Gun Ownership Myths

Many recent conversations on gun control have sparked my need to look it all up. Since most people I speak with are pro-guns I thought I'd collect some data and post it here.

Where do you stand on Gun Control?

To be clear: I like the idea of having the right to own a gun. I just don't want one anywhere near my family or home.

So, you're for and against gun control?

It seems a bit contradictory, but this isn't a simple subject and the people generating the discussion are not helping. Examples include the NRA trying to stop government funding for safety research or Congress creating laws that do not allow the public to see Gun Store compliance records. Here is a list of pro-gun arguments that I think need some looking at:

1. Owning a gun makes you safer.

If you own a gun you have a higher risk of accidental death, suicide and homicide from a gun. In 2011, you were ten times as likely to be shot & killed in an argument than to stop a crime. In fact, for every time someone uses a gun in self- defence seven times as many die from assaults & murders, eleven times as many die from suicide attempts, and 4 times as many die in gun related accidents. Most of which happen near the home.

Of households with kids and guns 43% have at least one unlocked firearm. When testing kids, one third of 8-12 year-old boys who found a handgun also pulled the trigger. In Philadelphia you are 4.5 times more likely to be shot if you carry a gun and your odds of dying are 4.2 times greater. In states with higher gun ownership we have higher homicide rates (see graph above).

Even for women, having a gun in the home make you nearly 6 times more likely to be shot by a husband, boyfriend, and ex-partner than to be murdered by a male stranger. If you're in an abusive relationship you are 7 times more likely to be killed if he has access to a gun. In states with higher gun ownership rates, women were 4.9 times more likely to be murdered by a gun than in states with lower gun ownership.

2. An armed society is a polite society.

This is simply not true. If anything it fuels aggression. Armed drivers are more likely to make obscene gestres and follow other drivers aggressively. Stand your ground laws have led to a 7-10% increase in homicides in the states that have them. Even concealed-handgun licenses make people more likely to threaten other people.

3. Guns don't kill people, people kill people.

This one's my favorite because it assumes that without guns the same number of people would die each year. Guns do have an effect on homicide rates. For example states with the highest percentage of gun owners have a 114% higher murder rate than the states witht the lowest percentages of gun owners. States with gun restrictions tend to have lower rates of death by guns.

4. The Government Is Going to Take Your Guns

The thought here is that the Government is somehow going to pass a law that requires you to turn in your guns. Not only is this unlikely, it is also unconstitutional. We have no idea how many guns there are in the US, but there are approximately 260 million guns here, most of which are owned by private citizens which will outgun all enforcement agencies 40 to 1.

5. We don't need more gun laws we just need to enforce the ones we have.

2 out of 5 guns were purchased through a private seller which does not require a background check. 40% of inmates that used guns in their crimes purchassed them privately. 62% of online gun sellers were willing to sell to buyers who said they couldn't pass a background check. Undercover researchers were able to convince 20% of licensed California gun dealers to sell them handguns. All evidence that our existing laws are unable to properly deter mis-sale of firearms.

Ban Guns?

Heavens no. We just need to figure out a better way to get things done. I'm not sure what that is yet and you can bet I'll make a post about it when I do. Till then, think for yourselves. If you don't want the risks, don't buy the guns or at the very least: make sure the guns you have are hard for even you to get to.

Be safe.

Homeopathic Remedies & Homeopathy

You have heard these words spoken from time to time, usually to help shore up the validity of some product. "My Naturolpathic Doctor recommends homeopathic remedies." "My kid's teacher suggests Airborne^®, it's homeopathic." They have an interesting meaning and I think everyone should know.

What is homeopathy?

Good question, it was created by Samuel Hahneman in 1796. It was during a time when bloodletting and purging were still being practiced. With all this bleeding, sweating & vomiting going on there had to be a better way.

Was it homeopathy?

For a time, yes. We should get more into the explanation of what it is. There are four parts to homeopathy: the preparation, miasms, dilution & the proofing.

Well, if they proved it...

That's not what the proofing means. They would test all kinds of things on healthy people and record what symptoms they developed from these substances. So if Ludicillin turned you green and broke wind often they would wright that down and that is a proofing of that substance.

