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Guns, Guns Guns

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Re: Guns, Guns Guns
Post by Fireflair   » Sun Oct 08, 2017 12:15 am

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@ Pappilon

To answer your question about US gun deaths, comparing numbers from the CDC, Brady Group, Pew and Gallup polls, you get a fairly wide view of statistical data. So don't take this as gospel but the numbers are relatively close, say plus or minus a thousand.

~36,000 deaths due to fire-arms. Of which almost 20,000 were suicides. ~10,000 were homicides. The other 6,000 fall into accidents of one sort or another.

So yes, most gun deaths, around 60%, are suicides. Of which the vast majority are conducted with handguns. The numbers for homicides are similar, with ~75% committed with handguns. Only a bout 4% of either homicides or suicides are effected by rifles.

@Annachie
I made a similar comment on my FB feed not too long ago. The problem is not, and never has been guns, their availability, etc. It is the underlying causes which promote people to act in this fashion. It is the culture of the country which refuses to change or effect the necessary change that these sort of events don't happen any more.

I don't have the magic solution to making it all better, but I know that more gun control, more laws, more restrictions will not bring about the desired consequences.

When addressing the success of the gun by back/ban program in Australia, I worry that they are not always comparing apples to apples. For instance, if the claim is that there is a 20% reduction in gun related suicides, was there also a corresponding decrease in suicides? Or was there a 20% increase in hangings, so the number of suicides remained essentially constant but people just chose a different method?

As I understand matter, suicides have been trending down in most first world nations at roughly the same rate, though each country has it's own rate with Australia's being lower than the US's. So can suicides and suicide rates be really attributed to guns? Australia's public releases show that knives and beatings are the leading forms of homicide there. In the US guns are the leading form of homicide and suicide, by a large margin.

Interesting side note, cars are the leading form of unintentional death, at a rate which exceeds(Just barely) the combined deaths from homicide and suicide as measured over a 16 year period.
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Re: Guns, Guns Guns
Post by Annachie   » Sun Oct 08, 2017 8:07 am

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I believe there was a drop in suicides, but I can't say for sure right now.

Part of that is that suicide by gun is both not prep heavy and rather quick. Other means take prep and time and so are prone to interuption/remorse.

After all, if you take a bunch of pills you generally have time to change your mind and call for help. If you pull the trigger, not so much.

Specifically though, we never had many hand guns down here in Oz, and suicide by pistol and suicide by rifle/shotgun are fairly different.

Pappillon.
Here is the place for any firearm discussion.
Even whether a particular gun is good or user friendly or not.

Most of us are gun type people, even if we disagree about the laws around ownership.
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You are so going to die. :p ~~~~ runsforcelery
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still not dead. :)
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Re: Guns, Guns Guns
Post by noblehunter   » Sun Oct 08, 2017 10:55 am

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The common story is that the UK saw a drop in suicides after gas stoves were replaced with electric (or whatever change that made sticking your head in an oven no longer a feasible method of suicide). Based on that, one would expect to see a drop in suicides if guns became less available.
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Re: Guns, Guns Guns
Post by Fireflair   » Mon Oct 09, 2017 12:07 am

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Suicides, as I noted, ARE dropping in almost all first world nations. And, remarkably, at about the same rate. Australia's published rate has an ~1% drop since the gun ban. But during the same time the US has also had~1% drop in suicide rates. Thus I'm not sure you can tie suicide rates to the presence of guns quite so easily as many assume. It's also worth considering that the US had a higher suicide rate, say 13.2/100,000, as compared to Australia's 11.8/100,000. Thus a 1% drop is a different real number.

Humorous, if pathetically sad side story: A man in Baltimore MD decided he'd had enough. He stuck his shotgun in his mouth and pull the trigger. However the kick of the shotgun going off jarred the shotgun to the side, causing his cheek to be blasted out and his eye socket to be shattered
In agonizing pain he ran out of his apartment front door and jumped down the stairwell, hitting two landings on the way down five stories before hitting the ground. This his pelvis, broke several ribs and gave him a number of lacerations and bruises. But still alive.
Following this second attempt he staggered out into traffic on a busy down street where he was hit by a city taxi. That injury resulted in a broken femur, cracked skull and a month long coma.
Still alive, though. I guess it just wasn't his day to die. I think he got an honorable mention in the Darwin Awards a few years back.
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Re: Guns, Guns Guns
Post by pappilon   » Mon Oct 09, 2017 4:20 am

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Annachie wrote:.

