The alarming thing to me is that the drop in firearms-related deaths has begun to level out. We've been making real progress in violent crime rates in general, and any indicator that this trend won't continue is disturbing.

Of course, if the stats among youths mirror those of the general population, about 2/3s of those gun deaths will be suicides. That matters because the steps that might be taken would be different (for the most part) to those taken to address homicide.

I considered, when writing the original post, phrasing it that way instead...perhaps I should have. I am indeed aware that only about one in five gunshot victims dies (suicide attempts excluded).

Without a gun, the depressed young person might not try to commit suicide--and might not succeed if he or she did, since other methods tend to be less effective.

not so much with guns.

Damn Damn Damn... (I have to move on before I say something that the gunners will use against me)...

How you could miss the many instances and reasons why I am saying that, surprises me.

Go post a duplicate of this thread in the Gun Control & RKBA (forum) and see (Not to be confused with the Gun Control Activism group)

Thought you knew that.

It shows that concerted efforts to enforce safety can have a positive effect on mortality. Similar efforts can be made with regard to guns.

For God's sake, at least this. Safety and storage are something "responsible gun owners" should all be able to agree on. That is one of the place I have actually found agreement with gunners on DU. If you want to own a deadly weapon, you are going to be held RESPONSIBLE for keeping it safe.

Then I want a test of who meets the threshold for responsible. If you fail this test or if you are found being an idiot (i.e. shooting into you neighbor's yard, shooting while intoxicated, etc. etc.) then you lose your right to own a gun. If your gun is used in a crime or accident, you will be held criminally responsible. Public safety must be of some consideration in this damn country.

Somehow buying and owning a gun is something people think should be easy. I think it should be hard. Then you may weed out many of those who don't want to jump through the hoops.

The devil, as always, is in the details. What in your opinion would be the minimum acceptable standard for "safe storage" of a firearm? Regarding gun use in a crime or accident; if I use my firearm in the commission of a crime I am already held criminally responsible. If I am negligent with my firearm and resulting accident causes property damage, injury or death I could be held criminally or civilly liable, depending again on the specific details. I do agree that shooting, like driving a car, is something that should only be done sober. Carrying in public, like driving a car on a public roadway, should require a similar understanding of the applicable laws.

At 18, you can buy a long gun. At 21, you can buy a pistol.

Yes, I'm all for safe storage, and keeping guns out of the hands of kids (or any ineligible user) but the demographic in the OP includes people old enough to walk out, to a store, and purchase a firearm for use on themselves, or others.

2/3 of all gun deaths are suicides.

I see two viable patches for that:

Accessible mental health care
Raise the age at which people can legally acquire/possess firearms.

You can only heap so much on the shoulders of 'adult' gun owners for this, when only 3 years of the lifespan in question is prohibited from legally acquiring their own guns.

(I personally see mental health care as the bigger nut to crack, because it will pay dividends across criminal mis-use of firearms (and other forms of violence) as well as self-destructive mis-use. Take away guns, and other forms of suicide are still available, and the rate of effectiveness will go up.)

I turned 19 and 21 in Vietnam with a fully automatic M-16 in my hands. It got a lot of use.
How do they get away with referring to legal adults like they are 12 years old. That is not truthful.

My state has a 7 day waiting period. (Skipped, if you have a valid concealed pistol license)

That by itself, I don't believe, has had much effect.

I'm not really sure what to do about that, if the goal is to reduce the number of guns accessible to people who might use them to harm themselves. Raise the age to 21? 25? Some sort of mental evaluation?

I don't see a workable solution.

I live in Cali. We have to sign a form stating the model of safe we have before we can buy a handgun. We have mandatory background checks for all gun sales, private or at the gun store or gun show. We have magazine capacity limits. We have it all.
But we do not have any significant change in criminals, young or old, misusing guns for violence against others.
We do not have any significant change in the rate of suicide with guns.
So, although I have supported all of these laws, except for the magazine limits, nothing really changed.
The numerical point to all of this is that those who would use a gun for a violent act or suicide do not worry about obeying the laws, not the old ones, or the new ones.

