septimus - from whence did you acquire your broad brush that I may find one myself?
Did you follow that little exchange? I clarify a cite about suicide statistics and am then asked how I feel about torturing babies. :smack:
If you interpreted my remark as claiming that all gun lovers are outrageous, I’m sorry. Do yourself a favor and get better advocates.
Just to touch on this again because the way you’ve parsed this is not accurate. Breaking it down:
[ul]
[li]“The anti-gun side puts forth a fact…” - This was **PhillyGuy **showing suicide statistics. I agree that this happened as you’ve stated.[/li][li]“pro-gun claims the fact is false…” - This did not happen as you’ve stated. You think this was Bricker, but actually he wasn’t claiming the fact was false. The fact that PhillyGuy put forth was the number of firearm related suicides. **Bricker **did not dispute the fact at all. **Bricker’s **question and statement was related to how many of those firearm related suicides would still result in suicides had firearms not been available either at that time or at another time. He posits that it would still be a high number.[/li][li]“someone (innocent bystander me in this case) demonstrates that the fact was true all along.” - While you added more color from the cited link regarding the success rate of suicide with firearms and other means, you did not address the question of how many actual suicides would be prevented if firearms were not available. This quantity is debatable of course, but in no way did you demonstrate the truth or falseness of what **Bricker **has stated, since he posed a question and your statements were not about what would happen in situation without firearms, merely the success or failure of various methods of suicide. The overall quantity of suicide by firearms as posted by PhillyGuy is not in dispute.[/li][/ul]
Ultimately, suicides by firearms shouldn’t matter with respect to the legality of firearms or associated peripherals. In other words, even if the number were 1 million which is orders of magnitude higher than it actually is, it would not be persuasive.
Of course, this thread was arguably about magazine limits and the accuracy of long guns and the efficacy of both. Suicides are not germane to those topics.
And since the OP has not returned to this thread except once in order to correct me when I posted I could not find the OP’s quote in the OP’s link, I doubt he is all that much interested in the debate anymore.
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. 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.
I do find suicide and domestic violence a compelling argument, not in the sense of gun control per se, but that it is a major problem and it needs to be addressed. Speaking from my own experience, my father owns guns and when my sibling got into drugs and alcohol and had other mental stability issues, he no longer kept them at the house. I think it’s unfair to put all gun-related suicides and domestic shootings at the foot of guns, as at least some of them are going to happen regardless. At the same time, there are definitely some that won’t happen if there aren’t any. 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.
Either way, even as a generally pro-gun person, I think the NRA does take some fairly extreme stances on some of the gun issues, but I don’t personally feel that many of the arguments put forth, particularly about magazine size are unreasonable. There is certainly a point where magazine size becomes ridiculous, someone saying they need 50 rounds is probably too extreme, but I think arguments finetuned down to 10 being okay, but 15 being too many is a little odd. And, frankly, as others said, given the sorts of circumstances that a gun might be used for in a home invasion, in the dark, with a handgun, particularly if there’s more than one invader, 10 rounds very easily may not be enough to subdue the threat. Yet, even though I think it’s unnecessary, if there were some numbers that could reasonably show it would make a difference, I may be convinced. However, like above, I feel like this is treating the symptom, not the cause. Sure, banning guns may make spree killers less lethal, but improving how we can identify and get treatment for the sort of mental health issues that lead to them may help prevent them altogether.
I agree with a decent chunk of this. But my issue is with the things that I see most pro-gun people want to ban.
A black plastic/metal version of a gun is illegal that’s identical in every way to a wood-grain version that is legal. But this really doesn’t matter, does it? Are there ANY users of firearms going “I can’t use this gun to kill a person/people. It’s not black!” (I might accept “I can’t use this gun to kill a person/people. It’s pink!”)
A pistol grip doesn’t add anything to a long arm. It actually decreases stability for larger calibers and/or heavy-packed rounds because you are buttressing it against your forearm (low mass) instead of your upper arm (medium mass) or shoulder (high mass). That means that unless you stop completely between rounds and reacquire your target, you are going to do less damage to moving targets (like people). I admit that you will likely do more damage to non-moving targets.
