I really don't care about guns per se. I grew up around guns because almost everybody I knew hunted and the only people that got killed or injured were hunters accidentally shooting each other. I remember the filled gun racks in the cab windows of pick up trucks like it was yesterday.
The only reason I really have to talk about guns today is because massive amounts of innocent people are getting killed and the only solution to stopping the senseless killing that I can think of is to ban them. All the talk about proper training is pointless when you consider the NRA's own research that something like 30% of all households with children leave their guns unlocked, loaded and out in the open. Adam's own mother seems to fit that description and I suspect that she was a true blue NRA member.
First, I would like to sincerely thank you for posting an argument based on data. This topic has become so saturated with emotional hyperbole that it's very difficult for anyone to have a meaningful exchange anymore. Thank you also for using a credible source such as the University of Utah.....Utah in particular since it has the most desired CCW in the country
(I'm taking the class for it next month). It seems like we 'gunnies' have to pull teeth to get any 'anti' to post any kind of source at all, and when an 'anti' is finally cornered into giving a source, they post something thin, biased and easily taken apart.
Owning a gun for self defense is a bogus argument when one looks at the statistics...
"....The issue of "home defense" or protection against intruders or assailants may well be misrepresented. A study of 626 shootings in or around a residence in three U.S. cities revealed that, for
every time a gun in the home was used in a self-defense or legally justifiable shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides (Kellermann et al, 1998).
Over 50% of all households in the U.S. admit to having firearms (Nelson et al, 1987).
In another study, regardless of storage practice, type of gun, or number of firearms in the home, having a gun in the home was associated with an increased risk of firearm homicide and suicide in the home (Dahlberg, Ikeda and Kresnow, 2004). Persons who own a gun and who engage in abuse of intimate partners such as a spouse are more likely to use a gun to threaten their intimate partner. (Rothman et al, 2005).
Individuals in possession of a gun at the time of an assault are 4.46 times more likely to be shot in the assault than persons not in possession (Branas et al, 2009).
It would appear that, rather than being used for defense, most of these weapons inflict injuries on the owners and their families.
FIREARMS TUTORIAL
My concern regarding your source is not so much the small sample, but the manufactured cause-effect. If you are in a situation where you have to choose whether or not to use your gun, should you pull the trigger, you are not
causing anyone else to commit suicide or a crime therefore. Your act is independent of their act, not a cause of their act. Your source correctly states that lawful gun ownership, gun crime and suicide were associated, but it then goes on to falsely state that one is
caused by the other.
On firearm homicide: Your source does not distinguish between
Justifiable Homicide and a
crime. It's no secret that the whole point of having a gun in the home is to commit homicide
legally with the gun. The point of gun ownership is to reduce crime, and that means sometimes committing Justifiable Homicide,
lawful self-defense against a criminal, to kill that person.
HarvardStudy: Gun Control Is Counterproductive
WouldBanning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide?
A Review of International and Some DomesticEvidence.
Din B. Kates* and Gary Mauser**
The study, whichjust appeared in Volume 30, Number 2 of the Harvard Journal of Law & PublicPolicy (pp. 649-694), set out to answer the questionin its title: "Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? AReview of International and Some Domestic Evidence." Contrary toconventional wisdom, and the sniffs of our more sophisticated and generally anti-guncounterparts across the pond, the answer is "no." And not justno, as in there is no correlation between gun ownership and violent crime, butan emphatic no, showing a negative correlation: as gun ownership increases,murder and suicide decreases.
The findings of two criminologists - Prof. DonKates and Prof. Gary Mauser - in their exhaustive study of American andEuropean gun laws and violence rates, are telling:
Nations with stringent anti-gun laws generallyhave substantially higher murder rates than those that do not. The study foundthat the nine European nations with the lowest rates of gun ownership(5,000 or fewer guns per 100,000 population) have acombined murder rate three times higher than that of the nine nations with the highestrates of gun ownership (at least 15,000 guns per 100,000population).