Pappillon.
Here is the place for any firearm discussion.
Even whether a particular gun is good or user friendly or not.

Most of us are gun type people, even if we disagree about the laws around ownership.


I have no clue what you mean by this. I am a gun type person and never met a gun I didn't like. I am ambivalent about gun laws. I'm for universal background checks and believe anyone convicted of a DUII should have his guns removed and the right to purchase suspended for a time pending successful completion of a drug rehab program. There are some people who should not own firearms.

But back to the suicide thing. I heard that the NHS in Britain is banning or considering the bulk sales of acetominophen in favor of blister packs of 10. Seems the depressed get frustrated pushing out the capsules and abandon the suicide attempt. And 10 is not a lethal dose anyway.

In the US suicide by firearm has different social causes, and vary as much by population as if they were individual nations. Not sure depression is as much a factor in some places as in others. Some states have right to die where terminally ill patients with 6 months or less to live can obtain a lethal dose of drugs. There is a lot of argument over theoretical abuse, but the real number is that less than half bay a good margin that obtain the drugs never use them. I assume they just want the option.

Then there are the social clusters that feel it is immoral to accept assistance even when one qualifies for it and is in real need of them. In some states this accounts for the greatest number of firearm suicides. The old rancher/farmer gets too old or sick or injured to keep working.So he does the only honorable thing and suicides.
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The imagination has to be trained into foresight and empathy.
Ursula K. LeGuinn

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Re: Guns, Guns Guns
Post by Annachie   » Mon Oct 09, 2017 5:03 am

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pappilon wrote:
Probably not the appropriate place to post this but...


I was responding to this.

Gun related so appropriate.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You are so going to die. :p ~~~~ runsforcelery
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
still not dead. :)
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Re: Guns, Guns Guns
Post by Daryl   » Mon Oct 09, 2017 6:44 am

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I have a nephew who works for Beyond Blue, an Australian suicide prevention group. He pointed me in the direction of how there is a discrete group of adult males who die from single vehicle single occupant accidents at high speed on straight country roads hitting large trees. Most seem to be well insured and many have families who are struggling. Well a man has to provide for his family, and not everyone wants the stigma of being a suicide.
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Re: Guns, Guns Guns
Post by pappilon   » Mon Oct 09, 2017 4:33 pm

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Daryl wrote:I have a nephew who works for Beyond Blue, an Australian suicide prevention group. He pointed me in the direction of how there is a discrete group of adult males who die from single vehicle single occupant accidents at high speed on straight country roads hitting large trees. Most seem to be well insured and many have families who are struggling. Well a man has to provide for his family, and not everyone wants the stigma of being a suicide.


And the poor urbanite method of"Suicide by cop." Humans are, if nothing else, inventive.
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The imagination has to be trained into foresight and empathy.
Ursula K. LeGuinn

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Re: Guns, Guns Guns
Post by MAD-4A   » Mon Oct 09, 2017 6:16 pm

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Annachie wrote:Even the organised crime element appear to have enshrined it.
Fact is most real organized crime isn't robberies or drive-buys, they are illegal sales, gambling, racketeering, prostitution, etc... these are 'make money' business ventures in commodities or services that are illegal and thus much more lucrative due to supply/demand/risk. violent (particularly gun based) crimes draw media, public and thus police attention. Like the cockroaches and rats they are equated too, organized criminals hate having these spotlights shone on them and try to avoid it if at all possible. The gun criminals in these fields are the idiot wana-bees who aren't smart enough to avoid it, or who have enough disdain for available law enforcement to not care (like the Mexican cartels).
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Almost only counts in Horseshoes and Nuclear Weapons. I almost got the Hand-Grenade out the window does not count.
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Re: Guns, Guns Guns
Post by Annachie   » Tue Oct 10, 2017 6:28 am

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Mad, we had a 10 year war between crime gangs down here in Melbourne Oz.

One innocent killed and he was a case of mistaken identity.

You can probably find a DVD of the mini series, Underbelly.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You are so going to die. :p ~~~~ runsforcelery
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
still not dead. :)
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