It seems to prove the argument that control-freaks like myself put forward that we need a Canadian/European approach to guns. If all the laws do nothing to curb violence and guns are too dangerous even with the most stringent laws, then they should no longer be legal.

America will be one of the LAST nations on the planet for that idea to take hold.

Fully serious on that point. A lot of people simply accept that as cost of doing business.

We can't move forward because we are awash in fear. A sold government, an uneducated populace, religious zealots, war mongers and on and on. Other countries are able to evolve much more quickly than we are, and the US eventually find our place. It's too bad; it was a good idea.

So if you can not regulate guns out of the hands of our upstanding citizens maybe we need to think about controlling the other side of this equation. The criminals and the mentally ill.

By the way. The last big registration plan of the Canadians was a wreck. They finally just gave up and put it all back as it was before.

But the point is, clearly Canada and Western Europe have this one right and we have it wrong. Gun violence as a problem is basically non-existent compared to the US in those places. Sure, there will be an occasional shooting, but nothing like in the US.

Sometimes things take a while.

that it will have far lower firearm violence than a nation that has an estimated 80,000,000 gun owners and well over 300,000,000 firearms in the hands of civilians as the United States does.

It is simply amazing that our nation doesn't have far more gun violence. If you were to eliminate the violence that results when drug gangs fight each other over turf due to our failed War on Drugs the gun violence figure would decrease significantly.

Our nation also has a significant mental health problem and obtaining care for mental health issues is expensive and is often viewed by many as showing weakness. That is one of the major drivers in the suicide rate involving the use of firearms which results in the death of more people than criminal firearm violence.

Instead of consulting with a mental health counselor many people obtain prescription drugs to treat symptoms of mental problems. Such drugs often have nasty side effects such as causing an overwhelming desire to commit suicide when they are first taken or if suddenly stopped.

Rarely mentioned by either side of the gun control issue is the fact that violent crime and firearm violence have drooped to levels last seen in the late 1960s which were fairly peaceful times when compared to the 80s and 90s. Gun manufactures hope to increase sales by insinuating that a firearm is a necessity for protection and gun control advocates realize that pointing out that we have made great headway on addressing gun violence would do little to gain support for their ideas.

There is no doubt in my mind that we could pass new gun control legislation at the state and national level that would decrease gun violence even further. Unfortunately the two sides of the debate simply refuse to compromise.The gun control movement for many years has favored gun bans and the registration of firearms as the solution to the problem. Realizing that it is impossible to disarm all American citizens in one bold move (which many in the movement hope for), they try to pass small incremental steps to achieve that goal. Gun owners speak of the "camel's nose under the tent" and realize that small steps will not satisfy the gun control movement and that any stricter legislation will be followed by another and another. Therefore many gun owners oppose any and all changes.

In recent years the Democratic Party largely stopped pushing for new gun control legislation at the national level. Several recent tragedies changed that, especially the murder of young children at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. I had some hope at that time that our nation might pass some reasonable modifications to our gun laws but unfortunately Dianne Feinstein viewed this as an excellent opportunity to pass another assault weapons ban. As soon as this was mentioned in the press I knew that the effort would fail and nothing of substance would be accomplished at the national level. Sadly I was right and the push for the AWB resulted in tremendous profits for every gun manufacturer in our nation as firearms of all types simply flew off the shelves of all gun stores. Gun owners also stocked up on ammunition which led to a shortage that is just beginning to end.

With the midterm elections on the near horizon I don't expect to see any major push for strong gun control legislation. I do fear that many gun owners will show up at the polls to vote against Democrats even if they do not support gun control. We many lose many close elections at the local, state and national level for this reason.

In passing while it is true that many nations who do have strong gun control laws have little firearm violence they are not weapon free.

