Gun politics thread

People don't commit suicide because of guns.

Guns don't cause suicides. They make it easier for people to commit suicide rather than seeking help. And saying that people will just find other means for suicide is not correct - check the statistics.

1) While that is true, Japan has no guns and IIRC highest suicide rate in the first world, again not a simple problem so no simple solution.
2) I am not concerned with suicides in the least, protecting people from themselves is not a good enough reason to diminish the rights of others.

Japan has a different cultural attitude towards suicide.

Suicide prevention is not about protecting people from themselves. And you should be concerned about suicide - aside from the emotional damage it causes, it has significant economic costs to society.
 
Guns don't cause suicides. They make it easier for people to commit suicide rather than seeking help. And saying that people will just find other means for suicide is not correct - check the statistics.
You should take your own advice , excluding former soviet block, western countries with higher suicide rates than gun happy US:
#31 - Finland
#35 - Belgium
#37 - Iceland
#44 - France
Gun happy US? - 47
Gun free Australia? - 63
Switzerland is at 75 despite being 2nd highest on gun ownership in the West.
Suicide prevention is not about protecting people from themselves. And you should be concerned about suicide - aside from the emotional damage it causes, it has significant economic costs to society.
Irrelevant, at the end of the day it is an individual choice until that person decides to take unwilling victims with them to the grave I don't care about it one bit.

Interesting article on Japanese gun control, it's long so I'm not pasting the whole thing.
 
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You should take your own advice , excluding former soviet block, western countries with higher suicide rates than gun happy US:
#31 - Finland
#35 - Belgium
#37 - Iceland
#44 - France
Gun happy US? - 47
Gun free Australia? - 63
Switzerland is at 75 despite being 2nd highest on gun ownership in the West.

None of which takes into account cultural differences between countries. From the article I posted:

High-Gun States Low-Gun States
Population 39 million 40 million
Household Gun Ownership 47% 15%
Firearm Suicide 9,749 2,606
Non-Firearm Suicide 5,060 5,446
Total Suicide 14,809 8,052


Irrelevant, at the end of the day it is an individual choice until that person decides to take unwilling victims with them to the grave I don't care about it one bit.

Wow.
 
At least you finally acknowledge cultural differences. For example, in the US we value individual liberties, freedom, and rights. That includes being responsible for your own safety since no one else will do it for you.

Really important that if you are the no fly list, you have a right to bear arms!

CVPx-PTWcAA7gcm.png


Most attacks in US carried out by radical anti-government groups or white supremacists
http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-11-...petrates-act-mass-violence-america-police-say

How They Got Their Guns
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/03/us/how-mass-shooters-got-their-guns.html?smid=tw-share

Senate rejects ban on gun purchases for people on terrorist watch list
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/dec/3/gun-bans-terrorist-watch-list-rejected-senate-part/
 
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Lack of personal safety is a consequence of ineffective policing and breakdown of society, not insufficient guns. You should not need a gun to feel safe.
 
Really important that if you are the no fly list, you have a right to bear arms!
And? There are specific guidelines that prohibit you from owning (or even touching) a firearm; if those haven't been satisfied and you're on the no fly list then you probably just got drunk and hit on a stewardess - not a reason to infringe on your rights.


Lack of personal safety is a consequence of ineffective policing and breakdown of society, not insufficient guns. You should not need a gun to feel safe.
I disagree. Police officers are not magicians - they can't predict the future; they can't teleport; and they can't will crime away. The average response time to an emergency 9-1-1 call is 10-12 minutes, which means that they police are at least ten minutes behind the ball (this is in no way a slight against LEOs but rather a fact of life or even physics). The reality is that if you're present during an active shooter incident, whether in public, at work, or at home, then YOU are the first line of defense; the only people willing to defend you are 10+ minutes away!!!
 
At least you finally acknowledge cultural differences. For example, in the US we value individual liberties, freedom, and rights. That includes being responsible for your own safety since no one else will do it for you.
Whithout wanting to derail this discussion, but I simply cannot let this pass without a mean spirited remark ...

That?s rich coming from the country with the silliest warning notices and most frivolous lawsuits. :bunny:

carry on.
 
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I disagree. Police officers are not magicians - they can't predict the future; they can't teleport; and they can't will crime away. The average response time to an emergency 9-1-1 call is 10-12 minutes, which means that they police are at least ten minutes behind the ball (this is in no way a slight against LEOs but rather a fact of life or even physics). The reality is that if you're present during an active shooter incident, whether in public, at work, or at home, then YOU are the first line of defense; the only people willing to defend you are 10+ minutes away!!!

Statistically individuals in possession of a gun were 4.46 times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not in possession. So if you want to protect yourself, don't carry a gun.
 
Whithout wanting to derail this discussion, but I simply cannot let this pass without a mean spirited remark ...

That?s rich coming from the country with the silliest warning notices and most frivolous lawsuits. :bunny:

carry on.
Ugh. Sad but true.


Statistics also show that the number of times someone uses a gun to defend themselves could be as high as 2.5 million per year.

