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Luckily for gun control advocates the rate of firearm injuries also sharply increases for households that own guns, too. So while yeah, there may be other issu

Luckily for gun control advocates the rate of firearm injuries also sharply increases for households that own guns, too. So while yeah, there may be other issues with mental health, gun training, domestic violence etc, you can significantly reduce deaths and injuries by removing guns - which people often have because they think having a gun will reduce those.

mlyle 7y ago
> Luckily for gun control advocates the rate of firearm injuries also sharply increases for households that own guns, too. Uh, ... wow. "Luckily?" > you can significantly reduce deaths and injuries by removing guns - which people often have because they think having a gun will reduce those. There may be better ways to reduce these than trying to remove the guns, though-- ways that mitigate and reduce harm and that don't impact personal liberties or the beneficial aspects of firearms.
- tomlockwood 7y ago
  Gun ownership decreases liberty via death.
- CompanionCuuube 7y ago
  > Uh, ... wow. "Luckily?" That is what one would say if they were grateful for the deaths, isn't it? Isn't it just a bonus that it happens to The Other?
  - tomlockwood 7y ago
    Considering my argument has been about attempting to reduce gun deaths you might want to reconsider that assumption. However, lucky for you, I'm pretty sure that assumption would make it easier for you to dismiss my argument. I say lucky for you, but what I really mean to say is it'd be bad if you did that. Its a little turn of phrase that isn't literal and which is probably lost via text. Lets reduce gun deaths. They are tragic and often unnecessary. Also, fear of The Other, seems to be what drives some of the people in this thread to defend gun ownership. One responder here justified gun ownership by saying other people were "animals" that given the chance would exact violence upon them.
    - mlyle 7y ago
      I spend a lot of time at and around a cabin up in the Sierras; sometimes with no means to contact law enforcement; and other times with law enforcement about 45 minutes out. 99.9% of people you might meet are decent folks. But there's meth around, etc. I'm not a huge dude. I probably would have already been stabbed if not for carrying a firearm during some of the questionable encounters I've had up there. What do you propose for my use case?
      - tomlockwood 7y ago
        If your use case is staying safe and alive, and you already own a gun, my recommendation is that you seek out psychological support every now and then. Obviously, this is difficult in a rural community, which is probably one of the factors that makes committing suicide by gun a much higher risk amongst men in rural communities than murder. Also, regardless of whether police are 45 minutes or 10 minutes away, that's not going to help you during a meth-fuelled knife attack. But, putting all that aside, a gun won't protect you if someone sneaks up on you. If you're in a cabin in the sierras, you probably aren't encountering thousands of people, so your risk of getting stabbed is considerably lower than someone in a city. If someone's far enough away from you a bolt-action is probably good enough to protect you. They're legal in Australia - you can own one if you pass the licensing requirements. Presumably you haven't shot anyone yet, so I'm pretty sure calibre isn't a concern. So the real scenario you're worried about, in your mountain cabin in the Sierras, is someone being close enough to stab you, or too drug-addled or foolhardy to care about being threatened or shot with a 22 and not sneaking up on you. My question to you is why you see that as more of a risk than suicide? Is addressing the use case of defence against violent crime worth the excess risk you are exposing yourself to? Not many people expect to be struck with depression, but it happens, particularly in rural communities - and there's a lot of evidence of that, too.
        mlyle 7y ago
        I completely disagree with your analysis, but it's not really worth debating. > My question to you is why you see that as more of a risk than suicide? If I decide to kill myself, then I've died with consent. Might happen eventually-- maybe I'll have a bad health diagnosis or something-- I'm not concerned about the "risk".
AnthonyMouse 7y ago
> So while yeah, there may be other issues with mental health, gun training, domestic violence etc, you can significantly reduce deaths and injuries by removing guns - which people often have because they think having a gun will reduce those. The thing about statistics is that they have causes. More people having guns causes more criminals to be shot (or, better yet, deterred), but also more accidents. But those are two different things, one good and one bad, so why don't we work to reduce the bad and keep the good instead of losing both? We know that much of the bad is caused by poor safety training and by teenagers, so why not add firearms safety training to the school curriculum? How many accidental deaths would be prevented by a semester of "always assume it's loaded and don't point the barrel at anything you wouldn't want to shoot"? We know that gun safes and range practice reduce accidents, so why not institute some tax incentives? These things may cost less than requiring additional law enforcement and much less than accidental shootings. And soon you have a net positive instead of a net negative. (Though your original claim did fail to account for the deterrent effect on crime. Which is hard to measure since it's area-wide rather than per-household given that criminals know local culture but not which individual households are armed, but just measuring the households with firearms against those without fails to account for it at all.)
- tomlockwood 7y ago
  > The thing about statistics is that they have causes. More people having guns causes more criminals to be shot (or, better yet, deterred), but also more accidents. Actually, people tend to more often die of homicide if they own a gun.

