Excellent post.
No duh! Defensive uses generally don’t get any attention. Apparently they fail the ‘sell newspapers’/ ‘viewer eyeballs’ tests.
First of all, I am mightily impressed with your join date/post count ratio. I mean it, not snarking.
DGU does get attention, but only in two narrow categories. One category is the completely justified DGU (IMO), such as a store owner shooting an armed robber, or a home owner defending themselves against intruders. The other category that gets a lot of publicity is the ambiguous “Stand your ground” type. The “I shot him in self defense” cases. Similar to Zimmerman. Like several people have pointed out, the use of a gun for defense in situations that fall in between these extremes is problematic. Did you “need” a gun to affect that outcome? Because if you didn’t you put everyone around you in danger.
If you think it is a good idea to “use your gun” but you think nothing significant enough to warrant a police report happened…
“How do you know you’re in Mogadishu?” for 200 please
Holding you responsible for crimes committed with your gun.
Motivating you to use a safe. Preventing you to sell it to just anyone.
Why do we register cars?
Most democrats are afraid about going anti-gun also. Problem comes back to most people, even democrats, want a way to protect themselves.
Interesting video: Anti Gun Liberals Shoot Guns for the First Time
Similar video where Steven Crowder has 2 young women who are anti gun, takes them to a gun range where they shoot handguns, shotguns, and an AR-15 then they go thru the process of trying to buy a gun.
Reducing gun deaths.
BTW, I’m still waiting on some cites on your claims on Dr. Melinek, I know she lives in SF, but it’s not clear to me what jurisdictions she works in and in what capacity. You were very sure that she lied about the number of gunshot victims she sees, but I’m going to need some cites.
For a follow-up take them to an ER to see a gunshot victim dying.
You do realize that 70% of the people in this country don’t own any guns at all.
The ability to own a gun doesn’t protect you. In fact, the ability to own a gun makes you far less safe because it means that other people have that ability too. One way to (theoretically) balance out that increased risk is to actually own a gun, but only 30% of Americans choose to do so. 70% of our population isn’t afraid to be anti-gun, because that’s exactly how they live.
Frankly, I think the only reason that 70% isn’t more forcefully anti-gun is the ridiculous hysterics that the remaining 30% employ when even the most timid regulations are proposed. Developed countries across the globe have fully functional societies without being awash in guns, and without tens of thousands of gun-related deaths.
Murders are reported and tabulated, but gunshot injuries, while reported, do not seem to be well tabulated anywhere.
It does seem as though most in this thread are concentrating only on the murders and fatalities from guns, and completely ignoring the life changing injuries that these toys inflict. Concentrating only on the murder rate compared to the self reported DGU rate is disingenuous. If you want to make any comparison, then comparing to the total number of injuries is much more valid.
The thread is about pulling bullets out of patients, not just corpses.
Also, I do disagree with your assertion that a non-violent DGU should not be reported. Why did you feel the need to defend yourself? Was there someone threatening you or others? Is there a reason that you do not report this person to the police, this person that can only be warded off by an armed individual?
It seems to me, that if you are afraid enough for your life that you feel the need to show deadly force to feel safe, then by not reporting the situation to law enforcement, you are just setting up the next victim to be in the same situation where you needed a gun to get out of. Why would you do this?
and don’t just stage it like in those gun videos.
You could take people who are pro-gun to an ER and show them gunshot victims and their thought process would be, “that’s what would happen to me if I didn’t have a gun to protect myself.” You show people who are pro-gun-control the same thing and their thought process would be, “this is why guns need to be controlled.” It just depends on the individual, and their existing biases.
I know two EMTs, both avid shooters and both very outspoken on FB against gun control. I know combat veterans who are very pro-gun, but I also know combat veterans who say they never want to hold a gun again after the shit they went through and who are in favor of gun control. It just depends on the individual. One problem with the “argument from authority” approach is that for every [authority on x] advocating [opinion x], you can also find an [authority on x] advocating [opinion y.]
(This doesn’t apply in all cases, some things are simply scientific fact, but gun violence and the best methods for preventing it are more subjective and more colored by emotion.)
Except then you show them the gun that the victim had on them that somehow did not manage to deflect even a single bullet.
Agreed, it does depend on how they are biased.
But sometimes, just because you can always find an authority on x advocating opinion y, doesn’t mean that, as you claimed, you can find one to advocate for y for everyone that you advocates for x. Just like climate change or even flat earth, I can find “an expert” who has opinions, but when you have say, 97 experts with opinion x for every expert with opinion y, those with opinion y have an uphill battle to convince rational people that their minority held opinion is the correct one.
How many doctors recommend taking two guns, and calling them in the morning?
It is a scientific fact that if fewer people are shooting guns at people, then fewer people will get bullets in them.
This is a gigantic pile of steaming bullshit. Only one side of this issue wants to study gun violence scientifically.
The other side is virulently against it, for the simple reason that they fucking well know exactly what a scientific study would show.
All a person with a functioning brain has to do is look at the results of dozens of real life experiments in gun control methods, and see which ones worked and which ones didn’t. I don’t mean look at Chicago and Los Angeles, I mean look at the USA and the UK, Australia, France, Japan, and all the other countries of the world who have enacted gun control legislation (or not) and see what their gun violence results are.
Subjective my ass.
Regardless of whether a scientific study is performed, the issue here is going to be determined by voters and a lot of them are not going to be swayed by any studies. The NRA may be against the CDC studying gun violence, but say the study was funded and performed anyway, and the reports issued. Then what? How are those findings going to make it any easier for gun control to be enacted?
The examples of the UK, Australia, and Japan, are ones I see very often.
It is not politically possible in this country.
When people advocate it, as they often do in discussions online and on FB posts which are shared and seen by thousands of people, they are advocating what amounts to a total gun ban. Then people who are pro-gun hear people who are in favor of gun control say “nobody wants to take away your guns” - I see that very line, over and over again - “we just want reasonable gun control.” The pro-gun people do have functioning brains (well some of them), at least enough that they can think “wait a minute, you said nobody wants to take away your guns, but I’m always seeing people calling for America to follow the example of Australia and Japan.” And they just dig in deeper.
I don’t want this situation with the NRA obstructing any possible progress into limiting gun violence, as they are currently doing, any more than you do. But gun owners see those words “Australia and Japan” and they donate more money to the NRA. Do we want to make progress, or do we want to make a point?
The fact that these words can be spoken about a subject that concerns tens of thousands of deaths every hear, disgusts me.
The very idea that not studying the subject is an option, disgusts me. The fact that doctors and the CDC have to beg for such a study, disgusts me.
Whether or not it makes it easier to enact gun control is not the issue. If I want to be non-partisan about it, a logical scientific person with no particular ax to grind, what I want is to understand the issue. I want actual facts to talk about.
I’d like to see less red tape in owning a car, more hospital oversight if it is helpful in lowering costs and/or improving patient outcomes, and no I don’t think we need pool fence laws.
Just out of curiosity, why don’t the people in favour of gun control join the NRA en masse and take it over?
What a bizarre argument - “Better evidence won’t convince people anyways, therefore we shouldn’t bother to search for better evidence”. This is sort of the opposite of how things usually work. Are you saying that gun proponents are basically immune to rationality? I don’t think that’s what you’re saying, but it is the logical conclusion of your argument.
How would you make a point to people for whom scientific evidence is unconvincing?