Anti-gun stupidity continues...

[Empty Hands]

That's actually something that get many in the anti-gun crowd fired up, with the implication that the suicide wouldn't happen if the gun wasn't around.

I agree that the argument obviously isn't completely true, and may not be very true at all. However, more than half of suicides are by gun. There is a certain appealing simplicity and ease to suicide by gun that I can understand, when compared with cutting, or even pills if you don't know what you are doing (death by tylenol, for instance, is agonizing). It's quite possible that if guns were not available, the suicide rate might go down, and the survival rate of suicide attempts might go up.

This isn't an argument for gun control, ending suicide by ending gun ownership obviously won't work and probably shouldn't be done even if it did. There probably IS some truth to it however.

 

[WC_lun]

This is one of those subjects that is tricky for most Americans and has no clear cut easy answer. For me, I dislike guns and the trajedy that I have seen around firearms. Feeling that way, I do not have guns in my house. My best friend is a gun enthusiast. He is a resposable gun owner. He is trained in thier use and from his military experience actually understands the destruction even a small caliber gun can inflict. I can't think of a reason his right to own a gun should be curtailed, since he is a responsable owner. From our discussions on the subject, the best common ground we can find is prosecute to the fullest anyone who commits a gun crime or allows injury to happen from negligence. Maybe even go so far as severe sentences for people convicted of such things. I'm not sure even that would have an effect.

The arguement that if there had been someone with a gun at the shooting, it probably would have turned out different rings hollow to me. There is a reason that well trained LEOs don't go Dirty Harry on suspects, even when innocents are in danger. To do so, even with well trained officers, puts more innocents at risk. An untrained person runs more risk to hit an innocent than to end the situation. In my opinion this thinking is akin to the fantasy wanna-be martial artist who believes the martial arts they made up in thier basement will defeat anyone who attacks them...except with an untrained gunmen, other people run the risk of paying a price for ignorance.

You will see a push for gun control after every major violent use of firearms. In the mind of those who support gun control every instance like the Arizona shootings reinforce thier beliefs. You can't really blame them in this. However, if you support gun rights you can be a calming force by using common sense and logical arguements. Most people who support some form of gun control don't want to take away everyone's guns, and most people who support gun ownership don't think every person should be armed with assault rifles. There is some middle ground.

Kudos to everyone on this thread. Intelligent conversation without attacks for alternate view points.

 

[Bruno@MT]

As stated previously, a non-metal barrel wouldn't be able to contain the explosion that comes from the propellant. Second, even if the barrel could withstand such pressures, a hard ceramic bullet is not going to be able to expand to properly seal the bore, resulting in a very dangerous situation for the shooter. In addition to this, the frictional aspect, and many, many other factors, make this a moot issue.

While you are right to some degree, I bet the physical requirements are a lot lower if your only goal is to propel an object (bullet) at an unarmoured body part of your opponent (a head for example) over a short distance. Component tolerances were a lot looser for e.g. old muzzle loader guns, as was the strength of the barrel, and they were lethal enough.

I admit ignorance on this part, but having seen (on nat geo) the low grade materials with which people can make a zip gun using buckshot cartridges, I am willing to bet that you could construct something lethal containing no (ferro magnetic) metal at all. Sure it wouldn't be a reliable weapon, but if you can place a single shot at close distance, it would be all the gun you need.

Again, those are non-issues. Most people aren't going be able to legally afford a nuclear weapon. Even if one could, what defensive use is it? You would simply blow yourself up along with the home invader. If someone had that much money, he could certainly invest it in other security issues, such as hiring a private army, etc.

Defensive, not at all. But it is an armament. You could argue for legal ownership under the 2nd amendment, and someone could use it to succeed where McVeigh failed. And succeed at a spectacular level at that. Plenty of people have enough money to buy one if it was not a crime to own one.

