Gun owners love to tell us they're armed to the teeth so they can fight off attackers. But if you look at the stats in the nice picture you can see most deaths are by suicide, followed by murder. Only a tiny number were through legal intervention. Almost the same number of people who were killed by accident.
It seems to any clear minded person that having a gun in the house increases the chances a family member will either kill themselves or kill you while the chance you'll need it to fend off attackers is near zero.
Isn't it time to grow up?
You have a greater chance of shooting yourself than an attacker. So why bother owning a gun?
First, you can ignore the suicide stats as irrelevant. Someone who wants to commit suicide will find a way to do so - and do, every day. People OD, they hang themselves, they slit their wrists, they jump off bridges and buildings, or whatever it takes. Does not having guns in the UK mean that there are no suicides? Of course not.
But that is actually the source of this bogus claim. The suggestion is that if you try to defend yourself with a gun, that it will be taken away from you and used on you, and yet this happens at a tiny fraction of one percent of the time - you are more likely to be struck by lightning.
The reality is that if you stumble into a bad situation, with a bigger, stronger person, or with a group, a having a gun is often the difference between walking away, or being robbed, raped, kidnapped, or killed. And it usually isn't even necessary to fire a shot. Most of the time that people use a gun to protect themselves, no shots are fired and no reports are taken.
My police department would instruct you to fill out a form online - they are too understaffed to show up and take a report, and even if suspects were caught, and even if there was camera footage and a confession, the DA would just release them. We've got a guy who FINALLY got denied bail because he killed two people, got released pending trial, killed again, was released again, and killed a fourth person before the DA decided he might be a risk to the public.
Most of the mass shootings occur in places where guns can't be carried - it's very rare that they occur where law-abiding people can legally carry. You may not realize it, not being from the US, but there are cities, counties, and whole states where you can't carry, but even where you can, schools, churches, and government buildings are usually excluded. That's one of the main reasons that school shootings are as common as they are - the shooters know that their victims won't be armed. A few states were having church shootings, and changed their laws to allow legal carry in churches, and haven't had a church shooting for a decade.
Here in California, where the police have been made almost completely ineffective by budget cuts and poor government policies, we've been invaded by Mexican drug cartels growing weed and distributing meth and Fentanyl, and they are armed and violent. Local police don't have the resources to deal with them, and the Feds are too busy arresting people for posting memes on social media.
There is a story in the news today that Seattle has run out of places to store dead bodies due to the number of Fentanyl deaths there, and that's a problem that Oregon, California, and Arizona are all facing, but, again, the government is not interested in getting involved. Even outright murders by the cartels - which are common and increasing - aren't getting any response. But modify your vehicle, and you get a full SWAT raid and your entire life turned upside down. Minor middle class infractions are the priority, not foreign drug gangs killing Americans for walking their dog in their own neighborhood.
You aren't going to get much support here for giving up guns.
Ohhhh, so guns cause suicide. That's brilliant logic, straight from the Gun Control Lobby's propaganda playbook. As if correlation implies causation.
Do ropes also cause suicide? What about over the counter medications? What about the 40,000 people who die (and 500 children a day who are hospitalized) from accidental poisoning each year in the U. S? What about the 250 million preventable hospital deaths? What about 69,053 Covid-19 injection related deaths and 10,997,085 injuries for the EU, US and UK combined for a population of 830 million people? Do we hear anything about those on the news? Are we concerned about ANY deaths that are not the result of guns? Apparently not.
What we need is an autocratic government that monitors and regulates everything we do... for our own good. Because government really cares about the welfare of commoners. Trust your overlords. 🤣🤣🤣
What I can't understand is, why are people from other countries so concerned about gun laws in the U. S? There's only one explanation: incessant, one-sided propaganda. Because, logically and factually, strict gun control legislation make no sense. There is zero evidence that it prevents violence. In fact, evidence suggests that it endangers people.
I would rather accidently shoot and kill myself than be raped again or killed by someone else. At least it is my choice that way.
Stats don't matter to me, as I'm not taking any chances of being a victim of someone else.
Of course if people are smart and know how to use guns, that won't happen. I don't know a single person in my family, extended family or even the small town here that has ever been injured or killed from a accidental shooting.
You have a greater chance of shooting yourself than an attacker may be a true statement. However, if attacked you are a million times more likely to shoot the attacker than to shoot yourself. Therefore, the statement is as meaningless as making the following true statement, "There are more grains of sand on the beaches in Florida than there are Senators in Congress."
Suicide is my right, if I feel like killing myself who the hell are you or anyone else to tell me I can't?
