| ▲ | ikrenji 5 days ago |
| this has everything to do with guns. the more guns in society the more gun violence there is. is not rocket science |
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| ▲ | themafia 5 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| In the USA: There are more suicides than murders every year. The ratio is typically 2:1. The "deaths due to gun violence" statistic includes suicides. It's not exactly that plain and simple either. |
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| ▲ | ceejayoz 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Access to guns makes suicide attempts much more likely to succeed. You're describing a related aspect of the same problem. https://www.kff.org/mental-health/do-states-with-easier-acce... "Firearms are the most lethal method of suicide attempts, and about half of suicide attempts take place within 10 minutes of the current suicide thought, so having access to firearms is a suicide risk factor. The availability of firearms has been linked to suicides in a number of peer-reviewed studies. In one such study, researchers examined the association between firearm availability and suicide while also accounting for the potential confounding influence of state-level suicidal behaviors (as measured by suicide attempts). Researchers found that higher rates of gun ownership were associated with increased suicide by firearm deaths, but not with other types of suicide. Taking a look at suicide deaths starting from the date of a handgun purchase and comparing them to people who did not purchase handguns, another study found that people who purchased handguns were more likely to die from suicide by firearm than those who did not--with men 8 times more likely and women 35 times more likely compared to non-owners." | | |
| ▲ | 15155 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Why should this negate my rights? | | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Every right we have is balanced against the rights of others. The First Amendment doesn’t mean you can found a murder cult. The debate is largely over where to draw the lines. Virtually everyone is fine with limiting access to certain weapons, for example. |
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| ▲ | throwmeaway222 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It has been stated before, but perhaps we should only allow older people to have guns, probably 40ish. Of course that filters out all but one mass murders - Las Vegas (at least from brain memory). | |
| ▲ | themafia 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I would think addressing the reasons people commit suicide leads to a better society. I would think that simply removing a popular tool for them only hides a symptom of a broader problem. The other break in your statistic is people who own guns and commit suicide, and people who own guns and have a family member steal them to commit suicide. The later is far more common. Which suggests that part of the issue is unrestricted access to firearms by children in the home of a gun owning parent. | | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz 5 days ago | parent [-] | | > I would think addressing the reasons people commit suicide leads to a better society. Sure. But one of those reasons is "I feel very bad and I have access to a gun". "The rate of non-firearm suicides is relatively stable across all groups, ranging from a low rate of 6.5 in states with the most firearm laws to a high of 6.9 in states with the lowest number of firearm laws. The absolute difference of 0.4 is statistically significant, but small. Non-firearm suicides remain relatively stable across groups, suggesting that other types of suicides are not more likely in areas where guns are harder to get." | | |
| ▲ | mgh95 5 days ago | parent [-] | | > Sure. But one of those reasons is "I feel very bad and I have access to a gun". This is perhaps one of the worst ways of looking at it. People kill themselves slowly by many means, including alcoholism, smoking, risky activities (reckless driving, etc.). These are grouped broadly under the term "Deaths of Despair" (see: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8221228/). It may be more informative to look at other countries, such as Russia, Norway and Finland, which have incredibly high rates of alocholism leading to a high rate of deaths of despair. There are many ways to reliably kill yourself. Guns are just the quickest. A serious discussion on the topic cannot avoid this fact. | | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz 5 days ago | parent [-] | | The faster the method, the less time there is to change your mind. An alcoholic can go to rehab. A smoker can take up vaping. The guy with a shotgun wound to the face… is in a spot of bother. | | |
| ▲ | mgh95 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Yes but addressing it as far as "can go to rehab" misses the point: deaths from chronic fatty liver and its complications or lung cancer are dramatically elevated in these countries. It is quite literally "too late". The problem needs to be addressed much earlier. | | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz 5 days ago | parent [-] | | I can buy a gun and use it in a matter of hours. Less - potentially seconds - if I already own one. I cannot give myself chronic fatty liver disease or lung cancer that quickly. I think you know this. | | |
| ▲ | mgh95 5 days ago | parent [-] | | I do but why is the argument you presented is about how guns are the cause of the deaths. The deaths of despair occur with or without firearms. The focus on the firearms par of "firearm suicides" does not reduce suicides. | | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Again, the statistics demonstrate that the non-gun suicide rates are about the same between highly and lightly regulated American states. That is a hard point to dodge. | | |