 

[lklawson]

I agree that the argument obviously isn't completely true, and may not be very true at all. However, more than half of suicides are by gun. There is a certain appealing simplicity and ease to suicide by gun that I can understand, when compared with cutting, or even pills if you don't know what you are doing (death by tylenol, for instance, is agonizing). It's quite possible that if guns were not available, the suicide rate might go down, and the survival rate of suicide attempts might go up.

This isn't an argument for gun control, ending suicide by ending gun ownership obviously won't work and probably shouldn't be done even if it did. There probably IS some truth to it however.

My good friend and co-founder of my Western Martial Arts club committed suicide. He used a gun to do it. A common hunting style shotgun.

He bypassed a dozen kitchen knives, 8 swords, 3 bowie knives, 4 tomahawks, a spear, a pole ax (not to mention all of his handguns), lengths of rope and cord he could have tied to his basement floor joists, multiple electric sockets, and a bathroom medicine cabinet full of crap he could have OD'd on.

Japan, with extremely strict "gun control" laws beats out the U.S. in its ranking of nations' suicide rates by THIRTY FIVE places (Japan is number 5, the U.S. is number 40).

To suggest that there is any causative relationship between the method of suicide and the decision to do so is, frankly, farcical at best.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[lklawson]

An untrained person runs more risk to hit an innocent than to end the situation.

Your assumption that "civilians" who carry a firearm for self defense are "untrained" is invalid. Most are trained, often through requirement of law. Most, additionally, spend significant personal time practicing and gaining additional training, at personal cost to themselves.

The suggestion that LEO's are "highly trained" is not inaccurate but it is misleading in this context because you are specifically implying "highly trained" with firearms. Firearms training for LEO's is actually a very small subset of most LEO training. While many LEO's do have excellent firearms training and invest their personal time into their skills, there are also many who do not and only "practice" enough to re-qualify once a year. Though there are, honestly, some LEO's with more skill and training than most "civilians" who carry a firearm for self defense, there are also a large number of "civilians" who carry a firearm for self defense who have more training and skill than many LEO's.

I frequently hear these arguments that "we can trust cops because they're highly trained but we can't trust Joe Civilian because he lacks the training, won't get the training, and is likely to shoot innocents or have his gun taken away."

These statements are made in ignorance.

A "civilians" who carry a firearm for self defense is NOT more likely to "hit an innocent." In fact, what scant statistics are available indicate that "civilian" self defense hit rates are actually higher on average than LEO hit rates. This is probably because "civilian" self defense encounters look NOTHING like LEO firearms engagements and thus are not very comparable; certainly not comparable enough to suggest that a "civilian" is more likely to hit an innocent.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[lklawson]

This article also shows their flat-out ignorance.

They'd still say the same things. It's not that the grabbers are "uninformed." They've been presented with the facts. They simply reject the facts in favor of their agenda.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I agree that the argument obviously isn't completely true, and may not be very true at all. However, more than half of suicides are by gun. There is a certain appealing simplicity and ease to suicide by gun that I can understand, when compared with cutting, or even pills if you don't know what you are doing (death by tylenol, for instance, is agonizing). It's quite possible that if guns were not available, the suicide rate might go down, and the survival rate of suicide attempts might go up.

This isn't an argument for gun control, ending suicide by ending gun ownership obviously won't work and probably shouldn't be done even if it did. There probably IS some truth to it however.

I think it can be stated as axiomatic that if guns were not legally available, some deaths, particularly suicide deaths, would not occur. I will not argue that a person who does not have access to a gun but wishes to commit suicide will automatically choose another option and commit suicide anyway, but I think it can be also said that some will.

I add to this only two elements.

The first is that guns are *also* used to protect citizens from armed intruders and from robbery on a nearly-daily basis in the USA (Google News). One might find they prevent the suicide save lives, and then find more homeowners and shopkeepers dead at the hands of armed intruders (who will not be limited by gun control laws, I think we can all agree).