See also:
Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms
[W]hen a robbery victim does not defend himself, the robber succeeds 88 percent of the time, and the victim is injured 25 percent of the time. When a victim resists with a gun, the robbery success rate falls to 30 percent, and the victim injury rate falls to 17 percent. No other response to a robbery – from drawing a knife to shouting for help to fleeing – produces such low rates of victim injury and robbery success.”
Convictions for Concealed Handgun License Holders: Texas 2012
Total offenses 63,679 crimes 120 by TX CHL holders, 0.1884% of the total.
*****
On suicide: Suicide is not connected with firearms ownership. The presence or absence of a gun do not increase or decrease the suicide rate. Suicide is a socially based act, and when someone makes the decision to end their life, they use whatever is available. If there is no gun, they simply kill themselves another way. On this point, your source lied, by falsely stating that the gun causes suicide, which is quite a disappointing mistake for the pro-gun state of Utah to do.
WOULD BANNING FIREARMS REDUCE MURDER AND SUICIDE? A REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL AND SOME DOMESTIC EVIDENCE
Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy
View attachment 67129742
Guns are just one among numerous available deadly instruments. Thus, banning guns cannot reduce the amount of suicides. Such measures only reduce the number of suicides by firearms. Suicides committed in other ways increase to make up the difference. People do not commit suicide because they have guns available. They kill themselves for reasons they deem sufficient, and in the absence of firearms they just kill themselves in some other way.
*****
On the leading causes of death: Your source states that death buy a gun is one of the top-10 leading causes of death in the US. This is not a true statement according to data available from the CDC: You are 24.91 times more likely to simply trip over something and die then to die by any-kind of unintended gunshot.
National Vital Statistics Report
- Diseases of heart....................................652,091
- Malignant neoplasms (Cancer).....................559,312
- Cerebrovascular diseases (Strokes)..............143,579
- Chronic lower respiratory diseases.............130,933
- Accidents (unintentional injuries)...................117,809
- Diabetes mellitus .....................................75,119
- Alzheimer’s disease ..................................71,599
- Influenza and pneumonia ..........................63,001
- Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephritis...43,901
- Septicemia..............................................34,136
- Intentional self-harm (suicide)......................32,637
- Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis................27,530
- Hypertension and hypertensive renal disease.24,902
- Parkinson’s disease ..................................19,544
- Pneumonitis due to solids and liquids ............16,959
- Simple Falling Down...................................19,656
- Assault (homicide) by discharge of firearms.....12,352
- Accidental discharge of Firearm.......................789
- Suicide by Discharge of Firearms..................17,002
- Accidental Drowning and Submersion............3,582
- Accidental Poisoning.................................23,618
- Motor Vehicle Accidents............................45,343
- Non-Transport Accidents...........................69,368
So I'm open to suggestions from gun rightys as to how we can stop these senseless killings, but the only solution gun rightys ever seem to have, is more guns. IMO, that is the problem, not the solution.
First, it's insulting and offensive to label us 'righties'. I'm a Conservative, and Conservatives are not part of the GOP. We left the GOP 10 years ago
(though DebatePolitics.com still hasn't changed the UserGroup icon to reflect that). The GOP is as much about big government nanny-state as the Left and will sell out any Conservative sympathizers as fast as Obama or Biden.
Here are my reform suggestions:
- Require all firearms to be stored in a rated gun safe specifically designed for storing firearms, or disabled if the firearm is on display and the removed part stored in a rated safe.
- Federal guidelines for CCW, just like a drivers license, to include knowledge and practical operating tests, just like a drivers license, which all 50 states are forced to honor, just like a drivers license. This would reasonably include basic firearms familiarity and orientation, a close-quarters-combat class (since most defensive gun shots are fired from 8-15 feet away from the criminal), fingerprints and background checked monthly for the entire life of the license (cost included in the license fee, just like the Utah CCW), and passport photo.
- Eliminate arbitrary gun-free zones, to include public schools and gun-buster signs, except for the remaining 1% which would include ERs, court houses, voting stations, and places with a 'known hazard' such as above-ground fuel tanks or homes for the mentally unstable.