Miasms

So once we know what causes a set of symptoms we know that the substance resonates with those symptoms. What this means is that if someone walks in with green skin the doctor should ask "Do you fart a lot." If the patient asks yes then you should give them Ludicillin (you know, the thing that causes those symptoms).

Surely you don't give them the cause.

Well, actually you don't. One of the things homeopathy was trying to fix was doctors giving poisonous agents to their patients to hopefully cure them. So good ol Hahneman said the medicine should be diluted. And he said the more diluted the medicine was the more effective it would be.

Really?

Well the patients didn't need to know how it worked, just if they got better or not and since it was much more effective than poison, vomiting & bloodletting, people thought it was a good idea.

How dilute?

If you take a gallon of the Ludicillin and put it into 9 gallons of water you get what is called a 1 solution. If you put 1 gallon of the 1 solution solution into 9 gallons of water you get a 2 solution. 1 gallon of 2 solution in 9 gallons of water, 3 solution, etc. So a 1 solution is 10 gallons, 2 solution 100, 3 solution 1,000, etc.

What kind of dilution are we talking about?

For homeopathy, they want 28 solutions and 30 solutions. I've even heard of a 32 solution. So, for a 30 Solution you would have 1 gallon of the Ludicillin in 999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999 gallons of water.

That's a lot of water.

You probably need an image of how big that is. A 30 solution would make a sphere with a radius of 966,811km (1,611,351 miles). That's a ball of water 70% the size of the Sun or 2.5 times the distance to the Moon. Now imagine dumping 1 gallon of your medicine into the ball, shaking it up, and pulling a cup of that out. How much of the medicine do you think would be in that cup? Avogadro put a limit on that.

Avogadro's Limit?

Yes, if you take a 1 part of a 23 Solution there is a 50% chance there will be 1 molecule of the substance in it. So a 30 Solution has 1 chance in 20,000,000 to have 1 molecule in it.

Is homeopathy a sham?

In not so many words, yes. It's fine when people are trying to fix a runny nose or a headache. The placebo effect should help them. It becomes a problem when they claim to fix more serious issues. Homeopathic remedies will never fix any ailment.

Be healthy.

It's the end...again!

Here we go again. Another person has figured out when the end of the world is. I don't believe him, nor have I believed any of these other folks that sell destruction. Let us take a moment to ponder the reasons they say the world will end on x:

• The bible tells me so - There have been many to predict the end of the world. For example:
  • Charles Taze Russel predicted it would be in 1874 then successively in 1878, 1914, 1915, 1918 & 1925. In the end he said 1874 did happen, but it was symbolic.
  • Jim Jones predicted November 18, 1978. Unfortunately he committed suicide with 900 of his followers so he never found out he was wrong.
  • Michael Drosnin predicted December 2, 2006 using computers to read the "Bible Code."
  The funny thing about searching the Bible to prove when the world will end or the Second Coming of Christ is it says you can't: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only." MAT 24:36 So the book they are looking to as an authority explicitly says that it can't help them.
• The [insert ancient culture] Knew - The most popular prediction these days is from the Mayan Calendar. People say the Calendar ends in 2012. They are correct: the Mayans made a Calendar and in the interest of planning ahead made future calendar dates extending to 2012. This wasn't because they said the world would end, they just didn't make more Calendar. Most Calendar companies have not printed 2013 yet, does that mean the world will end? No, someone will print them when we get sufficiently close just like the Mayans would have if their civilization continued long enough.
• Some Wise Man Said So - See the first entry. These are the same type of crazy folk, they just used other sources to come up with their faulty data:
  • Rabbi Sabbati Zevi predicted 1648AD & 1666AD. He later went crazy and joined Islam.
  • Nostradamus predicted July 1999 stating "The year 1999, seven months, From the sky will come a great King of Terror: To bring back to life the great King of the Mongols, Before and after Mars to reign by good luck."
  • Johannes Stöffler predicted February 1, 1524. He noticed that all the planets were going to line up and thought this would cause mass flooding.