| ▲ | mgh95 5 days ago | parent [-] | | With respect, I think you ignored the point I'm making for the sake of pushing an agenda. Suicides are deaths of despair. Whether someone ultimately kills themselves with a firearm or a needle is secondary to the policy goal: to attempt to make America better for people to not want to kill themselves (barring an inherent medical issue related to chemical imbalance causing depression). To put it in perspective, California (a state with notoriously strict gun control) has experienced the highest rate of increase of opioid overdose deaths (see https://www.shadac.org/opioid-epidemic-united-states). More generally, deaths to firearm suicide and deaths of despair occur together in rural communities (see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00224...). Are those "suicides" in the classical sense? No. But they are deaths of despair, and from a public health and policy standpoint, must be approached in a manner similar to suicide. I don't believe you have even attempted (or acknowledged) an opposing point exists on this topic. Your points amount to banal agenda pushing as opposed to seeking to understand the root causes of many challenges today. This is emblematic of (and partially why) there is such division in the USA today: a lack of willingness to study and understand societal problems, particularly those that are multifaceted and require broader reasoning about the topic. | | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz 5 days ago | parent [-] | | > Suicides are deaths of despair. Sure. And my very clear point is that guns help make temporary - even momentary! - despair turn into a permanent end. I don’t find the pro-gun crowd all that interested in improving social services outside of distracting from the gun issue. |
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| ▲ | EricDeb 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | guns are a very efficient tool for murder or suicide. They absolutely will increase the number of deaths due to their effectiveness. Whether that's worth the societal price is up to the people. | |
| ▲ | greycol 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Sure but the people asking to track gun deaths properly are rebuffed by the people who want to keep guns, so even the guys who want to keep guns infer better stats will make them look worse. |
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| ▲ | indecisive_user 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Canada and Finland both have a lot of civilian firearms per capita but not a lot of gun violence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g... |
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| ▲ | mvdtnz 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | So we can conclude that proliferation of guns are a necessary but not sufficient condition for excessive gun violence. Remove the necessary condition, remove the violence. | |
| ▲ | carlosjobim 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | According to that Wikipedia link there are 1 million registered firearms in the USA and 400 million unregistered firearms. Could somebody explain these numbers, since they seem very odd? | | |
| ▲ | edaemon 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I'm not sure how Wikipedia is distinguishing them but for the most part firearms do not have to be registered in the United States. Some states require firearms to be registered but most do not. Unregistered firearms can nonetheless be counted because they are inventoried and sold legally (firearms dealers must be licensed and regulated), even though the end purchaser is not registered anywhere. Federally, only specific categories like fully-automatic machine guns and short-barreled rifles have to be registered. | |
| ▲ | jandrewrogers 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Only a tiny minority of firearms need to be registered. My guess is that covers NFA weapons like machine-guns, which are uncommon. Virtually all typical firearms people own don't need to be registered. No one really knows how many firearms there are in the US or who owns them. Just the fact that something like 15 million firearms are sold every year in the US gives a sense of the scale. The number of firearms in the US is staggering, no one knows the true number, and they have an indefinite lifespan if stored in halfway decent conditions. | |
| ▲ | Jtsummers 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Most weapons in the US don't require registration. | |
| ▲ | vel0city 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Certain kinds of firearms are required to be registered, like machine guns, short barrel rifles, and short barrel shotguns. Tons of guns are not those limited categories, so they are not required to be registered. Its entirely possible to sell a gun in the US without any kind of paperwork depending on the type of firearm sold, the buyer of the firearm, and the seller of the firearm. I'm in Texas, so I'll use that as an example. Lets say I want to sell a regular shotgun I currently own to a friend. IANAL, this is not legal advice, but my understanding from reading the applicable laws would be all I have to do is verify they are over the age of 18 and that I think they are probably legally able to own a gun (I have no prior knowledge of any legal restrictions against them owning the gun). We can meet up, check he's probably over 18 and can probably legally own a gun and is a Texas resident, he can hand me cash or whatever for trade, I can give him the gun, and we go our separate ways. I do not need to do a background check. I do not need to file any registration. Nobody would know this guy now owns this gun. I do not need to keep any record of this sale at all. This shotgun has been an unregistered gun for its entire exstence. This wouldn't necessarily be true if I trade some certain amount of guns as then I would probably need a federal firearms license and thus have some additional restrictions on facilitiating a sale. This also isn't necessarily true in other states which have additional restrictions on gun sales. But if I haven't done any gun sales in a long while, such restrictions wouldn't apply (according to my current understanding of the law, IANAL, not legal advice). | |
| ▲ | RemainsOfTheDay 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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| ▲ | codemac 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | ... a lot isn't even close though. The US is at 120.5 guns per 100 civilians, and Canada is at 34.5 I think being ~4x the ratio of guns per capita, (and 30x the total!) has to do something, right? | |
| ▲ | Braxton1980 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | It could be a combination of guns and something else. While I hate this type of argument, what else explains the high rate of gun violence in the US? | | |
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| ▲ | dogweather 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Australia has a lot of violence as well - it's simply not gun violence. I believe your conclusion is incorrect. |
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