Again though, if you don't want to carry a gun - I couldn't care less; don't carry one. Just stop trying to force me not to carry one.
 
That mass shooting stats was already debunked upthread but I'll do it for you again, they are not using the FBI definition and even the FBI definition does not take into account organized/semi-organized criminal activity.
Problem with terrorist watch lists and no-fly lists is that there is 0 transparency in how you get on one of those. I used to know a dude in college who was on some list that made it a huge pain in the butt for him to fly. He was a french kid from Brooklyn who never been arrested or suspected of ANYTHING but his name happened to match someone else. For the most part there is no judicial review of these things and getting on a no-fly list can be like Lev said as simple as hitting on a flight attendant.
None of which takes into account cultural differences between countries. From the article I posted:

High-Gun States Low-Gun States
Population 39 million 40 million
Household Gun Ownership 47% 15%
Firearm Suicide 9,749 2,606
Non-Firearm Suicide 5,060 5,446
Total Suicide 14,809 8,052

You are basically defeating your own argument here, either:
A) Cultural differences can account in difference in violent crime (if they account for difference in suicide it stands to reason that they could account for other behaviors as well) OR
B) Seeing as how all western cultures are pretty close in how they treat death and suicide (Austria and Germany have a huge difference in suicides and are not exactly polar opposites culturally) availability of firearms is not a deciding factor in suicide rates.

Either way it would seem that guns are incidental to violence rather than cause of it.
 
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The notion of a no-fly list or terrorist watch list (at least in its current incarnation) is antithetical to a free society. So I'm in agreement with those that oppose it and/or advocate for the rights of those that are on it.
 
Speaking of counting mass shootings, Why Have There Been More Mass Shootings Under Obama than the Four Previous Presidents Combined?
The following analysis considers the FBI?s definition of a mass murder, which is defined as ?a number of murders (four or more) occurring during the same incident, with no distinctive time period between the murders?.

Mass Shootings under the Last Five Presidents

Ronald Reagan: 1981-1989 (8 years) 11 mass shootings
Incidents with 8 or more deaths = 5

George H. W. Bush: 1989-1993 (4 years) 12 mass murders
Incidents with 8 or more deaths = 3

Bill Clinton: 1993-2001 (8 years) 23 mass murders
Incidents with 8 or more deaths = 4

George W. Bush: 2001-2009 (8 years) 20 mass murders
Incidents with 8 or more deaths = 5

Barrack H. Obama: 2009-2015 (in 7th year) 162 mass murders
Incidents with 8 or more deaths = 18?

msbypres.jpg


msbypres8.jpg



The notion of a no-fly list or terrorist watch list (at least in its current incarnation) is antithetical to a free society. So I'm in agreement with those that oppose it and/or advocate for the rights of those that are on it.
Agreed. That proposal basically allows law enforcement to completely bypass due process and even the right to a trial. I'm all for keeping terrorists unarmed but not if it means violating everyone's rights.
 
The notion of a no-fly list or terrorist watch list (at least in its current incarnation) is antithetical to a free society. So I'm in agreement with those that oppose it and/or advocate for the rights of those that are on it.

Especially with no real judicial review of who goes on there.
 
(...) The average response time to an emergency 9-1-1 call is 10-12 minutes, which means that they police are at least ten minutes behind the ball (this is in no way a slight against LEOs but rather a fact of life or even physics). The reality is that if you're present during an active shooter incident, whether in public, at work, or at home, then YOU are the first line of defense; the only people willing to defend you are 10+ minutes away!!!

Yeah but maybe if nobody had guns there would be no need to have guns to defend yourself from other people with guns. If I lived in place where I felt the need to have a gun in order to feel protected, I would question some of the choices I made. Or the society I live in. Guns just cause everything to spiral out of control so much quicker and you can do way more damage with them than with other weapons. But maybe this is one aspect I truly don't understand about the US.

And apparently that "first line of defense" isn't working out so well - you still get mass shootings, and the answer can't just be "give everyone moar guns".
 
Yeah but maybe if nobody had guns there would be no need to have guns to defend yourself from other people with guns. If I lived in place where I felt the need to have a gun in order to feel protected, I would question some of the choices I made. Or the society I live in. Guns just cause everything to spiral out of control so much quicker and you can do way more damage with them than with other weapons. But maybe this is one aspect I truly don't understand about the US.

And apparently that "first line of defense" isn't working out so well - you still get mass shootings, and the answer can't just be "give everyone moar guns".
Are you proposing a nationwide gun confiscation then?
 
Yeah but maybe if nobody had guns there would be no need to have guns to defend yourself from other people with guns. If I lived in place where I felt the need to have a gun in order to feel protected, I would question some of the choices I made. Or the society I live in. Guns just cause everything to spiral out of control so much quicker and you can do way more damage with them than with other weapons. But maybe this is one aspect I truly don't understand about the US.

And apparently that "first line of defense" isn't working out so well - you still get mass shootings, and the answer can't just be "give everyone moar guns".

Replace the word "gun" with "religion" in your post and then tell me if you still think that it's ok to blanket punish many for actions of few.
 
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