One of the points of the Australian article is that firearm suicides are most common in the 85 and older group. Those with chronic illnesses and other health related problems… hardly a crime of passion requiring a cool off period. Tends to cloud the issue when this type of self-euthenasia is included in the stats.
And I agree with other posters that Australian laws in Australia mean nothing to the American gun culture.
TheVoiceofReason wrote:
How about more vigorously enforcing the laws we already have, and seeing if that makes a difference first?
More laws are just going to cause more confusion, particularly among people who already legally own guns. How’d you like to be thrown in jail because a gun lying in your grampa’s trunk (which you keep in your attic) and which used to be perfectly legal suddenly became illegal this year?
Not to mention dead. Plutonium is reeeely poisonous, with radioactive icing.
Seriously, though, I think the danger posed by handguns doesn’t really qualify as a matter of natioanl security like a stash of fissionable materials would.
We in the UK have a completely differant culture as regards guns and offensive weapons.
You cannot seriously think that we feel repressed by the outlawing of all handguns, so few of us actually ever had them (yes, quote the NRA’s figures that no doubt show that one in three Brits does possess a handgun or some other such unlikely statistic but don’t bother to ask a Brit for yourself)
You just cannot use such figures to support either side of the debate in the US.
US gun culture is so differant and has a totally differant meaning to it’s citizens.
Maybe banning guns in the US would reduce gun crime, maybe not. There is only one way to know and that is unacceptable to many in the US.
I can only say that I wih US citizens could enjoy their cities without the threat that guns pose by having such a well balanced and law abiding population - gun control would not even be an issue then.
My own views on gun control would probably spark another immense gun control thread, suffice to say that I think that the current laws aren’t tight enough and that extra legislation, if carefully implemented, would not be too confusing (unless you’re from Florida, that is 
).
(Sigh. I shouldn’t post to this thread. I probably shouldn’t even read threads on this topic, as they make me angry. But I do want to clarify one point.)
The US does NOT have a single, monolithic “gun culture.” There are a hell of a lot of Americans who have never shot or owned a gun, including myself and all but one of the guests at a party last weekend where this came up. Many of us don’t want to own a gun, are uncomfortable being around loaded guns, and don’t believe that having a gun in the house makes the inhabitants any safer. Apparently we are in the minority. But it is a large minority, and probably a growing one, if this year’s Million Mom March is any indication.
I find it interesting that none of the anti-gun-control posters has addressed the issue of accidental gun deaths. While I haven’t seen any statistics, I suspect an alarming number of Americans are injured or killed this way (at least two people I know have been, one a child).
…and while we’re at it, lets post accidental chain saw deaths, which wouldn’t happen if there weren’t any chainsaws in the house. Or accidental drug overdose by children, who wouldn’t have died if we outlawed medication…
Like anything and everything else, accidents can and will happen, and can and will result in death in the worst case scenarios. Just like cars and their accidents, if you fail to respect (out fear, ignorance, stupidity, etc) what a gun is and can do, you can be in serious trouble. Especially if you have children and don’t take precaustions.
But this is a hijack from the OP…
I would like to see a cite for this.
Maybe doctors are more at risk for suicide because they work 80-hour weeks? At the hospital where my SO works, 2 residents have killed themelves this year so far - one by tying a plastic bag around his head, the other hanged herself. I know, sample size of two. But these people also had access to huge amounts of drugs too, and did not use them.
Maybe farmers are more at risk due to the incredibly hard lives they lead, and the stress of many farm bankruptcies and collapses (crop failures) in the 1980’s and early 1990’s?
Do you have a cite?
Accidental gun deaths don’t matter when your talking about banning guns because people can choose to not buy guns. Should the people in sweden ban chainsaws because someone tried to stop one with their genetalia once?
The problem with putting it in so simplistic terms such as it helps lower suicide rate is you forget that guns are used for more than suicide. Then you have the law of unintended consequences. For example, lets say you save 40 lives a year from suicide. Then banning guns causes 80 extra deaths a year because criminals can simply use guns to kill everyone in a house without retaliation. Also our American gun culture would all get depressed and kill themselves using their guns when they hear that they are illegal:)
Anthracite,
According to the Canadian Firearms Centre (a Government agency):
The bolding is mine (for ease of reference), the italics theirs. The extract is taken from this research summary on their website and I’ll concede that it is less than unambiguous, but it points in the general direction I’m going.
I realise this doesn’t address your points about doctors, vets and farmers, though I would point out that it is possible to control for stress by selecting a similarly-stressed group of comparators. I’m fairly sure the relevant article was in the BMJ some time over the last two or three years, but their on-line archive only covers papers proper and not the news type pieces, and I can’t seem to find it.
