John writes:

> The rate of gunshot deaths
>  per 100,000 guns was almost the same for these countries which have very
>  different rates of gunshot deaths per head of population - USA, Canada, UK
>  and Australia. IIRC, it was about 1.4- 1.6 per 100,000 guns.
>  I found this very interesting - deaths were not related to type of society
>  or criminals or whatever, just number of guns available.

This is exactly the right way to approach a topic such as this, regardless of
what side you're on. If the hypothesis is that the rate of gun ownership does
or does not predetermine the death rate due to guns, then obtaining this
statistic from as many different places in the world as possible is the best
possible analysis of the problem. If there is a strong geometric (linear,
exponential, etc.) correlation between the number of guns available and the
number of deaths, where most of the variance is explained by this one
correlation, then all other extraneous factors such as religious, political,
racial, educational or even environmental factors are rendered secondary.



Yosef also writes:

> When I was a child we had neighborhood bullies, just like everyone else did.
>  For the most part the bullies weapon of choice was their fist.

>  Legal guns kill children too young to know that they are
>  not a good toy. Even Legal guns are involved in many illegal acts.
>  I refuse to draw Wirt's conclusion that the human animal is no different
>  than his nonsentient relatives. Confrontation between people is not
>  inevitable. It is a choice. Sentience has to count for something.

Just a point of argument first, fur seals are as sentient as humans, if only
by definition. Sentience means to feel, to perceive. Merriam-Webster has the
definition as: "feeling or sensation as distinguished from perception and
thought."

When I used to teach graduate-level evolutionary biology twenty years ago, I
almost always asked my classes what part of human behavior is preprogrammed?
The kids would generally put the percentage relatively low, 10 to 40%. I
argued then that at least 85% of our behavior was well-fixed genetically and
is invariant between populations. Although the word "ouch" is learned from
your group and is wholly a cultural artifact, the far more important act of
smiling or frowning is universally understood. Today, I would argue that more
likely 95% of our behavior is fixed and that only that last 5% of ontogenetic
flexibility contains all of the learning capability, free will and moral
choice that we so pride ourselves on.

An enormous amount of information now exists that suggests that we share the
same emotional platform as all of the other large mammals, indistinguishably
different in our feelings of love, jealousy, greed, pain and grief. We are of
course though significantly different from the other large mammals in our
rational capabilities, capable as a species of performing calculus and
building highly efficient aircraft. But even saying that, it becomes obvious
that we vastly overvalue ourselves. These are activities that very few,
almost a vanishingly few, members of our species can accomplish with ease and
grace, and only in the last few years.

But Yosef is at the core correct. The subject is choice, or the lack of it.
In the picture of the dead male fur seals of South Georgia Island, that
jumbled scene of life and death is extremely unnatural. If the group had had
more room, the non-territory-holding, dominant males would have formed a
bachelor herd off to the side, on another beach in another cove, down the way
a bit. The Eskimo call these males the "do-nothing males." Chances are
they'll never mate during their lifetimes, but they wouldn't be dying either
of such intense combat.

The same is just as true of the young Chicago males. What makes that
particular graph so powerful is that England and Chicago are virtually
identical civilizations, of essentially equal wealth, education and literacy.
But the ready conclusion is, flood an area with guns and you will
proportionately increase the death rate. Young male behavior is virtually
identical in all mammalian species, particularly in the large mammals,
invariant, immutable and ancient. But far more to the point, the death rate
of these young males is highly modulatable by the circumstances in which the
young male cohorts find themselves, in either humans or fur seals.

Wirt Atmar

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