The second is that one must of course ask if it is appropriate to restrict civil liberties for all in order to preserve the lives of those intent on ending their own lives. As tragic as that is, I am not sure it is reasonable to ask others to give up their rights so that the suicidal won't have a gun available to them.

 

[lklawson]

This was a tragic event but no one, that I have seen, has pointed out that if someone else was armed this could have ended quicker with the shooter being put down like the mad dog is apparently is.

First, no most of the mainstream media would not suggest this. It does not fit their agenda.

Second, I don't believe it is true and I am an ardent 2nd Amendment and self defense supporter. Eye witnesses report that the shooter was firing for 20 seconds or less. That's not a long time, particularly when you are behind in the OODA Loop, to then unholster and return fire at the appropriate target.

I hear a LOT of people saying exactly what you are, and, I would like to agree. There's a chance that an armed individual could have prevented some of this tragedy. If the hypothetical armed individual would have been minimum Condition Yellow, pre-identified the potential threat prior to his opening fire, and prepped himself, then, yeah, maybe. But how likely is that, really?

To be honest, there were initial reports that someone in the crowd did return fire. I immediately dismissed these reports. The area has lots of echo points and no one returning fire would just dissapear into thin air. The Police would have known immediately. Further there's no evidence for it. No spent shell casings from a second weapon, no bullets or bullet holes, etc.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[lklawson]

Would any of you carry a semiautomatic pistol with an extended magazine for personal protection?

I routinely carry a Kel Tec P11 with a 12(+1) round magazine and one spare. Before that, I often carried an IMEZ IJ-70AH Makarov with a 12 round magazine and a spare.

I do carry other firearms sometimes with lower magazine capacities, but the "hi cap mags" are common.

A lot of folks I know in the shooting sports like the extended capacity magazines because it means they can spend more time practicing while at the range and less time having to refill an empty magazine.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Just want to add one more question. When you guys refer to crime, are you including gun related injury and homocide? Not necessarily murder, but all of the guns that are involved in accidental injury and death. I'm not a cop, so I'm probably off base here. But, when you shoot your hunting buddy or a kid shoots his friend with his dad's gun, is there a crime involved there? I checked the CDC website and there are about 30k gun related homocides per year. Didn't dig too deep, and I'm sure that many are accidental, which is why I'm asking.

Yeah, that's a whole new can of worms. Many dispute the CDC's statements regarding gun-related deaths. At one point, they released some amazingly high figures related to 'juveniles killed by handguns' and some digging turned up the fact that they had considered anyone up to age 25 as 'children' and suicides as well as murders and accidental deaths into the total they came up with. They never defended their report from critics; but I think everyone can agree that a 25-year-old may be immature, but in no sense is he or she a 'child'. The numbers, once broken down, showed a preponderance of numbers beginning at age 21 and going up; if you took only the numbers of those under 21 and only the accidental deaths, the number dropped to 47. I'll have to try to find that one, I may be mistaken on some of this.

This may be interesting; it's fairly recent. I think the CDC thing is about 10 years old.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Societ...more-crime-Not-in-2009-FBI-crime-report-shows.

More guns equal more crime? Not in 2009, FBI crime report shows.

FBI's latest crime report, for the first half of 2009, shows America is a less violent place even though ownership of guns has surged. Deterrent effect may have a role, but others see no correlation.

...

After several years of crime rates holding relatively steady, the FBI is reporting that violent crimes – including gun crimes – dropped dramatically in the first six months of 2009, with murder down 10 percent across the US as a whole.

Concurrently, the FBI reports that gun sales – especially of assault-style rifles and handguns, two main targets of gun-control groups – are up at least 12 percent nationally since the election of President Obama, a dramatic run on guns prompted in part by so-far-unwarranted fears that Democrats in Congress and the White House will curtail gun rights and carve apart the Second Amendment.

