6 ms·

Guns are now killing as many people as cars in the U.S

32 points by Libertatea 11y ago

ocdtrekkie 11y ago
This is an incredibly sensationalist and politically-motivated title. It should really read "Automobiles now immensely safer in the US". As the article's own graph shows, gun violence hasn't really changed much in the last decade and a half, but cars have gotten a lot safer!
- refurb 11y ago
  Good point. It looks like gun violence is down ~30% since the mid 1990's. Also, how do they define "gun violence"? Does that include accidental shootings? Suicides? From what I remember, suicides account for almost half of all deaths due to guns.
  - Retric 11y ago
    Let's drop things down and say there is only ~500 deaths due to accidental discharge of a firearm per year in the US. That seems reason enough to discourage gun ownership.
    - mbeattie 11y ago
      Lets drop things down and say there is only ~500* deaths due to accidental drowning per year in the US. That seems reason enough to discourage pool ownership. *=http://www.cdc.gov/HomeandRecreationalSafety/Water-Safety/waterinjuries-factsheet.html http://www.cdc.gov/HomeandRecreationalSafety/Water-Safety/wa... There are closer to 3,500 accidental drownings per year.
      - Retric 11y ago
        Your joking, but I actually agree with this. I also almost drowned at my parents pool while really young (under 3). Note, discourage != prohibit. Regular PSA's about the dangers of pool ownership higher taxes, and or required fencing could all save lives.
    - rbcgerard 11y ago
      By that logic we should get rid of swimming pools...http://www.poolsafely.gov/drowning-deaths-injuries/ http://www.poolsafely.gov/drowning-deaths-injuries/ Probably ladders as well...
      - Retric 11y ago
        Don't put words in my mouth, discourage != get rid. Mandating they all be panted in iridescent reflective coatings would discourage ownership, but not actual use. PS: Ladders are covered in safety warnings (which may be ridiculous). Guns, not so much.
      - Zancarius 11y ago
        Don't forget buckets! Those have resulted in more than a few drowning deaths over the years. You've reminded me: The CPSC introduced stop-sale regulation on magnets (remember Buckyballs?) for even fewer deaths than that, and where most of the non-fatal injuries were the result of poor decisions by adolescents. Worse, in my opinion, the relatively small number of deaths that occurred were almost all traceable to irresponsible adults leaving magnets in places where toddlers could pick them up and swallow them. That's still a sore point for me.
  - thoth 11y ago
    >From what I remember, suicides account for almost half of all deaths due to guns. The article says "Today, suicides account for roughly two out of every three gun deaths."
  - blang 11y ago
    According to the article it includes accidents, homicides and suicides. I have also heard a figure of 50-70% of all gun deaths are suicides. The argument of the article is that consistent government regulation has helped curve motor vehicle deaths downwards and that consistent gun regulation might be able to do the same.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
    "Due to guns?" Do guns make people suicidal?
    - Retric 11y ago
      It lowers the bar before people succeed. Take some pills and many back out, pull a trigger and your generally out of options.
      - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
        Even if you take that to be true (I gather there's plenty of ways to quickly off yourself at any given hardware store), does that make the guns "responsible" for those deaths? Are those deaths "due" to guns? Or are we using our political biases to slant something to meet our agenda, like this article, which shows gun violence isn't really increasing at all.
      - SteveLAnderson 11y ago
        Exactly. When Australia changed their gun laws, the suicide rate went down by 65%.
        refurb 11y ago
        Yet Japan has one of the highest suicide rates and almost no gun ownership! Also, prior to enacting gun control, Australia's non-firearm suicide rate doubled (1980-1996) while firearm suicide was cut in half. Not sure there is any correlation.
        SteveLAnderson 11y ago
        You may not be sure, but the researchers that study this subject are sure - http://andrewleigh.org/pdf/GunBuyback_Panel.pdf http://andrewleigh.org/pdf/GunBuyback_Panel.pdf And for the US - http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2013/12/gun_ownership_causes_higher_suicide_rates_study_shows.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2013/1...
  - seivan 11y ago
    I've noticed "liberals" (regressive left) label the recent Muslim terrorist attack on US soil as a "mass shooting" to hitch on it. Seems like a pattern to paint anything they can get their hands on as a token for guns.
- mtberatwork 11y ago
  > It should really read "Automobiles now immensely safer in the US". That isn't the main topic of the article though. From the opening sentence: "For the first time in more than 60 years, firearms and automobiles are killing Americans at an identical rate". The headline simply points out the article's main data point of automobile and gun deaths converging.
  - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
    The article's headline and banner strongly promote this concept that guns are an increasing problem. While the title and opening sentence aren't false, they ARE misleading.
    - mtberatwork 11y ago
      That's purely subjective.
- caseysoftware 11y ago
  This is really a thinly veiled attack on the "then we should outlaw cars!" argument. This lays out the case for "reasonable" safeguards and limitations that should be put in place for guns because "reasonable" rules have made cars so much safer. While that may be the claim, the NYT blew their cover with the front page editorial last week where they openly admitted to wanting all guns out of everyone's hands, regardless of the legality. What we understand now is that the "reasonable" laws are the wedge to start going for more and eventual outlawing. The problem is that "gun control advocates" claim that people shouldn't own guns really mean that civilians shouldn't own them. They're still okay with government having guns. Because "tyranny will never come to America..."
