Visualizing gun deaths – Comparing the U.S. to rest of the world

Your problem, of course, is that you're trying to relate the restrictions of a state-issued privilege to the basic exercise of a fundamental right.

 

No
That was the problem of the post i responded to that originated the comparison

 

Cute how you only list white countries, why is that?

 

You are a Limey.... you have no say. Go bow to your queen peasant.

 

You are in for it now! The bowing royal subjects do not like to be called peasants.

 

Whether and how guns should be regulated is one issue, but many respondents are deviating from the subject by asserting some version of the above: that some people are valuable to society, and the rest dispensable. And everyone making this suggestion clearly knows which are which. Nice of them to step down from their seat next to the Throne of God and make it all clear for us.

First off, anyone who can assert that we are better off without those suicidal people has never had a friend or relative with clinical depression. (If you think that you haven't, be aware that statistically, it is certain that you do, and they are not telling you.) It's like any other illness; you are helpless against it, and you need a pill or other therapy. To say that we should simply let a depressed person shoot himself to "clean up the gene pool" is like saying that we shouldn't medicate any ill person because they are weaklings that should be culled. If it were your sister, would you say "Sure, Sis. Go ahead, blow your brains out and good riddance!"? I hope not.

Any sane gun control legislation would forbid firearms possession by anyone with a history of depression unless they could prove they had access to treatment. Estimates of the proportion of gun deaths that are suicide are in the 50% range. That's a lot of decent people that don't need to die; just get a pill.

As for rapists (assuming that's what is meant by "gang-banger") and drug dealers, I can agree at a gut level that we're better off without them, but the logic of suggesting that gun proliferation is an effective way for society to handle them escapes me.

Even assuming that a lot of criminals do kill each other off, they clearly aren't doing it enough to affect the drug business or suppress organized crime. Moreover, for every criminal "usefully" removed for the benefit of society, they take a few innocent bystanders, and young kids new to crime who can still be turned around, out of the gene pool too. Rapists (and lets lump pedophiles in here too) don't form territorial gangs and engage in armed shoot-outs, so a well-armed citizenry is not going to affect their presence in our world either.

And don't forget - although pro-gun folks seem unmoved by this - even if guns do remove mostly "bad" people, they also remove from the pool the wives of abusive husbands, and whoever happens to be standing in front of an accidental discharge. How many such innocent corpses are acceptable to maintain this alleged criminal cull?

Leaving aside the dodgy morality of this whole line of reasoning, it does raise a really interesting question: Do we in fact know what proportion of gun deaths are of "bad genes / dispensable" people? Surely someone has compiled the stats on at least how many gun deaths are "just criminals", but I can't find them. Anyone seen anything authoritative?

 

Do you have a source for that? I suppose it's possible: much smaller population, less popular interest in guns, and LOTS of interest in them among the criminal element inclined to use them for bad things. Even in Ottawa, where I live (a sleepy little village compared to Washington D.C.), the police guns and gang unit is very busy.

 

The problem with such an approach is that those who may need psychological help and/or care may choose not to seek out such care for fear of the establishment of a mental health record that may eventually be used against them. If someone wishes to commit suicide, and feels that seeking help will work against them, what motivation do they have to not go ahead and commit suicide at an earlier point?

It has been demonstrated as physically impossible to prevent the criminal element from gaining access to firearms when they are allowed to remain free in society. Unless they are confined in penitentiaries, there is no way to stop it from occurring, no matter what law is proposed or enacted.

To suggest that they do not need to be removed from the equation in one form or another, is akin to arguing that cancerous tumors do not need to be removed from the body.

There will always be deaths attributed to those that should not have firearms. There is no evidence that efforts to further restrict that illegal access will reduce the number of lives lost to any meaningful degree.

To even have this discussion, one must first determine a round number of lives lost that they are willing to regard as acceptable. How many deaths a year are you alright with there being? Once that number is determined, then reasonable discussion can be had. If one believes that even one death is unacceptable, then there is no point of further discussion, as the annual death rate will always be classified as unacceptable.

According to the findings of the FBI, the chief law enforcement organization for the united states, as many as eighty percent of the homicides in the united states are directly attributed to those with disqualifying criminal records.

 

All good questions. No point in creating laws that won't be obeyed - it just undermines respect for authority.

