That is a great way of putting it? Do you have a simple to use cite for this - it should be broadcast all over.
In another thread I asked about the assertion (by Michael Moore and others) that the U.S. is a society dominated by fear. There was little discussion, beyond an opinion that I was stating the obvious.
Perhaps our problem isn’t so much that specific mental illnesses go untreated, as that we’ve created a society where fear and anger are more pervasive than in other countries.
A few weeks ago, I got something in my inbox that was a list of the last several spree killers and the psychiatric drugs they were routinely taking. I deleted it, and I’m not sure were you’d get that list on line, or if it was even an accurate listing. It would be interesting to know that all the crazed massacre killers of recent memory were under treatment.
One of the underrated aspects of UHC is that prevention is usually cheaper than cure - so there is a financial motive in preemption ghenerally.
The US model suggests there is more money to be made from billing after the fact.
Thank you.
I’m afraid there was no one source for my New Zealand vs. the US comparison, but, putting statistics from a number of seemingly reliable web sites together, I thought it was a fairly safe claim.
For the violent death odds increase from having a gun in an American home, I would start here:
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/160/10/929.full
The overall suicide rate in the US is a little less than in New Zealand (which probably means they have a lot more suicide attempts there). Then you need to look at gun homicide, and overall homicide, rates in each country, and do the math.
This is a cop-out. There are two things we do know: first, guns do not operate themselves, and second, our mental health system is truly terrible. We don’t need a study from the CDC to draw those conclusions.
Question: is the incidence of mental health issues greater in the US than in other countries?
From your study:
“Studies of defensive gun use suggest that millions of defensive gun use incidents occur each year by people to protect themselves or their property against assaults, theft, or break-ins (30, 31). However, guns are also involved in unintentional firearm shootings and domestic altercations in the home and are the primary method used in suicides in the United States (1, 32). The body of research to date, including the findings of this study, shows a strong association between guns in the home and risk of suicide. The findings for homicide, while showing an elevated risk, have consistently been more modest. They suggest a need for more research to better distinguish the risk and protective factors associated with guns in the home, including an examination of the risk posed by forces both internal and external to the home.”
MILLIONS of defensive gun use incidence vs what 20 THOUSAND suicides which would take place by other means if guns were banned. Hmmm…
Most studies I read end in a call for more research. That isn’t a refutation to the findings. Sure, it would be interesting to know if it is safer to have your gun locked up in a gun safe when there’s a home invasion, or where gun ownership is most dangerous. I’m all for criminology research.
The overall picture, as you can see not just from the results this study, but also from its summary of prior research, is that gun ownership makes people more likely to be shot.
In a large and diverse society like ours, fear and anger may be the only thing that creates unity and motivates mass action. Could we do without them?
Fear and anger of/at what?
Fwiw, I don’t know anyone who lives in fear - it’s almost like an oxymoron in a mature democratic society - though I guess some people are pretty ‘angry’ at the whole banking thing.
I’m sorry but the study you cited said the likelihood of being shot is almost entirely contained within the likelihood of committing suicide. Such that the risk of being shot is offset by a risk of hanging yourself or jumping in front of a train, which is what has happened with suicides other countries when they started firearm prohibitions. And your own study compares the few thousands of deaths by guns to MILLIONS of defensive gun uses where they protect you from being raped, robbed, and murdered. In my case it protected me from being beat to death with a 2x4.
You are calling for the prohibition of guns by only looking at the bad, and none of the good. That doesn’t make any sense does it? Even your study said you should look at both. Would you call for the prohibition of alcohol, citing motor vehicle deaths, cirrosis and fetal alcohol syndrome, and ignore all the good times people get when they drink?
They don’t explain their numbers your link does show that homicides are dropping.
I provided a study above that demonstrated that even broad gun bans and confiscations in Australia did nothing to reduce the suicide completion rate.
If you to claim to have some evidence that it does please provide it.
