Of course, there are other factors driving violence and suicide: gun control might help, perhaps even a lot, but it cannot be the sole means of making society safer. More gun “freedom”, on the hand, is in the same boat. We cannot fix the problems/causes that we ignore.
So we agree that we do not have an epidemic of suicides compared to other countries and in fact we have a very average suicide rate for developed countries and a fairly low suicide rate if you include all countries.
So now the question is whether our suicide rate would be significantly lower than the average for all developed countries if we got rid of guns.
The metastudy in your link is fairly useless because it does not limit itself to peer reviewed studies.
For example, the only study they cite on an assault weapons ban shows a 6.7% reduction in gun homicides as a result of an AWB. How is that possible when rifles (of which assault weapons are a small subset) are only used in like 3% of gun homicides? Are people using assault weapons to commit suicide? Or is it failing to adequately reflect the reduction in gun homicides that was going on throughout the 1990s?
Some of the studies show reduction of almost 50% in the number of suicides (not just gun suicides, ALL suicides). That would give us one of the lowest suicide rates among wealthy industrialized countries, comparable to the heavily Catholic countries.
The studies acknowledge that there is a pretty large substitution effect (an increase in hanging suicides that entirely offset the decrease in gun suicides) but then goes on to suggest that there may be a reductive effect anyways.
I don’t find the meta study very convincing, at least when it comes to suicides. We have an elevated homicide rate but I don’t think you needed a study to prove that.
As far as shooting anyone who threatens the family, I think this kid shooting that nutty mom was a pretty good move. Maybe this is one of those positive gun stories I hear about? I mean the kid wasn’t hurt and a dangerous loon was neutralized.
Come on man. Now that you know everyone is going to be OK, there has GOT to be a part of you that is laughing your ass off. This is like the confluence of 5 kinds of stupid.
This could have ended much worse. The kid might have done what a lot of kids do and tried to pull the trigger with his thumbs. That points the barrel right at your face (this is the best argument I have heard for shotguns over handguns in homes with children).
Jamie Gilt is probably the most grateful gunshot victim in America. That bullet could have gone in the other direction.
The weird thing is that the gun the kid used is a 1911. Those things require cocking before firing. If you carry it cocked, you would be crazy not to engage the safety. So the kid had to either cock the hammer or release the safety before firing the gun. Or Jamie Gilt leaves cocked guns lying around without the safety on.
Wrong. I do not think killing or injuring people is something to laugh at. Only a sociopath would - someone like you, for instance.
Yes, one of which is the initial decision to carry.
These things, common as they are, often do. But you handwave them away as “acceptable”, or even laugh.
When she gets out of the hospital, you can ask her. After you stop laughing at her, that is.
It wasn’t really an accident, now was it? It was the final event in a chain of actions she took. It *should *be a learning experience, and for her it may be. For you, with your psychoses, it cannot be.
Please, it’s not like the dumb ass American gun owner is an endangered species; the only thing higher than their incidents for accidental shootings is their bug like rate of reproduction. The idiot got shot for being an idiot, better her than her kid or decent folk.
I love it when antis let their facade drop and reveal their true nature. All that business about saving lives is just patter for the rubes. You’re happy like pigs in shit when “the right people” get killed.
Only because folks figure that when one of these bozos takes himself out of the equation it’s less likely that innocents will be killed later on.
And folks do have a sense of irony. I wouldn’t wish dying in a motorcycle accident on anyone but when the vic is a leading opponent of mandatory helmet laws…
I don’t care what you think, dumb ass gun fetishists drag America down to a third world nation; you’re sad little fantasies and over compensation are destroying us. Better some asshole gets shot by her Kid than decent folk. And aren’t you fucking conservatives supposed to be about personal responsibility? Or that only apply to poor black folk?
I’d rather no one got shot (which is the point), but if someone does get shot I think we’re entitled to a little *schadenfreude *when it’s someone who has spent a great deal of effort talking up her right to have a gun to shoot *other *people in order to “protect” the child who shot her. It’s hard to ignore an Olympic swiming pool-sized helping of irony like that.
Unlike Elvis I don’t think carrying per se is “stupid” but if you’re as much “about the guns” as she was (which suggests a more-than-passing familiarity with their operation) and yet you leave a loaded - and apparently potentially cocked - gun within easy reach of a four-year-old I think you’ve abdicated the title of “responsible gun owner” and any consequences that follow are all on you.
I’ll also echo the relief that the gun wasn’t pointed the other way. There have been plenty of those tragedies this year already. Or should I say “I love it when the pros let their facade drop and do everything possible to distract from the fact that a young child has once again shot someone”? Because that’s a helpful approach, obviously.
Well, according to Elvis, this may make some of you psychopaths.
Yeah its pretty egregious if the 1911 in the picture was the one that the kid used. 1911 are an old design. If you are going to carry a 1911, there are a lot of ways to do it but the most common is probably to carry it cocked and locked. That is they carry the gun with a bullet in the chamber, the hammer cocked back and the thumb safety on very few people would leave this out of a holster cocked and locked without the thumb safety on. This kid either knew how to handle a 1911 (at age 4?) or someone left the safety off on a cocked 1911 and then left the 1911 lying around where a 4 year old kid could get his hands on it.
“Third world nation…” I also love it when antis slip up and expose their inner bigotry. Tell me about these “third world nations” and why the people there are, apparently, not as good as you.
You mean, like being unable to enforce a government monopoly on violence?
Yes, that is in fact a major distinction between most advanced nations and most third-world nations.
Not sure how it constitutes ‘bigotry’ to point this out. Or note the reality that Second Amendment absolutism drags us down to the third-world side of that distinction.