Gang violence accounts for about 12% of our homicides. Even if we were to completely eliminate gang violence, we would still have by far the highest homicide rate in the developed world. I believe I've pointed this out to you before. Guess you forgot.

It's the guns, not the gangs.

please explain the recent push for another assault weapons ban.

In 2012 there were according to FBI statistics 8855 homicides in our nation caused by firearms. Murders committed by rifles of ALL types accounted for 322 of those murders or 3.6%.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_8_murder_victims_by_weapon_2008-2012.xls

Yet many on your side of the gun control issue recently tried to push through another assault weapons ban which would, at the best, limit the manufacture and sale of certain new semiautomatic rifles. Your side considered the passage of this legislation to be extremely important as did the media.

But realistically the evil looking black rifles account for only part of the 3.6% of the murders caused by rifles in 2012.

Let's imagine an unrealistic scenario. Let's say that in 2011 by some miracle a law passed banning the civilian ownership of all rifles and shotguns and everybody in the nation turned in their long guns willingly. In 2012 that would have stopped a total of 625 murders involving long guns or 7% of all firearm murders (assuming the bad guys would have not found a handgun to use). That is still less then the 12% of all murders caused by drug gangs that you consider insignificant.

Now perhaps you will point out that if all firearms were banned and confiscated from civilians we would no longer have ANY murders caused by them. In our nation that would require a miracle like Moses parting the water. It is simply not going to happen anytime in the near future and probably not in 50 to 100 years.

Perhaps that is the major difference between our two viewpoints. Obviously we both abhor gun violence. You propose the unrealistic while I look for potential solutions to reduce the problem.

Unfortunately you and others on your side of the gun control issue are unwilling to listen to rational approaches that might make a difference just as those who support gun rights are unwilling to listen to the good points gun control advocates mention.

Consequently our nation loses opportunity to make headway on passing more effective gun control laws at the national level

The "gangs" talking point is an attempt by the gun lobby to portray gun violence victims as "others" who don't matter. It's part of the whole argument that the gun violence problem is somehow "not really that bad".

Regarding AWB, I agree, semi-auto rifles aren't the main culprit. The main culprit is handguns. The thing about, say, an AR-15, is cost-benefit analysis. Why does anyone need an AR-15? Sure, they don't kill as many people as handguns, but pretty much all they are good for is killing people (in large numbers, often).

But, yes, handguns are more important. I think they should be regulated more tightly, with licensing and registration, like in other countries, maybe something like NFA.

This might include:

1) Universal background checks on the sale of all firearms.

2) Improving our NICS background check system to insure that the names of those who should not be allowed to purchase firearms are updated on a timely basis by the states and that includes the names of those legally adjudged as having significant mental problems.

3) Devoting more funds for the police agencies to combat the straw purchase of firearms and to stop the smuggling of these weapons into the streets of our inner cities to be sold on the black market.

4) Substantially increasing the penalties for anyone involved in the illegal purchase or smuggling of firearms. I would be suggest that such people be charged as an accessory to any crime committed with the firearms they dealt in (although this might prove legally impossible).

5) Legalizing many drugs in order to take much of the profit motive out of the drug trade and consequently reduce the violence that the drug gangs cause in our society. We lost the War on Drugs decades ago and most realistic people understand this. We learned no lessons from the Prohibition era and we seem to lack the will and the intelligence to stop this failed effort as our nation did when it effectively repealed Prohibition by passing the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933.

6) Developing a mental healthcare system that allows people to seek help for mental problems from a mental healthcare professional at an affordable price rather than seek treatment from a GP who will give them what often proves to be a dangerous prescription drug.

7) Requiring any person who buys a firearm or ammunition to have proof of completing a firearm safety course.

To me it makes far more sense to push for such laws and tactics than to overreach and try for a fairly useless ban on assault weapons.

I realize that those who wish to see strict gun laws such as exist in many nations understand that banning and confiscating all firearms has to be accomplished in small incremental steps. That effort has failed even after truly tragic events such as the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.