For the avoidance of doubt, I am not arguing that reducing suicide deaths is a sufficient reason for introducing gun controls, only that controls do generally lead to a reduction in the number of suicides, other things being equal. That’s not to say that I’m against gun controls, though.
[slight tangent]By the way, Jingo
This is not true: I have actually seen bagpipes played during a visit to the Houses of Parliament.[/slight tangent]
The definition of an “offensive weapon” in English law is based on the intention of the person carrying the thing, not the kind of thing it is. Bagpipes (or anything else, for that matter) could theoretically be considered a weapon if a jury could be persuaded that you were carrying them with the intention of using them as a weapon (for example, by hitting somebody with them or playing them really, really badly).
In England, you could use anything you happened to have lying around at home to defend yourself against an intruder, provided that you only used “reasonable force”, so you could use any of the things you suggest. The test of whether what you did was lawful or not would be based on what you did, not what you did it with.
Once you’re out in public, you’re subject the the “offensive weapon” laws described above, apart from the big knife (which is the subject of separate legislation). So basically, your skein dhu is OK if it’s worn as part of “traditional” “Scottish” dress,* but not if it’s carried to a nightclub in your jeans pocket (unless you’ve got a very good explanation).
*The kilt was invented by an Englishman in the 18th Century and the “clan tartans” were a 19th Century invention.
It is to laugh. Then, i suppose that the Bill of rights was unnessesary. Right here is San Jose, the Police broke into the wrong freaken house, and when the owner told them as they were coming in, he had a gun at them (he had no idea they were the police to start) they arrested him & confiscated the gun.
The police also got a search warrent to search a guys home as he was selling steroids to weightlifters- hardly the big dangerous drug dealer. His roomie had some ‘assault guns’, which altho they had nothing on him, nor were they there to look for guns, they confiscated.
Mistakes happen. I’m sure that, if the man legally owned the firearm, charges were dropped and life went on as normal.
If he was selling illegal drugs, it’s still a crime, even if he was selling expired aspirin. If the “assault guns” were illegal, they should have been confiscated. If they weren’t illegal, they were still on the premesis where a crime was committed. It’s standard to take the guns and trace their history.
Didn’t you see that Drew Carey episode where his house got confiscated because his tenant was selling drugs? Damn, that was a funny episode…
Anyway, I’d just like to announce that this has been the tamest Gun Debate I’ve ever seen.
[quick hijack]
Not true about the tartans. Most of the clan colors were established by the end of the 18th century. I’ve seen references to tartan and plaid in earlier works as well, including Shakespeare. Here’s one site (and cite) that I found describing the history of tartan:
http://www.house-of-tartan.scotland.net/story/text.htm
Cheers,
PeeQueue
[/quick hijack]
PeeQueue,
My source is Hugh Trevor-Roper (Lord Dacre), erstwhile Professor of History at the University of Oxford, in his essay on the Sottish “Highland” tradition in Eric Hobsbawm’s The Invention of Tradition. I’ll take him over your Clackmannanshire kilt merchant any day.
I don’t have the book to hand, I’m afraid, so I can’t quote directly. Tartan was produced in the Highlands before the 19th Century, in fact it was produced throughout much of nothern Europe during Roman times. But the idea that every “clan” has its unique tartan is a sentimental Victorian invention stemming, in part, from the British Army’s decision to furnish each Scottish regiment with a distinctive tartan.
If you look carefully at the site you linked, you’ll notice that it’s a bit vague on the distinction between “tartan” and “clan tartan”.
I misunderstood your initial contention. I understand that clan=this particular tartan pattern is a relatively modern invention. That’s not to say that the Scots haven’t been wearing tartans for a long time. And I’m sure certain areas more commonly wore certain patterns, as fashion dictated, but nothing like “clan tartan” as you say.
Oh, and excuse the cite - it was the first one that came up in a yahoo search. I didn’t have the research that I did on plaid and tartan handy (and it had more to do with fabrics and patterns than who used them and for what).
Cheers,
Peter
Okay, here’s some data from http://www.apbonline.com/newscenter/breakingnews/2000/07/25/deaths0725_01.html on gun deaths and how they are classified. Your suspicions are unfounded.
According to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, there were 30,708 gun deaths nationally for all age groups in 1998, the most recent year data’s available. Of these, over 56% are suicides, 39% are homicides, and the remaining 5% are classified as accidental. This means there were only about 1535 accidental gun deaths.
However, the article also indicates a couple interesting trends when viewed in the light of the increasingly stringent gun control laws enacted over the past ten years. First, the overall trend in gun deaths shows a decline. HCI calls this a victory for the Brady Law, but that is expected, not to mention debatable. Any number of factors, like the NRA’s education efforts, a generally improved economy, and a number of other factors could cause the general decline.
