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Why should those of us who are non-suicidal have to give up our ability to defend ourselves because some suicidal people are gonna shoot themselves? (I don't o

• tomlockwood 7y ago
  A person and their family are 3x more likely to be shot if they have a gun in their house, so "defence" isn't a great reason to have a gun.
  • AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
    That doesn't follow. I'm probably much more likely to be electrocuted because my house has electricity, but that doesn't mean electricity doesn't serve its purpose.
    • yongjik 7y ago
      On the other hand, nobody argues electricity is an essential human right because you need it to fight electrocution. Guns might serve some purposes in some situations. It's just an incredibly lousy tool for "defending ourselves", with negative utility on average.
      • AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
        > On the other hand, nobody argues electricity is an essential human right because you need it to fight electrocution. Sorry, I didn't know you required an absolutely perfect analogy to understand the point.
      • zepto 7y ago
        “With negative utility on average” - perhaps, but not based on anything stated here. If you have a source, it would help.
        • Retric 7y ago
          “Living in a house with a gun increases your odds of death“ https://www.vox.com/2015/10/1/18000520/gun-risk-death https://www.vox.com/2015/10/1/18000520/gun-risk-death Gun ownership has benefits, but safety is not one of them. Much like how most home robberies take place in the day, the perception of safety from gun ownership is at odds with reality. Hell, you are 25% more likely to be robbed in Alaska than New York State.
          • temporaryvector 7y ago
            I think you're confusing safety with self-defense. The argument isn't that guns make you safer, it's that they give you the ability to defend yourself if you are already in an unsafe situation. On average, most people will never be in a situation where they need to defend themselves, thus getting a gun will increase their risk of a self-inflicted wound. Accidents of all kind (not just guns) are much more frequent than violent altercations. But the crux of the matter is not that, the question that needs answering is "If you are already in a situation where your life is at risk from another human being, does having a gun make it better or worse?" We don't actually know the answer to that question, since statistics on defensive usage of guns are pretty bad. Another point to make is that there's an undercurrent of personal responsibility. The danger presented by having a gun in your home is something that can be managed if you are a responsible gun owner, but the risk of violence against your self is not something you can easily control. This is the important part, owning a gun for self defense is not about making you safer, it's about transferring the risk from something you have no control over to something you have some measure of control over. Thus, arguing that owning guns increase your risk of dying from a self-inflicted gunshot wounds holds no weight with people who want to own guns, since it's a fundamental misunderstanding of why one would want to own a gun for self defense.
            • Retric 7y ago
              Looking only at a subset of situations is why people play the lottery and generally make sub optimal choices. It’s easy to ignore the odds and support any argument, but it’s a bad habit to get into. That said, feeling more secure is by far the most likely situation. While it’s far safer to leave your house in the event of a home invasion than to confront the robbers. Feeling like you can defend yourself is empowering.
      • briffle 7y ago
        Nobody argues owning a gun is an essential human right. They argue it's a constitutional right.
        • homonculus1 7y ago
          To the contrary, the constitution doesn't grant rights. It protects essential human rights. There's a reason arms are right up there with free speech and privacy.
        • zeveb 7y ago
          > Nobody argues owning a gun is an essential human right. I do — it's a constitutional right because it is a fundamental ('essential') human right. A free citizen (i.e., not a child or prisoner) has a right to wield violence in defense of himself, others and property; to restrict that right (as opposed to restricting unjust exercises of violence) is IMHO fundamentally unjust.
    • tomlockwood 7y ago
      I'm not sure I'd get electricity installed in my house to help prevent electrocution.
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    • elil17 7y ago
      Yeah but you can’t use a gun to fry an egg
      • jacobush 7y ago
        Well Ted Cruz says in Texas it's used for cooking bacon. https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/08/03/429014888/ted-cruz-makes-mmm-machine-gun-bacon?t=1564390138797 https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/08/03/42901... And here you have a more Soviet styled recipe for eggs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojg_def2mzM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojg_def2mzM
    • 693471 7y ago
      There isn't an electrocution epidemic
      • whenchamenia 7y ago
        Nor is there one surrounding gun crime, but news is scary no?
        • 693471 7y ago
          I think "gun deaths at their highest rate in 40 years" qualifies https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/chart-of-the-day-us-gun-deaths-skyrocket-driven-by-a-rise-in-suicides/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/chart-of-the-day-us-g...
    • stordoff 7y ago
      I'm not sure this analogy really works. Electricity kills as a side-effect of its intended use. If gun ownership makes it more like that you will get shot, it has failed at its intended use (self-defence).
  • zepto 7y ago
    This doesn’t tell us anything about whether having a gun or not is a good idea for self defense. Someone with a >3x greater than average likelyhood of getting shot might bring it down to 3x by having a gun themselves.
  • ltbarcly3 7y ago
    I think you make a great point, but why stop at guns? Each thing should have a list of pro's and con's made for it, and if the con's outweigh the pro's (on average) then we can just make that thing illegal. Probably we should start with television. Sure, people get some enjoyment from owning a TV, but think of how much they aren't exercising. Surely owning a TV dramatically increases the probability you are going to be obese and eventually develop heart disease. You are way more likely to watch a TV if you have a TV in your own house.