I will admit that sometime long in the future gun confiscation might happen in this nation but I am more worried about reducing gun violence right now. As I have said firearm violence has fallen significantly in recent years and is now at a level last seen in the late 1960s which was a fairly peaceful time. I feel we can do far better and cut firearm violence maybe in half and reduce the level of suicide as well through better mental healthcare which is affordable to all.

But few on the gun control side appear to have any real interest in passing simple solutions such I have just suggested that might make a real difference in the next five to ten years. Instead they push for bans on assault weapons and the number of rounds a magazine can hold. I'm sorry but the chances of another assault weapons ban passing at the federal level are slim to none. Not only is the effort to pass one futile but it also causes unintended consequences. The sale of firearms and ammunition absolutely skyrocketed after our recent tragic shootings led to the Democratic Party push for another AWB. Instead of improving our gun laws we accomplished nothing and now millions more firearms are in civilian hands. Undoubtedly many people who just purchased their first firearm will end up committing suicide, murdering a family member or having a tragic accident as they know little about firearm safety. Some of these weapons may be used in a mass shooting.

The gun control movement and the main stream media to incrementally disarm Americans reminds me of Don Quixote tilting at windmills. It's a noble effort and that's all.

I personally would like to see a time similar to when I grew up in the 1950s and 60s when most gun owners had good reason to own their weapons. They were hunters and target shooters or lived in extremely dangerous neighborhoods.

All the gun control effort has accomplished over the years with its push for gun bans is that the gun manufacturers have profited, the NRA has gained members and many gun owners have left the Democratic Party and will never return.

We just tried that. Didn't get through the Republican congress. Blaming it on the AWB is disingenuous. The problem is (obviously) the GOP and the gun lobby. No progressive policies have much chance of getting through. Obama's jobs package. Raising the minimum wage. Etc. Your other proposals are all going to face the same resistance from the GOP.

I don't have an answer, except to try and elect more Democrats.

to stop all reasonable gun control laws such as the UBC by insisting on another AWB.This unpopular idea poisoned the water probably for years for any less extreme legislation to pass.

Anyone who had any knowledge of how the Senate works would have realized that even Democratic Senators from gun loving states would vote against an assault weapons ban. It was argued that they should vote for the AWB for the good of the nation but they were elected to represent the views of the voters in their state and also wished to continue their political careers.

If it couldn't pass in a Democratically controlled Senate, how much chance did it have in a Republican controlled House?

Insisting that Democrats running for national office strongly support gun control will accomplish little except to elect many more Republicans from red states.

The Republicans control the house, and can filibuster in the Senate. If the GOP doesn't want something, it's not gonna pass.

From a political point of view, I am completely opposed to your general strategy. The Dems should be pushing more progressive policies, not less. Force the GOP to vote against them, but at least they are part of the dialog. For too long, all we have been talking about is cuts.

One of my main criticisms of Obama was that he gives up too much before bargaining even begins. For example, the stimulus. If we start with watered-down policies, they get even more watered down by the time any compromise is reached. We should be bolder, not weaker. With respect to gun policy, gun registration should be part of the discussion. Like many other progressive policies that the GOP is opposed to, it also polls over 50%.

that we both would love to see gun violence decrease.

Your approach appears to me to be to elect more Democrats to office who will strongly support strong gun legislation that will be quite similar to that in Great Britain. The problem is that there are in our nation 80,000,000 gun owners and members of their families who own and use firearms and place great value on them. The gun culture in our nation is unlike that in any other nation and unlikely to change. Gun owners largely disagree with implementing another assault weapons ban as they realize that it will be just one step in a process that will eventally include banning all semiautomatic firearms and all handguns.

If gun bans were truly popular with most Americans, we would have them by now.

Perhaps we simply should allow honest and sane citizens who do not suffer from serious mental issues to own firearms. Legislation could be passed that will help insure that only such citizens buy purchase firearms and we can take measures to stop straw purchases and gun smuggling. We could also end our failed War on Drugs which would help reduce the violence caused by drug gangs.