  - delecti 11y ago
    > Because "tyranny will never come to America..." If I'm not mistaken, the implication here is that tyranny might come to America, and I 100% agree with that. Of course it might, and in fact I think the increasing surveillance state atmosphere makes it seem increasingly likely. But any implication that civilian gun ownership could make a difference if it happens seems overly hopeful. The US military is the largest in the world by a large margin. If tyranny comes to America then a few civilian shotguns aren't going to help much.
    - pdkl95 11y ago
      You're making the common assumption that such a situation would be "the standing US military roughly as it exists now" vs "rebel citizens with only small arms". This scenario is unlikely to ever happen. What would be more likely to happen is something like the Civil War where the army itself was also divided. Even more importantly, it is a lot harder to control an army when the targets are the people the army supposedly exists to protect. In a survey[1] of "300 U.S. Marine Corps soldiers" about unit cohesion when working with the UN, the final question asked: 46. The U.S. government declares a ban on the possession, sale, transportation, and transfer of all non-sporting firearms. A thirty (30) day amnesty period is permitted for these firearms to be turned over to the local authorities. A the end of this period, a number of citizen groups refuse to turn over their firearms. Consider the following statement: I would fire upon U.S. citizens who refuse or resist confiscation of firearms banned by the U.S. government. (__) (__) (__) (__) (__) Strongly disagree Disagree Agree Strongly agree No opinion The results of that question suggests a "citizens vs army" scenario is very unlikely. The results [...] with 88.0 percent responding, revealed that 61.66 percent said they would refuse to fire on U.S. citizens, whereas 26.34 percent indicated they would fire. This particular question, unlike the others, elicited form 15.97 percent of the respondents with an opinion, either heavier pen or pencil marks on their response or written comments in the margin space. [...] The responses to this scenario suggests that a complete unit breakdown could occur in a unit tasked to execute this mission. Small groups of people often have some kind of consistency across the group, because the definition of the group self-selects for something. (e.g. the people who choose to attend a chess club tend to like to play chess) As a group grows in size, the makeup of the group tends to become more heterogeneous. Eventually, as the group becomes very large, the makeup of the group tends to resemble the makeup of the general population. The military is a very large group of people, so the individual attitudes and politics of a soldier tends to resemble the attitudes and politics seen in the country in general. When considering a topic that is obviously politically controversial, you should expect that the people serving in the armed forces will be approximately as divided as the rest of the citizens. [1] http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a293790.pdf http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a293790.pdf
tomp 11y ago
I wonder how many of these guns belong to the police (and hence the murders can't be prevented by reducing civil gun ownership)...
- icebraining 11y ago
  http://killedbypolice.net/ http://killedbypolice.net/ You can just subtract the numbers.
  - NiftyFifty 11y ago
    10% demographic, when you break down the numbers last I checked. But ya.
  - largorn 11y ago
    This is crazy. I recently stumbled upon the numbers for gun-killings by German police, I can't believe how much these numbers diverge: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffengebrauch_der_Polizei_in_Deutschland#Zahlen https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffengebrauch_der_Polizei_in_... (Second column is "number of fatal shots", third is "total number of shots fired at people") Of course, the USA have 4 times as many inhabitants and the German numbers are only related to gun-killings, not other methods. But still, they are in a completely different dimension.
- tootie 11y ago
  I'd reckon that most incidents of police shooting civilians is due to civilians armed with guns.
  - Carrok 11y ago
    You'd reckon, eh? I'd beg to differ.
    - tootie 11y ago
      Seriously? There have been plenty of incidents in the news of police taking out a gunman who was either firing on people or threatening to. They just don't register as police violence because everyone knows they are justified.
lintiness 11y ago
guns don't kill people; people with guns kill people. They mostly just kill themselves: "...[S]uicides account for roughly two out of every three gun deaths."
- NiftyFifty 11y ago
  I know its like being CPT Obvious, but that is so true. Fix the problem, not the symptom.
  - SteveLAnderson 11y ago
    Fixing the issues that lead a person to consider suicide is really hard. Decreasing the number of available guns is much easier and is effective. When Australia decreased the number of guns, the suicide rate (not just gun related suicides, but all suicides) decreased by 65%.
    - brianlweiner 11y ago
      Suicides definitely decrease with less access to guns, however many countries with gun restrictions have higher rates of suicide than the US (e.g Japan, S Korea, France, Belgium) [1] Also suicides via firearm had been declining in Australia prior to any buyback. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... [2] http://c5.nrostatic.com/sites/default/files/australia.jpg http://c5.nrostatic.com/sites/default/files/australia.jpg
- smileysteve 11y ago
  There are also people who decide to commit suicide via automobile. Here are some stats about alcohol related driver deaths in Pennsylvania > 19% of driver deaths for 16-20 year olds were alcohol-related > 44% of driver deaths for 21-25 year olds were alcohol-related > 34% of driver deaths for 26-30 year olds were alcohol-related
  - NiftyFifty 11y ago
jstalin 11y ago
