Side bets, anyone?

[one-eyed fat man]

Blogger Stephen Wright offered a wager to Brady Campaign Board Member Joan Peterson on her blog. She disputed his post and tried to refute one of the least arguable points, her claiming that people defending their homes are frequently overpowered and shot with their own guns.

His challenge to her: "I am betting that I can find 10x as many stories of a person defending their home with a gun as she can of someone who tried to defend their home with a gun and ended up being shot with it. And if she takes me up and I do lose, I will gladly pay the $50 to the Brady Campaign."

From Japete:

Here is one that is simply not true about your own guns being used against you in your home: You said: ” This never happens” Check out this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/APa0d3106bbed049bb9ab198ac74fc85a8.html- to whit- ” Authorities say a central New York man suffered a bullet wound to his leg after being shot with his own gun during a struggle with an intruder inside his Finger Lakes home.” This appeared in a Dec. 16th news article.

To Japete:

Thanks for taking the time to read my POV. I’ve seen about two stories like the one you reference, and I will make a challenge to you:

You find stories on people in their home (homeowner/apartment dweller) shot with their own gun that has been wrested away from them when the confronted a burglar (actually shot, whether they die or not) and I’ll find stories of people who have fired guns in defense of their home, striking the assailant if not killing them.

If I cannot find 10 stories of a gun used in self defense by the homeowner for every SINGLE story you find of a homeowner shot with his own gun, I will donate $50 to the Brady Campaign. There is no risk at all to you.

To keep things sane … we both can only look back 2 years, and must be able to present an online news story (not an unverified blog entry) to prove our point.

Do we have a wager? As a note … I track such stories, and I have no problem believing I could match you 50 to 1, but that would be a lot of effort.

Will she take up the gauntlet?

Will she pay up when she loses?

Will he pay if he loses, as he says, "To be honest losing this bet would really rattle my view of the empowerment of gun ownership, but if I’m wrong it would be worth $50 to know it."

I wager she refuses to acknowledge the bet. She does not have enough confidence in her position to test her hypothesis.

[Name removed]

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[virginia mountainman]

2. Talking to the Brady Capighn is...

Like Arguing with a Mule

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh33bGAxl58

[Katya Mullethov]

4. nada

It's what you'll get .


If it is any consolation , there is likely now one more recent convert to the "dont try to scare them by racking the shotgun , just fucking shoot him " school of thought .

[RSillsbee]

5. Aparently I need to restate my opinion

I believe that she will simply act as if the challenge was never issued. I am familiar w/ that debate tactic although I can't say where I've seen it most

[one-eyed fat man]

7. I believe you are on to something!

I thought I might have seen evidence, but I must have been mistaken.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

6. Brady campaign is full of shit and they know it...

Gun control is not about the guns. It's about the control.

[russ1943]

8. Bullshit alert.

I’ll bet that Stephan Wright posted a statement that was false;

“Fact: This never happens. There are numerous verifiable cases of civilians using firearms for effective self defense every day, and virtually none of burglars taking away guns and shooting the homeowner or his family. Just try to find one” On his blog.

He posted the statement that “this (Emotional Rhetoric: People who try to protect their homes with guns will have them taken away and get shot with their own gun…………never happens, Just try to find one”.

Joan Peterson read his blog, saw that statement and posted ; Here is one that is simply not true about your own guns being used against you in your home: You said: ” This never happens” Check out this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/APa0d3106bbed049bb9ab198ac74fc85a8.html- to whit- ” Authorities say a central New York man suffered a bullet wound to his leg after being shot with his own gun during a struggle with an intruder inside his Finger Lakes home.” This appeared in a Dec. 16th news article.

At this point he has stated as fact that something hasn’t ever happened & issued a challenge “Just try to find one” and Joan Peterson responded by accurately quoting him and providing a link to a newspaper article describing an incident where it appears it did indeed happen.

