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One point about suicide prevention that I think deserves a little more mention: people who survive an attempt typically do not ever commit suicide [1]. Lifetime

by majos 7y ago

One point about suicide prevention that I think deserves a little more mention: people who survive an attempt typically do not ever commit suicide [1]. Lifetime survival rates range across studies, but they hover around 90%. Of course, 10% is much higher than the general population rate for lifetime suicide completion rate, which is more like 0.01%, and things are complicated by severity of attempt (you’re more likely to end up in a hospital if you use pills instead of a gun). But still, most people who attempt suicide decide against it after the fact. [1] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/survival/#O'Donnell https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/survi...

umvi 7y ago
I've said it before, but really, assault rifles and bump stocks and what not are the complete wrong thing to focus on. Long guns kill practically _nobody_ compared to handguns. It's the best compromise ever: ban handguns, keep long guns fully legal. 2nd amendment supporters wanting to "prevent tyranny" and hunters still have their long guns, homicides and suicides (which comprise the overwhelming majority of gun deaths and are committed overwhelmingly with handguns) drop significantly.
- ColanR 7y ago
  I like how you put "prevent tyranny" in quotes, like it's not believable.
  - hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
    It's not. The idea that a rag-tag group of citizens with a stockpile of AR-15s could challenge "tyranny" by fighting a modern US military is laughable.
    - ColanR 7y ago
      Vietnam beat the US. The Taliban is beating the US. The US was founded when farmers used guerrilla warfare tactics against the current world superpower. South America guerrillas are unbeatable. It's really your position that is untenable.
      - pietroglyph 7y ago
        I think that GP's position is tenable if the tyranny comes slowly. Sure, a country-wide armed insurgency is hard to beat. That's relatively uncontroversial. If most people are comfortable as the water boils around them, however, then the armed insurgency is not going to be country-wide. I think that argument has some basis in history (e.g. Nazi Germany), where the tyrannical government slowly got worse and worse without major internal revolts. On the other hand, there have been times where the people snapped and revolted all at once.
        ColanR 7y ago
        I don't think the GP's position has anything to do with slowly implemented tyranny; the GP is only referring to once the ragtag group has formed, and assessing their chances of success. I think that what you describe as the boiling frog scenario would be the best possible strategy for a government that is concerned about its policies being forcefully rejected if implemented all at once.
        slothtrop 7y ago
        That came to mind as well. We're taking for granted here that much of the population was drinking the kool-aid when the Nazis took power; there wasn't, say, very popular dissent. And that's a more realistic scenario with a tyrannical power. I can't imagine one, at least a domestic one, that manages to hold on to tyranny despite the large part of the population wanting them out. With or without weapons.
        homonculus1 7y ago
        Banning firearms is the water boiling.
      - slothtrop 7y ago
        The U.S. army, while preventing the North from encroaching, were effectively sitting ducks and as the casualties grew so did the anti-war tide at home, until they pulled out and the south was left to their demise. The North, then separated when the U.S. arrived, bordered China, their arms supplier, and had thick jungle cover from the Ho Chi Min trail all the way to the south. While the U.S. took some pot shots at the North through bombing missions they "officially" were never invading. This was an impossible situation from the beginning. > South America guerrillas are unbeatable. Bolivian insurgency failed, Guevara died. They don't always win. The thing of it is the arms involved at the outset are irrelevant. You can't coerce a population largely unwilling to be controlled. Arms (including bombing devices) inevitably make their way into peoples hands. In the event of martial law things would fall into such disarray it's unsustainable. I take issue with the idea that a population needs to be armed a priori with a specific set of weapons in order to repel a "tyranical government", which is a kind of boogeyman idea if I ever heard one. A tyrannical govt, comprised of a minority of people, versus the U.S. scenario is not a likely one. You'd sooner see a civil war, and even that's incredibly unlikely. But then I suppose you'd see gun regulation as evidence of tyranny. The most tyrannical govt I can think of is the Chinese one and they have popular favor with their people. The HK situation shows that popular dissent is powerful with or without weapons.
    - hnaccy 7y ago
      If there was serious armed resistance by citizens in American other nations that would benefit from weakening American power could send key weapons as support, e.g., anti-tank and MANPADS.
    - thanatropism 7y ago
      There's challenging by force (against an organization who has nukes and drones and all that sweet stuff), and challenging by legitimacy. E.g. imagine Hawaii seceding from the US. Does it take equal military might?