    • tomlockwood 7y ago
      Very interesting! I get your point, making buying things illegal on the basis of the average of their pros and cons is a slippery slope. We should probably allow people to buy and sell whatever they want. Who cares if hitmen murder people, the people demand more hitmen!!! Hitmen can kill people that want to kill me, which makes me feel safe!!! Who cares if my judgement is extremely arbitrary and the hitmen are 3x more likely to shoot me than the people I want killed. Awesome. You've really opened my eyes here. For all the other laws we can evaluate them based uhhhh, not on their pros and cons.
      • CompanionCuuube 7y ago
        > You've really opened my eyes here. Once upon a time, there was a wise Zen master. People traveled from far away to seek his help. In return, he would teach them and show them the way to enlightenment. On this particular day, a scholar came to visit the master for advice. “I have come to ask you to teach me about Zen,” the scholar said. Soon, it became obvious that the scholar was full of his own opinions and knowledge. He interrupted the master repeatedly with his own stories and failed to listen to what the master had to say. The master calmly suggested that they should have tea. So the master poured his guest a cup. The cup was filled, yet he kept pouring until the cup overflowed onto the table, onto the floor, and finally onto the scholar’s robes. The scholar cried “Stop! The cup is full already. Can’t you see?” “Exactly,” the Zen master replied with a smile. “You are like this cup — so full of ideas that nothing more will fit in. Come back to me with an empty cup.” https://medium.com/the-mission/empty-your-cup-a-zen-proverb-on-accepting-feedback-f1cce7bfe4a7 https://medium.com/the-mission/empty-your-cup-a-zen-proverb-...
  • throwawaylolx 7y ago
    That's a classic "correlation doesn't imply causation" situation. Those owning guns may have guns exactly because they have a high chance of getting shot, and owning a gun actually lowers the chance. Not saying that this is the case or not, but your statement is misleading.
  • ummonk 7y ago
    People who are likely to be shot obtain guns to defend themselves. Who would have thought?
• tasty_freeze 7y ago
  > Why should those of us who are non-suicidal have to give up our ability to defend ourselves That's a rather hyperbolic statement. You are literally saying a gun is the only way you can defend yourself.
• jnwatson 7y ago
  For the same reason that people should be required to get vaccinations. An individual incurs a small risk (complications due to vaccine) to provide the community a larger benefit as a whole (herd immunity). The presence of a gun in a home make it several times more likely that a resident of that home is killed by gun violence. The presence of a gun in a community at all increases the likelihood of gun violence.
  • briffle 7y ago
    Oh boy! Wait till you read about the statistics on car accidents and injuries being much more likely for those that own a car...
• lazyasciiart 7y ago
  I think it's a decent argument that gun owners should be allowed to kill themselves. I think it's more difficult to argue that gun owners should be allowed to kill a family member, which is a much increased risk, or that gun owners should be allowed to let their kids kill themselves (the teenage children in a house with guns are far more likely to kill themselves than their friends with no guns in the house).
• traderjane 7y ago
  Similarly, why should people who wish to rationally commit suicide have their free will violated because other people are irrational? Shouldn't we respect those who are rational by not infringing on their freedom?
  • a2tech 7y ago
    Agreed. Why is it anyone’s business other than the individual if they wish to live or die? My existence is MY existence. If I can’t have that piece of self-determination everything else is hollow.
    • flukus 7y ago
      I agree in principal, but as a society we've probably invested a lot in that individual over the years for healthcare, schooling, etc. Their friends and family have likely made financial and emotional investments in them too. There is a lot of room to at least have some checks on place before you're allowed to exercise that right.
      • redis_mlc 7y ago
        > as a society we've probably invested a lot in that individual over the years for healthcare In the USA? Good one! Hahahaha!
      • a2tech 7y ago
        So the rights of society trumps my own ability to self-determination? If society can dictate that, then there is no basis for any sort of personal freedom.
        • flukus 7y ago
          Yes, absolute personal freedom does not exist in anything we'd call a society. Some just grant more/different freedoms than others.
• jayd16 7y ago
  We give up a lot for a safer society. Its a trade we make all the time. Should we be allowed to own grenades, machine guns, high explosives and tanks? You could say that's not necessary for defense but plenty find themselves defended well enough without any arms at all.
• Alex3917 7y ago
  > Why should those of us who are non-suicidal have to give up our ability to defend ourselves because some suicidal people are gonna shoot themselves? You can't know if you're not suicidal. That's the whole concept of most suicides being impulsive acts. E.g. there have been plenty of people who have bought a pack of cigarettes and then killed themselves 5 minutes later without even opening it. Any of us could be five minutes away from killing ourselves and not have even the slightest idea.
  • ummonk 7y ago
    There is a scale for depression and suicidal ideation that is highly predictive of future suicide.
• kolinko 7y ago
  Because empathy?
• esoterica 7y ago
  "Nanny state" as an insult has zero resonance to anyone who isn't a fox-news-watching libertarian absolutist. The rest of us accept that the government does stuff sometimes and that's okay.