I thought the topic was "does widespread ownership of guns lead to an increase or a decrease in violent crimes?" The strip you link to seems to be about "is political violence, including but not limited to violence with guns, distinctively associated with the right rather than the left, the middle, or other political groups?" That's not the same issue.
But if that's what you want to focus on, I will point out that the sort of list you provide can show that such events do occur. But it can't show that they are more frequent in one group than in another. That's a statistical statement about a population, and such statements require statistical evidence, not striking examples.
In either case, my position was not one for or against the conclusion. It was against the readiness of political partisans to resort to unsound arguments quite cheerfully when those arguments support the positions they already favor for emotional reasons, even if they would be quick to point out that similar arguments from other factions were devoid of merit. I certainly have my own political opinions, often strongly held, but I try to remember that what I find it appealing to believe and what the evidence would show to someone with different preferences are not the same.
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Date: 2011-01-19 01:11 am (UTC)But if that's what you want to focus on, I will point out that the sort of list you provide can show that such events do occur. But it can't show that they are more frequent in one group than in another. That's a statistical statement about a population, and such statements require statistical evidence, not striking examples.
In either case, my position was not one for or against the conclusion. It was against the readiness of political partisans to resort to unsound arguments quite cheerfully when those arguments support the positions they already favor for emotional reasons, even if they would be quick to point out that similar arguments from other factions were devoid of merit. I certainly have my own political opinions, often strongly held, but I try to remember that what I find it appealing to believe and what the evidence would show to someone with different preferences are not the same.