Trouble is, there’s no way to know what the true ratio would be. It might be just as likely that 15 fewer are killed by guns and 100 by other means once you remove people’s ability to defend themselves from those other means. And whether the total number of gun deaths is 15 or 100, the fact remains that the majority of them by far involve people who wanted to die or who deserve to die through criminal acts.
I don’t remotely refuse to acknowledge that guns make suicide much easier and more effective. In fact, I regard it as a plus, for without guns people may choose more painful and protracted methods of killing themselves. But let’s face it, most of the reason suicides are brought up in gun control debates is because it makes anti-gun numbers look more persuasive and portrays guns as a bigger threat to the public at large than they really are. Take away the number of people killed by guns in suicides and self-defense and the total wrongfully killed by guns is much, much smaller, and therefore more likely equalled or overtaken by wrongful killings via other means were guns no longer available.
That would be a possibility, but I strongly doubt that is how things would play out.
I also do not agree that people who have not committed capital crimes and received due process “deserve to die”. It is possible that it is an unavoidable tragedy that you may have to take someone else life to protect that of yours or someone else’s, but it should not be a cuase for celebration.
As I pointed out in another thread, when I was going through some depression, had I had a gun, I may not be here today. I am very glad to be here today, as my life is greatly improved from where it was at that time.
There are likely many people who have gone through short bits of depression and shitty life situations who did have a gun, and took the easy way out, when had they not had access to a gun, they would have worked things out, and be here today as happy, productive members of society.
Most people don’t try suicide twice, and most forms of suicide have a success rate of under 10%, while guns have a failure rate of under 10%. Without guns, even if the rate of attempted suicide was the same, the rate of successful would be much lower. I also think that the gun is more of a temptation than other forms, specifically because it is so effective and reliable. Worse than attempting suicide, IMHO, is failing.
Who’s celebrating it? When you break into someone’s home or confront them at gunpoint in a convenience store you are clearly signaling your willingness to harm or murder them to get what you want, which, btw, may include harming or murdering them. Thus if you die as a consequence of their defending themselves, you have only yourself to blame. This is what I mean when I say they deserved it. Had they not undertaken to threaten innocent people they would not have died.
That’s all well and good and I’m happy for you, but I don’t believe it should be incumbent on the public at large to allow themselves to be put at needless risk so that potential suicides by gun don’t happen. People need to be responsible for their own decisions and their own actions and allow everyone else to do the same.
who is moving goal posts? what is the OP? “Would murder and/or death rates rise, or lower, if the 2nd Amendment was abolished?” NOT would “gun deaths” lower.
And of course with people unable to defend themselves even against knives the rates may go up even more.
Suicide is a basic human right. Altho certainly there can be a debate on it, blithely including *gun suicides * is putting up chaff.
Right, altho perhaps sometimes tragic, suicide by gun is by no means a threat to the public at large . Killing yourself by driving into oncoming traffic, otoh…
Nobody would be satisfied if, for example, Germans were to say “Hey! Our frequency of road fatalities compares well to India!”: we obviously want to compare Germany to countries with anything like a similar GDP per capita, as there’s a high correlation in general between poverty and traffic fatalities.
Same thing for homicides: poverty and homicides are correlated.
Now if you go down the list of GDPs, the US sits near the top. But you have to go a long way down to find a country with a homicide rate like the US’. That is statistically significant and shouldn’t be handwaved.
No, it isn’t. If anything, to try to make it a relevant stat you’d have to change it to “Deaths per gun owner” or something. It’s rather silly IMO to treat every gun a single enthusiast’s collection as separate entities, let alone guns sat on a rack in a store.
Sure, and why not go ahead and reinvent the wheel? The fact that it’s been proven useful elsewhere doesn’t mean it will be in the US, because reasons.
(Actually I think it’s fairly reasonable to allow licensed ownership of handguns, shotguns and hunting rifles say, but I have to put that to one side in this thread.)
