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Decius comments on Female Test Subject - Convince Me To Get Cryo - Less Wrong
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It's not quite information-theoretical, but does a snub nose .357 count? I carry because statistically the safest thing to do as the attempted victim of a violent crime is to resist using a firearm.
[EDITED to add: oops, I completely misinterpreted what Decius wrote. What follows is therefore approximately 100% irrelevant. I'll leave it there, though, because I don't believe in trying to erase one's errors from history :-). Also: I fixed a small typo.]
Assuming this isn't a statistical joke like the one about always taking a bomb with you when you fly (because it's very unlikely that there'll be two bombs on a single plane) ... do you have reason to think that having-but-deliberately-not-using the firearm actually causes this alleged improved safety?
It seems like there are some very obvious ways in in which that association could exist without the causal link -- e.g., people are more likely to be able to resist when the danger is less, people who are concerned enough about their safety to carry for that reason but sensible enough not to shoot are also more likely to take other measures that improve their safety, etc.
Who said anything about not using? I have never seen statistics regarding outcomes of victims of violent crime having a firearm but never drawing it.
There could be other confounding factors as well, like underreporting by people who are mugged, cooperate, and experience no injury; or a tendency among people who carry legally to know how to use their weapons better than criminals and typical people; or difficulty determining whether a dead victim resisted or not. But the statistics aren't even remotely vague: Among reported victims of violent crime, a larger percentage of those who cooperated with the criminal died than those who resisted the crime using a firearm.
Not that something already known would be able to prevent a post-singularity hostile AI from accomplishing the goals it has, much less a firearm that has about as long an effective range when fired as when performing a lunging swing.
D'oh. I completely misinterpreted what you wrote: "to resist-using a firearm", rather than "to resist, using a firearm".
Sorry- my original phrasing is ambiguous to someone who doesn't already know what I'm saying.
Interesting. Do you have a source on that?
Kleck G. Point Blank --- Guns and Violence in America. New York, NY, Aldine De Gruyter, 1991.
Tangent: Do you have a link to a study that backs this up? I'm very interested in it. EDIT: Arg, serves me right for not reading more downthread.