3 ms·

Live in any other country than America, I guess, so an emotional person can't get their hands on a gun in two seconds.

ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
This seems to be a popular thought on hacker news for some reason, but seriously, there's countless ways to commit suicide. If your solution is to take away just one of the tools, you aren't going to get very far. Chances are there were pills in the medicine cabinet that could have been used as well. Or countless other ways that also take only a split second decision (and that's assuming she picked up the gun off the table and didn't have to go find it). Come on, you're smarter than this.
- PeterisP 8y ago
  The method of choice, however, does have a significant effect on survivability or reversibility of a suicide attempt (pills in the medicine cabinet are a prime example, many people have been saved after taking a lethal dose of medicine) and the ease of availability also has a meaningful effect on the likelihood of suicide attempts; if people are forced to think about it some more, some of them reconsider (e.g. this very case which was a non-repeating impulse, not something premeditated). A solid example for this is the pesticide-based farmer suicides in SE Asia, where countries that limited availability of human-deadly pesticides significantly reduced the number of farmer suicides. While there are countless other ways to commit suicide, experience shows taking away just one of the tools can save many, many lives.
  - ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
    >While there are countless other ways to commit suicide, experience shows taking away just one of the tools can save many, many lives. I have found two studies with that claim. One is going state by state (like there may be no other factors?) [1]. The second is comparing urban Maryland vs rural (if you've ever been to rural Maryland, you'd know comparing it to Baltimore is ridiculous) [2]. [1] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/guns-and-suicide/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/guns-and-suicide/ [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/suicide-rates-maryland-rural-urban-firearms-guns-johns-hopkins-united-states-a7898951.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/suicide-rates-mary...
ctrlc-root 8y ago
If you're arguing for proper storage of guns, I completely agree with you. If you're arguing that we should reduce gun ownership to save lives, you're ignoring how many lives are saved by private ownership of guns. Unfortunately, no one keeps track of this statistic, but the CDC estimates between 500,000 and 3,000,000 lives are saved in any given year [0]. This study only provides an estimate, but still, compare that to 13,000 firearm related murders [1] and 22,000 suicides [2, Table 6 on page 33]. I think we need more data but from what I've seen so far it seems to me private gun ownership is a net benefit. 0: https://www.nap.edu/read/18319/chapter/3#15 https://www.nap.edu/read/18319/chapter/3#15 1: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-4.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-... 2: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr66/nvsr66_06.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr66/nvsr66_06.pdf
- trymas 8y ago
  I am amazed, that 0.2-1% of population would be murdered every year. Have similar statistics been acquired in other western countries, but with much more strict gun ownership laws, i.e. people can't protect themselves from violence? It sound to me that it's a vicious circle, isn't it? Guns are easy to get -> bad people get guns -> good people need to get guns to protect themselves -> everybody is "fealing threatened for their lives".
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
  You wildly misquote your source, which makes it hard to take your comment as good faith. The source actually says: > Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses 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. > On the other hand, some scholars point to a radically lower estimate of only 108,000 annual defensive uses based on the National Crime Victimization Survey. It is a huge leap to say that approximately every defensive use of a firearm prevented a death. It does not come anywhere close to passing the sniff test, as we don't see unarmed people dying of crime in the massive numbers implied by your misquote.

This seems to be a popular thought on hacker news for some reason, but seriously, there's countless ways to commit suicide. If your solution is to take away just one of the tools, you aren't going to get very far. Chances are there were pills in the medicine cabinet that could have been used as well. Or countless other ways that also take only a split second decision (and that's assuming she picked up the gun off the table and didn't have to go find it). Come on, you're smarter than this.

PeterisP 8y ago
The method of choice, however, does have a significant effect on survivability or reversibility of a suicide attempt (pills in the medicine cabinet are a prime example, many people have been saved after taking a lethal dose of medicine) and the ease of availability also has a meaningful effect on the likelihood of suicide attempts; if people are forced to think about it some more, some of them reconsider (e.g. this very case which was a non-repeating impulse, not something premeditated). A solid example for this is the pesticide-based farmer suicides in SE Asia, where countries that limited availability of human-deadly pesticides significantly reduced the number of farmer suicides. While there are countless other ways to commit suicide, experience shows taking away just one of the tools can save many, many lives.
- ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
  >While there are countless other ways to commit suicide, experience shows taking away just one of the tools can save many, many lives. I have found two studies with that claim. One is going state by state (like there may be no other factors?) [1]. The second is comparing urban Maryland vs rural (if you've ever been to rural Maryland, you'd know comparing it to Baltimore is ridiculous) [2]. [1] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/guns-and-suicide/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/guns-and-suicide/ [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/suicide-rates-maryland-rural-urban-firearms-guns-johns-hopkins-united-states-a7898951.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/suicide-rates-mary...

ctrlc-root 8y ago

If you're arguing for proper storage of guns, I completely agree with you. If you're arguing that we should reduce gun ownership to save lives, you're ignoring how many lives are saved by private ownership of guns. Unfortunately, no one keeps track of this statistic, but the CDC estimates between 500,000 and 3,000,000 lives are saved in any given year [0]. This study only provides an estimate, but still, compare that to 13,000 firearm related murders [1] and 22,000 suicides [2, Table 6 on page 33]. I think we need more data but from what I've seen so far it seems to me private gun ownership is a net benefit. 0: https://www.nap.edu/read/18319/chapter/3#15 https://www.nap.edu/read/18319/chapter/3#15 1: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-4.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-... 2: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr66/nvsr66_06.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr66/nvsr66_06.pdf

trymas 8y ago
I am amazed, that 0.2-1% of population would be murdered every year. Have similar statistics been acquired in other western countries, but with much more strict gun ownership laws, i.e. people can't protect themselves from violence? It sound to me that it's a vicious circle, isn't it? Guns are easy to get -> bad people get guns -> good people need to get guns to protect themselves -> everybody is "fealing threatened for their lives".
fjsolwmv 8y ago
You wildly misquote your source, which makes it hard to take your comment as good faith. The source actually says: > Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses 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. > On the other hand, some scholars point to a radically lower estimate of only 108,000 annual defensive uses based on the National Crime Victimization Survey. It is a huge leap to say that approximately every defensive use of a firearm prevented a death. It does not come anywhere close to passing the sniff test, as we don't see unarmed people dying of crime in the massive numbers implied by your misquote.