[extropy-chat] Guns

[Greg Burch]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike Lorrey
> Sent: Sunday, November 30, 2003 6:25 PM
> 
> --- Damien Broderick <thespike at earthlink.net> wrote:
> > 
> > As I pointed out last time this comical factoid came around, the
> > figures in question were as follows:
> > 
> > http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/australiaguns.html
> > 
> > Victoria (population circa 5 million) recorded 7 firearm-related
> > homicides in 1996, and 19 firearm-related homicides in 1997. That
> > number has now fallen.
> > 
> > 1996 - 7
> > 1997 - 19 (171.4% increase from 1996 to 1997)
> > 1998 - 17 (10.5% decrease from 1997 to 1998).
> > 1999 - 14 (17.6% decrease from 1998 to 1999).
> > 
> > =============
> > 
> > Why keep citing this preposterous silliness, Mike?
> 
> Lets see, you say a doubling of murders in a three year time span is a
> decrease???? Did you write copy for the Clinton White House? This is
> the ultimate in Orwellian spin doctoring...

For crying out loud, Mike, that's *NOT* what Damien is saying.  He's saying the numbers are so small in absolute terms that expressing increases in terms of percentages from one year to the next is meaningless.  If you must apply a percentage to these statistics, it would seem to be more meaningful to express them in terms of the percentage of the population killed by firearms:

1996: 0.00014%
1997: 0.00038%
1998: 0.00034%
1999: 0.00028%

All of which is statistically almost meaningless -- the numbers are just too small.

GB
http://www.gregburch.net/burchismo.html