LogFAQs > #973352379

Grendel_Prime posted...

Genuinely curious if he can put a number on what he would deem a "worthwhile" number of children being shot before any action is taken to impact the role guns play in these incidents. Where is the line? At what point do we go from "Well, that's just the price of freedom" to "We need gun reform"? How many more children need to be shot to move the needle for you?

Indeed. By framing it as "this isn't common enough to worry about," the implication is made that it could be common enough to worry about if it were to happen more often. One wonders what that threshold is.

Personally (since those of us saying this is too many must also have a threshold that's considered acceptable, and zero unfortunately isn't realistic), I draw the line at being higher than the average among other developed countries. Somebody always has to be above average, so I'm fine with discounting variations that can be explained by random chance, but being nearly 20 times higher is very obviously statistically significant. Comparing countries gets complicated because there are so many factors to consider, but the simple fact of the matter is that when everybody else is able to do a much better job than you, you need to take a step back, ask yourself why you suck so much, and make a serious effort to do better.