A high percentage of gun owners might vote for politicians who promised to safeguard the right to own firearms under the Second Amendment but also to better regulate firearms in order to assure that they were as much as possible in the hands of responsible and well trained individuals. This might get more Democrats elected to national office where they can do a lot of good for our nation not only on gun control but on many other issues.

Your approach can work at the state level as New York State, for one, passed a strong gun control law in the last year. Many of the large urban areas in our nation (but not all) support the gun control movement. I see no problem with trying to pass strong pass gun control at the state level except that it may run afoul of the Supreme Court and be overturned.

I don't see much hope of another assault weapons ban passing at the national level. As I stated above the gun control movement and the media is unable to even get all the Senate Democrats to back the AWB. Fifteen Democratic Senators or 28% refused to vote for it. Like it or not many Democrats do not support gun bans.

Of course the gun control movement can continue to push for gun bans and hope and pray that by some miracle one will pass. As I stated above, I feel this is a noble but futile effort.

Sadly I fear nothing much will change in the next few years on the gun control issue. Perhaps it is time for the gun control movement to consider a less draconian approach. A little success is worth a lot more than a dismal failure.

We already offered the Republicans the chance to vote on background checks alone, and it failed. You don't seem to remember that. So the whole idea of trying to appease the right wing of the GOP by not talking about things that might offend them hasn't worked.

I think our general approaches to politics are different. It's not just about guns. The country has drifted to the right over the last few decades. Your opinion seems to be that the Dems should drift even further to the right, in order to not alienate the right wing of the GOP and try and seize the middle. But we've already been trying that, and it doesn't work. When the Dems move to the right, the GOP just moves further to the right, and then the "middle" move to the right also.

A great example is you describing Obama's gun bill as "draconian". This is the same kind of hyperbole that calls raising the minimum wage "socialism" and Obamacare "death panels". Nobody in their right mind can seriously think that this bill, which would still leave the US with by far the loosest gun laws in the civilized world, is "draconian".

But the GOP gets away with this kind of rhetoric because Dems keep letting them move the center to the right. If single-payer healthcare was part of the discussion, then everyone would understand that Obamacare was actually a very mild, even conservative plan. The GOP is very good at shaping the debate in their favor. Look at the budget discussion. The only question has been how much to cut.

So, in short, no, I absolutely disagree that the way to get to better gun policy is to concede everything to the GOP before the negotiations even begin. National licensing and registration should be part of the discussion. Sure, it will really annoy about 10% of Americans who value their guns more than anything else. But, as I keep repeating, most Americans think this is a good idea. Those 10% aren't voting for Democrats anyway.

It was one of the changes to our gun laws that I have long supported. Many other gun owners also support this measure but obviously not all.

But despite the fact that this was a very popular bill it failed in the Senate on April 17, 2013.

Why was this? What lessons can we learn?

In my opinion universal background checks would have passed had it not been for this fact:

Furthermore, the fact that you are opposed to things like the AWB and registration gives you quite a bit of a conflict of interest when giving advice to people who support gun control. It's a bit like the oil industry advising environmentalists to stop talking about climate change.

Also, again, I totally disagree that mentioning things that are "too far left" gives the Republican an advantage. Like I said, we've tried your strategy, not just on guns but on many other issues. The Democrats trend towards the middle to not upset the right-wing base, and then what happens? The Republicans move further right, and now the center is where the GOP used to be.

Can you name any issue where moving to the center from the get-go and trying to placate the Republican base has proved successful? Look what happened on the debt ceiling. First, Obama tried making concessions up-front, and the GOP sensed that he was soft and got the sequester. Then he got smarter, and decided to draw a line in the sand, and the GOP lost. You seem to be under the impression that somehow the GOP will behave reasonably if only the Dems don't push them too hard. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I get that gun registration nationally is unlikely to pass congress right now. But remember, this is due to special interest politics, not the will of the people. Gun registration polls over 50%. The way forward is not to shy away from the issue, but to talk about it more. The gun lobby wins when they are they able control the dialog. Which is what you are trying to do by taking everything except for background checks off the table.

that help to reduce gun violence, I see no problem with giving advice to gun control advocates.