mlyle 7y ago

> Luckily for gun control advocates the rate of firearm injuries also sharply increases for households that own guns, too. Uh, ... wow. "Luckily?" > you can significantly reduce deaths and injuries by removing guns - which people often have because they think having a gun will reduce those. There may be better ways to reduce these than trying to remove the guns, though-- ways that mitigate and reduce harm and that don't impact personal liberties or the beneficial aspects of firearms.

tomlockwood 7y ago
Gun ownership decreases liberty via death.
CompanionCuuube 7y ago
> Uh, ... wow. "Luckily?" That is what one would say if they were grateful for the deaths, isn't it? Isn't it just a bonus that it happens to The Other?
- tomlockwood 7y ago
  Considering my argument has been about attempting to reduce gun deaths you might want to reconsider that assumption. However, lucky for you, I'm pretty sure that assumption would make it easier for you to dismiss my argument. I say lucky for you, but what I really mean to say is it'd be bad if you did that. Its a little turn of phrase that isn't literal and which is probably lost via text. Lets reduce gun deaths. They are tragic and often unnecessary. Also, fear of The Other, seems to be what drives some of the people in this thread to defend gun ownership. One responder here justified gun ownership by saying other people were "animals" that given the chance would exact violence upon them.
  - mlyle 7y ago
    I spend a lot of time at and around a cabin up in the Sierras; sometimes with no means to contact law enforcement; and other times with law enforcement about 45 minutes out. 99.9% of people you might meet are decent folks. But there's meth around, etc. I'm not a huge dude. I probably would have already been stabbed if not for carrying a firearm during some of the questionable encounters I've had up there. What do you propose for my use case?
    - tomlockwood 7y ago
      If your use case is staying safe and alive, and you already own a gun, my recommendation is that you seek out psychological support every now and then. Obviously, this is difficult in a rural community, which is probably one of the factors that makes committing suicide by gun a much higher risk amongst men in rural communities than murder. Also, regardless of whether police are 45 minutes or 10 minutes away, that's not going to help you during a meth-fuelled knife attack. But, putting all that aside, a gun won't protect you if someone sneaks up on you. If you're in a cabin in the sierras, you probably aren't encountering thousands of people, so your risk of getting stabbed is considerably lower than someone in a city. If someone's far enough away from you a bolt-action is probably good enough to protect you. They're legal in Australia - you can own one if you pass the licensing requirements. Presumably you haven't shot anyone yet, so I'm pretty sure calibre isn't a concern. So the real scenario you're worried about, in your mountain cabin in the Sierras, is someone being close enough to stab you, or too drug-addled or foolhardy to care about being threatened or shot with a 22 and not sneaking up on you. My question to you is why you see that as more of a risk than suicide? Is addressing the use case of defence against violent crime worth the excess risk you are exposing yourself to? Not many people expect to be struck with depression, but it happens, particularly in rural communities - and there's a lot of evidence of that, too.
      - mlyle 7y ago
        I completely disagree with your analysis, but it's not really worth debating. > My question to you is why you see that as more of a risk than suicide? If I decide to kill myself, then I've died with consent. Might happen eventually-- maybe I'll have a bad health diagnosis or something-- I'm not concerned about the "risk".

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

> So while yeah, there may be other issues with mental health, gun training, domestic violence etc, you can significantly reduce deaths and injuries by removing guns - which people often have because they think having a gun will reduce those. The thing about statistics is that they have causes. More people having guns causes more criminals to be shot (or, better yet, deterred), but also more accidents. But those are two different things, one good and one bad, so why don't we work to reduce the bad and keep the good instead of losing both? We know that much of the bad is caused by poor safety training and by teenagers, so why not add firearms safety training to the school curriculum? How many accidental deaths would be prevented by a semester of "always assume it's loaded and don't point the barrel at anything you wouldn't want to shoot"? We know that gun safes and range practice reduce accidents, so why not institute some tax incentives? These things may cost less than requiring additional law enforcement and much less than accidental shootings. And soon you have a net positive instead of a net negative. (Though your original claim did fail to account for the deterrent effect on crime. Which is hard to measure since it's area-wide rather than per-household given that criminals know local culture but not which individual households are armed, but just measuring the households with firearms against those without fails to account for it at all.)

tomlockwood 7y ago
> The thing about statistics is that they have causes. More people having guns causes more criminals to be shot (or, better yet, deterred), but also more accidents. Actually, people tend to more often die of homicide if they own a gun.