# In which I agree with what the NRA says **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 29, 2013, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-agree-with-what-the-nra-says/675075 "2013-11-29T16:16:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![DragonAsh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DragonAsh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DragonAsh)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-agree-with-what-the-nra-says/675075/81 "2013-12-05T20:23:54Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > Ladders kill a lot more people than guns. Cite? > [@Debaser](#): > > Yes, it’s 16 and up, not 16 and younger. Congratulations on the gotcha. You certainly have me red in the face. Excuse me while I go hand my head in shame. My point is perfectly valid regardless of the age. What about a fifteen year old? That’s certainly old enough to own a gun of their own. I did at that age. Again - reading comprehension not a strong point for you I guess. Hint: it has nothing to do with age. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-agree-with-what-the-nra-says/675075/82 "2013-12-05T20:35:02Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > What about a 15 year old then? 29-37i reads: > [@](#): > > No person shall store or keep any loaded firearm on any premises under his control if he knows or reasonably should know that a minor is likely to gain access to the firearm **without the permission of the parent or guardian of the minor** unless such person (1) keeps the firearm in a securely locked box or other container or in a location which a reasonable person would believe to be secure or (2) carries the firearm on his person or within such close proximity thereto that he can readily retrieve and use it as if he carried it on his person. For the purposes of this section, “minor” means any person under the age of sixteen years. Bolding mine. So, if a 15-year-old asks to use the .22 to go hunting, goes out to hunt rabbits and instead kills himself, no crime has been committed. If the 15-year-old is able to take the rifle himself, and the firearm wasn’t kept in a locked container or on or about the person of the adult, then yes, a crime has been committed. > [@Debaser](#): > > But if a smart 15 year old in your household somehow got in to the locked guns and killed himself, do you think turning you into a felon is going to do any good? Would it matter to you over the terrible guilt you would already be feeling? Note, it’s not a strict-liability crime. If the weapon is in a locked container and the smart 15-year-old is able to get it anyway, no crime has been committed. All that’s needed is a minimum reasonable effort. To your point, I don’t analyze the law on the basis of people’s feelings of guilt. It might well be that the guilt over, say, killing someone while driving drunk is a worse punishment than jail time. I don’t know, or particularly care. The law’s job is to disincentivize wrongdoing by imposing punishments, and achieve justice. ---
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-agree-with-what-the-nra-says/675075/83 "2013-12-05T20:46:29Z")
> [@DragonAsh](#): > > Cite? We did this earlier this year. Here’s a quote from that page. > [@The missing voice in the gun control debates](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-missing-voice-in-the-gun-control-debates/648422/8): > > Probably too early for 2012 figures, but a bit of historical perspective from prior years is available. > > More than 187,000 Americans were treated in hospitals due to stepladder injuries in 2009. [Cite](http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2011/06/28/187000-stepladder-injuries-a-year-in-US/UPI-39191309319068/) > > Of the 617 fatal workplace falls in the United States in 2009, 20% were falls from ladders. That makes for about 123 workplace deaths related to falls from a ladder. [Cite](http://blog.lib.umn.edu/muss0043/falls/blog/) That counts only workplace deaths. > > According to the World Health Organization, the United States leads the world in ladder deaths. Each year, there are more than 164,000 emergency room-treated injuries and 300 deaths in the U.S. that are caused by falls from ladders. [Cite](http://www.nachi.org/ladder-safety.htm) > > Now how many deaths per year are attributed to assault weapons? Let’s use the numbers from Sen Feinstein, a strong proponent of the proposed assault weapons ban. > > That makes 385 assault weapons deaths over a period of about 8 years… or about 48 per year. > > Looks like there are about 6 times more ladder deaths in the USA than assault weapons deaths per year based upon those numbers. In short: Ladders are six times more deadly than assault weapons. So, I should have been more specific with my claim. > [@](#): > > Again - reading comprehension not a strong point for you I guess. Hint: it has nothing to do with age. Maybe you are the one with reading comprehension issues? Here’s the law being discussed: > [@](#): > > Sec. 53a-217a. Criminally negligent storage of a firearm: Class D felony. (a) A person is guilty of criminally negligent storage of a firearm when he violates the provisions of section 29-37i and a minor obtains the firearm and causes the injury or death of himself or any other person.\*\* For the purposes of this section, “minor” means any person under the age of sixteen years.\*\* > > (b) The provisions of this section shall not apply if the minor obtains the firearm as a result of an unlawful entry to any premises by any person. > > (c) Criminally negligent storage of a firearm is a class D felony. Bolding mine. ---
