LOL, this link supports your claim about gun ownership rate vs. homicide rate.

http://www.objectobot.com/?p=476

The article finishes with "In other news scientists can’t figure out how Canadians watch movies and play videos games, and manage not to shoot each other.."

From the perspective of a Canadian, I just see no reason why handguns should be legal here. Homicide rates are really low here compared to the USA. Manhattan has an average of about 2,000 homicides annually for a population of 8 million people. Toronto's average, our closest city to New York both geographically and by population, is about 50-100 homicides for a population of 6 million. Windsor and Detroit are across Lake Erie from each other, clearly visible from the other, and yet Windors Homicide rate is less then 10% of Detroits per capita.

So In Canada, we don't need handguns for protection. I believe it's a negative thing to be able to own a handgun here because the vast majority of people here don't, and you would likely be the instigator to a Firefight if you had one, probably resulting in more deaths then less by owning one.

I guess in USA it's just different. So many people own guns there, that it's become the normal to see a gun in the house. Here, it's just unheard of (except for hunting, aka Rifles). There are 88 guns per 100 people in the USA, and that's just scary. Personally I think you guys are far too desensitized to this stuff.

A) No i did two actually, I put it there in an edit.   What you were talking about is an ancedote.  A common saying here is "Data is not the plural of anecdote."   That said anecdotally there are tons of places where people leave their doors unlocked.  Generally they are small towns where gun ownership is very high.  Why?   Everybody knows and trusts each other.

B) The primary killing tool in America is actually a car... I think anyway.  I seem to recall something passing it recently. (not guns though)

I don't actually see your correlation here.  What do student shootings, often with rifles or shotguns, have to do with highschool shootings.... espiecally when you consider the fact that students legally can't own these guns?  

Additionally, one factor your overlooking is population...

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/reply.php?id=152358&quote=5008029

Me : "Some of those questions are just terrible though.

Wealth should be redistributed from the wealthy to the poor? Hell no, the poor need to work for their $$$. However people with more $$$ should be responsible to pay more for road repair, free public health care, and rehabilitation institutions. It's not redistribution since the money doesn't go to the poor, but the rich should be responsible for more since they can provide more."

A) From my experience traveling the USA, that's not true. It's actually these small towns with 8 American Flags on each house and high gun ownership populations I found that most people have an unwelcoming personality, and locked doors. Suburbs, like those on Long Island were more likely to have door unlocked, but this is just my experience.

In Canada, large city or small, people still leave their doors unlocked. If anything, large cities have more unlocked doors since you're always so close to home.

But your right, anecdotes =/= Data. I was just making a correlation.

B) Are Cars used in homicides or accidental deaths? Regardless Handguns are up there, not Rifles, not shotguns. Control the guns more likely to be apart of violent crimes, that's all I'm saying.

My point is stonger gun control = lower homicide rates. If these kids didn't have guns there would be no school shootings, or at least not by students.


Your point on population, am I ignoring it? Manhattans Population is only 30% larger then Toronto's, yet the Homicide rate is about 2,500%-3,000% Greater. I mentioned Korea and Japan as places with the lowest homicide rates in the world, and guess what? Tokyo is the largest city in the world with 18 million people, and Soel is up there too with I believe 16 million. That's 225% and 200% the population of Manhattan respectively and the homicide rate is lower. Don't argue population density either cause Tokyo has one of the highest Population Densities there, and Toronto is more Dense then a lot of major US cities. In fact Toronto is the 5th largest city in North America, so :P

That's simply untrue.

Statistical significance means that the probabilty of obtaining the sample data is below the alpha-level (α=.05 usually, depends on how often you want to reject the null hypothesis) Also, even if there was a perfect y=x correlation between gun ownership and decrease in violence, that in no way would prove (as you put it) that gun ownership decreases violence. There's simply too many factors that could be attributed. It's like the case where ice cream sales  correlated nearly perfectly with drownings. The reason? People swim more in the same season they buy ice cream in: Summer.

Also the graph that you initially posted had just as pitiful of an r-value as the one Michael-5 posted, however you only saw fit to bring it to attention when the data did not support your claim.

That's exactly what I said with more words.  Additionally I'm not argueing that more guns = less crime.   I'm argueing there is no correlation... at best their is a slight counter correlation to the opposite.

You keep jumping topics.

Mass shootings, like those in columbine and general homicides have very different factors.

Mass shootings as best as anyone can tell are largely due to mental illness. (very few people like this are caught alive so research is somewhat untested)   Hence population would matter.

Homicides, generally are a combination of "Honor" culuture,  individualism, poverty, crime, mental issues and a number of other factors.  Hence population wold be a very small factor.

-_-

You peppered your sentences with condescension because Michael-5 was incorrect as to what statistical significance is, when you only cement my initial claim that you don't understand it either by making up terms such as "counter correlation".

sorry if I seem anal about this, I'm a statistician for the US gov't, and it really irks me when people get this shit wrong

Wow, that first quiz was biased. It seems to be written by someone with an enormous vendetta against affirmative action. And I say this as somebody who detests affirmative action.

I don't think anyone has ever proposed changing your tax rate based on race.

Anyway, it gave me 82% Republican, 30% Democrat. The other was 86% Republican, 60% Democrat. I don't see where this is coming from because I am not socially conservative in the least and because it has been a fair while since the Republicans supported free markets.

cby ounter correlation i mean negative correlation.  Trying to put it into terms that he can understand.  Since he geniunely seems to be interested.   Like when people say "Reverse Racism" even though there is no such thing as "Reverse Racism" 

There generally tends to be a negative correlation.  Which is likely... completely unrelated.

As for there being no statistical significance... Look at the last link he posted.

What's the point of talking about Alpha when nobody knows what Alpha is?  (Note for others... see Correlation Coefficent) 

In general, you can often eyeball a linear regression trend line and know when it's not significant.  Unless someone built their graph in a stupid way stretching out either the X or Y.