Firearm suicide data: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/suicide.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/suicide.htm Firearm murder data: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm Unintentional injury death stats: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/accidental-injury.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/accidental-injury.htm
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
carsongross 11y ago
Alternate title: (ex) middle class americans are killing themselves in record numbers, but we want to talk about guns.
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  How so? According to this article, gun violence hasn't increased much at all. Cars are safer though.
  - mtberatwork 11y ago
    In contrast to automobile deaths, it has increased: "In 2005, gun deaths outnumbered vehicle deaths in just two states, Alaska and Maryland, plus the District of Columbia. By 2014, gun deaths were greater in 21 states plus D.C."
    - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
      Again, you're not looking at the data. Gun violence hasn't increased, automobile deaths have decreased.
  - azakai 11y ago
    The article also says > Gun homicide rates have actually fallen in recent years, but those gains have been offset by rising gun suicide rates. Today, suicides account for roughly two out of every three gun deaths.
- xlm1717 11y ago
  Also: Cars are now killing as many people as guns
NiftyFifty 11y ago
Redefining the conversation away from the liberal thinking, the real debate is not about guns at all. It's about what causes violence, where does it occur, and how can we stop it. The most dramatic form of this crime, occurs most often from guns - so, we need to reframe it from gun violence to violence where guns are involved. This is a 65 year old problem - the root of it, is based on the highway system in conjunction with relining that left poverty in the inner city. I note here, I am leaving out race, but it disproportionately affects (use right?) the African American population because of the redlining (why I mentioned it), thanks to racism and white privilege - debate all you want, but mobility of the white middle class demographic was huge at this time. Think baby-boomers in particular. The SOLUTION to solving a WHOLE slew of problems, which liberals ALWAYS talk about is giving social programs a go on a major scale to help disadvantaged population. Bipartisan politics always shift away from this, because of the polarizing problem of being perceived as to liberal or to conservative, etc. etc. Poverty to expand on violence is exponential and often (like 80% of the problem) involves desperation which leads to crime, disassociation with society and drives youth / people to gang membership. It's been a long deep understood problem, that gangs of any time typically lean towards drugs, alcohol, and illegal activities to maintain the syndication of crime. This includes prostitution, which affects women and can more often lead to domestic violence. So, with all _that_ said, think of guns in the mix - illegal and not, and ALLLL the gun programs in the past, where do most of the illegal guns come from - that's right, poverty stricken areas. So, I lean back to what is gun control's main problem? It's ineffective. Solve poverty ... put a CONSERVATIVE BUSINESS BASED DEMOGRAPHIC (namely young moderate Republicans) on every other street with strict oversight who are NOT prejudice to start engines of economic growth to stamp out poverty in areas where it exists. Let Liberals cry all they want, but spearhead poverty in the urban centers and you will reduce violence where guns are involved. THAT is the solution.
- dang 11y ago
  > Let Liberals cry all they want Please don't use ideological buzz-phrases here. It lowers the quality of discussion, regardless of what flavor of ideology you prefer.
kyleknighted 11y ago
What a crap title... Cars don't kill people, anymore than guns do. It's the idiot behind the wheel/trigger that's doing the killing. These pieces of metal are built to be controlled by responsible humans. They do not make decisions for you, anymore than a spoon is making the decision for me to eat another bowl of cereal!
- delecti 11y ago
  That's kinda a useless distinction. Nobody read that title and pictured sentient guns tracking down and hunting humans. Autonomous cars doing that might almost be plausible, but realistically the same applies there. "Gun related fatalities are currently as high as automotive related fatalities in the U.S. for the first time" might be a more precise statement, but it's a worse headline.
- bad_user 11y ago
  What's easier? Outlawing idiots or outlawing guns?
ericfrenkiel 11y ago
If I could downvote this for being a sensationalist article, I would! Here's the operative phrase: "The convergence of the trend lines above is driven primarily by a sharp drop in the rate of motor vehicle fatalities since 1950." It's amazing that we've improved vehicle safety in the last 60 years, yet there is zero reason to conflate that with homicides involving a firearm.
- pacofvf 11y ago
  I know Americans love their guns and I don't want you to amend your amendments, but you almost made an interesting point, just changing the 2nd part in your sentence: > It's amazing that we've improved vehicle safety in the last 60 years, yet there's no progress in gun violence.
- jberryman 11y ago
  That's literally the third sentence in the article, which also mentions the rise in suicide and fall in gun homicide rates two sentences below that. The title is dry and accurate. > yet there is zero reason to conflate that with homicides involving a firearm. The article doesn't conflate anything; it makes a very interesting and important comparison: vehicle deaths (which have been extensively studied for decades, with much federal regulation and other pressure to improve safety) are now on par with gun deaths (which had been banned from federal research for nearly two decades). > It's amazing that we've improved vehicle safety in the last 60 years Wouldn't it be nice if fewer people were dying from guns as well?
  - dawnbreez 11y ago