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-agree-with-what-the-nra-says/675075/84 "2013-12-05T20:48:34Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Bolding mine. So, if a 15-year-old asks to use the .22 to go hunting, goes out to hunt rabbits and instead kills himself, no crime has been committed. > > If the 15-year-old is able to take the rifle himself, and the firearm wasn’t kept in a locked container or on or about the person of the adult, then yes, a crime has been committed. So isn’t that a bad law then? The fifteen year old is able to get the gun either way. > [@](#): > > To your point, I don’t analyze the law on the basis of people’s feelings of guilt. It might well be that the guilt over, say, killing someone while driving drunk is a worse punishment than jail time. I don’t know, or particularly care. The law’s job is to disincentivize wrongdoing by imposing punishments, and achieve justice. …and, of course, to punish gun owners. That’s what this is really about. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-agree-with-what-the-nra-says/675075/85 "2013-12-05T21:30:00Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > So isn’t that a bad law then? The fifteen year old is able to get the gun either way. The law is about maintaining control of firearms, which is a reasonable duty to ask of gun owners. In states with no minumum age to possess a long gun (which is 30 of them), the only duty imposed by a law like 29.37i is that the possession be with the permission of the gun owner. Also, I fail to see how the above can make it a bad law, when it means that your objection (that a person could go to jail when their son killed himself while rabbit hunting) can’t actually happen. > [@Debaser](#): > > …and, of course, to punish gun owners. That’s what this is really about. No more so than dog bite laws are “about” punishing dog owners, vehicular homicide is “about” punishing drivers, and so on. What’s being punished is negligent behavior, and only negligent behavior. ---
**Author:** ![DragonAsh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DragonAsh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DragonAsh)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-agree-with-what-the-nra-says/675075/86 "2013-12-05T21:53:20Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > We did this earlier this year. Here’s a quote from that page. Oh - so when you said ‘Ladders kill more people than guns’, what you really meant was, ‘if I completely ignore overall numbers, and if I completely ignore frequency of usage, and if I restrict my statement to a really really narrow subset of the category I’m talking about, then I can make it sound like ladders kill more people than guns, but not really’. :rolleyes: Secondly - you asked rhetorically > [@](#): > > ‘Kids can own guns. What if I want to buy my 16 year old a .22 for rabbit hunting? Is that automatic negligence on my part? If he’s out hunting and decides to kill himself with it am I a felon now?’ Since you apparently need it spelled out for you: Here’s the law again (bolding mine): > [@](#): > > Sec. 53a-217a. \*\*Criminally negligent storage \*\*of a firearm: Class D felony. (a) A person is guilty of \*\*criminally negligent storage \*\*of a firearm when he \*\*violates the provisions of section 29-37i \*\*and a minor obtains the firearm and causes the injury or death of himself or any other person. For the purposes of this section, “minor” means any person under the age of sixteen years. > > (b) The provisions of this section shall not apply if the minor obtains the firearm as a result of an unlawful entry to any premises by any person. > > (c) Criminally negligent storage of a firearm is a class D felony. Here’s Section 29-37i: > [@](#): > > No person shall store or keep any loaded firearm on any premises under his control if he knows or reasonably should know that a minor is likely to gain access to the firearm \*\*without the permission of the parent or guardian \*\*of the minor unless such person (1) keeps the firearm in a securely locked box or other container or in a location which a reasonable person would believe to be secure or (2) carries the firearm on his person or within such close proximity thereto that he can readily retrieve and use it as if he carried it on his person. For the purposes of this section, “minor” means any person under the age of sixteen years. Now, please answer your own question. