Future of guns and mass killings in the US

Great Debates
81

Actually I would be willing to bet that this is a better argument for more restrictions on guns - not less.

Intuitively - (yeah, we know where that gets us ok) - as a “criminal” who is wanting to do something bad to an isolated house, would you go armed or unarmed?

Who do you think is going to come off best - the armed person who is prepared and has the element of surprise, or the armed person that doesn’t know what is happening?

I’d be willing to bet the farm, plus my left testical, that guns have facilitated far more muggings, rapes and home robberies than have been stopped by the armed innocent victims.

82

Let’s not beat around the bush. It also suggests that Magiver is a big ole racist.

83

From the World Health Organization, here are the member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; a rough measure of “First World” countries), ranked by age-standardized suicide rates per 100,000:

South Korea: 28.9
Hungary: 19.1
Japan: 18.5
Poland: 16.6
Estonia: 16.3
Finland: 14.8
Belgium: 14.2
Iceland: 14.0
Czech Republic: 12.5
Slovenia: 12.4
France: 12.3
Chile: 12.2
United States: 12.1
Austria: 11.5
Sweden: 11.1
Ireland: 11.0
Australia: 10.6
Slovakia: 10.1
Canada: 9.8
New Zealand: 9.6
Germany: 9.2
Switzerland: 9.2
Norway: 9.1
Denmark: 8.8
Luxembourg: 8.7
Netherlands: 8.2
Portugal: 8.2
Turkey: 7.9
United Kingdom: 6.2
Israel: 5.9
Spain: 5.1
Italy: 4.7
Mexico: 4.2
Greece: 3.8

(The link gives data on a bunch more countries than that; that’s just a selection.)

84

Maybe we could start with some sort of age limit and number/type of guns you are allowed to own.

Should a 26 year old man be allowed to own 17 guns? Should just anyone be allowed to own an assault rifle?

We put age limits on other things, why not guns?

85

Survival rates have increased, too. So even though violence has increased, doctors have gotten better at treating trauma patients.

I posted an interesting article about this years ago, but I’m having trouble finding it. I’d like to, because I vaguely recall taking issues with something in the cite.

86

We don’t know that. It may be that ready access to guns would lead to an even higher suicide rate in those countries.

We know pretty well, for example, that access to specific pesticides is a factor in why China sees such higher suicide rates in rural areas.

87

We already do that. It’s usually 18 or 21, and some exceptions for younger people who are “hunting” or otherwise have a parent’s permission. And some states have tried restricting the rate at which you can buy guns (“one per month” laws).

88

[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
You’re just throwing assertions without basis in fact. How many nations do? How many natons don’t. Or do you have the faintest idea? I strongly doubt you have no clue.
[/QUOTE]

Since I’ve posted the same comment with cites in multiple of these ridiculous threads, I’m going to go with your last statement as obviously true…I don’t not have a clue on this. Sadly, you do not seem to be in a similar position. :stuck_out_tongue:

Even if true (and this is one where SOME studies show this, and others don’t) how do you explain the myriad countries with much stronger gun control or outright bans that have double or more deaths per 100k than the US with our open access to guns?

:stuck_out_tongue:

All the things I’ve tossed out have been discussed AND cited in myriad of these threads. Some are definitely controversial, some aren’t really…but you don’t actually seem to know which is which in any case. As for fact free, Hentor, my man…what do you think all your posts ARE? You haven’t provided dick as yet.

As to you thinking my post was a ‘spittle-flecked little rant’, that’s just too funny for words. There aren’t enough derisive :stuck_out_tongue: for that…

And yet your strawman hand wave clearly shows you have no actual rebuttal. Hell, I doubt you even get the argument.

Yeah, would be helpful if you quoted from whoever you are trying to slam. But then your drive by posts could be at anyone. However, I do see that you were not responding to MEBuckner with this particular slam, but instead seemingly at Magiver. I wasn’t following that part of the discussion, so my apologies. I thought you were just pulling that out of your ass as you do so much else, but it seems to be a valid though vapid rebuttal to what he seems to be saying. I agree…you can’t really take the black on black statistics out of the mix. The suicide stats, yeah…they shouldn’t be in there since, to me, they are basically a sunk cost…we will have suicides regardless of whether guns are available or not, as can clearly be seen in countries without guns or with very strict gun control. But you can’t take minorities (blacks, hispanics, asians, etc) out of the mix and have a rational discussion.