    - GarrisonPrime 7y ago
      And yet, the idea is that they should be allowed the opportunity. If a government is unilaterally in complete control of all people at all times, full stop, then there isn't any real freedom, is there? You'd just be subecting all of society to the whim of whoever had enough money and/or guns aleady to have taken power. But this is no place to have that discussion. Besides which, most people who express the opinion you have are not interested in contemplating any other perpsective any way.
      - ohyes 7y ago
        False dichotomy. The government doesn’t have to be in unilateral control for us to admit that citizens would have a very difficult time fighting the extremely well funded and trained military. (For the most part, they wouldn’t need to anyway, they have control of something far more powerful... banking, they’d freeze your funds and you’d be done for). It doesn’t follow that a government that you can’t fight via conventional means gives the populous no recourse. Voting rights are still the law of the land here and civil disobedience has been effective in the past. Secondarily it could be argued (very easily) that second amendment in the USA is about the right to maintain well regulated local militias, which at the time would have been populated by yeoman farmers bringing their own weapons. Historically this is relevant because the revolution was fought by exactly such a set of militias on the continental side, and the British obviously thought this was an illegal action. So they needed a clause “this thing we’re doing is legal and legitimate.” Buut there’s a difference here between a militiaman with a musket that can fire maximum 3 shots per minute, as part of the local defense force, and an independent yobbo with a hundred of round per minute assault rifle. But no one focuses on the part of the second amendment that pertains to ‘well regulated militias’, it’s almost as if an industry that makes something with a limited audience outside of military and law enforcement has an agenda and is influencing the debate.
    - orbifold 7y ago
      Which is why both the Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam war ended in no time.
    - snikeris 7y ago
      Vietnam?
  - markdown 7y ago
    You seriously think a bunch of citizens with long guns is going to be able to prevent tyranny by the greatest military force the world has ever known?
    - whatshisface 7y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto_Uprising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto_Uprising There are sparse (sparse because guns in history are rarely found among civilians) instances of people using arms to defend themselves against overwhelming state adversaries. Dictators may be cruel but they're not exactly trying to rack up police casualties.
      - ceejayoz 7y ago
        The case you cite is illustrative of the point that it doesn't tend to work, though. > A total of 13,000 Jews died, about half of them burnt alive or suffocated. German casualties were probably less than 150.
    - chillwaves 7y ago
      The most obnoxious part about this comment is how sure you think you are. The important questions to ask are, how does the civilian population split? How do the police, the military split? What exactly do you think civil war looks like? The idea that you have all the answers and some how guns are ineffective, at the very least in hurting those who want to oppress, is so laughable and appropriate for HN. What is going on in HK right now? You think that would happen if they were armed? No one says we win, but we make it hurt. You would rather be enslaved? The US is looking for a way out of Afghanistan and they are not the victors. Lost to some men with long guns.
      - pjc50 7y ago
        > What is going on in HK right now? You think that would happen if they were armed? No, they'd be dead. Armed conflict with the PLA with no artillery or air power? (Street protest relies on some unspoken norms that police won't indiscriminately fire on and kill protestors, precisely because the protestors aren't armed. The whole point is to stop short of actual deadly urban combat. This is partly why Tianamen was so shocking; while it's difficult to know what actually happened, it's clear that army units were sent in and simply murdered a large number of people who were carrying out an unarmed protest.)
- ip26 7y ago
  It would be a bit thorny as LEO's operate with handguns and legitimate CCW's carry handguns, but you could definitely restrict them much more. I do agree that it mostly seems like a no-brainer compromise, handguns are not particularly militia nor hunting material.
  - lazyasciiart 7y ago
    Doesn't seem that difficult, don't LEOs already have access to equipment that isn't legal for civilians? And I think the assumption is that legitimate CCWs would no longer be able to carry handguns.
- lawlorino 7y ago
  Banning handguns for private ownership is what the UK did after the Dunblane massacre in 1996 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_massacre)
- homonculus1 7y ago
  Handguns are protected by 2A under Heller. And as always with gun control demands, the notion of "compromise" is as slimy as looking for middle ground on abortion, or mass surveillance, or segregation. Compromising rights is a verb, not a noun.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
masonic 7y ago
30% reattempt suicide, which is much higher than the general population.

