-_-

The point of talking about alpha-levels is because essencially, they are what statistical significance is. You seem to be confusing correlation coefficient with alpha-levels, an alpha level tells you how likely it will be to reject the null hypothesis, and the correlation coefficient (r-value) shows the level of correlation as well as the nature of correlation (positive vs. negative)

First of all, You can get low calibur rifles, and rifles of the same calibur as a pistle have much less recoil then a pistol. You can also get light weight rifles, so your arguement doesn't hold.

Second, a rifle is not the only method of defence for the old and weak, taser guns are just as effective, lighter, non lethal, and have less recoil.

Also, your last sentence agrees with me. If gun control is reasonale and effective (Ban handguns, guns most often used to kill, not all guns) then this is reasonable and effective.

Finally, damn you guys need to teach each other morals. It's not okay to hurt or steal. Old people shouldn't have to carry a gun around for "protection." That's just sad if you ask me. Pennsylvania is just across Lake Erie from us, why are homicide rates so high?

A. I argue band hand guns, not all guns. If you're going to compare this to alcohol, my suggested method of gun control already applies to alcohol. I argue to ban the most dangerous guns, guess what type of alcohol is banned in the USA and Canada? Anything above 40%, stronger alcohol, alcohol which serves no purpose like handguns, and is only detrimental to society.

B. Prohibition is for alcohol, alcohol clearly has a use. Many countries band guns and have completly healthy economies (Japan and Korea), many others heavily restrict them (Singapore, Mongolia and much of Eastern Europe) and again perfectly reasonable economies. I'm not aware of any developed country which bans alcohol and is doing well.

What's your point in your last sentence, what do you expect society to do to prevent criminals from becoming criminals? I agree here, but you shouldn't put the onus on either party, government and society should be resposible for creating organizations which teach people good morals

A. You're wrong. 95.6% is the highest alcohol content legal in liquor in the USA under federal law the highest being Everclear, which is banned in some states, but not under Federal Law. 

B. Hand guns do have a use, self protection...which is a legal right in this country. 

C. How are handguns more dangerous than assult rifles? I'd argue that both are equally dangerous in the wrong hands. After all, assult rifles were used in the Columbine shooting. If you're going for the concealment factor, Rifles are harder to conceal, but not impossible by any stretch of the imagination. Live in the deep south for 14 years and you learn a thing or to about how to handle and properly conceal weapons.

D. Respsonible gun owners are not detrimental to society. I own two. To this day I've never had to shoot anyone or even threaten anyone with a gun.

E. Prohibiting guns, all or in part, would largely have the same consequences as alcohol prohibition in the states. You don't give society a freedom and then take it away, then expect there not to be public outcry, especially when that largely removes ones freedom to protect oneself. As for your argument against gun ownership in Asia, China is restricted to Military and Law Enforcement. Japan is Rifles only for hunting and heavy permitting is required. In Korea it is flat out illegal for civilians to own guns. Those societies have always been heavily regulated and they do not have a tradition of gun personal gun ownership. What this should tell us is that this has never been a demand of the citzens and therefore has always been a non-issue. In America on the other hand, we've always had this tradtion of personal gun ownership, trying to take that away, once again creates a need for private illegal markets, where  far worse people would maintain possession and sale and we would therefore would increase crime, hence the prohibition comparison.

F. Clairifying my last sentence. I am rerfering to American culture as being the source that produces criminals. For example, poor people tend to fight over resouces espeically income producing ones, which is why poorer neighborhoods tend to have organized gangs that deal weapons and drugs and will commonly fight for territory in order to improve buisness for themselves. Another example would be the bullying that goes on in primarily middle class societies. This one is slightly more complicated, not only because of the causes for the violence, but also the violence itself varies. There are many studies that exist that bring many possible and not necessarily mutually exclusive reasons for such behavior. 

Essentially your proposal only addresses a symptom and does so poorly...The cause for the violent mis-use of weapons exists in the injustices produced by our society not our laws or rights.

You judge the correlation coefficent with the alpha....

I hate to go all wikipedia on you... which is weird that I'd have too since your a government stats guy but....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance

The significance level is usually denoted by the Greek symbol α (lowercase alpha). Popular levels of significance are 10% (0.1), 5% (0.05), 1% (0.01), 0.5% (0.005), and 0.1% (0.001). If a test of significance gives a p-value lower than the significance level α, the null hypothesis is rejected. Such results are informally referred to as 'statistically significant'. For example, if someone argues that "there's only one chance in a thousand this could have happened by coincidence", a 0.001 level of statistical significance is being implied. The lower the significance level chosen, the stronger the evidence required. The choice of significance level is somewhat arbitrary, but for many applications, a level of 5% is chosen by convention.^[3][4]

If a correlation isn't strong enough, it can't pass the Alpha... because it's not strong enough to not be random chance.

Well again, statistically a couple dozen isn't really enough to draw conclusions statistically.  If 24 happened in the US, that means you'd expect a whole 2 to happen in Canada at that time period.   3 happens suddenly it's waaay to any.   1 and suddenly it's way to less.

Outide which, there was a School shooting right Columbine in 1999 if your talking just kids.  If your talking other mass murders, there  is the Dawson College one and a few others.

Teaching morals and to respect others is unlikely to stop mass shootings as mass shootings stem more often then not from people with psycopathic brain patterns.  Though this has been hard to completely confirm because so many of these people kill themselves.

I'm honestly not sure if you're just trolling right now. The correlation coefficient isn't mentioned once in the quoted entry. R values are for graphs, alpha values are for inference tests. Alpha levels don't have to be for data that is graphed. I know i shouldn't keep responding, it appears the more wrong you are the more you will reply, but misuse of statistics and condescension are two vehicles for argument i greatly dislike, and you employed them both

A. In Canada it's 40%, I assumed it was the same in the USA. My bad, but hey, this is probably a big reason why the US homicide rate is that much higher in the USA then Canada.