Also what kind of ass backwards logic is it to try and bubble wrap and babysit someone you think is a danger to themselves instead of trying to help them be happy or get help so they don't want to? "Yeah jimmy wants to kill himself, he's horrible depressed and hates his life, but don't worry we took away anything he can hurt himself with and put him in a straight jacket, so now he can sit there safely and hate every minute of his long life"
Also what was it 24k vs 19k? So really close to 50/50 ? Yeah no shit you'll almost never need it to protect yourself but you might. You'll almost never need to have a spare car/house key, you don't need really need to have 2 rolls of toilet paper in your bathroom, ypu almost never need flashlights or lanterns for power outages... bur they are all good ideas right? It makes sense to be prepared right?
Suicide attempts can be foiled by something as simple as packing pills individually, in smaller packs, or both. It turns out that you have to be really committed to the idea to open three packs and push out 50+ tablets before your suicide attempt. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3961339.stm
A gun, on the other hand, generally allows for both spontaneity and effectiveness.
@goaded Perhaps, but the vast majority of suicides are people who have been suicidal a long time and have thought about it and are determined to do so. Guns might be more efficient and arguably less painful, but even with the availability of guns, plenty of people kill themselves in lots of other ways. If a magic wand could be waved and all guns disappeared, the number of suicided wouldn't be significantly decreased. That's why the suicide argument is irrelevant.
There's a damn good REASON that the founding fathers of the USA felt it necessary to recognize, formally and legally, that people had the god-given (not government-given) RIGHT to keep guns and other weapons to defend themselves - including from tyrannical governments. These were men who had just lived through a war of independence from their government, and all had lost people in that war. They knew exactly what they meant.
Today, our government is emptying out prisons and releasing convicted, violent criminals by the thousands per week - and it should surprise no one that most of these criminals go right back to committing violence. DAs are declining to prosecute many serious violent crimes, ESPECIALLY for people who have long criminal records, using alleged racism as an excuse to do so. The result is that the law-abiding are terrorized and are suffering with little recourse. A friend of mine just lost his business because a homeless encampment sprang up 9 months ago, and those "homeless" drug addicts have broken in and vandalized his pizza restaurant multiple times and did so much damage that he could not continue to be in business. His family is now in jeopardy, insurance refuses to cover it, and he's just out. The police have identified several suspects from video footage, but they won't make arrests because the DA won't prosecute these "minor" crimes. This is happening ALL OVER the place. Quite a few people are carrying illegally - risking their own livelihoods, because they know they are completely on their own. These people aren't looking for trouble - they know full well the hell they'd face if they ever used that gun - but they feel it is their best alternative.
Did you see mine? Doing something relatively minor to save thousands of lives a year seems a reasonable investment to me. Do you think your government will make free and easily accessible mental health support (not to mention living wages and universal health care to reduce stress on people) available any time soon? Perhaps the problem is that guns are far easier to come by than support? And I didn't even get to your second paragraph.
The ratio is not 50:50, it's 600:40000, or less than 1.5% chance than your gun, if used to kill someone (most won't be at all, of course), will be used legally and not to killl yourself or someone else.
@goaded No, that ratio is completely invented out of thin air. And it's irrelevant - law-abiding people aren't going to give up their guns - which they have a RIGHT to own and use - when it's more than clear that the criminals will not. That's the bottom line.
"Keep and bear" doesn't include shooting people except in special circumstances (that 1.5% of gun killings or under the command of the civil government) and I doubt many people buy guns just to kill themselves.
Of COURSE it includes shooting people IF they are violating your rights. The US Constitution was written by men who had just come off of a very bloody war of Independence, literally fighting their own government (the King of England). There was an abundance of shooting people. What in the world makes you imagine that these men weren't fully aware of what they were saying? Have you read any of the articles they were writing at the time, where they clearly spelled out exactly what their intentions were? There's no shortage of those, and it's not difficult to find them. And police departments hadn't even been invented, and wouldn't be for another hundred years. They perfectly understood what self defense was.
@goaded In most places, no, but there are places that you can - and unsurprisingly, not many handbags get taken in those places.
But if someone threatens your life and has the means of making good on those threats, then, yes, absolutely. Likewise, if someone tries to enter my home uninvited, especially if that's associated with other threats, then I can defend myself, using lethal force if I deem necessary.
That's what self-defense is.
I don't go around looking for trouble - in fact, I make a conscious effort to avoid trouble as much as possible - but should trouble find me anyway, I will not hesitate to defend myself. If someone gets hurt or even killed because they've attacked me, that's their own fault.
This is the thing with data, it doesn't help you if you can't interpret it correctly.
What this data set tells me is that firearms provide a reliable and convenient means of killing yourself in the comfort and privacy of your own home, without for example having to drive and then walk out to Beachy Head with the intention of hurling yourself off it, hoping all the way down that you don't end up having to drown while bits of you are painfully dashed against rocks in the freezing cold water and all that is assuming that you don't get interfered with by some do gooding asshole, though that does bring us rather neatly along to the second most popular application; murder. No longer does man have to ineffectually flail bone reinforced meat sacks at each other in a near hopeless attempt to kill each other, in skilled hands and especially against an unsuspecting target death can be achieved almost as easily as you would click a button on your computers mouse, fantastic!