    It would be nice if fewer people were dying from bullet wounds; that does not change the fact that this article's headline is misinforming. Further, the data is misleading as well. Suicides, homicides, and accidental deaths are three different things. On top of that, this data is collected across the US...meaning that it includes both areas where gun laws are loose, and areas where gun laws are strict. This means that the data tells us nothing about whether tougher laws would help or hurt the state of gun-related death, for reasons that should be obvious to anybody who's completed a high school science class.
PauloManrique 11y ago
Guns are banned in Brazil and we got the highest homicide numbers in the planet.
- jakeogh 11y ago
  Quickref: http://www.itstactical.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/how_are_guns_used_by_citizensvia-infothread-dot-org.jpg http://www.itstactical.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/how_ar...
- NiftyFifty 11y ago
  THANK YOU! Honestly, the more data I have the more it validates the gun legislation is a bad idea. The longer view is one of social reform related to what ills the country - crime, poverty, and a replacement of liberalism/progressive thinking with Republican conservatism bridging the isle in Congress by taking on poverty like no progressive ever has.
  - PauloManrique 11y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#By_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
- Nadya 11y ago
  I always bring up Switzerland. Their gun culture is completely different which is very important. But it shows that guns aren't the problem - the people and their culture are. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland
grecy 11y ago
I'm Australian, live in Canada, am a hunter who owns a rifle and am currently visiting the US. In the last couple of months, I've seen more guns than I have in my entire life. Two days ago I walked into a friends unlocked garage to find at least 75 guns, mostly loaded, with ammunition lying all over. Some semi-auto assault rifles, some hunting rifles, tons of handguns. All perfectly legal (and legal to not be locked up too). I think it's sad to live in a "successful" country where regular citizens feel the need to carry a loaded weapon in public. I think that's a strong indicator something is very wrong with this society. I'm not an expert, and obviously guns don't kill people, though it's my observation there are a LOT of readily available guns in the US, and the US has a lot of guns deaths. As an avid hunter I would never advocate "Taking the guns away", though I do think a few things should change - I believe gun laws in the US could be somewhat similar to Canada and Australia (no semi-autos or fully autos, basically no handguns, must be locked up, must apply for a license, need license to even buy ammo, etc) and gun enthusiasts can still have appropriate guns, while the sheer number of guns would drop substantially. Citizens already can't own surface to air missiles, so we've already established some weapons are not suitable for private citizens, now we're just talking about what falls into what category. I know it's a very difficult thing to change, as gun ownership is the 2nd amendment and is seen as a right not a privilege.
- NiftyFifty 11y ago
  Grecy, with all the respect I have for Australia, there is a HUGE difference culturally between your population demographics and ours. The primary reason why the Australian ban (noting that 65-80% of guns are still in the general population in your home country, and never reclaimed by the ban - because who's going to enforce that? really?) will never work here. Australia = 97% white/Caucasian, 2% Asian, 1% everything else. The US is a vastly different landscape and our population comes from ALL over the world. If I were to introduce very deeply concentrated communities of 50 other religions, 15 other race demographics, and stir the pot the debate becomes that much more problematic. Back to Australia - having a very, very homogeneous society makes it easy to pass and maintain order in comparison to what makes our country so incomparable with yours on this issue in particular, as a model to follow. Same occurs with the Japanese model - so, leaning on that won't help either. I respect you, and I believe you have a valid point on face value but when you dig into the complexity and what I consider a unique trait of the US citizen (as a positive! for our diversity!) ... we will never ban guns. It's a poverty issue here, not a gun issue.
dustinmoorenet 11y ago
It is funny in an article about the difficulties of finding safer ways of handling guns, it is attacked in the comments for trying to talk about gun safety. You can not just say guns are only unsafe in unsafe hands but not allow research and regulation in to gun safety to figure out why. Cars benefited from research and regulation and guns can too.
- sarvinc 11y ago
  I haven't read the article and am not interested in attacking the article. Some of us don't believe that others (not all) are arguing in good faith. I don't believe we'll stop talking about firearms till firearms are illegal to own. For example; I believe that if firearm related suicide was reduced to zero we'd still be arguing about firearm safety. I'm all for increasing the amount of data we gather and research we do in relation to firearms. I'm all for making intelligent decisions based on the data we gather. From where I'm sitting we don't make decisions based on the data we have (on either side). This largely feels like bizarro abortion argument where both sides of the abortion argument are now arguing the exact opposite when it comes to firearms.
tehchromic 11y ago
It sounds wrong to say so but that is as it should be!
dennisgorelik 11y ago
"Today, suicides account for roughly two out of every three gun deaths." It looks like 2nd amendment protects right to suicide.
stmfreak 11y ago
It is really dishonest to compare accidental vehicle deaths to intentional suicides and homicides via gun. One is a safety issue void of intent. The other is the result of intent to harm with the most efficient tool available. What are we to make of this? Require anti-death features on a leathal weapon?

