The case against guns

[orpheus]

Stating the obvious then: Firearms do serve legitimate purposes. Whether it be for hunting, sport shooting (i.e. target shooting), or self-defense.

Exactly. They are a toy for wankers.
Hardly a good reason for keeping them legal, just because wankers like them.

As far as self-defence goes, the argument is that I need a gun, because other people have guns.
That's not an argument for more and more guns. It's an argument for phasing them out. Surely any fool can see that?

You're right. And those who put more guns in circulation add to the problem. Ironically, many of those do it for self-defense - to protect them and their families. But they're protecting their immediate families by putting their descendants at greater risk. A bitter pill to swallow, but it's true. If they don't realize that, then it's short-sighted and ill-thought through. If they do realize it, then it's pretty cold-hearted. They care more about themselves than their own grand- or great-grandchildren.

Yes, there's that, too.
They're not even protecting their immediate families when you consider the increased suicides due to widespread availability of firearms.

[Gallstones]

Marksmanship
- n

Not a sport

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_a ... r_Olympics

Shooting sports have been contested at every Summer Olympic Games since the birth of the modern Olympic movement at the 1896 Summer Olympics except at the 1904 & 1928 editions.
...
When shooting was reintroduced in 1932, it consisted of only two events. From this, the number of events have increased steadily until reaching the 2000–2004 maximum of seventeen events.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biathlon

Biathlon is any sporting event made up of two disciplines. However, biathlon usually refers specifically to the winter sport that combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. Other popular variants include summer biathlon, which combines cross-country running with rifle,

Olympic Rifle Events

Guess who wins more than twice as many medals as all the others?

[Gallstones]

Stating the obvious then: Firearms do serve legitimate purposes. Whether it be for hunting, sport shooting (i.e. target shooting), or self-defense.

Exactly. They are a toy for wankers.
Hardly a good reason for keeping them legal, just because wankers like them.

As far as self-defence goes, the argument is that I need a gun, because other people have guns.
That's not an argument for more and more guns. It's an argument for phasing them out. Surely any fool can see that?

You're right. And those who put more guns in circulation add to the problem. Ironically, many of those do it for self-defense - to protect them and their families. But they're protecting their immediate families by putting their descendants at greater risk. A bitter pill to swallow, but it's true. If they don't realize that, then it's short-sighted and ill-thought through. If they do realize it, then it's pretty cold-hearted. They care more about themselves than their own grand- or great-grandchildren.

They're not even protecting their immediate families when you consider the increased suicides due to widespread availability of firearms.

Can you substantiate this horsehit claim with credible, verifiable, linkable sources?

[NuclMan]

I'll try.

http://www.armedwithreason.com/suicides ... -movement/

Dr. David Hemenway of the Harvard School of Public Health summarized ten studies in the previous twenty years examining the relationship between gun ownership and suicide and found that “all [of them] find that firearms in the home are associated with substantially and significantly higher rates of suicide.”

Furthermore, every single case-control study done in the United States has found the presence of a firearm is a strong risk factor for suicide. (That’s 24 separate studies).

[piscator]

So guns make people want to kill themselves?

[Hermit]

So guns make people want to kill themselves?

They make the act of killing yourself easier. Or so it would appear. After very strict laws regarding gun ownership were enacted in Australia, gun control proponents crowed about the massive drop in the rate of suicide by firearms. What they failed to mention is that it had no effect on the overall suicide rate at all. People simply killed themselves by other means.

[NuclMan]

So guns make people want to kill themselves?

They make the act of killing yourself easier. Or so it would appear. After very strict laws regarding gun ownership were enacted in Australia, gun control proponents crowed about the massive drop in the rate of suicide by firearms. What they failed to mention is that it had no effect on the overall suicide rate at all. People simply killed themselves by other means.

Any cource for this? I wiki'd but even that article needs citation.

[Seth]

I'll try.

http://www.armedwithreason.com/suicides ... -movement/

Dr. David Hemenway of the Harvard School of Public Health summarized ten studies in the previous twenty years examining the relationship between gun ownership and suicide and found that “all [of them] find that firearms in the home are associated with substantially and significantly higher rates of suicide.”

Furthermore, every single case-control study done in the United States has found the presence of a firearm is a strong risk factor for suicide. (That’s 24 separate studies).

Hemenway is a notorious anti-gun zealot who produces lots and lots of bullshit research intended to disparage gun ownership. He's not a credible source.

Besides, committing suicide is a civil right, and having a tool to do it right the first time is as well.

[NuclMan]

I'll try.

http://www.armedwithreason.com/suicides ... -movement/

Dr. David Hemenway of the Harvard School of Public Health summarized ten studies in the previous twenty years examining the relationship between gun ownership and suicide and found that “all [of them] find that firearms in the home are associated with substantially and significantly higher rates of suicide.”