The OP's description of that scenario I would call bullshit, OP posted; Blogger Stephen Wright offered a wager to Brady Campaign Board Member Joan Peterson on her blog. She disputed his post and tried to refute one of the least arguable points, her claiming that people defending their homes are frequently overpowered and shot with their own guns.
Yes she did dispute “his post” but she wasn't trying to refute one of the least arguable points, she didn't claim that people defending their homes are frequently overpowered and shot with their own guns.

To accurately demonstrate with a linked news article the statement that someone who was trying to protect their home with their gun has been shot with their own gun is NOT a claim that people defending their homes are FREQUENTLY shot with their own guns.
This may be easier to understand if I quote a poster on this forum, as Euromutt described “, if someone claims that "all swans are white" or "swans are never black," all it takes is one black swan to prove that person wrong”.
Joan Peterson didn’t do what you describe, she proved him wrong.

[one-eyed fat man]

9. In that regard,

“Fact: This never happens. There are numerous verifiable cases of civilians using firearms for effective self defense every day, and virtually none of burglars taking away guns and shooting the homeowner or his family. Just try to find one”

As it appears he did not clearly qualify the statement by saying it "almost never happens" the "virtually none of the burglars" is weak. I'd have to say your take on it is correct. All it takes is one instance to disprove an absolute.

On the other hand, I'd still be curious to just how the odds stack up. How often do burglars wrest weapons away from householders and shoot them as opposed to burglars who are sent packing or shot by the homeowner.

[russ1943]

10. I hope this is remembered.

Thank you and Merry Christmas to you and yours.

[jazzhound]

16. From "Targeting Guns": (Dr. Gary Kleck)

"Likewise, in a sample of 420 home homicides committed in three large urban counties in 1987-1992, Kellermann et al. (1996) could identify only 21 cases (about one per year per county) of victims killed after trying to use a gun in self-defense, about 1.13% of the homicide total of 1860 for these three counties, or 0.122 per 100,000 population per year." (page 174)

For those who may be unaware, Kellermann is a pro-"control" "researcher". So once again, a pro-"control" proponent is pissing on his own case by demonstrating that defensive gun use rarely results in injury/death to the person defending him/herself with a firearm.

[Euromutt]

12. I'm not quite clear on whom you're calling bullshit

You're perfectly correct that Wright's statement "this never happens" was proven wrong; even a single example does, indeed, negate an absolute. As the corpulent monophthalmic one rightly notes, Wright should have been more careful and said something along the lines "almost never."

Note, however, that this not disprove anything else Wright said, even the very next sentence:

There are numerous verifiable cases of civilians using firearms for effective self defense every day, and virtually none of burglars taking away guns and shooting the homeowner or his family.

Emphasis mine. By using the word "virtually" Wright acknowledges that this sort of thing does happen, but with such infrequency that the risk is negligible. It takes more than one black swan to disprove a claim that "virtually all swans are white."

The OP's description of that scenario I would call bullshit, OP posted; Blogger Stephen Wright offered a wager to Brady Campaign Board Member Joan Peterson on her blog. She disputed his post and tried to refute one of the least arguable points, her claiming that people defending their homes are frequently overpowered and shot with their own guns.

That's one-eyed fat man's description of events, and is it not entirely accurate, since Wright did not in fact attribute that particular claim to Ms Peterson; see the post in question: http://stephenewright.com/fromthebluff/2008/12/22/anti-gun-group-common-sense-gun-laws-and-real-common-sense/
(Note also that the post is dated December 22nd, 2008, i.e. nearly two years ago.)
Also, one-eyed fat man used ambiguous grammar by relying entirely on the past tense, instead of writing the second sentence (which described events that occurred before Wright issued his challenge) in past perfect tense.
But it strikes me as a bit harsh to use the word "bullshit" to something that may merely be argued to have been written without pettifogging meticulousness.

At this point he has stated as fact that something hasn’t ever happened & issued a challenge “Just try to find one” and Joan Peterson responded by accurately quoting him and providing a link to a newspaper article describing an incident where it appears it did indeed happen.

