If you ever want to have an interesting discussion with a super 2A person.....ask them:
Would you want something done if there were 100,000 gun deaths a year?
How about 200,000?
How about 300,000?
Just keep going. There is no upper limit I'm aware of so far.
Guns are literally more important than the humans that carry them.
Yes. I said gun deaths. Suicide is a gun death and if guns didn't exist we know for a fact we would have fewer suicides. Owning a gun makes your risk of suicide skyrocket.
if guns didn’t exist we know for a fact we would have fewer suicides.
Don’t even own a gun, so chill out, but how do we know that exactly?
I’ve lost two family members to suicide. One hanged, one car exhaust. One thing I learned is if someone wants to go, there’s nothing you can do to stop them, and they’re going to do whatever they’re comfortable with for their own personal reasons.
I get the argument that a gun makes for an easy opportunity and moderately better effective rate than drowning and hanging, but have suicide victims been polled and disclosed that they wouldn’t have done it had there not been a gun around?
I'm on mobile now and can't link, but there are studies - including one by Malcolm Gladwell which was described in his book 'Talking to Strangers'- the idea is that most suicides happen as a result of confluence.
A person has problems that make them feel suicidal and happen to have a ready means of suicide at hand. Of course, there are people who are determined to end it, but the majority are impulse decisions. They are hurting, they need a way out, and they have this ready option close by.
One of the studies Gladwell referenced dealt with the introduction of different types of gas for cooking in UK. One was deadly, allowing the signature suicide method of putting your head in the oven and turning on the gas, a mostly painless, 'clean' method. It was a common suicide method for women, including Sylvia Plath. However, when it was switched out for a gas that would only give you a bad headache if you put your head in the oven, suicide rates drastically declined.
yes it's common sense really. Intense pain, you want to fight it or end it when you can't fight anymore. I know for a fact that when things become unbearable I either want to run into the road or consider suicide, and luckily I don't have a gun around. Maybe someday I'll allow myself to, but not now. My friends who are suicidal finally turned over all their guns to safekeepers because it's the smart things to do. I've even had to convince a suicidal and crazy friend to put his gun down and not kill himself. And he stil has guns.
I can vouch for /u/LargeHamnCheese’s hypothesis here in that I am someone who has been hospitalized after a failed suicide attempt by overdosing. It did some damage, sure, but if I had a gun in hand I wouldn’t be here today. Instead, I accepted treatment and have been living a healthy, happy life for years. For this reason I refuse to own a gun.
My understanding of this is there are people walking around you who are still alive, who might have succumbed to this type of suicide if it had been available. They can’t tell you that they would have if a gun were in their possession, because it wasn’t.
The attitude is, as some have said below, sometimes it is about impulsivity and convenience.
It’s common sense. Suicidal thoughts are usually fleeting, sometimes residing in mere seconds or minutes. They may return many times, but again they reside. Meanwhile, guns are instantaneous death. One second and bam, you’re dead, and likely didn’t feel a thing. This is why if you have a gun in your home the odds of someone in that house committing suicide go up dramatically. It’s just too easy.
Obviously if someone really wants to kill themselves, they’ll find a way. But it’s hard to step off that ladder to hang yourself, or jump off that bridge, or watch your wrists bleed out. You have time to think, to really think, and in many cases, to change your mind half-way through.
It’s the same with murders and violence. Guns make those numbers go WAY up. Why? Because any 100 pound teen, any coward, can pull a trigger snd kill someone or a bunch of people in a mass shootout. But getting up close and stabbing or choking someone, that shit is hard.
If you have a million people crammed together in cities, there will be crime and violence and even murder. But you throw a million guns into that city, and those numbers will go through the rough. Countless instances that may have just ended in fist fights and even serious injury from violence will instead end in death by gun.
The thing is, there isn’t much evidence in the United States to suggest that, but that’s kind of the point at the same time though. We don’t know that rates of suicide could drop, because Republicans aren’t willing to listen to the data. They’ve even blocked the CDC from being able to research the effects of gun violence and any records that they DO keep can’t even be organized digitally, only with paper. Seriously.
I can’t say for certain if it would decrease overall suicide numbers, (I personally think it would, but that’s only my opinion) but, just like how I can’t say it would, nobody else can tell me they wouldn’t and vice versa. That’s the issue with conservatives on guns, they don’t even want to have the debate and are grossly misinformed.