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-agree-with-what-the-nra-says/675075/87 "2013-12-05T23:37:50Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > Ladders are six times more deadly than assault weapons. My least important point here is that we simply don’t known how many Americans die from assault weapons, however defined. That’s the sort of research that the NRA has successfully defunded. Quoting an unsubstantiated number thrown out in a speech by a politician, even a Democrat, does not change this. A more important point is that ladders are heavily regulated, with every part required to meet specific government requirements: [https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show\_document?p\_table=standards&p\_id=10839](https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=standards&p_id=10839) For those who won’t click the above link, here is one among dozens of standards: > [@](#): > > The minimum clear distance between the sides of individual-rung/step ladders and the minimum clear distance between the side rails of other fixed ladders shall be 16 inches (41 cm). If the government treated guns like ladders, you still could buy a gun in WalMart, but the type of gun you could get there would be limited to a small number of types that were least likely to kill people. And every year or two, as new research came in, types of guns and ammunition that were legal before could no longer be sold. My most important point is that victims of both guns and ladders deserve better than comparisons apparently aimed at trivializing lost lives. ---
**Author:** ![Kable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kable)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-agree-with-what-the-nra-says/675075/88 "2013-12-06T01:55:54Z")
> [@DragonAsh](#): > > In any event - while my issue isn’t ‘kids’ specifically (I think the issue is 'too many fucking guns… So who’s fault is that? [http://cnsnews.com/blog/gregory-gwyn-williams-jr/654-million-gun-purchases-obama-took-office-91-more-bushs-first-term](http://cnsnews.com/blog/gregory-gwyn-williams-jr/654-million-gun-purchases-obama-took-office-91-more-bushs-first-term) ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-agree-with-what-the-nra-says/675075/89 "2013-12-06T02:39:49Z")
> [@Kable](#): > > So who’s fault is that? > > [http://cnsnews.com/blog/gregory-gwyn-williams-jr/654-million-gun-purchases-obama-took-office-91-more-bushs-first-term](http://cnsnews.com/blog/gregory-gwyn-williams-jr/654-million-gun-purchases-obama-took-office-91-more-bushs-first-term) Looking at the FBI statistics in the link of your CNS News story, the number went up during the GW Bush years from less than 9 million a year to almost 13 million a year. Now we are up to 20 million a year. So, yes, the rate of increase is background checks is higher under Obama. Or is it that it is higher since District of Columbia v. Heller? Why does your link mention GW Bush while implying that the alleged “skyrocket” is only an Obama administration phenomena? Since you have given us a link from an anti-Obama web site, I guess it must somehow be an attack on Obama, except I don’t know what they are attacking. [Firearms suicides](http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states), in the US, were running about 17,000 a year during the GW Bush administration, and are now about 20,000 annually. That’s no skyrocket, but it is a trend which is a predictable tragic result of having a country with more and more guns. ---
**Author:** ![Kable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kable)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-agree-with-what-the-nra-says/675075/90 "2013-12-06T04:15:10Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > Why does your link mention GW Bush while implying that the alleged “skyrocket” is only an Obama administration phenomena? Because it really seems to be the case? > [@](#): > > [Firearms suicides](http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states), in the US, were running about 17,000 a year during the GW Bush administration, and are now about 20,000 annually. That’s no skyrocket, but it is a trend which is a predictable tragic result of having a country with more and more guns. So if anti-gun administrations efforts lead to increased gun sales, and you think increased gun numbers leads to increased suicides, then anti-gun efforts are leading to increased suicides? You leftists should really watch out for those unintended consequences. ---
**Author:** ![DragonAsh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DragonAsh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DragonAsh)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-agree-with-what-the-nra-says/675075/91 "2013-12-06T09:23:02Z")
> [@Kable](#): > > So who’s fault is that? People scared that the big black scary president is going to take their guns, I guess? ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-agree-with-what-the-nra-says/675075/92 "2013-12-06T10:54:59Z")