32 points by Libertatea 11y ago

This is an incredibly sensationalist and politically-motivated title. It should really read "Automobiles now immensely safer in the US". As the article's own graph shows, gun violence hasn't really changed much in the last decade and a half, but cars have gotten a lot safer!

refurb 11y ago
Good point. It looks like gun violence is down ~30% since the mid 1990's. Also, how do they define "gun violence"? Does that include accidental shootings? Suicides? From what I remember, suicides account for almost half of all deaths due to guns.
- Retric 11y ago
  Let's drop things down and say there is only ~500 deaths due to accidental discharge of a firearm per year in the US. That seems reason enough to discourage gun ownership.
  - mbeattie 11y ago
    Lets drop things down and say there is only ~500* deaths due to accidental drowning per year in the US. That seems reason enough to discourage pool ownership. *=http://www.cdc.gov/HomeandRecreationalSafety/Water-Safety/waterinjuries-factsheet.html http://www.cdc.gov/HomeandRecreationalSafety/Water-Safety/wa... There are closer to 3,500 accidental drownings per year.
    - Retric 11y ago
      Your joking, but I actually agree with this. I also almost drowned at my parents pool while really young (under 3). Note, discourage != prohibit. Regular PSA's about the dangers of pool ownership higher taxes, and or required fencing could all save lives.
  - rbcgerard 11y ago
    By that logic we should get rid of swimming pools...http://www.poolsafely.gov/drowning-deaths-injuries/ http://www.poolsafely.gov/drowning-deaths-injuries/ Probably ladders as well...
    - Retric 11y ago
      Don't put words in my mouth, discourage != get rid. Mandating they all be panted in iridescent reflective coatings would discourage ownership, but not actual use. PS: Ladders are covered in safety warnings (which may be ridiculous). Guns, not so much.
    - Zancarius 11y ago
      Don't forget buckets! Those have resulted in more than a few drowning deaths over the years. You've reminded me: The CPSC introduced stop-sale regulation on magnets (remember Buckyballs?) for even fewer deaths than that, and where most of the non-fatal injuries were the result of poor decisions by adolescents. Worse, in my opinion, the relatively small number of deaths that occurred were almost all traceable to irresponsible adults leaving magnets in places where toddlers could pick them up and swallow them. That's still a sore point for me.
- thoth 11y ago
  >From what I remember, suicides account for almost half of all deaths due to guns. The article says "Today, suicides account for roughly two out of every three gun deaths."
- blang 11y ago
  According to the article it includes accidents, homicides and suicides. I have also heard a figure of 50-70% of all gun deaths are suicides. The argument of the article is that consistent government regulation has helped curve motor vehicle deaths downwards and that consistent gun regulation might be able to do the same.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  "Due to guns?" Do guns make people suicidal?
  - Retric 11y ago
    It lowers the bar before people succeed. Take some pills and many back out, pull a trigger and your generally out of options.
    - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
      Even if you take that to be true (I gather there's plenty of ways to quickly off yourself at any given hardware store), does that make the guns "responsible" for those deaths? Are those deaths "due" to guns? Or are we using our political biases to slant something to meet our agenda, like this article, which shows gun violence isn't really increasing at all.
    - SteveLAnderson 11y ago
      Exactly. When Australia changed their gun laws, the suicide rate went down by 65%.
      - refurb 11y ago
        Yet Japan has one of the highest suicide rates and almost no gun ownership! Also, prior to enacting gun control, Australia's non-firearm suicide rate doubled (1980-1996) while firearm suicide was cut in half. Not sure there is any correlation.
        SteveLAnderson 11y ago
        You may not be sure, but the researchers that study this subject are sure - http://andrewleigh.org/pdf/GunBuyback_Panel.pdf http://andrewleigh.org/pdf/GunBuyback_Panel.pdf And for the US - http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2013/12/gun_ownership_causes_higher_suicide_rates_study_shows.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2013/1...
- seivan 11y ago
  I've noticed "liberals" (regressive left) label the recent Muslim terrorist attack on US soil as a "mass shooting" to hitch on it. Seems like a pattern to paint anything they can get their hands on as a token for guns.
mtberatwork 11y ago
> It should really read "Automobiles now immensely safer in the US". That isn't the main topic of the article though. From the opening sentence: "For the first time in more than 60 years, firearms and automobiles are killing Americans at an identical rate". The headline simply points out the article's main data point of automobile and gun deaths converging.
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  The article's headline and banner strongly promote this concept that guns are an increasing problem. While the title and opening sentence aren't false, they ARE misleading.
  - mtberatwork 11y ago
    That's purely subjective.
caseysoftware 11y ago
This is really a thinly veiled attack on the "then we should outlaw cars!" argument. This lays out the case for "reasonable" safeguards and limitations that should be put in place for guns because "reasonable" rules have made cars so much safer. While that may be the claim, the NYT blew their cover with the front page editorial last week where they openly admitted to wanting all guns out of everyone's hands, regardless of the legality. What we understand now is that the "reasonable" laws are the wedge to start going for more and eventual outlawing. The problem is that "gun control advocates" claim that people shouldn't own guns really mean that civilians shouldn't own them. They're still okay with government having guns. Because "tyranny will never come to America..."
- delecti 11y ago
  > Because "tyranny will never come to America..." If I'm not mistaken, the implication here is that tyranny might come to America, and I 100% agree with that. Of course it might, and in fact I think the increasing surveillance state atmosphere makes it seem increasingly likely. But any implication that civilian gun ownership could make a difference if it happens seems overly hopeful. The US military is the largest in the world by a large margin. If tyranny comes to America then a few civilian shotguns aren't going to help much.
  - pdkl95 11y ago
    You're making the common assumption that such a situation would be "the standing US military roughly as it exists now" vs "rebel citizens with only small arms". This scenario is unlikely to ever happen. What would be more likely to happen is something like the Civil War where the army itself was also divided. Even more importantly, it is a lot harder to control an army when the targets are the people the army supposedly exists to protect. In a survey[1] of "300 U.S. Marine Corps soldiers" about unit cohesion when working with the UN, the final question asked: 46. The U.S. government declares a ban on the possession, sale, transportation, and transfer of all non-sporting firearms. A thirty (30) day amnesty period is permitted for these firearms to be turned over to the local authorities. A the end of this period, a number of citizen groups refuse to turn over their firearms. Consider the following statement: I would fire upon U.S. citizens who refuse or resist confiscation of firearms banned by the U.S. government. (__) (__) (__) (__) (__) Strongly disagree Disagree Agree Strongly agree No opinion The results of that question suggests a "citizens vs army" scenario is very unlikely. The results [...] with 88.0 percent responding, revealed that 61.66 percent said they would refuse to fire on U.S. citizens, whereas 26.34 percent indicated they would fire. This particular question, unlike the others, elicited form 15.97 percent of the respondents with an opinion, either heavier pen or pencil marks on their response or written comments in the margin space. [...] The responses to this scenario suggests that a complete unit breakdown could occur in a unit tasked to execute this mission. Small groups of people often have some kind of consistency across the group, because the definition of the group self-selects for something. (e.g. the people who choose to attend a chess club tend to like to play chess) As a group grows in size, the makeup of the group tends to become more heterogeneous. Eventually, as the group becomes very large, the makeup of the group tends to resemble the makeup of the general population. The military is a very large group of people, so the individual attitudes and politics of a soldier tends to resemble the attitudes and politics seen in the country in general. When considering a topic that is obviously politically controversial, you should expect that the people serving in the armed forces will be approximately as divided as the rest of the citizens. [1] http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a293790.pdf http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a293790.pdf