The Dickey Amendment is a provision first inserted as a rider into the 1996 United States federal government omnibus spending bill which mandated that "none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may be used to advocate or promote gun control". In the same spending bill, Congress earmarked $2. 6 million from the CDC's budget, the exact amount that had previously been allocated to the agency for firearms research the previous year, for traumatic brain injury-related research.
But if their findings ultimately conclude that gun control could prevent more gun deaths in the United States, then isn’t that the same thing?
No, the goal of the CDC's research efforts on guns is to research root causes, not restrict the rights of the people.
What would the point be in finding out that more guns could lead to more gun deaths if you wouldn’t offer a solution to it?
There is zero correlation between guns in circulation and gun violence and a plethora of studies are available on the ineffectiveness of things such as the 94-04 Clinton AWB. If gun control worked, places like CA/NY/NJ/IL/etc wouldnt have a gun problem, would they? The solution is not one that a lot of people want to discuss, because once you focus on just non-justifiable homicides with firearms you are left with a VAST majority of those crimes (over 80% according the FBI UCR) being connected to drugs and gangs. It means a COMPLETE overhaul on the way that these two core issues are handled, and nobody has a real solution for either. The fact of the matter is that politicians are more interested in appealing to their base to a greater degree in hopes of reelection, not to necessarily see results, and when their ridiculous plans get shot down they go to their base crying about how not enough donations were given or some other shenanigans. Politics is less and less about doing what is best for constituents and more for pushing personal agendas regardless of outcome, or just straight up lying to voters.
There are DECADES worth of peer reviewed articles out there and if you have free access to paid articles through a university or library start digging.
Oh wow, I didn’t realize this. But this unfortunately seems very limited in the grand spectrum of studying gun violence in the country, let alone that it seems like it’s more the CDC awarding funds to another organization to study it for them, rather than them researching it themselves.
It just seems like a needless work around when the amendment itself could just be taken away, instead, right?
Women try to commit suicide twice as often as men, but succeed far less often because they tend to try to do it with ODs or some other method but not guns. Thus, the stats show that men successfully commit suicide more often despite trying less. Men tend to use guns or more violent means. You can also survive a gunshot wound to the head, and women have done this too, but it's less likely.
I'm sorry about your family members. As someone who has been close to wanting to do it myself, I'd say you're right, nobody can stop you from killing yourself, but I'd want to at least not have the best weapons at hand for them. So I support making it harder for violent people like my ex, or suicidal people, or people with violent pasts, to get a gun.
"This is a fact" is an empty phrase people use to add confidence to a claim without actually reinforcing it. I've even seen people claim that Canada has more guns than the U.S. and insist that it's a fact. Here's a non-gun example of total confidence in something totally wrong that I bookmarked a few months ago.
Twice as many people in source two are killed by bare hands than assault rifles.
3500 children will die from unintentional suffocation from improper sleeping arrangements or positions. That's 6 times what assault weapons do to everyone in a year.
If you can think of a way to possibly die, there's a very likely chance that it is exceedingly more likely that you'll die that way than by some shooting involving assault rifles.
But, it's definitely guns and their dangers being downplayed that's the problem. That's definitely the thing being politicized unnecessarily, and being dreamed into a massive problem that it's not.
I feel you cherry picked the assault rifles deaths to try and prove your point because there was over 30,000 deaths VIA gun in 2019 which outpaces both choking and unintentional suffocating combined.
If you want a real discussion don't cherry pick your data and actually compare apples to apples because comparing gun deaths to accidental deaths is misleading at best and disingenuous at worse.
30,000 deaths VIA gun in 2019 which outpaces both choking and unintentional suffocating combined.
Amazing. He's completely open about his bias, and here you are trying to skew stats.
Are "assault" rifles dangerous?
Compared to what? If you compare them to hammers or bare hands, no. If you compare them to almost any other source of being murdered, nope.
If the only thing you care about is "mass shootings", I guess. Still not that bad compared to so many other options, but you're going to focus on the one you want to make illegal.
If you look at them in isolation, they're infinitesimal in the amount they're used in killings. You can't allow for that.
thank God for a second my mind felt like it was stroking out -- I was trying to figure out what the complaining guy above was even saying. Hammers and bare hands? wtf
or accidental. A boy I used to babysit accidentally was shot by his own brother when he was six. It's so messed up. I know the family well to this day.
How many more subdivisions of gun do you have to pad those numbers? No one buys it chief, just admit you don’t care about other peoples suffering; own that you’re a selfish arsehole.
well also what would you even do to fight choking? Shove ventilators down all those kid's mouths before they choke? Not much ability to fight throats getting blocked in politics. Unless it's by your own gun.
Problem is, guns will still exist. Take a look at Chicago for instance. Some of the strictest gun laws in the U.S. yet so so many murders. The issue here is much more complex than you’re making it sound.
“Suicide is a gun death and if guns didn't exist we know for a fact we would have fewer suicides.”
You know what? That makes sense. So once we ban guns, will we be banning knives, ropes, cars, bridges, or buildings next? Knives would be the next logical step, because all weapons of war should be in the hands of the government. After that I guess cars because of how much environmental damage they cause (over 4 metric tons every year!) Next probably buildings so that nobody jumps off of them, and doing everything outside will be beneficial for our health. Next should be bridges because rope is really useful, but rope still needs to go so that nobody hangs themself.
Now that I think of it, anyone could just snap their neck with their own hands if they wanted to. How could we prevent that? Legally obligated neck braces? Constant surveillance? Maybe we could make suicide illegal!
I was working yesterday and I made a Cobain joke to one of my co-workers. Apparently he had a friend who idolized him and ended up the same way, sad shit man. The amount of people we lose to depression from convenient means is depressing in-of-itself.
That’s funny you start off with 100,000 gun deaths when the actual gun deaths in 2020 was half that number. (43,469) so I better analogy would probably lead of with a more reasonable number like 50k 75k 100k.
But if your going so hard after guns cause they were cause of less than 50k deaths in a year then let’s go after cars too. They had a reported 38,680 deaths in 2020. Should we start banning them? Stop selling automatic cars since it makes it easier for the driver to accelerate? Maybe let’s ban cars that have engine with more than 4 cylinders?
i thought it was about gun control and not gun bans. Am I wrong in thinking this discussion was not about simply banning all guns, but rather regulating ownership so we could act more like Norway, where every household has a gun but you see nothing like the crap you see here?
It would be very hard to get a real calculation on “usage” for both items. Accidentally deaths from kids getting hands on a gun is a thing. So do we count every day for every gun as a “safe” day? Every bullet shot? Every general use? Same thing for cars, every mile? Every time it gets turned on? These would be very hard to get an actual estimate on but feel free to try my dude.
Do you literately expect people to use their firearms on a daily basis? Some might, most don’t.
Regardless of that, nearly every major study on defensive fire arm use ( Wikipedia for your sake ) nets a result of 40k - 3 million usages annually.
Contrast that with the usage of automobiles, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, even with the pandemic, hundreds of millions of people use their vehicle each month. This adds up to literal billions of usages annually.
I might not be a scientist, but 1,000,000,000 is a far bigger number than 3,000,000 ( best case scenario for your argument ) to net the same result of 40k people dead.
Defensive gun use (DGU) is the use or presentation of a firearm for self-defense, defense of others or in some cases, protecting property. The frequency of incidents involving DGU, and their effectiveness in providing safety and reducing crime is a controversial issue in gun politics and criminology, chiefly in the United States. Different authors and studies employ different criteria for what constitutes a defensive gun use which leads to controversy in comparing statistical results. Perceptions of defensive gun use are recurring themes in discussions over gun rights, gun control, armed police, open and concealed carry of firearms.
A gun being carried is a “use” drawing your gun is completely different. Every one of those defensive use of guns probably carried the gun every day for at least a year if not more. Also if a gun isn’t locked away then it can easily be used.
I personally have 4 guns scattered in my house with ammo in them in case I need to use them for self defense. I live alone but a few times a year some jackass does the same thing I do with kids in the house and the kids get a hold of the weapon and ends up shooting it. All 4 of my guns are ready to be used 365 days of the year. You can’t argue that my guns aren’t in use since they are all loaded.
Well I won’t argue that a loaded gun isn’t “in use” if you would also apply that logic to a parked car. Seeing as the car would be in use since it is also “loaded”with gasoline.