Pro-gun groups jumped at the FBI report, saying it disproves a long-running theory posited by gun-control groups and many in the mainstream media that gun ownership spawns crime and violence. “Anti-gunners have lost another one of their baseless arguments,” Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, told the Examiner's Dave Workman. Some gun-control groups have long sought to establish gun ownership as a health issue, which would expose purchasers to the kind of regulation now imposed on prescription drugs and alcohol. That view embodies the idea that mere exposure to guns makes people more violent.

I'll try to dig up some vetted information that we can look at together.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I can't think of a reason his right to own a gun should be curtailed, since he is a responsable owner.

I think that is a very good point. Few of us would disagree with the notion that decent, law-abiding, responsible people are not a threat with or without guns. Irresponsible people are threats. The problem is that we can't magically tell who is and who is not a responsible citizen.

We do our best to separate the good from the bad. The Form 4473 that all gun purchasers have to fill out if they purchase from a dealer makes it a felony for anyone to purchase a gun who fits a variety of categories. Felony convictions, domestic abuse convictions, permanent restraining orders, persons fleeing from justice, drug and alcohol abusers, and so on. But it does not look into a person's mind or consider their intent; it can't.

People manage to purchase guns legally who should not have them. I don't see a cure for that without curbing the right of all people to purchase guns legally.

The arguement that if there had been someone with a gun at the shooting, it probably would have turned out different rings hollow to me. There is a reason that well trained LEOs don't go Dirty Harry on suspects, even when innocents are in danger. To do so, even with well trained officers, puts more innocents at risk. An untrained person runs more risk to hit an innocent than to end the situation. In my opinion this thinking is akin to the fantasy wanna-be martial artist who believes the martial arts they made up in thier basement will defeat anyone who attacks them...except with an untrained gunmen, other people run the risk of paying a price for ignorance.

Armed citizens have intervened in criminal actions in the past in the USA, so it has happened. I agree with you that it also possible that an armed citizen who might have been present may well have evaluated the situation and decided that they could not return fire without endangering other innocent people.

You will see a push for gun control after every major violent use of firearms. In the mind of those who support gun control every instance like the Arizona shootings reinforce thier beliefs. You can't really blame them in this. However, if you support gun rights you can be a calming force by using common sense and logical arguements. Most people who support some form of gun control don't want to take away everyone's guns, and most people who support gun ownership don't think every person should be armed with assault rifles. There is some middle ground.

Actually, there tends not to be a lot of middle ground. The problem is always that 'reasonable controls' which are permitted are not enough the next time something tragic happens. Then more 'reasonable controls' are demanded, and so on. I am not saying the people who want the 'reasonable controls' have total bans at the top of their agenda (although some do), but they won't ever stop asking for more and more and more 'reasonable controls'. There is no upper limit to the 'reasonable controls' that are asked for or demanded after every incident. And there will never be an end to incidents.

Kudos to everyone on this thread. Intelligent conversation without attacks for alternate view points.

Agreed.

 

[Grenadier]

Respectfully, I don't think you're really answering my questions or the overall thrust of the post. I'm not really interested in the particulars of making a polymer gun, I'm more interested in your philosophical thoughts on gun control. Saying "well, no one could afford a nuclear weapon, or if they could they could hire an army" dodges the question. If you do not believe there should be any limits on what sort of weapon a person should own, please say so and state your rationale - that is more interesting to me.

The dismissal of that point of the argument still stands. It's no different than asking if we should put neon-green unicorns on the endangered species list, since such a question is really not relevant to the issue.

If someone wants to own a rocket launcher, and has the money to do so, then I'd bet dollars to dimes that he could certainly find any number of illegal arms dealers that could supply him with munitions smuggled from any number of nations.

Or, if someone wants to own a fully functional, heavy machine gun, it would only take money, and an illegal arms dealer willing to sell (and there aren't any shortages).

Or, if someone wants to own military grade explosives, it would only take money and the dealer.

Just look at the drug lords in Jamaica... The lawful ownership of firearms is strictly forbidden in that country, yet they have no problems equipping their gangs with fully automatic weapons, explosives, and other ordinance.