tomp 11y ago

I wonder how many of these guns belong to the police (and hence the murders can't be prevented by reducing civil gun ownership)...

icebraining 11y ago
http://killedbypolice.net/ http://killedbypolice.net/ You can just subtract the numbers.
- NiftyFifty 11y ago
  10% demographic, when you break down the numbers last I checked. But ya.
- largorn 11y ago
  This is crazy. I recently stumbled upon the numbers for gun-killings by German police, I can't believe how much these numbers diverge: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffengebrauch_der_Polizei_in_Deutschland#Zahlen https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffengebrauch_der_Polizei_in_... (Second column is "number of fatal shots", third is "total number of shots fired at people") Of course, the USA have 4 times as many inhabitants and the German numbers are only related to gun-killings, not other methods. But still, they are in a completely different dimension.
tootie 11y ago
I'd reckon that most incidents of police shooting civilians is due to civilians armed with guns.
- Carrok 11y ago
  You'd reckon, eh? I'd beg to differ.
  - tootie 11y ago
    Seriously? There have been plenty of incidents in the news of police taking out a gunman who was either firing on people or threatening to. They just don't register as police violence because everyone knows they are justified.

lintiness 11y ago

guns don't kill people; people with guns kill people. They mostly just kill themselves: "...[S]uicides account for roughly two out of every three gun deaths."

NiftyFifty 11y ago
I know its like being CPT Obvious, but that is so true. Fix the problem, not the symptom.
- SteveLAnderson 11y ago
  Fixing the issues that lead a person to consider suicide is really hard. Decreasing the number of available guns is much easier and is effective. When Australia decreased the number of guns, the suicide rate (not just gun related suicides, but all suicides) decreased by 65%.
  - brianlweiner 11y ago
    Suicides definitely decrease with less access to guns, however many countries with gun restrictions have higher rates of suicide than the US (e.g Japan, S Korea, France, Belgium) [1] Also suicides via firearm had been declining in Australia prior to any buyback. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... [2] http://c5.nrostatic.com/sites/default/files/australia.jpg http://c5.nrostatic.com/sites/default/files/australia.jpg
smileysteve 11y ago
There are also people who decide to commit suicide via automobile. Here are some stats about alcohol related driver deaths in Pennsylvania > 19% of driver deaths for 16-20 year olds were alcohol-related > 44% of driver deaths for 21-25 year olds were alcohol-related > 34% of driver deaths for 26-30 year olds were alcohol-related
- NiftyFifty 11y ago

jstalin 11y ago

Firearm suicide data: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/suicide.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/suicide.htm Firearm murder data: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm Unintentional injury death stats: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/accidental-injury.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/accidental-injury.htm