My personal notion was the sort of law I alluded to earlier - you can own most sorts of gun if you're sane and have no criminal record. However, if prosecutors treat gun infractions as something to be plea-bargained away, I guess that won't work either. I mentioned the Canadian system not because I think it is the solution, but only to suggest that gun enthusiasts will work within reasonable restrictions. Truthfully, while our laws up here no doubt have some impact on gun death rates, the real difference is cultural. For whatever reason, Canadians have a different attitude to guns; it's not something that can be exported.

So, while some sort of gun laws seem obviously to be needed in the US, you are right that the devil is in the details.

 

Quite right, but an entirely separate issue. Persistent ignorance about mental health issues leads to stigmatization and failure to seek help. This would be true, and contribute to suicide, regardless of whether guns were available. However, guns are far and away the easiest and most effective means of suicide. There are almost no other practical ways to do it reliably and painlessly. So, easy access to guns means easy access to suicide.

Touché! I did not mean of course that we shouldn't try to remove such tumours. We are discussing how best to do it. Arming criminals in the hope that they will kill each other off is probably not the best. Prisons are a pretty barbaric solution, with lots of drawbacks, and a recidivism rate of about 75%, but at least people are off the streets during their sentence, and 25% go straight afterwards.

Sadly probably true, but should we therefore stop trying to find a solution?

You're right, of course. My question was entirely rhetorical. There is no sane and moral way to answer it.

Missed that stat. Very interesting! So, presumably, if we could find some way to license guns that really did prevent criminal possession (and, no, I can't imagine how in the real world!) then much of the gun death problem would be dealt with.

 

More appropriately, there is no point in creating laws that will not be enforced. Especially if they will not be enforced against those who are repeat offenders, who are continually released back into society over and over again.

Then in your limited time here, you have come to understand a crucial fact that many others do not, cannot, or simply will not grasp in this debate. What works for one country will not necessarily work for a different country with an entirely different culture.

Especially when key details are purposely left vague, ambiguous, and open to interpretation depending on who is asked.

 

This post is particularly ironic considering it is made by someone from Israel - a country has a good proportion of its citizens suffered the most tragic consequence of being deprived the right to bear arms in the 20th century.

 

And don't forget Self-sufficient, Self-reliant and independent, concepts not even many Americans seem to understand.

 

Perhaps that is correct. But it is an issue currently playing out in the state of New York. Those that have sought medical help for matters as simple as insomnia have had their firearms confiscated under the mental heath provisions of the law known as the SAFE Act.

The above is not entirely accurate. Firearms are selected for the majority of suicides among the percentage of the male population that chooses to end their lives, however the same is not true for the percentage of the female population that chooses to end their lives.

Furthermore the above assumes outcomes remain static regardless of a change of available factors. There is simply no logical reason to conclude that if someone truly wishes to end their lives, they will refrain from doing such simply because a firearm is not available, and not opt for different method in light of such facts. The high suicide rate in the nation of Japan would suggest that a lack of firearms would have little effect overall.

It is not being said that prisons and indefinite incarcerations are the best option. However the current system, appropriately referred to as catch and release, is certainly far from the best of options available. Continually releasing individuals back into society after they have already proven that they do not wish to abide by the rules of society, presents no recognizable benefit to anyone.

One cannot help but wonder if the catch and release method of criminal justice in the united states, is so that society itself will eventually kill the more violent members of the criminal element in cases of justified homicide, so that they do not have to be housed.

There is nothing wrong with making efforts at finding a solution to problems at hand. However it is a simple fact of life that there are problems for which there are no solutions. Not simply no simple solutions, but no solutions whatsoever. There are simply some problems that cannot be remedied, no matter how much effort and resources are devoted to the cause.

That said, finding a solution does not mean enacting questionable legislation and policies that can be easily thwarted, and rendered useless by anyone with some measure of imagination, and critical thinking skills, all in the name of doing something.

https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/national-gang-threat-assessment-issued

In some theoretical fashion, perhaps. But short of creating and implementing brand new technology, possibly subcutaneous implants in those convicted of disqualifying offenses, that respond and react to certain technological innovations in firearms that, for example, would induce rapid and fatal cardiac arrest in the prohibited individual, it is at best wishful thinking.

 

Simply having depression somewhere in your medical history is enough to revoke someone's constitutionally protected right to arms?
Why not just incarcerate them?