You can say "well, they should outlaw explosives" or "you shouldn't be allowed to own grenades / bombs," but it really has no bearing on this situation. Law-abiding folks either have no need or want for such ordinance, and even if they did possess it, they're not going to use it for something like self-defense. Passing laws forbidding such things to law-abiding folks is a waste of paper (or electricity if we use PDF files instead), and a truly frivolous thing.

People who want to break the law will find ways to get what they want. The Bath School Massacre and the Oklahoma Federal Building massacre are two such events where two men hell-bent on breaking the law found ways to use commonly available materials as explosives.

Also saying that law-abiding owners aren't a problem also dodges the issue for several reasons. First of all, the restrictions you presumably oppose define who is and who is not a law abiding gun owner. It sort of becomes tautological. Second, the rate may be small, but legally purchased guns are used to commit crimes. With handguns it isn't really a concern, but as we go up the destruction scale we eventually reach a point where even one ill person with access to something really destructive can wreak havoc.

Again, it's a wasted effort. Criminals will find ways to accomplish their tasks, and aren't affected by such laws. Don't waste time passing useless laws that will have zero effect on crime.

Plus, if large weapon systems were freely available, then clearly the "non-law abiding" people out there can purchase them too, with attendant collateral damage.

Again, the criminal element already has its own ways of obtaining such things. As I pointed out, the Jamaican drug lords and their gangs have absolutely no problem getting all of the explosive ordinance they want.


This is why such questions that ask "should you be able to legally own a rocket launcher" are irrelevant, since it simply does not apply to the general populace, and that those who can afford to circumvent the laws can get what they want through illegal means.

 

[lklawson]

If we're playing around with hypotheticals, an armed citizen might also have overreacted and shot additional innocents in the confusion.

The best statistics we have indicates that this is exceptionally unlikely. Armed "civilians" who carry a firearm for self defense are generally pretty good about shooting only who needs to be shot.

Or an armed citizen might have had the weapon taken from him or her and given the bad guy an additional loaded weapon with which to shoot more people.

I don't want to be a wanker, but this is completely bogus. "Civilians" who carry a firearm for self defense have been doing so for a very, very long time. However, to this date, I have yet to find an example of where the defender's gun was "taken away and used against him."

At one point some internet personalty actually offered a bounty (several thousand dollars, ims) to the person who could submit a news story or police report documenting an incident where an armed "civilian" who carried a firearm for self defense had his gun "taken away and used against him." No one ever claimed the bounty.

Or an armed citizen might have been shot by the police having been mistaken for the shooter.

A possibility I suppose. Before I worry over-much about that potentiality, I'd like someone to show me cases where this happened. I've not heard of them, personally, but, then again, I haven't spent any time looking for such events. The closest I've ever heard of was one instance of a "No Knock" raid gone horribly wrong. LEO "no knocked" into the wrong house where the owner, believing himself to be the victim of a home invasion, presented his firearm. Well let's just say that the police both out-numbered and out-gunned the owner and "bad things" predictably ensued.

Any or all of these could also have happened.

And I could win the lottery. Statistically, it's "unlikely" though.

It's very possible that someone did have a gun, but froze or just plain forgot about it.

My point about the OODA Loop.

Ultimately, an armed person with an unknown amount of training and an unknown amount of experience is an x factor who could save the day or make things dramatically worse.

Based on all available data, collected over a period of decades, I'd bet money against "make things dramatically worse." Sure it could happen, but only on very, very rare occasions.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[Grenadier]

While you are right to some degree, I bet the physical requirements are a lot lower if your only goal is to propel an object (bullet) at an unarmoured body part of your opponent (a head for example) over a short distance. Component tolerances were a lot looser for e.g. old muzzle loader guns, as was the strength of the barrel, and they were lethal enough.

True, but even back then, the barrels and projectiles were still made of metal.