A collapsible stock doesn’t make a gun easier to conceal. Saying “Look, it folds behind and it’s harder to see under clothes!” is like saying that putting a two-by-four behind another two-by-four under your shirt and pants makes it less conspicuous. Now, there is clothing that can practically conceal a 40 gallon Igloo cooler, but having a fixed stock doesn’t change the fact that the weapon is hidden by the clothes.
Banning these things doesn’t make sense because it’s like banning, as was mentioned earlier, “red cars”. Is a green car of the same make no less deadly? And then banning other things to mitigate the lethality limits the usefulness of the firearms where they are needed, too.
A laser sight can make guns way more deadly…but that’s exactly what you need when you are being attacked and are using your gun for defensive purposes. You see where the bullet will hit without necessarily doing a three-point aim stance.
All that being said, I think a mental health flag (A “Y/N” flag for privacy’s sake) added to the current background check would be very very useful. I would also support closing the private-to-private sales without a background check. 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.
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.
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.
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. 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 think it’s presumptuous to consider suicide prevention a Good Thing. An adult should have the right to end their life by reasonable means that don’t endanger others. Instead of striving to save suicidal people via taking away an imperfect and sloppy means (lots of people survive suicide by gun) we should provide them with a safe and reliable method of suicide. No one who chooses to die should have to suffer through a botched suicide.
And that has the advantage of getting rid of a whole bunch of people suffering from mental illnesses! Win-win!
:rolleyes:
I don’t think one is automatically mentally ill for wanting to end their life. I think it can be a rational and sane decision.
Ok, sure. Not automatically. Can be. (And I’ll freely grant you terminal end-of-life decisions; I absolutely support the right to die with dignity.)
But the vast majority? The ones suffering with depression, schizophrenia, PTSD? Fuck it, let them kill themselves, they’re grownups?
Not what I have in mind. I think part of a state-sanctioned suicide would be counseling and screening in exchange for an exit bag, a calm/private place for the act, and notification of next of kin services. Not a number you’d want to see pop up on your caller ID, but better than walking in on a messy suicide by a damned sight.
Let’s say Joe Schmoe pulls a gun out tonight and shoots himself.
Was he depressed? Schizophrenic? Suffering from PTSD? Why do you automatically assume it was mental illness? “Because no one sane would want to kill themselves.”?
I believe that it’s an ultimate act of selfishness to tell someone how to live personally (I do believe in maintaining social standards, aka your right to swing your fist ends at my nose) and how to die. I look at it this way.
A guy is suicidal. What is the response when:
He crashes into a tree at 90 mph? - “What a terrible accident!”
He jumps in front of a bullet to save someone else’s life? - “He was so heroic!”
He shoots himself in the middle of the night? - “He must have been mentally ill!”
You can be suicidal for all three and the first and third can be done relatively easily, but the living friends and relatives are far more accepting of #1 and #2, even if they knew he was suicidal.
Interesting. You seem to be suggesting that there is a compelling societal interest in allowing people to commit suicide cleanly and simply. But I’m not sure what “counseling and screening” would entail. Since the overwhelming majority of suicides are diagnosably mentally ill, do we prohibit them from suicide in your scenario?
Nope. As I said I believe that it is certainly possible for someone to choose suicide as a rational decision not motivated by mental illness, particularly in cases of terminal or
debilitating medical conditions.
I said “the vast majority” of suicides are mentally ill (and I should amend that to include substance abuse disorders). I’d say 90% constitutes a vast majority, wouldn’t you?
I don’t see that it’s selfish to seek to prohibit someone from making irrational choices, choices driven by illness. I’d argue that we have a compelling societal interest in ensuring people are healthy and capable of making rational decisions.
I think I see where you’re coming from in arguing that we have a compelling societal interest in not prohibiting people from making their own decisions, but ISTM you’re assuming rational decisionmaking. Can you elaborate a little on what you’re getting at?
I am not. We make irrational decisions day in and day out, for many different reasons across every circumstance. For instance, why did a guy go a longer route home, today? Was there a reason? Or did he just go a different way for no seeming reason. What’s the rationality of spending more gas or time to go to the same place? This obviously isn’t as severe as something like suicide, but outside of a few outliers, it’s how the human brain works.