by majos 7y ago

umvi 7y ago

I've said it before, but really, assault rifles and bump stocks and what not are the complete wrong thing to focus on. Long guns kill practically _nobody_ compared to handguns. It's the best compromise ever: ban handguns, keep long guns fully legal. 2nd amendment supporters wanting to "prevent tyranny" and hunters still have their long guns, homicides and suicides (which comprise the overwhelming majority of gun deaths and are committed overwhelmingly with handguns) drop significantly.

ColanR 7y ago
I like how you put "prevent tyranny" in quotes, like it's not believable.
- hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
  It's not. The idea that a rag-tag group of citizens with a stockpile of AR-15s could challenge "tyranny" by fighting a modern US military is laughable.
  - ColanR 7y ago
    Vietnam beat the US. The Taliban is beating the US. The US was founded when farmers used guerrilla warfare tactics against the current world superpower. South America guerrillas are unbeatable. It's really your position that is untenable.
    - pietroglyph 7y ago
      I think that GP's position is tenable if the tyranny comes slowly. Sure, a country-wide armed insurgency is hard to beat. That's relatively uncontroversial. If most people are comfortable as the water boils around them, however, then the armed insurgency is not going to be country-wide. I think that argument has some basis in history (e.g. Nazi Germany), where the tyrannical government slowly got worse and worse without major internal revolts. On the other hand, there have been times where the people snapped and revolted all at once.
      - ColanR 7y ago
        I don't think the GP's position has anything to do with slowly implemented tyranny; the GP is only referring to once the ragtag group has formed, and assessing their chances of success. I think that what you describe as the boiling frog scenario would be the best possible strategy for a government that is concerned about its policies being forcefully rejected if implemented all at once.
      - slothtrop 7y ago
        That came to mind as well. We're taking for granted here that much of the population was drinking the kool-aid when the Nazis took power; there wasn't, say, very popular dissent. And that's a more realistic scenario with a tyrannical power. I can't imagine one, at least a domestic one, that manages to hold on to tyranny despite the large part of the population wanting them out. With or without weapons.
      - homonculus1 7y ago
        Banning firearms is the water boiling.
    - slothtrop 7y ago
      The U.S. army, while preventing the North from encroaching, were effectively sitting ducks and as the casualties grew so did the anti-war tide at home, until they pulled out and the south was left to their demise. The North, then separated when the U.S. arrived, bordered China, their arms supplier, and had thick jungle cover from the Ho Chi Min trail all the way to the south. While the U.S. took some pot shots at the North through bombing missions they "officially" were never invading. This was an impossible situation from the beginning. > South America guerrillas are unbeatable. Bolivian insurgency failed, Guevara died. They don't always win. The thing of it is the arms involved at the outset are irrelevant. You can't coerce a population largely unwilling to be controlled. Arms (including bombing devices) inevitably make their way into peoples hands. In the event of martial law things would fall into such disarray it's unsustainable. I take issue with the idea that a population needs to be armed a priori with a specific set of weapons in order to repel a "tyranical government", which is a kind of boogeyman idea if I ever heard one. A tyrannical govt, comprised of a minority of people, versus the U.S. scenario is not a likely one. You'd sooner see a civil war, and even that's incredibly unlikely. But then I suppose you'd see gun regulation as evidence of tyranny. The most tyrannical govt I can think of is the Chinese one and they have popular favor with their people. The HK situation shows that popular dissent is powerful with or without weapons.
  - hnaccy 7y ago
    If there was serious armed resistance by citizens in American other nations that would benefit from weakening American power could send key weapons as support, e.g., anti-tank and MANPADS.
  - thanatropism 7y ago
    There's challenging by force (against an organization who has nukes and drones and all that sweet stuff), and challenging by legitimacy. E.g. imagine Hawaii seceding from the US. Does it take equal military might?
  - GarrisonPrime 7y ago
    And yet, the idea is that they should be allowed the opportunity. If a government is unilaterally in complete control of all people at all times, full stop, then there isn't any real freedom, is there? You'd just be subecting all of society to the whim of whoever had enough money and/or guns aleady to have taken power. But this is no place to have that discussion. Besides which, most people who express the opinion you have are not interested in contemplating any other perpsective any way.
