Suicide is more common in places with more guns

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Absolutely!
Why go to the pinnacle of corruption to fix social ills? That’s counterproductive. It only ensures to make the problems worse!
 
Venezuela took the guns from there citrenzy. Now they can’t have fair elections.

The 2A gives all our freedoms teeth.
 
Catholic_Guy1 said:
Venezuela took the guns from there citrenzy. Now they can’t have fair elections.

The 2A gives all our freedoms teeth.
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We have lots of guns and we don’t have fair elections. Citizens are gerrymandered into districts and most Americans’ votes are rendered meaningless and ritualistic. How do guns help this problem? How does a disorganized mob of people buying guns for personal protection fix issues related to government transparency or incorrupt elections?

I think this encourages a form of sloth, because people wrongly place their faith in firearms to protect society from various social ills. How many politicians or CEOs or judges are actually afraid of a mob of armed citizens coming after them because they do something shady? And even if they were, how is that a reliable or just way of handling corruption or crime? Historically, when armed citizens come together to enact their idea of justice, it has meant lynching.
 
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I’ve subscribed to the right-wing talking points when concerning gun control for years. However, I now realize that stricter gun control is needed within this country. Most school shooters have not had a past record of criminal activity nor have shown signs of mental illness (that or adults just haven’t noticed). It is completely possible to be a country that values the Second Amendment and at the same time value the safety and security of its citizens. Especially it’s children.
 
There’s a lot of cant here about gun laws and gun ownership.
  1. Gun ownership was more highly regulated after US independence than it is now. Their were stricter gun laws in many areas. Also in many frontier town and cities, wearing of guns was forbidden-- they had to be turned in for safekeeping.
  2. People forget that many guns are stolen from lawful owners. If that person did not have a gun to be stolen, there would be one less gun in criminal hands. The same goes for children and negligent discharges (ND’s). Kids playing with guns cause many tragic accidents. This is not a new phenomenon – Joe Pepitone was shot in high school by a classmate playing with a gun in the 50s. Fewer guns means fewer gun deaths and fewer NDs.
  3. Never compare different areas of the country as to guns. As with illegal drugs, guns migrate from where they are easily (and often illegally) purchased to where purchases are more difficult. It is like the US being next to Mexico and heroin coming across the border.
  4. Much in the gun culture is driven by scare tactics by groups such as the NRA. Remember the NRA said Obama was gong to confiscate guns? It never happened. However those scare tactics caused a misguided youth in Pittsburgh to kill two policemen because he thought the authorities were coming to get his guns. Irresponsible rhetoric can be harmful, as shown in “The Fisher King”.
 
Nepperhan said:
However those scare tactics caused a misguided youth in Pittsburgh to kill two policemen because he thought the authorities were coming to get his guns.
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And that’s what makes me anti gun. The American over attachment to guns needs to be broken.
 
Maybe it isn’t the American over attachment to guns as much as it American over attachment to “I can do what I want because…”

American’s seem to be over attached to pain meds, money, food, and things in general.

Life is pretty easy in America, some just don’t deal with setbacks as easily as others and use suicide as a way out.
 
I like to use the analogy, of a hammer. You can use a hammer to bash someone’s skull, or you can use it to hit a nail. The fact that people use it for something other than its intended use, does not mean we should ban it. I’ve been around guns my whole life, I’ve almost always had a gun in my house, and other than practicing shooting (and I am terrible shot, anyway), I’ve never even shot them off. I have fortunately never been in a situation where I’ve had to. I think Vox and the like are in a bit of magical thinking, to be honest with you.
 
adamhovey1988 said:
The fact that people use it for something other than its intended use, does not mean we should ban it.
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This is not the argument that gun control advocates make. So arguing against it is arguing against a straw man. The actually argument is based on balance between the benefit of a thing and cost of the thing. In the case of hammers, cars, swimming pools, knives, and bleach, a case can be made that the benefit of each of these things outweighs the cost in terms of potential misuse. However in the case of weapons grade plutonium, hexachlorophene, pentachlorophenol, pictures of children’s genitals, small pox virus, and firearms, the costs of totally unrestricted use outweigh the benefits. In every one of the items I mentioned, there is an appropriate time and place for them to be stored or used. But totally unrestricted use is not allowed. So that is the real argument for gun control, and it is much harder to refute than the straw man you constructed.
I’ve been around guns my whole life, I’ve almost always had a gun in my house, and other than practicing shooting (and I am terrible shot, anyway), I’ve never even shot them off…
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Individual anecdotes are no substitute for statistics when it comes to forming public policy.
I think Vox and the like are in a bit of magical thinking, to be honest with you.
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The statistics collected by Harvard School of Public Health and cited by Vox are not magical. They are real.
 
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LeafByNiggle said:
This is not the argument that gun control advocates make.
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Not every anti-gun argument is the same or is made by people sharing the same viewpoint. In a sense, your counter to the previous poster is, itself, a straw man.
There is variety in the positions of those favoring gun ownership and variety in the positions of those opposing it.
I have seen cost benefit analyses utilized to justify both positions by various individuals, as well as arguments which do not include such analyses.
 