So, we're still here and Harold Camping says that May 21^st, 2011 the rapture will happen. My first question is: What is the Rapture? I know what people say it is. It's been explained to me over and over. The reason I ask is that no one can tell me where they get this little doctrine from. Not ministers, not the internet, not even crazy fundies can tell me. They often refer to 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, but this doesn't give any clear information about a doctrine and requires a lot of wild interpretation to generate the entire doctrine of the rapture.

The Rapture, as I have heard, is when all the believers are taken to heaven right before God/Christ comes to destroy the surface of the Earth. You would think that something this important would have more than a few vague verses. Nope. They're nowhere to be found. According to the Bible there is nothing even resembling a rapture. So not only is Mr. Camping predicting something his source says he cant, he's predicting an event his source doesn't say will happen.

Be thorough.

Vaccinating Against Ignorance

One of Lisa's friends recently posted a video advocating a new cure for Autism:

So the basic gist is a couple really wanted a baby. They got a healthy baby. The doctor gave the baby evil vaccines that caused autism. The mother did research and found a homeopathic doctor. He cured the baby. He is now asking for your donations to help spread the word.

Clear Enough

I have a few problems with this video. The first being how parents stated in the video that they didn't see any symptoms until 2 months after the vaccinations. It takes less than two weeks for a vaccination to clear a person's system. If there was any damage to be done, it would have happened in those two weeks and would have shown up in that time. Even stretching out the time scale to a month still leaves another month without symptoms. My guess is that the child was going to develop autism with or without the vaccines.

But the studies...

You are right. There have been studies that say they show a correlation, but none have provided solid evidence (Weak Study Example, Article on MMR & the CDC). I do understand how someone could come to this conclusion. Statistics show as number of vaccines have increased the number of autism cases have increased. Also children receive a lot of vaccinations before the age of 5. Nearly all autism cases are diagnosed before age 5 and probably within a few months of a vaccination shot. So it is easy to see how a logical causation theory might evolve. However, the number of wireless devices, tickle me Elmos and complaints about Corporate America have increased during that same time. Children also go to McDonald's, grandparent's houses and have their diapers changed around the time of vaccines. Who's to say none of these are the cause?

OK, what else?

Glad you asked (I might've gone on ranting about the vaccines cause autism thing, I mean don't get me started on Jenny McCarthy. My friend Matt ranted about the vaccines are bad thing, I'm ranting, anyways). She found a book on Homeopathy and thought it looked promising. Really? Is this the same Homeopathy I've heard about? Here's a very good explanation of what Homeopathy is:

I can boil the whole industry down to one word "placebo." Placebos only work when the person they are given to thinks that they should work. Five year olds are not aware of psychological disorders, let alone having one. Also if it is in fact autism then the problem is caused a chemical imbalance or a genetic disorder. Either way it slows the development of certain parts of the brain causing a problem that cannot be fixed by a diluted solution or any other medication. That would be like trying to fix someone cut off at the knees with a pill. Unless you have a leg growing pill, that would be handy.

So, it worked.

Did it? Or did it work like a placebo on the parents? The child improved (which is totally awesome). I don't think it was the Homeopathic Acupuncturist (which is, by the way, not a doctor). If you take the Homeopathic remedy for a headache and you get better it doesn't mean it was the "Headache Medicine." On the box of homeo-aspirin it says it might take up to 12 hours to take effect. The average headache is gone within 12 hours.

But, the Testimonials.

They're just that, testimonials. I can say anything I want about a product. I can even create circumstances where people will believe and repeat what I say about the product. It does not, however change the fact that it is wrong and does not work. Learn for yourself if the information is true. An informed person is a safe person. Unless you've intercepted top secret Mafia/FBI/KGB/LDS/CIA/MSN/TLA papers, then you're in big trouble.

Be sensible.

Skeptical Inquirer

I've got a new blog. One that I'll actually update once in a while. I guess my purpose here needs to be defined. Why am I here...at blogspot and such?

Well, being a Mormon Skeptic does not mean I'm against the LDS church. Quite the opposite really. I just apply good old fashioned Skepticism to examine the world around me. I also want to show that just because you want to use the rules of skepticism does not mean you have to be atheist (even though it often leads there). It means that I am willing to take a second look at things and change my views when I'm wrong.

Be good.