The home defence and Darwin Award contestants playing Russian roulette with semi automatic pistols are mere side benefits of this evidently useful and innovative labour saving tool.
shhhhhh, it's keeping human population under control... global warming, remember. Besides, its illegal to euthanize yourself, so this is the easiest solution since we are lousy at emotional support in our society.
Most of my family used or uses guns, no injuries... yet.
If it wasn't for guns, we wouldn't have beaten the King of England and we'd be sending you our tax money and you'd be filthy rich. That be some bull crap. I'll keep my 6 shooter, thanks.
You do have a point... Ohio no longer requires training. That's a bad idea.
Because a gun can fulfill a basic need for some people: The feeling of being safe. It's not about growing up, that's nonsense. It's especially enforced if you have no trust that police is any way interested in helping you. It's the same reason women take pepperspray with them when they leave the house. Not everywhere are neighbours helping each other or is a police department at every corner so you can shout for help. It's a way of taking matters into your own hands.
Sure there is a danger connected to it and yes there are accidents but those could also be happening with big knifes one uses in the kitchen. But for sure it takes a certain maturity level to own a gun. I'd therefore argue before you want to take people's rights to have a gun, you think of helping people trust in the police and how to make them feel safer.
Guns are fun! They’re also extremely useful! You can defend yourself, the people you love and your property with them. You can feed yourself and your family. The idea that everyone should give a thing up because of an ignorant or unruly minority is nonsense. Maybe nobody should have automobiles, because of all the deaths, injuries and crimes committed using them. Maybe we should exterminate all dogs for the same reason. Ell oh ell! Or maybe, here’s a novel idea, we should punish more severely the people who actually DO bad things rather than the law abiding majority who don’t. Similarly, we should definitely let the asinine gun owners kill themselves “by accident”. Natural selection is no accident. I say take all the warnings away and let nature take its course. Suicide should be a fundamental human right, especially in societies that are all too happy to ignore obvious mental diseases and defects until and unless a means of suicide can be politicized.
This is categorically incorrect. People who are trained in the proper use of guns have a good chance of hitting someone in defense. Especially given that an attacker will almost always try to close in on their target (unless they are highly trained themselves). The closer an attacker is, the higher your chance of hitting them. And trained gun owners know where to aim to maximize either damage or create enough distraction to create distance and/or escape.
The issue is many owners are not properly trained.
When you use a gun to stop a crime, you very rarely need to actually fire it. All you have to do is point it at someone and they will stop what they are doing. People always look at one side of the coin, which is deaths caused by guns - they fail to look at the other side, which is deaths and other crimes prevented by guns.
Besides, self defense in only one of many reasons to own a gun, and not even the most important reason.
And if people happen to commit suicide, that's their business.
Those are intentionally misleading numbers. Far more times a gun is used to defend oneself or property where it doesn't result in a death, which are conveniently EXCLUDED from those numbers. The CDC is well known for lying and only showing part of the information in order to mislead people.
Very interesting, and actually logic. Having a gun home is indeed a risk, the more in case the family has children. Children always end up discovering what they should not. That's why in my country the rules of owning a gun of any kind, set aside the license difficult to get, are really very tough.
I don't have that kind of family. No one's worried about killing one another, and I'm all grown up. I have a lot of very sharp knives too that can kill just as easily when someone is sleeping. When I'm defending my domicile or family, "Stop, I have a knife", isn't very effective.
Wait, you took the statistic of 535 accidental deaths from 415,000,000 guns, so.00013% of guns result in an unintentional death, and used that to make the statement that Americans shouldn't own guns? LMAO. No wonder we stopped giving a shit what the British thought of our affairs in 1776.
The truth (unlike your whole question) is that guns are used for self-defense 1,700,000 times each year.
Considering that you Brits’ crowning metropolitan achievement is London, a place where everyone had their guns taken away but still gets stabbed like it’s their hobby; I’m assuming that the problem isn’t the tool of choice.
26.4K opinions shared on Society & Politics topic.
I took a week long course in handgun proficiency and tactical shotgun. I go to the range and practice on a regular basis. I have a gun safe as well . I will be the statistic that protected his home from criminals
You assume that facts or reality matter a damn too these people. The lives of their family and neighbours, even themselves aren't a fraction as important too them as their guns and the ability too threaten others in attempts to seem macho.
I never liked guns, I'm a shy passive dude, I'm not aggressive or Alpha and I get a lot of criticism because of that but guess what, at least I don't get in trouble or in jail.
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