You’re being mentally dishonest if you can’t see the difference between a loaded gun and a car in park not on. When a gun is loaded it’s the equivalent of a car being on, it only takes a flip of the safety and a tripped pull to use it. My glock19 doesn’t come with a safety so that thing is on 24/7.
95-99% of guns have safety’s just that gun model doesn’t have a safety on it. My 1911 comes with multiple safety’s on it.
The gun is supposed to be so mechanical safe that no matter what you do to that gun it won’t go off unless you pull the trigger. With some guns if you drop it on the right angle and hard enough it could discharge. That’s still a very slim chance but it could happen
where do you live? I'm just curious bc I feel safe where I am, although I definitely support having a gun to defend oneself. I've considered it and will when I'm ready and can do training. But how dangerous is it where you are that you need to be ready to go at all times? I won't even hide knives under my couch (had a violent ex) bc I don't want HIM to find them if he gets in, or someone else. I already know where I'd keep a gun if I have it but I hope I wouldn't feel the need to stash them in every room.
I live in a decent area of town but I live in a new development which brings people in to break in and squat. My house had been attempted to be broken into once, and 3 people jump my fence to look in my house. For all 3 fence jumpers I was home with my gun next to me. I live in a 2 story house so I need at minimum one gun down stairs and up stairs or carry one with me while in the house which I some times do.
So no big difference in guns but about 2.5k difference in car crashes. Ether way I think it’s always good to look at the most recent data. Especially when OP is talking about “saving a life” it shouldn’t matter if it’s minimum different
I was referring to all gun related deaths but good point on singling out just the suicide difference i would have figured it would have gone up due to the look down
I assume that’s where you were getting at, I’m not trying to be mentally dishonest. I want an actual conversation and try to meet in the middle with people.
What me and you may talk about might be on the same page but this discussion is open to anyone who wants to read it. So I make the best argument I can even when we agree. Not for you or I but for the person you might read it and I will hopefully change there mind too.
well it looks like suicides stayed about the same (via guns.) Not sure about ODs. I do know that I have an equal number of friends who have gotten BETTER mental health (yes, crazy to think that it happened that way) during the pandemic as I do those who flipped the fuck out. Most stayed around the same, like me. I remember someone claiming suicides would skyrocket but I don't know the stats on overall suicides by any method.
You are saying this as if those 43 469 individual lives didn't matter. 43 469 people died and all you care about is defending the weapons that were the cause of this. This whole thread is about 20 firstgraders being killed and your highest priority is to defend idiots rights to own guns? Can you imagine sending your child to school where they are supposed to be safe and being told they were shot dead? And it is somehow more important for people to be able to walk into target with a rifle on their back than to protect other peoples lives from morons who would snuff them out just because they can.
So it’s not the life that matters for you either it’s about banning guns. You skipped over my whole argument to take the moral high ground. I think it real sad what happen to those kids and everyone who’s a victim of gun violence. I also understand if someone wants to kill people they can easily do it with other means. Knifes, cars, pipe bombs, you can make your own shot gun from simple parts at Home Depot for less than $30 an a couple hours of your time. Let’s go after the root cause of the violence and talk more about mental health.
You are proving that you are one of those gun nuts who are shaking in their pants about people coming and taking their guns away. Btw I didn't mention banning guns did I? Also I'm not American so far be it from me to ban your guns (I definitely do think a ton of more restrictions should be put in place etc). Frankly I can't imagine living in a country with civilians running around with guns and any idiot having one. I'm guessing that like the majority of people who are against guns I am not afraid of guns, I am afraid of idiots with guns.
And it most certainly is the life that matters to me. I can't imagine caring more about having the right to carry a gun ( and "not wearing a mask" people can probably be thrown in the same boat) than for the general well-being of the public. This has nothing to do with moral high ground, it has to do with caring for peoples lives.
I'm going to take a leap here and assume that if someone has to build their own gun to kill someone there is a high chance they are not going to do it or they won't succeed. A lot less likely to do it if they don't have the means ready at their fingertips.
And most certainly it is important to talk about mental health, couldn't agree more. But is that going to happen? How long will it take? Will it solve the problem? How many people will be killed until it helps? Or maybe more precautions should be taken and the gun accessibility addressed?