B. Hand guns have a use for self protection? Against what other hand gun users? You can fit a Rifle in a car NP, and a Rifle is more intimidating for defence in the home.

C. Where do I argue hand guns being more dangerous then assault rifles? I correlated them because hand guns are the next one down due to their small size and conceilability. Yes Rifles are concealable, but it's more difficult to have one hidden and available for immediate use, and it's much harder to run with one in your pants, or down your back. With that in mind, it's much harder to surprise people, and rob a store, or shoot someone.

D. Gun owners in Toronto would be detrimental to society since very few people carry a weapon. I don't even think it's legal here, and I've never seen someone other then a cop carry a gun before, at least in Canada. In the states it's probably different because people are so desensitized to guns, but low crime rates due to intimidation over preventive means is not the way to go IMO.

E. No it won't, Alcohol is heavily prohibited here, we went through the same prohibition you did (except it was much shorter here), and were fine. The second amendment is so old, the fact that people hide behind that still is amazing. Yes you have the freedom to carry a gun, but others should be free to roam town without the fear of being shot. In the states people of minorities and gays are heavily oppressed, I'm sure many of them don't feel comfortable with groups of white people carrying handguns, loaded.

However I agree about taking guns away, a lot of people, people like you and others from the south, would heavily oppose it. I severly doubt you'll see people shooting each other to import illegal hand guns, but people won't accept it. This is why it's important to teach people that it's immoral to kill, so that over time people won't see a need for it. I mean people don't carry guns here for a reason in Canada, we don't need one for "protection."

F. I agree, but having hand guns readily available for people such as these is definatly not a smart idea. Could you imagine a gang war turf with rifles and knives? First of all, gangstas would have to disguard their weapons in order to run from cops on neighbouring gangs due to their size, and second they would be much easier to identify.

I 100% agree, banning hand guns is not as fundamental of a cause as helping those in poverty and teaching kids good morals from a young age. I would even argue that you guys in the states should teach kids that it's bad to use guns outside of hunting. However I see no positive with keeping handguns legal.

However keep in mind, I'm not from the southern states. I'm from Canada, out homicide rates are significantly lower despite population, geology, population dencity, ethnicity (Toronto is the most multicultural city in North America, with the highest gay population in any city in NA), or anything. Just the idea of needing a gun for "protection" is absurd to me. If your a vulnerable individual and you really want protection, get a taser gun, or mace, it works just as well.

Find me a study which says hand guns work better for self defence for rape victims then mace or taser guns. I garentee you that is not the case in Canada, but it could be in the states.

The idea just seems wack to me.

Maybe, but I was also looking at some of statistics, and I think that graph is a bit biased. First of all, USA doesn't have the highest homicide rate, just the highest among developed countries. Countries in central America like Columbia, or wartorn regions in Africa like Sierra Leone have the highest homicide rate. However they also are the sources of drugs and blood diamonds in the USA. If you made that exact same graph using only developed countries, I bet you there will be a correlation. Not a huge one, people in USA are pretty desensitized to guns, but I bet you it would be significant.

Anyway I follow your logic, If 24 shootings happened in USA about 2.4 should happen in Canada. However 0 have happened. It's not a matter of population, we just don't have messed up kids shooting guns. Even people with psychological issues in Canada, they get identified early, and go to institutions or get treated long before they can snap. Even if they do snap, because of the tests you have to pass to get a gun licence, most of these people probably could never find one. We just don't have shootings because we can manage to keep guns away from people who aren't law abiding. It only takes 1 in 100,000, but you guys seem unable to catch them. How come we can?

I agree banning hand guns doesn't solve this issue, you do need to support individuals with mental illness. 1% of all people are schizophrenic, and you really need to be able to identify these people before their illness matures (Usually between 18-24). That plus reduce poverty, USA's poverty rate is 60% higher then Canada's (15% vs. 9), I'm sure that makes a huge difference. Also drug control, I mean I never even heard of meth until I drove to denver and saw advertizing against it, we just don't have these issues in such extreme quantities in Canada, and I bet they are all reasons why homicide rates are lower here.

BTW You realize there was a shooting in Pennsylvania just a month back at a kindergarden school? 26 dead? Every freaken year you guys have a mass shooting.

To stop these shootings, you do need to teach people morals AND teach teachers how to identify students which might have mental issues. People aren't born schizophrenic, it develops, and it develops in about 1% the general population, regardless of genes. You need institutions to help rehabilitate these people, help them before they break down and question reality.

There are a whole bunch of things you can do. Back to the point at hand, Hand Guns are still pointless, and if you don't have the infrastructure to deal with people like this, I'd rather have stricter gun regulations, like those here or in Japan.

@ second Seriously? In a country with over 300 million guns, many of which are already on the black market and in the event of prohibition will be on the black market, you'll use a taser on a guy? Especially when it has happened that tasers can be non-effective against bigger individuals?

@ "last sentence agrees with me" Prohibition is not reasonable and will LEAD to crime. It happened in the 20's, with alcohol, it is happening now with the "war on drugs" it will happen with guns. 

@ I'm sorry, but if you subtract Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has a homicide rate of 1.8 (half of Toronto's), and a much lower criminalization rate. My county, which is below-income, has a homicide rate of .8 (a fourth of toronto's) albeit a high drug crime rate. Most people own weapons. Please don't talk about what you don't know, and certainly morals aren't being taught in most places of the world, particularly urban areas. Old people should carry guns, because they have been using them since they were five years old. They're comfortable with guns and they know how to use them for self-defense. Guns have saved the lifes of hundreds of elderly and weak in this year alone.