Did you read the post I was responding to? It was doing exactly that.
No not all pro-gun people are entirely rational, but the post by Der Trihs that I wasw responding to painted pro-gun folks like they’re all Ted Nugent. Did you read the post I was responding to? Are you on some weird device that doesn’t let you see quoted text?
The number of gun deaths is about 30,000. Thats mostly suicides.
There is no real problem with our suicides relative to other countries. Of course we should work to reduce suicides but in a country awash in guns, our suicide rate is pretty fucking average for wealthy industrialized nations.
Our murder rate is significantly higher than western european and east asian countries. I think I have said that this is a problem many many times but apparently I don’t give a shit unless I support elvis’s idiocy. I have proposed licensing and registration (along with federal preemption of all state and local gun laws and repeal of all other gun laws along with a shall issue federal carry permit). But apparently a compromise means only supporting the licensing and registration part.
:dubious: (no, not about the average, but the idea that guns are not making it easy for people to decide to off themselves)
Now, I do know that in other industrialized nations trains are one preferred method, but the case of Australia points to a significant reduction of suicide as a result of controlling guns, (And even with the confiscations there are still Australians with guns, specially in farms as NPR reported recently)
Even looking at those reductions in crime and suicide I still think that attempting to confiscate all guns in the USA would be bananas, I would still make it easy for people trained and licensed to get guns, but there is a need to better identify the ones that should not get access to them.
We’ve posted data on this a shitload of times on various gun control threads. We used OECD rates, we used NATO rates, we used global rates and in every case the US suicide rate was around (or below) the median. The lowest suicide rates seem to be around the mediteranean and catholic countries (which is why you see relatively low suicide rates despite huge murder rates in some latin American countries.
Your source might be cherry-picking a few years that show a reduction in gun suicides but over a longer term, people figure out other ways of killing themselves.
I can agree that the focus should be on the person and not the implement.
In addition to licensing and registration, I think we should also focus on things like legalizing drugs and eliminating much of the financial incentive that people have to shoot each other. I think we should destigmatize depressions and mental illness so that people are less likely to shoot themselves. I think we should have a universal database of domestic abusers and mental illness so that we can more effectively apply the laws we already have. But banning AR-15s to prevent mass shootings is like banning goldschlager to prevent drunk driving and date rape.
I kind of agree with the OP sentiment. No matter how passionately I might agree with a cause, I’d still be too humiliated to ever attend a “candlelight vigil” in its support.
Past data does. Unless numbers get revised the numbers remain static. or are you saying that the ban had an effect that was hibernating until After 2003?
Your cite was highlighting two years immediately surrounding the ban to argue that the ban reduced suicides generally. This benefit evaporates when you look at more than those two years.
I’m still waiting to see what sort of “action” the Op is going to take to “actually save lives” or if he is going to satisfy himself with bitching and moaning on the internet. I mean, peace rallies are not enough for him so wtf is the OP/internet tough guy/man of action going to do?
Not sure what he proposes, but I do think that we should pressure our congress critters to do the right thing, as you are correct on that one. Peace rallies are not useful here; and if the congress critters do the usual and shot down new legislation? Well, then it is time to throw the rascals outs and by pure “coincidence” almost all of the ones that resort to obstruction who are in the pockets of the NRA are Republicans.
In the whole issue of gun violence, stopping the lone shooter bent on waging destruction is the most difficult thing to achieve. So, no, it’s not the most obvious place to work on, unless your vision is clouded by the sensational new stories like this one. Meanwhile, 30 people are murdered every day in the US, and they rarely even makes the nightly news that day, much less a presidential hoo-hah and all the gnashing of teeth that goes along with it.
John, you are one of the ineffectiveness-worshiping excuse makers the OP was actually targeting (it’s been, predictably, hijacked by people who literally lack the ability to understand the ability of human life, and can therefore not be reached).
You are part of the problem. But you don’t need to stay that way.
I don’t have a problem with universal background checks. I have a problem with using the watch list to deny constitutional rights without due process. I notice they aren’t pursing an assault weapons ban.