Yet in some magical way your cites are from anti gun orgs are valid?
There are multiple cites and if you are the one claiming that a ban will reduce them how about producing evidence that it does relate.
Plus if you click through on my original cite they do provide a “further reading” of a study titled “The Australian firearms buyback and its effect
on gun deaths”
This study was done by an “objective” party and is available. But still, if this correlation is so obvious like you claim it is you should have no problem providing data from England, Brazil or any other country where they had a massive change in the gun laws.
So can you provide any decent cite that shows that restricting access to firearms by the general law abiding population has any effect at all?
The Post’s numbers are not as clear as you claim. lets pull these statements about their numbers out of your linked article.
So the source of 170 were unknown.
46 were “taken” from relatives we don’t know if they were taken with permission.
So 216 is the number of firearms we don’t know if they were legal or not.
107 legally owned by the person who shot the police officer.
Now the “illegal” firearms:
77 stolen
51 were taken from the officers (illegally)
41 illegally obtained on the streets.
16 were illegally obtained through straw-man deals.
77+51+41+16=185 or if you pull out the cases where an officers firearm was used against them you get 134 which is still a bigger number than 107.
But yes…if you choose arbitrary buckets and ignore unknown data it does make that number bigger. Especially when you make all those decisions while ignoring the HUGE majority of the bucket which is “unknown.”
But more to the point are you claiming that this relates to criminal usages of firearms in general? The number of police officers who are killed is a pretty tiny portion of the murders in this country so how are you claiming this relates?
Yes, guns are readily available in Canada: shotguns and rifles with small clips.
Yes, Canada has universal health care: when compared to the USA on a per capita basis, Canadians live longer, live healthier for longer, spend less out of their own pockets, and spend less through the government.
But these points miss a few things.
With respect to the availability of guns in Canada, handguns, fully automatic guns, and large clips are not readily available. Fewer guns, fewer gun deaths. More specifically, fewer guns that are easily concealed or can spray many bullets, fewer gun deaths
With respect to mental health care, it is not one of the stong suits in either Canada or the USA, and in any event does not appear to have much influence in Canada on youth violence, gang violence, domestic violence, and violence in economically or socially impoverished communities, which are the groups in which gun deaths are far more prevalent.
With respect to differences between Canada and the USA, one very significant one is what Michael Moore called a culture of fear. In Canada guns are not purchased to defend against other people or to defend against the government, and in fact the government in Canada is in place to protect the people. Consequently, Americans have several times more guns per capita than Canadians, which brings us full circle to more guns, more gun deaths.
That’s because private gun ownership is mostly bad. I did, in one of these threads, mention the serious public health need to keep down the deer population. AFAIK, hunting is the most effective way to do this.
Also, I didn’t call for prohibition of guns, except that I tentatively suggested they go to the government at the owners death. I do call for guns to be licensed like automobiles and discouraged like cigarettes.
The idea of passing a law that would turn millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens into outlaws is repugnant to me.
But lets not too distracted by the ‘War on Drugs’.
So … the fear thing - do [some] Americans live ‘in fear’?
How can that be?
Seeing as this is not IMHO may I ask how “private gun ownership is mostly bad.”?
Now I don’t think for most people it is a net positive…mostly I think it is really irrelevant for most individuals. But if you are going to make that claim either admit it is opinion or provide a cite.
I realize you ignored all my questions I asked you.
But here is still the challenge that should be trivial for you to demonstrate if guns are the problem or restricting them is the solution. Provided one cite where you can show that removing firearms from the hands of mostly law abiding individuals has had any meaningful impact on the homicide rate.
Or that there is any correlation between civilian ownership of firearms and homicide rates.
As a liberal I get frustrated that our side burns our political capitol on this junk, it doesn’t work and we mostly look like idiots when we do it.
I can think of lots of national health priorities that could save lives and improve lives but those will be a no go if we don’t hold the majority in government.