89

We don’t know it for sure, no. We can’t know it. However, as noted, many countries with very strict gun control or complete gun bans have much higher suicide rates. People find ways to do things, such as your example in China. If the people in rural areas didn’t have access to pesticides (something unrealistic) they would find something else. The root cause isn’t easy access to kill ones self but instead the factors that lead to people feeling they have to take their own life. Canada’s rate is only 2 points lower than the US despite tighter gun control (gun control that is more realistic to what the US COULD be) and a presumably happier and less stressed population, and Australia, despite it’s bans is actually higher than Canada (which shows us a model of what a US ban could mean wrt suicide in the future…note, it did go down from before and after the gun control policies were enacted, but it wasn’t a drastic change…people still found ways to kill themselves).

90

See, you can’t really just spout stuff out of ignorance. Well, you can and do, but it’s not really conducive to looking like you know what you’re talking about. Here’s a starting point:

http://annals.org/mobile/article.aspx?articleid=1814426

It is a meta-analysis (I can explain what that is if you need me to) that finds, across multiple empirical (which I should explain to you) studies. It shows that, across studies, access to firearms is associated with a 3.2 times greater likelihood of suicide.

Before I bother to dig through the rest of your spittle, let’s see if you understand that, and if you can cite the equivocal literature that you claim exists.

91

Understand that one meta-study with caveats doesn’t conclusively prove anything? Yeah, I got that. There are, of course, other studies showing a weaker or even non-existent correlation. I never said there was no correlation, just that to me the case isn’t compelling. It wasn’t compelling when I read your cite the first time last year, and it’s not compelling now either. To me, looking at other countries with higher rates yet strict gun control or even outright bans, or looking at a country like Australia who instituted bans and very strict other controls, who’s suicide rate was dropping before the ban and fell a bit further after but remains similar to our own despite those bans and controls is more telling. Obviously YMMV and a quick google search on your part and drive by link seems to have won the day in your own mind.

92

As others have pointed out, we have nationally newsworthy shootings every few months, but shootings, in general, are a daily occurrence in this country. As for what will continue to be newsworthy and what won’t depends upon what the general attitude towards guns and what the media does. Pretty much any time a school or church gets shot up, it’ll make news, not so much for gang/drug related or domestic violence.

It’s not changing any time soon. For the most part, everyone has made up their mind, and even a mass shooting that dwarfs anything up to that point won’t change many minds.

The only way I could see something really changing is if a bunch of, heretofore law abiding citizens, just decided to go on a rampage with their legally purchased guns and kill thousands of people for no reason. Or some state passes a law allow full carry rights everywhere, and soon thereafter several mass shootings are stopped cold. But as both of those are pretty much both equally unlikely to happen, I don’t think so.

As a general rule, as a libertarian, I’m in favor of gun rights. But I also think that anyone who is in favor of gun rights, regardless of their reasoning, that thinks that these many deaths is “acceptable” is just callous. I do believe that rights have an inherent cost, and those costs can include the death and injury of innocent people, and while we should always be striving to maximize personal freedom, we should still be doing all we can to minimize those costs and grief those who fall in harms way.

I think there’s still plenty more we can do to stop mass shootings, and focusing on a debate that’s not going anywhere isn’t doing any good for anyway. It’s not unlike the arguments surrounding the drug war, whether you think it’s justified or not, and whether you think legalization will increase or reduce the number people whose lives addiction destroys, don’t let that end game get in the way of helping the people suffering now.

For example, without even touching a single gun law, we can do a lot to help with mental health issues that lead to people doing mass shootings. We can look into gang and drug related violence and all those mass shootings. We can look at the use of guns as part of law enforcement and improve the training cops get to either minimize their use or to take more effective preventative steps against those engaged in or likely to engage in mass shootings. Can anyone, regardless of their views on gun rights, actually argue that we shouldn’t do more in these areas?

[quoteFor people who are pro gun-control, do you think there is any chance of making any substantial changes to gun laws in the US in the next several decades?[/QUOTE]

Again, full disclosure that I’m generally pro-gun, but frankly, it looks like gun laws are more likely to continue to be loosening up in the coming years. This may change as the generational shift continues, but it seems to me that there’s not a huge difference in views on gun rights between the generations as much as there is in social issues.