I'm very liberal and progressive on most issues but I'm not as extreme as some on the far left of the Democratic Party. A test I took here on DU several weeks ago showed me to be in the middle between the average Democrat and the most liberal members of our party.

I've noticed over the years that the Democratic Party and the Republican Party have lost respect for any viewpoint of the other side and refuse to negotiate and compromise. In the past both parties would fight during the elections and then sit down and find workable compromises that they could then create good legislation from. Today both parties seem to simply hate each other and waste valuable opportunities to further the progress of our nation by constantly bickering.

Of course one of the recent big changes in politics and one of the main drivers of the hatred between both major parties has been the rise of the Tea Party which I believe both Democrats and the establishment Republicans intensely dislike. Like the very progressive wing of our party, the Tea Party does not believe in compromise. Hopefully their attempt to take over the Republican Party will fail. Perhaps in one or two election cycles they will break from the Republican Party and form a third party which would work to our advantage.

I have said above that I think that your efforts to pass strong gun control laws are a noble but futile effort at this time. I also feel that the most liberal and progressive faction of our party has noble goals and standing on principles is admirable. The problem is that we need to find a way to move our nation forward.

One thing that I fear is the growing "throw all the bastards out" movement.

and then what??

exactly?

He was never gonna say it, so I just cut to the chase.

Thank you. He could at least own his racism instead of cowardly beating around the bush.

The post appeared to be referring to criminals who cannot legally own firearms using firearms for criminal purposes. Gang members with felony convictions or who are under age for legal firearm ownership would fall into this category regardless or race.

Which is dog whistle speak, the same shit Michael Dunn said.


Even if someone is in a gang, to adjust statistics as if their lives are worthless is a sick sentiment.

news to me as this is a big problem in many areas

But that doesn't change the fact that this is a prejudicial term used to describe young black makes.

Gang "culture" and the associated violence is a blight on every race...but that term has indeed become associated with young blacks. It's a term to avoid, IMO.

So the dog whistle is really color blind.

You automatically think of minorities? Just who is the racist here?

But when I hear the term gang bangers it's usually coming from the mouths of racists like Michael Dunn. Nice try though. Keep defending dog whistle racism.

You took a statement from another poster and inferred a racial demographic where none was indicated. The fact that you tend to think "brown people" when you hear the term "gang banger" speaks volumes about your state of mind.

it speaks volumes about one that would try to dismiss that inference.
http://www.nationalgangcenter.gov/Survey-Analysis/Demographics

Did a bat signal go out in the gungeon?

Last edited Sat Feb 22, 2014, 06:34 PM - Edit history (1)

a punk, a gangster and a thug.

Adam Lanza not so much.

...at first.

Adam Lanza was called psychopath, lunatic, maniac and murderer. Trayvon was called thug by Zimmerman apologists based on Trayvon's own Facebook postings of himself posing with a gold grill, a gun, and making comments about getting into fights.

Even if Trayvon was a "thug" or was young and stupid and wanted to present himself to his friends as a "thug" that doesn't mean Zimmerman was justified. He wasn't and he should have been convicted of, at the least, manslaughter. But to pretend that Trayvon was an angel is part of why Zimmerman was acquitted, I think. The family and the media distributed images of a young, sweet, prepubescent child when the case first broke -- when more recent pictures of him surfaced, it took the wind out of the sails of the prosecution's case.

Ugh. Just thinking about that case has me angry. Such ineptitude. Zimmerman should be in jail.

If you think of brown people that's your problem

That's anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But I've been living in and around Los Angeles for over fifty years, and "gangbanger" is never used in reference to white kids.

