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abeyer 2 days ago

> Guns are much more likely to kill their owners than anyone else [0]

That article says no such thing, despite people often claiming it does.

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marcus_holmes 2 days ago | parent [-]

What do you think it says then?

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scarecrowbob 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

The easy observation is that it's far more likely that guns simply do nothing than they are to kill anyone.

I am about 50, and I can tell the difference between when my mental health was in a place where I might kill myself and where I am now.

That makes the math around gun ownership a lot more straight forward- hoping that the bigots will off themselves before they start lynching folks again (because it wouldn't be the first time) doesn't seem like the safer bet.

I am glad you live in a place that has never been touched by bigots excited by war- clearly there is no way that in Europe the bigots have or will ever (again?) require local resistance fighting (right?).

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abeyer 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

First, it's a bit of a silly cliché, but a true one, that guns don't kill people, people kill people. The way you've phrased it, even aside from the facts, makes it feel like FUD implying that someone's gun is going to creep up on them in the night.

Second, you can just take it from the horse's mouth, since papers give you an abstract stating their findings. An even briefer snippet of what they say themselves there is:

> Those persons with guns in the home were at greater risk than those without guns

> in the home of dying from a homicide in the home. They were also at greater risk

> of dying from a firearm homicide, but risk varied by age and whether the person

> was living with others at the time of death. The risk of dying from a suicide in

> the home was greater for males in homes with guns than for males without guns in

> the home. Persons with guns in the home were also more likely to have died from

> suicide committed with a firearm than from one committed by using a different

> method.

The first half of that regarding homicide says nothing about being killed by your own gun, only about being a homicide victim in your own home. It _could_ and likely does include some of that, but it's not captured or quantified, all we see is total homicide numbers. Nor does it have any statistics about anyone else killed, either outside the home, or someone else killed in your home, so there's no basis for comparison there.

The second half only claims to be true for males in the first place, not everyone. It also explicitly acknowledges that it doesn't deal with the likely confounder of people who don't have a means of suicide in the home committing suicide _outside_ the home, and thus not being included in their numbers.

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marcus_holmes 2 days ago | parent [-]

Right, but the basic point - that people who have guns are more likely to die by guns is true, right?

The sophistry about whose gun killed them is kinda moot. They don't actually track whether the gun-owners died by their own gun or not, as you say.

But it's likely, isn't it? We're talking about people who either kill themselves, or kill their family members. It's likely using the gun that's already in the house, rather than a new, different gun being brought in from outside.

And if it is a stranger coming in from outside with a different gun, then doesn't that contradict the entire point of owning a gun? That you can protect yourself and your family from strangers with guns?

	▲	abeyer 13 hours ago \| parent [-]
		They demonstrate a correlation, but not causation. In fact they point out the reverse is likely true, too, that people more likely to die by gun might want to keep a gun at home. What you call "sophistry" others might consider "not misrepresenting what research says to fit an agenda." There's value in using precise language to communicate what the numbers actually show. And I don't even understand how the fact that a gun isn't a guarantee in any way contradicts that it _can_ be used in self defense.