I admit ignorance on this part, but having seen (on nat geo) the low grade materials with which people can make a zip gun using buckshot cartridges, I am willing to bet that you could construct something lethal containing no (ferro magnetic) metal at all.

Metal detectors are not restricted to detecting ferromagnetic materials only. In a nutshell, any metal that is electrically conductive, will trip the sensor. Thus, non-magnetic materials such as lead projectiles (such as the ones in almost all bullets), copper jacketing (used to coat the lead), or even aluminum alloy jacketing (such as the ones used in Winchester's "Lubalox" alloy), will trip the sensor.

Even a single, small, non-magnetic brass key that had fallen off my keychain, triggers the sensor.

The zip guns that are manufactured would have to use metal. Even if you did find a way to make one without metal, you'd still trip the detector by using a shotgun shell, since the lead in the buckshot would certainly trigger it, along with the metallic primer used in the hull.

Sure it wouldn't be a reliable weapon, but if you can place a single shot at close distance, it would be all the gun you need.

It would still be detected.

Defensive, not at all. But it is an armament. You could argue for legal ownership under the 2nd amendment, and someone could use it to succeed where McVeigh failed. And succeed at a spectacular level at that. Plenty of people have enough money to buy one if it was not a crime to own one.

The people who have the money, and are willing to break the laws, can easily find whatever armaments they want. See my example above, about the Jamaican drug lords.

 

[Steve]

That's actually something that get many in the anti-gun crowd fired up, with the implication that the suicide wouldn't happen if the gun wasn't around.

Unfortunately the same sort of statistics lump all suicides together as mechanical acts, without regard to who was suffering from a mental illness. I think this pains a disingenuous picture of suicide. The "guns in the house = suicide" rationality IMO tends to underscore this depiction, which I do not like one bit.

I've had three close friends commit suicide. Two were many years ago in high school and one was a co-worker, my counterpart in Atlanta (gay but not openly so, muslim and living in Atlanta post 9/11).

I've never heard that and frankly, it's a ridiculous line of thought. As others have pointed out, there are plenty of ways to take one's life that are simple and effective. The reasons they took their lives had to do with clinical depression, stress and other reasons unrelated to guns.

lklawson, I appreciate your comments regarding the hypotheticals. It sounds as though you understand my point completely. They're ALL bogus. When pro-gun people say, "An armed citizen would have killed that sumbitch," (or any variation of the above) it's JUST as bogus. And insinuating that the other side isn't talking about these hypotheticals as though they're fact is misleading. For example, "Of course, the anti-gun lobby won't talk about how the situation might have been completely different had one of the bystanders been armed." Yeah. Okay. It's dealing with fiction and not facts. Once again, there could very well have been armed civilians on the scene and we just don't know.

For the rest, this is a very interesting thread. I'm learning a ton.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Homicide and Guns in the USA, 2007:

I went to the CDC and got into their data. The most recent year for which data is available appears to be 2007, so I took only 2007. I chose the 'leading cause of death' and pulled the data only for all races, all ages, all sexes, etc. In other words, the broad spectrum.

I then drilled down to homicides; I did not include suicides. Homicide to the CDC does not mean only murder; it also refers to lawful killing. Here are the numbers I found:

Ages 1-4: 398 deaths by homicide. 48 by firearm.
Ages 5-9: 133 deaths by homicide. 47 by firearm.
Ages 10-14: 213 deaths by homicide. 154 by firearm.
Ages 15-24: 5,551 deaths by homicide. 4,669 by firearm.
Ages 25-34: 4,758 deaths by homicide. 3,751 by firearm.
Ages 35-44: 3,052 deaths by homicide. 2,038 by firearm.
Ages 45-54: 2,140 deaths by homicide. 1,159 by firearm.
Ages 55-64: 980 deaths by homicide. 446 by firearm.
Ages 65+: Not in top 20 causes of death.

All Ages: 18,361 deaths by homicide. 12,632 by firearm.