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

carsongross 11y ago

Alternate title: (ex) middle class americans are killing themselves in record numbers, but we want to talk about guns.

ocdtrekkie 11y ago
How so? According to this article, gun violence hasn't increased much at all. Cars are safer though.
- mtberatwork 11y ago
  In contrast to automobile deaths, it has increased: "In 2005, gun deaths outnumbered vehicle deaths in just two states, Alaska and Maryland, plus the District of Columbia. By 2014, gun deaths were greater in 21 states plus D.C."
  - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
    Again, you're not looking at the data. Gun violence hasn't increased, automobile deaths have decreased.
- azakai 11y ago
  The article also says > Gun homicide rates have actually fallen in recent years, but those gains have been offset by rising gun suicide rates. Today, suicides account for roughly two out of every three gun deaths.
xlm1717 11y ago
Also: Cars are now killing as many people as guns

NiftyFifty 11y ago

Redefining the conversation away from the liberal thinking, the real debate is not about guns at all. It's about what causes violence, where does it occur, and how can we stop it. The most dramatic form of this crime, occurs most often from guns - so, we need to reframe it from gun violence to violence where guns are involved. This is a 65 year old problem - the root of it, is based on the highway system in conjunction with relining that left poverty in the inner city. I note here, I am leaving out race, but it disproportionately affects (use right?) the African American population because of the redlining (why I mentioned it), thanks to racism and white privilege - debate all you want, but mobility of the white middle class demographic was huge at this time. Think baby-boomers in particular. The SOLUTION to solving a WHOLE slew of problems, which liberals ALWAYS talk about is giving social programs a go on a major scale to help disadvantaged population. Bipartisan politics always shift away from this, because of the polarizing problem of being perceived as to liberal or to conservative, etc. etc. Poverty to expand on violence is exponential and often (like 80% of the problem) involves desperation which leads to crime, disassociation with society and drives youth / people to gang membership. It's been a long deep understood problem, that gangs of any time typically lean towards drugs, alcohol, and illegal activities to maintain the syndication of crime. This includes prostitution, which affects women and can more often lead to domestic violence. So, with all _that_ said, think of guns in the mix - illegal and not, and ALLLL the gun programs in the past, where do most of the illegal guns come from - that's right, poverty stricken areas. So, I lean back to what is gun control's main problem? It's ineffective. Solve poverty ... put a CONSERVATIVE BUSINESS BASED DEMOGRAPHIC (namely young moderate Republicans) on every other street with strict oversight who are NOT prejudice to start engines of economic growth to stamp out poverty in areas where it exists. Let Liberals cry all they want, but spearhead poverty in the urban centers and you will reduce violence where guns are involved. THAT is the solution.

dang 11y ago
> Let Liberals cry all they want Please don't use ideological buzz-phrases here. It lowers the quality of discussion, regardless of what flavor of ideology you prefer.

kyleknighted 11y ago

What a crap title... Cars don't kill people, anymore than guns do. It's the idiot behind the wheel/trigger that's doing the killing. These pieces of metal are built to be controlled by responsible humans. They do not make decisions for you, anymore than a spoon is making the decision for me to eat another bowl of cereal!

delecti 11y ago
That's kinda a useless distinction. Nobody read that title and pictured sentient guns tracking down and hunting humans. Autonomous cars doing that might almost be plausible, but realistically the same applies there. "Gun related fatalities are currently as high as automotive related fatalities in the U.S. for the first time" might be a more precise statement, but it's a worse headline.
bad_user 11y ago
What's easier? Outlawing idiots or outlawing guns?

ericfrenkiel 11y ago

If I could downvote this for being a sensationalist article, I would! Here's the operative phrase: "The convergence of the trend lines above is driven primarily by a sharp drop in the rate of motor vehicle fatalities since 1950." It's amazing that we've improved vehicle safety in the last 60 years, yet there is zero reason to conflate that with homicides involving a firearm.

pacofvf 11y ago
I know Americans love their guns and I don't want you to amend your amendments, but you almost made an interesting point, just changing the 2nd part in your sentence: > It's amazing that we've improved vehicle safety in the last 60 years, yet there's no progress in gun violence.
jberryman 11y ago
That's literally the third sentence in the article, which also mentions the rise in suicide and fall in gun homicide rates two sentences below that. The title is dry and accurate. > yet there is zero reason to conflate that with homicides involving a firearm. The article doesn't conflate anything; it makes a very interesting and important comparison: vehicle deaths (which have been extensively studied for decades, with much federal regulation and other pressure to improve safety) are now on par with gun deaths (which had been banned from federal research for nearly two decades). > It's amazing that we've improved vehicle safety in the last 60 years Wouldn't it be nice if fewer people were dying from guns as well?
- dawnbreez 11y ago
  It would be nice if fewer people were dying from bullet wounds; that does not change the fact that this article's headline is misinforming. Further, the data is misleading as well. Suicides, homicides, and accidental deaths are three different things. On top of that, this data is collected across the US...meaning that it includes both areas where gun laws are loose, and areas where gun laws are strict. This means that the data tells us nothing about whether tougher laws would help or hurt the state of gun-related death, for reasons that should be obvious to anybody who's completed a high school science class.