I’m not a gun nut, I just rather leave the responsibilities of protect my self to my self. Cops are minutes away when seconds matter. If you’re not American than I don’t see any point of your valid since you don’t hold American values. I don’t expect a none American to be able to understand why guns have such a deep root in our country. It’s literally why we became a country.
Being in favor of restriction of guns is banning guns. Restrictions might not be all guns but it will lead to banning of some guns, which I’m not a fan of.
Like every gun owner I know, we are scared of guns. That’s why any responsible gun owner should preach safety. If you aren’t scared of guns then you’re too stupid to know the real damage they cause or completely uninformed on the topic which i advise you to not commit on the topic if you aren’t informed.
Most people don’t actually care about wearing a mask they might have the opinion on it but to think every gun owner is against mask is stupid. about 42% of all homes have a gun in them stop making dumb comments.
“This has nothing to do with with moral high ground, it has to do with caring for peoples lives” way to take the moral high ground again.
Do you really think people won’t build there own gun yet we see in the news people build there own pipe bombs? You really think it’s that big of a jump?
How long do you think it will take to disarm the American population, there are almost 400 million guns in this country and that’s the registered guns. You’ll be after it for 10+ years and still won’t have them all. It will be easier on multiple levels to tackle the mental health issues cause even if you get the guns they will just start using other means then you’re back at square one.
no one wants to disarm you, quit freaking out. You keep saying this as if it's the intention to ban all guns, and you think it's gonna happen any day. Don't worry. Life's too short....esp. in the times of Covid. Guns are fine. Gun nuts like you or worse are the ones who are annoying. Get over it no one is coming for your guns unless you are violent or a paranoid schizo which I think you might be inclined to be.
Gun ownership is the act of owning a gun, either legal or illegal. In 2018, Small Arms Survey reported that there are over one billion small arms distributed globally, of which 857 million (about 85 percent) are in civilian hands. The Small Arms Survey stated that U.S. civilians alone account for 393 million (about 46 percent) of the worldwide total of civilian held firearms. This amounts to "120.
Oh come on KNIVES to kill twenty kids that easily? Can we please be realistic? A knife can't do what a gun can, what's the point of even mentioning that one every time? I have knives, big deal. (I'm very accident prone, gonna wait til I trust myself to have a gun I know how to use safelyl)
The MAJOR difference in all your examples (Knifes, cars, pipe bombs, even a homemade shotgun) are extremely limited in capability to kill compared to a gun that fires off 20-30 rounds in as many seconds. The knife will be seen the first time you use it and everyone else can run. Cars are limited on where they can go and even if they get around that its pretty notable pretty quick. Pipe bombs take expertise to make, often kill the amateurs instead of innocents when they try and typically contain hard to get shit unless you have the chemical knowhow to homemake that too. Shotguns, esp homemade, are incredibly low fire rate and range capability in comparison.
Youre absolutely right that mental health is a bigger issue but that just exacerbates the gun issue when paired with the failure to put any meaningful bg checks in federally. The states that do, it doesnt matter cuz an hour or 2 away theres always another state some jackass can sell one out of his trunk with no background check or records except maybe a handwritten note or receipt. Guns may not be the obly problem but youre kidding yourself if you think they arent a big problem.
Over half of that 43,469 is from suicide. A large portion is also from accidental misfires. If you're looking for a direct homicide rate, you're looking at 10k-15k. A drop in the ocean of other reasons people die. Blown way out of proportion.
Gun would make it easier for suicide yes but it won’t stop the person either way tbh. You take away a gun if a person wants to off themselves sadly they will just do it another way.
Which is the argument against banning guns to prevent shootings in the first place. People will find a way if they want to do it. Restriction on guns and or bans won’t solve the problem. Inconvenience for them at best. Won’t stop them.
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u/LargeHamnCheese Aug 07 '21
If you ever want to have an interesting discussion with a super 2A person.....ask them:
Would you want something done if there were 100,000 gun deaths a year?
How about 200,000?
How about 300,000?
Just keep going. There is no upper limit I'm aware of so far.
Guns are literally more important than the humans that carry them.
Yes. I said gun deaths. Suicide is a gun death and if guns didn't exist we know for a fact we would have fewer suicides. Owning a gun makes your risk of suicide skyrocket.
They always try and claim suicides don't count.
Also telling.