I'm generally in favor of freedom, but you can't assume it's always a good, at any cost. If (and I don't really believe this) frequent mass murders were the cost of freedom, we would have to seriously consider whether it was worth it.
Find any of the recent threads here on the Connecticut shooting. We (in the US) do seem to have a relatively high per-capita mass-murder rate, at least compared to other first-world countries. That wasn't my main point though.
It isn't misleading! You're the one being misleading by claiming we need to cook the data to come up with the result you want to have instead of the reality of the situation.
He isn't "cooking the data". Or, more accurately, he's the one who isn't cooking the all of the data in one big pot, without regard for whether all of the data are actually describing the same thing.
The point he's making is that there are qualitative distinctions within the data that demand their own discrete analysis. What's misleading here is ignoring distinctions in the data in order to falsely posit a uniform source of causality.
I'm not suggesting we "cook the data", I'm suggesting that we shouldn't boil the data down to one statistic just so that we can get a number that conveniently agrees with our worldview. See my comment here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4932547
Wrong again. That's what you are doing. You're taking the number of firearm homicides per capita in the US (one number) and just comparing it to that in other countries.
It's still not what I would call "frequent". Our murder rate has gone down in recent years and isn't high enough to justify new restrictions on firearms, IMO.
I don't really disagre with you on gun control, but... You're still hammering on that one word of my original comment. Since you've said nothing against my real point, that the end (that is freedom) doesn't necessarily justify the means, can I assume I've gotten it across? We need to actually think about if and how access to guns improves people's lives overall.
Let me put it this way, then: I don't believe these kinds of incidents are at all common enough to make any changes to American gun laws. Your chance of getting caught up in one is statistically zero, so if people want a gun to hunt or for self defense it outweighs any safety benefit of tighter gun laws.
