LarryDan43: How many dead?

None.

No one seems to want to talk about that lil detail.

Kome: phenn: There's been plenty of ban all guns quacking on Fark as of late.

From whom? When? Which threads?

Yeah, I don't remember any...even from obvious alt-trolls, and certainly nobody I recognize.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/lone-star-stabbing-184840929.html

They reporting 14 people injured. The weapon was ...

We should ban Swiss Army knives.

After all, who the hell needs two blades?

vygramul: We should ban Swiss Army knives.

You'll have to do battle with the all-powerful knife lobby.

Dusk-You-n-Me: vygramul: We should ban Swiss Army knives.

You'll have to do battle with the all-powerful knife lobby.

Yeah - they'll point out that every Swiss person has one.

I'm sure they'll also blame video games, which train you how to kill with a knife.

And don't get me started on how many edged weapons there are in D&D.

way south: vygramul: We should ban Swiss Army knives.

After all, who the hell needs two blades?

They didn't use Swiss Army knives.
What do you have against the Swiss?!

What the hell does what they used have to do with what I want to ban?

lennavan: Bravo Two: No, i'm simply pointing out that it's silly to argue that the removal of a tool used for suicide automatically permanently reduces the number, because in other cases where that tool is not available, the rates are as high as or higher.

You are comparing suicide rates in Japan to those in the US.  You are saying guns are more available in the US than in Japan.  You yourself have just assumed suicide is solely a function of access to guns.  It's not.  The difference in suicide rates between the US and Japan has nothing to do with guns and everything to do with society and culture.  Japan also has crazy vending machines.  That's not because they have less access to guns.

Bravo Two: And, I suspect

You don't need to suspect.  You don't need to guess.  You can look at the actual data of what happened.  You don't need to compare two entirely farking different cultures.  You can compare the exact same city before and after a handgun ban.  You can compare a decade of a city before a handgun ban and a decade after the handgun ban.  You can then see the suicide rate drop from 2.6 per month to 2.0.  Since this was done over 10 years, you can then take those numbers and do statistical analysis to ask whether that drop was significant or just numbers fluctuating and get a p value of 0.005.  You can then ask, hey, if they can't shoot themselves in the face for suicide, I bet they're cutting themselves and shiat instead.  So you can look at all non-gun related suicides and see if the number went up.  It turns out it didn't, hell it went down.  So you do statistics on that and it turns out it didn't go down statistically significantly.  Whatever you want to conclude from that, you sure as fark can't conclude people are just going to find another way to kill themselves because clearly they didn't.

These numbers are not made up.  These numbers are actually farking published.  This work was actually done.  I actually already gave you the citation.  Here it is again:

htt ...

Alright, alright. I give. so a whole 72 people didn't opt to try to kill themselves over 10 years after handguns were banned in DC, while 240 still bothered to do it.

That is a significant drop.

Now, do we have any statistics on the incidence of suicide in areas where mental health care is readily available and prevalent versus not? I would be willing to bet that this statistic would be far more significant.

And just because I *hate* the whole statistic of "you are x times more likely to have a gun hurt you if you own/are around one" being thrown around, do we have any statistics on how likely you are to die in an automobile accident if you own one vs. not? Or Incidents of rape if you dress provocatively or not?

/yes, this is a "Troll" post, because I find that arguing the significance of rise in threat from an object just by proximity to be stupid for a gun when the same basic correlation exists for just about any item you can name, based on the pure fact that It's beyond obvious that if an object doesn't exist in your world, barring outside introduction by a second party, chances are pretty damn slim that one will just suddenly appear to hurt you.

udhq: Violence and gun violence are 2 distinct issues with 2 distinct sets of solutions.

Violent crime as a whole is on a huge downward trend over the postwar period, and there are a variety of reasons for that: economic prosperity, legalized abortion, and medical/environmental factors in behavioral disorders (recent research suggests that unleaded gasoline may be a social "silver bullet".) Overall. we are a much less violent society than we were 50, 100 years ago. I would consider this an argument in favor of further gun restrictions, but that's an argument for another day...

But gun violence as a proportion of violent crime remains persistently high, and in some cases is on an upward trend.

A focus on mental healthcare suggests a fundamental misunderstanding that violence is a rational conclusion. It's not. 70% of suicide attempts are taken on an impulse, action occurring within an hour of ideation. I would suggest that this is probably also the case for other kinds of violence. I tend to believe that incidences of planned violence are the exception rather than the norm. And this is where some common sense speed bumps to acquiring firearms can be effective.