Well, if we are going to be pettifoggingly meticulous, the incident cited by Ms Peterson occurred on 15-Dec-2010 (http://online.wsj.com/article/APa0d3106bbed049bb9ab198ac74fc85a8.html). Given that Mr. Wright (in your words, Russ) "stated as fact that something hasn’t ever happened" almost two years before the incident occurred, on 22-Dec-2008, the example provided by Mr. Peterson does not actually prove his statement was incorrect at the time he made it.

Indeed, if we are going to pettifog, it's not unambiguously clear that Ms Peterson's cited example refutes Mr. Wright's statement at all! Mr. Wright's statement that "this never happens" applied to the sentence "People who try to protect their homes with guns will have them taken away and get shot with their own gun." Emphasis mine.
However, the AP report in the WSJ ((http://online.wsj.com/article/APa0d3106bbed049bb9ab198ac74fc85a8.html) states (if you read further than the sentence Ms Peterson quoted):

Deputies say the 36-year-old Holtby grabbed a .22-caliber rifle and confronted the intruder. Police say the two men got into a struggle, during which the gun went off, striking Holtby in the lower leg.

The intruder stole property from the home and fled.

It is not clear from the article that the intruder managed to take the gun away from the victim prior to the victim's being shot (or even afterwards, for that matter), even though that was an explicit part of the type of incident that Mr. Wright stated "never happens."

In short, Russ, your "black swan" in this case seems actually be a swan that looked gray at a distance in bad light, and even then its gray appearance may simply have been the result of grime (to stretch the analogy to its breaking point).

[russ1943]

14. What is your problem?

You are not quite clear about a lot of things.
You agree that my post regarding “this never happens” was proven wrong?
Then you qualify it by saying he should have said something else? DUH…….? Yeah, that’s what wrong means.
Then you post that this doesn’t disprove anything else Wright said? So fucking what?
You acknowledge OP’s description of events is not entirely accurate? It is BULLSHIT. You define his grammar as not accurate. It isn’t his tense that is bullshit. The OP used the words “She disputed his post and tried to refute one of the least arguable points, her claiming that people defending their homes are frequently overpowered and shot with their own guns.” That last phrase “her claiming that people defending their homes are frequently overpowered and shot with their own guns”, is pure unadulterated bullshit. She did not claim what the OP states is her claim! She didn’t state or imply that people defending their homes are frequently overpowered and shot with their own guns. Past present or future tense is irrelevant and immaterial to the fact that she provided reasonable information demonstrating what Mr Wright posted on his blog was wrong.
You post “Well, if we are going to be pettifoggingly meticulous”…………….?
You go ahead and pettifog at will, I find it unnecessary and your repeated use of the term, silly.

[Euromutt]

17. I'm simply applying the standards you apply to others to you

You are not quite clear about a lot of things.

It seems that way to you, because you so frequently fail to express yourself clearly.

Again, I agree that Wright's statement that "<burglars taking away guns and shooting the homeowner or his family> never happens" is false. It does happen, albeit (as far as can reliably determined) very rarely. His being wrong on that particular narrowly taken point, however, does not make you right regarding anything not directly relating to that point.

Then you qualify it by saying he should have said something else? DUH…….? Yeah, that’s what wrong means.

If you subscribe to black and white thinking, then sure. However, the English language allows for quite a wide spectrum of degrees of wrongness, from "completely wrong" to "slightly wrong" (just as it's possible to be "completely correct," "mostly correct," or even "virtually correct"). Mr. Wright's statement "this never happens" was slightly wrong, because it does happen, just very rarely; if such incidents occurred (relatively) frequently, he would have wrong to a greater degree than he was. However, since such events seem to occur very rarely, Mr. Wright might also fairly be said to have been "virtually correct" (that is "in essence or effect, if not in fact").

Try looking up the word" nuance" sometime. You might learn something.

Then you post that this doesn’t disprove anything else Wright said? So fucking what?

It's called "context," as in "quoting out of context," which is what you insist on doing to make whatever your point is in this context. In his original post (http://stephenewright.com/fromthebluff/2008/12/22/anti-gun-group-common-sense-gun-laws-and-real-common-sense), Wright wrote:

This never happens. There are numerous verifiable cases of civilians using firearms for effective self defense every day, and virtually none of burglars taking away guns and shooting the homeowner or his family.