So call bullshit all you want. I still think the image you had in your head when you typed gang banger was a brown kid.

LA is not representative of the entire country. NY, Chicago and Miami are different; so are Boston and Philadelphia, but they all have gang violence problems and a big problem is the fact that gang members shoot at each other and sometimes they get killed. Typically, they are young people which is unfortunate - they've missed out on what might have been a long and wonderful life. The root cause of this problem is, among other things, the low value that is placed on human life, not the access to firearms. For that reason, I believe the solution to gang violence is unrelated to gun control.

Frequently, gun control advocates cite casualty statistics for young people involving firearms and included in the numbers are victims of gang violence, a fact that is never pointed out. That is intellectually dishonest which is the reason I've posted on the issue.

Depending on where you are, 'gang banger' can bring to mind a stereotype of all sorts. White, Black, Asian, Latino, you name it.

Where I was born, most people were white. In that environment, the term predominantly served as shorthand for white gang members. I have lived places it is used as shorthand for Latino gang members.

I believe you when you say it isn't used to refer to white kids in the LA area. That doesn't make your assumption universally true.

Drop the same term in conversation in Seattle, and you get a TOTALLY different set of assumptions. (Though it can vary even within the superset of 'Seattle' depending on whether you are in West Seattle, up to Wallingford, or Rainier Valley to South Park, etc.)


If you've caught someone using it in all earnestness, without the connotation you assumed, they are never going to be able to prove it to you, and if you caught a racist using it as a bigoted smear, they are never going to admit it... So this fight seems unproductive.

I would just point out that depending on where one is, that's a racist smear, and move on, personally.


(Edit: Ask someone in L.A. what a 'jockey box' is, and they aren't going to know what the fuck you're talking about. Same too, if you ask someone in Libby Montana what a 'glove compartment' is.)

In some parts they would be tea baggers.

How many of those deaths can be attributed to "gang bangers" killing with guns?

Also, do young victims of gangs who are killed by guns not count? Why do you want their deaths removed from consideration?

I don't consider the comparison meaningful.

Such as Adam Lanza firing on kids or Dunn firing on a car full of kids.

Shouldn't those gun deaths also be removed from consideration because they are intentional?

I'm just trying to follow your logic here....

That a gang banger's lifestyle choice predisposes them to death by gun violence. There are certainly random acts of violent crime (Lanza, Holmes, etc) but I would suspect that random unpredictable gun violence is a much smaller percentage of total gun violence than random unpredictable accidents are of total accidents.

So should we also remove people who drive over the speed limit from the list of car accident deaths because their lifestyle choice predisposes them to death by car accident?

How about we remove the individuals who committed suicide with a car and who committed suicide with a gun from each data set and then re-graph them, sound reasonable?

There is nothing reasonable about cherry picking numbers to make it look like guns are less deadly than they really are. I personally find it sickening that some people think suicides should not be counted, those are real people who died and their deaths should not be hidden from our eyes.

Combining homicide gun statistics with suicide gun statistics, and labeling them simply gun deaths, vastly overinflated the risk of guns to people who aren't suicidal.

I can make a few simple, reasonable choices in my life which greatly reduce my risk of being killed by a gun.

1. Don't kill myself with a gun
2. Don't associate with criminals and gangs
3. Secure my personal firearms in my gun safe, except for the gun(s) being concealed upon my person at any given time

Those are reasonable and realistic steps anyone can take to greatly reduce their risk of being a gun death statistic.

Guns are extremely dangerous and carry great risks, anyone who does not know that is not a person who should be owning guns because they obviously have no understanding of the danger the objects they are handling.

Studies have shown that people who own guns are far more likely to die of both suicide and homicide than non-gun owners. Guns make suicide far more convenient for people, people often survive other sorts of suicide attempts but they are far less likely to survive a self inflicted bullet to the head.