Secondly, the number of accidental gun deaths has declined every year for the last ten years. While this could be accounted for by better education efforts, I do not see how stricter controls could play much of a part.
Most interestingly though, the firearm suicide rate remains pretty constant over the last ten years, despite the stricter access laws and waiting periods being legislated. This seems to indicate that gun control laws have little, or no, effect on gun suicides. It appears any amount of legislation, short of a total, or near total ban, will have only marginal effects in suicides.
In summary, we see that over 50% of gun deaths are suicides and despite increased gun regulation that number remains steady, even in the face of a general decline in gun accidents and homicides.
Here’s some more data and comparisons on accidental gun deaths from a variety of sources. (Not all numbers are totally in agreement with my previous post.)
[ul]
[li]In 1996 fatal firearm accidents also fell to an all-time annual low, 1,134, a 7% decrease from 1995; a 22% decrease from 1986. Since 1930, fatal firearm accidents have decreased 65%, while the U.S. population has more than doubled and the number of firearms has more than quadrupled. (Population: Census Bureau; Firearms: BATF) Other fatal accidents: motor vehicles (43,649), falls (14,986), poisoning (9,510), fire (3,741), drowning (3,488), suffocation on ingested object (3,206), and medical mistakes (2,919).[/li][li] 1995-1996 Trends[/li]From 1995-1996, the annual number of fatal firearm accidents decreased 7% (from 1,225 to 1,134). By comparison, the number of fatal motor vehicle accidents increased slightly (43,363 to 43,649), as did accidental deaths due to falls (13,986 to 14,986), poisoning (9,072 to 9,510), suffocation on ingested object (3,185 to 3,206) and medical misadventures (2,712 to 2,919). Decreasing slightly were accidental deaths due to fires (3,761 to 3,741) and drowning (3,790 to 3,488).
[li]Fatal gun accidents as percentages of accidental deaths nationwide[/li]Of 94,948 fatal accidents nationwide in 1996: firearms (1%), motor vehicles (46%), falls (16%), poisonings (10%), fires (4%), drownings (4%), chokings on ingested objects (3%), and medical mistakes (3%).
[li]Fatal gun accidents as percentages of all deaths nationwide[/li]Of 2,314,690 deaths nationwide in 1996, fatal firearm accidents accounted for 0.05%. Other accidents: motor vehicles (2%), falls (0.6%), poisoning (0.4%), fire (0.2%), drowning (0.2%), suffocation on ingested object (0.1%), and medical mistakes (0.1%).
[li]Annual fatal gun accident rates[/li]In 1996 the fatal firearm accident rate fell to an all-time low (0.4 per 100,000 pop.), an 88% decrease since 1904. Other rates: motor vehicles (16.5), falls (5.6), poisoning (3.6), fire (1.4), drowning (1.3), suffocation on ingested object (1.2), and medical mistakes (1.1%).
[li]Fatal firearm accidents among children (ages 0 to 14)[/li]Fatal firearm accidents fell to 138 in 1996, an all-time low; motor vehicles (3,015), drowning (966), fires (761), suffocation on ingested object (211), falls (111), poisoning (109) and medical mistakes (94). Since 1975, fatal firearm accidents to children have decreased 75%, 24% since 1995.
[/ul]
Yes this is a lame gun thread, but that was the point. POinting out that Australian statistics (and any other countries statistics) are invalid for the US.
Australia has always had gun control. It has got less strict over the years. When Sydney was founded (along with most of the major cities) it was a prison colony. So gun control laws were very tight then. And they have just never gone away. Even when Australia was still a growing country and no longer a prison there were gun laws. So Australians are used to having the government control gun laws. This is extremely different from the US. And it is probably something which is never considered. I won’t take a side on the issue in the US, but leave other countries out of it. Just because there is a language in common doesn’t mean anything.
My personal viewpoint is that anyone who has a gun, should have a licence. We need licences for cars, and guns are designed to kill things.
And to Danielinthewolvesden, mistakes happen, but they are not random. Police in Australia also raid the wrong houses and so on (often getting in lot of trouble for doing so) but the thing is, if the don’t have an applicable search warrant, any evidence found is non-admissable to court.
And thanks Unclebeer for the numbers, very useful. I always thought that the gun problem in the US was much worse. That is just the influence of these debates and the movies. And I am aware that many americans have never seen a gun and don’t like to be around them.
It seems to me that easy access to a method of suicide has almost no bearing on the suicide rate. If it did, how do you explain the fact that we don’t have a much higher suicide rate amongst people that live in high-rises? If you live in one, you’re never more than about ten steps from instant death.
Perhaps we should ban balconies.