Gun Control

A veary veary high percentage of the population in my area carry concealed, myself included i cant recall a single time where a person legaly carrying caused a problem

 

It's not something you can "agree" with or not. 70% of people that survive a suicide attempt never attempt suicide again. Only 7% that attempt later go on to die by suicide (Source). Also in Australia after the gun ban " the firearm suicide rate fell by 65 percent, in the decade after the law was introduced, without a parallel increase in non-firearm homicides and suicides" (Source). The statistics are overwhelmingly clear on this matter. People that attempt and fail suicide generally do not attempt again because suicide tends to be brought on by intense and short-lived feelings of despair and hopelessness. The people that do attempt again, like your aunt, are generally very very sick.

People like taking the path of least resistance. If the easy way isn't possible many just simply won't do it. The easy way is why texting is popular, it's why mcdonalds is huge, it's why amazon is out-competing brick and mortar retail stores. Guns are easy. They're an easy way to commit suicide, an easy way to kill other people, they're an easy way to gain compliance AND they require virtually no skill. They're the perfect solution for crime and suicide. And as proven by Australia limiting access to them does in fact lower both suicide and homicide rates.

 

As a fan of self-determination I don't really agree with the suicide point in practice but will agree in principle, that's a reasonable statement to make if you think suicide is a bad thing. Most people I know who've attempted it have done so through the use of drugs however, and one uncle threw himself off a building. But that's all beside the point.

I'd like to see what the stats say about accidental self-injury from misuse or poor handling. I think that's a more compelling case for better control and education than the suicide point.

 

Attempted is the key word here. It's a lot easier for a doctor to save someone from an overdose than it is a gunshot wound to the head.

 

This. Firearms have something like a 99% success rate because unless you'e miraculously lucky (like the guy who shot himself in the head and only managed to sever his corpus collosum) or just inept (you miss) you're gonna die. Poisoning is really really iffy because there's a lot of room for medical help and same for drowning, hanging, or cutting. This is also why make suicide rates are higher even though women attempt more than twice as often. Men tend to use guns or jump from very high places. Women tend to try to poison and hang themselves.

And as someone who has come very close to attempting in the past and has had to actively talk my best friend down from attempting I do think that suicide is generally the wrong option. It doesn't fix things, it ends the hope of it ever getting better. I will never ever look down on someone for attempting or succeeding but I do think it's 98% of the time a choice of someone who's brain is sick and not a good 'rational' choice. People attempt because they think

Spoiler

my life has no meaning, I am not loved, I have no hope of it ever getting better. Or they think I am actively hurting others, the people in my life will actually be happier when I'm gone because I'm such a burden.

It's a horrible, draining, mindset to have and it is not a healthy one capable of making good decisions about whether they want their life to continue.

There is the exception of being medically assisted with suicide for patients with terminal conditions because that's a whole different kettle of fish (of which I'm supportive having seen relatives degenerating with no possible way of getting better). But anyhow I do think that suicide prevention is a good reason for good gun control laws and better laws about handling of them. My father has multiple guns and I have used them and handled them safely. But they were stored in a way I didn't have access to them and that lack of access *did* in fact keep me from making what would likely be a successful attempt on my own life because I didn't have access to what, to me, would be the quickest and easiest method of suicide. Just like we put nets and fences on bridges and tall buildings and they are successful (remember, people that are stopped in one attempt generally do not attempt again) laws surrounding handling and storage of firearms would deter suicides.

 

Interesting editorial by the Boston Globe. I find one of the more interactive statistics rather compelling.

 

There is nothing more American today than a mass shooting, the quickest way for the wicked among us to join the ranks of the reviled.

Now that's poignant

 

It is sad that this happend, but i still say more laws are not the answer

 

Because there is no one single perfect answer. Stricter gun laws help though. Nearly every study we've got points towards that.

Banning assault weapons won't make them impossible to get a hold of, but it will make it harder. When you can't legally sell something, the manufacture demand goes down, because your customer base is almost entirely gone. The guns stop getting made and it gets harder and harder to get your hands on one as time goes on, even through illegal means.

Beyond that, we currently don't screen private sales in most places. You could sell a gun at a yard sale (I know because I've seen people selling guns at yard sales plenty of times). Yes, it won't stop people doing illegal sales in back alleys, but it still makes it HARDER. The more hoops someone has to jump through, the more likely they'll snag on one of those hoops and get caught.

Just because it's not the perfect solution doesn't mean we shouldn't use it. That's throwing the baby out with the bath water.

 

I dont think stricter laws are the answer eaither. There are already alot some are really dumb aswell but the law abiding owners still follow them. You are right though there is no simple answer

 

On a side note, I've seen people comparing an assault weapon ban to prohibition.

There are two main differences. The first is that not all guns are being banned. It's more like banning absinthe. People will rather stick to other drinks than dodge around to make sure they get the "good stuff" because other drinks will get the job done too.

The second is that you don't get physically addicted to guns. You take someone's guns away, they won't die a slow painful death by withdrawal. They'll be upset.

 

Another problem is that the whole assault weapon thing is a made up term to classify any non hunting rifle. Its a bunch of parts that make a rifle look scarey

 

The assault weapon ban proved pretty successful when we had it before. Yes there are dumb laws, but I hardly see why not giving someone a gun would be "dumb".

 

Why do you need a non-hunting rifle?

And it's more than that anyway. Assault rifles have a ridiculously high rate of fire, which no hunter in their right mind would need.

 

People shoot targets for sport and compititon

 

Okay.

Do individuals need to own the guns for this? People shoot machine guns for the same reason but you have go to a company with special facilities that's licensed to operate and own one. What is the difference between an assault rifle and a machine gun?

And is sport worth it?

 

An assault rifle is a machine gun its part of the definition. And you can personaly own a ma hine gun its just that no new ones have been produced since 1986 due to the nfa act. You have to pay a 200 tax fillout a bunch of paperwork wait several months then iff approved you can buy a machinegun for 20000 or more. The rifles they want to ban, calling them assault weapons are just notmal semi auto rifles that look like machineguns

 

Wait, so you're saying people don't have or use machine guns because the government passed laws that made it difficult to obtain them, and companies stopped producing them?

 

No actualy the exat opposite demand spiked and prices went up more people got into shooting

 

So then where are all the machine guns?