To suggest suicides should not be counted is disgusting, real families have had to face the pain of a family member who was going through a rough spot in life and had easy access to a gun take their own life, it is sick to suggest those lives should not be counted.

If guns were removed from the equation, our suicidal subjects would simply suicide by other means.

That is the difference gun advocates do not want to admit, other means of suicide attempts are far less likely to kill. People often survive attempted overdoses, receive treatment, and then go on to live productive and often happy lives once they get past the issues that caused them to attempt suicide. People don't survive a self inflicted bullet to the head, the fact that Japan has a high suicide rate does not change that.

As evidence by our suicide rate compared to other countries in that graph. I think that there are some people who "attempt" suicide with no intention of actually committing suicide. Most of these people survive, some don't. And then there are some people who have every intention of actually committing suicide. Most of these people don't survive, but some do.

If guns are magically unavailable, I don't think our suicide rate would plummet. I think that the folks bent on actually killing themselves would still do it in relatively equal numbers.

I once seriously wanted to die, fortunately I did not have access to a gun because I am still alive and have overcome my past issues. Having gone through what I went through I will not let you tell me that I would be no less likely to be here if I had easy access to guns.

I just don't think you can extrapolate it and make inferences upon our society as a whole. If our suicide rate was significantly higher than those other countries, something proportional to the number of gun suicides, then I think your argument would be stronger. But with the rate essentially the same, I just don't see it dropping significantly in a gunless scenario.

Glad you pulled through your dark days.

Not all countries have the same suicide rates as that chart may lead one to believe.

That graph shows exactly what it is intended to show, that there are a number of other developed countries that have higher suicide rates then the US, despite having substantially more restrictive firearms laws. The fact that other countries may have higher or lower suicide rates does not contract that fact.

There is no doubt that Japan's suicide rate would be even higher if guns were introduced into the picture however, suicides can happen without guns but guns make it a whole lot easier.

More likely? Sure. Guns are indeed a more certain method than most any other readily-available choice. However, that greater efficiency also makes them the choice of committed suicides and never the choice of the not-uncommon "cry for help" suicide attempt. People genuinely committed to killing themselves would still make the attempt in the absence of access to firearms...and the majority woudl succeed.

Is it your position that our suicide rate, which is fairly normal compared to other countries, would suddenly plummet in the absence of guns? That's nonsense.

As much as you may try to deny it there are numerous reasons for a country's suicide rate and guns are one of those factors, high stress is another factor, climate is a factor, despite what that cherry picked chart suggests not all countries have nearly identical suicide rates.

Our suicide rate would be significantly lower without guns. I don't know why this is so hard to understand.

Then the presence of a gun would no longer be an issue.

I'm all for improving healthcare. But I never think of it as an alternative to improving gun laws.

How telling.

Restricting and harassing good people before treating people who need help. And here I thought it was just the corporatists who put inanimate objects ahead of people. How wrong I was.

Not that any law you would propose would actually address the issue of guns in the hands of the mentally ill. I doubt a law that demanded people engaging in the exercise of recognized rights be subject to arbitrary mental health screenings (as I've seen suggested several times to ridiculous applause) would pass constitutional muster or electoral backlash.

I'm starting to see what they mean.

Let me spell it out for you. Gun control saves lives. Healthcare saves lives. It's not "either-or". Neither one will bring the number of suicides down to zero. Both will bring them down below where they are now. And the best alternative is to both improve the healthcare system and also improve gun laws.

Only if you cherry-pick statistics.

What laws would you propose that would pass constitutional and electoral scrutiny?

You simply don't believe gun control saves lives. You probably don't believe global warming is real either. Fair enough. Do I really need to post, yet again, all the studies and statistics? Do I really need to point out that no other first-world nation has anywhere near our rates of homicide and gun deaths?

Ah yes. What would the controllers have if they didn't have insults -- and debunked studies.

What laws would you propose that would pass constitutional and electoral muster?

Sorry, right-wing gun nuts blogging at "gunz.com" don't constitute "debunking".