People have a right to bear arms, but not any kind of an entitlement to convenience. If you have to fill out a form 3 days before your hunting trip to get your rifle, well, I'm ok with that, if it means any number of domestic disputes will not escalate to murders in the heat of the moment.

No, I'm pretty sure that violence in all forms are spurr of the moment acts, and I'm pretty sure that they occur, regardless. Guns make for convenience. They do not change the impulse towards violence. A guy who has an urge to harm his wife may be inclined to use a gun because it's there, but that doesn't mean he isn't still inclined to hurt his wife if the gun's removed, and I wish people would stop singling out gun violence as though every other kind of violence is a non-issue. It's both sickening and retarded.

And, frankly, by your logic, I'm okay with a person having to fill out a form three days in advance of voting in order to obtain the right to do so if it means any number of piss-poor laws are prevented by electing stupid candidates.

We may come to a conclusion as to what firearms are available to own and which must be restricted, but forcing impediments to even exercise my right in the manner that I see fit (presuming it is within the bounds of established law) is no different than forcing impediments on my right to free speech and the manner I exercise it (within the bounds of the law/not causing harm to others), or vote.

You act as though the 2nd Amendment is a right only in the abstract and free to be impugned at your leisure, simply because you don't agree with it.

I feel badly about violence as well as you do, but I don't for a moment suppose that it is better to diminish the rights of the man so that the few might be hindered as opposed to doing everything in my power to see that those elements that are at the root of the behavior are combated.

Sin_City_Superhero: Photo from the crime scene:

[media-cdn.tripadvisor.com image 550x412]

Ugh, I'd cut people if I had to eat there, too.

Bravo Two: do we have any statistics on how likely you are to die in an automobile accident if you own one vs. not?

We have lots of statistics on automobile deaths. There is not a national organization that has actively blocked the gathering of such data.

Azlefty: justtray: Are you trolling or just a moron?

You think the right to not quarter soldiers in peacetime is of equal importance to the 1st? or 2nd?

So if they are equal, you're clearly not opposed to registering all weapons, just like you have to register to vote then right?

Idiot.


Speaking of idiots have you looked in the mirror Lately?

Yes they are all equal; but your false equivalency isn't.

When you vote do they record who you vote for? Didn't think so; registering to vote is like the background check when you purchase a firearm, it verifies that you are legally able to exercise that right, it has nothing to do with the govt. keeping track of how you exercise that right, like gun registration does. See the difference Moron?

Oh you're one of those idiot with a narrisitic personality disorder who thinks its cool to troll with random capital letters.

What you see - "lol i trolled him im so smart."
What everyone else sees - "just another lifeless loser..."

lennavan: Here I am, in this thread, arguing with citations, data and actual evidence.  And you're arguing with "I'm pretty sure."

Holy fark, this is the ultimate battle of imagination vs. reality.

Please. Compared to arguments over whether the universe is 14.5 billion years old or 6500 years old, at least Bravo is starting from null hypotheses that aren't totally retarded.

lennavan: Of farking course we do. What the fark does that have to do with anything?

Well, I'll tell you what it has to do with anything. It's a statistic that gets trotted out in these discussions as though it's significant. On the surface, it has the effect on some would-be gun owners and/or supporters of the 2nd Amendment that they might see that correlation and say "nope, not worth it".

However, I would be willing to bet that if you brought out the same basic argument that ownership/use of a vehicle correlates to higher incidence of having auto accidents, then a percentage of people would go "well, no, not going to buy a car then!" just based on that fact.

It's frankly dishonest, because you're using a skewed logic to stretch that somehow the statistics of gun-related death or injury of all gun owners correlates to statistics of how many gun owners are likely to be involved in a violent crime, which would be a more logical, in my opinion, statistic to throw out there because if owning guns could be shown to increase your risk of actually being involved in a crime/attack/whatever, rather than just the nebulous "gun related injury/death", it would mean that not owning a gun reduced the very thing that owning the gun was designed to defend against.

Also, you DO keep arguing about the role that guns play in suicide, and you turn around and ignore or downplay it when called on that very position with questions as to how the rates are affected by alternatives to simply removing guns compared to other approaches.

Let's say for the sake of argument that in Washington DC, instead of banning handguns, they enacted a program whereby anyone who discussed suicidal desires was involuntarily hospitalized for treatment, and were given full medical care and intervention before they manifested in acting on their impulse.   If that meant the rate of suicide went from 2.6 to, say, 1.1, that would be a far more significant drop than simply 2.6 to 2.0 by removing the guns.