By using the term "virtually none," Wright implicitly acknowledges in the very next sentence after the offending one that this kind of incident does not, in fact, never happen. You're harping on a detail which the original speaker already implicitly conceded at the time. You may say that you find it unnecessary to pettifog, but that raises the question why you then insist on doing it all the same. (And regarding my supposed silliness in using the term "pettifogging," I thought merely it more polite than the literal translation of the Dutch term I considered using, which is mierenneuken, "ant-fucking," even though that, too, would be an apt description of your behavior.)

You define his grammar as not accurate.

Wrong. Or, by your own standards, "BULLSHIT." I stated one-eyed fat man's grammar was ambiguous; I stated that his description of events was not quite accurate, in attributing to Ms Peterson a claim ("that people defending their homes are frequently overpowered and shot with their own guns") which she did not make, and which Mr. Wright had not attributed to her.

The reason I say one-eyed fat man's grammar was ambiguous is because it could be interpreted to mean that Ms Peterson "disputed his post and tried to refute one of the least arguable points" after "Stephen Wright offered a wager to Brady Campaign Board Member Joan Peterson on her blog," when in fact, Wright offered the wager after she had disputed his 2008 post. Note the past perfect tense in the last clause of the previous sentence--"she had disputed"--to convey the order of events.

Past present or future tense is irrelevant and immaterial to the fact that she provided reasonable information demonstrating what Mr Wright posted on his blog was wrong.

Not going by what you said. Again, I cite your words from post #8:

At this point he has stated as fact that something hasn’t ever happened & issued a challenge “Just try to find one” and Joan Peterson responded by accurately quoting him and providing a link to a newspaper article describing an incident where it appears it did indeed happen.

Wright "stated as fact that something hasn't ever happened" in 2008 (your words); an example of that something occurring in 2010 does not invalidate a claim that that particular something had not occurred prior to 22-Dec-2008. If I tell you that, at the moment I post this, I have never been cited or arrested by a law enforcement officer for any violation in my life, that statement is true at the moment I post it, and the fact that I might be given a traffic ticket two years in the future from now will not change the fact that that statement is/was true at the time I made it.

To recap, for the (willfully) hard of understanding: a statement made that a particular event had not happened prior to December 2008 is not falsified by an example of such an event occurring in December 2010. For that falsification to occur, the original statement made in 2008 would have had to have been that such an event would not ever happen, but that's not what Mr. Wright claimed (as yourself acknowledge, Russ, by your use of the phrase "hasn't ever happened").

And again, a closer reading of the article cited by Ms Peterson shows that the incident was not unequivocally one of the sort that Mr. Wright claims "never happens," since it's not clear that the intruder managed to take the firearm away from Mr. Holtby. While you've managed to partly insulate yourself with qualifiers like "it appears it did indeed happen," appearances aren't enough to justify your unambiguous concluding statement in post #8 that "she proved him wrong."

See, if you'd said "she appeared to prove him wrong," you'd be golden. But since you didn't, well, "that’s what wrong means" and if I focus on that line--"she proved him wrong"--to the exclusion of everything else you wrote (and why shouldn't I, given that you applied the same treatment to Stephen Wright), and applying to you the standards you freely apply to others, I can safely state that what you wrote was "pure unadulterated bullshit."

If you have a problem with that characterization, I suggest you "consider the beam that is in thine own eye."

[jazzhound]

18. Game, set, match. NT

[X_Digger]

15. I think you struck a nerve. ;) n/t

[Euromutt]

11. Ms Peterson gave an extremely non-committal answer

Her response in her blog comments (http://www.commongunsense.com/2010/12/happy-shopping-everyone.html?showComment=1292621455830#c6759722515366341006):

No wagers, Stephen. I don't have time to do this right now but will consider looking this up on my side.

Not an expression of supreme confidence, one might say.

[one-eyed fat man]

13. Guess I lost

"I wager she refuses to acknowledge the bet. She does not have enough confidence in her position to test her hypothesis."

She declined. That appears to acknowledge the wager and then some.