You do not understand the concept of armed self-defense?

 

I have a right to a driver's license. Should I still have that right if I have a long history of DUI and no willingness to abstain? Every civil society limits the rights of its individuals when they demonstrate they are a potential threat when exercising those rights. You also have the constitutional right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. So, may I conclude that no US citizen may ever be incarcerated for any reason, since doing so deprives him of liberty?

Armed self-defense? I understand the CONCEPT perfectly, and would probably receive a boost to my personal macho self-image with something shiny and lethal on my hip. I carry a gun in grizzly country, but not to the local mall. The whole point of rule of law is that the state, not the individual, administers and imposes justice. If citizens feel they must arm themselves, they are admitting that they live in a failed society, and are not prepared to - or are simply too impatient to - address its shortcomings peacefully and by non-violent means.

 

We have a different view here in the colonies. See, while you lot are called 'subjects,' we are 'citizens.' And accordant thereto are certain inalienable rights - one of which is the right of self-preservation as codified in the language of the 2nd Amendment to our Constitution - the one our ancestors wrote right after they told your king to go pound sand up his ass.

Maybe as a royal subject you don't. But here in the USA, we free citizens have a right to own all of those things and more.

 

Total freakin horsepucky...so much so it indicates that the only grizzly country you've ever visited was confined to your imagination.

Humans have an unalienable right to defend themselves, their families and their communities by the means of their choosing. Thus the government has no power to restrict that right any more than it has the right to tell you what eating utensils you must use, what sex positions you must use, what method you use to breath, what method you use to communicate, etc.

This notion that armed citizens indicate a failed society means that, in your twisted little mind, this country started out as a failed state and only became civilized when they abandoned the principles we were founded upon and started infringing upon our rights with gun control laws. Logic fail.

This notion that being armed equates to inability to solve problems without violence is also a logical fallacy. Using that flawed logic, no interaction with a cop would ever end without violence.

I find it hilarious that you believe you have a "right" to a drivers license, but not a right to keep and bear arms.

 

They are subjects. We are citizens. Big difference.

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You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but since you don't have a pony in this race, that opinion is of no consequence here.

 

No you don't. A DL is a privilege granted to you by the state.
You not only do not have a right to a DL, but you also do not have a right to drive on public property.

A handful of DUI convictions and the state will permanently revoke your state-granted privilege to drive..

This is covered by the due process clause of the 5th Amendment.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fifth_amendment

I ask again, because your post does not provide a response:
Simply having depression somewhere in your medical history is enough to revoke someone's constitutionally protected right to arms?

Acting in self-defense is not an administration or imposition of justice.

Prove this to be true.

 

Please tell my home state of California that. They seem to have forgotten.

 

Young black males are the leading victims of gun-related homicide. Care to reconsider your position?

 

Table 10 Number of deaths from 113 selected causes, Enterocolitis due to Clostridium difficile, drug-induced causes, alcohol-induced causes, and injury by firearms, by age: United States, 2013

Accidental discharge of firearms (W32-W34) - 505
Intentional self-harm (suicide) by discharge of firearms (X72-X74) - 21,175
Assault (homicide) by discharge of firearms (*U01.4,X93-X95) - 11,208
Discharge of firearms, undetermined intent (Y22-Y24) - 281

Total: 33,168

Drug-induced deaths (2,3) - 46,471

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_02.pdf

There are 13,303 MORE drug induced deaths than folks dying as a result firearms for any reason. However, the left advocates a war on guns (restrictions and bans) and yet pushes to legalize drugs. Please tell me how that makes sense?

 

Come on, Johnny! You're not still peddling that tripe now are you? By the way, you do know that young black males are the leading victims of gun violence, right? Perpetrated by whom? If you said "other young black males," you'd be right. Young black men in America are practically an endangered species - yet all those guns in Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, New Orleans, and Oakland don't fire themselves, do they? Maybe if we want to reduce "gun violence" we need to remove the word "gun" from the equation and just concentrate on the root causes of the disproportionate levels of violence in certain communities. What do you think?

 

I think that's the gun-grabbers point: Ban the sharks and shark attacks will go down. What they fail to consider, however, is the demand for illegal sharks will continue and as with all contraband, that demand WILL BE FILLED. So the only practical effect of shark control is shifting the equation of who actually gets bitten...