Tim's Bits and Pieces: Self-Defense

I Like Guns

TimP — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 23:03:54 +0200

I Like Guns by Steve Lee (an Australian singer)

Gun Control = Thunderdome

TimP — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 23:03:57 +0200

Marko Kloos is so very good at expressing why gun control sucks, so rather than explain it myself I'll just link to him.

Meditations on Violence

TimP — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 23:03:54 +0200

Meditations on Violence by Rory Miller is a great book. Rather than discussing specific techniques, Miller discusses the intellectual and emotional components of violent encounters. He has spent over a decade working in prisons, so he certainly has extensive experience in the area of violence having been in hundreds of violent encounters with some of the worst criminals on the planet.

And neither is it a dry, boring read; I read most of it in a single sitting, and only stopped because I needed to get up early the next morning. Useful and entertaining; I strongly recommend it. The only downside is that every now and again I read a paragraph and just sat there wondering what he was trying to say, but I have the same problem with my own writing sometimes so I won't hold it against him. :-)

PS. Miller also has an interesting blog.

Interesting Links

TimP — Wed, 27 May 2009 23:03:54 +0200

Since I haven't posted for a while, I thought I'd share a couple of interesting posts from other blogs that are well worth a read:

ClubOrlov: Social Collapse Best Practices, with some interesting tips on how to prepare for the coming economic collapse. *

The Smallest Minority: Cultures: Compare and Contrast, a useful article which includes an overview of various studies on the effectiveness of gun control.

* Economic collapse subject to cancellation without notice.

Deaths by Firearms in comparison to Deaths by Motor Vehicles

TimP — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 23:03:53 +0200

A comparison of deaths caused by firearms to deaths caused by cars and motorbikes in Australia during 2006 (most recent year available). All tables including ICD codes for cause of death.

This first table provides a number that is deliberately way too high. Essentially I made three assumptions (all wrong) that raised the numbers as high as I could without producing numbers that are blatantly fraudulent. (Incredibly stupid, but not fraudulent) These three assumptions are:

That all homicides with firearms are committed with legally licensed firearms. Actual numbers are around 10%, though of course some percentage of the none licensed firearms would have originally been stolen.
That everyone that commits suicide with a firearm would, if they didn't have access to a firearm, simple give up on the idea of suicide. Given that the majority of people who commit suicide just want to die, and aren't overly concerned with the method, this is simply retarded.
This table also radically exaggerates the number of accidental deaths caused by firearms, because the statistics I used did not specifically list accidental deaths by firearms, but instead grouped them together with several other types of accidental deaths. Historical data suggests that actual numbers where probably around a sixth of the value show here.

Result: 13.28 firearm deaths per 100,000 registered firearms. This number is well and truly excessive, but is listed here for comparison purposes.

Firearm Deaths in Australia 2006, with ICD codes Version 1
Assault			Suicide			Accidental	Total
X94	X95	X93 or Not Recorded¹	X73	X74	X72 Est²	W20-W49 minus W26 ³
11	10	20	125	20	22	124	332
Number of Legally owned firearms ⁴					Firearm Deaths per 100,000 firearms
2,500,000					13.28
Notes
1.	"X93 or Not Recorded" is included because my primary resource for this table did not include all homicides, and also didn't specifically state the number of homicides for pistols. The Australian Institute of Criminology's data put firearms homicides is approximately 40.
2.	My primary source again did not include the values for pistol deaths. I estimated this at 22 based on the assumption that they would not have made the total firearm suicide rate higher than for 2004 which had a noticeably higher overall suicide rate: 2,098 vs. 1,799.
3.	My primary source listed all accidental deaths caused by "Exposure to inanimate mechanical forces (W20-W49)" as a single category with only one sub-category: "Contact with knife, sword or dagger (W26)".
4.	This approximate figure is taken from The Australian Parliamentary Library's Firearms in Australia: a guide to electronic resources

The numbers provided in this second table are possibly low. It corrects the three broken assumptions from the first table, but it may perhaps have gone to far the other way. Firstly I don't take into account murders committed with stolen firearms, and secondly I assume here that all suicides committed with firearms would still be successful by other means.

Result: 1.16 firearm deaths per 100,000 registered firearms. While a reasoned argument could be made for the results in this table, I will, for the sake of argument, assume that this value is too low.