    - ohyes 7y ago
      False dichotomy. The government doesn’t have to be in unilateral control for us to admit that citizens would have a very difficult time fighting the extremely well funded and trained military. (For the most part, they wouldn’t need to anyway, they have control of something far more powerful... banking, they’d freeze your funds and you’d be done for). It doesn’t follow that a government that you can’t fight via conventional means gives the populous no recourse. Voting rights are still the law of the land here and civil disobedience has been effective in the past. Secondarily it could be argued (very easily) that second amendment in the USA is about the right to maintain well regulated local militias, which at the time would have been populated by yeoman farmers bringing their own weapons. Historically this is relevant because the revolution was fought by exactly such a set of militias on the continental side, and the British obviously thought this was an illegal action. So they needed a clause “this thing we’re doing is legal and legitimate.” Buut there’s a difference here between a militiaman with a musket that can fire maximum 3 shots per minute, as part of the local defense force, and an independent yobbo with a hundred of round per minute assault rifle. But no one focuses on the part of the second amendment that pertains to ‘well regulated militias’, it’s almost as if an industry that makes something with a limited audience outside of military and law enforcement has an agenda and is influencing the debate.
  - orbifold 7y ago
    Which is why both the Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam war ended in no time.
  - snikeris 7y ago
    Vietnam?
- markdown 7y ago
  You seriously think a bunch of citizens with long guns is going to be able to prevent tyranny by the greatest military force the world has ever known?
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto_Uprising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto_Uprising There are sparse (sparse because guns in history are rarely found among civilians) instances of people using arms to defend themselves against overwhelming state adversaries. Dictators may be cruel but they're not exactly trying to rack up police casualties.
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      The case you cite is illustrative of the point that it doesn't tend to work, though. > A total of 13,000 Jews died, about half of them burnt alive or suffocated. German casualties were probably less than 150.
  - chillwaves 7y ago
    The most obnoxious part about this comment is how sure you think you are. The important questions to ask are, how does the civilian population split? How do the police, the military split? What exactly do you think civil war looks like? The idea that you have all the answers and some how guns are ineffective, at the very least in hurting those who want to oppress, is so laughable and appropriate for HN. What is going on in HK right now? You think that would happen if they were armed? No one says we win, but we make it hurt. You would rather be enslaved? The US is looking for a way out of Afghanistan and they are not the victors. Lost to some men with long guns.
    - pjc50 7y ago
      > What is going on in HK right now? You think that would happen if they were armed? No, they'd be dead. Armed conflict with the PLA with no artillery or air power? (Street protest relies on some unspoken norms that police won't indiscriminately fire on and kill protestors, precisely because the protestors aren't armed. The whole point is to stop short of actual deadly urban combat. This is partly why Tianamen was so shocking; while it's difficult to know what actually happened, it's clear that army units were sent in and simply murdered a large number of people who were carrying out an unarmed protest.)
ip26 7y ago
It would be a bit thorny as LEO's operate with handguns and legitimate CCW's carry handguns, but you could definitely restrict them much more. I do agree that it mostly seems like a no-brainer compromise, handguns are not particularly militia nor hunting material.
- lazyasciiart 7y ago
  Doesn't seem that difficult, don't LEOs already have access to equipment that isn't legal for civilians? And I think the assumption is that legitimate CCWs would no longer be able to carry handguns.
lawlorino 7y ago
Banning handguns for private ownership is what the UK did after the Dunblane massacre in 1996 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_massacre)
homonculus1 7y ago
Handguns are protected by 2A under Heller. And as always with gun control demands, the notion of "compromise" is as slimy as looking for middle ground on abortion, or mass surveillance, or segregation. Compromising rights is a verb, not a noun.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

masonic 7y ago

30% reattempt suicide, which is much higher than the general population.