> [@DragonAsh](#): > > People scared that the big black scary president is going to take their guns, I guess? That’s a nice bit of historical revisionism there, **DragonAsh**. The fact of the matter is that Obama’s own website expressed support for the Federal Assault Weapons Ban. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2013, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-agree-with-what-the-nra-says/675075/93 "2013-12-07T01:18:52Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > We do not and should not _want_ to extend that logic to the entire population. To deny people the capacity to commit suicide requires a severe attack on their rights and freedoms. Removing their ability to run their car off a cliff alone would deny the vast majority of Americans their livelihoods, as they would lose their ability to commute to work. > Guns _are_ special. **PhillyGuy** isn’t telling people they shouldn’t own rope in case they decide to hang themselves. We don’t have legislators arguing that red cars should be banned. Yes. If a person is on suicide watch you don’t just take away their _guns_; you take away their belt and their shoelaces, lock them in a room with nothing dangerous in it, and you have someone continually check up on them. Without getting into the morality of suicide and attempts to prevent it, at the very least I refuse to be treated that way without some kind of actual reason for thinking I’m suicidal. Nor does the United States have a uniquely or even notably high [suicide rate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate) compared to its peers. Just a Wikipedia link, but: Japan has nearly double the American suicide rate; South Korea has over two and a half times the U.S. suicide rate. (And I don’t know what the hell is up with poor Greenland.) Japan and South Korea are not countries awash in firearms; both have strict gun control laws. (Apparently Greenland does have [a fair number of guns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Greenland), although hanging is the number one suicide method there). France has a somewhat higher suicide rate than the U.S., Australia somewhat lower. And the U.K.? The U.S. has an annual suicide rate of 12 per 100,000 people, whereas the U.K.'s annual suicide rate per 100,000 people is…11.8. Whatever you want to say about _homicide_, or violent crime more generally, suicide rates clearly seem to be primarily influenced by other cultural factors, quite independent of firearms ownership. Suicide is not a valid argument for gun control. ---
**Author:** ![DragonAsh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DragonAsh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DragonAsh)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2013, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-agree-with-what-the-nra-says/675075/94 "2013-12-08T09:08:49Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > Looking at the FBI statistics in the link of your CNS News story, the number went up during the GW Bush years from less than 9 million a year to almost 13 million a year. Now we are up to 20 million a year. **So, yes, the rate of increase is background checks is higher under Obama**. Um, actually, not really. Perhaps you don’t know what ‘rate of increase’ means? The average annual rate of growth under the last five years of Bush: bit under 10%. The average rate of growth under Obama: just over 10%. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2013, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-agree-with-what-the-nra-says/675075/95 "2013-12-08T13:36:42Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > South Korea has over two and a half times the U.S. suicide rate. (And I don’t know what the hell is up with poor Greenland.) Yes, there are counter-examples to the death-guns correlation. I can’t find anything on the gun ownership rate in Greenland, so I don’t know why you brought that up. But South Korea has few guns. Not only that, but there are smokers who live to 100 (at least according to the _[Daily Mail](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2021767/Having-long-life-inheriting-right-genes.html)_, and I’m guessing this is one of the few times that stopped clock is riight). So by this same cherry-oicking method, we might as well tell young people that’s it’s fine to take up smoking :smack: It’s true that the causes of violent death are multi-factorial. You have cultural tendencies towards more violence, or less violence. You have cultural tendencies towards taking out violent impulses on others (Mexico, Louisiana) and on oneself (South Korea, Wyoming). To become experts in abnormal behavior, yea, we need to understand all that. But to know whether lots of guns are a big contributor to getting killed, look at the correlation. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2013, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-agree-with-what-the-nra-says/675075/96 "2013-12-08T21:40:00Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > Yes, there are counter-examples to the death-guns correlation. For death _by suicide_ there simply _is_ no correlation. Please look at the data–or find us a better data set–and show us this “correlation” you’re talking about. > [@](#): > > But to know whether lots of guns are a big contributor to getting killed, look at the correlation. I’m not talking about “getting killed”, I’m talking about suicide. There is no correlation whatsoever between a country’s gun laws and its suicide rate. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2013, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-agree-with-what-the-nra-says/675075/97 "2013-12-09T07:24:05Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > So I guess they’d be good with a 10-round limit on magazine capacity, because that should easily suffice for defense against anything less than a rampaging mob. I dunno, I’m a pretty bad shot. > [@](#): > > Similarly, it sounds like they’d be good with bans on civilian possession of rifles that are accurate at distances of more than a couple hundred yards, because Lord knows you don’t need to defend yourself against someone that far away. Yeah but you need it to hunt. Especially if you smell weird and fart loudly. > [@septimus](#): > > The NRA does have a record of supporting some gun control. [Here’s an example.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/79f5b7a35a773c13bdfec81c0cb3511f/tumblr_mgjblzqOXp1ra4inbo1_400.jpg) Things changed at the NRA in 1977. [http://www.vpc.org/nrainfo/chapter2.html](http://www.vpc.org/nrainfo/chapter2.html) So despite your attempt to make this seem like some long term problem with racism, its mostly a change in philosophy that occurred in 1977. > [@Quartz](#): > > Tell that to the shopkeepers caught in the Rodney King riots. I was there. I don’t know that there was enough heavy fire that 30 round magazines were important but having the guns were definitely important. > [@F.Pu-du-he-pa-as](#): > > …In 1993, a study, “[Gun ownership as a risk factor for homicide in the home](http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199310073291506),” funded by the CDC, came out in the _New England Journal of Medicine_. The paper concluded that, “Rather than confer protection, guns kept in the home are associated with an increase in the risk of homicide by a family member or intimate acquaintance.” That particular statistic isn’t really credible. This statistic is based on a small study comparing households in which a homicide occurred to demographically similar households in which a homicide did not occur. After controlling for several variables, the study found that gun ownership was associated with a 2.7 times increase in the odds of homicide. The study blurs cause and effect, as explained in a comprehensive analysis of firearm research conducted by the National Research Council, gun control studies such as this (known as “case-control” studies) “fail to address the primary inferential problems that arise because ownership is not a random decision. … Homicide victims may possess firearms precisely because they are likely to be victimized.” The results are arrived at by subjecting the raw data to statistical analyses instead of letting the data speak for itself. (For reference, the raw data of this study shows that households in which a homicide occurred had a firearm ownership rate of 45% as compared to 36% for non-homicide households. Also, households in which a homicide occurred were twice as likely have a household member who was previously arrested (53% vs. 23%), five times more likely to have a household member who used illicit drugs (31% vs. 6%), and five times more likely to have a household member who was previously hit or hurt during a fight in the home (32% vs. 6%). And yet they pick out the one correlation with gun ownership, look at the numbers from a very particular perspective and say that having a gun makes you several times more likely to be murdered by a gun (not THAT gun, a gun) > [@](#): > > The NRA responded by going after the CDC. Personally I think that the NRA should let the gun grabbers hang themselves with their own lies but the NRA has a confidence problem. It spent a long time trying to undermine the heller case. It didn’t want to pursue ANY cases, they didn’t seem to have a lot of trust for the legal system of the very government that might be the tyranny they would have to rise up against or something like that. Someone explained it to me once and it sounded a bit paranoid. > [@](#): > > in 1996, a provision known as the Dickey Amendment was added to the CDC’s appropriations bill stating that “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.” In 2012, a similar clause was added to the NIH appropriations bill. To be fair the CDC and the health profession generally are biased against things that kill people. The way my CDC friends explained it to me, it sounded an awful lot like they thought that the reduction in suicides would justify any increases caused by the absence of guns (in civilian hands). > [@](#): > > But how can a reasonable discussion even take place when an organization on one side has actively worked against (and effectively destroyed) the rational and evidence-based foundation for any kind of debate? That is absolutely acting in bad faith. If the other side didn’t spend all its political capital on trying to ban a teeny tiny subset of guns that are responsible for an even teenier tinier portion of firearm related deaths, then perhaps they would have something left to fight for more firearm research. I suspect the problem is that the