For a cost/benefit perspective that weighs gun ownership versus risks associated with a lack of gun ownership, here is a BBC article which notes that guns sales have increased dramatically (with many first time purchasers) since March.


From the article:
" According to Georgia State University law school professor Timothy Lytton, an expert on the US gun industry, most new gun sales are being motivated by two factors that have been spurred on by the coronavirus crisis.

The first is the concern that civil society - fire, police and health services - could be severely “eroded” someday, leading to a breakdown in law and order. In such a case, a gun can be viewed as a “self-help” survival tool, he says.
The second reason is concerns over so-called big government infringing on American freedoms such as gun ownership, which is enshrined in the US constitution.
“Many of the public health measures, such as shelter-in-place, restricting peoples’ movements, restricting what people can buy,” Mr Lytton says, “raises fears among many groups of the potential for government takeover and tyranny.”

Cost of gun versus ability to provide for family/community safety in the absence of law enforcement, and cost of gun versus cost of power concentrated in the hands of the few: two instances in which people decide the benefits justify the costs.
 
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The fact that the Constitution of the United States prohibits the gov. from banning firearms is no straw man.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

If this is where the argument starts, which is exactly where it should, the benefits certainly outweigh the cost.
 
Your example of the list of things who’s cost/benefit includes firearms.

weapons grade plutonium, hexachlorophene, pentachlorophenol, pictures of children’s genitals, small pox virus, and firearms, the costs of totally unrestricted use outweigh the benefits.

Only one of those things is explicitly protected under the Constitution.

There are current restrictions on firearms, so to start at “totally unrestricted” is a non starter too.
 
So…you are saying the current restrictions on guns are OK and constitutional, but any other regulation would not be OK?
 
The Supreme Court has ruled that the current federal restrictions on firearms, (those which cases have been brought to the court) are within the scope of the gov.'s ability to regulate firearms.

They have also ruled that certain state/city bans on certain types of firearms are in fact illegal. Examples: Heller in Washington DC, and Mc Donald in Chicago.

States have always had the ability to regulate firearms to some extent, based on their own State Constitution, as long as it didn’t violate the US Constitution.

It would depend on the regulation proposed. If it goes against the meaning of the 2A it would not be constitutional.
 
TK421 said:
Handguns serve little constructive purpose and in fact increase fatalities in countries through homicide, suicide, and accidental deaths. They don’t save lives and they don’t protect people from authoritarian governments.
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A study ordered by the CDC (of current news about the virus) and conducted by The National Academies’ Institute of Medicine and The National Research Council in 2013 found that “Defensive use of guns by crime victims is a common occurrence.” Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive use by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million, in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.

So much for "handguns serve little constructive purpose. You may well not own a handgun and that is your choice, but you have no right to prevent others from protecting themselves. “They don’t save lives” is constantly shown to be a falsehood by the reports of crime victims who did self-protect.

And with an estimated 393 million firearms (which includes rifles, shotguns and black powder weapons), it appears that it is more prevalent than cars (276.1 million) although perhaps surpassed by “sharp objects”. So, perhaps apples to apples.

As to totalitarian regimes, there is no data for you to rely upon; totalitarian regimes make the first move in confiscating guns - as Hitler did - Gun Control in the Third Reich, as did Maduro in Venezuela.
TK421 said:
Although we are fortunate that gun ownership (and violent crime) has been steadily decreasing in America, continued legislation can make that process quicker.
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Gun ownership expanded during the Obama years; sales estimated at 29.1 billion dollars for guns and 16.6 billion dollars in ammunition.
TK421 said:
An enormous percentage of guns are owned by around 3% of people,
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Source, please? there are approximately 325,000,000 people in the US. 3% = 9,750,000 gun owners who own an average of slightly over 40 guns each.

Really?

I think not.
 
The proposals I have seen are similar to the laws which allow an abused individual to obtain a restraining order. They allow an order to basically seize guns from someone who may intend to harm themselves.

Unless there is a hearing prior any such order showing that the individual is likely to harm themselves, it is a rule of law which can easily be used as a weapon against the gun owner based on the hearsay of the requesting party. It is not unknown that restraining orders have been used maliciously.

Any such procedure should be done in a formal hearing with evidence from a qualified witness that the individual is depressed and likely to harm themselves. And last I heard, psychiatrists and psychologists are not particularly astute at determining the latter - which is not said in disrespect of them and their professions; rather, that unless the individual has spoken of suicidal ideation, it is likely to be a bit too much of a guess. Lots of people are depressed; most certainly not all are suicidal.

More importantly we need to make far more serious business of providing mental health support to people who are depressed. The suicide rate among veterans seems to be way out of control. And while the Veterans Administration is trying to make inroads, they need family members and friends to step up and get the vets help.
 
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