PauloManrique 11y ago

Guns are banned in Brazil and we got the highest homicide numbers in the planet.

jakeogh 11y ago
Quickref: http://www.itstactical.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/how_are_guns_used_by_citizensvia-infothread-dot-org.jpg http://www.itstactical.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/how_ar...
NiftyFifty 11y ago
THANK YOU! Honestly, the more data I have the more it validates the gun legislation is a bad idea. The longer view is one of social reform related to what ills the country - crime, poverty, and a replacement of liberalism/progressive thinking with Republican conservatism bridging the isle in Congress by taking on poverty like no progressive ever has.
- PauloManrique 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#By_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
Nadya 11y ago
I always bring up Switzerland. Their gun culture is completely different which is very important. But it shows that guns aren't the problem - the people and their culture are. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland

grecy 11y ago

I'm Australian, live in Canada, am a hunter who owns a rifle and am currently visiting the US. In the last couple of months, I've seen more guns than I have in my entire life. Two days ago I walked into a friends unlocked garage to find at least 75 guns, mostly loaded, with ammunition lying all over. Some semi-auto assault rifles, some hunting rifles, tons of handguns. All perfectly legal (and legal to not be locked up too). I think it's sad to live in a "successful" country where regular citizens feel the need to carry a loaded weapon in public. I think that's a strong indicator something is very wrong with this society. I'm not an expert, and obviously guns don't kill people, though it's my observation there are a LOT of readily available guns in the US, and the US has a lot of guns deaths. As an avid hunter I would never advocate "Taking the guns away", though I do think a few things should change - I believe gun laws in the US could be somewhat similar to Canada and Australia (no semi-autos or fully autos, basically no handguns, must be locked up, must apply for a license, need license to even buy ammo, etc) and gun enthusiasts can still have appropriate guns, while the sheer number of guns would drop substantially. Citizens already can't own surface to air missiles, so we've already established some weapons are not suitable for private citizens, now we're just talking about what falls into what category. I know it's a very difficult thing to change, as gun ownership is the 2nd amendment and is seen as a right not a privilege.

NiftyFifty 11y ago
Grecy, with all the respect I have for Australia, there is a HUGE difference culturally between your population demographics and ours. The primary reason why the Australian ban (noting that 65-80% of guns are still in the general population in your home country, and never reclaimed by the ban - because who's going to enforce that? really?) will never work here. Australia = 97% white/Caucasian, 2% Asian, 1% everything else. The US is a vastly different landscape and our population comes from ALL over the world. If I were to introduce very deeply concentrated communities of 50 other religions, 15 other race demographics, and stir the pot the debate becomes that much more problematic. Back to Australia - having a very, very homogeneous society makes it easy to pass and maintain order in comparison to what makes our country so incomparable with yours on this issue in particular, as a model to follow. Same occurs with the Japanese model - so, leaning on that won't help either. I respect you, and I believe you have a valid point on face value but when you dig into the complexity and what I consider a unique trait of the US citizen (as a positive! for our diversity!) ... we will never ban guns. It's a poverty issue here, not a gun issue.

dustinmoorenet 11y ago

It is funny in an article about the difficulties of finding safer ways of handling guns, it is attacked in the comments for trying to talk about gun safety. You can not just say guns are only unsafe in unsafe hands but not allow research and regulation in to gun safety to figure out why. Cars benefited from research and regulation and guns can too.

sarvinc 11y ago
I haven't read the article and am not interested in attacking the article. Some of us don't believe that others (not all) are arguing in good faith. I don't believe we'll stop talking about firearms till firearms are illegal to own. For example; I believe that if firearm related suicide was reduced to zero we'd still be arguing about firearm safety. I'm all for increasing the amount of data we gather and research we do in relation to firearms. I'm all for making intelligent decisions based on the data we gather. From where I'm sitting we don't make decisions based on the data we have (on either side). This largely feels like bizarro abortion argument where both sides of the abortion argument are now arguing the exact opposite when it comes to firearms.

tehchromic 11y ago

It sounds wrong to say so but that is as it should be!

dennisgorelik 11y ago

"Today, suicides account for roughly two out of every three gun deaths." It looks like 2nd amendment protects right to suicide.

stmfreak 11y ago

It is really dishonest to compare accidental vehicle deaths to intentional suicides and homicides via gun. One is a safety issue void of intent. The other is the result of intent to harm with the most efficient tool available. What are we to make of this? Require anti-death features on a leathal weapon?