Additionally, when you are diagnosed with a terminal illness, or when you have injuries that are terminal, what makes you somehow more rational in those situations? “I’m going to bleed out in the next ten minutes from this car crash and I want the paramedics to not treat me.” is valid, legally.
I, personally, consider personal choices for yourself to be your own business in what amounts to a pseudo-libertarian world view. You can avoid/reject life saving treatments, commit suicide, or spend your month’s pay with a hooker in three minutes. As long as those choices don’t offend our modern version of the social contract or cause physical harm to others, I consider it not my or the state’s business what you do with yourself.
But I also believe that mental (and medical) health care should be a tax-paid social service from the state so that if you are feeling depressed you can hopefully get to treatment if you so desire.
You’re comparing those everyday “irrational decisions” to schizophrenia, depression, and addiction?
(I mean, I guess your point is that what we call “rational” is actually a continuum, and we make arbitrary distinctions about the lines we draw between rational and irrational?)
More rational than someone with schizophrenia? The fact that they don’t have schizophrenia, I imagine.
We protect other irrational actors from themselves–children, the mentally disabled, dementia patients, and we’re right to do so. I have no idea what your concept of “our modern version of the social contract” is, but if you believe in the existence of such a thing you’re clearly no pure libertarian. You’re acknowledging the existence of a broader societal interest; I feel that interest includes ensuring that the choices people make are as informed and rational as possible.
More, I feel that wasting lives is not in our interests as a society. Look: if someone is in excruciating pain, so wracked that he begs for death, should we let him kill himself? Or is it possible–even likely–that when the pain is alleviated he will no longer wish to die? It almost sounds like you’re suggesting that he should be allowed the freedom to die in that moment so as not to infringe on his right to make his own decisions. I call that a loss to society and a waste.
Point of order: “feeling depressed” != major depression. I applaud and appreciate your idea of state-funded mental health treatment, but it’s important to remember that simple desire is insufficient for most people with major mental illness.
RTF et alia, I apologize for getting us off on this hijack. This discussion really should be in another thread.
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God this is so much bullshit.
If you’re so depressed and/or so mentally ill that you’re willing to shoot yourself in the fucking head, how reasonable do you think it is to expect someone to be rational enough to say, “gee, I could shoot myself in the head, or maybe I’ll look up a shrink in the Yellowpages and set up an appointment for next week”.
If you really really want to kill yourself quickly and painlessly, there are ways of doing it if you’re determined to do it. Guns mean that you don’t need to be -that- determined; a split second impulse BLAM and your brains are all over the wall.We know for *FUCKING FACT *that making it just a little bit harder to *END YOUR FUCKING LIFE *results in more people actually deciding to live. No doubt you’re shocked, shocked, I tell you, to realize that sometimes people who wanted to commit suicide in a brief moment of despair ultimately decide NOT to die.
I guess you’d just prefer that anyone having that thought, even for the briefest of moments in the darkest of circumstances, immediately and irrevocably go through with it. :rolleyes:
Nice strawman. :rolleyes:
Most people who have the thought “even for the briefest of moments” don’t do it. They may threaten. But they are crying for help with the sudden influx of stress. Why? Because they have no release valve. They certainly don’t have the money for a therapist
Most attempted suicides are cries for help. If you didn’t have to dangle yourself from a bridge for the police to respond and save you and lock you in with a therapist and you could go get help from a national service (the part you cut from my quote, btw) you wouldn’t need to be so dramatic. You are feeling depressed? Yes, you should see someone long before eyeing the gun cabinet/car exhaust/bridge is either a cry for help or a way out. You know, actually care for people before they go critical mass? Before they get so wrapped up in depression and convincing themselves that the world will be a better place with them gone?
I’m not saying we don’t help people as you imply. I’m saying that if they are actually trying to commit suicide, it’s not our right to force our beliefs on them, anymore than it is our right to force them to convert to some religion. If they are not physically harming others, they should be allowed to live or die as they see fit.
Wait - you equate ‘it’s better if we had fewer guns around to prevent split-second impulse suicides’ as ‘forcing your beliefs on someone’? You think it’s the same as ‘trying to convert them to another religion’?
Seriously, that’s what you think?