't large enough to do that much damage. But suppose once-per-millenium meteors WERE deadly enough to kill 100M people, that's still 1/10 the deaths per year. If it's more spending-efficient to prevent the deaths from heart disease, do that. If it's more spending-efficient to prevent the deaths from meteor impact, do that.
On the other hand, extinction events are worth treating with extra care. Which in fact is exactly what meteor watches do, which is why they only look for entry diameters over 100m. Seems reasonable! Extinction events have happened 5 times in the last 540 million years. They're pretty rare. Maybe we should just roll the dice.
Off-topic: That's not what "shrift" means. Maybe you'd like "short order" or just the clearly "in a short time".
My point was rather that you can't compare a catastrophe with disease / accidents simply in deaths-over-time. Catastrophes have dramatic economic consequences as well.
My reply to your core point is that you can so compare (not least because deaths-over-time have dramatic economic consequences too). Maybe we're just gonna disagree about this one. :)
If we have the observatories in place, we should have enough time to come up with a reasonable defense.
I believe if we're wiped out by one of these rocks, it'll be due to our own negligence.
"It is distinguished as violence involving at least one gun."
re-read my post, i said
>> "so distinguishable that it should be focused on above "violence""
I'm not saying that it cant be distinguished (as others describe it), I am saying is there a big enough difference that we should focus on it over violence in general.
IN MY OPINION! focusing on "gun violence" takes away from the more important discussion on "violence" in general and diverts the discussion to matters non conducive to stowing violence in general. BUT this is not what this post is about.
Based on the bit I emphasized, you are implying "gun violence" is not a real concept, or doesn't exist, or something along those lines. Gun violence is real.
Further, OP is clearly not commenting on the prevalence of gun violence vs other violence. OP is commenting on things more likely to cause damage than a meteor strike.
Having said that, drunken violence on a friday/saturday night is a big problem regardless.
Sure it's distinguishable. It's scarier, so it's easier to get people upset about it. People seem to be orders of magnitude more afraid that they will be gunned down as opposed to, say, killed with a knife or a hammer.
Not that I disagree with your point - it's far easier to avoid being killed with a hammer.
Guns Save Lives http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/02/guns_save_...
"If someone gets into your house, which would you rather have, a handgun or a telephone? You can call the police if you want, and they'll get there, and they'll take a picture of your dead body. But they can't get there in time to save your life. The first line of defense is you."
http://gunssavelives.net/ has a huge collection of articles like these:
Son Uses Dad’s AR-15 To Defend Home http://gunssavelives.net/self-defense/video/son-uses-dads-ar...
Armed Citizen in TX Stops Shooting Spree and Saves Cop http://gunssavelives.net/self-defense/armed-citizen-in-tx-st...
GA Woman Kills Would Be Rapist With .22 Pistol http://gunssavelives.net/self-defense/video/ga-woman-kills-w...
for example, a gun is about 120% useless if you have it stored and the bad guy has the drop on you, which is likely the case on multiple levels given that that the 'bad guy' is the aggressor and initiator of a rare situation.
for example, the 'bad guy' may have a gun himself, and seeing you wielding one may cause him to shoot you, when he otherwise wouldn't have. and it's entirely possible or even likely that he has spent more time at the shooting range than you, or that he has killed people before. nevermind that he, having the mental preparedness that comes from being the initiator, may have the clearer presence of mind and less shaky hands
Etc. Etc. the "gun in my home to keep me safe" is a non-sequitur and only makes sense in simplistic cowboy scenarios, and I've even heard statistics saying you're more likely to hurt yourself or a loved one than the bad guy...
...but we don't really have any good ideas about that, because the gun lobby has suppressed research into these things for several years
No, it makes perfect, quantifiable, empirical sense
>> data from the United States, show “a negative correlation,” that is, “where firearms are most dense violent crime rates are lowest, and where guns are least dense violent crime rates are highest.”[1]
[1] beware the PDF: http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_Kate...
I could never find a good response when my rational argument is met with an off-hand snark. And yet something should be said to avoid the perception that it was a valid counterpoint.
One option would be to point out that there are multiple factors at play, other differences between those countries than just gun ownership. That study after study linked in the post before show no correlation, no meaningful impact of gun ownership. That there are causes of crime that explain reality much better, like family structure.
Other would be to mock. "Sure, let's ban all the guns, jail all the blacks, and live in a crime-free utopia. Oh, and maybe nuke Detroit or New Orleans while we're at it. After all, nothing gives a better picture than a cursory glance."