Furthermore, every single case-control study done in the United States has found the presence of a firearm is a strong risk factor for suicide. (That’s 24 separate studies).

Hemenway is a notorious anti-gun zealot who produces lots and lots of bullshit research intended to disparage gun ownership. He's not a credible source.

Besides, committing suicide is a civil right, and having a tool to do it right the first time is as well.

Unexpected.

Hemenway is not the source - there's links to the relevant studies throughout the article, many of which have likely been raised in this thread and I don't have the chops to argue the methodology used. I do think there is a strong correlation though.

Does the right of suicide extend to minors as well, along with the 2nd amendment?

[laklak]

2nd Amendment doesn't apply to minors. The suicide argument is complete bullshit. The U.S., which is apparently the most armed and uncivilized society on earth, comes in 33rd in international suicide rates, with 12.0 / 100,000. Let's look at some close competitors. Stats are per 100,000 population and are for successful suicides, not attempts.

Romania 11.9
Norway 11.9
Ireland 11.0
UK 11.8
New Zealand 11.5
Portugal 11.5
Canada 11.5
Denmark 11.3

Not much difference. Lets look at some countries with a higher suicide rate than those gun crazy, violent Americans.

Austria 12.8
France 14.7
South Africa 15.4
Belgium 17.0
Russia 20.0
Japan 21.7
South Korea 31.7

AND, winning the I-just-fucking-can't-take-this-shit-anymore sweepstakes, Greenland at a whopping 108.1.

So where is the data to support the contention that guns affect the suicide rate?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... icide_rate

[NuclMan]

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10881&page=R1

States, regions, and countries with higher rates of household gun ownership have higher rates of gun suicide. There is also cross-sectional, ecological association between gun ownership and overall risk of suicide, but this association is more modest than the association between gun ownership and gun suicide; it is less consistently observed across time, place, and persons; and the causal relation remains unclear.

[Hermit]

So guns make people want to kill themselves?

They make the act of killing yourself easier. Or so it would appear. After very strict laws regarding gun ownership were enacted in Australia, gun control proponents crowed about the massive drop in the rate of suicide by firearms. What they failed to mention is that it had no effect on the overall suicide rate at all. People simply killed themselves by other means.

Any cource for this? I wiki'd but even that article needs citation.

From the Australian Bureau of Statistics: In 1995, the year before the anti-gun legislation and accompanying buy-back program, 389 people committed suicide by firearm and 699 by hanging. Ten years later gun related suicides had dropped to 147 fatalities, but suicide by hanging had gone up to 1068.

[mistermack]

From the Australian Bureau of Statistics: In 1995, the year before the anti-gun legislation and accompanying buy-back program, 389 people committed suicide by firearm and 699 by hanging. Ten years later gun related suicides had dropped to 147 fatalities, but suicide by hanging had gone up to 1068.

That could be misleading. The drop in gun-suicides is very likely to be attributable to gun control.
But the rise in hangings is much harder to attribute to lack of guns. It could be that. Some of it probably was. But it could just as easily be other factors, like a drop in the price of rope, or a limit on the sale of large packs of aspirins.

In any case, murder by hanging remains comfortingly low.

[Seth]

The point is that there is no argument to be made for banning guns to prevent suicide. Like every other stupid anti-gun argument, it's just a red herring fallacy. It's no more rational to ban guns to prevent suicide than it is to ban rope, razor blades, Tylenol, prescription drugs, enclosed garages, internal combustion engines or tall buildings.

People who commit suicide want to commit suicide and we can't operate society on the premise that nothing that can possibly harm someone intent on committing suicide must be banned. You'd have to ban bridges over rivers, sea shores, cliffs, trees, etc..

This line is nothing more than a derail attempt.

[Hermit]

From the Australian Bureau of Statistics: In 1995, the year before the anti-gun legislation and accompanying buy-back program, 389 people committed suicide by firearm and 699 by hanging. Ten years later gun related suicides had dropped to 147 fatalities, but suicide by hanging had gone up to 1068.

That could be misleading. The drop in gun-suicides is very likely to be attributable to gun control.
But the rise in hangings is much harder to attribute to lack of guns. It could be that. Some of it probably was. But it could just as easily be other factors, like a drop in the price of rope, or a limit on the sale of large packs of aspirins.

If such factors could be identified, I'd happily acknowledge them. Until then I go with the theory that gun control did nothing, or next to nothing, to prevent suicides.

Something did though. The rate of suicides on a per capita basis has been dropping for the decade after gun control has been tightened. This does not indicate that gun control was the factor in the drop, however; The rate was dropping at a very similar rate in the decade preceding gun control.