gun grabber side doesn’t really give a shit about the facts much more than the gun nut side. > [@PhillyGuy](#): > > Whatever the number is, it is way too many. > > You didn’t ask about this, but the case fatality rate for suffocation, while high, is still lower than for firearms: > > [Lethality of Suicide Methods – Means Matter](http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/case-fatality/) > > So given that, I fear, there always will be a portion of humanity who attempt a permanent solution to temporary problems, a shift from firearms to other means would save lives. I suspect that some lives would be saved but I don’t know if it would be as many as you think. Guns are not the only near sure way to kill yourselves. Around the world, men attempt fewer suicides and commit far more of them. Getting rid of guns won’t reduce suicides by 20,000 or anything near it really, I think. > [@](#): > > But, realistically, I can’t live a modern life without some of the objects that can also be used in suffocation suicide. I can live without owning guns, …and live more safely… Dammit I lost the link I don’t see how suicides affect your safety if you don’t have a gun especially since you can still suffocate yourself without the gun. > [@Grumman](#): > > How? Because they’re more likely to fuck it up? Yeah, thats pretty much the argument. The problem with this is A) we were talking about only allowing particular types of guns in the OP and seeing as how a constitutionally protected handgun is the most commonly used firearm in suicide, I don’t see what they propose to do besides ban all guns entirely after amending the constitution (good luck with that); and B) our suicide rate isn’t really obscenely high compared to other industrialized nations. Our suicide rate is 12 suicides per 100,000 France:14.7 UK: 11.8 Japan: 21.7 South Korea 39.3 Belgium 17 Finland 16.9 Taiwan 15.1 Canada 11.5 Germany 9.9 > [@BigT](#): > > Well, yeah. Why do you say that like it’s something incredulous? > > The entire purpose of guns is that they make killing things easier. Someone who is on suicide watch is not only prevented from having guns, but knives, sharp objects, ropes, full access to drugs, etc. > > We very often prevent those intent on self harm from harming themselves by making it much harder to actually pull off. That’s kinda the point. Yeah but if someone wanted to commit suicide and they didn’t have access to guns but they had access to all those other things, how much do you think it would affect the suicide rate? > [@](#): > > I don’t know whether it’s people in general or just this board, but I do find it tiring that reasoning so often goes out the window when the gun debate comes up. Guns aren’t special, especially not because a 250-year old document says they are. Guns are special because they level the playing field and a 95 pound woman can be as powerful as a 300 pound linebacker (and that can be good or bad I suppose, a henhouse without a pecking order can be a bloody place, but hopefully we are smarter than chickens). Guns do it in a way that swords or martial arts never did. You can learn how to use a gun in an afternoon, it takes a much longer time to learn how to handle a sword or judo. And they are ALSO special because of their place in the constitution. [QUOTE=Bone;16891614[north of 100K] ([Defensive Gun Use (Part V) - A Comparison of Two Studies](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/03/1242314/-Defensive-Gun-Use-Part-V-A-Comparison-of-Two-Studies)) (pulling from KOS just because it may receive a friendlier reception. The only thing I’m relying on from this cite is the low end estimate) defensive gun uses each year. [/quote] Good luck with that. I’ve been using that number for a while now and I still can’t get people to acknowledge that its a credible number. > [@septimus](#): > > Sorry if this non sequitur startled me. On reflection I realize that by opposing a misclaim by someone opposing gun control (or opposing someone opposing someone opposing gun control) – to some minds – I ally myself with gun grabbers > > Actually I have no strong feelings, or even knowledge, one way or the other on gun control and clicked on the thread only because I often find arguments of Distinguished Counsel interesting! For someone with no strong opinions on gun control, you seemed pretty quick to try and paint the NRA as racist. I understand that the NRA can be racist without all gun owners being racist but the connection seems hard to ignore. > [@](#): > > As with many issues where I have no knowledge, I may nevertheless form an opinion based on the diction and argumentation of each side of the debate. By this standard, gun fanatics lost me long ago. So you do have an opinion and that opinion is mostly formed by observing gun nuts arguing with gun grabbers? I wish everyone formed their opinion about guns by observing arguments between gun nuts and gun grabbers. I think the gun grabbers are generally more extreme and shrill. > [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > The biggest issue I always see when it comes to gun debates like this is that there doesn’t seem to