93

One meta-study? You don’t know what you’re talking about and you didn’t even bother reading. Further, you’re both claiming that I just did a quick google search AND that I’ve previously given you this same reference before. Those seem inconsistent.

But by all means, let’s throw out the empirical analysis in favor of eye-balling the rank order of countries by suicide rate, so that we can just spitball bullshit speculation and abuse the English language at the same time.

94

[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
One meta-study? You don’t know what you’re talking about and you didn’t even bother reading. Further, you’re both claiming that I just did a quick google search AND that I’ve previously given you this same reference before. Those seem inconsistent.
[/QUOTE]

Um, no. It’s one meta-study done by two different groups using meta data and then correlated into the paper you are linking too. And no, I read it last year WHEN IT CAME OUT and came up in another discussion which had nothing to do with you. And yes, I did read it last year…I didn’t bother reading it again this time since, you know, I already read it. Your drive by link of it was just a shot gun approach (:p) since you didn’t bother quoting anything you found relevant, merely hoping someone would read through it and figure out your point for you.

Naw, let’s just take it as handed down from the gods and accept it as gospel for making whatever point you think you are making while ignoring the caveats and other evidence that doesn’t fit in with your rock solid premise! :stuck_out_tongue:

95

Assault rifles are highly regulated and have been used in two murders in the last 20+ years. Both of whom were committed by cops FWIW.

Regarding the 26 year old man, it is difficult to argue that the same 26 year old man who can vote, legally drink, get married, serve in the armed forces, etc. should not be able to buy a gun or two or seventeen.

96

I don’t really care much about suicide, and to the extent that I do, I consider it a completely separate issue to violent crime. Someone breaking into my house and committing suicide isn’t too high up on my list on concerns. Sorry.

Lefties are generally only concerned about suicides to the extent that they can use the figures to bolster their otherwise weak gun control arguments. Once that’s done, they go right back to supporting assisted suicide without even blinking.

97

Surely that’s obvious: gun control isn’t the only or necessarily strongest factor in suicide. That’s not an argument against it being significant. Some countries have horrible quality of life. Some countries have centuries old traditions of honourable suicide. It doesn’t mean availability of guns doesn’t matter just because those factors weigh heavier on suicide rates.

98

Sure. What it means is there are many factors, and that gun ownership/availability is only one, and not necessarily the most important one. Basically, I’ve seen no strong evidence that even IF you could get levels of gun control like either Canada or Australia in the US that it would substantially change our levels of suicide. If we could expect what they have seen in Australia, for instance, we are talking about a point difference. So, it’s not going to be symmetrical…doing away with guns, IOW, doesn’t not negate all or even most of the current suicides that happen via guns, though there will almost certainly be a non-zero change. But, to me, based on what I’ve read, suicides and suicide rates are basically a sunk cost for societies…you are going to have some base level, regardless of the method used and regardless of availability of any one item that is used by a society, be it hanging, sharp objects, poisons or guns.

99

I just noticed something. You often hear conservatives point to the high incidence of inner city black on black violence, and you often hear them proclaim that the solution to the gun problem is to arm the victims, and yet you never hear them advocate the obvious conclusion of these claims which is to arm more inner city blacks. I wonder why this is?

100

Suicide stats are irrelevant to the question of criminal misuse of guns. I am concerned with people trying to shoot me and my family. Attempting to conflate suicide stats with homicide stats is a deliberate misrepresentation of the nature of the problem.

Further, even accepting the premise that access to guns correlates to increased suicides, I fail to comprehend how that makes it my problem. I have yet to see a compelling argument as to how my gun was a factor in someone else’s suicide.

This argument fails for the same reason the argument over homicides and mass shootings fail:

  1. It is immoral for the government to punish someone for a crime they did not commit.
  2. Depriving a citizen of their property is, by definition, a punishment.

I have owned many guns in my life, and exactly none of them have ever been used to commit a crime. (Or a suicide, for that matter.) It is, therefore, immoral for the government to deprive me of my property on the expectation that I might commit a crime at some indeterminate point in the future. If you want to punish people pre-emptively for crimes they have not yet committed, then I have some Phillip K. Dick novels you might enjoy reading.