Firearm Deaths in Australia 2006, with ICD codes Version 2
Assault			Suicide			Accidental	Total
X94	X95	X93 or Not Recorded	X73	X74	X72 Est	W20-W49 minus W26
1.1	1	2	0	0	0	25	29.1
Number of Legally owned firearms					Firearm Deaths per 100,000 firearms
2,500,000					1.16

The numbers in this third table correct the faults listed for the second table, by assuming that 75% of all murders are committed with either a legally licensed firearm or a stolen firearm, and that 20% of people who commit suicide with a firearm would simply give up or fail if they didn't have access to a firearm.

Result: 3.57 firearm deaths per 100,000 registered firearms. I tend to think this is a little higher than the actual numbers, but we'll pretend it's accurate for the comparison with motor vehicles.

Firearm Deaths in Australia 2006, with ICD codes Version 3
Assault			Suicide			Accidental	Total
X94	X95	X93 or Not Recorded	X73	X74	X72 Est	W20-W49 minus W26
8.25	7.5	15	25	4	4.4	25	89.15
Number of Legally owned firearms					Firearm Deaths per 100,000 firearms
2,500,000					3.57

Here we show deaths by motor vehicle. There's really not much to say about this one except the results: 10.64 motor vehicle deaths per 100,000 registered motor vehicles, and 23.45 motorbike deaths per 100,000 registered motorbikes.

Motor vehicle Deaths in Australia 2006, with ICD codes
Pedestrians	Motorcyclists	Occupant of Car	Occupant of Pickup or Van	Total
V03	V23	V40-V49	V50-V59
168	87	811	48	1114
Number of registered motor vehicles	Deaths per 100,000
Cars	Motorbikes	Total	Cars & Motorbikes	Motorbikes Only
10,101,441	370,982	10,472,423	10.64	23.45

The results are in. Motorbikes and cars combined are nearly three times as dangerous firearms (as measured by deaths per 100,000 register vehicles/firearms). While motorbikes alone are over six times as likely to kill someone as firearms. So the next time someone suggests banning firearms, ask them what they think about banning motorbikes.

Kiwi Shop Owners want guns

TimP — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 23:03:54 +0200

Good on them. And, John Albertson, mate, while it does assure that all robberies are going to involve guns, it also ensures that the innocent victims will be at least as well armed as their attackers, which makes it worse for law-abiding citizens how? You do realise that using a position of power to make work conditions more dangerous is at very best negligent? Or perhaps your worried about the violent criminals, I'm no lawyer but I'm pretty sure making a deliberate effort to make the commission of crime easier, would make you an accessory.

LawDog on Self Defence

TimP — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 23:03:54 +0200

I've just started reading LawDog. One of the more interesting reads on his blog is his Meditations on Self Defence, I'm not sure if I entirely agree with it but it is still an interesting take on the issue of self-defence.

Guns

TimP — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 23:03:54 +0200

A couple more interesting links on gun control:

The Munchkin Wrangler: Why the Gun is Civilization, a blogger's argument against gun control

Reason Magazine: Guns Don't Kill People, Gun Control Kills People, an article about gun control in Uganda.

Both links courtesy of Samizdata.net.

A Nation of Cowards

TimP — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 23:03:53 +0200

While Jeffrey R. Snyder's " A Nation of Cowards" may be a bit extreme in some areas, it is well worth a read and careful consideration for it's general applicability to self-defense and not just gun control.

Every Man Should Have A Rifle

TimP — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 23:03:53 +0200

So I sit and write and ponder, while the house is deaf and dumb,
 Seeing visions "over yonder" of the war I know must come.
 In the corner - not a vision - but a sign for coming days
 Stand a box of ammunition and a rifle in green baize.
 And in this, the living present, let the word go through the land,
 Every tradesman, clerk and peasant should have these two things at hand.
 
 No - no ranting song is needed, and no meeting, flag or fuss -
 In the future, still unheeded, shall the spirit come to us!
 Without feathers, drum or riot on the day that is to be,
 We shall march down, very quiet, to our stations by the sea.
 While the bitter parties stifle every voice that warns of war,
 Every man should own a rifle and have cartridges in store!

Every Man Should Have A Rifle by Henry Lawson.