be any middle ground in the discussion. There is plenty of middle ground but arguing with gun grabbers is like arguing with pro-lifers or vegans except the gun grabbers are generally not as well informed as pro-lifers or vegans. I suspect that a lot of gun grabbers are expressing recreational outrage. > [@](#): > > In general, I’m pro-gun, but I can understand why someone who is in favor of gun control might naively suggest that a gun accurate over 200 yards isn’t necessary. It’s not unlike how, as a kid, I wondered why cars had spedometers that went up to 120 mph when that’s about twice what any speed limit in my state was. It’s important to point out that generally that sort of accuracy is necessary for the function of a rifle and they’d have to be specifically designed to be accurate at some shorter distance but not at that range. But, hopefully, most reasonable people will also conceded that exceedingly few crimes are commited in such a manner, so it’s hardly a high priority. And doesn’t it seem odd that gun grabbers know so little about something that they are willing to bend the constitution to ban? Like i said, I suspect a lot of it is RO especially when some high profile event occurs. > [@](#): > > In both cases though, it seems to me that the whole gun control debate related to suicide and domestic violence is going after the wrong issue. Mental health is something we’re horribly deficient on in the US and I think that, regardless of the direction of the gun control debate, I think we’ll save a lot more lives approaching these problems from that angle. Yeah but thats hard and banning guns seems like a silver bullet. > [@DragonAsh](#): > > Actually…no they wouldn’t. Fun little fact about the Interwebz - there’s lots of information out there if you want to find it! > > The US has seen almost no meaningful decline in suicides controlled for population growth - approx. 10-11 suicides per 100,000 people every year, almost unchanged since the 1960s. > **[Death Rates for Suicide, 1950-2010](https://www.infoplease.com/us/health-statistics/death-rates-suicide-1950-2010)** > > (deaths per 100,000 resident population) 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 1995 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2010 All ages, age adjusted 13.2 13.2 13.2 13.2 12.5 11.8 10.4 10.7 10.9 10.8 11.0 11.0 12.1 5-14 years 0.2 0.3 0.3 0.4 0.8 0.9 0.7 0.7 0.6 0.6 0.7... It seems like they are down since the 1960’s rates of 13 but up from a low of 10.4 in 2003 to about 12 today. Maybe there are other factors at play here. > [@](#): > > I live in the UK, where over half of all suicides up until the 1970s offed themselves by sticking their heads in the oven and turning the oven to ‘bake’. Gas ovens at the time used coke gas - and fumes from coal gas ovens were heavy in extremely lethal carbon monoxide. In the 1950s and 60s, however, the UK started switching to natural gas ovens, which were far less lethal. > > Guess what happened? Between the mid-1960s through the late 1970s, the overall suicide rate fell by over 30%, and has stayed at this lower level, driven almost entirely by the fact that it was now harder to kill yourself by sticking your head in the oven for a couple of minutes. Basically you could still kill yourself, if you were prepared to keep your head in the oven for several hours. > > In other words - make it harder to kill yourself, and the average possible suicide victim couldn’t be bothered to actually -work- at it. So over half of suicides were from ovens and when they made that impractical suicides didn’t drop by over 50%, they dropped by 30%? So at least some of those folks still killed themselves by other means? Is it possible that suicides are down by 30% just because suicides went down in most countries on earth (including the USA)? > [@](#): > > Suicides are predominantly impulse acts - remove the ability to quickly and almost certainly kill yourself, be it coke gas ovens or guns, and guess what? most of those people don’t, in fact, turn to hanging, or jumping, or poison. Most? > [@](#): > > They just sort of go on living. This has been borne out by numerous studies (i.e, adding a small-but-not-unclimbable-barrier to a bridge cut suicides leads to sharp drops in suicides, etc.). The problem with guns in this sense is that they’re too good at what they’re built to do. I am no more concerned about people committing suicide with guns as I am with people committing suicide with cigarrettes (heck at least guns have an arguably positive net effect on society). I wouldn’t ban them even if it would save a shitload of lives but I would try to educate people about them. If you want to deal with the suicide problem in the country then lets deal with suicides rather than one of an infinite possible variety of ways you could commit suicide. > [@Debaser](#): > > You are the one who wants to make it special. The law you are requesting isn’t a general one for all deaths of minors caused by negligence on the part of a homeowner. It’s specific to gun owners. Why do you consider this situation to be so special as to require it’s own law rather than any other potentially