I'm never satisfied with either.
Maybe there is a correlation with suburban car culture? First there is the significant correlation between environmental lead during childhood and violence, secondly I think that having a low population density might make people feel more on their own, the highest goal being to protect their family. I'm thinking that people that are used to a high population density, who are in contact with hundreds of other humans a day, get used to this and lower their defenses. Then again I've seen a study suggesting that the violence leves in cities and on the countryside is pretty much the same (at least after lead levels have evened out).
Maybe, hopefully, the decline in violence in the US will continue and it will level out at a similar point as Europe / Asia - then we'll probably know that you were just poisoning yourselves with lead. I hope that this will have some impact on limiting the power of lobbies. Think of how much lead gasoline, lobbied into the world by the oil and car industry, has cost society, if this really was the main cause of the 70ies / 80ies crime outbursts.
The idea that the presence or absence of guns is totally divorced from gunviolence is ridiculous, motive, means and opportunity. Take away the bulk means of easily dispatching fellow human beings in your average culture and you see a decrease in violent deaths. See Australia.
What I'm saying is: I'm skeptical that this alone would bring the aggression levels in the US to European levels (not even speaking about Japan, where it's another order of magnitude below). It would certainly be a good start though and it would be relatively easy to implement. Similar to software development: One should always start optimizing by getting the low hanging fruits.
It's still interesting however, to think about why there is such a cultural difference between the US and Europe, considering our heritage is so close.
i disagree. the reality of a criminal entering someone's home where guns are involved is much more complicated and unpredictable than that argument implies. and i've also read of other studies that show the opposite conclusion of that study
now that the research ban has been lifted, we will get a better picture eventually
No, not really. It works for real data, too.
>> Using cross-sectional time-series data for U.S. counties from 1977 to 1992, we find that allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent crimes and it appears to produce no increase in accidental deaths.[1]
Which never impresses anyone so gun advocates go for stories.
[1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=10129
I'm really curious about how this is meant to work in large cities, where there are often lots of people living in a small amount of space, with very flimsy walls between them and so on.
Surely firing a gun in such an environment is likely to cause yet more harm (with bullets flying through windows/walls), even if you do manage to hit the intruder?
Would a taser be a safer-yet-effective option when living in such an apartment?
Regardless, before I would ever keep a gun for personal protection[2], I would make sure I have enough experience shooting it and hitting my target that my likelihood of missing at short range is exceedingly low. Stress and all that will impact your abilities, of course, but enough training can significantly reduce that risk.
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glaser_Safety_Slug
2. I love shooting and have a couple, small caliber rifles locked up in the basement, but I don't currently own a gun for "personal protection".
It's something I really struggle to work out, to he honest.
However, if intruders know that people won't fire guns, surely we remove the whole point of having them?
Of course, the flip side of this is "If you're horribly depressed in your house, which would you rather have, a handgun or a telephone."
Same thing for "If your teenage son's irresponsible friends are in your house..."
Not much a flip side. Unless you happen to think that suicides by other means are somehow better.
>> The evidence, however, indicates that denying one particular means to people who are motivated to commit suicide by social, economic, cultural, or other circumstances simply pushes them to some other means.[1]
[1] Same PDF as in the next comment http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_Kate...
Is the ability to kill necessary?
In discussions, 45ACP is thus favored for 'stopping power' versus the smaller 9mm. The gun-enthusiast response to the penetration concern is either to ignore it and emphasize aim & intelligent planning, or to create expensive 45ACP 'frangible rounds' that shatter into a granular powder on impact. There also exist somewhat anomalous theories about buckshot/birdshot being safer.
The most common guns, though, are lightweight, low-recoil 22LR-caliber pistols that lower the kill probability significantly over any of the more serious pistol rounds.
One can certainly create less-lethal loadings, either with traditional lead or something else like rocksalt shotshells, but things that can penetrate a chest cavity tend to be able to penetrate drywall.
I'd just go with a Taser and pepper spray if I was concerned about the small chance that penetrative shrapnel ends up energetic enough to hurt a loved one.
If we're putting as much money and effort into automobile safety as society wants/will allow, there's no 'loss' in taking additional funds to tackle the next problem down the line. And so on.
http://visually.visually.netdna-cdn.com/NuclearWeapons_4fa46...
We can't work on anything until we eradicate bad! $foo is so much less important than bad!
/s