For all ages, homicide is the 15th leading cause of death. Influenza is number 8, by way of reference. Suicide is number 11 for all ages. Number 1 is heart disease, number 2 is 'neoplasms' which I think means various kinds of cancer.

It is interesting to look at the data; I encourage others who are curious to make their own studies of this.

For example, if you just look at the numbers, you see the number of homicides, as well as the percentage of homicide by firearm, rising as age of the victim increases, up to age 24. Then it begins to drop, but the numbers remain high. However, if you look at the list of causes of death, you see a different story. For ages up 34, the numbers and percentages roughly match, but after age 34, the percentage of homicides as a cause of death drop like a rock. The number of homicides may not be that much lower between the groups 25-34 and 35-44, but the number of deaths increases dramatically; but now most are due to various kinds of disease, and suicide passes homicide as a leading cause of death. It's really fascinating from a data perspective (not that death is a fun thing). By age 45, homicide as a cause of death is not even in the top ten (it's number 13). More people of that age die of diabetes - by a LOT!

Now, it can be said that in 2007, 12,632 people were killed (homicide) by firearm. What this data does NOT show us is quite important, however. It does not show us how many were killed by police or others in lawful shootings. It does not show us how many were criminals shooting each other, or shooting innocent citizens. It definitely does not give us any indication of how many were committed by people who purchased their guns legally and who therefore would presumably not have been able to kill a person with a gun if they simply didn't have one.

Many people have attempted to slice and dice data like this to make it mean many things; both pro and anti gun. I won't attempt it; I haven't the necessary data.

But I can say with assurance that there is no way to legitimately state that 12,632 people would not have been killed in 2007 if guns were illegal. All I can say that perhaps a percentage of them would not have been killed. I do not know what that percentage is; I doubt anyone does. And in a nation of over 300 million, although I realize each death is a tragedy, I do not see the justification for banning or even further restricting gun ownership.

Take a look at the numbers yourself. The data is there, even if there are many things about it that we cannot know by looking at the raw data...it's still quite interesting.

http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/leadcaus10.html

 

[lklawson]

lklawson, I appreciate your comments regarding the hypotheticals. It sounds as though you understand my point completely. They're ALL bogus. When pro-gun people say, "An armed citizen would have killed that sumbitch," (or any variation of the above) it's JUST as bogus. And insinuating that the other side isn't talking about these hypotheticals as though they're fact is misleading. For example, "Of course, the anti-gun lobby won't talk about how the situation might have been completely different had one of the bystanders been armed." Yeah. Okay. It's dealing with fiction and not facts. Once again, there could very well have been armed civilians on the scene and we just don't know.

Yes, I agree. And I am adamantly "pro-gun."

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[Empty Hands]

To suggest that there is any causative relationship between the method of suicide and the decision to do so is, frankly, farcical at best.

Have you ever spoken to someone who has attempted suicide? Many are hesitant or stymied by method. They want to die, they don't want to suffer. Killing yourself with a sword is agonizing. Generally speaking, killing yourself with a gun is not.

Methods matter to potential suicide victims. I wasn't claiming that a lack of guns would end suicide, but it is part of the equation.

 

[Empty Hands]

I agree with you that it also possible that an armed citizen who might have been present may well have evaluated the situation and decided that they could not return fire without endangering other innocent people.

Interestingly, that's exactly what happened with the Loughner shooting, an armed civilian nearby came onto the scene and initially mistook the person who disarmed Loughner as the shooter. Thankfully he kept his head on his shoulders, he did all the right things.

LINK

 

[lklawson]

Have you ever spoken to someone who has attempted suicide?

Yes.

In addition, I am required to undergo annual Suicide Prevention training.

I wasn't claiming that a lack of guns would end suicide, but it is part of the equation.

The entire nation of Japan disagrees with this statement, as does France, Sweeden, and a number of other nations who's suicide rate exceeds that of the U.S. but have restrictive firearms laws.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk