# Having laid low, the N.R.A. is fully prepped and rehearsed to control legislation. As usual.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-laid-low-the-n-r-a-is-fully-prepped-and-rehearsed-to-control-legislation-as-usual/644605
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [December 20, 2012, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-laid-low-the-n-r-a-is-fully-prepped-and-rehearsed-to-control-legislation-as-usual/644605 "2012-12-20T05:02:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 21
### Author:  [@BigAppleBucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigAppleBucky)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2013, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-laid-low-the-n-r-a-is-fully-prepped-and-rehearsed-to-control-legislation-as-usual/644605/401 "2013-01-16T15:56:49Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#):
>
> This is demonstrably incorrect, since there are between 300 and 500 train suicides per year in the US, versus approximately 15,000 firearms suicides per year in the US.
>
> Clearly, in the US guns are more attractive as a method of suicide than trains.
Don’t know about train suicides but the CDC says it’s about 18 or 19K for gun suicides. One of the most effective ways of offing oneself.
[http://www.newsday.com/opinion/columnists/daniel-akst/akst-with-suicide-when-there-s-a-way-there-s-a-will-1.3865379](http://www.newsday.com/opinion/columnists/daniel-akst/akst-with-suicide-when-there-s-a-way-there-s-a-will-1.3865379)
2009:
> **[nvsr59\_04.pdf](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr59/nvsr59_04.pdf)**
>
> 888.04 KB
2010:
> **[nvsr60\_04.pdf](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_04.pdf)**
>
> 908.08 KB
See page 45.
Accidental death by firearms 600 ('10) 554 ('09)
**Suicide by firearms 19,308 (2010) 18,735 (2009)**
Murder by firearms 11,015 (10) 11,493 (09) (Out of a total of 16,065 fatal assaults in 2010)
Legal intervention 405 (10) 395 (09) - it’s not clear to me that these are all firearms deaths. Let’s assume they are since that is better for the gun argument.
Undetermined intent firearms 246 (10) 232 (09)
So let’s add these up for 2010.
Firearm murders 11,015
Accidental gunshot deaths 600
Sub total 11,615
Suicides 19,308
Undertermined 246
Total 31,169 deaths by guns, except by legal action.
Compare now to legal intervention of 405
11,615/405 = 28.68 or approximately 29:1. So in 2009 “bad” gunshot deaths outnumbered “good” gunshot deaths 30:1 (actually a tad higher) and that number improved to 28.68:1 in 2010. Still, almost 30 bad over “good” and that ignores suicides.
The total number ratio would be 76.97:1, or 77:1. Basically there were more legal action killings and fewer murders in '10 than '09, but more suicides, which is understandable given the economy.
Suicides are relevant since they are often spur of the moment decisions. Gun shots have a far higher degree of lethality than pesticide poisoning or hanging, for example.
[http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/case-fatality/index.html](http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/case-fatality/index.html)
Firearms are 85% effective, poisoning only 2%, and an overall “success” rate of 9%. Guns make suicide deadlier. Period.
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### Author:  [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2013, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-laid-low-the-n-r-a-is-fully-prepped-and-rehearsed-to-control-legislation-as-usual/644605/402 "2013-01-16T16:03:55Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#):
>
> Then please clarify what you mean by asserting that trains are equally attractive to would be suicides. How do you determine this? Why does a 30 fold greater rate of one method over another not demonstrate “attractiveness”?
>
> Isn’t easy accessibility a quality that makes something attractive?
Not at all.
If we imagine a magic knife – the Felo De SeBlade – enchanted so that any person who sees it is driven to plunge it into their breast, it’s obviously fair to call it attractive insofar as suicide is concerned.
But if the SeBlade is kept in the middle of the Joshua Tree National Park, it won’t account for many deaths.
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### Author:  [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2013, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-laid-low-the-n-r-a-is-fully-prepped-and-rehearsed-to-control-legislation-as-usual/644605/403 "2013-01-16T17:32:31Z")
> [@Bricker](#):
>
> And by the way – does a person have a right to commit suicide, or not?
>
> > [@Hamlet](#):
> >
> > I don’t see that right listed in the Constitution, so I’ll go with no. Am I right?
> >
> > > [@Bricker](#):
> > >
> > > Me, too, but many on the Left seem to disagree.
Yes, the “inkblot” on the CotUS . . . whatever could it mean? :rolleyes:
CMC
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### Author:  [@BigAppleBucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigAppleBucky)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2013, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-laid-low-the-n-r-a-is-fully-prepped-and-rehearsed-to-control-legislation-as-usual/644605/404 "2013-01-17T02:36:05Z")
> [@BigAppleBucky](#):
>
> 2010:
> [http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60\_04.pdf](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_04.pdf)
>
> See page 45
See page 20, not 45. I just checked.
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### Author:  [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2013, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-laid-low-the-n-r-a-is-fully-prepped-and-rehearsed-to-control-legislation-as-usual/644605/405 "2013-02-03T22:08:29Z")
[If we all just have a bit of patience, these gun nuts will simply kill each other off.](http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/03/justice/texas-sniper-killed/index.html?hpt=hp_t1)
Of course, better each other than 20 young children.
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### Author:  [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2013, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-laid-low-the-n-r-a-is-fully-prepped-and-rehearsed-to-control-legislation-as-usual/644605/406 "2013-02-04T05:32:57Z")
> [@Cartooniverse](#):
>
> [If we all just have a bit of patience, these gun nuts will simply kill each other off.](http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/03/justice/texas-sniper-killed/index.html?hpt=hp_t1)
>
> Of course, better each other than 20 young children.
Guy with two silver stars who tries to help vets with PTSD gets killed by an Iraq vet with PTSD, yeah, sounds like the trash taking out the trash.:rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2013, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-laid-low-the-n-r-a-is-fully-prepped-and-rehearsed-to-control-legislation-as-usual/644605/407 "2013-02-04T15:38:47Z")
Oooooooh. Murder is aye okaye so long as you have a shiny dongle on your uniform.
Good to know…
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2013, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-laid-low-the-n-r-a-is-fully-prepped-and-rehearsed-to-control-legislation-as-usual/644605/408 "2013-02-04T15:44:42Z")
The guy with the shiny dongle was the one who got murdered, smart guy. I remember you being pretty rational, but you’ve totally lost it in this thread. Did your wife leave you for a pistol or something?
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### Author:  [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2013, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-laid-low-the-n-r-a-is-fully-prepped-and-rehearsed-to-control-legislation-as-usual/644605/409 "2013-02-04T17:50:09Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#):
>
> Guy with two silver stars who tries to help vets with PTSD gets killed by an Iraq vet with PTSD, yeah, sounds like the trash taking out the trash.:rolleyes:
Would it be out of line to suggest that trying to help a guy with PTSD or some other unspecified mental illness by saying “Hey let’s go shoot stuff” and handing him a gun might not have been the most brilliant idea?
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2013, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-laid-low-the-n-r-a-is-fully-prepped-and-rehearsed-to-control-legislation-as-usual/644605/410 "2013-02-04T18:38:49Z")
Maybe. I don’t know. Not at all sure anybody really does.
Fear and stress, we learn, changes the brain. The brain itself, the physical makeup, the wiring. We don’t like this fact, it screws up our fantasies about citizen soldiers who go off to war, win, come back and forget all about it. We believed it and kept on believing it despite evidence to the contrary.
It may be that this was all a form of “manly” amateur therapy, “walk it off”, do a bunch of manly things so you aren’t such a sensitive wimp. Or not, at this point, we have no real idea.
The best way to approach the “wounded warrior” problem is not make men into warriors. Certainly, it may be necessary, WWII leaps to mind, of course. But Korea? Viet Nam? iraq? We like to bandy about platitudes, like war being the absolutely last resort, but our history shows we don’t mean it. Let’s start by meaning it.
How will that help our current problem? Maybe not much. How do you untie an agonizing knot in the brain? But at least we can offer the comfort that what happened to them will not happen to their sons and daughters. And if it must be so, that we have exhausted every possible alternative.
Peace is the answer. Not an easy answer. But the only answer.
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### Author:  [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2013, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-laid-low-the-n-r-a-is-fully-prepped-and-rehearsed-to-control-legislation-as-usual/644605/411 "2013-02-04T21:17:26Z")
> [@Jenaroph](#):
>
> Would it be out of line to suggest that trying to help a guy with PTSD or some other unspecified mental illness by saying “Hey let’s go shoot stuff” and handing him a gun might not have been the most brilliant idea?
I’m not sure of the specifics. It doesn’t sound like the first thing I would do, but I’m not an expert on PTSD.
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### Author:  [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2013, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-laid-low-the-n-r-a-is-fully-prepped-and-rehearsed-to-control-legislation-as-usual/644605/412 "2013-02-04T23:48:25Z")
> [@Jenaroph](#):
>
> Would it be out of line to suggest that trying to help a guy with PTSD or some other unspecified mental illness by saying “Hey let’s go shoot stuff” and handing him a gun might not have been the most brilliant idea?
\>\>Dripping with sarcasm\<\< Oooh, advocating that would make someone an UnAmerican Constitution-loathing left-wing Commie-Pinko enemy of the N.R.A.
Who would want to be known as that?
:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2013, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-laid-low-the-n-r-a-is-fully-prepped-and-rehearsed-to-control-legislation-as-usual/644605/413 "2013-02-07T00:33:50Z")
Then again, who would want to be known as being on the [N.R.A.'s Hit…er… Hate List](http://nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?ID=15). ?
See, in the N.R.A.'s Amrrikkah, you are either in goose-step with their protocols, rules and moral charter or you are simply Not American.
It would be very very amusing. If it didn’t involve the daily murder of innocents with guns. See, that makes it all quite un-amusing.
[This is the kind of man they’re REALLY proud of !](http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/06/justice/dc-family-research-council-shooting/index.html?hpt=hp_t1)
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