And this is where my argument comes into play: guns are a MEANS to suicide, they are not a CAUSE to suicide. Removing the gun may or may not reduce suicides as people don't have other options as easy, but that doesn't change the cause behind their desire.

So, you may disagree with me on this, and that's fine. But I will not agree or accept that "yes, banning guns is a good thing because it prevents suicides", any more than I will agree that banning short skirts, makeup, and other means of making a woman dress sexily will prevent rape.

KittyGlitterSparkles: No one died? Well, the suspect is free to go then.

Its Texas. If he delayed a high school or college football game then he might get the death penalty.

Bravo Two: udhq: Violence and gun violence are 2 distinct issues with 2 distinct sets of solutions.

Violent crime as a whole is on a huge downward trend over the postwar period, and there are a variety of reasons for that: economic prosperity, legalized abortion, and medical/environmental factors in behavioral disorders (recent research suggests that unleaded gasoline may be a social "silver bullet".) Overall. we are a much less violent society than we were 50, 100 years ago. I would consider this an argument in favor of further gun restrictions, but that's an argument for another day...

But gun violence as a proportion of violent crime remains persistently high, and in some cases is on an upward trend.

A focus on mental healthcare suggests a fundamental misunderstanding that violence is a rational conclusion. It's not. 70% of suicide attempts are taken on an impulse, action occurring within an hour of ideation. I would suggest that this is probably also the case for other kinds of violence. I tend to believe that incidences of planned violence are the exception rather than the norm. And this is where some common sense speed bumps to acquiring firearms can be effective.

People have a right to bear arms, but not any kind of an entitlement to convenience. If you have to fill out a form 3 days before your hunting trip to get your rifle, well, I'm ok with that, if it means any number of domestic disputes will not escalate to murders in the heat of the moment.

No, I'm pretty sure that violence in all forms are spurr of the moment acts, and I'm pretty sure that they occur, regardless. Guns make for convenience. They do not change the impulse towards violence. A guy who has an urge to harm his wife may be inclined to use a gun because it's there, but that doesn't mean he isn't still inclined to hurt his wife if the gun's removed, and I wish people would stop singling out gun violence as though every other kind of violence is a non-issue. It's both sickening and retarded.

And, f ...

You are both right, and you are both wrong. What gun control does is reduce the FATALITY rates of both extrapersonal violence (homicides) and personal violence (suicides). Probably 85% of all acts of violence are spur of the moment; but that doesn't mean that they weren't built up to over a long period of time; whether a long period of non-deadly domestic violence or a long period of depression. Finally, the need to terminate arrives--but it's not accurate to say that either the murderer or the suicide will use whatever is at hand. A person who has determined to shoot himself will not go jump off a bridge if there is no gun handy; instead, he'll just not kill himself that day. And a man who routinely beats his wife doesn't need a gun available to go one extra blow further and kill her that night.

With all that said, the presence of a gun only means that IF it is used, it merely ensures that the terminal act really will be terminal. Consider the most common shooting scenario, drunk family member arguing with another drunk family member. If the weapon involved is a firearm, chances are good one of them will be dead at the end of the encounter. If the weapon is a baseball bat (potentially just as lethal), chances are we'll never hear about it. BUT, if the gun is locked up or hard to get to, then we won't hear about it either, because drunken idiot #1 won't be able to find it before drunken idiot #2 can fight him or escape. OTOH, if the bat is handy or #2 is passed out on the sofa, #1 may well kill him with the bat, despite it's non-firing nature.

The fact that suicides drop so precipitously after a gun ban is enacted needs to be treated cautiously; since it only reflects the sudden decline of suicides who were going to kill themselves with guns. Note that nobody is checking if there was a sudden increase in suicide attempts by other, less lethal means. It means nothing that there were fewer gun suicides after a ban, if there was a corresponding increase in unsuccessful ODs, followed by a slow increase in successful ones.

All guns do is kill people (homicides and suicides) more effectively and usually more efficiently. That a roomful of people would stand around while fourteen of them got stabbed (four seriously) with an Exacto knife merely underscores the fact that it is not the weapon that kills, NOR is it the user, it's the mindset of the victims. And the ones, some of them right here on Fark, saying "Oh, if only we had a gun we could have stopped him!" No, if only you didn't have a victim's mentality, you could have stopped him. Two guys with chairs could have stopped him after the first victim went down. But they didn't. Because they didn't think about it.