lethal items left lying around? > > Should we charge adults with a felony who let a kid borrow their car and crash it? How about if they have chemicals in the house? Or a pool? Why just go after the guns? Actually, I can get into a lot of trouble if I don’t fence my pool. I doubt I would go to jail but still the law is there to make sure that I keep the fence in good repair. > [@](#): > > It’s just a bad idea, born from the assumption that all guns are inherently evil and scary. I think it might be born from the assumption that all guns are inherently dangerous. And while the whole sending grieving parents to jail seems over the top, don’t forget that most accidental shooting (like 90% of them) don’t result in death, heck I don’t know if most accidental shootings result in anyone even getting hit. So you are much more likely to be sending some guy with a hole in his wall (or a kid in the hospital) to jail. I mean why bother sending someone to jail for drunk driving, its not like they don’t feel horrible about the family they killed with their car. > [@PhillyGuy](#): > > My least important point here is that we simply don’t known how many Americans die from assault weapons, however defined. That’s the sort of research that the NRA has successfully defunded. We have a pretty good idea that they would be less than the number of people killed by all rifles combined. > [@](#): > > Quoting an unsubstantiated number thrown out in a speech by a politician, even a Democrat, does not change this. This is a number being thrown around by a Democrat who was trying to ban the goddam things. I believe it was Feinstein. > [@](#): > > If the government treated guns like ladders, you still could buy a gun in WalMart, but the type of gun you could get there would be limited to a small number of types that were least likely to kill people. And every year or two, as new research came in, types of guns and ammunition that were legal before could no longer be sold. > > My most important point is that victims of both guns and ladders deserve better than comparisons apparently aimed at trivializing lost lives. No thats not true. I can buy a chainsaw and a wood chipper capable of inflicting horrible damage on people, why would they treat guns more severely? AND You’re talking about OSHA regulations, there are all sorts of rules about gun use and ownership, I am going to guess that people who use guns for work have even more rules they have to follow. I never had to pass a background check for a ladder (or a chainsaw for that matter), I can take a ladder with me just about anywhere I want to, I don’t get kicked out the range for life for pointing my ladder in the wrong direction. Guns can be very dangerous and we have a lot of rules to mitigate that. It is comments like this that makes people believe the NRA when they tell people that the gun grabbers really want to turn our right to keep and bear arms into something resembling mexico’s right to keep and bear arms (you can basically own a 22 caliber rifle or a shotgun), meanwhile the criminals don’t obey these restrictions. > [@DragonAsh](#): > > People scared that the big black scary president is going to take their guns, I guess? IIRC, Obama said he wanted to ban assault weapons and the sales of assault weapons went through the roof. With that said, it happened with Clinton too, so I think its a partisan thing more than a racial thing. Thats not to say that some people aren’t racist but gun ownership is high in places like the south east and Texas so you’re going to get a lot of racist gun owners. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2013, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-agree-with-what-the-nra-says/675075/98 "2013-12-11T18:18:36Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > Make a website (not by the guys who did the ACA website) that gives a simple “Yes” or “No” or “Details do not match” to information punched into the website and have it run the background check right then and there. We have like 90% of the CBI information in databases, already. There’s no reason we can’t do this. [Senator Coburn suggested something almost exactly like this](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/10/tom-coburn-gun-background-checks_n_3056893.html), but the gun banners didn’t like the idea. They wanted the information recorded in FFL’s bound books. Many RKBA advocates suspected they had ulterior motives for this. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2013, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-agree-with-what-the-nra-says/675075/99 "2013-12-11T19:02:34Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > If the government treated guns like ladders … The government does treat guns like ladders. More precisely, the government treats almost anything it touches (health insurance now too!) like ladders, with insane layers of bureaucracy and idiotic rules and rulings. Just go ask someone at your local gunstore about the difference between a rifle with an overall length of 25" vs 27". [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-i-agree-with-what-the-nra-says/675075.md?page=4)