I don’t own a gun. In the extremely unlikely event someone tries to break into my house while I’m there, I’ll call the police. If someone breaks into my house while I’m not there, I’m glad they won’t find a gun.
We can play the “What if…some unlikely scenario” game with or without guns. What if someone tries to set fire to my house while I’m in it? What if several armed guys attack? What if someone just waits near my house and tries to just gun me down as I enter/leave or as I pass a window? What if someone just tries to shiv me in the street?
What do you mean “not allowed”? Anyone who wants can go do nationwide gun research. One particular agency in the federal government (the CDC) is prohibited from using their federal funds “to advocate or promote gun control.” That is all.
Yeah, it turns out that the somewhat subjective nature of that rule (if the data shows a correlation between gun ownership and something we both agree is a bad outcome, is that advocating gun control?), coupled with the funding cuts that came in at the same time, have basically killed research in this area.
It’s not just democrats who have attempted to repeal that amendment, there was also a republican-led attempt to do so, and Jay “Dickey Amendment” Dickey himself also thought it should be repealed, as well as of course many medical associations (141 of them) such as the American Medical Association and Doctors for America.
And this is why I don’t debate gun rights with Americans. It always ends up coming down to American exceptionalism. Fuck what works everywhere else, we’re AMERICANS! It’s one of those things that is painfully not true to anyone outside of America, and I’d probably have better luck convincing the board that Trump is the bestest president ever than convincing them that Americans are not nearly as exceptional as they think they are.
“everywhere else”? Including Mexico? Or did you mean to constrain this comment to “developed countries” or some other euphemism for the non-shit-holey parts of the world?
Go ahead, HD. Be the first poster *ever *to explain *what *is exceptional about the US that makes anyone else’s experience completely inapplicable. We’d love to see you do it. We’d love to see *anybody *do it. Show us it really isn’t just a crude level of denialism. Can you?
The USA is exceptional just like every other large nation is. France is exceptional, Russia is exceptional, China, etc.
But oddly, our murder rate is by no means exceptional. It falls smack dab in the middle.
Like it or not, America is exceptional. The the freedoms, economic dynamism and entrepreneurial spirit of this less than 250 year old country have given the world automobiles, airplanes, skyscrapers, radio, television, computers, etc., etc., etc., and it was the first to successfully develop and employ nuclear weapons. We’ve pulled Europe’s ass out of the fire in both world wars (while simultaneously defeating Japan in the second). Most of Europe owes us thanks for the fact that they aren’t Seig Heil-ing each other or calling each other ‘comrade’, and, as for Canuckistan, most of its larger cities would be villages if not for their proximity to large urban cities in America, and it pretty much owes its own freedom, defense and security to the U.S. as well.
This, of course, is not remotely what I said. The fact is that in the same way that America has been unique in its accomplishments and dynamism, it’s also unique in its problems. And it’s the unique nature of its problems that is responsible for the fact that solutions that might work better in other countries won’t work here. We have unique advantages and we have unique problems.
This is all readily apparent to everyone but those who are genetically predisposed to hate the fact that some have more than others and that people, circumstances and countries are not all the same. Thus they deny both America’s exceptionalism and the unique nature of its problems and endlessly seek to transform the U.S. into Europe, a continent whose past is full of violent conflict and which is now eating itself in the throes of self-destructive liberalism.
This is a silly strawman. I never claimed that anyone else’s experience is “completely inapplicable”, but if you want to make international comparisons, there are differences, and it’s sometimes important and worth discussing those differences, and the impacts they may have on one’s comparisons.
Yup. It is exceptional at locking up it’s own citizens, with the highest incarceration rate in the world. I’ll give you that one. The rest I’m just laughing at. Seriously, I can’t stop laughing about that bit about Europe being “a continent whose past is full of violent conflict.” You are aware that America has been at war 93% of it’s existence, 222 out of the 239 Years from 1776-2015, right? Thanks for proving that denial is so much more than a river in Egypt.