45 points

If at least 1 person in the room of 400 is shot per day they’d be dead in just over a year…

Last I checked the population of the US wasn’t plummeting, so what else is wrong here?

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76 points

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40 points

Oh no I see the point, but I’m hardly going to believe a point that’s surrounded by obvious mistakes or embellishments

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28 points
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In this case, being more accurate would have distracted from the overall point.

Granted, attracting the dismissive comments of insufferable pedants and the wilfully obtuse isn’t ideal either, but here we are 🤷

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23 points

If anything the people pointing out how others are missing the point, are actually missing the point…

There’s a middle ground between ‘autistically measuring in decimals’ and blowing something completely out of proportion to make a forced point.

People are just getting defensive because it’s an underlying point they agree with (rightly so) and going on attack for anyone calling it out for being disingenuous.

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8 points

Nope. That’s just objectively wrong.

The choice of 1 almost certainly wasn’t a deliberate exaggeration of the actual amount. It’s just the nearest number that isn’t too specific to distract from the overall argument and/or small enough that pro-gun advocates can use it as an argument for gun violence not being a problem at all.

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15 points

Why are you using ‘autistic’ as an insulting word?

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4 points
8 points
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There’s a new person thrown into the room each time someone is shot.

That should fix the analogy?

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4 points

No the rate is still too high, unless one of the people in the room is a serial killer but frankly that’d skew the untreated mental illness score pretty badly by giving everyone PTSD

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27 points
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Not to detract from the overall message, buuuut…

48,313 gun deaths in US in 2021.

333,000,000 people in US

On those rates 0.05 people in a room of 400 would be shot per year, so 1 person per 20 years.

It’d 1 person every 2 years in a room of 4,000.

Also those mental health numbers are off given the lifetime prevalence of most disorders being around 5%.

2/400 (0.5%) of the population identifying as trans would be 1,665,000 people - which may be plausible but idk, I generally work on the figure of ~4% of any population being LBGTQI.

Poverty numbers are probably bang on.

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8 points

Where did you get the 4% being LGBTQI number from?

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12 points
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“shot” does not mean “killed”.

What I can find is roughly 315 people getting shot every day in the US. Out of 333m, that’s roughly 1 in 1m daily. In a room of 400 that’s 1 per 6.8 years.

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5 points

Good point. Still, though your numbers get to a similarly outlandish time period.

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4 points

Only 15-20% of single GSWs are lethal. The post doesn’t say “shot and killed”, just shot

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1 point

Good point.

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2 points

That’s still a crazy stat. That’s something like 830k people in the US being shot every day. Almost the whole population getting shot in a year. They must’ve misplaced a few decimals doing the math

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5 points
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I did the fact checks with references on everything else in another comment. NIH numbers actually made mental illness worse, but must keep in mind the lack of “serious” in OPs definition. Other stats were spot on. Where did you get these numbers? I couldn’t find anything I trusted on non-fatal gunshots.

(Note: just realized you found the same number I did for deaths vs gunshots)

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3 points
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You misinterpreted the NIH numbers. It isn’t 57% of 400 are untreated, but rather 57% of ~90 (NIH state 1 in 6/ 22.8% love with AMI). In any case though that ~90 figure relates to AMI which is a broad definition and includes very mild cases, whereas my numbers were related to SMI - which tends to be 5% (as supported by your NIH source). Having worked in the field, untreated schizophrenia is a lot more serious than untreated GAD or ADHD.

Edit: my gunshot source: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/

Funnilly enough, if 2 people were shot a day in OP’s scenario, one of those would statistically be a suicide.

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12 points

I guess hyperbole isn’t your thing

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31 points

Pedantry is a great distraction when you don’t want to address problems.

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2 points

Good point

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4 points

Very true, which is why it’s important not to give easy fuel for pedantry like this gun stat does. It undermines the entire point if the numbers aren’t at least close to the real statistics.

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40 points
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Shot does not mean killed. Of the 327 average daily people shot, 210 survive. I will however admit that 1 in 400 people being shot a day does not represent the same ratio as the 327 out of the 330,000,000 a day at all.

Also birthrate

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15 points
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Fact time. You don’t always die when shot, and the US is a baby factory. I can’t find good stats on non-lethal gunshot, so I’ll do the rest.

Verdict: Pretty accurate.

  • 8.4% without health insurance (33 in 400)
  • 11.5% poverty rate (46 in 400)
  • 20% adults below literacy level 1 (80 in 400)
  • 57% mental illness untreated (228 in 400) (requires math from NIH source)

References:

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5 points

Youre probably just trolling to troll, but

  1. Being shot doesn’t mean being killed
  2. Why do you assume the population doesn’t change? Ya know people can make babies right? We’re actually pretty good at it. Probably too good at it.
  3. Also, not the fucking point.
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3 points
  1. Yes, but the average person doesn’t get shot once every 400 days
  2. It’s reasonable to assume any new arrivals also get shot on 0.25% of days
  3. It’s not the point, but frankly your point is more of a rounded curve than a point because anyone who doesn’t support trans rights is going to call BS on your numbers immediately so you’re just posturing, and why make up numbers to do that when you’re not actually having to convince anyone?

I really don’t get why people with all sorts of beliefs lie to people with the same beliefs to convince them they have the right beliefs… It’s a waste of time, why not actually go out and make a difference if you support human rights and have enough time to make posts to your echo chamber about it?

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1 point
  1. No, the average person doesn’t get shot once every 400 days. That’s not the statistic. It’s 1 person in 400 getting shot. Number of days is not being factored.

  2. Again, you’re looking at the wrong variable. It’s not about how many days. This is a snapshot (of what I assume is population of the US) brought down from millions to hundreds of people. Roughly 400 million people brought down to 400. The whole point is to help people conceptualize just how absurd it is to target such a small minority. Smaller numbers are easier for people to conceptualize percentages.

  3. Sure, the numbers need to be rounded off in order to bring them down to easier to understand figures. I’m not saying they’re perfectly accurate, but they’re close enough to accurate to get the point across. Pointing out how the hypothetical situation doesn’t use exact figures of people distracts from the ultimate message. Which is your point I’m assuming. Just because these numbers are rounded, doesn’t mean they’re inaccurate.

I agree with your last point. Lying doesn’t get anyone anywhere, especially when trying to appeal to “the other side” because that will be pointed out and then the argument (whether valid or not) is put into question.

But this post is about a hypothetical situation with rounded statistics to emphasize the general absurdity of targeting trans folk as “the problem with this country.” When there are actual and bigger issues we as a whole face. Like gun violence, terrible healthcare infrastructure, and mental illness.

Arguing about pedantics just obscures any actual criticism and distracts from the message. And who says this doesn’t make a difference? This is how issues in society gets resolved. By talking through them and bringing attention to them. So yeah - this helps the cause of human rights because it’s about bringing awareness and different perspectives into the conversation.

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82 points

Those trans people better not play sports! /s

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4 points

I feel like it would be ok as long as they have health insurance.

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2 points

Americans care a lot about debating what’s “fair” except when it comes to poverty

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13 points
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Removed by mod
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22 points

We already fund the police.

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3 points

Thatsthejoke.zip

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14 points

Where is this happening? That’s a very high shooting rate!

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41 points

Now the post says shot and not killed. I think that distinction is important. But I imagine those statistics are insane.

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8 points

I fact checked in other comments 😉 OP is fairly accurate overall, but I didn’t include gunshots since I couldn’t find reliable enough stats on non-fatal.

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4 points
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It’s insane because it’s still bullshit, 1 in 400 would mean that over 800,000 Americans get shot every day, and every single person in America gets shot every 13 months or so.

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